Hi there everyone it's 4 o'clock in New York. There's a lot of news today. We'll get to all of it. There are new developments today involving key players. We're looking at you Rudy in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol including the aforementioned Rudy Giuliani for his part. He admitted in a court filing to lying about two Georgia election workers who were targeted by Trump's most insidious

conspiracy theories. Their lives changed forever. They were caught up in and harassed because of those conspiracy theories about their role in the 2020 election. But we start today with a tumultuous day in court for President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden. He was expected today to plead guilty as part of a plea deal before that plea deal fell apart in dramatic fashion. According to reporting in the New York Times today quote,

that Mr. Biden would be immune from prosecution for other possible crimes, including violations related to representing foreign governments in perpetuity. Quote when a top prosecutor in the case said it would not. Chris Clark, that's Mr. Biden's lead attorney, initially hesitated and then said the government's position would make the agreement null and void. Judge Norrica asked the two sides to make changes to the deal that would clarify her rules.

And insert language that limits the scope of broad immunity from prosecution that it would grant to Mr. Biden on his business dealings. Now in the end Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty today to two misdemeanor tax charges while prosecutors and defense lawyers work at a revised deal with the understanding that if a deal eventually goes through, a divide and will reverse his plea. But for Hunter Biden and the family of President Joe Biden, it is another dramatic and impossible to ignore.

And the president's son's very public legal travails it's where we start the hour today with some of our favorite reporters and friends from the New York Times, Washington correspondent Mike Schmidt is here plus former Republican Congressman David jolly joins us and our friend Michael steal former chairman of the RNC.

Mike, I know you've been covering this story a week and all day and that involved two very different prongs of the story right and expected plea agreement complicated one but one that both sides seem to have thought would hold and then this dramatic about facing court take us inside what happened.

So this is looked like something that was on track to be resolved today there had been extensive negotiations that went into the deal that was made in June in which Hunter Biden was going to plead guilty to these two misdemeanor charges and there'd be this diversion agreement on the gun.

But what happened today is that the judge had all sorts of questions about it and there's good reason for there to be questions because this deal is extremely complicated.

You have a prosecutor in vice who needs to show that they actually did something here that they actually you know look they did find this criminality and they didn't look the other way.

So he has to he has to come up with some sort of deliverable at the end of this on the Hunter Biden side the issue that they have is that they're concerned that because he has been such a target of Trump's

dire that if Trump or any other Republican were to come into power that he would be a target of their prosecutions Donald Trump has said this out loud he said it at that minister the night that he was arraigned in the classified documents investigation.

So a lot of so both sides really looking for something here and in the course of that creating a very complicated deal that when questioned by the judge on one of the central issues of that deal and that's whether Hunter Biden would have immunity going forward from from from his business dealings in countries like Ukraine and Romania and China.

The Hunter Biden's lawyer said it's our understanding that this deal would cover that it would basically immunize him from prosecution on those issues going forward and the government said no that's not our understanding of it it wouldn't apply to that and for the Biden side that's really really critical to the to to this plea deal because they want in exchange for him pleading guilty.

For there to be for them to get something back and they know that Hunter Biden is a target of Trump and who knows what could happen in the future and if you're Hunter Biden you're looking for any shield you can come up with the end of the day the judge did not like a lot of this the there's a disagreement between the prosecution and the defense about this major issue and we're not back at square one but we're in a situation he's not going to be a target of Trump.

So it's not clear where it's not clear what's going to happen going forward Mike did Republican members of Congress weigh in on the deal.

So so in the the night before last night Republican members of Congress tried to intervene to file these amicus briefs with the judge to get in front of the judge what the whistleblowers had said and their testimony before Congress these are these IRS investigators who come forward to testify about problems that they think there are with the Hunter Biden investigation and political interference.

So it's a highly unusual move you had the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee sending this amicus brief to the judge and trying to get it on the docket for legal experts it's just really never never seen that another branch of government would essentially sort of butt in on another branch as it or two other branches as as a matter was trying to be resolved.

So it was Congress trying to to basically force what it had into the front the front of the mind of the judge.

I don't have any evidence that that played a role in the deal unraveling today but it was just yet you know another unusual event around the Hunter Biden story that was a you know like a big theatrical issue in the hours leading up to the plate.

And take the name Biden and the name Trump out of it for one second did the people representing the person who was going to lead to some crimes believe that the crimes he was asking to be immunized for had been investigated by the investigators.

So if you're a defense attorney and you had someone like Hunter Biden under investigation for a long time and you know that the government has looked at an array of issues you're probably not going to make a plea deal without some sort of assurance that the investigation has come to an end and all the matters are resolved why else would you plead why else would you give in give something to the other side without having full resolution.

This is not your average client. This is a client that has dealt with addiction. This is a client who you know probably doesn't want to go to trial on these sorts of issues and wants to put this chapter of their life behind them.

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