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July 27, 2023 - Sean Hannity Show
32:12
Griff Jenkins - July 26th, Hour 1

Sean sits down with Fox News' Griff Jenkins to talk about the Biden plea deal and just why it's pulling down the entire Biden Presidency.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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All right.
Thank you, Scott Shannon.
Thanks to all of you for being with us.
What a crazy, you know, back and forth and incredible news day it has been.
Let me give you the bottom line.
The Hunter Biden sweetheart slap on the wrist, a deal that wouldn't be given to anybody else, deal that had to be signed off by this judge just completely fell apart.
And a stunning turn of events that was unfolding over the course of a little over three hours today.
It was stunning.
It was just fascinating to watch it all unfold.
Is he there yet?
No, no.
All right.
Our friend from Fox News, he's a real good friend.
Griff Jenkins was in the courtroom for a lot of this.
And now I'll give you all the details we have and all the analysis you could ever want.
We have Jay Seculo.
We have James Comer on today.
We have Bill O'Reilly today.
We got everybody.
And now we have Griff Jenkins.
He was in the courtroom for most of today.
Wow, what a turn of events.
Wow, Sean, I'll tell you, we certainly didn't expect to witness what we did today.
It was contentious at times, obviously highly unexpected.
I mean, we thought, you know, if you step back for a second, we thought this was going to be signed, sealed, and delivered.
It was a carefully orchestrated plea deal to help Hunter Biden avoid a high-profile trial because he's the president's son.
But once Judge Mary Ellen Narika, a Trump appointee, by the way, started probing questions about this deal, we really learned that things were not going well.
And there was a specific moment that I witnessed in there, Sean, which was when she was talking about the diversion part of the deal and the two sides, the prosecution and defense, really not able to explain to her how it was that this was constitutional.
She said, I've never seen anything for this.
Do you guys have a precedent for this?
Neither prosecution or defense could say that.
And it was the diversion part that allowed Hunter to avoid prosecution for the felony gun charge.
And by the way, I want to remind people, this is him lying on a gun application form.
And I thought the Democrats cared so much about these tough laws on guns and that he would get a diversion program because he was, quote, addicted to drugs at the time.
The same judge also had previously sentenced in a very similar case, a guy to five years for the same charge.
Yeah, it's a good point.
And, you know, ultimately, the judge has said, just so we're clear with your listeners, did not accept the deal for now.
Now, she hasn't totally slammed the door, but she told both sides to go back and gave them up to 30 days to file briefs.
And we presume at some point she'll call him back in the courtroom to do oral briefing, although she didn't set a timeline to explain to her how it is that this is constitutional.
And there was another moment that really stood out to me when the judge Narika asked the prosecution, is there an investigation currently ongoing?
And could Hunter Biden face additional charges in this matter with respect to things like FARAT, the Foreign Agent Registration Act violations, because the investigation is, of course, into Hunter Biden's overseas dealings with Barisma and with Chinese business partners.
And when the prosecution said, yes, that's possible, the defense said, well, hang on.
I'm not okay with that.
You know, we thought we were getting immunity here, broad immunity.
So the judge had a problem with constitutionality, the diversion part of the deal, and she had a problem with really the scope, it appeared, and the broad nature, the immunity that Hunter was getting in this deal.
Just about 20 minutes ago left the courtroom.
Sean, I was shooting with my cell phone trying to get some good video.
We had hoped to hear there were rumors that maybe the defense team was going to talk about this, but I think they were planning to go to the microphones to say, okay, well, we're glad that's behind us and move on.
And now the situation is anything but, and just to walk it out a touch war, you know, I doubt you're going to hear U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who's been doing this years-long investigation in Hunter Biden.
I don't think he's going to be testifying anytime soon now for House Republicans with this matter unresolved.
It's really quite a significant day here in the courtroom and is as unexpected as we could have possibly imagined.
Let me ask you about one moment in particular, and the New York Times reported on this, that the judge became very, very angry, expressed her anger after being asked to, quote, rubber stamp a plea deal worked out between the lawyers and the father's department of justice.
And you're right, you know, when she was asking these very pertinent questions, legal questions, about can he still face additional charges, which is where obviously there was either a miscommunication, misunderstanding on some level, and the answer came back yes.
