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      Republicans Wanted a Special Counsel Investigation of Hunter Biden. Now Many Oppose It.

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      Although some G.O.P. lawmakers see the appointment of David C. Weiss as a vindication of their strategy, others criticize the now-scuttled plea deal he struck with Mr. Biden.Congressional Republicans have for months repeatedly written to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland demanding he appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, the president’s son, over his business dealings.Some even demanded that a specific man be named to lead the inquiry: David C. Weiss, the Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. attorney who has long investigated the case.But on Friday, after Mr. Garland elevated Mr. Weiss to special counsel status, Republicans in Congress reacted publicly not with triumph, but with outrage. “David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption,” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.The reaction was a notable political development, one that underscored both how Mr. Weiss, a Republican, has fallen in conservative circles, and how deeply it has become ingrained in the G.O.P. to oppose the Justice Department at every turn.“The reality is this appointment is meant to distract from, and slow down, our investigations,” said Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri and chairman of Ways and Means, one of three congressional committees looking into the Biden family’s finances.But in interviews, away from social media and television appearances, the reaction of many Republicans to Mr. Weiss’s appointment was more nuanced. Privately, some in the G.O.P. were chalking up the development as a victory.The party had worked for years to elevate the Hunter Biden case — which Democrats have long dismissed as a partisan obsession of the right — to a scandal equivalent to those dogging former President Donald J. Trump, who has faced two impeachment trials, two special counsel investigations and three indictments totaling 78 felony counts against him. Those indictments include charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and willfully retaining national defense information after he left office.By contrast, Hunter Biden has thus far been accused of two misdemeanor crimes stemming from his failure to pay taxes on more than $1.5 million in income related to his overseas business deals, and one felony count of illegally possessing a firearm while being a drug user.After leaving his job as a lobbyist while his father was running to become vice president more than a decade ago, Hunter Biden, a Yale-educated lawyer, and partners entered into a series of international business relationships, often with firms seeking influence and access within the United States. Mr. Biden was paid handsomely, even as he descended into drug addiction, and Republicans have accused him and his family of corruption. But they have not produced evidence that any of the overseas money went to President Biden or that the president influenced U.S. policy to benefit his son’s business partners.“This appointment is meant to distract from, and slow down, our investigations,” said Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is looking into the Biden family’s finances.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven as they objected to Mr. Weiss, some Republicans said the appointment appeared to be an acknowledgment that the allegations they had made deserved a serious investigation. It promised to keep Hunter Biden’s misdeeds in the news — and in the courts — for longer than Democrats would like as the 2024 presidential election heats up. And it ensured that in the minds of some voters the names Trump and Biden would both be linked to scandal, even if Republicans have not proved any wrongdoing by the current president.In an interview with Newsmax, a top Trump adviser, Jason Miller, appeared to echo both sentiments, and foreshadowed coming attacks.Mr. Miller said the appointment of Mr. Weiss “stinks” and accused the prosecutor of sitting on his hands for years. But, he added, ”I do want to make sure that my Republican brethren” don’t ”lose sight of the big prize here.”He described the appointment of a special counsel as “a direct acknowledgment that Hunter Biden did something wrong,” and he recalled President Biden saying in a 2020 debate with Mr. Trump that he had not done anything wrong.Since Mr. Weiss announced a proposed plea deal in June with Mr. Biden — an agreement that would have allowed him to avoid jail time on tax and gun charges but has since fallen apart — Republicans in Congress have sharply criticized the government, accusing the Justice Department of leniency with the president’s son as they conduct their own investigations in an effort to tie his overseas business dealings to the president. House Republicans have also brought forth two I.R.S. agents who worked on Mr. Weiss’s investigation and claimed there had been political interference.One allegation made by the I.R.S. agents was that Mr. Weiss had sought to bring charges against Hunter Biden in Washington and California but had been rebuffed by prosecutors in those jurisdictions who declined to partner with him. The order appointing Mr. Weiss to special counsel authorizes him to bring charges in any jurisdiction.Alyssa DaCunha, a co-chair of the congressional investigations practice at the law firm WilmerHale, said she believed House Republicans’ investigations and their criticisms of the proposed plea deal had “caught the attention” of the Justice Department.“There’s a real need to make sure that whatever charging decisions are made are very, very well supported and the department can really stand behind them,” Ms. DaCunha said. “It seems like this will extend the life of the investigation, and so there are lots of ways in which this is going to complicate the narrative for Democrats moving forward and give the Republicans lots of leverage.”Some House Republicans close to Mr. Trump acknowledged they were pleased with the announcement of the special counsel. For Mr. Trump, in particular, it provided him with the investigation he has long desired to be able to depict the Biden family as corrupt, even as Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes are significantly less severe than the charges Mr. Trump is facing.Mr. Trump’s statement did not suggest that he viewed the appointment of a special counsel as a bad development, merely that it had come late, something his advisers also argued in private.Hunter Biden’s plea deal on tax and gun charges fell apart in court last month.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesMike Pence, the former vice president who is now running against Mr. Trump, was among the few well-known Republicans to openly praise Mr. Weiss’s appointment.But other Republicans were worried the development could be used to block their investigations. Mr. Weiss had pledged to testify on Capitol Hill this fall, but those Republicans predicted he could now cite the special counsel investigation to refuse to do so.The announcement also gives President Biden and Mr. Garland some political cover against Republican accusations that Mr. Trump is a victim of a two-tier system of justice, placing the investigation outside the normal workings of the Justice Department. It could also undercut Republican arguments that an impeachment inquiry of the president is necessary.“In the near term, it gives Republicans the ability to say it legitimizes what they’ve been looking into and it helps give more momentum to their different oversight activities,” said Michael Ricci, a former top communications official to two Republican House speakers and a current fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. “But in the longer term, the White House will absolutely use this as an argument against any kind of rush into impeachment.”Several Republicans said their respect for Mr. Weiss had declined after he entered into the plea deal with Hunter Biden.Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who had once called for Mr. Weiss to be made special counsel, said he no longer stands by that belief. “Given the underhanded plea deal negotiated by the U.S. attorney from President Biden’s home state, it’s clear Mr. Weiss isn’t the right person for the job,” Mr. Grassley said.Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, had once called for Mr. Weiss to be made special counsel but said the plea deal changed his mind. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut Democrat-aligned groups saw something else in the Republicans’ about-face: disingenuousness.“House Republicans’ opposition to Trump appointee David Weiss’s appointment as special counsel is nothing more than another political stunt,” said Kyle Herrig, the director of the Congressional Integrity Project, an advocacy group that defends President Biden from congressional investigations. “After months of calling for this, their dismay makes clear that they will stop at nothing to weaponize Congress to interfere with an ongoing investigation and harm Joe Biden.” More

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      Where’s the Vicuña Outrage?

