everything is a slap in the face to every american. it remains to be seen whether there is justice at all. >> if i'm ever in trouble, i want emily for sure. all right, thank you so very much for watching our coverage. it continues because they have not come out of the courthouse yet as they figure out what is next for the president of the united states' son hunter biden. "america reports" now. >> john: harris, thank you, breaking news this afternoon, live pictures from the white house and the left-hand side of the screen, and the federal courthouse in delaware. any moment now john kirby and karine jean-pierre set to face questions after an absolutely stunning turn of events in court where hunter biden's controversial plea deal apparently has fallen apart. hello, john roberts in washington. sandra, we did not expect it was going to go this way. >> sandra: a lot of twists and turns, i'm sandra smith in new york. this is "america reports." we may also be hearing from the

attorneys for hunter biden shortly. we are watching outside that courthouse on what exactly happened in the courtroom, and what is expected to be a formality to cap off a five-year investigation. it has turned into a jaw dropping moment for the president's son. the deal appearing to collapse after the judge questioned the terms of the agreement with federal prosecutors say they would not rule out filing further charges against hunter biden. hunter's attorneys reportedly responded by saying the deal was now null and void. >> john: fox team coverage, andy mccarthy standing by where all of this goes from here and additionally how we got to this point. but first, griff jenkins is live outside the federal courthouse in wilmington. i had to call you to say where are you, we need you for the top of the show, it's a zoo there at this moment. >> it is indeed, john, sandra, good afternoon. i ran out, john, from the

courtroom to literally get on to tell you what we know. here is where we stand. it is still going on at this hour, judge mary ellen noreika just grilling both the defense and the prosecution. what i've witnessed in the last hour and just stepped out of the courtroom was the judge asking hunter several questions about his sobriety and how it was with regards to pleaing guilty to the two tax misdemeanors, was it that his becoming sober predicted his tax mistakes, how could you make these tax mistakes if you were indeed sober. hearing that, led to believe or we assumed that perhaps we were heading down to the actual plea happening because it was recessed, remember, over an hour ago, because the judge said hang on, the prosecution and the defense are not on the same page with regards to the terms of agreements, specifically as it related to the diversion clause

in the agreement to not prosecute him for lying about the gun possession as a drug addict, and that is of course a felony charge that he would be avoiding prosecution of under this agreement. then we got to the moment we have been in for the last half an hour, which is judge noreika, john, just grilling the prosecution saying how did you come to this agreement, because she, as a judge, has never seen this diversion of prosecution on the gun charge written in the way that it is written in the immunity that hunter biden would get and so far she has not gotten a satisfactory answer. essentially, i'm not the lawyer here, but the judge is saying this is structured in a way that if there was a breach and a reason to bring gun charges, the immunity would only happen,

additional charges would only come if the judge and the court made the decision to prosecute and she said no, no, that's too cute. the prosecutor's job is to decide whether or not to bring further additional charges if for some reason this agreement was breached. so, they are very much hung up on that right now. that said there, is a possibility we end up seeing hunter biden plead guilty and perhaps noreika will be satisfied. but right now, the diversion part of this to not prosecute him on the gun charge and to give him him immunity is hanging this deal up and she does not appear at this moment to be satisfied with what she's hearing just about ten minutes ago when she wanted answers also of how they decided in the recess to come to the agreement. she said wait a minute, the defense said we need to talk to you in private, not in open court, and she said why? that's unacceptable. the proceeding now, we'll see

where it goes. as you recapped at the top, this has taken a very different turn than we thought, which we expected to be about a half an hour, at 10:00 a.m., traditional plea agreement. she has serious issues with the terms of the agreement and specifically appears to relate to the diversion and immunity for prosecution on the gun charge. we will see where this goes ultimately our producer, jake gibson is in the courtroom where there are no cameras, we cannot have electronics, i'm running in and out, jake has been there all the way through. as soon as we get a decision or development we'll bring it to you. one thing is for sure, this is a very unique situation and ultimately if judge noreika does not accept the plea agreement, we could be headed for a trial. john. >> sandra: stunning turn of events, andy mccarthy, and jonathan turley as well. griff, are there expectations we are going to see hunter biden when he comes out, his legal

team, are they expected to stop and address reporters there? >> well, it's anybody's guess right now. we saw about a half an hour before court started, a little after 9:00 a.m., we saw hunter and his team go in the court. it's really this entrance behind me we expect hunter and his team to come out. we hope that he will talk to us. we heard some indication maybe his legal team would talk to us, but that obviously was perhaps a decision made by both the prosecution and the defense before we ended up in what is now multiple hours' long discussion about this deal getting hung up and we don't know right now how it's going to turn out. so we'll have to wait and see if indeed there are any comments made by the defense or hunter biden and i can tell you this, sandra, every reporter out here is on pins and needles.