She actually stood up for the Constitution and civil rights and said, you mean that means you're waiving your right to an attorney?
You're waiving your right to this, this, this, and this.
Very pertinent points, but the idea that, you know, during this hearing, she was angrily, you know, saying that she felt like she was being asked to rubber stamp an agreement that she had serious constitutional concerns about.
Yeah, there's no doubt.
I mean, look, it is correct to say that she became agitated and angry with both sides.
She was upset that she didn't want to be rubber stamping this plea deal that she had so many questions about.
And there was one moment in there, Sean, that honestly I felt like, and I didn't go to law school, but I felt like it must be what it's like when you sit in a classroom during law school because she was lecturing the prosecution because it was structured,
the diversion part was structured in a way that if Hunter Biden were to violate the agreement with the two-year period of the probation to avoid the prosecution of the gun thing, it would be up to her to hold a fact of finding hearing to then determine whether the prosecution would bring charges for his violation.
Now, that sounds like a lot, but she was ultimately explaining it in simpler terms after she laid it out and said, listen, we have separate branches of government, and I'm the judicial.
And the executive is the one, the prosecutor is the one who decides to bring charges.
You're not going to put me in that position.
And she seemed, quite frankly, angry that this deal and the prosecution was trying to put her in that position and made clear in no uncertain terms that was not going to be the case.
Now, we had this late-breaking story last night that came out where literally there was an accusation against Hunter Biden, one of his legal team members, happened to be a woman, misrepresenting themselves to the clerk's office.
And anyway, the judge overseeing this, as you point out, District Judge Mary Ellen Narika overseeing the case, suggesting that one of Hunter's lawyers had pretended to call from the committee chair because the committee had sent in an amicus brief in this case.
Yeah, so that was really the drama we got last night before things even started today.
And you laid it out correctly there, Sean.
And what happened was late yesterday, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith, filed this amicus brief asking the judge and the court to consider the testimony and findings of the two IRS whistleblowers that found and testified without being challenged,
by the way, by anybody, that the deal was a sweetheart deal and that he got preferential political consideration in this investigation.
And so he was simply saying, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee saying, hey, court, Judge Narika, you need to consider this because that plea deal was structured way before we knew that.
And then we learned that the judge issued an order demanding a response by 9 p.m. last night about a clerk or a staff member that worked in the defense's office that had potentially mischaracterized herself in calling to have that amicus brief set aside and not considered the legal team, the lawyers, the defense putting out a statement saying they had no idea how this misunderstanding could have happened.
They did not indeed try and mischaracterize themselves.
But that wasn't much of the discussion at all in court.
It didn't really come up.
It seems to have gotten settled because we quickly were off to the races with learning that the judge was highly unsatisfied with this plea agreement and obviously ultimately put it on hold from going forward.
So, you know, the question now is, Sean, what happens if he ultimately does decide to accept the agreement?
And by the way, at one point, Judge Narika apologized, said, I'm sorry, Hunter.
I know you want to get this thing done and move on, but we simply can't until I have the answers to satisfy the constitutionality questions around it.
We just don't know when we're going to find out whether it goes away or whether this really opens things up even wider than it was before this morning.
Yeah, I mean, just a stunning turn of events here.
And, you know, when the judge asked for whether or not either side, the prosecution side or the defense side and the prosecution, again, they're the ones that supposedly had struck this deal that did not go through today, and it is now off the table.
And while the judge, on the one hand, is offering more time, the fact that they couldn't offer a precedent on the drug diversion agreement, either side couldn't offer a precedent.
And the judge has a history of punishing people for the same thing, giving one guy five years in jail.
I think that's going to be a very hard hurdle for them to overcome.
On top of that, and James Comer will give us more details later, we now have all of this information from these IRS whistleblowers and that they were stymied and stopped from continuing their investigation and interviewing Biden family members.
Forget the president, put that aside, but other Biden family members and the idea that they had an opportunity to extend the statute of limitations and they passed on it.
As all this information now begins to make it into the bloodstream of this case, I'm not sure they're going to be able to get any sweetheart deal past this judge.
I think you're probably on to something there.
And, you know, to be fair, the judge gave both sides ample opportunity on multiple occasions.
