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♪ ♪ we are awaiting any new developments to come out of delaware where moments ago the president's son, hunter biden told a federal judge that he intends to plead guilty to tax charges. what we are told will happen next. >> new this morning rudy giuliani concedes he made statements about election workers that were not true when he falsely accused them of committing fraud in 2020. >> plus terrifying moments in new york. look at this, as a crane collapses and then crashes into a building before falling on to the sidewalk below. several people were hurt. i'm rahel solomon with john berman. a new hour of "cnn news central" starts right now. ♪ ♪ >> all right.

we are getting new information from inside the federal courthouse in wilmington delaware where huntered bien and his team along with federal prosecutors are before a federal judge working out this plea agreement. where hunter biden has agreed to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor tax charges and there's also a deal to resolve a federal gun charge and it's the end of the justice department's investigation into hunter biden's finances. accusations of money laundering and sara murray and evan perez join us. this hearing is still happening. what are we learning so far? >> the judge is kind of going through all of the facts that the justice department says that they found as part of this investigation. i'll read you just a part of what we're getting from our team, those inside the courthouse right now. the justice department is saying that they are going to recommend

probation. that means no jail time for hunter biden, at least that's the recommendation from the justice department as part of this agreement under which hunter biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay his taxes on time in 2017 and 2018, but that's the legal part of this. the political part of this is looming very large inside the courtroom. you can see right now the justice department is going through the sources of some of the income that have become such a part of the political part of this story, that hunter biden made money from his work overseas in ukraine and from chinese companies. >> he had the money according to the justice department to pay his taxes and just did not. now the judge is going through all of the facts as prosecutors will lay them out. one of the things that she asked and this is a judge, mary ellen

a raka, she whether she could ask them to go back and re-do this investigation if there are parts of it that she finds lacking. both the justice department and hunter biden's attorneys agreed that she could not do so. the justice department said the way to handle would be for the political process to take over which we expect is exactly what's going to happen after this hearing is over, guys. >> evan, i think one thing we want to make clear here is that we're so used to hearings between judges being adverse aerial between the prosecution and the defense is working across the purpose here. that's not the case in this case. you have a prosecution team and hunter biden's defense team that are going in there, having reached an agreement with the l? >> that's right, and i think they're both under attack here, john because obviously republicans believe that there's much more to this investigation

and they have whistle blowers who are a part of this investigation and the irs investigators and certainly, we've been documenting here at cnn since, you know, a couple of years ago that this is an investigation that had a lot of internal disagreements and so some of that has now spilled out into the public, and what you see there playing out in court is the prosecution saying we did everything we could to look into this. the hunter biden team obviously believing this is an investigation that's gone on for five years and it's high time it went away and they're trying their best to intervene here making the point that they have to make sure that they're far from over, and the questions they have are far from answered. >> sara, i want to bring you into the conversation because as evan just touched on. there are legal implications and there are also political implications and brings up to speed because there are some in congress who would like to weigh in. what more can we expect on this

front? >> oh, that's right. no doubt house republicans will be dropping this any time soon. they still have a lot of questions about hunter biden's financial dealings and they have a question, and they haven't been able to prove that joe biden has benefitted from what hunter biden was involved in. we've seen david weiss tell that he is willing to testify before house judiciary coming up in september and october. so there are going to be questions again about what the scope of this investigations was and there are also going to be questions about the claims from these irs whistle blowers that there was some kind of political interference or preferential treatment of hunter biden and weiss has knocked down some of those claims, and it is very clear that republicans have more questions about this and house speaker kevin mccarthy has made some of his most poignant comments to date saying they may

pursue a potential inquiry of joe biden related to these financial questions. take a listen to what he said. the more this continues to unravel it rises to the level, and that simply provides is that the american public has a right to know and this allows congress to get the information to be able to know the truth. >> and again, house republicans still have not been able to prove at this point that joe biden benefited at all from hunter biden's business dealings, his overseas business dealings. joe biden has insisted he played no role in that, and it is pretty clear that house republicans are eyeing impeachment as a potential process to get more information about this, guys. >> certainly want over on that fro front. sara murray and evan perez, we have more to discuss. >> we get more dribs and drabs from the court and we'll bring them to you, and ellie honig, we