we would certainly like to ask hunter biden some questions ourselves, namely my first question would be is your former business partner and associate devon archer lying, as he is expected next week to testify to house republicans that hunter did indeed engage in business dealings with his father, president joe biden. >> sandra: if we could toggle back to the screen there, there are microphones that are set up, whether or not hunter himself addresses the media, we don't know, but there is some indication that his legal team will step before those cameras and microphones when they exit the courthouse, we'll keep an eye on that live shot as well. griff, thanks for your awesome reporting. go ahead. >> sandra, add one more thing and this is in an hour and a half ago now, we learned the judge did ask the prosecution if there was an active ongoing current separate investigation into hunter biden, they acknowledged yes, but would not

elaborate. that obviously would be some questions we would like to ask about as well if the prosecution would be so forthcoming. sandra. >> sandra: still no plea deal for hunter biden, a big turn of events this afternoon. griff, back to you there shortly with an update. john. >> john: we'll let him jump back into the courtroom. i've never not known griff to not be wearing running shoes and good thing he has them on today. andy mccarthy, former district attorney and fox news contributor, chris clark announcing the plea deal said this, with the announcement of two agreements between my client, hunter biden, and the united states attorney's office for the district of delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into hunter is resolved. we thought at that moment in time that that was just lawyer spin, but apparently that's what they thought the framework of the outlines the four corners of this agreement were, that hunter biden pleads guilty on the

misdemeanor charges and that's it. immunity from prosecution forever. that turned out not to be the case. >> yeah, john, i think that's because a political document that has legal consequences but it's not a normal legal plea. the most important thing in a legitimate plea agreement is the immunity term. the only reason a defendant pleads guilty is if the defendant knows if i accept and i acknowledge guilt as to these particular charges, they can never prosecute me again for whatever we define as the ambit of the immunity. and from the government's perspective, that's equally important because they have to know what's worth continuing to investigate, whether they still have active cases or not. so the one thing everybody has to be on the same page about in a legitimate plea agreement is the immunity term. here there was no meeting of the

minds on that, except in a political sense. they thought that they could bamboozle the judge into signing off on this agreement and then hunter was going to toodle off and if ever asked again, said the case is over and i have now immunity with respect to anything that was in the ambit of the investigation. and the biden justice department was going to go to their side and say no, no, no, we still have an ongoing investigation and that's the reason we can't supply congress or anyone else with any information about it and they were going to go off on their way and have a political outcome and would hope that this whole thing would not go away. there's no sense to do this if this is legitimate. if you have an ongoing investigation into hunter biden and he's not giving you a cooperation agreement, he's not pleading guilty to serious charges and signing up as a cooperator, why would you give a

plea deal to someone central to the case under circumstances the investigation into serious offenses is still ongoing. if this is legitimate, it doesn't make any sense. >> sandra: can you give us some idea what is happening inside of that courthouse right now, andy? >> well, if the judge is actually asking questions about -- to hunter biden, sandra, about the basic facts of whatever offense the, assuming they are trying to overhaul this plea agreement on the fly, which is another head scratcher, by the way, but if she's asking him questions, that would be a normal part of the plea process that's often called the allocution, the plea proceeding with the court turns to the defendant, not the lawyers, the defendant, and says tell us in your own words what you did that makes you guilty of these charges. there are all different ways of doing that. one way of doing it is to put

questions and the whole reason for doing that is to make sure that there's two things. one, there's a factual basis for the plea, in other words, the government has to be able to establish that they could prove every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. the defendant has to establish that he understands what he's accused of, these are the things that he did that meet the different elements of the offense to make him guilty, and that he's pleading guilty not only aware of what the charges are, but voluntarily, in other words, he's not under any pressure of any kind and there's no promises that they haven't flagged for the court that has been made to induce the plea. so, that's why it's kind of an extensive colloquy. >> john: andy, quick question, we have nancy mace standing by, she has some time crunches. i want to come back to something you said a moment ago. whenever you speak i listen very closely because you really do

know what you are talking about. you used the word legitimate plea deal, words legitimate plea deal a number of times in your first answer to our questions. do you not believe this was a legitimate deal? >> john, the biden justice department cannot ethically investigate the president's son for conduct that the president is implicated in. and if this was legitimate the attorney general would have appointed a special counsel. he has not done that, why you get funky stuff like someone who is the main subject of the investigation or one of them and in the middle of what you say is a continuing investigation you are taking a plea from him to nonsense. >> john: all right. andy, stand by with us. we have a lot more to talk about. right now, somewhere else we need to jump. >> sandra: andy, thank you, we will get back to you soon as

well. south carolina congresswoman nancy mace, we understand the legal time is negotiating a limited new plea deal, he could be on the hook for criminal charges related to the business dealings, ukraine, china, what do you believe is now on the table in this dramatic turn of events this afternoon? welcome. >> well, and good afternoon and thank you. first thing i want to say today, hunter biden, if you are watching this, you are not above the law and justice is coming for you today. number one. number two, the million dollar question here and everything i read in the outcome of the court proceedings this morning is that what is he under investigation for. is it for bribery, is it money laundering, is it for operating as a foreign agent illegally, what does it have to do with or all the above and then the third thing that andy mccarthy touched on, too, it's very unusual for the government or prosecutor to give away leverage by giving a