She said, hey, help me out here.
I've never seen a deal like this.
It's never come before me.
I'm not aware of one.
I haven't heard of one.
I haven't seen one.
Help me understand how it is you came to this agreement and structuring it this way.
And they clearly, both the prosecution and defense, had not expected to have to do that and were highly unprepared to be able to do that.
They just assumed that it was going to be not an issue.
It wouldn't be challenged.
And so she was very fair in just giving them multiple opportunities and, of course, gave us that recess that we saw for the two sides to discuss with each other.
I mean, she gave them every opportunity possible to try and get their act together and get on the same page.
But it was certainly not to happen.
And now we're left at, she at the very end said, so how do you plead in this?
And he said he pleads not guilty.
So right now, no deal.
And Hunter Biden pleading not guilty with two texts of these languages with more to come.
What a fascinating day for you to be in the courtroom to actually witness this all unfold.
And you were doing a phenomenal job of being in the courtroom at the right time and then racing out to the Fox cameras outside and running back in.
You did a great job today, as always, and we appreciate your time.
Griff Jenkins, my friend and colleague from the Fox News Channel, great reporting today, sir.
Hey, thank you, Sean, as always.
And we'll be on top of it and bring you the latest as we get.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
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We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
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You're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday.
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All right, 25 to the top of the hour.
We'll get back to our big news of the day.
The sweetheart slap on the wrist plea deal of Hunter has just vanished into thin air and a really, really almost unprecedented unfolding of events in the courtroom in Delaware earlier today.
We'll get back into that later on.
We'll get Bill O'Reilly's take.
James Comer is going to be with us why this deal shouldn't have gone through in the first place because the prosecution is saying that they're keeping open the possibility that there might be more charges for Hunter.
And that's where the disagreement with the defense came in.
That was not our understanding.
We thought this ended everything.
And then the judge in the middle of it saying, well, give me an example of like somebody lying on a gun application form, never mind it being dumped in a dumpster and found by, thankfully, a Good Samaritan and Hunter getting away with it.
And then the IRS whistleblowers, we'll get into all of this saying that they weren't even allowed to do their job and the statute of limitations.
They had agreed to extend them and they didn't even extend them.
Those are for the years that he made some real serious money.
On top of the 1023 form and the WhatsApp messages and everything in between, you know, this is all going to hell for the Bidens.
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It's not what the Bidens expected today, I'll tell you that.
But the whole deal has fallen apart.
They do have 30 days.
I have no doubt that the prosecutor and the defense are going to try to salvage this deal.
Why?
Because if they don't salvage the deal, there's no way Hunter Biden is getting any type of plea deal like he got here.
You know, and then this is why what the whistleblowers, IRS whistleblowers said was so important.
Anyway, so all through the morning, it was kind of odd that we kept hearing that the deal was off the table, but they're negotiating a new deal.
And no, there's no deal.
The deal is off.
Now, to me, you got to look at the big picture here.
And even the New York Post was very on the same page as where my mind was with this deal blowing up in the face of the prosecutors.
Merrick Garland's DOJ blew up in their face.
And they're already being investigated for weaponizing our justice system.
You know, with this collapse of this deal today and this stunning turn of events, you know, came more than 90 minutes into the hearing where Hunter had been expected to just plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges, willful failure to pay taxes, and then entered the diversion program on the felony federal weapons charge.
And then the judge in the case said there was still a possibility that he would be charged with offenses and then started making the case to Hunter's own attorneys.
Excuse me, you're willing to give up his right to a fair and speedy trial, his right to due process, his right to, you know, just went through all the rights they'd be giving up in this deal by him pleading guilty on this stuff.
With the prosecution saying, yeah, we might come back for another bite at the apple.
It's just crazy moments here.
You know, the type of thing that those are details you don't miss in a plea agreement.
You either agree to it or you don't agree to it.
Anyway, the House Ways and Means Committee accused one of Hunter Biden's attorneys of misrepresenting herself to the court last night in an attempt to block the release of what they believe was evidence that would jeopardize the president's undeal.
They sent in an amicus brief saying, we have all of this that we have discovered.
This case is going much deeper and a lot further.
This is not the time to be signing off on a plea deal.
