The big news Wednesday is that Hunter Biden did not get his get out of jail free card rubberstamped by U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika in Delaware. The sweetest of sweetheart deals, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice had signed off on a plea for Hunter to two misdemeanor tax counts and a diversion probation program on a felony gun charge for possessing a firearm while a drug addict and lying on a federal background check about his addiction. No jail time. Unspecified publicly by prosecutors was that this was it on all potential charges arising from the rampant criminality attached to the First Son, a backroom understanding granting Hunter blanket immunity if he adhered to the minor inconveniences of federal probation. But that secret side agreement was just too corrupt to put out publicly in writing.

Moreover, to hide the DOJ’s criminal investigative case file from Congressional investigators who are hot on the Biden family corruption and bribery trail, the DOJ had to maintain that their investigation was “ongoing,” despite the secret deal ending it. By falsely maintaining that the investigation was ongoing, the DOJ could continue to hide the very corrupt facts of this case from Congress and the public – some of which was recently detailed by IRS and FBI whistleblowers in Congressional testimony. The very credible Congressional whistleblower testimony showed the Justice Department running a full- scale protection racket for the Biden family.

The drama leading to Wednesday’s explosive hearing began Tuesday night. Congressman Jason Smith (R. Mo) of the House Ways and Means Committee had submitted an amicus brief to Judge Noreika through his lawyer detailing the whistleblower testimony. One of Hunter’s lawyers, Jessica Bengels of Latham Watkins, called the Court seeking to remove the Congressional brief from the public court docket. According to the court clerk, Hunter’s lawyer pretended to be representing Congressman Smith. When the court clerk reported that to Judge Noreika, the Judge demanded an immediate clarification from Hunter’s camp because of the serious ethics violation implicated. Hunter’s legal team claimed it was all a huge misunderstanding and nothing more emerged about this episode on Wednesday.

When Judge Noreika asked the DOJ’s prosecutors at the hearing whether there was an ongoing criminal investigation of Hunter including possible Foreign Agent Registration Act charges, prosecutors said, yes, there was. Asking Hunter’s team if they understood the plea agreement would not protect Hunter from further charges, they said no. She then asked both sides to confer about what the plea agreement meant. As this point, both sides, obviously caught, said the plea agreement was dead as set out. They frantically attempted to negotiate a new deal without success. Citing the highly unusual language in the agreement, the Judge asked for any precedent for an agreement like this. Neither the prosecutors nor Hunter’s lawyers could give her one. Finally, she noted that the agreement gave her no discretion not to approve the deal on the tax charges and inserted her into supervising Hunter’s probation, all of which is highly unusual. She has ordered both sides to file briefs setting forth why this plea agreement or anything similar should be accepted by the Court and report back in 30 days.