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Trevor Reed Expected to Make Full Recovery; Hunter Biden in Court. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 26, 2023 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:01:53]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN HOST: We are awaiting any new developments to come out of Delaware, where, moments ago, the president's son Hunter Biden told a federal judge that he intends to plead guilty to tax charges. What we're told will happen next

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: All right, new this morning, Rudy Giuliani concedes he made statements about election workers that were not true when he falsely accused them of committing fraud in 2020.

SOLOMON: Plus, terrifying moments in New York -- look at this -- as a crane collapses and then crashes into a building, before falling onto the sidewalk below. Several people were hurt.

I'm Rahel Solomon with John Berman. A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BERMAN: All right, we are getting new information from inside the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, where Hunter Biden and his team, along with federal prosecutors, are before a federal judge working out this plea agreement, where Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor tax charges.

There's also a deal to resolve a felony gun charge.

SOLOMON: Yes.

Now, today's court proceedings are a major step toward the end of the Justice Department's investigation into Hunter Biden's finances. It's part of a probe that began in 2018 that also explored accusations of money laundering and foreign lobbying.

We have a team of reporters covering this.

I want to start with CNN's Sara Murray and Evan Perez. They join us now.

So, Evan, this hearing is still happening. What have we learned so far?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right. This is a hearing that is still ongoing, and the judge is kind of going through all of the facts that the Justice Department says that they found as part of this investigation. I will read you just a part of what we're getting from our team that

is inside the courthouse right now. The Justice Department is saying that they are going to recommend probation. That means no jail time for Hunter Biden. At least, that's the recommendation from the Justice Department as part of this agreement under which Hunter Biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018.

But that's the legal part of this. The political part of this is looming very large inside the courtroom. You could see right now the Justice Department is going through the sources of some of the income that have become such a part of the political part of this story, that Hunter Biden made money from his work overseas in Ukraine and from Chinese companies.

He had the money, according to the Justice Department, to pay his taxes, but just did not. And so now the judge is going through all of the facts as prosecutors will lay them out. One of the things that she asked -- this is Judge Maryellen Noreika. She is a Trump appointee who's overseeing this hearing.

One of the things she asked was whether the Justice Department, whether she could ask them to go back and redo this investigation if there are parts of it that she finds lacking. Both the Justice Department and Hunter Biden's attorneys agreed that she could not do so.

The Justice Department pointed out that the way to handle any such issues would be for the political process to take over, which, of course, we expect is exactly -- is exactly what's going to happen after this hearing is over, guys.

[11:05:09]

BERMAN: Evan, I think one thing we want to make clear here is that we're so used to hearings before judges being adversarial, where the prosecution and the defense are working at cross-purposes here.

That's not the case in this case.You have a prosecution team, and Hunter Biden's defense team that are going in there having reached an agreement with the same goals, correct?

PEREZ: That's right. And I think they're both under attack here, John, because, obviously, Republicans believe that there's much more to this investigation.

They have whistle-blowers who were part of this investigation, the IRS investigators, who certainly we have been documenting here at CNN since a couple years ago that this is an investigation that had a lot of internal disagreements. And so some of that has now spilled out into the public.

And what you see there playing out in court is the prosecution saying, look, we did everything we could to look into this, the Hunter Biden team, obviously, believing that this has been an investigation that has gone five years, and it's high time for this to go away, and, of course, Republicans who are trying to do their best to intervene here, making the point that they have, which is that they're far from over the all the questions that they have are far from answered.

SOLOMON: Yes.

And, Sara, so I want to bring you into the conversation, because, as Evan just touched on, there are the legal implications here. But there are also the political implications here. So bring us up to speed, because, of course, there are some in Congress who would like to weigh in.

I mean, so what more can we expect on this front?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, that's right.

I mean, I think that there's no doubt that House Republicans are not going to be dropping this anytime soon. They still have a lot of questions about Hunter Biden's financial dealings. They have questions about whether Joe Biden was involved in any of those. They have made a lot of allegations about that, but haven't actually been able to prove that Joe Biden at all benefited from what Hunter was involved in.

So these questions are going to continue. We have already seen David Weiss, the U.S. attorney overseeing the Biden probe tell the Hill that he is willing to come testify before House Judiciary coming up in September, in October.