Anyway, so this was dealt with by the judge, Judge Mary Ellen Narika, who will ultimately either sign off on this or not, but it's not looking like it's a good opportunity at this point.
But anyway, the brief alleged that the deal was tainted.
Now, here's the interesting part.
The attorney that filed the brief on behalf of the House Ways and Means Committee chairman told the court that Hunter Biden had benefited from political interference, which calls into question the propriety of the entire investigation.
So, anyway, that report and that filing had been removed from the court's docket.
And anyway, they went on to say we promptly contacted the clerk's office.
We were advised that someone contacted the court representing that they work for my office, meaning the House Ways and Means Committee, and that they were asking the court to remove this from the docket.
And anyway, we immediately advised them that this was inaccurate.
And the clerk's office responded that they would need to refile.
And we have done so now in the new filing.
Anyway, the House Ways and Means Committee added email correspondence with the court official and Hunter Biden's lawyers.
Hi, Ted, following up on a recent conversation.
The woman who called was a Jessica Bengals.
One message from Grimes read.
She said she worked with Theodore Catillia, and it was important document that was removed immediately.
In other words, working with the House Ways and Means Committee.
In other words, they had filed this information with the court.
So the deal wouldn't be signed off on by the judge.
And anyway, it turns out that the person that did this, Bengals, is employed at the New York-based law firm Latham and Watkins.
And Hunter Biden attorney, Chris Clark, was formerly a partner at that firm.
And when the Hunters' legal team was confronted, they doubled down on the defense that the filing had confidential tax information embedded there and denied that they had misrepresented themselves.
You should probably take a step back from your statements, Katila replied to Hunter Biden's lawyer.
The clerk's office advised that it was represented to her that the request was being made from my firm.
And we will be meaning the House Ways and Means Committee's firm.
We will be advising the judge of this improper conduct.
I stand by all my statements, and I hope you have an affidavit from the clerk to support yours.
Well, it turns out the judge in that case was not particularly happy with this.
And so anyway, they accused the member, the Oversight Committee, and the judge now overseeing the case accused a member of the legal team of Hunter Biden of misrepresenting themselves to the clerk's office, which is beyond unusual.
And Biden's lawyers insisted the debacle is a misunderstanding in court filings Tuesday night, said they had not intentionally deceived anyone at the court.
But the district judge, Mary Ellen Aureka, who's overseeing the Biden case, suggested that one of the lawyers had pretended to call from the committee chair's law firm.
Erika ordered Biden attorneys to submit in writing why they shouldn't be sanctioned.
I mean, that's a big deal.
It appears that the caller misrepresented her identity and who she worked for in an attempt to improperly convince the clerk's office to remove the amicus materials from the docket.
Whoa.
I mean, I can tell you because the lead attorney for Hunter Biden is a serious attorney.
Abby Lowell is one of the top attorneys in Washington.
This guy, if you're in trouble, you want somebody like Abby.
He's the one that got John Edwards off.
He got Senator, what's his name in New Jersey, Menendez off.
I mean, he's done some high-profile cases.
He represented Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
And notice they didn't have much trouble.
It was like five great lawyers.
One Jay Seculo, and then there's like, you know, Emmett Flood would be one.
Not a lot of, I mean, a top, top-tier lawyer.
You can tell by the fees that they charge.
I wish I got a discount.
I'm kidding.
I'll say that to Jay when he's on.
Anyway, so the judge says no on the deal, and the tax and gun charges, and the judge even getting angry at times with all this.
I thought there would be more out of the hearings on the UFOs today.
I mean, you have one witness that absolutely believes that the government is in possession and knows exactly where the technology that they've located from unidentified flying objects.
And anyway, the guy said under oath that non-human biologics were obtained in a UFO crash retrieval.
It just, I don't know why I'm so interested in this, but I am.
Here's what he said.
Do you believe our government has made contact with intelligent extraterrestrials?
Something I can't discuss in public setting.
Okay, I can't ask when you think this occurred.
If you believe we have crashed craft, stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft?
As I've stated publicly already in my news station interview, biologics came with some of these recoveries.
Yeah.
Were they, I guess, human or non-human biologics?
Non-human, and that was the assessment of people with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program.
And you have a guy like Ryan Graves witness describing sightings.
