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Breaking News that Hunter Biden Agrees to Plea Deal. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired June 20, 2023 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:30:00]

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: There might be some movement on unsealing these charges. And, of course, that did not happen.

So, now we finally have some conclusion, at least for this part of this investigation. The criminal part of this investigation by the Justice Department that Hunter Biden is going to plead to these two tax charges and, of course, you know, as far as the gun charge, if he completes all the diversion -- all of the things that he's supposed to do, that goes away.

But, as you guys know, this is probably only the beginning for House Republicans who are now going to want to see everything that the Justice Department did. One of the - one of the complaints they have that they're looking at is whether the FBI thoroughly looked into all of those financial dealings. The things I just described. The Burisma dealings. The Chinese energy company, CEFC. There's so many things that they believe the FBI did not do to properly investigate this. Of course, that's going to be now the subject of months of investigation by House Republicans.

Guys.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: That's a good point, Evan Perez, the end of the federal investigation -

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

BERMAN: But not certainly congressional interest in this from Republican-led committees in the House.

With us now CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

Elie, this is a plea deal reached with David Weiss, the U.S. attorney appointed by Donald Trump who stayed on to continue this investigation. I think the big question everyone wants to know, is this deal that Hunter Biden reached, is this the type of deal that would happen for Joe Smith or Joe Schmoe?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, it's hard to know that, John, because we don't know the universe of information that DOJ had. We don't know if perhaps they had much more and then they narrowed it down to this, which sometimes you do when you're negotiating a plea deal.

Important to know about David Weiss. He is a longtime career prosecutor at DOJ under administrations of both political parties. He was a fairly senior prosecutor throughout the eight years of the Obama administration. He was nominated to become U.S. attorney by Donald Trump. But it's important to note, he had the support of both of Delaware's Democratic senators at the time.

And when Joe Biden took office in 2021, usually the president gets rid of all the U.S. attorneys. They usually resign in anticipation of that. Biden kept on three U.S. attorneys. One of them being John Durham. One of them being someone in Chicago. And David Weiss was the third. Presumably because Biden knew that David Weiss had this case involves his son and did not want the appearance of getting rid of this individual.

So, he's a longtime career prosecutor. Biden intentionally kept him in place. And here's the outcome.

BOLDUAN: Yes, stick with us for one second.

HONIG: Yes.

BOLDUAN: There's some new reporting coming in.

Let's get over to Paula Reid. She's got some new reporting for us.

Paula, on the back and forth between Hunter Biden's attorneys and the Justice Department, what are you picking up?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've been following this very closely over the past year or so, Evan and our team reported last summer that prosecutor has narrowed down the list of potential charges, looking specifically at potential tax crimes and then a possible gun charge. And CNN reported just a few months ago that Hunter Biden's lawyers met with Justice Department officials in April. Among those officials, of course, the U.S. attorney who's been overseeing -- the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who's been overseeing this case to make their arguments for why Hunter Biden should not be charged. We've learned that they made a presentation. And during that presentation they made several different arguments about why Hunter Biden should not be charged, including pointing out that he had already paid back these taxes, including the fees and penalties.

They also argued that this gun charge was not strongly supported by the evidence and that recent Supreme Court decisions last spring was going to make it difficult for their case to hold up in court.

Now, of course, they did not get their wish. Their client, of course, is facing multiple charges here. But in recent weeks negotiations have really ramped up. They've been back and forth between the Justice Department and defense attorneys trying to hammer out a plea deal. And we're told that they had a deal in place. Then it fell through. Then it was back in place. And now they finally came to this agreement to resolve this years' long investigation. Again, this is something that's been going on for about five years

now. And the fact that it has finally come to a resolution is certainly a relief we're told to Hunter Biden, to his lawyers. And they tell me that they are -- overall they are pleased with this deal.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it is -- Paula, stick with us. Keep working your sources. It is striking, as Evan was pointing out, this was - this was initiated under Jeff Sessions, which just shows like how long ago - how long this really has spanned through the Trump administration, through the first second -- however many attorneys general that --

BERMAN: I lost count.

BOLDUAN: That Donald Trump had.

BERMAN: How will you assess this deal, Elie? How will we know whether this was a good deal for Hunter Biden -

HONIG: Yes.

BERMAN: You know, a stiff deal? How will you look at it?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

HONIG: It's a great question. I think the -- part - and perhaps through the congressional investigation because we sort of know the -- we need to know the numerator and the denominator.