So there are going to be questions again about what the scope of this investigation was. And there are also going to be questions about the claims from these IRS whistle-blowers that there was some kind of political interference or preferential treatment of Hunter Biden.

Weiss has already knocked down some of those claims in his letters to the Hill. But it's very clear that Republicans have more questions about this. And House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has made some of his most pointed comments to date suggesting they may pursue a potential impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden related to these financial questions.

Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): The more this continues to unravel, it rises to the level of an impeachment inquiry. What that simply provides is that the American public has a right to know.

And this allows Congress to get the information to be able to know the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MURRAY: And, again, House Republicans still have not been able to prove at this point that Joe Biden benefited at all from Hunter Biden's business dealings, his overseas business dealings.

Joe Biden has insisted he played no role in that. But it's pretty clear that House Republicans are arming impeachment as a potential process to try to get more information about this, guys.

SOLOMON: It's certainly not over on that front.

Sara Murray, Evan Perez, if you might just stick around, because, as we said, the hearing is still currently happening. We have a lot more to discuss in just a moment.

BERMAN: Yes, we keep getting new dribs and drabs from inside the courtroom. We will bring you to the minute they happen.

In the meantime, our senior legal analyst Elie Honig is here with us now.

And, Elie, we have heard the conversation that's been going on as part of what would normally be a routine plea agreement to tax charges here. I mean, there's nothing routine when you're talking about the child of the president of the United States. But the judge basically asked prosecutors and the defense, could she ask them to redo the probe if she thought the investigation was lacking?

Both sides agreed no. How unusual of a question is that from a judge on the bench at a plea hearing?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: That is not a routine question. Virtually everything else we have talked about is. That is not a routine question at all. In fact, I think that question is solely confined to this case. There would be no reason to ask it in another case.

What I think is happening here is, the judge is trying to make a record. The judge is just trying to say, let's just make sure that we get this straight. Both sides, Justice Department and the defendant, Hunter Biden, we all agree, I, as a judge, do not have the legal authority to say, DOJ, I think you need to look farther. I think you need to look in a different place.

That is 100 percent beyond the authority that any judge would have. And I think the judge is making a record and perhaps making a statement to the broader world that, Congress, if you want to dig into this, that's not my business, but my job here is just to decide whether or not to accept this plea.

SOLOMON: Elie, one thing we have also learned within the just last hour or so, some of the conditions of release, Hunter Biden having to abstain from alcohol, from drug use, what do you make of those conditions?

[11:10:04]

HONIG: Absolutely standard when someone's on probation or supervised release in the federal system.

You have to abide by any number of non-incarceratory conditions. You don't get locked up, but refrain from alcohol or drug abuse is absolutely common, random drug testing, very common as well. Sometimes, you have a curfew. Sometimes, you have to check in. Sometimes, you just have to appoint -- make an appointment with your pretrial officer, all that absolutely standard.

BERMAN: Well, random drug testing. What happens if you were to test positive?

HONIG: Well, so interesting, because this does happen. Sometimes, people do fail their drug tests, primarily for marijuana.

Then the prosecutor has to make a decision. Do we ask the judge to remand this person, to send them into prison? People do get locked up for violating random drug tests, but not always.The prosecutor can use his or her discretion. And then the judge ultimately has a decision about that.

SOLOMON: John made an interesting point that both sides in this case seem to be on the same page, right, which was a great point.

HONIG: Yes.

SOLOMON: Sort of just walked me through -- there has been a lot said about whether the charges that were ultimately brought about were reasonable. And you say?

HONIG: Right. As far as we can tell, they're reasonable.

But the question is, what's the broader universe? But just on the face of what we call an information in this case, it's an indictment that both sides agree to, no reason to think this is out of the ordinary.

BERMAN: All right, we're getting a new tidbit from inside the courtroom here. And this also feels unusual to me.

Let me see if you agree with that. They are now in recess after, apparently, the judge has asked for more details on the plea deal. The judge is asking the parties to explain how the deals on the tax crime and the gun charges fit together. And the teams are discussing among themselves how they want to answer that.

Elie, stand by.

Our Kara Scannell, who was inside the courtroom to hear what this is all about, is with us now.

