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    Judge Rejects Hunter Biden Claim of Selective Prosecution in Gun Case

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    Judge Maryellen Noreika declined to dismiss the charges against the president’s son, saying Mr. Biden’s lawyer failed to show prosecutors had been motivated by animus.The federal judge presiding over Hunter Biden’s gun case in Delaware on Friday rejected Mr. Biden’s claim that he was being subjected to selective prosecution, saying it was “nonsensical” that the Biden Justice Department would target the president’s son.Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, has filed a flurry of motions in the Delaware gun case and a separate indictment in California on tax charges, accusing the government of unfairly singling out his client at the instigation of Republicans and seeking to dismiss the charges. None of those challenges have been successful so far.Judge Maryellen Noreika, who scuttled a plea deal reached between prosecutors and Mr. Biden last summer, said that Mr. Lowell failed to provide evidence that prosecutors had been motivated by animus against Hunter Biden.The “defendant’s claim is effectively that his own father targeted him for being his son, a claim that is nonsensical under the facts here,” Judge Noreika wrote in her 25-page decision.The judge also rejected Mr. Lowell’s claim that David C. Weiss, the special counsel and U.S. attorney in Delaware, had only decided to bring charges against Hunter Biden because of pressure from Republicans in Congress who claimed attempts to reach a plea agreement last year were a “sweetheart deal” intended to protect the Bidens.“Regardless of whether congressional Republicans attempted to influence the executive branch, there is no evidence that they were successful in doing so,” she wrote.A federal grand jury in Wilmington indicted Hunter Biden in September on charges that he lied about his drug use on an application for a Colt pistol in 2018.In response to a question on the form about whether he was using drugs, Mr. Biden said he was not, an assertion that prosecutors concluded was false. Mr. Biden has publicly acknowledged his struggles with addiction to crack cocaine and alcohol and had been in and out of rehab around the time of the gun purchase.If convicted, Mr. Biden could face up to 25 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. But nonviolent first-time offenders who have not been accused of using the weapon in another crime rarely get serious prison time for the charges.The decision to file criminal charges against President Biden’s troubled son was an extraordinary step for the Justice Department and Mr. Weiss after the last-minute collapse of a deal that would have granted Hunter Biden broad immunity from future prosecution on gun and tax charges without serving prison time.In December, a separate federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged the president’s son with a scheme to evade federal taxes on millions in income from foreign businesses.Hunter Biden faces three counts each of evasion of a tax assessment, failure to file and pay taxes, and filing a false or fraudulent tax return, according to the 56-page indictment.Both trials are scheduled to begin in June, although the schedules are subject to change. 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

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      In Delaware, Biden Indulges One of His Oldest Habits: Commuting