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      Three men walk into a courtroom, as August heats up.WASHINGTON — For a quiet summer Friday, there was quite a cacophony. Donald Trump crashing around. Clarence Thomas cashing in. Hunter Biden spinning out.News about these men rocked the capital. Yet there is something inevitable, even ancient, about the chaos enveloping them. Fatal flaws. Mythic obsessions. Greed. Revenge. Daddy issues. Maybe a touch of Cain and Abel.It’s all there, part of a murky cloud reaching from the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Court House to the Supreme Court to the Justice Department to the White House.On Thursday, ProPublica dropped a scalding piece about the abominable behavior of Clarence Thomas, following up on its revelations about Harlan Crow paying for Thomas’s luxury trips, his mother’s house in Georgia and private school tuition for his grandnephew. This one is headlined: “The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel.”In the old days, there was shame attached to selling your office. There was a single word that encapsulated such an outrage: vicuña. President Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of staff, Sherman Adams, accepted a vicuña coat from a Boston textile manufacturer doing business with the federal government. He lost his job and scarred his reputation.Now Thomas sneers at the law by failing to disclose gifts from billionaires eager to gain influence. (The gifts also benefited his wife, Ginni Thomas, who tried to help Trump overthrow the government.)ProPublica told the ka-ching: “At least 38 destination vacations … 26 private jet flights … a dozen V.I.P. passes to professional and college sporting events … two stays at luxury resorts … and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.”Thomas is abiding by the adage that living well is the best revenge. He never got over the humiliation of the Anita Hill hearings, even though his allies smeared Hill as he lied his way to Senate confirmation. (Thanks, Joe Biden!) He came out of it feeling angry and vindictive. He got on the court, muscling past questions about his legal abilities and ethical compass by pushing the story that he was a guy who worked his way up from poverty.The justice polished that just-folks image over the years by going on R.V. vacations with his wife to escape the “meanness” of Washington. But as The Times reported last weekend, the $267,230 Prevost Le Mirage XL Marathon R.V., which Thomas told friends he had scrimped and saved to afford, was actually underwritten by Anthony Welters, a friend who made a bundle in health care.Thomas is ruining the court’s image and, with the help of other uber-conservatives, he’s undoing our social constructs, causing many Americans to rebel.At a hearing Friday, the federal judge overseeing the case against Trump for conspiring to purloin Biden’s election victory made a brisk start. “The fact that he is running a political campaign has to yield to the administration of justice,” Judge Tanya Chutkan informed Trump’s lawyers. “And if that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say in a political speech, that is just how it’s going to have to be.”This will be tough for Trump because, as David Axelrod says, “the sense that he is being tried for political reasons is the essence of his campaign.”The judge warned Trump’s lawyers, “To the extent your client wants to make statements on the internet, they have to always yield to witness security and witness safety,” adding, “I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”Trump was warped by a father who told him, You’re either a killer or a loser. He couldn’t tolerate losing in 2020 so he concocted a scheme to become a killer — of democracy.Trump reminds me of fairy-tale figures — like Midas or the ballerina in “The Red Shoes,” a movie drawn from a fairy tale — who crave something so badly, they follow it down a destructive path. Trump refused to let go of the spotlight. He wanted all the attention and now it’s going to crush him.Like Thomas, Trump is driven by revenge. We shouldn’t hand power to people whose main motive is doing bad stuff to other people.A few blocks from Judge Chutkan’s courthouse, Merrick Garland emerged Friday with an announcement that surprised the White House — he was elevating the Hunter Biden prosecutor to a special counsel.This ratchets up the White House family drama. Beau was the ballast for the Bidens. Now he is his father’s hero, which is bound to make the troubled Hunter feel like a zero.Joe Biden should have reined in Hunter when he began living off his dad’s positions and connections. But the president, who lost two kids and nearly lost this one, is clearly paralyzed when it comes to Hunter.With Hunter likely going on trial, and the 2024 race underway, it will be harder for the president to argue that Trump is the one with all the legal and ethical albatrosses.Hunter is staining his father’s campaign, as Thomas is smearing the Roberts court, as Trump is dragging down the G.O.P.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Democrats Dismiss Worries Over Hunter Biden Investigation

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      After a setback for President Biden, Democrats pointed to Donald Trump’s indictments and suggested that swing voters would ultimately not care about the sins of a candidate’s son.For President Biden and his party, the appointment of a special counsel on Friday in the investigation into Hunter Biden was hardly a welcome development. A blossoming criminal inquiry focused on the president’s son is a high-risk proposition that comes with the dangers of an election-year trial and investigations that could balloon beyond the tax and gun charges the younger Mr. Biden already faces.Yet many Democrats were sanguine about a dark moment in a summer of cautiously bright news for their president. In interviews, more than a dozen Democratic officials, operatives and pollsters said Hunter Biden’s legal problems were less worrisome than their other concerns about the president: his age, his low approval ratings and Americans’ lack of confidence in an improving economy.Part of their sense of calm stems from a version of the what-aboutism often adopted by Republicans since Donald J. Trump’s rise: Mr. Biden’s son is under investigation, Democrats say, but across the aisle, the G.O.P. front-runner has actually been criminally indicted — three times.“I find it hard to imagine that anyone concerned about political corruption would turn to Donald Trump to address the problem of political corruption,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which has been investigating Hunter Biden since Republicans took control of the chamber.Democrats cited an array of reasons for whistling past the announcement that David C. Weiss, the Delaware prosecutor first appointed by the Trump administration in 2018 to investigate Hunter Biden, would be elevated to a special counsel. Mr. Weiss has examined both Mr. Biden’s business and personal life, including his foreign dealings, his drug use and his finances; a deal to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and accept a diversion program to dismiss an unlawful gun possession charge has fallen apart.Polling, Democrats noted, has suggested that swing voters aren’t attuned to the various Hunter Biden controversies. Recent elections, including the Ohio referendum this past week, have shown that the abortion rights issue is powering Democratic victories. And Democrats believe ne’er-do-well family members do not cause transitive harm to relatives who are running for president.