So, Kara, what exactly is going on now?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, John.

So we have gone through a lot of the process in this case and the judge asking a lot of questions. But she's really now homing in on these plea agreements. Remember, there are two separate cases here. One is the tax case. Those are the misdemeanor charges. So they have run through the specifics of that agreement.

He also has the gun charge, right? That's the felony charge. That's a serious charge. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. They are two separate agreements. And the judge is focusing in and pointing and saying the Hunter Biden, so do you understand that the four corners of this tax plea agreement does not include specifically this gun diversion, which would allow him to not avoid -- to allow him to avoid prison time?

And she's saying, if you don't have immunity from other charges, are you still willing to plead guilty to these tax misdemeanors? And he said, "No, I will not." His lawyer stood up and also weighed in and said that -- confirming that he would not plead without immunity to any other charges.

And that could include charges beyond just the gun charge, but also any other potential charges out there. So she's really wanting to make sure he understands that that's the agreement. Then we went to the prosecution.

And one of the prosecutors, Leo Wise, he had said to the judge that these two agreements stand on their own. And that's when she said to both sides, help me understand this. You're both saying different things. She said, do you guys need to speak to each other? They agreed that they did.

The judge left the bench, and both sides have been talking for some time now. It looked like they were wrapping up that conversation. So they might have some additional communications with the judge starting up again soon.

But we're waiting to see if both sides, the defense and the prosecution, are now on the same page moving forward or is there is still a disagreement here and if the judge is going to have to get into that. But it's certainly a wrinkle that people didn't foresee coming today, because the Biden side and the prosecution were on the same page heading into this.

Now, it could be that the judge is just trying to make sure that Biden understands the terms of this deal. But another interesting element here is that the judge had already established by going back and forth with both sides that, under the rule of the criminal code that this case is being brought, the judge could only accept this plea deal.

She had made it clear on the record that she could not say she didn't like it. She cannot say, I think the charges should be something else. The way that this deal was presented to her, the tax deal, is that she would have to accept it. So that was an issue here. Now, she said that she's not bound by any sentencing here and the prosecution was on record today confirming that they are going to recommend probation on the tax evasion charges.

But we still have a ways to go here in the sentencing with this kind of unforeseen hiccup before we actually -- excuse me -- not sentencing -- in this guilty plea process before we actually get to Hunter Biden entering a plea. That has not happened yet.

We're still waiting to see if they come to some kind of resolution of what he would actually be pleading guilty today and what the terms of this plea agreement would include.

BERMAN: All right, Kara Scannell, stand by. Or if you need to rush back inside to learn more, please do. Do what you need to do is, I guess, what I'm telling you at this point, but keep us posted if you hear any developments, including any resolution to this.

[11:15:02]

And, Elie, put on your legal decoder ring here and explain what just happened there.

HONIG: So, ordinarily, when you plead guilty to certain offenses, A, B, C, in this case, you cannot be prosecuted again for those offenses. Obviously, that would be double jeopardy. That would violate the entire spirit of the agreement.

But it sounds to me, based on Kara's reporting, like the question is, would Hunter Biden be covered, immunized for other offenses? Because, sometimes, in these plea agreements, you will have a provision in there that says the defendant is going to plead guilty to A, B, and C, and will not be charged with any other information that is currently within DOJ's knowledge or understanding.

Sometimes, that provision is in an agreement. Sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, it's understood and so -- but not written, in which case you would want to put it on the official court record. So it sounds like the judge is saying, let's make sure that both sides, DOJ and Hunter Biden, are on the same page about just how broad his immunity is as a result of this plea if it's entered.

SOLOMON: But does it sound like, based on Kara's reporting, that they may not be on the same page about his immunity?

HONIG: Yes, that should have been worked out. And the fact that they're sort of conferring at this point is unusual.

Like I said, sometimes, it would be an actual sentence. It should be an actual sentence in the plea agreement. So the fact that the judge has said, talk this through, shows that she's got a question about this. But as you said, they're on the same side. They have -- the DOJ and Hunter Biden have the same goal here, which is to get this plea entered and to get out of there.

But we will see. We will see if this is a hiccup.

BERMAN: Could this get to what has been this discrepancy since we learned about this plea deal, where Hunter Biden and his team and their announcement of it say, this resolves the investigation into Hunter Biden as we know it?

