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First son Hunter Biden is scheduled to formally plead guilty to tax and gun charges on July 26 at a hearing in his hometown Wilmington, Delaware.
The 53-year-old son of President Biden is expected to be sentenced to probation — drawing howls of an alleged double standard from attorneys whose clients received much harsher penalties.
US District Judge Maryellen Noreika, a nominee of former President Donald Trump who was selected with input from Delaware’s two Democratic senators, will hold a “combined initial appearance and plea hearing” at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 26.
It’s unclear if Hunter will be given his sentence at the hearing or if Noreika will schedule a subsequent appearance to formalize penalties.
Some legal critics of the plea deal say that opponents can make an attempt to derail the arrangement by asking Noreika to scrap the plan.
“A plea ‘deal’ is a tentative arrangement worked out between a prosecutor and a defendant. However, it has no legal effect on his status unless and until approved by a judge,” said George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf.
“The judge obviously has discretion as to who might speak [at a hearing], and how much weight to give to what they say,” Banzhaf told The Post.
“Here, I believe that if responsible members of Congress were to tell the judge — and make at least a prima facie case — that they had and are in the process of developing more information that Hunter had been involved in more crimes — perhaps with the ‘big guy’ —and more serious crimes which would warrant greater punishment, probably including at least some jail time, it is possible if not likely that the judge would not accept the ‘sweetheart’ plea deal now and at this time, and would at the very least delay it until further information is brought forth,” Banzhaf said.