heard the conversation of what's been going on as part of what would normally be a routine plea agreement, and nothing routine when you're talking about the child of the president of the united states. the judge asked the prosecutors and the defense could she ask them to re-do the probe if she thought the investigations was lacking? both sides agreed no, how unusual of a question is that from a judge on the bench of the plea hearing. >> that is not a routine question. usually everything else and that is not a routine question and that question is solely confined to this case and there would be no reason to ask it in anothers a and what i think is happening here is the judge is trying to make a record. the judge is trying to say let's make sure we get this straight. both sides, the the justice department and hunter biden, i

think you need to look in a different place and that is 100% the authority that any judge would have and the judge is making a record and making a statement to the broader world that congress, if you want to dig into this, that's not my business and my job is to decide whether or not to accept this plea. >> elie, some of the conditions hub hunter biden having to abstain from alcohol or drug use. what do you make of that? >> absolutely standard. you have a to abide by non-encarciliatory, sometimes you have a curfew, sometimes you have to check in and make an appointment with your pre-trial officer. >> random drug testing and what would happen if he were to test positive? >> sometimes people do fail their drug testing, primarily to

marijuana do we ask the judge to remand this person and ask them to get locked up? the prosecutor can use his or her discretion and then the judge ultimately made a decision about that. >> both sides in this case seem to be on the same page which is a great point. walk me through, there has been a lot said about whether the charges were ultimately brought about were reasonable and you say? >> as far as we can tell they're reasonable and it's an indictment that both sides agree to. no reason to think this is out of the ordinary. >> we are getting a new tidbit and this also feels unusual to me. let me see if you agree with that. >> they are now in recess after the judge ask asking the parties to explain how the deals on the tax crime and the gun charges fit together and the teams are discussing among themselves how they want to answer that.

elie, stand by. our kara scannell is standing by. what exactly is going on now? >> john, so we've gone through a lot of the process in this case. the judge asking a lot of questions and she's really now honing in on these plea agreements and remember, there are two separate cases and one is the tax case and those are the misdemeanor charges. so they run through the specifics of that agreement. he also has the gun charge. that's the felony charge that carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. they are two separate agreements and the judge is focusing in and saying to hunter biden. you understand the four corners of this tax plea agreement does not include specifically this gun diversion which would allow him to not -- allow him to avoid prison time and she's saying if you don't have immunity from other charges are you still willing to plead guilty to these tax misdemeanor, and he said,

no, i will not. his lawyer stood up and weighed in and said confirming he would not plead to immunity, and that could include charges beyond just the gun charge and any other potential charges out there. >> she's really wanting to make sure he understands the agreement. >> one of the prosecutors has said to the judge these two stand on their own and that's when she said to boeing sides, help me understand this. you both need different things and he said do you need to speak to each other? both have been talking for quite some time. they look like they might be wrapping up that communication and they might have additional communications with the judge starting up again soon. we are waiting that both sides, the defense ask prosecution, are on the same page or if there is still a disagreement or if the judge will have to get into that, but it's certainly a wrinkle that people didn't foresee coming today because the

biden side and the prosecution were on the same page heading into this program i know the judge is trying to understand that biden understands the terms of this deal and another interesting element here is the judge established from going back and forth with the two sides that under the rule that the case is being brought the judge can only accept the plea deal. she made it clear, she could not say she didn't like it and the charge should be something else. the way it was presented to her is that she would have to accept it. that was an issue here. she is not bound by any sentencing here and the prosecution was on record today confirming that they are going to recommend probation on the tax evasion charges, but we still have a ways to go with this unforeseen hiccup before the sentencing in this guilty plea process before we actually get to hunter biden entering a plea. that has not happened yet. we are still waiting to see if