sweetheart plea deal to somebody while you are actively investigating them. why is that even happening in the first place. so we have a lot of questions at this point but looks like he's being investigated and we want to know why. >> john: congresswoman, to that point when you look at what we have learned about this investigation, what we have learned about the background of it from the release of this form fd-1023 with what the oversight and judiciary committees in the house have uncovered, was there any legitimate reason for the department of justice to go ahead and continue with this plea agreement today? >> i don't believe that there is. the evidence has been overwhelming and we need, we do need, according to andy mccarthy and i agree with him here, some sort of special counsel to investigate the president's son because the evidence that we are seeing is becoming overwhelming and you have to say enough is enough, and i'm very curious to see what devon archer will say on monday when he does the

transcribed interview with the oversight committee. best friend or former bff of hunter biden, he's in the room, attest to the fact his father was in the room via conference call over two dozen times and where does this end without a special counsel. and you certainly can't investigate a guy and give him a plea deal while you are investigating him. that's not how this works. >> sandra: congresswoman, what do you think as far as political implications of this dragging out before the american public as we get closer and closer to a presidential election? >> well, its damaging and divisive to the country, number one. number two, the american people deserve the truth. they don't have to like it. but the truth has to come out about the kind of leaders that our country is electing and whether or not we want someone who is involved in corruption or bribery or money laundering, if that's the kind of leader we want on the world stage. because too much is at stake right now. i believe we'll have an impact

on 2024 but that's not the reason to do it. we want to follow the evidence, follow the investigation, but i do believe now we have to see a special counsel come out of this. >> john: a head's up, the two-minute warning for the white house briefing, obviously questions about this are going to come up and on that front, i mean, when you take a look at what the president has said about knowing nothing about his son's business dealings, and never even speaking to him about it, and then the other day karine jean-pierre comes out and says the president was never in business with his son. it seems as though they were trying to slip that by us and we would never notice. what do you make about the difference in how they are characterizing this now? >> well, every time he was questioned about it for the last few years, joe biden denied it and lied about it to the american people. and that's really important distinction. now all of a sudden we have witnesses, we have whistleblowers, we have people to say that joe biden was around and in meetings dozens, maybe even hundreds of times, and so

what we have to do is get the evidence and show the american public what's going on. >> sandra: i think we have some activity outside the courthouse, folks are now running from the courthouse, congressman, apologies for that, and a moment we could hear the president's son and legal time. go ahead, congresswoman. >> what i was saying, we have to collect as much evidence as possible, if the doj won't do it, it's up to the house ways and means committee, judiciary, text, messages, phone calls, the witnesses, everything that we have so the american people have a choice next year and decide if they want a president and family who is corrupt leading our country, and i'm very doubtful about that. >> john: thank you for being with us, we know you have to get back to your business on capitol hill. appreciate you being with us. we have to go -- let's go to griff. he's got some news. griff, we saw people running, we'll probably get a photograph

of somebody with both feet off the ground coming out of the courthouse. what's going on? >> here we are, john. we now know that judge noreika is not going to accept the plea agreement, and as we were talking about just a moment ago, it's got to do, just noreika does not believe that -- she has questions over the constitutionality of the diversion clause of the immunity that hunter biden would receive in this deal to not prosecute on the gun charge. she is not ok with that, so the headline here is she has not accepted the plea deal that would likely indicate we could be headed for a trial. we have not heard from the prosecution or the defense, maybe they'll be coming out and talking to us. but a major headline here. what we thought that was starting some three hours ago was going to be a routine plea

deal, hunter biden in the early part of today's court hearing said he was prepared to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor tax evasion charges, not going to happen. judge mary ellen noreika not accepting the plea deal questioning the constitutionality of the diversion clause that kept him from being prosecuted for the felony gun charge and she also noted to great extent, almost as if, john, we were sitting in a law classroom the fact that she did not like the way it was structured and she had never seen one like this and was really questioning how it was that the prosecution and the defense came to this agreement, challenging specific parts, portions, paragraphs, of the agreement and the language therein, and that will certainly lead some to comment, particularly perhaps the house republicans that have been

saying from the beginning that this was a sweetheart deal. the judge saying that she was not ok with the diversion clause portion of this plea deal. that is why she is not accepting the plea today and of course it comes after we have seen in the last 24 hours quite dramatic developments, namely the house ways and means chairman jason smith issuing the amicus brief yesterday asking the court and the judge to take a look at the testimony we have seen in recent days, the two irs whistleblowers and things of that nature. we really did not even get to that. but now we know the outcome and there is no agreement to the plea deal the judge saying she cannot accept it. >> john: wow. that's pretty amazing. i know sandra wants to jump in as well. >> sandra: kjp just started the briefing in the white house, a remarkable moment, she will likely start the question and