“There are plenty of things that keep Democrats up at night when it comes to 2024, and this is not one of them,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a centrist Democratic organization. “Billy Carter is not the reason that Ronald Reagan won 49 states in 1980.”Just as they did after Mr. Trump’s three indictments, the White House, the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee on Friday appeared to undertake a collective vow of silence about the special counsel’s appointment. Far more of the president’s allies declined to discuss the Hunter Biden news — or would do so only carefully off the record — than were willing to talk about the situation openly.David C. Weiss, a federal prosecutor who is already investigating Hunter Biden, has been elevated to special counsel status.Suchat Pederson/The News Journal, via Associated PressThe Biden campaign canceled a scheduled Friday afternoon appearance on MSNBC for its campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, after the special counsel announcement to avoid facing a litany of questions about the president’s son, according to two people familiar with the scheduling.The White House, and more recently the Biden campaign, have long treaded carefully around questions about the president’s son. Matt Barreto, who conducts polling for Mr. Biden, said Hunter Biden had not been a concern in focus groups.“I haven’t seen polling, and I have not been asked to do polling, on that,” Mr. Barreto said about the younger Mr. Biden’s travails. “Americans are totally focused right now on who is going to improve their economic output.”In late June, a poll from Reuters/Ipsos found that 58 percent of Americans said Hunter Biden’s proposed plea agreement would have no impact on the likelihood of their voting for the elder Mr. Biden in 2024. The survey found that 51 percent of Americans believed Hunter Biden’s legal troubles were unrelated to President Biden’s job performance.How much a trial of Hunter Biden would damage his father’s presidential campaign is unclear, given that Mr. Trump — the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner — is already facing three potential trials and the prospect of another indictment in Georgia. Court proceedings that implicated the elder Mr. Biden or required his testimony would serve as a major distraction for his campaign, but there has not been any legitimate suggestion that he engaged in wrongdoing himself.Sarah Longwell, a Republican consultant who conducts regular focus groups, said that voters who had supported Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020 often brought up Hunter Biden on their own in response to questions about Mr. Trump’s indictments. But swing voters, or those who cast ballots for Mr. Trump the first time but not the second, had more empathy, she said, and tended to say that concerns about Hunter Biden did not apply to the president.“The dominant position of swing voters has been, the Hunter Biden stuff is family, personal,” Ms. Longwell said. “We asked a swing-voting group about Hunter, and they were saying things like, ‘Every family has someone like this, a black sheep.’”The lonely Democratic voice warning that the Hunter Biden question will hurt Mr. Biden and Democrats at the polls next November is Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who in recent weeks has been on a media tour calling for an intraparty challenge to Mr. Biden.Mr. Phillips said the special counsel news was “exactly my entire rationale for the call to action” for a Biden challenger. Mr. Biden isn’t corrupt, Mr. Phillips said, but he added that the facts of the case mattered far less than the nuggets of information people received about it.“It’s not about the truth, it’s not about the facts — it’s about how people feel, and people feel concerned,” Mr. Phillips said. “It’s gone from a distraction and ridiculous to ‘Oh wow, maybe something is there.’”Most Democrats, however, are convinced that voters are more focused on other things.“I haven’t gotten one call about this other than from reporters,” said Donna Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chairwoman. “There’s nothing that I believe is going to change the conversation.”For others, knowing that Mr. Biden has already defeated Mr. Trump once serves as a salve against concerns that Hunter Biden could derail the 2024 campaign. Much of the stress that was on constant display after Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton has dissipated following the party’s successes in the last three national elections.“I just don’t see the source of anxiety that this might have caused a few years ago,” said Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia. More

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      Collapse of Hunter Biden Plea Deal Could Be a Liability for the President

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      The collapse of a plea deal and the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden mean the president could face political fallout for months to come.They thought it was over, that they could put it in the rearview mirror. All that Hunter Biden had to do was show up in a courtroom, answer a few questions, sign some paperwork and that would be it. Not that the Republicans would let it go, but any real danger would be past.Except that it did not work out that way. The criminal investigation that President Biden’s advisers believed was all but done has instead been given new life with the collapse of the plea agreement and the appointment of a special counsel who now might bring the president’s son to trial.What had been a painful but relatively contained political scandal that animated mainly partisans on the right could now extend for months just as the president is gearing up for his re-election campaign. This time, the questions about Hunter Biden’s conduct may be harder for the White House to dismiss as politically motivated. They may even break out of the conservative echo chamber to the general public, which has largely not paid much attention until now.It remained unclear whether Hunter Biden faces criminal exposure beyond the tax and gun charges lodged against him by David C. Weiss, the prosecutor first appointed in 2018 to investigate him by President Donald J. Trump’s attorney general. It may be that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s decision to designate Mr. Weiss a special counsel with more independence to run the inquiry means that there is still more potential legal peril stemming from Hunter Biden’s business dealings with foreign firms.Yet it may amount to less than meets the eye in the long run. Mr. Weiss’s announcement abandoning the plea agreement he originally reached with Hunter Biden on the tax and gun charges means he could take the case to trial in states other than Delaware, where he is U.S. attorney and has jurisdiction. Some analysts speculated that requesting special counsel status may be about empowering him to prosecute out of state.“Friday’s announcement feels more like a technicality allowing Weiss to bring charges outside of Delaware now that the talks between sides have broken down,” said Anthony Coley, who until recently served as the Justice Department’s director of public affairs under Mr. Garland. “It will have limited practical impact.”Even if so, a trial by a jury of Hunter Biden’s peers would be a spectacle that could prove distracting and embarrassing for the White House while providing more fodder to the president’s Republicans. The president’s advisers were frustrated as a result and resigned to months of additional torment, even if they were not alarmed by the prospect of a wider investigation.