Hunter Biden Plea Bargain

Introduction

This page will be for documents relevant to the 2023 Hunter Biden criminal case, and to the plea bargain in particular.

Hunter Biden failed to file tax returns in many tax years, also failed to pay his taxes (a separate crime, since sometimes people file without including a check), and also lied on his tax return (e.g., reporting payments for a sex club, for prostitutes' air travel, and for health insurnace for the mother of his illegitimate child as business expenses). After he was under investigation, a lawyer paid something like $2 million of his unpaid taxes for him as a gift.

The IRS investigated, with the Justice Dept. following along. The Justice Dept. cut out the IRS from many key discussions, and warned the investigation's targets in advance so they couldn't be surprised by visits from agents asking questions or arriving with a search warrant for a building suspected of housing documents. The Justice Dept allowed the statute of limitations to lapse on prosecutions for 2014 and 2015. In 2023, IRS agent Shapley, feeling disgusted and betrayed, testified about all this in a hearing of the House of Representatives. The Justice Dept. then moved quickly to indict Hunter Biden for his tax offenses, charging him with two misdemeanors and recommending probation, no jail time, in exchange for a guilty plea. The prosecutor also accused him of gun crimes, but agreed to pre-trial diversion-- that is, not to prosecute-- if Hunter agreed not to possess a gun in the future. The Diversion Agreement and Plea Bargain were presented to a judge in July 2023, but blew up there because Hunter Biden's lawyer said the fine print of the Diversion Agreement would prevent future prosecution of him for the unrelated crime of being an unregistered foreign agent but the Justice Dept. said it would not.

The Heritage Foundation and Rep. Jason Smith filed papers as amici curiae (friends of the court) to bring under judicial notice the Shapley hearing transcript and other facts kept hidden by the Justice Dept. in the documents filed by the Prosecutor.

Note the section below titled "Flacks". It contains news stories in defense of Hunter Biden. Do not believe those stories. The New York Times, for example, refers to non-filing and failure to pay as "failure to meet filing deadlines" (because people got him to file and paid his taxes with their own money later) and to his deduction of sex-related payments as "improperly claimed $30,000 in deductions for business expenses." I include these stories as indicating the spin the White House is trying to put on the story, and the dishonesty of Democratic news reports. If you doubt this, read the primary sources-- in particular, the Shapley transcript and the Plea Agreement.

Court Documents

• The Proposed Plea Agreement of July 26 that blew up, including
  the Diversion Agreement .

• amicus brief from Rep. Smith.

• Hertiage amicus brief and its Exhibits 1-12 (776 pages!) with Ex 5 of the earlier hearing at p. 45 and with Ex. 7 transcript of the July 19 Shapley-Ziegler hearing starting at p. 429, and Exhibits 13+

• Letter objecting to the Smith amicus from Hunter's lawyer.

• Gune crime case docket from Courtlistener.

• Tax crime case docket from Courtlistener.

• July 26 hearing transcript (not available via PACER]

Statutes and Rules

• The Tax Code, via Cornell. Hunter is charged with 26 (7203), though the fine does not match up with what the Plea Bargain says.

• The Sentencing Guidelines

• Justice Dept. regulations for plea bargains," .e.g. "in accordance with JM 9-27.630, United States Attorneys may not make agreements which prejudice civil or tax liability without the express agreement of all affected Divisions and/or agencies. For additional discussion regarding plea agreements, see the Principles of Federal Prosecution, JM 9-27.400 et seq."

• Sentencing policies for tax cases, an excerpt in a tweet by Tigani.

• Flynn case order by Judge Sullivan appointing a court-chosen amicus because he didn't trust the Justice Dept. (I wrote an amicus for In Re Flynn myself.)

Caselaw

• "Can Judges Reject Plea Deals?" Findlaw blog. Three exmaples of federal judges rejecting plea bargains, with links.

• "Broken Government Promises: A Contract-Based Approach to Enforcing Plea Bargains," Michael D. Cicchini, 38 N.M. L. Rev. 159 (2008). Example of broken agreements and discussion of the caselaw of remedies.

• Daniels (2023), the 5th Circuit opinion that says Hunter's offense of owning a gun while using an illegal drug is unconstitutional (Jerry Smith, J.) .

Other Documents

• The transcript of the IRS agent talking to the House of Representatives committee about Hunter Biden's tax investigation for three hours.

New Stories, Tweets, etc.

• Biden laptop report by Marcopolo.com. This is a long and detailed report on the Biden business operations and sex scandals.

• "Hunter Biden deducted payments to prostitute, sex club from his taxes," Victor Nava, The New York Post (June 22, 2023). A newspaper account of the highlights of the Shapley testimony, including a quote from the owner about how Hunter was kicked out of the sex club for immature behavior.

• "Are The DOJ And Hunter Biden Attempting To Commit Fraud In Federal Court?" MARGOT CLEVELAND, The Federalist (JULY 31, 2023).

• @shipwreckedcrew on the normal procedural history of a guilty plea in a federal court"

White House Flacks

• July 27 Axios article highly sympathetic to Hunter, suggesting that lawyer Lowell saw things were going badly for lawyer Clark and wants to stop things from being fouled up.

• "I Investigated Tax Crimes. Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal Was Very Fair," MARTIN J. SHEIL, Slate (July 26, 2023). Amazing lies. "As someone with more than 30 years of experience for the IRS investigating the exact sorts of tax crimes of which Hunter Biden is accused, I can tell you very firmly: Biden did not get a sweetheart deal. In fact, not only would you not be going to prison if you did what Hunter Biden did, you likely wouldn’t even be charged. Thefact of the matter is no one goes to jail anymore for not paying their taxes on time, as much as the WSJ would like one to think they do."

• "Hunter Biden Reaches Deal to Plead Guilty to Misdemeanor Tax Charges: Under an agreement with the Justice Department, the president’s son agreed to probation for filing his taxes late, and he can avoid a charge that he lied about his drug use when he bought a gun," By Michael S. Schmidt and Adam Entous (June 20, 2023). "The crimes to which Mr. Biden is pleading guilty, said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University and a sentencing expert, are ones that the average person is rarely prosecuted for because they are usually only brought along with more serious offenses." Just plain false. This is amazing. "Prosecutors had been considering whether to indict him in connection with his failure to meet filing deadlines for his 2017 and 2018 taxes, and whether he had improperly claimed $30,000 in deductions for business expenses."