The top-left headline on the front page of Monday's New York Times pushed "How Plea Deal Went Off Track for Biden's Son." ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS couldn't find this story on Monday, but CNN legal analyst Elle Honig addressed it several times on Monday. On CNN This Morning, co-host Poppy Harlow described the Times piece as a "bombshell" -- a word usually reserved for Trump-scandal scoops.
She explained the Times found "Mr. Weiss appeared willing to forego any prosecution of Mr. Biden at all...and his office came close to agreeing to the end of an investigation without requiring a guilty plea on any charges." But the IRS whistleblowers ruined it. She asked for his takeaway:
HONIG: The takeaway is DOJ has made an unholy mess of this whole Hunter Biden situation. And I fault David Weiss, who I've spoken positively about on this show given his long service as U.S. attorney. But if you look at that reporting, first he was willing to let this thing go altogether. Political pressure ramped up, he backtracks and says, no, we're going to need to take misdemeanor pleas.
Then they go into court ready to take misdemeanor pleas, more pressure, more testimony from the IRS, and then this deal falls apart. Now he says, now I need to be called special counsel, I need expanded powers. But it seems like all of this is only happening in a reactionary posture. It seems like he's now twice tried to make this case go away cheaply, twice been called out on it, and twice backtracked only in response to the whistleblowers.
The other legal expert on the set, former January 6 Committee lawyer Temidayo Aganga-Williams, took the opposing view that Hunter Biden was being punished for his last name -- as opposed to being richly rewarded for his last name!
BLACKWELL: And Temidayo, I read that you think that there is a legitimate question as to whether Hunter Biden is being treated unfairly.
AGANGA-WILLIAMS: I think 100 percent. I think what we're seeing is that Hunter Biden appears to be getting a harsher result because of his proximity to President Biden. And frankly, that's unfair, right? This entire process should always be about equal treatment for equally situated people. And here, Hunter Biden, more and more appears that if his last name were Smith, he would be out of this mess already. But because it's Biden, it's going deeper and deeper, and that's a problem.
Later, on The Lead with Jake Tapper, fill-in host Erica Hill wondered how this mess could be cleaned up:
HILL: So in terms of the mess and consequences, look, public trust is certainly one of them. Is there anything that you see that DOJ can do based on your experience, right, as a former federal prosecutor, to restore public confidence in this investigation? Is the only way to fix this a trial?
HONIG: It may be, Erica. You know, DOJ sort has been in a darned if they do, darned if they don't posture on this from the start. But they have made it way worse by sort of careening back and forth here. It may well be that any deal is never going to be accepted as fair.
So if I'm in David Weiss's shoes here, heaven help me, I will just say, "look, we're charging everything we have. We're not in position to make a deal. It will go to trial, and we'll let a jury decide this." I think that's the only way to restore any credibility to this matter.
On the Tapper show, CNN legal analyst Elle Honig criticizes David Weiss's Hunter probe: "First we had basically five years of behind the scenes investigation with no transparency, no action, and questions being asked." They made it worse by "careening back and forth here." pic.twitter.com/Qa9DQAKtsk
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) August 23, 2023
