What in the world is going on with the Justice Department’s Hunter Biden investigation?
Political controversy has loomed over this probe at every turn, but the strange twists and turns of the past few months could give anyone whiplash — from whistleblower allegations, to a judge’s holdup of a proposed plea deal, to a falling out between Hunter’s team and prosecutors, to the US attorney leading the case being named special counsel and claiming he now anticipates a trial for Hunter on tax charges.
The gist is clear enough: Prosecutors and Hunter’s team agreed on a deal, and then things fell apart.
The mystery is about why. Why did both sides manage to come to an agreement in the first place — and why does such an agreement suddenly seem to be off the table?
Hunter’s team and particularly his new attorney, Abbe Lowell, have not been shy about proposing explanations. One possibility, Lowell said Sunday on CBS News, was that prosecutors “didn’t like what people were saying about the deal they approved.” That is — they made an offer, and later changed their minds due to criticism from Republicans.
Oddly enough, some of Hunter’s biggest critics from the right basically agree with this, though they put a rather different spin on it. They theorize that prosecutors initially hoped to end the case with a “sweetheart deal” for Hunter, and changed their minds due to, well, criticism from Republicans.
Prosecutors have not offered any explanation for exactly what changed. But from the day the initial deal was announced, there was a clue that they were not on the same page as Hunter’s attorneys, in their insistence that the investigation was “ongoing.” Hunter’s team claimed they thought the deal would end the probe. It is unclear what exactly this continuing investigation is focusing on.
But the issue of how much immunity from prosecution Hunter would be provided was the main sticking point, both in court and afterward. We still don’t…
Read the full article here