Hunter Biden got some bad news this week:  Indictment in California and allegations that he failed to pay nearly $200,000 of income tax in the year 2019.     

We can thank Judge Maryellen Noreika for this, as Jonathan Turley points out:   

Five months ago, exasperated Biden defense counsel Chris Clark snapped at federal prosecutors to “just rip it up” after a plea bargain hit a snag in a hearing before Judge Maryellen Noreika. They did and, for the first time, Hunter could be facing a real chance for jail time.

The six misdemeanor charges and three felonies carry a potential sentence of 17 years for alleged tax evasion and filing a false return. It could have been worse. The Justice Department inexplicably allowed the statute of limitations to run on the most serious allegations involving payments from years going back to 2016. Those are mentioned in the narrative of the indictment but not charged as separate offenses.

None of this would have happened if Judge Noreika did not ask a very simple question about the plea agreement and a sweeping immunity provision buried in its language. Many judges would have likely flagged through the agreement and given Hunter the sweetest of sweetheart deals.

Noreika noticed that the deal seemed to give Hunter immunity for any crime going forward and asked the prosecutor if he had ever seen any agreement like this one. He honestly answered “no.”

It was later learned that there was a push within the Justice Department to have no charges at all brought against Hunter in an investigation that was heavily laden with special treatment, according to IRS whistleblowers.

Thanks, Judge -- and those whistleblowers mocked by partisan congressmen.

Of course, the real issue is Hunter's father and just how much he may have benefitted from any of this.  So far, President Biden has denied everything, including that his son was doing business with other countries.

Maybe it was all a coincidence, as President Biden's defenders want you to believe.  

Maybe it was just a coincidence that dad and son were flying on the VP's plane to Ukraine and other destinations.  

Or maybe the son was kidding when he said that the big guy was sitting next to him.  

Or maybe the time has come to put Joe away and prepare that much-anticipated convention when the party elites go around the delegates and nominate someone else.  Sorry Kamala.

I don't know where all of this is going.  However, Joe Biden has a bad moon rising and we can thank Judge Noreika for that.

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Image: United States District Court for the District of Delaware