answer portion of that briefing and she will get questions on this, and we will get right to the briefing room as soon as she does. griff, this is obviously a moment where we could see the president's son, his legal team depart there. we have seen a lot of what looks like reporters and security detail leaving the building. do we expect to see him shortly? >> we do expect to see him, whether he stops and talks or his legal team does, anybody's guess, but we expect to see him, he went in the front door behind me and presumably he'll come out of that. hunter biden, by the way, saying he pleads guilty but the judge simply saying that she cannot accept it based on her questions over the constitutionality but he pleads -- he pleads not guilty, i'm sorry about that, jake, our producer here running out with more information, hunter biden saying he pleads not guilty. so right now things are developing at a rapid pace, but

anything but what we expected it to go earlier this morning. sandra. >> sandra: in here real quick, no deal, and not guilty. karine jean-pierre, the press secretary for the president just spoke a moment ago on hunter biden. she said they love their son, they support him as he continues to rebuild his life. this case was handled independently as all of you know by the justice department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president trump. so for anything further as you know, she says, we have been very consistent from here, and referring you to the department of justice and to hunter's representatives who is his legal team, obviously who can address any of your questions. p so that was her preface to taking questions. if we could have our team alert us when we can get to the white house. but griff, a quick comment on that as we do await possibly his legal team to speak outside the courthouse in a moment. >> well, and i think that

questions, sandra, will continue to be asked of the administration namely because i just watched for more than an hour, judge noreika questioning the prosecution, sandra, specifically going over portions of it, wherein, she said if i understand the way i'm reading this, you are asking me, the court to decide whether or not charges would be brought if the deal was breached, and that's not my job as a judge, it's the prosecution's job. so it's really questioning the language and the way that this deal was structured. a lot of questions are going to be directed at the department of justice over how it is that they came up with language that is far from typical in situations like this. >> john: hey, griff, let me come back to the reason why this predeal came apart. you said the judge was not convinced of the constitutionality or questioned the constitutionality of the

diversion agreement in relation to the gun charge. what about this idea, though, that it looks like hunter biden's attorneys understood the plea deal, pleading guilty to the two misdemeanor tax charges would give him immunity from any future prosecution on the tax charges or any of the issues that were related to those tax charges, which i think you could logically extend to his overseas business dealings. did she have concerns about that, and did that play into all of this? because we understand that's where his attorney said if we don't get immunity, this deal's off the table. >> that's exactly right, and judge noreika asked a lot of questions about what specifically is implied with regards to immunity, not just with respect to the diversion to the gun charge, but also to anything else and that's why as we learned from the judge as to the prosecution by the way is

there a current investigation underway and the prosecution saying yes and she wanted to know if they could be looking at fara charges, the foreign agent registry act we have seen folks charged in. we heard the judge asking hunter specific questions about money received from the burisma company in ukraine, from chinese business partners, so she had a lot of questions and ultimately she was not comfortable with the way the immunity deal was structured and that's why she called that recess that happened in the middle there because she pointed out the fact that the prosecution and the defense were not on the same page when it came to regards to how they interpreted that immunity, obviously defense, saying they wanted fully immunity from future charges and now this deal has fallen apart. >> john: and i guess, too, when you look at it, griff and sandra, you know, obviously in a court of law what matters is

what you plead to. you either plead guilty or you plead not guilty. but the court of public opinion, he was going in there prepared to plead guilty, sandra, and now turned around to say not guilty. i think that may be a hard sell for a lot of folks out there. >> sandra: yeah, indeed. >> john, if i could add to that, you are very right. i mean, the court of public opinion is going to see because of the questions that the judge asked, a deal that did not fit the normal way things are done and a deal that we now know, hunter biden came in, prepared to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and the real prize in all of it was apparently wide and i believe the exact term was broad immunity, and that is the take-away they had hoped to get. now that this deal has fallen apart, the plea is not going to

be guilty, it's -- he's pleading not guilty. so a 180 there with respect to that. >> sandra: big implications of all of that, more reaction coming up. a live look outside the courthouse as we have not seen the president's son depart or his legal team. meanwhile, this is karine jean-pierre moment ago at the white house on hunter biden. >> hunter biden is a private citizen and this was a personal matter for him. as we have said, the president, the first lady, they love their son and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life. this case was handled independently as all of you know by the justice department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president, president trump. so for anything further as you know, and we have been very consistent from here, i would refer you to the department of justice and to hunter's representatives who is his legal team, obviously, who can address any of your questions. >> sandra: ok, that briefing is ongoing, she's likely to get

pressed further and take more questions from the media on what is happening there at that federal courthouse and we'll certainly get back to the briefing room as that happens. but first, karl rove, former chief of staff and fox news contributor. great to have you here. as we have had a lot of legal analysis in the first half hour here, political implications are huge as well, and doug shone, a democrat, was on the network earlier and said this while it was unfolding in realtime. >> the facts as they are coming out are not helpful to the white house indeed what is coming out is clearly potentially, and i under score that, very harmful. this is a big day potentially for gavin newsom. >> your reaction to that, karl. >> i think doug is right. this is the absolute worst outcome for the biden white house. the plea deal, they have been sort of suggesting this was

