Jonathan Turley Hunter Biden plea deal collapse has a lot of implications
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00:00 Jonathan, welcome back.
00:01 - Yeah, thank you.
00:03 - Jump on in here.
00:04 Good to have you.
00:06 We're talking about the reaction
00:07 that's pouring into this Hunter Biden.
00:09 Like, what should we believe happens next,
00:13 now after this dramatic turn of events
00:16 at that federal courthouse today?
00:17 - Well, this has really hit Washington like a thunderclap.
00:22 You know, this was supposed to be a done deal,
00:25 but the problem is that nobody consulted
00:27 with the court until today.
00:29 And the obligation of the court
00:31 is that the defendant and the government
00:33 have to be crystal clear on the meaning
00:36 of this plea agreement for the court to sign off on it.
00:39 They were not.
00:41 And so you had the Biden team saying
00:43 that this was a closeout plea deal,
00:45 that this was the end of it.
00:46 And quite frankly, if I was drafting it,
00:49 it would have been a closeout.
00:50 I would never have signed off on an agreement
00:52 that was not a closeout of all charges.
00:55 And so this all came to the forefront with the court.
00:58 It's amazing how fast it collapsed,
01:00 that with just the slightest inquiry,
01:03 all of these conflicts came to the forefront.
01:06 It's also important that the Department of Justice
01:08 has to say this is an ongoing investigation
01:11 because they've been denying information to Congress.
01:13 And so you can't get by with just a wink and a nod
01:17 when a federal judge has to have this confirmation.
01:20 And this has really hit Capitol Hill.
01:22 I mean, I've been speaking with members all day
01:25 about the implications of this collapse,
01:28 and it has a lot of implications
01:31 for not just the investigations of the existing committees
01:35 but the possibility of an impeachment inquiry.
01:38 -So you're there on Capitol Hill right now.
01:41 I don't know if that's the Russell Building
01:43 or the Cannon Building. -It's the House.
01:45 -Yeah, so it's the Cannon Building.
01:47 But we did hear from Senator Chuck Schumer a short time ago.
01:51 A correspondent asked him about the political implications
01:54 of all of this. Listen here.
01:56 -I did.
01:58 Are you at all worried that Hunter Biden
02:00 and the controversies and the cases around Hunter Biden
02:02 are gonna be a liability for President Biden
02:04 in his reelection in 2024?
02:06 -The bottom line is this is a prosecution
02:09 being done in a fair way by a former Trump prosecutor,
02:12 and I have faith in the results.
02:14 -He has faith in the results.
02:16 Well, we thought the results were gonna be
02:17 completely different.
02:18 Let me ask you this question, Jonathan.
02:20 You said that if you were crafting that plea deal,
02:23 it would have been a closeout plea deal,
02:25 would have given him immunity from any future prosecution.
02:28 But how could the DOJ, in good faith,
02:31 with everything else that's swirling,
02:33 including this potential FARA charge
02:36 that the U.S.
02:37 Attorney's Office was talking about in court today,
02:41 and then everything else that we've heard
02:42 in the House committees, in this FD 1023,
02:45 how could the DOJ, in good faith,
02:48 craft a closeout plea deal?
02:51 -Well, I don't think they can.
02:52 You're assuming that this is based on good faith.
02:55 And, you know, this deal was, in my view, almost laughable.
03:01 You know, you had the whistleblowers tell Congress
03:04 just a week ago that there was an opportunity
03:08 for the Department of Justice
03:09 to extend the statute of limitations
03:11 on the 2014-2015 tax matters.
03:16 That's the Burisma issue.
03:17 Those are the Ukraine questions.
03:20 And according to the whistleblowers,
03:22 the Department of Justice had that opportunity
03:24 and let them expire.
03:26 Well, why?
03:27 Why would any prosecutor allow them to expire
03:30 if he didn't have to?
03:31 And we're gonna be seeing those questions raised more and more.
03:35 Now, what this means for Hunter Biden
03:38 is that he went from a sweetheart deal
03:41 to a real poison pill.
03:43 I mean, this is gonna expose him across the board.
03:47 You know, those counts that ran out in 2014, 2015
03:52 can't, you know, be revived.
03:55 There's not a way to make this catwalk backwards.
03:58 But there's a lot of other things on the table.
04:01 And Farah is the most immediate.
04:03 As you recall, John, when this plea bargain came down,
04:07 the first reaction that some of us had was, "Where's Farah?"
04:11 I mean, Hunter Biden's role as a foreign agent
04:15 is all over these e-mails.
04:18 I don't even understand why there's an ongoing investigation.
04:21 With Paul Manafort, they had him at "Hello."
04:24 You know, when he came in, they said,
04:25 "Here's your Farah charge."
04:27 With Hunter Biden, the Department of Justice
04:29 is still noodling on this,
04:31 which leaves a lot of us confused.
04:34 But now you're gonna have some rather interesting times ahead.
04:38 He doesn't have protection on the tax issues.
04:42 He just pled not guilty.
04:44 And Congress is moving ahead
04:47 with a potential impeachment inquiry.
04:49 And this is a brand-new situation,
04:51 and it's not nearly as predictable
04:53 as the White House had hoped.
04:55 -That is for sure.
04:56 Jonathan Turley, thank you so much for joining us on all of that.
05:00 Live from Capitol Hill.