The plea agreement that blew up last week during Hunter Biden’s court appearance was made public Wednesday, revealing new information about the tax and gun charges involving the president’s son.
The documents, which U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika made public at the request of NBC News, provide detailed accounts of the cases surrounding the criminal charges, with fact sets that were agreed to by Biden’s lawyers and federal prosecutors in Delaware.
The plea deal called for Biden to plead guilty to two counts of failing to pay his taxes in return for prosecutors recommending a sentence of probation. A separate gun charge for illegally owning a Colt Cobra .38 Special handgun would have been dropped in two years if Biden honored the terms of what’s known as a diversion agreement.
The deal wound up being scrapped — at least temporarily — because of questions the judge raised last week in court about the proposed agreements.
“These agreements are not straightforward and they contain some atypical provisions,” Noreika said, including one that could theoretically protect Biden from other tax-related crimes.
Representatives for the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office and Biden did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Attachments to the plea agreement and the diversion agreement blamed Biden’s conduct in both cases on his drug and alcohol addiction.
“Following the death of his brother in 2015, Biden relapsed and over time progressed from alcohol to abusing illegal drugs, including crack cocaine in 2016,” the joint filing says. “Nonetheless, in 2017, despite his addiction, Biden successfully entered into business ventures and landed legal clients, earning millions of dollars.”
His substance abuse issues were even worse the following year, and included a period in Los Angeles that Biden described as a “spring and summer of nonstop debauchery,” the document says. Despite the large s
