The judge may end up ‘drowning’ while on a paddle board or ‘drowning’ while hiking in the mountains.
At a hearing in Delaware today, a federal judge questioned a plea deal that would have allowed Hunter Biden to avoid a prison sentence for failing to pay his income taxes and illegally buying a gun. Under that agreement, Biden would have pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor tax offenses. The deal also called for pretrial diversion with respect to a felony gun charge: receipt or possession of a firearm by an “unlawful user” of a controlled substance.
U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika objected to language in the agreement that seemed to preclude future prosecution for tax or lobbying crimes. The Associated Press reports that she also “expressed concern” about the decision to drop the gun charge once Biden completes a two-year diversion program that would require him to avoid drugs and firearms. As written, the plea agreement would have charged Noreika rather than the Justice Department with determining whether Biden had met the program’s requirements. She suggested that arrangement was constitutionally questionable because it assigned a prosecutorial function to a judge.
Pretrial diversion in these gun/drug cases can ONLY be authorized by the US AG or the Assistant US AG.