President Joe Biden "plunged into sadness and frustration" because of the breakdown of a plea deal between his son, Hunter Biden, and the Justice Department, the New York Times reported Sunday.
More than a dozen people close to the Biden family told the Times that, following the deal's collapse, conversations between father and son are "tinged with a resignation that was not there before."
The sweetheart plea deal broke down after the Justice Department and Hunter Biden's lawyers could not agree on its terms. The judge in the case then refused to accept a revised plea deal that would have offered Biden broad legal immunity. Special Counsel David Weiss has said that the Biden case may now be headed for a criminal trial.
That possibility left the president "stunned," according to the Times.
The bond between Joe and Hunter Biden is nonetheless "ironclad," the Times reported. Biden family confidants said the president has been "too deferential to his younger son, appearing unwilling to tell him no, despite Hunter's problems and his long trail of bad decisions."
Some of the president's allies have gone so far as to criticize his "apparent inability to say no when Hunter sought to pull him into his business dealings," the Times wrote.
Other Democrats, though, are circling the wagons as more and more news breaks about Joe Biden's connections to Hunter Biden's business dealings.
Even after whistleblowers testified that President Biden's Justice Department sabotaged its investigation into Hunter Biden, House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) scoffed at Republicans' probe into the matter.
Raskin, in a Monday statement, said the probe is an "overwhelming failure" and a "wild goose chase."
Another committee Democrat, far-left California congressman Ro Khanna, compared whistleblower Gary Shapley to the villain in Les Misérables because Shapley wants to follow the law.
Weiss, the special counsel, said this month that the government will seek a grand jury indictment of Hunter Biden before Sept. 29.