The Department of Justice denied a claim by Hunter Biden's legal team that their previously arranged plea deal was still in play.
"The Government did not 'renege' on the 'previously agreed-upon Plea Agreement' as the Defendant inaccurately asserts in the first substantive sentence of his response," read a Tuesday filing by special counsel David Weiss, who was appointed to the position by Attorney General Merrick Garland last week. "The Defendant chose to plead not guilty at the hearing on July 26, 2023, and U.S. Probation declined to approve the proposed diversion agreement at that hearing. Thus, neither proposed agreement entered into effect."
Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to tax crime charges last month after a federal judge rejected a plea deal that would have seen him avoid prison time. He is accused of failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars from overseas dealings.
Had the deal gone through, Hunter Biden would have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes and received immunity on a broad range of criminal charges, but federal judge Maryellen Noreika took issue with the broad immunity the first son would have won through the deal. She told prosecutors and Biden's legal team last month to craft a new one. She said the original deal was "not standard" and "different from what I normally see."
The first son's lawyers said in their own filing on Sunday that the DOJ opted to "renege on the previously agreed-upon plea agreement" and that the prosecutors should be held to the deal.
The lawyers said a portion of the agreement that Biden would enter a diversion program for gun offenders should stand. Prosecutors had originally agreed Biden would not receive a gun possession charge if he stayed away from drugs and agreed to never purchase a gun again.
The government's filing clarified that neither portion of the plea agreement was agreed to.
"The two proposed agreements were drafts that either party could propose changes to," the filing said. "And both parties did so following the hearing."