HONIG: Right.

BERMAN: But a statement from the federal prosecutor's office said, the investigation -- this resolves the tax charges and the drug charges, the investigation is still ongoing, which seemed like a formality.

HONIG: Right.

BERMAN: But maybe not.

HONIG: That could be the issue here. I mean, there is some tension between the idea of this resolves, as Hunter Biden's team has put it.

And on the other hand, this is ongoing. Now, prosecutors do say this is ongoing up until the very, very end, but perhaps there's been a lack of communication about that between the parties. And the judge is being extra, extra careful here and wants to make sure that there's no controversy and nobody says, well, our understanding was actually different than their understanding.

SOLOMON: Elie, stand by for just a moment, because I believe we have Evan Perez back with us.

Evan, what more are we learning?

PEREZ: Well, one of the things I think you guys are, I think, putting your finger on a thing that we sort of identified from the minute this plea agreement was announced.

The Hunter Biden team was especially sensitive to mentioning the gun charge as part of this overall agreement. And one of the things that we know is that the -- in the case of Hunter Biden, he caused himself all of these problems by going out. He did a book in which he admitted that, when he bought this gun, at the time that he bought this firearm, he was actually addicted to drugs, which is a paper violation, but it is a serious one.

It's a felony. And so one of the things that I think will have to be addressed as part of this hearing is, beyond the two misdemeanors that he's pleading to, there are going to be these terms that are governed -- that will govern how that gets resolved, how that gets taken away.

The government is saying that, if he agrees to certain stipulations, certain conditions that the judge will lay out as part of this hearing today, then that gun charge goes away, like it never happened. And so I think one of the things the judge wants to make sure and clear of here is, beyond just the two misdemeanors, is that Hunter Biden understands what he's agreeing to, because, at any point, obviously, this guy in charge could come back if he fails to satisfy the terms of that agreement.

And, again, we still don't know exactly what those terms will be as laid out by the court and by the prosecution, but this is -- the gun charge certainly is the thing that was the most serious thing that was handed, that was hanging over Hunter Biden's head, as the two sides were trying to work out this agreement in the last few months.

BERMAN: Evan, stand by.

Elie Honig is back with us right now.

On the gun charge, which is a felony charge, they have agreed to a diversion program, which means he has to do some certain things to meet certain requirements, and then there's no charge. That charge goes away, correct? HONIG: Right. So -- and that's fairly rare in the federal system. Diversionary programs like this, meaning if you comply -- usually, it would mean if you if you comply with drug testing, if you stay off drugs, if you report in, the things we just talked about, if you comply, this case goes away.

When I was in the federal system here in New York, that did not exist, but this is a more recent development. And I think what Evan is saying is, the judge will -- again, wants to make sure the parties are on the same page and we don't have something go wrong later and the parties say, wait, our agreement was this, and the other party says, no, we had a different agreement.

[11:20:02]

BERMAN: Does this mean that our agreement, if the gun -- if the diversion program didn't work...

HONIG: Right.

BERMAN: ... that somehow the tax charges would come back into play? Or is it the opposite? If you violate probation on the tax charge, is that the diversion agreement that we have might not go away?

HONIG: Right. I think that -- it's exactly that question.

Again, based on what we're hearing from Kara and from Evan, the judge is saying, do you have it all worked out what happens if something goes wrong with this gun charge? Let's assume, what if Hunter Biden violates somehow? What if he tests positive for drugs? A, what happens with that drug charge? Will -- excuse me -- with the gun charge.

Will it come back? Will he plead guilty to it? And, B, will it disrupt the separate charge on the tax misdemeanors? And, again, I mean, I'm surprised the parties don't have this worked out. Even in a routine case, you would have all these answers ready before you go into court.

SOLOMON: Well, to that point, Elie, if they don't, what happens? I mean, do they go back to the drawing board? Is this just a very long recess?

I mean, what happens in terms of the larger plea hearing?

HONIG: So the judge can do that. The judge can say, there's too much uncertainty here. It sounds like you actually don't have a full agreement and you need to go back to the drawing board.