“After five years of probing Hunter’s dealings, it seems unlikely that Weiss will discover much that is new,” said David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “On the other hand, anything that draws more attention to Hunter’s case and extends the story into the campaign year is certainly unwelcome news for the president’s team.”As it happened, Mr. Garland’s appointment of Mr. Weiss as special counsel did not solve part of the problem it was meant to address. A special counsel designation is intended to insulate an investigation from politics, but the attorney general’s decision still drew fire from Republicans who derided the choice of Mr. Weiss because he had signed off on the original plea agreement, which they had described as a “sweetheart deal.”Never mind that Mr. Weiss was a Trump administration appointee whom the Biden administration kept on to show that it was not attempting to tilt the case in favor of the president’s son. Since Mr. Trump and his allies did not like the apparent outcome of the investigation, some have painted Mr. Weiss as a lackey of the Biden administration and have showcased whistle-blowers who said the prosecutor had been hamstrung even though he insisted he was not.“This move by Attorney General Garland is part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family cover-up,” said Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee who has led congressional investigations into the president’s son.Such attacks also serve the purpose of discrediting Mr. Weiss in advance if in the end he does not confirm their unsubstantiated charges of corruption against the Biden family. Testimony and news accounts have indicated that Hunter Biden traded on his name to make money and a former business partner has said that his father was aware. But no evidence has emerged that the president personally profited from or used his power to benefit his son’s business interests.Still, other Republicans said the party should welcome the appointment of Mr. Weiss as special counsel. There would be no need for one if there was nothing to investigate, they argued, and it was Mr. Biden’s own attorney general now saying there was a need.“It shows that there is more than just smoke,” said Douglas Heye, a longtime Republican strategist. “It makes it impossible to define this now as simply a House Republican or MAGA thing. This has to be covered differently now. And as we’ve learned from other special counsel investigations, where a special counsel starts is not necessarily where it ends up.”For the White House, the attorney general’s Friday afternoon announcement was an unpleasant surprise, a head-snapping reversal from just seven weeks ago, when the president’s team thought it had turned a corner with Hunter Biden’s agreement with Mr. Weiss to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and accept a diversion program to dismiss an unlawful gun possession charge.The Biden camp was deeply relieved that five years of investigation had added up to nothing more serious. The president made a point of inviting his son, who has struggled with a crack cocaine addiction, to a high-profile state dinner two days later in what was taken as a spike-the-ball moment declaring victory over the family’s pursuers. The fact that Mr. Garland was also at the state dinner, hanging out just across an outdoor tent from the man his department was prosecuting, left even some Democrats feeling uncomfortable.But any sense of relief was premature. When Hunter Biden showed up at the Federal District Court in Wilmington, Del., on July 26 to finalize the plea deal, it all unraveled under questioning from a judge in just a few hours. At the heart of the matter was a disagreement over what the agreement meant. Hunter Biden and his lawyers thought it ended the investigation, while prosecutors made clear it did not.The Hunter Biden legal team wants certainty that a guilty plea would end the matter, given that Mr. Trump has vowed to prosecute him if elected president. But as Mr. Weiss revealed on Friday, subsequent negotiations intended to iron out the disconnect have reached an impasse, making a trial all but certain to be the next step and making it easier for Republicans trying to shift attention from Mr. Trump’s three indictments.They are, of course, hardly comparable cases. Hunter Biden was never president and never will be president, and even the most damning evidence against him does not equate to trying to overturn a democratic election in order to hold onto power. But it has been a useful strategy for Republicans to complain about what they call a “two-tier justice system.”Three-quarters of Republicans believe the president’s son got preferential treatment in the plea deal, compared with 33 percent of Democrats, according to a poll by Reuters and Ipsos in June. But most voters indicated that they thought Mr. Biden was “being a good father by supporting his son,” and only 26 percent said they were less likely to vote for him as a result of Hunter’s legal troubles.The president’s strategists have argued that Republican attacks on Hunter Biden did not work in the 2020 election when Mr. Biden beat Mr. Trump or in the 2022 midterm elections when Democrats did better than anticipated. Nor, they added, has the issue resonated with voters who will be important to the president’s re-election in 2024, meaning independents and disappointed Democrats.That is an assumption that in the months to come will be put on trial, in effect, at the same time as the president’s son. More

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      Republican 2024 Candidates Cast Doubt on Hunter Biden Special Counsel

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      Republican presidential candidates, some of whom were stumping in the early-caucusing state of Iowa on Friday, largely derided the news that the prosecutor investigating President Biden’s son Hunter had been elevated to special counsel status.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, during a campaign stop in Audubon, Iowa, cast doubt on the independence of the special counsel, David C. Weiss, who had already been overseeing a yearslong investigation of the president’s son. “It just seems to me that they’re going to find a way to give him some type of soft-glove treatment,’’ he said. And Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, spoke disdainfully of the new title and power for Mr. Weiss.“I don’t think the American people trust the Department of Justice or anything this is going to do,” Ms. Haley said in an appearance on Fox News. “I think this was meant to be a distraction.”At the same time, she called it a “response to the pressure that the Biden family is feeling” and called on House Republicans who have been investigating the Bidens “to keep their foot on the gas.” So far, the investigations have found no hard evidence that President Biden used his influence while vice president to benefit his son’s business deals.Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota also said he doubted the independence of Mr. Weiss. In an interview while twirling around on the Iowa State Fair’s Ferris wheel, he called the move “too little, too late” and said few Republicans would view the step as a serious development, given Mr. Weiss’s role in offering Hunter Biden a plea deal in the case. That plea deal has fallen apart.Mr. Weiss is a federal prosecutor in Delaware who was originally appointed by former President Donald J. Trump. He was left in his position by President Biden to continue the Hunter Biden inquiry to avoid the appearance that the president would seek special treatment for his son.In a statement attributed to a spokesperson, Mr. Trump, who is being investigated by the special counsel Jack Smith, claimed without evidence that the Department of Justice has protected President Biden, Hunter Biden and other family members “for decades.” The statement cast doubt on Mr. Weiss’s independence and criticized him for not already bringing “proper charges after a four-year investigation” of Hunter Biden.Mr. Smith has brought two indictments against Mr. Trump.Not all of the candidates were disdainful of the appointment of the special counsel, which Republicans have urged for some time. Vivek Ramaswamy, who said last month that a special counsel was warranted, called the appointment of Mr. Weiss “good” on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “Now let’s see if it’s more than a fig leaf,” he added.Former Vice President Mike Pence, who was flipping cuts of pork at the Iowa State Fair on Friday, said he approved of the Department of Justice’s move to upgrade Mr. Weiss’s power.“I think it’s about time that we saw the appointment of a special counsel to get to the bottom of not only what Hunter Biden was doing, but what the Biden family was doing,” Mr. Pence said. “The American people deserve answers, and I welcome the appointment.”Anjali Huynh More

