Judge Jeanine Hunter Biden plea deal blowing up is laughable
Judge Jeanine Hunter Biden plea deal blowing up is laughable
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00:00 Hunter is not off the hook.
00:02 The first son's sweetheart plea deal
00:03 getting blown up in a dramatic legal twist.
00:06 Hunter Biden showing up in a federal courthouse in Delaware
00:08 and pleading not guilty to gun and tax charges.
00:12 The shocking development happened
00:13 after the judge started asking just some basic questions
00:16 on the terms of the original plea agreement,
00:18 like what was and was not part of the deal.
00:22 The judge was very concerned
00:24 on whether Hunter could get blanket immunity
00:25 from future prosecutions.
00:27 And at one point said that she is not going to be
00:30 a rubber stamp.
00:31 The prosecutor's also admitting that there's still
00:33 an ongoing investigation surrounding Hunter Biden
00:36 and potential violations of foreign lobbying law.
00:39 The White House, well, you can imagine,
00:42 not too keen to talk about any of this.
00:45 -Hunter Biden is a private citizen,
00:47 and this was a personal matter for him.
00:49 As we have said, the president, the first lady,
00:52 they love their son, and they support him
00:55 as he continues to rebuild his life.
00:57 -When the senator crafted gun legislation,
00:59 as president, he talks often about the need
01:04 to get illegal firearms off of our streets.
01:07 So, when someone possesses one illegally,
01:11 what does the president believe should happen to them?
01:13 -I'm gonna be very careful,
01:14 'cause I see where this question is going,
01:16 and I'm just going to refer you,
01:17 as this has been an independent investigation.
01:20 It's overseen by the Department of Justice.
01:22 I'm gonna let them speak to this as they are moving forward.
01:26 -Judge, there's probably a good reason
01:28 that the Justice Department did not release the plea agreement
01:31 for all of us to see, because when the judge started
01:33 just asking some basic questions,
01:35 it was pretty clear it was outrageous.
01:37 I mean, they should be embarrassed.
01:39 -Well, the deal was laughable,
01:40 and the Department of Justice today is not in a good place.
01:44 What normally happens in a plea deal,
01:46 and I remember from when I was a judge,
01:49 I mean, the day you took pleas was a slow day.
01:52 There was never any drama.
01:54 Everybody understood the parameters of the plea.
01:56 The defendant comes in,
01:57 and the judge has to do an allocution to make sure
02:00 that the defendant understands the parameters of the plea.
02:04 And so the judge will be very specific about,
02:06 "What did you do?
02:08 What did you say?
02:08 What were you thinking?"
02:10 In this case, you know, on a tax case,
02:12 where did the money come from?
02:13 Who were you working for in the tax years
02:16 that he's charged for?
02:19 But in this particular case, normally, you would have,
02:24 you know, the defense and the prosecution
02:27 would have hammered this out.
02:28 I mean, this would have been very clear.
02:30 I've never had anything like that happen to me, ever.
02:33 -Wow. -Never.
02:34 I mean, plea deals, they're hammered out
02:36 'cause they know if they don't do it,
02:37 they end up going to trial.
02:39 So in this case, it was really laughable what happened
02:43 because when the judge started the discussion
02:46 and the intro to the allocution,
02:50 it was clear that when she said,
02:53 "What is going on with this continuing investigation?"
02:56 and then the defense attorney started talking about immunity,
03:00 and it appeared that they were thinking about immunity
03:03 going into the future, not just past immunity,
03:05 but immunity going into the future,
03:08 which is something that is just not done
03:11 unless you're, at the very least,
03:12 cooperating and bringing in someone
03:14 like a major drug dealer.
03:16 So the allocution, as it was supposed to go forward,
03:20 basically couldn't happen because once it was on the record,
03:23 the Department of Justice had to say,
03:26 "Well, it's a continuing investigation,"
03:30 and the judge says,
03:31 "So you might file more crimes, more charges,"
03:34 and they say, "Possibly," and she says,
03:36 "Like Farrah for an agent, like Paul Manafort."
03:40 And at that point,
03:41 the attorneys started getting very uncomfortable
03:43 because here's the insult, Dana.
03:46 This was a deal where everyone was in on the con
03:50 but the judge and the American people.
03:53 It was a con going down.
03:54 They didn't expect the judge to ask any questions,
03:57 and they said, "You know what?
03:58 "We're gonna get this through,
03:59 "and Hunter's gonna walk out, and he's gonna be just fine."
04:02 And the judge was not interested in what had gone on
04:06 in terms of their saying
04:09 that we're gonna give him future immunity
04:11 'cause she knew it was a continuing investigation,
04:13 and even if it isn't this Department of Justice,
04:15 the next Department of Justice,
04:17 if statute of limitations hasn't passed, can go after him.
