I'm John Batchu with my colleague, Andrew McCarthy and my colleague, Thaddeus McCarter.

And we've fallen behind a little bit, so we're catching up with Andy, writing about

two matters in Washington that dominate the headlines whenever there's news.

One, of course, is former President Donald Trump, and is many courtroom appearances over

these next months.

The other is one courtroom appearance in particular by the son of President Biden, Hunter Biden,

in which, now, infamously, the arrangement by the counselor, Mr. Weiss, the US Attorney

in Maryland, I believe, the arrangement did not hold before a judge who asked a few simple

questions about what was intended in what appeared to be a light wrap on the knuckles for

Hunter Biden, who was both suspect of having violated gun laws by mistating on his application

to possess a firearm, and also by either deliberately or accidentally evading an enormous amount

of taxes in 2017 and 2018.

Andy, I turned to you because this again requires some attention to what happens in a courtroom

when counselors and the client appear before a judge.

My reading of what happened is that Mr. Weiss had a very neat little package for Hunter

Biden, and he may have done a minimal amount of time incarcerated, but this matter would

all be behind us.

What happened that day that can be reviewed, Andy?

John, I think what you described is absolutely what happened, which is that a very attractive

deal was available to Hunter Biden to dispose of all the gun charges and all of the tax charges

he faces by pleading guilty to two misdemeanors, tax misdemeanors, which would have subjected

him to a maximum of two years in prison, but he had also extracted a promise from the

...