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      Fact-Checking Trump Defenders’ Claims After Indictment in Election Case

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      Former President Donald Trump’s supporters have made inaccurate claims about the judge presiding over his case and misleadingly compared his conduct to that of other politicians.Allies of former President Donald J. Trump have rushed to his defense since he was charged on Tuesday in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.They inaccurately attacked the judge assigned to oversee the trial, baselessly speculated that the timing of the accusations was intended to obscure misconduct by the Bidens and misleadingly compared his conduct to that of Democratic politicians.Here’s a fact check.What Was Said“Judge Chutkan was appointed to the D.C. District Court by Barack Obama, and she has a reputation for being far left, even by D.C. District Court standards. Judge Chutkan, for example, has set aside numerous federal death-penalty cases, and she is the only federal judge in Washington, D.C., who has sentenced Jan. 6 defendants to sentences longer than the government requested.”— Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, in a podcast on WednesdayThis is exaggerated. Mr. Cruz is correct that Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, the trial judge overseeing Mr. Trump’s prosecution in the case, was appointed by President Barack Obama. While she has gained a reputation for handing down tough sentences to people convicted of crimes in the Jan. 6 riot, she is not the only federal judge who has exceeded prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations.Of the more than 1,000 people who have been charged for their activities on Jan. 6, 2021, about 561 people have received a sentence, including 335 in jail and another 119 in home detention, as of July 6, according to the Justice Department. Judges have largely issued sentences shorter than what prosecutors sought and what federal sentencing guidelines recommend, data compiled by NPR and The Washington Post shows.Senator Ted Cruz described Judge Tanya S. Chutkan’s appointment as “highly problematic,” but in the Federal District Court in Washington, cases are randomly assigned.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesJudge Chutkan ordered longer penalties in at least four cases, according to NPR, and appears to have done so more frequently than her peers. But other judges in Federal District Court in Washington have also imposed harsher sentences.Those include Judge Royce C. Lamberth, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, who sentenced a man to 60 days in prison while the government had asked for 14 days. He sentenced another to 51 months, rather than 46 months, and another to 60 days, rather than 30.Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, sentenced another defendant to 30 days, twice as long as the government recommendation. Judge Reggie B. Walton, nominated by President George W. Bush, sentenced a defendant to 50 days compared with the recommended 30 days. And Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, appointed by President Bill Clinton, sentenced a man to 60 days rather than 45 days.Moreover, Mr. Cruz described Judge Chutkan’s appointment as “highly problematic” given her political leanings. But it is worth noting that in the Federal District Court in Washington, cases are randomly assigned — similar to how Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee, was randomly assigned to preside over the case involving Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office.What Was Said“All of these indictments have been called into question because they come right after massive evidence is released about the Biden family. On June 7, the F.B.I. released documents alleging that the Bidens took in $10 million in bribes from Burisma. The very next day, Jack Smith indicted Trump over the classified documents kept at Mar-a-Lago. And then you go to July 26. That’s when Hunter Biden’s plea deal fell apart after the D.O.J. tried giving him blanket immunity from any future prosecutions. The very next day, Jack Smith added more charges to the Mar-a-Lago case. And now, just one day after Devon Archer gave explosive testimony about Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s business deals, Smith indicts Trump for Jan. 6.”— Maria Bartiromo, anchor on Fox Business Network, on WednesdayThis lacks evidence. Mr. Trump and many of his supporters have suggested that the timing of developments in investigations into his conduct runs suspiciously parallel to investigations into the conduct of Hunter Biden and is meant as a distraction.But there is no proof that Mr. Smith, the special counsel overseeing the cases, has deliberately synced his inquiries into Mr. Trump with investigations into the Bidens, one of which is handled by federal prosecutors and others by House Republicans.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed Mr. Smith as special counsel in November to investigate Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol as well as the former president’s retention of classified documents. After Republicans won the House that same month, lawmakers in the party said they would begin to investigate the Bidens. (The Justice Department separately began an inquiry into Hunter Biden’s taxes and business dealings in 2018.)Over the next few months, the inquiries barreled along, with some developments inevitably occurring almost in tandem. In some cases, Mr. Smith has little control over the developments or when they are publicly revealed.The first overlap Ms. Bartiromo cited centered on an F.B.I. document from June 2020 that contained an unsubstantiated allegation of bribery against President Biden and his son, and on charges filed against Mr. Trump over his handling of classified documents.Jack Smith was appointed in November 2022 to investigate Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot.Doug Mills/The New York TimesRepresentative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, issued a subpoena in May for the document. The F.B.I. allowed Mr. Comer and the committee’s top Democrat access to a redacted version on June 5. That same day, Mr. Comer said he would initiate contempt-of-Congress hearings against the F.B.I. director on June 8, as the agency was still resisting giving all members access to the document.Two days later, on June 7, Mr. Comer announced that the F.B.I. had relented and that he would cancel the contempt proceedings. Members of the committee viewed the document on the morning of June 8, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, held a news conference that afternoon describing the document.That night, Mr. Trump himself, not the Justice Department, announced that he had been charged over his mishandling of classified documents, overtaking any headlines about the Bidens. The department declined to comment, and the indictment was unsealed a day later, on June 9.In the second overlap, on July 26, a federal judge put on hold a proposed plea deal between Hunter Biden and the Justice Department over tax and gun charges. Ms. Bartiromo is correct that a grand jury issued new charges against Mr. Trump in the documents case on July 27.The timing of the latest developments in Ms. Bartiromo’s third example, too, was not entirely in Mr. Smith’s hands.Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer was first subpoenaed on June 12 to testify before the committee on June 16. Mr. Comer told The Washington Examiner that Mr. Archer rescheduled his appearance three times before his lawyer confirmed on July 30 that he would appear the next day. Mr. Archer then spoke to the House oversight committee in nearly five hours of closed-door testimony on July 31. Republicans and Democrats on the committee gave conflicting accounts of what Mr. Archer said.Mr. Trump announced on July 18 that federal prosecutors had informed him he was a target of their investigation into his efforts to stay in office, suggesting that he would soon be indicted. Mr. Trump’s lawyers met with officials in the office of Mr. Smith on July 27. A magistrate judge ordered the indictment unsealed at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 1.What Was Said“All of the people who claim that the 2016 election wasn’t legitimate, all of the people who claimed in 2004, with a formal objection in the Congress, that that election wasn’t legitimate, and in fact, objected to the point where they said that the voting machines in Ohio were tampered with and that President Bush was selected, not elected — and not to mention former presidents of the United States and secretary of states, Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter and a whole slew of House Democrats who repeatedly led the nation to believe — lied to the nation, that they said Russia selected Donald Trump as president, that the election was completely illegitimate — all of that was allowed to pass, but yet, once again, we see a criminalization when it comes to Donald Trump.”— Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida, on CNN on WednesdayThis is misleading. Mr. Trump’s supporters have long argued that Democrats, too, have objected to election results and pushed allegations of voting malfeasance. None of the objections cited, though, have been paired with concerted efforts to overturn election results, as was the case for Mr. Trump.Democratic lawmakers objected to counting a state’s electors after the elections of recent Republican presidents in 2001, 2005 and 2017. In 2001 and 2017, objecting House members were unable to find a senator to sign on to their objections, as is required, and were overruled by the vice president. In 2005, two Democrats objected to counting Ohio’s electoral votes. The two chambers then convened debate and rejected the objections.In each case, the losing candidate had already conceded, did not try to overturn election results and did not try to persuade the vice president to halt proceedings as Mr. Trump is accused of doing in 2020.Mrs. Clinton has said repeatedly that Russian interference was partly to blame for her defeat in the 2016 presidential election. But she is not accused of trying to overthrow the results of the election. Prosecutors have not detailed any involvement on her part in a multifaceted effort to stay in power, including by organizing slates of false electors or pressuring officials to overturn voting results.What Was Said“Indicting political opponent candidates during a presidential election is what happens in banana republics and Third World countries.”— Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland, in a Twitter post on TuesdayThis is exaggerated. Mr. Trump is the first former U.S. president to be indicted on criminal charges, but he is not the only presidential candidate to face charges in the United States and certainly not in the world.Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, was indicted in August 2014 and accused of abusing his power. Mr. Perry, who ran for president in 2012, had hinted that he would run again and set up a political action committee the same month he was indicted. He officially announced his presidential bid in 2015 but dropped out before a court dismissed the charges against him in 2016.Eugene V. Debs, the socialist leader, ran for president behind bars in 1920 after he was indicted on a charge of sedition for opposing American involvement in World War I. He was sentenced in 1918 to 10 years in prison.It is also not unheard-of for political leaders in advanced economies and democracies to face charges while campaigning for office. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of fraud and bribery. After losing power, he returned to his post in November 2022 while still facing charges. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi faced numerous charges and scandals over tax fraud and prostitution while he served as prime minister in the 2000s.And in Taiwan, prosecutors said in 2006 that they had enough evidence to bring corruption charges against the president at the time, Chen Shui-bian. Mr. Chen remained his party’s chairman through parliamentary elections in 2008 as the investigation loomed over him, and he was arrested and charged that November. More

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      The Biden Family Drama Is Far From Over

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      Gail Collins: Bret, I suspect our first big argument today will be about Hunter Biden. But I feel sorta obliged to start with Donald Trump. I mean, how often do you have a former president facing the threat of multiple indictments on alleged transgressions ranging from paying hush money over a sex scandal to prompting a riot that stormed the Capitol to trying to fix an election?Bret Stephens: While reportedly ordering an employee to delete potentially incriminating security camera footage in Mar-a-Lago. My preferred nickname for the 45th president, as you know, is Benito Milhous Caligula, but maybe we could switch that to G. Gordon Berlusconi.Gail: Said former president is, of course, the front-runner for the next Republican nomination.What’s your take on all this?Bret: Two thoughts. First, Trump belongs in prison, assuming Jack Smith, the special counsel in the documents matter, can prove his case in court. At a minimum, it looks to me like an open-and-shut case of obstruction of justice. Apparently, nobody told The Donald that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime.Gail: From your lips to God’s ears.Bret: Second, the more the legal system comes after Trump, the more the Republican rank-and-file will rally around him as both a truth-teller and a martyr. The hard right increasingly views the U.S. justice system in ways that the far left traditionally has: as a rigged, corrupt system in which sinister insiders use the levers of power to advance the interests of the elite at the expense of ordinary people.And of course, the Hunter Biden saga plays right into that narrative.Gail: Knew you’d be dying to go on to Hunter. I thought the plea deal was pretty reasonable. His crimes were tax evasion and lying when he bought a gun by failing to acknowledge he was a drug addict. I hate the idea of virtually anybody being able to obtain a gun. But even I do not expect drug addicts will voluntarily share that information when they attempt to buy one. So, definite criminal behavior but not a real shocker.Bret: If Hunter had been poor and Black, would the justice system have been as indulgent?Gail: A fair point. But in most places, a poor Black defendant from a responsible family who’s subsequently been living a sober, well-supervised life probably could have made this kind of deal. Or, OK, at least in some places.Bret: Hmmm.Maybe Hunter is a swell guy in private, and I have sympathy for anyone struggling with addiction. But what’s in the public record about him — from his obvious willingness to trade on the perception of