going to bring it all to conclusion, has blown up. it's going to make people, more people look at it and say that was a special deal cut for the son of the president of the united states and particularly the overreach of his attorneys asking for broad immunity on future potential charges is going to be a sticking point as well. nothing -- nothing -- i can't imagine a scenario worse for president biden than what happened today in wilmington. >> john: this is going to keep this alive for a long time to come. obviously if hunter biden had a sign what many people described as the sweetheart plea deal, a lot of people were upset and thought it was unfair but eventually it would have probably to a large degree blown over. but now rather than blowing over this has blown up. and how much of this do you believe sticks to the president? >> well, i think a lot of it does. i've long felt it was impossible to believe that he was not aware

that his son was on the board of burisma, after all, at the moment that his son is appointed to the burisma board, joe biden is in charge of the obama white house effort to encourage the ukrainians to clamp down on corruption, and one of the most corrupt companies in ukraine was burisma. and devon archer goes on the board in january of 2014, long time friend and political associate, political bag man for the then sitting secretary of state, john kerry. he brings his business partner and son of the vice president of the united states, hunter biden on the board in march, and you can't tell me that joe biden was not aware of that or that somebody inside the obama white house didn't talk with him and say this is a problem. remember, when he goes over to ukraine the following year, he is criticized by ukrainian nongovernmental organization ngos involved in the fight against corruption and makes the front page of the "new york times." so the idea that somehow or another he is completely

ignorant what his son is doing in this instance is ridiculous. and if he knew in that instance and is not telling the truth about it, was he aware in other instances and told the truth about it. so this is a can of worms for the white house and think about it. their press spokesman, and i understand she has a legal obligation not to get involved in partisan politics but says if you want answers on this, go to the department of justice, which is going to say nothing or hunter biden's attorneys which are going to keep the story going. there's no impartial arbitor of this except the good judgment of the american people and that ain't going to be a good judge for the biden family. >> sandra: inside the briefing room, waiting for the question and answer portion with the press secretary to begin, this is john kirby, obviously the white house national security spokesman, he has not gotten a single question on this, ok. very interesting to see what happens when kjp gets back to the microphone if she will be

given a question on this. she entered the room and opening statement was she won't be answering any questions on the president's son. it is news that they are not asking him about this. >> he's the national security guy so less likely. let's see if the white house press corps, i'm sure they have clever ways to get back into the issue but not asking about hunter biden but asking about joe biden's thoughts about this. simply saying did the president really not know his son went on the board of burisma, that would be an interesting question and that would be one that she would find it very difficult not to give an answer. and if the answer is no, we don't know, then follow-up questions, when did he become aware he was on the burisma board and cause him any in digestion when he went to ukraine and was publicly criticized for having a member of his family involved in the very corruption he was encouraged to go to ukraine and denounce and fight. >> john: karl, let me come back to the statement that hunter

biden's attorney, chris clark, made i believe on the 20th june when the plea deal was first announced. legal side of thshgs -- of this, and the political side, and blend together. announcement of two agreements, between hunter biden and the united states attorney's office for the district of delaware, it's my understanding the five-year investigation into hunter is resolved. on the surface that looks like political spin, it may look like he's trying to put pressure on the u.s. attorney to not undertake this investigation anymore, maybe sending a signal to the department of justice. but in court today, we learned that was much more than a political statement, that they believe there was going to be broad-based immunity given to hunter biden if he pled guilty to these two misdemeanors. what do you make of that aspect of it? >> well, it's mind boggling. and look, you give immunity in return generally for assistance

so that the grant of immunity would normally be tied to cooperation and going after a bigger fish, so to speak, and instead it looked like that was a get out of jail free card for anything that he might have done or might do for some period of time. i thought it was extraordinary when hunter biden's attorney said that, and i'm not surprised the judge had a problem with it. think about that. give me a free pass on anything that you may not have been able to pin on me so far, but that you may find out about me in the months ahead. bizarre. >> sandra: obviously a plea deal if it happened today and judge agreed to one, we would be looking at a much different picture. obviously going back to the political implications as we get closer and closer to election day, karl, a bigger and bigger part of this discussion. >> think about this extraordinary moment. we could very well enter the

2024 general election with the republican front-runner today assume he becomes the nominee in court starting next may over having illegally taken documents acquisition is, classified documents and then shared them with people who didn't have any right whatsoever to be shown classified material, and we could have hunter biden, the son of the sitting president of the united states being caught up unall kinds of issues of trying to solicit money from foreign companies in part by claiming that he was the son of the then vice president and now president and -- and some discussion the president shared in those proceeds. we haven't gotten any evidence of that. we have had rumors and innuendo and accusations, but this could be an extraordinary election. further evidence of why the american people find these two candidates the least attractive in any election in our

lifetimes, fewer people want it to be between joe biden and donald trump and we have ever seen, and this is just simply going to make people more turned off on the election and be interesting to see how that all plays out on each respective side. >> john: karl, great to get your thoughts, appreciate it. back here to the studio in washington and sarah bedford who many of you may remember as sarah westwood, investigative and political reporter for the washington examiner. so, you've been looking into all of this with the prosecutor, and whether or not david weiss was approaching this case correctly, ties that a very close associate of hunter biden's had with the u.s. attorney's office in delaware, actually worked there for a while as the case was beginning. what do you make of what we saw unfold today? >> i think everything that happened in the courtroom today corroborates what the whistleblowers have said, every piece of documentary evidence, and some anonymous testimony from fbi officials, the case was