That is possible. It sounds like the judge wants to give them a chance to work it out. It sounds like they're sort of furiously consulting, which happens. And if they can get it worked out, then the judge, I think, is going to want to make a record here. Do you have your agreement in place? Have you worked out all these contingencies we have been talking about?

And if that happens, the judge may decide to accept this. BERMAN: I think we should be totally transparent to our viewers here,

because we're trying to figure out what is going on. Kara Scannell was in the courtroom, did a great job explaining it.

This is a plea agreement before a federal judge. Usually, this goes a certain way. Obviously, this case is so unusual because you're dealing with the child of the president of the United States. We have never seen anything like this before. And there is enormous political pressure on everyone involved, including the federal judge.

And, Elie, you have made the case here that she may be behaving a certain way, only so that so much of this is on the record, given the political pressure here. Let's get everything on the record so that forever people can look at this and say that we dotted every I and crossed every T.

And that, in and of itself, may be the reason that she's pushing them in ways that you might not see lawyers otherwise be pushed.

HONIG: I think that's right; 99.9 percent of all plea hearings are never paid attention to by anyone other than the parties.

Clearly, this judge understands there's immense scrutiny on this. Even the question that she asked the parties that we open this segment with, when she asked the parties, do you all agree that I, as a federal judge, do not have the authority to order DOJ to take an investigation, that doesn't get asked. She's doing that for the record.

She's doing that for all of us. She's maybe doing that for Congress. I don't know -- I'm not judging whether it's right, wrong, good or bad, but that's unusual. She's very aware, clearly, that there's a microscope on this case.

SOLOMON: And we should perhaps say as well that we don't have cameras in there because this is a federal proceeding. We don't have audio recordings in there, which is why we are so fortunate to have all of our reporters who are running in, running out, and sort of helping us understand.

And, Elie Honig, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

HONIG: Thanks, guys.

BERMAN: Elie, stick around.

HONIG: I'm not going anywhere.

(CROSSTALK)

BERMAN: Don't go far, because I'm waiting for Kara to run out of that courtroom to tell us more at any second.

HONIG: Thank you. SOLOMON: Elie, thank you.

All right, coming up though, we have exclusive new details and also a new photo of Trevor Reed, his family sharing this image from when he was fighting in Ukraine. What CNN is learning about the former Marine's recovery after he was injured on the battlefield.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:27:59]

BERMAN: New this morning, CNN has learned that former Marine Trevor Reed is expected to make a full recovery after being wounded while fighting in Ukraine.

His family shared an image of Reed exclusively with CNN this morning. He was detained in Russia in 2019 and released last year as part of a prisoner swap.

CNN's Oren Liebermann is at the Pentagon with us this morning.

Oren, give us the latest on what you're hearing about his condition and everything else here.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: John, he is expected to make a full recovery, as you point out, according to a source close to Trevor Reed.

He's being treated Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. He was injured in the fighting in Ukraine about two weeks ago, according to the source close to Reed, while fighting near Bakhmut. That's one of the heaviest areas of fighting there, as Ukraine pushes to take back territory.

According to this source, Trevor Reed was involved in that fighting, when he was injured by shrapnel. First he was taken to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and then NGOs got him out of the country, where he was transported to Landstuhl, where he's being treated now.

That source close to Reed says he is expected to make a full recovery and hopes to be home soon. You can see also this picture that was obtained exclusively by CNN from Trevor Reed's family. And it's easy to see here, as you look at this picture, about why this is a delicate situation for the U.S., because U.S. officials, including multiple State Department officials, have made very clear that Reed was there on his own choice, not as a member of some Department of Defense mission or anything like that.

It was his choice to be there as a volunteer for Ukraine. And that source close to Reed said he was honored to fight by Ukrainian forces. And yet, in that picture of Reed fighting in Ukraine, you see the American flag patch right on the front there. That certainly would have complicated things if he were to fall into Russian hands. And it undermines the U.S. point that they're not involved fighting in

Ukraine. It also reinforces Russia's claim that the U.S. is involved. So, you see how this is delicate. As you point out, Trevor Reed was detained for nearly three years in Russia on an allegation that he'd endangered a law enforcement officer.

So he was held there from about 2019 to April 2022, when he was released in a prisoner exchange for a Russian cocaine smuggler.

[11:30:00]