access to make his living from dubious foreign sources to his reluctance to acknowledge paternity of one of his daughters to his career as a mediocre artist selling work at curiously astronomical prices to not paying taxes and then almost getting off with what seemed like a wrist slap — doesn’t exactly brighten the Biden family name. And while Republicans are jumping to conclusions without rock-solid evidence, I’m not entirely confident that Joe Biden really had no inkling of what his son was up to or that the larger Biden family didn’t benefit from Hunter’s shenanigans.Gail: Absolutely no evidence Joe Biden knew about Hunter’s lawbreaking. But one charge I’d bet on is that Hunter dropped dad’s name a lot when trying to do business with foreign honchos. Sort of hard to imagine him being saintly enough to avoid it. And the whole idea of his making deals with foreign honchos in the first place while his father was vice president is … bad.Bret: When it came to the Trump family’s finances — from his tax avoidance schemes to his foreign hotels to Jared Kushner’s sweetheart financing with Saudi Arabia — the news media left no stone unturned. It behooves journalists to be as aggressively curious about the Biden family’s finances. Especially since a federal judge wasn’t at all keen on Hunter’s plea deal, and I.R.S. agents are alleging political interference in the case.Gail: Absolutely. And news of Hunter’s unacknowledged daughter — brought to us by The Times’s great reporting — is a deeply depressing embarrassment for both father and grandfather. I was happy to see Joe Biden acknowledge her last Friday.But I still don’t believe anything on the Biden bad-behavior ledger compares to the way Trump built a personal real estate empire on smarmy-to-corrupt practices.Bret: Yeah — probably.Gail: And you know, as irritating as I find Donald Jr. and Eric making pots of money off their family name, I wouldn’t find that alone a major reason to violently oppose their father’s presidential ambitions.I think it’s the same with Hunter Biden — the House Republicans may be trying to make him a big campaign issue, but voters mostly don’t care.Bret: I bet plenty of voters would like to know how the extended Biden family raked in $17 million from foreign sources between 2014 and 2019, as a whistle-blowing I.R.S. agent testified. This was a period that seems to have coincided with Hunter’s crack binges. Just what expert services was he providing for that kind of income? Glassblowing?Gail: Well, we’re not gonna resolve every part of this today. Always enjoy having a Hunter fight with you, Bret, and we’ll undoubtedly turn back to this subject. But let’s move on to Congress. Lots to discuss there.Bret: Ad aspera per aspera, as some Roman must have said.Gail: Mitch McConnell seemed to go totally blank while talking with reporters last week. People are wondering if he’s developed serious aging problems that should make him step down from his job as Senate minority leader. What do you think?Bret: That one is between him and his physician, and he seemed to recover his faculties later during the press conference. But as with Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Grassley or, ahem, Joe Biden, elderly politicians do themselves no favors by trying to hang on to office for too long. Interesting question is who might replace him. Any free advice for the Senate Repubs?Gail: We both agreed long ago that we wished the president wasn’t intent on running for re-election in his 80s. As to McConnell, I’ll never forgive him for squatting on Barack Obama’s final nomination to the Supreme Court. Still, I have to admit he’s generally seemed at least non-crazy as minority leader.But proposing a successor is your territory. Any ideas?Bret: I don’t think McConnell will step down right away, but someone I know who knows things tells me that the likeliest replacements are either South Dakota’s John Thune, the current No. 2, or Texas’ John Cornyn. My own preference would be Cornyn: a smart and sober guy and a non-MAGA conservative. Whatever else you might say about Cornyn, he is to the junior senator from Texas what pumpkin pie is to a jack-o’-lantern.Gail: Love your Ted Cruz reference. Hehehehe.Bret: Can I switch the subject to cultural issues? First, Kevin Spacey’s acquittal in a London courtroom on nine charges of sexual assault.Gail: Bret, not having really kept up on the Spacey situation, I’m going to have to defer to you.Bret: This is Spacey’s second acquittal, following last year’s in a case brought in New York by the actor Anthony Rapp. What bothers me is that even now, Spacey will face an “uphill battle” to get major roles again, according to a report in The Times. He’s one of the greatest actors alive, the Laurence Olivier of our day. He’s spent the last six years as persona non grata. He’s been declared not guilty by two juries in two countries. I think his case, like that of Armie Hammer, will be remembered as another ugly instance of #MeToo opportunism. To borrow a line from Raymond J. Donovan, Ronald Reagan’s unjustly indicted labor secretary, to which office does he go to get his reputation back?Sorry, I had to rant. I hope some major Hollywood director has the guts and grace to give him a starring role.Gail: Rant away! And as I said, I’m following your lead on this one. Except for your #MeToo swipe. The whole #MeToo opportunism reference hurts me.On a far less somber note, I have to say I’m siding with the law-and-order crowd when it comes to the Biden family dog, Commander, who’s allegedly bitten Secret Service agents at least 10 times over the last few months.I’m sure Commander has his own side of the story, but he should be exiled to the countryside forever. No deal with the prosecutor where he pleads guilty and then gets nothing but probation.Bret: Maybe Commander got hold of that stash of white powder that was found in the White House? “Cocaine K-9” could make an interesting sequel to “Cocaine Bear.”The other subject I wanted to raise is Sinead O’Connor, the Irish singer who sadly passed away last week. She basically blew up her musical career in the United States when in 1992 she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on “Saturday Night Live” in protest of the church’s cover-up of clerical sexual abuse. Your thoughts?Gail: I’d love to see Sinead O’Connor’s story enshrined with other celebrities who did something righteous and fell into career limbo as a result. Many celebrities have been outspoken with few repercussions. But messing with religious leaders will almost always get you in deep trouble. Even when they deserve it.Bret: O’Connor was calling attention to hideous facts about the church a decade before The Boston Globe’s Spotlight stories put it on the national agenda. She used her musical celebrity in exemplary fashion to call out monstrous evil. She went directly after one of the most beloved public figures of the time, now canonized, and she did so at heavy cost to her own career. It was an exemplary use of free speech and an extraordinary act of courage.Nothing compared 2 her. Rest in peace.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Hunter Biden Plea Deal Put on Hold as Judge Questions Its Details