[09:35:03]

In other words, what was the universe of evidence they had and then what came out of this as a charge. And were there other things that were chargeable?

BOLDUAN: Do you even get that in a plea agreement? Do you get -

HONIG: So, no.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Yes.

HONIG: Ordinarily we wouldn't in the public. The only what that that will come out is through congressional inquiry.

BOLDUAN: OK.

HONIG: The bottom line charges here, I think it's worth running through them. First of all, according to the documents we have, Hunter Biden is going to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax offenses. Meaning -- usually that means two different years where he had some income that he did not declare. Those are misdemeanors. There's virtually no chance that a first-time offender would be sentenced to prison based on misdemeanors.

BERMAN: Typically it would be what, probation or fines?

HONIG: Typically it would be probation. Probation and fines, exactly, for misdemeanors, especially tax-type misdemeanors.

The firearm charge, it's important to understand what this is. There is a federal law that makes it illegal for an addict, a person who's addicted to drugs or alcohol, to possess a firearm. This is a strange and somewhat obscure, a rarely used, not never, but rarely used firearms. I used to do firearms cases all the time, but the vast majority of federal firearms cases are either a firearm used in another crime of violence or a firearm possessed by somebody who has a prior felony.

This is sort of low down on the list of firearm offenses. And so the question here, well, he's - he's apparently -- it's not entirely clear to me whether he's going to plead guilty to that firearms offense because this letter from DOJ specifies that he will plead guilty to the tax misdemeanors. It does not say he will bleed guilty to the firearm offenses. It says he's going into a pretrial diversion agreement.

BOLDUAN: So, Elie, hold on one second for that.

Let me -- let's get over to Evan Perez to - for -- he has a little bit more information about that.

The exact wording, Evan, in this letter, is the defendant has agreed to enter pretrial diversion agreement with respect to the firearm information.

What are you learning?

PEREZ: Yes, look. So this is a -- one of the things - we certainly -- it's a little confusing, the language. He has agreed that he's going to enter this program. One of them - on that has to do with his substance abuse issues, which Hunter Biden has been very, very public about. He wrote a book. And, ironically, that's the book, the book where he talked about his substance abuse issues, very, very candid things that he said about what he was doing at the time is what really compounded his problems in this federal investigation because it was from that, from his own words, that prosecutors and investigators learned that at the time that he had owned or he had purchased a gun he was addicted to drug, which is a violation of federal firearms law. One of the things you do when you buy a gun is you fill out this form that goes to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and you swear that -- one of the things that you swear to is that you are not addicted to drugs. And, of course, what Hunter Biden did when he wrote that book, he admitted, and he said it in interviews, he said that he was addicted.

And so one of the things that happened was, they became very, very focused on that particular charge because it is something that the Biden administration has been pushing, certainly to go after people who lie in order to buy firearms. So, what this program will do is, you know, Hunter Biden will get some treatment for his drug issues. And if he completes this to the satisfaction of a judge, this charge, as if it never happened. This charge goes away.

So, Elie's right, it is a plea, two tax charges, and if Hunter Biden agrees, you know, again, if a judge approves all of this and if a judge is satisfied that he has complied with all of the terms, then this charge just disappears. And so that's part of the -- certainly the probationary period here that Hunter Biden will have to live through for the next couple of years. It is a fascinating thing, though, certainly for Hunter Biden and the candidness of him talking about his substance abuse problems is what ended up causing some issues for him in this case, guys.

BERMAN: Real quick -- Evan, thanks so much. Keep working your sources.

Elie, on what Evan was just saying about, needs to be approved by a judge. Any chance that a judge would not approve this plea deal?

HONIG: Very rare for a judge to reject a plea deal that's been arrived at between DOJ and a defendant unless the judge sees something manifestly unfair or improper. So, I would expect the judge to approve this.

And Evan said, on the firearms charge - so this is what's called a pretrial diversion agreement, which is fairly new, by the way, to the federal courts. A lot of states have diversion programs where if you are an addict, if you have mental health issues and the crime is fairly minor, there are certain crimes you just - you can't get diversion on.

BOLDUAN: Right.

HONIG: But you go and get treatment, or you stay clean, or you get whatever sort of counseling you need, then however much time, and that should be specified here, six months, a year, you can go back to the court and essentially wipe this off the books. It's actually up to each U.S. attorney's office, federally, whether they want to have this kind of program. We didn't have it back when I was here in Manhattan, but apparently Delaware does have it.

[09:40:02]

And this is sort of a trend that we're seeing more in prosecution.