they come to some point of resolution about what he actually would be pleading guilty to today and what the terms of the plea agreement would include. >> kara scannell stand by or if you need to rush back inside to learn more, please do. do what you need to do, but keep us posted if you hear any developments including any resolution to this and elie, put on your legal decoder ring and explain what just happened here. >> ordinarily when you plead guilty to certain offenses, a, b, c in this case, you cannot be prosecuted again for those offenses obviously. that would be double jeopardy and violate the entire spirit of the agreement. it sounds to me is the question is would hunter biden be covered and immunized for other offenses because sometimes in the plea agreements you'll have a provision that says the defendant will be plead guilty with a, b and c and will not be charged within the information with doj's knowledge and

understanding. sometimes that provision is in an agreement. sometimes it's not. sometimes it's understood, but not written in which case you would want to put it on the official court record. it sounds like the judge is saying let's make sure that both sides, doj and hunter biden are on the same page about just how broad his immunity is as a result of this plea if it's entered. >> but does it sound like based on kara's reporting that they may not be on the same page with his immunity. >> yeah. that should have been worked out and the fact that they are conferring at this point is unusual. like i said, sometimes it would be an actual sentence, it should be an actual sentence in the plea agreement. so the fact that the judge said talk this through means she has a question about this. doj and huntser biden have the same goal which is to get the plea entered and we'll see. we'll see if this is a hiccup. >> can this get to what has been a discrepancy since we learned about the plea deal where hunter biden and his team and their

announcement saying this resolves the investigation into hunter biden as we know it, but a statement from the federal prosecutor's office said the investigations -- this resolves the tax charges and the drug charges and the investigations is still ongoing which seemed like a formality, but maybe not. >> that could be the issue here. there is some tension between the idea of this resolves as hunter biden's team has put it and on the other hand this is ongoing and prosecutors do say this is ongoing up until the very, very end, but perhaps there's been a lack of communication about that between the parties and the judge is being extra, extra careful here and wants to make sure that there's no controversy and nobody says, well, our understanding is actually different than their understanding. >> elie, stand by for just a moment and we do have evan perez back with us. evan, what more are we learning? >> well, one of the things i think you guys are putting your finger on it on a thing that we sort of identified from the

minute that this plea agreement was announced. this hunter biden team was especially sensitive to ment mentioning the gun charge as part of the overall agreement and one of the things that we know is that in the case of hunter biden, he caused himself all of these problems by going out. he did a book in which he admitted that when he bought this gun, at the time he bought this firearm he was actually addicted to drugs which is a paper violation, but it is a serious one. it's a felony, and so one of the things that i think will have to be addressed as part of this hearing is beyond the two misdemeanors that he's pleading to. there will be these terms that are governed, that will govern how that gets resolved. how that gets taken away. the government is saying that if he agrees to certain stipulations, certain conditions that the judge will lay out as part of his hearing today then that gun charge goes away, like

it never happened and one of the things that judge wants to make sure and clear of here is beyond just the two misdemeanors is that hunter biden knows what he's agreeing to because at any point, obviously this gun charge could come back if he fails to satisfy the terms of that agreement and again, we still don't know exactly what those terms will be as laid out by the court and by the prosecution, but the gun charge is certainly the thing that was the most serious thing that was hanging over hunter biden's head as the two sides were trying to work out this agreement in the last few months. >> evan, stand by. >> elie honig is standing by. on the gun charge which is a felony charge they agreed to a diversion program which means he has to do some certain things to meet certain requirements and then there's no charge and that charge goes away, correct? >> that's fairly rare in the federal system. diversionary programs like this means if you comply with drug

testing and if you stay off drugs and the reporting and the things you just talked about, and if you comply this thing goes away. that does not exist and this is the most recent development and what evan is saying is that the judge wants to make sure that the parties are on the same page and we don't have something go wrong later and said wait, our agreement was there. no, we have a different agreement. >> if the diversion program didn't work. >> right. >> that somehow the tax charges would come back into play or is it the opposite? if you violate probation on the tax charges that the diversion agreement that we have might not go away. >> i think it's exactly that question based on what we're hearing from kara and evan. do we have it worked out if something happens with this gun charge? let's assume, what if hunter biden violates somehow and tests positive for drugs? a, what happens with the drug charge? -- excuse me with the gun charge? will he come back? or b, will it disrupt the

