Hunter Biden And The Fog Of War

This post was largely overtaken by Politico’s subsequent publication of the plea and diversion agreements, discussed at the end — see supplement.

The urge to comment on events immediately, as they are happening, before we have the information necessary to evaluate them, is corrosive. It’s also overpowering and pervasive in the era of social media. Nobody wants to wait for tomorrow’s morning paper, or even tonight’s newscast. We want answers and we want them now. Many of us also want to be the ones providing those answers — the first ones providing those answers — for those sweet clicks, comments, likes, and attention. Accuracy and nuance are the casualties.

Today Robert Hunter Biden’s long-anticipated guilty plea on two misdemeanor counts of failure to file a tax return was derailed. You’ve seen the news by now, and if you haven’t, you’ve probably seen the social media reactions, many of which are nonsensical and uninformed.

The truth is, so far, elusive. There were reporters in the courtroom. But, judging from the news stories, and with the greatest respect to those reporters, it seems they didn’t completely understand what was happening. They couldn’t report many verbatim quotes (they should have brought someone who takes shorthand) and federal courts don’t allow broadcast or media recoding of proceedings. So we’re left with a series of impressions by reporters who picked up bits and pieces of what was happening. Many of those reporters are intelligent and sophisticated but it’s not clear they have the experience with federal criminal law to pick up exactly what was going on.

The truth further eludes us because we lack the most important document — the written plea agreement between the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Always read the plea agreement to understand a plea. I argued weeks ago, when news of the plea deal came out, that until we got the plea agreement we could not fully evaluate the many claims that Hunter Biden was getting a “sweetheart deal.” In many federal districts it would be filed as a matter of course before the plea hearing, the government said in an earlier filing that it would be filed, and it still hasn’t been filed, leaving crucial questions unanswered and making it very difficult to interpret today’s events.

Here’s what we know, and what we still need to know.

We know that Hunter Biden showed up in court to enter his guilty ...