handled improperly by the u.s. attorney's office, the biden family received preferential treatment at every step and this is not a partisan republican coming out and exposing the weaknesses of the plea deal. this is a judge who everyone believed was going to sign off on the plea deal, a judge who has donated money to hillary clinton. this is not someone who was in position to, you know, trying to score points for republicans, and what we saw i think absolutely verifies these allegations that u.s. attorney david weiss did not handle this properly. >> sandra: thank you very much for joining us. as we continue to learn more, we are just sort of digging through the details that we are getting from our producer inside the courtroom that john just sort of alluded to. the judge repeatedly expressing concerns about the constitutionality of the diversion deal on the gun charge, the document specified if hunter breaches the agreement she would have to make a finding of fact before the government

could file charges, she said it's outside of my lane. this is remarkable now getting more detail into exactly what the judge was thinking when she decided not to come to a deal today. >> right, and i think it's notable that this started to unravel today, over guess of fara, the foreign agent registration act, that's when the two sides differed whether there was broad immunity over claims, i don't think voters care hunter biden was a drug user or made millions in and of itself, or care that he is a tax cheat. but what is important politically is that hunter biden may have sold influence to foreign interests and president joe biden participated in at least creating the perception that hunter biden was able to sell that access, if not participated even more deeply in hunter biden's business activities. that's what investigators at

weiss's office and the irs were barred from looking into, and merrick garland to appoint a special counsel the prosecutors official he's claiming is independent is accused of misconduct and now their wrists slapped by an impartial judge. >> john: i alluded to this as i was introducing you, you reported on a remarkable revelation, alexander macler, a close associate of the bidens and hunter himself was working in the delaware u.s. attorney's office at the time this investigation began. you point out in your fine article he held multiple positions in joe biden's senate office, beau biden's campaign manager when he ran for attorney general in delaware in 2010, biden-harris transition team, his duty to write out the blueprint for what the biden doj would look like, and you've got examples of a couple of emails that he sent to hunter biden where he said in one, love you,

hope you're good, call some time, this was originally obtained by the daily mail. another 1, october 16, 2018, said give me a call some time, we can catch up. love you, brother. what does it say to somebody who was this close to hunter biden working at the u.s. attorney's office in delaware when he was beginning to be investigated. >> he was working in the u.s. attorney's office when prosecutors did not go after hunter biden for the gun charge at the time it happened in 2018. alexander macler was in that office and notably that's the most problematic part of the plea deal from the judge's perspective. he was there for looks to be six months overlapping with the start of the hunter biden investigation. and this is why house republicans want to get u.s. attorney david weiss to ask questions, someone with this close personal relationship with the bidens asked to recuse himself from the investigation,

was he able to consult with leslie wolf, accused by the whistleblowers of blocking parts of the investigation, they tried cases together. was he allowed to speak with her about the investigation. these are questions that really undermined weiss's credibility as a u.s., and not forthcoming he's been so far. >> john: and why were they going into court today to sign off on a plea deal. sarah, great to see you. you'll always be westwood to me, i knew you then. >> sandra: mike turner, chairman of the house intelligence committee, joining us live from capitol hill. i'm also getting more detail from the producer in the courtroom that the judge apologized to the president's son, hunter biden, near the end of the hearing saying mr. biden i know you want to get this overwith and i'm sorry but i need to get more information to do justice as i'm required to

do. what is your reaction to hunter biden pleading not guilty in this tax case and there's no plea deal? >> right, this certainly is quite a shift. i want to give jason smith, chair of ways and means committee credit, because he filed an amicus brief bringing to the court the testimony of the irs whistleblowers who laid out the department of justice misconduct in this case. certainly is something that the court has taken into the record and the court will be looking at. this really shows, i think, the breadth of the misconduct the department of justice has done, when you look at the plea deal, not only a sweetheart deal, it goes beyond that, and includes things that were troubling to the judge. not just preferential treatment, but pull a fast one on the court itself. this deal also by the department of justice having allowed the statute of limitations to run on the 2014 and 2015 payments that hunter had received would shield him from the scrutiny of where

did these foreign payments come from and where did they go, which leads to the question of the president's involvement himself. >> john: congressman, what do you make of the very fact this plea deal hearing was going to go ahead this morning despite the fact that the oversite and the judiciary committees have uncovered all of this knew evidence, we heard whistleblowers lay out their case for how they wanted felony charges brought against hunter biden, those were diminished to misdemeanor charges and then the form fd-1023 we are told the fbi has corroborated at least part of, potential bribery scandal, not just hunter biden but the president as well. >> i sit on the oversight committee, and james comer as the chair and following the money and raises the serious questions the court needs to look at. what's extraordinary today, a worst case scenario for president biden. they thought they would get a

