FILE PHOTO: Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden
Credit: Reuters Photo
The lawyer who represented Hunter Biden in plea negotiations to end a five-year Justice Department investigation into tax and gun offenses stepped down early Tuesday, saying that he intends to testify as a witness on behalf of the president’s son.
The decision by the lawyer, Christopher Clark, is the latest development in the long-running negotiation — which has now devolved into a fight — between the Justice Department and Hunter Biden.
The department has said that a substantial part of the plea agreement no longer stands and suggested in court documents that it could indict Hunter Biden. Clark is now contending that Hunter Biden will need him as a witness to prove that the department is seeking to back out of a legally binding deal intended to definitively end the federal investigation.
“Based on recent developments, it appears that the negotiation and drafting of the plea agreement and diversion agreement will be contested, and Mr Clark is a percipient witness to those issues,” a new lawyer for Hunter Biden said in a motion filed in federal court in Delaware on Tuesday.
This week, Abbe Lowell, a veteran lawyer in Washington who has represented a wide range of clients, including Jared Kushner, filed court documents indicating he now represented Hunter Biden in the case.
Clark has represented Hunter Biden for several years as the Trump-appointed US attorney in Delaware, David Weiss, investigated a range of matters in his life, including his finances, foreign dealings and drug use. This spring, Clark entered into lengthy and complicated negotiations with Weiss’ office about a deal that would bring an end to the investigation and give Hunter Biden immunity from prosecution going forward.
Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges.
The pivotal element was his agreement to enroll in a two-year diversion program for nonviolent firearms offenders that included a provision granting him broad immunity from future prosecution on any crimes resulting from his activities during that period.
But at a hearing last month, a judge suggested both parties were trying to get her to “rubber stamp” an agreement she believed to be legally and constitutionally problematic.
That created a rift between the prosecution and Hunter Biden’s team, led by Clark, over what their agreement encompassed. Weiss moved last week to request to be appointed special counsel in the matter, which Attorney General Merrick Garland agreed to last week.