BERMAN: All right, so this now moves from the legal world squarely into the political world where it's already been for some time but it's supercharged.

BOLDUAN: Yes, but now - yes.

BERMAN: Let's bring in Abby Phillip to join this discussion.

Abby, how do you see this being received?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, I think Republicans are probably going to be disappointed. This has been, as Evan noted, just such a long running investigation dating back to the Trump administration. But I do think it is telling that so far, it has resulted in what would -- could only be described as relatively minor criminal charges and a plea deal and not on the substance of the - the things that Republicans have been harping on as it relates to Hunter Biden and President Biden for quite some time. That's going to be a major disappointment for Republicans who see this as -- Hunter Biden as one source of, you know, major -- what they say is corruption when it comes to President Biden.

This really doesn't substantiate that. And I think the Biden administration, they've been waiting for this to come to a conclusion. President Biden himself has really ignored so much of this. Really keeping his son Hunter close, in spite of all of the criticism and in spite of all of the attacks. He's taken Hunter Biden on foreign trips.

And what you hear from the president himself is that, this is my son. He's had a troubled past. He is still my son. And I'm going to keep him close. And I think that this resolution on the legal front is only going to really allow President Biden to kind of double down on that strategy, even as Republicans now shift to Capitol Hill to see what else they can -- they can dig up here.

So far really they have not been able to substantiate anything concrete. Just a lot of allegations flying back and forth so far.

BERMAN: We should note, President Biden is on the West Coast right now, I believe.

PHILLIP: Yes, he is.

BERMAN: It will be some time I think today before we even have an opportunity to hear from him. It will be fascinating to get his reaction because, as Abby was saying, lately his - well, he's avoid direct interaction on the subject. He's been saying things like, I don't think he did anything wrong. I love my son. We'll now have to wait and see when the president is asked directly about his son admitting to breaking the law.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And what - and what he thinks. His reaction to this will be very interesting and telling.

Abby, stick with us, if you will.

I also want to bring in Dana Bash for more on this.

Dana, kind of big picture, what do you see as the overall impact of the criminal investigation that has been going on now for five years and also the congressional investigations that are ongoing now with the -- in the Republican House of just kind of -- on the kind of political -- just on the political front for President Biden in the sense that why does this seem such a potent issue for Republicans?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, why does it seem like such a potent issue for Republicans, because they have made it so. They have been focused like a laser on Hunter Biden and the laptop, which is not part of this, and all the accusations that they have made vis-a-vis Ukraine and the - and the - when -- now president/then vice president and Hunter Biden. Again, I think it's important to underscore, none of that is in this plea deal. It doesn't mean that it's not going to be part of the congressional investigations. As we've heard from our colleagues, and we just know from our own reporting, and having eyes and ears and being journalists, it is not going away with a Republican led House of Representatives.

Having said all of that, I do think it is important to take a step back just for a second and note that we do have the son of a sitting president pleading guilty to federal charges. They seem to be, in the grand scheme of things, relatively minor charges. And it does - and I'm sure we will see and hear from Hunter Biden. When we do, he will talk about the fact that this is -- was caught up in his addiction. And that is part of why -- maybe he's going to say that is the reason why he decided to plead guilty to this.

Nevertheless, it's a historic moment. We have a sitting president whose son is pleading guilty to any federal charges. That is something that is going to go down in the history books.

BERMAN: Yes, I was thinking about that, Dana. I can't think of another time when a presidential child has pled guilty to a crime.

BASH: Yes.

BERMAN: You have plenty of presidential relatives -

BOLDUAN: Yes. Right.

BERMAN: Between Ed Nixon and Billy Carter and Franklin Roosevelt's child who have been involved with scandals before.

BASH: Right.

[09:45:05]

BERMAN: But this is admitting to a crime. So, in and of itself, historic.

Everyone please stick around. We are trying to get reaction from the White House on this historic plea deal. What do they have to say about it? Also the political ramifications.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

BERMAN: And the legal questions I think we still have remaining.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

We'll be right back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, welcome back to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

[09:50:01]

I'm John Berman. Kate Bolduan here also.

We do have breaking news this morning. We learned just moments ago that Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, has agreed to plead guilty to two tax-related charges, misdemeanor charges, and then enter a diversion program for a firearms/drug related charge. If he completes that program, in theory that charge will be dropped. But the child of the president agrees to plead guilty to two crimes. Historic in and of itself, though it may not satisfy some critics of the president and his son who have been looking for perhaps more blood here.

Let's go right to the White House to figure out if there's any reaction from there.

