To paraphrase Pigmeat Markham, everybody knows that she is the judge, yes Maryellen Noreika is the judge and order in the court.   

On a more serious matter, the Hunter Biden team finally ran into someone who was asking questions about their plea agreement. And it did not go well, as Will Scharf wrote:

Hunter Biden arrived in a Delaware federal court on Wednesday morning expecting that, in a few short hours, he would walk out a free man with full immunity from prosecution for an exceedingly wide range of alleged criminal conduct, ranging from gun and drug charges to foreign influence peddling. His expectation was that his deal would be insulated from challenges from the presiding judge, or from a prosecutorial change of heart under a future administration. His expectation was that his legal ordeals were coming to a close.

Instead, U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika picked apart his plea deal with surgical precision, exposing its legal contradictions, and upbraiding both defense counsel and the Department of Justice for structuring an unprecedented deal that in her view -- and mine -- was illegal and unconstitutional.

As the old folks used to say when something didn't smell right:  The judge smelled a rat and this one was pretty stinky.  Judge Noreika felt that the lawyers were trying to get her to rubber-stamp. Sign here, judge, and the big man is going to be very happy with you.  He may invite you to White House Christmas Party! 

So here we are, and it was not part of the script as the article points out:

Hunter’s lawyers and DOJ are going to go off and try to pull together a new set of agreements, likely narrower and less novel in its arrangement to satisfy Judge Noreika and move the case. They will have to explain their conduct in a public briefing which may shed some light on the obviously tortured negotiations that led us to this place. And, fortunately, the chances of any agreement proceeding with the kind of blanket immunity the parties had in mind as they walked into court yesterday are essentially nil at this point.

You mean that Hunter may have to face reality one of these days?  Let's hope so.  Let's say thanks that the judge this time around was not willing to go along.

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Image: U.S. Distrcit Court for the District of Delaware