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      Still adjusting to the White House, the president sees Delaware as a place where he can be on display but still have his privacy protected.REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — Everyone here has a Biden story.Joe Mack, who owns the Double Dippers ice cream parlor, says President Biden likes to recite old Irish sayings when he comes in to grab a quart of chocolate chip. Susan Kehoe, the owner of Browseabout Books, says Mr. Biden and his dog Champ draw crowds of onlookers when they relax on one of the benches outside the store.Kathleen McGuiness, the Delaware state auditor, has a photograph on her phone of her standing next to an aviators-wearing Mr. Biden near Rehoboth Avenue, the town’s main drag.“They fit into the fabric,” Ms. McGuiness said of the president and his brood, who summered here for years before Mr. Biden bought a $2.7 million beach home in 2017 in the North Shores, a tony neighborhood one mile north of town.Before the 2020 election, the Bidens were often a fixture downtown, the former vice president often tangling up people in conversations that sometimes had no end in sight.“He wandered freely,” Mr. Mack said.As president, Mr. Biden has made it clear with public comments — he has compared life in the White House to living in a “gilded cage” — and the frequency of his travel that he is still most comfortable in Delaware, a place where he can be on display and protected all at once.The Bidens own a large home in a suburb of Wilmington, but Rehoboth, a laid-back beach town that sells French fries by the bucket and Biden-theme merchandise — including orange Gatorade-scented candles, crafted in homage to the president’s preferred drink — is one of his favorite havens. In the middle of tense negotiations with Republicans over an infrastructure package, mushrooming ransomware attacks against American companies, and plans for a coming trip to the Group of 7 summit in Europe, Mr. Biden departed for the beach to celebrate the 70th birthday of Jill Biden, the first lady.Mr. Biden’s inclination to go home to Delaware is longstanding: During his 36 years in the Senate, Mr. Biden made it a point to travel back to Wilmington to spend most evenings with his sons, a habit that began after his first wife, Neilia Biden, and young daughter, Naomi Biden, were killed in a car accident.At least for now, the Bidens have another reason: They do not yet fully trust the residence staff and security officials they did not directly hire, according to two people familiar with their thinking. (Many of the household employees are holdovers from the previous administration, which is common for new presidents.) The Bidens still have not installed a White House chief usher, who manages the residence. The Trumps’ chief usher, who was a former rooms manager of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, was fired on Inauguration Day.Eric Johnson, a native of Rehoboth, with a cutout likeness of Mr. Biden. The town is one of the president’s favorite havens.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesFor the Bidens, the White House has taken some adjustment. Delaware, on the other hand, takes almost none. Their home in Rehoboth was purchased after the president promised his wife that he would buy her a beach house with proceeds from a multimillion-dollar book deal signed after he left the vice presidency. (A plaque above the front door reads “A Promise Kept.”)“I wanted it to be the kind of place where you can come in in your wet bathing suit and bare feet and I can just take the broom and brush out the sand,” Dr. Biden told Vogue in 2020. “And that’s what this is. Everything’s easy.”On Thursday, a bike ride the couple took at the state park near their home stretched much longer than expected because the president kept stopping to talk to people, according to a person familiar with their activities. The first couple kept a low profile, though the townspeople were comparing notes about where the first couple might turn up.At DiFebo’s, an Italian restaurant that is a favorite of Mr. Biden’s, patrons hoped the president would drop in for his favorite dish, chicken Parmesan with red sauce. (The first lady usually orders the salmon.) At the Ice Cream Store, a parlor near the boardwalk, tubs of Biden’s Summer White House Cherry sat waiting for consumption.Not this visit. On a wooded lane in the neighborhood where Mr. Biden lives, law enforcement officials in black S.U.V.s restricted the flow of traffic. A Coast Guard ship in the ocean and the sight of burly Secret Service agents in summer wear were the only giveaways that the president was even in town.When Mr. Biden and Dr. Biden returned to the capital, it was a rare reversal of a typical week for them. Aside from the trip this week to Rehoboth — his first as president — Mr. Biden has spent nine weekends at his home in Wilmington, and five at Camp David, the Maryland presidential retreat, according to a review of his schedule. Mr. Biden has swapped the train for Air Force One, sometimes leaving Washington on short notice for even shorter trips: Last week, he flew back to Wilmington for the afternoon to attend the funeral of a longtime aide.Mr. Biden arrived in Rehoboth Beach via helicopter this week. He bought a home in Rehoboth after he promised Ms. Biden that he would purchase a beach house with proceeds from a multimillion-dollar book deal signed after he left the vice presidency.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesNaturally, the fact that Mr. Biden enjoys coming back to Delaware — even in the middle of a presidential workweek — did not seem to surprise residents here.“I think he knows his way around Washington and he’s pretty familiar with what he needs to do and where he needs to be,” Ms. McGuiness, who has known the Bidens for years — her sister used to babysit for the family — said in an interview. “Making a quick travel to the Wilmington home or Rehoboth home makes sense for someone who puts family as a priority.”Mr. Biden’s trip this week to Rehoboth was his first as president, and he has spent nine weekends at his home in Wilmington, and five at Camp David, according to a review of his schedule. Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe first lady often spends less time in Washington during the week than Mr. Biden does. Before his travel weekends, Dr. Biden sometimes heads separately to one of the family homes in Delaware, or meets up with extended family at Camp David. She has also traveled alone to Rehoboth. Ms. Kehoe, the owner of Browseabout Books, said the Bidens were generally treated as part of the scenery.“We try to treat them as if they were any other customer,” Ms. Kehoe said. “Which is a good thing for us.”Convention suggests that presidents should stay close to Washington and be judicious with taxpayer-funded travel, but that concept was tested to its limit with President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump spent over 417 days at one of his properties, a travel habit that blurred the line between his family business and presidential duties. Mr. Trump enjoyed the perks of being president, including the staff, the ceremonies, the planes and the presidential limo. Many of those perks are long familiar to Mr. Biden — he had a similar apparatus around him for eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president — but he has said the trappings that come with the presidency have made him uncomfortable.“I don’t know about you all, but I was raised in the way that you didn’t look for anybody to wait on you,” Mr. Biden said of life in the White House during a town-hall-style interview with CNN in February. “I find myself extremely self-conscious.”A Secret Service agent and a Delaware State Police officer on the beach. During his 36 years in the Senate, Mr. Biden made it a point to travel back to Wilmington to spend most evenings with his sons.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times More