Arlette Saenz standing by outside the White House. What are they saying so far, Arlette?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, so far silence from the White House. They have yet to issue any reaction or response to this news of the federal charges facing President Biden's son Hunter Biden. We know President Biden is out on the West Coast. We'll see him at about the 4:00 hour, which could offer an opportunity for him to comment on this matter. The first lady is here at the White House and will be holding an event a bit later today.

But this all comes as we've seen President Biden and his family really offer this unwavering support for Hunter Biden, even as he's faced these legal issues and this investigation from the Justice Department. The president has repeatedly said that he supports his son, saying in a recent interview that he does not believe he has done anything wrong.

And he has intentionally kept his son incredibly close. He's been a frequent presence at family events here at the White House, and other events as well. He -- his daughter, Naomi Biden's wedding took place here on the South Lawn of the White House. We believe that the last time that the two of them were seen publicly together was back in May when they attended a graduation up at the University of Pennsylvania.

But over the years, the -- Hunter Biden has really acted as a sounding board for his father. And some Democrats privately have expressed concerns about having him so closely involved with the president. But ultimately, when it comes to President Biden and the first lady, it is family ties that come first and they have repeatedly issued and announced their support and commitment to their son.

Now, the White House has been very careful. They've refrained from commenting on these investigations from the Justice Department. But officials here at the White House and the president's personal attorney have kept close tabs on the case as well.

And, of course, the family has been navigating having their son Hunter in the spotlight as a target for Republicans and former President Donald Trump dating back until the 2020 campaign. So we are waiting to see whether there will be any further reaction from the White House today as Hunter Biden is facing these federal charges.

BERMAN: All right, Arlette, keep us posted. Anything you hear, please let us know. BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

Elie -- let me bring - Elie Honig's back here with us.

Part of -- as we were looking at the two - the two charges that he has plead guilty to relating to the tax misdemeanors, he did pay back taxes related to this. Does that play into the plea deal or - does that play into this? How does it play into it?

HONIG: So, legally, that doesn't get you out of it. Imagine if you can just repay your taxes and say, no problem, you can't charge me. It doesn't get you out of a charge. However, when prosecutors are making a decision, how do we charge, what do we charge with, what level of charging, you absolutely would look at something like that in terms of, is this person compliant? Has this person acknowledged what they did wrong? And imagine the difference between, well, it's been paid back, versus if his position was, no, I don't owe you anything, I'm not paying you anything, I don't see a misdemeanor deal in that case.

BOLDUAN: Right.

HONIG: So, I think that was an important move by Hunter Biden. And if you have the money and can repay it, it's probably good advice to do that.

BOLDUAN: Yes, that's a good point.

BERMAN: Again, Elie, we are -- we are watching this very carefully. We say this concludes the federal investigation part. Does - I mean, basically case closed here?

HONIG: In all likelihood, yes. You wouldn't make a deal like this at DOJ if you had some other shoe to drop.

BOLDUAN: You had something else.

HONIG: That would be bad faith.

BERMAN: All right. And we also mentioned that congressional Republicans, who were involved with committees that are investigating Hunter Biden, or trying to, will try to look at this.

HONIG: Yes.

BERMAN: How would they do that? How much access would they have to the federal investigation?

HONIG: That's a great question. So, let's say they subpoena DOJ and say, we want your whole investigative file on Hunter Biden. DOJ, given their history, I think would resist that. I think they would say, we do not turn over information, certainly on pending investigations. Now this one probably is not still pending. But you can imagine the dangerous precedent that would set if Congress could go back into a closed case and say, we want everything for the person being investigated, for DOJ itself. So, we could end up in a little bit of a standoff here if Congress says, DOJ, give us your entire Hunter Biden investigative file. We want all the FBI - what we call 302s, all the FBI reports, all your memos, all your evidence.

If I had to guess, I would guess DOJ will resist that to some extent and say, we will testify about what we can that won't risk jeopardizing either an investigation or unduly harming the interests of whoever it is under investigation.

[09:55:03]

So, that could be the next sort of landscape for a battle here between Congress and DOJ.

BOLDUAN: All right. We've got much more coming in on this, on this breaking news about Hunter Biden striking a plea deal with the Justice Department. We'll be back right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: All right, welcome back, everyone. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL,

And we do continue following the breaking news this morning. Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's son, will plead guilty to two federal charges, two tax misdemeanors.

[10:00:00]

He also struck a deal with federal prosecutors regarding a gun charge, an agreement that he has - that has now been struck with the Justice Department.