President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has potentially serious legal troubles he’s dealing with — and his top lawyer wants nothing more to do with the case after his “sweetheart” plea deal fell apart.
Hunter’s leading defense attorney, Christopher Clark, filed to withdraw from the case Tuesday, saying that he could be called as a witness over the negotiation and drafting of the controversial deal and cannot also act as his lawyer.
“Based on recent developments, it appears that the negotiation and drafting of the plea agreement and diversion agreement will be contested, and Mr. Clark is a percipient witness to those issues,” he said in the filing.
Clark is being replaced by another Hunter Biden attorney, Abbe Lowell. He said in court documents that he wouldn’t fight the prosecution’s move to pull the tax charges.
The resignation comes as the legal showdown over the derailed “sweetheart” plea deal continued in the courtroom Tuesday as prosecutors asserted that an agreement on a gun charge is dead along with the rest of the deal as the case makes a major shift into a special counsel investigation.
Republicans are pursuing their own congressional investigations into nearly every facet of Biden’s business dealings and the Justice Department’s handling of the case.
While the failed agreement was supposed to have wrapped up the long-running investigation of President Joe Biden’s son largely unraveled during a contentious court hearing last month, prosecutors said the two sides had continued to negotiate until the defense rejected their final counterproposal the day before U.S. Attorney David Weiss was named special counsel.
The president’s decision to appoint Weiss as special counsel has also been heavily criticized as politically convenient.
Lawyers for Hunter Biden have argued that prosecutors reneged on an agreement on tax charges but said a separate agreement sparing him prosecution on a gun charge remains valid. The agreement on the gun charge also contains an immunity clause against federal prosecutions for some other potential crimes.
Prosecutors denied reneging on any deal. While the agreement on the gun charge was signed by a prosecutor, probation agents didn’t sign it and so it never became valid, they argued.
The conflict is now in front of U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who is weighing the prosecution’s motion to pull the tax misdemeanor charges they filed and potentially file them in another court like California or Washington.
The agreement had originally called for Biden to plead guilty to failing to pay taxes on over $1.5 million in income in both 2017 and 2018, and get probation rather than jail on the misdemeanor counts. A separate agreement was to spare him prosecution on the felony crime of being a drug user in possession of a gun in 2018 if he kept out of trouble for two years.
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s surprise announcement last week of Weiss as special counsel raised fresh questions about the case ahead of the 2024 election. Hunter Biden’s history of drug use and shady international financial dealings have trailed the political career of his father.
The case comes against the backdrop of the Justice Department’s indictments against former President Donald Trump — Joe Biden’s chief rival in next year’s election.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article