Chris Clark, an attorney who represented Hunter Biden in a recent criminal investigation, is insisting that prosecutors were thorough and that the case against the Democratic president’s son didn’t end with an overly lenient plea deal.
On Tuesday, Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss notified the U.S. District Court that Biden intended to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts for willful failure to pay his taxes for two years. Weiss said Biden also agreed to enter a pretrial diversion agreement for obtaining a firearm at a time that he was actively using or addicted to a controlled substance, which is illegal.
The tax charges each carry a maximum penalty of 12 months in prison. The firearm charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, but the pretrial diversion agreement could allow him to avoid a criminal conviction and a related criminal punishment.
Clark joined MSNBC host Katy Tur on Tuesday to discuss the plea agreement. Tur asked Clark to address criticisms from Republican critics, like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who said the charges Biden was allowed to plead guilty to were minimal and the deal he was allowed to take amounted to “a slap on the wrist.”
“This was a five-year, very diligent investigation pursued by incredibly professional prosecutors, some of whom have been career prosecutors, one of whom at least was appointed by [Republican President Donald Trump],” Clark replied. “No one has ever said that they’re not competent, good, or diligent. I haven’t heard anyone say that. It would be false to say that.”
Weiss became the U.S. Attorney for Delaware in February of 2018 and was appointed to the position by Trump.
“NBC reports at times this was a counterintelligence investigation, that this was an investigation into [Foreign Agents Registration Act] violations, which is how you register to work with a foreign government if you’re a foreign citizen, money laundering,” Tur said. “Again, five years, and what they came up with is two misdemeanor tax counts.”
Republicans Decry ‘Two-Tier’ Justice System
In a Tuesday press statement, the Republican House speaker compared the plea deal Hunter Biden received with the recent 37-count federal indictment against Trump. The former president, who was President Joe Biden’s 2020 general election opponent, is accused of taking national defense information with him after leaving the White House in 2021 and obstructing efforts by federal officials to recover those documents.“If you are the president’s leading political opponent, the DOJ [Department of Justice] tries to literally put you in jail and give you prison time,“ McCarthy said. ”If you are the president’s son, you get a sweetheart deal.”
Trump, who is the current frontrunner in 2024 Republican presidential primary polling, has also condemned the Hunter Biden plea deal.
Fairness For Hunter Biden
During the interview, Tur said some reports indicate that Weiss would not seek Hunter Biden’s imprisonment after the plea deal. She asked Clark whether he thinks a federal judge may impose a harsher sentence.“There are documents that haven’t been publicly released yet. I think people have reported what the prosecutors are asking for,” Clark replied. “We have to wait until the court proceeding happens to know, but I think the judge is going to do what’s fair, and what’s fair is my client gets on with his life.”
As the interview continued, Tur again asked Biden’s lawyer to address McCarthy’s claim that the plea agreement amounted to a “sweetheart deal.”
“You know, I’ve heard Speaker McCarthy say stuff I don’t agree with, there was no basis for what he said, and he’s not right,” Clark replied.
The MSNBC host then asked Clark whether he thought his client was treated fairly. Clark said “that’s a really complicated question” because his client went through a period of his life “that was troubled.”
“I think it’s a very hard question whether I would have been prosecuted for that or not,” Clark added. “And I think I could have been, but I think that’s a hard question, and it’s one I can’t answer.”
Investigation Ongoing
In a press statement after notifying the Delaware federal district court of the plea deal on Tuesday, Weiss said investigative efforts related to the Biden case are “ongoing.”The Epoch Times reached out to Clark’s offices for further details about what aspects of the investigation may remain active, but he did not respond by the time this article was published.
The Epoch Times also reached out to Weiss’s office but did not receive any additional comment about the ongoing investigation.
At least one Republican critic of Biden’s plea deal, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), has also said Republican lawmakers would continue to investigate the Biden family.