04:20 But she then said to the prosecutors,
04:25 "Is there any precedent in the Department of Justice
04:28 "for doing something like this
04:29 "with both the diversion program with the gun,"
04:32 which she said was unheard of, and I've never heard of it.
04:35 It's one of the things I've talked about.
04:37 How can a guy go to plead guilty to a gun charge
04:39 when he has him in charge with a gun charge?
04:42 And they didn't have any answers to any of this.
04:45 Now, this started, Dana, the night, last night,
04:48 right before the plea, there was someone who called
04:51 to strike testimony of the whistleblowers.
04:54 It happened on, I believe, on Tuesday or Monday of this week
04:58 from the transcript.
04:59 The judge tracked the phone call.
05:01 The judge found out that it was traced back
05:05 to someone connected to Hunter Biden's lawyers.
05:09 The judge is the one who found that out.
05:11 So when that judge walked into that courtroom,
05:13 she had a bad taste in her mouth from the beginning
05:15 when they tried to strike the testimony
05:17 of the whistleblowers.
05:18 And in the end, the DOJ couldn't offer this deal
05:23 and say with a wink and a nod, "It's under investigation."
05:26 And it was clear why they were doing it,
05:28 to keep Congress from it.
05:29 - You're probably gonna hear a lot about this judge
05:31 from the left, I would imagine.
05:33 Some pretty aggressive scrutiny, you imagine, is coming.
05:35 Remember, interestingly, she is the one,
05:38 she ruled against the laptop repairman
05:40 in his defamation suit.
05:41 So it's not like she has been somebody
05:44 who was just trying to help the anti-Hunter side,
05:48 if we can call it that.
05:50 Greg, do you remember when the Hunter lawyers
05:54 announced this plea deal?
05:55 They said, "Well, we have a plea deal
05:57 and we consider this matter closed."
05:59 And then the Justice Department said,
06:00 "Well, actually, it still could be open."
06:02 And then, "Well, maybe not, but maybe it is.
06:03 And now we know that it's not closed."
06:05 - Yeah. By the way, congratulations on winning that medal
06:08 at the track meet.
06:09 (all laughing)
06:11 - Do you know that you say that every time I wear it,
06:13 which might mean that I wear this way too often.
06:15 - It was like they did try to trick us
06:17 and they said, "Oh, this matter is closed,"
06:19 but it was as open as Hunter's robe.
06:21 He demanded blanket coverage,
06:25 probably the only time he's ever demanded a blanket.
06:28 But I'm not a lawyer,
06:30 although people often mistaken me for one.
06:32 I think that, I always thought that you plead
06:34 for like the main big crime
06:36 and then they forgo the little ones.
06:38 But in this case, it seemed like it was the reverse.
06:40 It was like the little ones, he only had to deal,
06:42 but it was the big stuff he got away with.
06:44 So I'm always, I mean, I think this is good news.
06:47 What's happening, because if this was you,
06:49 would it go better or worse?
06:50 When your last name is Biden,
06:52 not only are you afforded exemptions
06:55 from all kinds of ludicrous behavior,
06:57 even the mention of going after him
07:00 was seen as off limits by the press.
07:01 You can go after Trump, that family,
07:03 but how dare you go after the Biden family?
07:05 This guy, he got a motorcade to court.
07:09 I mean, who are they protecting him from?
07:11 An angry pimp or the United Federation of Hookers?
07:15 I mean, seriously, I get he's the son, but come on.
07:18 This is just kind of, I think when you see this,
07:20 you know that they're being treated differently
07:22 all the time.
07:23 So I think that's why this is kind of an interesting twist
07:26 because I didn't see this coming
07:27 because I've pretty much given up on our justice system.
07:30 I worked with this woman named Eileen O'Connor
07:32 at the justice department.
07:33 She ran the tax division at justice
07:35 and she had this headline in the Wall Street Journal.
07:37 You'd go to prison for what Hunter Biden did.
07:40 And maybe today, Jesse, people feel like
07:43 at least the judge was willing to look at this
07:45 and not just rubber stamp it.
07:46 - I was happy when I heard it break.
07:48 Americans are happy about it.
07:50 We have not had a win when it came to justice
07:53 in a very, very long time.
07:55 They've been indicting Trump on a lot of BS stuff.
07:58 And now we're finally starting to feel the momentum shift.
08:01 And that's a good thing.
08:02 We knew as the judge said, there was shenanigans last night
08:05 when they tried to make a phony phone call,
08:08 an impersonation, a little dirty trick.
08:12 You know, I'm actually the Republican attorney.
08:14 Can you strike this from the record?
08:16 They got caught cold.
08:17 So the judge is already angry going in.
08:19 This deal was struck before the IRS whistleblowers came out.
08:24 This deal was struck before the bribe document dropped,
08:30 the 5 million to the big guy.