Look at this guy.
He's an F-18 pilot of the Red Rippers, and their squadron was, you know, split up because of a lot of this.
He said the object was dark gray, black inside of a clear sphere, 15 feet in diameter, came within 50 feet of the lead aircraft.
And he said more than 30 witnesses had told his group about similar sightings, often the veterans with decades of flying experience.
He said the encounters became so frequent that air crew would discuss the risk of these unidentified objects that were flying as a danger to them.
One former Navy pilot, David Fraber, was part of a squadron in 2004 that witnessed the UAP drop 80,000 feet, nearly twice the ceiling of their F-18 fighter jets down to the surface of the ocean where another craft seemed to be churning up the sea, and then it raced off past the rendezvous point three times faster than the jets.
I told my buddy I wanted to fly it.
What we saw with our four sets of eyes over a five-minute period, but there's nothing.
So that got pretty interesting.
You know, is there a real, I don't trust the federal government.
You know, we had this come up last night with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And, you know, he believes that very strongly that former president John F. Kennedy, his uncle and his father, that they were targeted by members of the CIA.
I don't know.
One of the main reasons that this is so important, what happened, and the judge didn't sign off on this plea agreement today, is all the things we've been learning about the Biden family business and what we learned from the IRS whistleblowers and what they've been telling us.
They were not allowed.
They wanted to interview the Biden family members.
They weren't allowed to.
And, you know, Joseph Ziegler saying there's a mountain of evidence that Hunter Biden committed serious felonies.
You know, that there was an extension made available to the prosecution that as it relates to the statute of limitations for years that were financially very beneficial to the Biden family, and they didn't take that deal to extend the statute of limitations.
I mean, that is exactly what we're investigating here, and that is whether or not the DOJ is weaponized and whether or not the FBI is weaponized and politicized.
You know, all these witnesses said to interview Hunter Biden as part of their investigation.
They were blocked from doing so, but that's still there was a ton of evidence of wrongdoing with bank records, suspicious activity reports, eyewitness accounts.
Wait till we hear from Devin Archer.
That should be interesting on Monday.
You know, then you can go to the 1023 form and what do we have?
You have a well-respected FBI informant and filing a report about his interactions with the head of Burisma and confidential human source released thanks to Senator Chuck Grassley.
You know, this is why he keeps saying this is about now Joe Biden.
What was Joe Biden's knowledge and understanding?
Because, you know, this guy is saying that, yeah, no, we hired Biden to protect us through his dad.
We hired Hunter and other kinds of problems.
And don't worry, Hunter will take care of all those issues through his dad.
And he goes on to talk about at length, you know, one of the biggest problems they faced was this prosecutor investigating the Biden, Hunter Biden, and Burisma.
And sure enough, lo and behold, Joe Biden leveraged a billion dollars, forced Ukraine to fire that prosecutor in six hours.
Hunter continues to get paid.
Their investigation went away.
And then wasn't too happy, said the CEO of Burisma, claiming that he didn't want to pay the Bidens.
He was pushed to pay them.
Quote, it costs $5 million to pay one Biden, $5 million to pay another Biden.
It'll take them 10 years to ever find out how we paid them.
And over and over again, saying that Hunter Biden is stupid.
They weren't paying him for his intellect or his experience.
He was stupid.
As a matter of fact, the guy thought his dog was smarter than Hunter Biden, but they needed to keep Hunter on the board so, quote, everything would be okay.
You know, add to that the WhatsApp message.
I'm sitting here with my father.
I'd like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.
That was to a Chinese oil executive.
What happens at the end of that?
And a week later, oh, $5 million straight to the Biden family.
Coffers.
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Kennedy is on.
All right, we're loaded up today.
Gonna have great analysis of all the events that took place.
All things simple man Bill O'Reilly, he'll be checking in with us.
We'll get the latest from the House Government Oversight Committee.
Looking forward to that.
And also Jay Seculo, 22 Supreme Court case wins.
He knows a thing or two.
He's a very, it's interesting.
He's a tough defense attorney, and he defended Donald Trump so many times.
And we've had discussions about this.
He might be a little more contrarian than you think because, you know, he had to take strong positions to save Trump, and they worked.
Anyway, quick break.
We'll come back.
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