rubber stamp walk through, very little mainstream media or broad media coverage of the issue. this case is broken wide open. now the american people understand the extent to which there are not accusations but actual documentation of payments that were made from foreign investors, foreign entities that went through hunter biden, through shell companies and the question goes what is the president's involvement, what did he know and what did he receive. that allows the investigation occurring and ongoing in congress to impact overall this attempt by the department of juice to get a sweetheart deal for hunter biden, at the center anchor of all of this. >> sandra: the ongoing nature of all of that is why there are serious political implications, you heard from karl rove, not a good day for the president and his re-election bid, and another saying it's a good day for gavin newsom, what do you see as the political implications for the

president and running for president again? >> reckoning day for president biden, the truth will begin coming out. documented payments from foreign entities, foreign investors that went into shell companies that hunter biden either controlled or had interest in and money and payments made then directly to the biden family. as you unwind this, influence peddling, looks like bribes, the facts will come out and begin to try to put a lid on it and today is the day it opens up the american people turned the television sets and say we need answers, we need the truth, what are the payments and what was the president doing and what was hunter biden doing. >> john: it's going to make the testimony you are about to get from devon archer that much more interesting. something you said a moment ago, this was supposed to be a rubber stamp walk through for the doj in court today. but my understanding of it is that it was the prosecutors who

said no, our understanding is there is no immunity from future prosecution with the investigation that's ongoing. so sounds like the doj or at least their prosecutors who were at odds with hunter biden's attorney as to how much immunity the misdemeanor plea deal would have given him. >> and goes to the issue it's clearly rushed and inside influenced deal. if the court itself is reading the plea deal and has serious questions about what the language says and means, and she has the defendant standing in front of her saying i interpret this as i stand before you and agree to plead that i believe the more lenient, more broader description what i'm agreeing to the court has to take a pause and how did it come about. how did the language get before the court, the defendant had the understanding. what was the department of justice doing that resulted in this level of misconduct to have this land before the judge with so many questions unanswered. >> sandra: other reaction from

the hill, james comer reacting to the hunter biden plea deal latest saying "i think it gives our investigation a lot more credibility" says comer. i think we have learned there has been an ongoing investigation into hunter biden. comer says which was a claim he made following the fd-1023 viewing. >> it's true. i'm on his committee, i've been working with his work product as he's been briefing members and the public, the rs whistleblowers. great credibility and a great understanding of the department of justice. >> john: congressman mike turner, thank you for being with us, appreciate it. a lot more digest in the days ahead. andy mccarthy, former u.s. assistant district attorney and fox news contributor. legal side of this, what matters is what you plead to in court.

and hunter biden has pled not guilty today to two misdemeanor charges but he went into court with an agreement that he was going to plead guilty to these two things. so legally he's on the record as pleading not guilty, but the court of public opinion, he completely changed his plea, and going to go in and plead guilty and now has said oh, i'm not guilty. how is that going to fly with voters? >> well, i think obviously, john, if he was ready to say he's guilty and now saying he's not guilty, that goes to the authenticity of the whole arrangement. but i would ask a more fundamental question, which is we have said now that this has blown up, what's next, he can go to trial. and my question is go to trial on what. again, if this was a normal case, the justice department would have indicted, we wouldn't

be talking about whether the statute of limitations was going to run because they would have filed a complete indictment with all the most serious charges in it. that doesn't prevent you from making even a sweetheart plea deal but at least it stops the statute of limitations from running and it lays out what the case is and it gives a road map to what the potential legitimate plea arrangements might be. but there is no indictment here. they have never indicted him. the only thing he could enter a plea on today were these two minor counts which are just a small slice of this larger investigation because they haven't wanted to file an indictment that describes all of the evidence that they amassed in this incomplete investigation to this point. so you know, again, this is not the way a normal case runs. remember the mueller investigation, indictments he filed, they were not bare bones

minor charges, they would go on for 20 or 30 pages with heavy breathing that said a lot about potential collusion, and then you flip to the end and get a bunch of like false statements fbi agents. but when the justice department is doing an aggressive investigation it files indictments that lay out what the case is. and obviously the biden justice department does not want to do that in this case for some reason. >> sandra: all right, we are continuing to get reaction from capitol hill, obviously a lot is pouring in. but andy, digging through the details of the judge's reaction inside of the courtroom, and exactly what our producers were relaying to us, that's all we can go off from until we possibly hear from hunter biden's legal team, we have not seen hunter biden exit just yet. in those notes here we are hearing that she repeatedly

expressed her concerns about the constitutionality of the diversion deal and the gun charge. we know that. main problem with the agreement is the document specifies if hunter breaches the agreement she would have to make a finding of fact before the government could bring charges. she said that's outside my lane. could you lay that out so we could be brought along here, andy? >> sandra, in federal law the court is not allowed to participate in plea negotiations. it's completely up to the justice department when to file charges and the division of labor here today was -- the justice department can make whatever arrangement they want with the defendant in terms of what they'll plead guilty to, what charges will be brought. the court's job is to basically say we are not going to put the perimeter of the court, put the integrity of the court as a stamp on this agreement unless we are convinced that it's a just agreement.

