Hunter Biden’s lawyers claim US prosecutors reneged on plea deal, agreement on gun charge still ‘binding’

Hunter Biden’s legal team said in a Sunday court filing that federal prosecutors reneged on a plea deal reached by both parties in June, and an agreement reached on a felony gun charge against the president’s son still stands.

The filing Sunday came after prosecutors moved to drop the plea deal in Delaware completely. Prosecutors said Friday that Biden may be headed for a criminal trial after plea negotiations broke down in court last month. 

The president’s son was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as well as enter into a pretrial diversion agreement with regard to a separate felony firearm charge.

Lawyers said in their filing Sunday that Biden “signed both agreements, was willing to waive certain rights, and to accept responsibility for his past mistakes.” 

Hunter Biden exits the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building in Delaware on July 26, 2023. (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

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While the deal on the tax charges fell through, the lawyers argued that the agreement on the gun charge was “executed” and thus “binding.”

The filing says “the Defendant intends to abide by the terms of the Diversion Agreement that was executed at the July 26 hearing by the Defendant, his counsel, and the United States, and concurs with the statements the Government made during the July 26 hearing, and which the Government then acknowledged in its filings agreeing to the public disclosure of the Plea and Diversion Agreements —that the parties have a valid and binding bilateral Diversion Agreement.”

A courtroom sketch depicting Hunter Biden in a federal courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware on July 26, 2023. (COURTESY: William J. Hennessy, Jr.)

The filing also said the revelation from prosecutors during last month’s hearing that they are still investigating the president’s son contradicted his understanding of the level of immunity he would receive under the deal.

“The Defendant’s understanding of the scope of immunity agreed to by the United States was and is based on the express written terms of the Diversion Agreement,” it reads. “His understanding of the scope of immunity agreed to by the United States is also corroborated by prosecutors’ contemporaneous written and oral communications during the plea negotiations.”

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Earlier Sunday, Abbe Lowell, who represents Biden, said on “CBS News” that there were three possibilities for why negotiations broke down during the July 26 hearing.

“One, they wrote something and weren’t clear what they meant,” Lowell said of the DOJ prosecutors. “Two, they knew what they meant and misstated it to counsel. Or third, they changed their view as they were standing in court in Delaware.”

Hunter Biden exits the Independence County Courthouse in Batesville, Arkansas, on Monday, May 1, 2023. (Mega for Fox News Digital)

Lowell later said he believed it was the third scenario and that prosecutors “changed their decision on the fly standing up in court.”

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Their filing Sunday came two days after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he would name David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, as the special counsel to lead investigations into Hunter Biden. Republicans immediately criticized Garland’s selection of Weiss, who led the prosecution in Biden’s tax and gun charges that conservatives blasted as too lax.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., called Garland’s announcement “part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of [House Oversight Republicans’] mounting evidence of President Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals.”