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      A federal judge on Wednesday put on hold a proposed plea deal between Hunter Biden and the Justice Department that would have settled tax and gun charges against the president’s son, stunning the courtroom and raising legal and constitutional questions about the agreement.After moments of high drama in which the deal appeared headed toward collapse, the judge, Maryellen Noreika of the Federal District Court in Wilmington, Del., sent the two sides back to try to work out modifications that would address her concerns and salvage the basic contours of the agreement.Under the proposed deal, Mr. Biden would have pleaded guilty to two tax misdemeanors and averted prosecution on a gun charge by enrolling in a two-year diversion program for nonviolent offenders.Prosecutors and Mr. Biden’s team had both started the day confident that the proceeding would go smoothly and the judge would sign off on the deal immediately. As he entered the courtroom, Mr. Biden drew a deep breath and plunged forward to greet the prosecutors who investigated him for five years with handshakes and a smile.But Judge Noreika had other ideas, telling the two sides repeatedly that she had no intention of being “a rubber stamp,” and spending three hours sharply questioning them over nearly every detail of the deal.“I cannot accept the plea agreement today,” said Judge Noreika, who was nominated to the bench by President Donald J. Trump in 2017 with the support of Delaware’s two Democratic senators.An exhausted-looking Mr. Biden trudged out of the courthouse looking a bit stunned, as his lawyers puzzled over what to do next. At the end of the hearing, Mr. Biden entered a plea of not guilty on the tax charges, which he will reverse if the two sides revise their agreement to the judge’s satisfaction.The muddled outcome only underscored how Mr. Biden’s personal and legal troubles have become an entrenched political issue in Washington, where Republicans have long sought to show that his foreign business ventures were aided by, or benefited, President Biden.Those efforts have only intensified as Mr. Trump’s legal troubles have deepened and Republicans in Congress have sought to undercut the president heading into the 2024 election.Republicans have accused David C. Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware who was retained by the Biden administration to complete the investigation into Mr. Biden, of cutting a “sweetheart deal” intended to help Democrats.They have sought to cast the Biden family as corrupt and assailed the proposed deal as far too lenient, citing testimony from two I.R.S. investigators as evidence that the Justice Department had hamstrung the investigation and that President Biden played a role in his son’s business deals with companies and partners in Ukraine and China.Hunter Biden’s foreign business ventures raised ethical concerns, especially while his father was vice president, and his personal problems — he has acknowledged being addicted to crack cocaine for a number of years — have given conservatives an endless stream of material to assail him. But Republicans have produced no compelling evidence that President Biden used his office to help his son in any substantive way.The White House declined to comment directly on Wednesday’s court proceeding while communicating the president’s support for his son’s efforts to put his problems behind him.“Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and this was a personal matter,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Wednesday. “As we have said, the president, the first lady, they love their son, and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life.”Judge Noreika’s concerns appeared to center on two elements of the proposed deal. One was a provision that would have offered Mr. Biden broad insulation against further prosecution on matters scrutinized by federal prosecutors during the five-year inquiry, providing him with some protection against the possibility that Mr. Trump, if re-elected, or another Republican president might seek to reopen the case. The other had to do with the diversion program on the gun charge, under which she would be called on to play a role in determining whether Mr. Biden was meeting the terms of the deal.Judge Noreika said she was not trying to sink the agreement, but to strengthen it by ironing out ambiguities and inconsistencies, a view held by some former department officials.“The judge appropriately wanted to make sure that the parties were clear on whether Hunter Biden could be prosecuted for additional crimes in the future,” said Barbara L. McQuade, who was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017.Judge Noreika kicked off the hearing by telling lawyers that they did not need to keep “popping” up and down every time she asked them a question.It was a signal that she was about to subject them to a relentless interrogation over elements of an agreement she described, variously, as “not standard, not what I normally see,” possibly “unconstitutional,” without legal precedent and potentially “not worth the paper it is printed on.”Judge Noreika quickly zeroed in on a paragraph offering Mr. Biden broad immunity from prosecution, in perpetuity, for a range of matters scrutinized by the Justice Department. The judge questioned why prosecutors had written it in a way that gave her no legal authority to reject it.Then, in 10 minutes of incisive questioning, she exposed serious differences between the two sides on what, exactly, that paragraph meant.Christopher Clark, Mr. Biden’s lead lawyer, said it indemnified his client not merely for the tax and gun offenses uncovered during the inquiry, but for other possible offenses stemming from his lucrative consulting deals with companies in Ukraine, China and Romania.Prosecutors had a far narrower definition. They saw Mr. Biden’s immunity as limited to offenses uncovered during their investigation of his tax returns dating back to 2014, and his illegal purchase of a firearm in 2018, when he was a heavy drug user, they said.When the judge asked Leo Wise, a lead prosecutor in the case, if the investigation of Mr. Biden was continuing, he answered, “Yes.”When she asked him, hypothetically, if the deal would preclude an investigation into possible violation of laws regulating foreign lobbying by Mr. Biden connected with his consulting and legal work, he replied, “No.”Mr. Biden then told the judge he could not agree to any deal that did not offer him broad immunity, and Mr. Clark popped up angrily to declare the deal “null and void.”The disagreement over such a central element of the deal was remarkable, given the months of negotiations that went into reaching it.“Today was very unusual, but based on my experience, I think the deal will now get done,” said John P. Fishwick Jr., who served as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2015 to 2017. “Judges are reluctant to reject deals but do ask questions. These should have been cleared up before today’s hearing, but they were not, so she helped provide more clarity.”The 30 journalists in the gallery then witnessed a remarkable tableau of real-time, public deal-making. With the judge having called a recess, the defense and prosecution teams first separated into two packs, then merged into a circle to hash out a new compromise. An unsmiling Mr. Weiss paced back and forth, jaw tense and hands jammed into the pockets of his suit.After an official recess was declared, Mr. Clark agreed to the narrower terms on Mr. Biden’s behalf.But Judge Noreika still appeared to be unconvinced. She turned her attention to the fine print of the deal that had been struck on the gun offense, requiring Mr. Biden to avoid using drugs or owning a firearms during the two-year diversion program.She objected strenuously to how a violation of its terms would be handled.Typically, the Justice Department could independently verify any breach and bring charges. But Mr. Biden’s team, concerned that the department might abuse that authority if Mr. Trump is re-elected, successfully pushed to give that power to Judge Noreika, arguing that she would be a more neutral arbiter.Judge Noreika suggested that such an arrangement could be unconstitutional because it might give her prosecutorial powers, which were vested in the executive branch by the Constitution.“I’m not doing something that gets me outside my lane of my branch of government,” said the judge, adding, “Go back and work on that.”Erica L. Green More