separate charge on the tax misdemeanors, and again, i'm surprised the parties don't have this worked out even in a routine case you would have all these answers ready before you go into court. >> to that point, elie, if they don't, what happens? do they go back to the drawing board? is this a very long resource? what happens to the plea hearing? >> it sounds like you don't actually have a full agreement and you need to go back at that time drawing board. that is possible, and it sounds like the judge wants to give them a chance to work it out and it sounds like they're furiously consulted, and do you have your agreement in place and have you worked out the con tingees. >> i think we should try to be totally transparent to our viewers. kara skinnel, and usually this

goes a certain way and obviously, this case is so unusual because you're, dealing with child of the political -- and including the federal judge and elie, you made the case that she may be behaving a certain way only because so much is on the record given the political pressure here. let's get everything on the record so that forever people can look at this and say that we dotted every "i" and crossed every "t." that may be the reason that she's pushing them in ways that lawyers ordinarily not be pushed. >> 99.9% are never paid attention by anyone other than the parties. clearly this judge understands there is immense scrutiny and even when she asked the parties do you all agree that i, as a federal judge, do not have a federal authority to order an investigation? that is never asked. she's doing that for the record

and for all of us or congress. i'm not judging if it's right or wrong, good or bad. that's unusual. she's very aware clearly that there is a microscope on this case. >> we should perhaps say that we don't have cameras in there because this is a federal proceeding and we don't have audio recordings which is why we are so fortunate to have our reporters running in and running out and elie honig, thank you. >> stuck around. don't go far, because i'm waiting for kara to run out of the courtroom to tell us more. coming up, we have details and a new photo from trevor reed and his family sharing that photo from when he was fighting in u rain and what his family is saying afterer he was nngeinjur ththe battlefield. we'll be right back. ( ♪ )

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new this morning, cnn has learned that former marine trevor reed is expected to make a full recovery after being wounded while fighting in ukraine. his family shared an image of reed exclusively with cnn this morning. he was detained in russia in 2019 and released last year as part of a prisoner swap. cnn's orrin lieberman is at the pentagon this morning. give us the latest on his condition and everything else here. >> john, he is expected to make a full recovery, as you point out according to a source close to trevor reed. he's being treated at landstuhl regional medical center. he was injured in the fighting in ukraine about two weeks ago

while fighting near bakhmut. that's one of the heaviest areas of fighting there as ukraine pushes to take back territory. according to the source, trevor reed was involved in the fighting when he was injured by shrapnel. first he was taken by kyiv and ngos got him out of the country where he was transported to landstuhl where he is now and he is making a full recovery and hopes to be home soon. you can see the picture obtained exclusively by cnn from trevor reed's family and it is clear why this is a delicate situation for the u.s. multiple state department officials have made it clear that reed was there on his own choice and not as a member of the department of defense mission or something like that. it was his choice to be there as a volunteer for ukraine and that source close to reed said he was honored to fight by ukrainian forces and yet in that picture of reed fighting in ukraine, you see the american patch flag right on the front. that certainly would have

complicated things if he were to have fallen on to russian hands and it reenforces russia's claim that the u.s. is involved. you see how this is delicate. as you point out, trevor reed was detained for nearly three years in russia on an allegation that he'd endangered a law enforcement officer so he was held there from about 2019 to april 2022 when he was released in a prisoner exchange for a russian cocaine smuggler. one of the reasons he went to fight in ukraine was because of how he was treated there and the oppression he saw while he was in detention. john? >> new developments with a new look at trevor reed as he was in ukraine fighting. not on behalf of the united states, there on his own, but a complicated matter to say the least. orrin lieberman, thank you very much. >> rahel? >> thank you. joining me now to discuss more is retired air force colonel and cnn military analyst cedric lee. colonel lee, always good to have you. let's start there, new details

