Posted on 09/05/2024 11:53:43 AM PDT by Red Badger
Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Attorneys for Hunter Biden, the son of President joe Biden, offered to settle a range of federal tax charges against him with an "Alford plea" during a court appearance Thursday in Los Angeles.
The surprise offer came as proceedings began on Day 2 of Hunter Biden's trial on nine felony and misdemeanor charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 through 2019, ABC News and the Washington Post reported.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi temporarily adjourned the trial, which is still in the pre-jury selection phase, after Biden's attorneys caught prosecutors by surprise with the offer of an Alford plea. Under such a plea, defendants can admit that prosecutors have enough evidence for a conviction yet maintain they are innocent of the charges.
Prosecutors told Scarsi they were not informed in advance after Biden attorney Abbe Lowell announced the plea deal offer.
Special Prosecutor David Weiss, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump and brought the charges in Biden's tax case as well as a separate matter charging the president's son with three felony gun counts, was seen quickly exiting an overflow viewing room after Lowell announced the plea offer.
The latest move comes after Biden's legal team unsuccessfully sought to dismiss the tax case by citing a recent decision by a federal judge in Florida who throw out the classified documents case against Trump on the grounds that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional.
Scarsi, however, shot down that argument last month for being untimely and an attempt to relitigate an earlier decision quashing a previous attempt by Biden to have the case dismissed.
In addition to the current tax case, Biden is awaiting sentencing on three gun-related charges. He found guilty in June on charges stemming from his purchase of a handgun in 2018 when he was allegedly struggling with drug addiction. He faces up to 25 years' imprisonment and hefty fines when sentenced.
Biden last year was poised to plead guilty to the misdemeanor tax offenses, but the deal fell apart in July when the two sides could not agree on a separate gun offense.
Both cases against Hunter Biden have been blasted by Democrats as being politically motivated by Republican lawmakers as an effort to take the spotlight off of Trump's many legal problems and to find an impeachable offense against Joe Biden.
Despite many months of seeking a link between Hunter Biden's activities and his father's actions in office, GOP investigators were unable to unearth any evidence showing the president took any direct actions favorable to his son.
I'll have to read your link and see if this is anything like a nolo contendre
nolo contendre, aka ‘No Contest’ is similar, but not exact............
Political ploy to keep any trial publicity from affecting the election...
Have to give these stinking communist bastards credit...
Wish the feckless GOP was as clever...
So he is not changing to his plea to ‘not guilty’. He is pleading no contest. Seems like just another legal maneuver, which was to be expected.
Bill Clinton pardoned his drug dealing brother as he walked out the door and the news media hardly batted an eye. Biden has absolutely nothing to lose by pardoning his son, it'll just be his final middle finger to the American people as he rides away.
Pardons are in the bag.
They come after the election one way or another.
Joey does a lame duck pardon.
Pardons, anyone? Even the folks at the NY Times may have been leery when Biden responded in the negative as to whether he would pardon son Hunter, even though they may have been expecting the inevitable letter from 51 CIA folks to attribute speculation to the contrary as Russian disinformation, much like their Hunter’s wayward laptop narrative. Biden pardoning his son? I think the term “foregone conclusion” was invented to describe this very situation despite potential issuance of another 51 CIA intelligence harpies’ one size fits all situations xeroxed Russian disinformation form letters.
In general, most honest D.A.’s and judges are reticent to allow an “Alford plea,” in that such plea is even less of an admission than a plea of “no contest.” It certainly preserves some positive “talking points” for the defendant that are not otherwise available.
It eliminates the embarrassments (politically) of a public trial................
It keeps it off the front page. and out of the news cycles.
So even less people will notice when he is sentenced then immediately pardoned.
I can understand the motivation for that from FJBLGB. But it still results in a conviction and sentencing, yes?
Yes, and sentencing can be delayed until after the election............
it’ll just be his final middle finger to the American people as he rides away.
Politically they couldn’t come up with a better move:
1) no more trial, so no more political blow-back
2) no admission of guilt, so the Dems can maintain the fiction that it was all a GOP witch-hunt
3) with a Presidential pardon, no punishment, so everyone skates, and there’s no pressure to implicate Brandon
And after the 24 hour news cycle it’s memory holed..............
Fox reporting judge just put Hunter under oath for questioning.
The same people who play that game for a living are running the country.
America needed leaders, we got lawyers.
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