08:32 So the deal probably wasn't even papered.
08:35 This might've just been a gentleman's agreement.
08:37 Let's not put it in writing.
08:39 So a lot's changed since this deal was done
08:43 and they get out there.
08:44 And the minute it was scrutinized one little bit,
08:48 the whole thing collapses.
08:50 Justice department said,
08:52 "Oh yeah, we might have to keep looking into this guy."
08:54 And then Hunter's attorney is like,
08:56 "Well, then the deal is off.
08:58 You know, we're not supposed to look into my guy anymore."
09:00 And they tried to put it back together
09:02 and they went to chambers.
09:03 They could not put this thing back together.
09:06 Weiss, the Delaware prosecutor at this point,
09:09 now with impeachment on the table,
09:11 does not wanna be a part of the coverup.
09:14 Remember, you have the crime
09:16 and then you have the coverup.
09:17 If this goes to an impeachment hearing,
09:19 they're gonna look into obstruction of justice.
09:22 And if the Delaware prosecutor is in on the obstruction,
09:25 that's gonna be a problem.
09:27 So he tried to get a little distance from this thing.
09:29 And the judge is like,
09:31 "The judge comes out with this gun charge.
09:33 It's a felony gun charge and it's just expunged for nothing."
09:35 She's like, "This has never happened before.
09:37 And you're not giving me any discretion.
09:40 Once you sign this deal,
09:42 I can't even decide whether I like it or not.
09:45 It's a done deal."
09:46 So she said, "Get this garbage out of here."
09:49 A lot can happen between now and September 1st
09:51 when they have to actually come up with a new agreement.
09:54 You have Devin Archer testifying on Monday.
09:56 The guy's the inside man.
09:58 He can sink it.
09:59 And then you have bank records coming out
10:01 later in the week with Comer.
10:02 So this thing is only gonna get worse for Hunter Biden.
10:05 And that means it gets worse for Joe Biden.
10:07 - Speaking of Joe Biden,
10:07 just take a listen to him ignoring questions today
10:11 about that.
10:12 - How sad.
10:20 - Do you remember, Harold,
10:21 the White House at the time
10:22 that this plea announcement was made,
10:24 they said, "Case closed.
10:26 We're all done here."
10:26 And they basically were like,
10:27 "We're not ever having to talk about this again."
10:29 And that is not what's happening,
10:30 heading into a pretty tough election.
10:32 - Good to be back around to tell you about this.
10:33 - Oh, yes, welcome back.
10:34 - Say a couple of things.
10:35 First, I think the process worked.
10:37 For those who may say that our process
10:40 is broken in the country and we have two standards,
10:43 this was an example of there not being two standards.
10:45 Judge is right.
10:47 When you have a plea deal,
10:48 you often, the judge is often asking these questions
10:51 to protect the defendant.
10:52 Because if the defendant is entering a guilty plea,
10:54 he or she needs to be afforded the right
10:57 to say that before the court, before the judge.
10:59 So as these questions, basic questions were asked,
11:02 what is inexplicable to me is how the agreement between,
11:05 or the mutual understanding between the prosecution
11:08 and the defense was not there.
11:09 The defense believed that he would get immunity
11:11 for everything going forward,
11:13 even unrelated to the tax stuff and the gun stuff.
11:16 I thought there would be immunity
11:17 for the tax and the gun stuff,
11:18 but it's hard to believe
11:20 that they thought there would be immunity going forward,
11:21 unless they had already agreed to that.
11:23 Two, we learned from this,
11:24 there's an investigation, a continued investigation
11:27 underway in the Hunter and some of his business dealings.
11:31 And three, I go back to at the start,
11:34 because I am relieved that the process worked.
11:36 I'm relieved that the judge asked these questions.
11:39 And I'm relieved that Americans,
11:40 everyday Americans are starting to understand
11:42 how our process works.
11:44 We shouldn't have cameras.
11:45 I saw someone maybe on our network a little earlier saying,
11:47 wish there were cameras and audio in the courtroom.
11:49 I don't.
11:50 But I do, I am relieved and frankly gratified
11:55 that the court asked these questions.
11:57 And inexplicable to me is how the prosecution, defense,
12:00 were not on the same page going in.
12:02 And we'll have to see where this goes.
12:04 They were, but they couldn't admit it.
12:05 - Well, I don't, well, judge, that's commentary.
12:08 - That was, I think, what was so, are you not embarrassed?
12:11 - Well, but guys, that's comment, what is clear
12:13 is we don't know the answer to that, but we know this.
12:15 The judge asked the right questions today,
12:16 and it seems like the outcome,
12:18 the right outcome was what happened.
12:19 - There was no precedent, okay?
12:21 This was out of the ordinary.
12:23 - Hey, Sean Hannity here.
12:24 Hey, click here to subscribe to Fox News YouTube page
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