she can't tell them what charges to bring. all she can do is examine the proposal that they give her and see if it meets that standard. so what the cutie pie thing the justice department tried to do was to shift the burden of prosecution from themselves to the court so that if there were a breach of the agreement there would have to be a finding of fact from the court about the breach before there could be charges brought again. that's not the way it's supposed to work. if the justice department thinks the guilty plea agreement has been breached, they can go file charges. that's not what the judge's job is. and i would point out, this is why this is not a regular normal legitimate arrangement. one of the great things about being a prosecutor in the justice department is because we are supposed to give equal justice to everybody, all these agreements look the same. the best luxury as a prosecutor,

ask me to change and i said i can't. but here, hunter biden got a special pleading, a special type of agreement. >> john: sandra talked about the diversion program for the gun charge the judge did not agree with, and then found out the plea deal would take place in the middle of an ongoing investigation which was again established in the court proceedings this morning. according to our producer jake gibson who was there, the judge asked the prosecutor is there an ongoing investigation here, he answered there is. and jake said weiss could not tell the judge what the investigation was into but if asked, if the government could potentially bring a fara charge, wise answered yes. this is where the agreement broke down, defense attorney chris clark did not agree with

that and wise said then there is no deal. clark counted, as far as i'm concerned, plea deal is null and void. like you can't fire me, i quit. that's an indication that this investigation may be a lot hotter than anyone at the department of justice or the u.s. attorney's office in delaware has indicated, may be looking into a potential charge under the foreign agent registration act against hunter biden and that would include all of or at least some of those overseas business dealings we have been hearing so much about, andy, in the house committee hearings. >> i would think not only that, john, money laundering would be involved and just look at the manafort indictment. the same kind of behavior the mueller investigation indicted manafort for. so the charges that were involved in that case would not only fara charges, money laundering charges, tax felonies, you know, when you are

doing a serious, aggressive investigation that's the sort of thing that you see but obviously we are not seeing that here. >> john: why would they even consider signing the plea deal with all of that hanging out there? >> it's a political plea deal. they hoped that they would get a judge who would sign off on this and rubber stamp it and then what the hunter team would say is something i think i heard you say, what he would say is these tax pleas to these two years are in settlement of all of the tax years which we are told go from 2014 to 2019. we know they have lost the 2014/15 counts, right. what the biden people would also say is the ambit of immunity for the plea agreement includes not just the specific tax charges but the underlying facts and any charges that could be extrapolated from those facts. so they would say this covers

fara, money laundering -- >> sandra: karine jean-pierre stepped up at the white house. >> the president loves his son, the president and first lady love their son, and they support him as he's rebuilding his life and trying to move forward. i have not spoken to the president today. he has been busy, continuing to work on behalf of the american people as he does every day with internal meetings. and so i will leave it there. >> is the white house any closer to figuring out when the president will make his promised visit to africa this year? >> i don't have a visit to preview at this time. but as you know, the president met with african leaders at the end of last year, incredibly productive and he promised to visit the continent of africa this year, just don't have anything to lay out. as you know, the first lady has traveled to the continent, so has the vice president and so we have kept our commitment in continuing to grow and develop

that relationship with countries in africa. >> last question, i wanted to follow up on your comments yesterday about commander, you shared a statement that said the bidens have been working with secret service and the resident staff, protocols, talked about how the secret service has treated these biting incidents as workplace incidents. and the statement says the president and first lady are grateful to the secret service and the staff for keeping the family safe. what we did not hear yesterday was any statement of contrition or apology or they are mortified or regret commander is behaving like this. >> the statement came from my colleague that i was reiterating over at the first lady's office. i would certainly refer you to the statement again. look, we are -- the president and the first lady continues to be incredibly grateful to the secret service and the executive resident staff that continues to be the case. we are working through this to

make the situation even better. i don't have anything else to add. as i mentioned yesterday at the top, being here on this complex, this white house complex is incredibly unique and can be stressful situations for family pets and we are working -- we are certainly working through -- working through this particular situation with the secret service to make this better. >> karine, earlier this weaning the president was never in business with his son. can you say the president did not have any conversations with him about his business dealings. >> i was asked this question multiple times on monday nothing has changed. i don't have anything to add to what i stated on monday. >> preview of the president's briefing on heat. >> i gave you a little preview, he's going to be announcing some actions tomorrow, extreme

weather as you all know has been -- has been a difficult time for families and americans across the country, especially out west, you will hear from the president about this. let's not forget climate change. climate change is real that's why the president has taken some historic actions to deal with this issue, to deal with climate change, a crisis he called when he walked into the administration and inflation reduction act is one of those laws ha is giving, or going to give the most resources to deal with climate change. the president is very proud of that and you'll hear directly from him on this issue tomorrow. >> have the president and his attorneys been in touch with hunter's legal team today and keeping tabs on the proceedings? >> look, i don't have anything to share. i would refer you to, on this particular issue i would refer you to hunter's representative. prefer you to the department of justice. i don't have anything to share beyond what i shared at the top