that trevor reed is expected to mach a full recovery and help us understand that we learned that we had been sent to this military hospital in germany. what does that suggest to you in terms of the type of injuries he may have sustained? >> yeah, rahel. when i learned that he was going to landstuhl i thought the injuries were very serious and that's the regional hospital and it's the only u.s. military hospital in europe that handles major cases and that's where all the troops from iraq and afghanistan went when they were seriously wounded. so this was one of the big places that medical treatment takes place and of course, they're used to cases of trauma and the worst in this particular situation, but it sounds like that's not the case in trevor reed's situation here. >> colonel, it's a delicate situation, i think, for a lot of reasons, but help me understand. we know trevor was there

fighting on his own and not necessarily on behalf of the u.s., but we do see the patch there. does this at all complicate efforts to get home and other americans wrongfully detained in russia, evan gershkovich, does this complicate anything at all? >> i think it might and the possibility exists that the russians are going to say, look, we released these people as part of of a prisoner exchange and then all of a sudden they're back fighting against us, and that's, of course, something that the state department is very concerned about and the defense department is as well. it's very clear that trevor reed did this on his own. the united states does not have troops in ukraine and of course, they want to keep it that way for as long as they possibly can, but the other part of this story is that when russia and ukraine exchanged prisoners, of course, some of those prisoners, former prisoners come back to fight on the front lines almost immediately after they've been released. so there are certain nuances to

this in any way you look at it. >> yeah. fair point. colonel, i want to switch gears a bit. bowe bergdahl as someone who fought on the front lines, yourself, what is your reaction to the news, the judge vacating his conviction and dishonorable discharge? >> well, from my perspective, of course, i think all of the parties involved in the bergdahl situation agree that he deserted his post when he was serving in afghanistan and of course, he walked into the taliban front lines and was captured by them and held prisoner for about five years. that is the situation where he did this and because of the situation where the presiding military judge was actually applying for a job as an immigration judge in the trump executive branch, that created a problem where the perception was

pretty clear that it's possible that that military judge was incurring favor with the trump administration and if we remember back in those days, president trump when he was running for president he very much called bergdahl a traitor. called him somebody that does not deserve a fair treatment under the u.s. military justice system and that situation could be considered undue command influence and that's what the judge was looking at when the latest judge vacated the charges against bergdahl. >> to put a fine point on it, perhaps the judge's neutrality. colonel leighton, good to see you. john? we have breaking news out of wilmington, delaware, from the hunter biden plea deal hearing. our kara scannell just ran out from inside the courtroom. kara, bring us up to speed.

>> john, as i went back in the courtroom the hearing had just begun again. the judge was back on the bench and she was pressing the prosecution on this investigation and the four corners of this plea agreement. one of the prosecutors said that the investigation was very much ongoing and she asked him, what is not covered in this plea agreement? if you are leaving the possibility for there being further charges. would this be a charge as not registering as an agent. blow the plea deal would not include that. it was at the point that she said to the prosecution, if you can charge that then what does this mean and the prosecutors, she asked hunter biden's attorneys said there's no deal. the prosecution said there is no deal. the plea agreement as they understand it is now null and void and they were move ahead to talk about what the next steps would be in this case. as of now the deal appears to be dead and off the table and it remains to be seen how they will

move forward, but he has been charged with those two misdemeanor tax evasion charges and this investigations very much still ongoing. >> i'll ask so we are crystal clear on where we are right now. as we sit here, the plea deal between hunter biden and federal prosecutors is off? >> that's right, john. so the judge was pressing the prosecution on the four corners of this plea agreement and she's saying you've reached this plea. what is left for there to charge? you are telling me that the investigation is still ongoing. the prosecution said that's right, it is ongoing and they couldn't bring, for instance, a tax evasion, a federal charge, but they said they were still investigating and it's then that the judge said what about a farrah charge not registering as a foreign agent and it was expensive to look into hunter biden's overseas business deals and she asked the prosecution would that be covered?

she said no,ed itn't and it was at that point they went back and forth between biden's team and the prosecution and both sides saying at this point there was no meeting of the minds about what was covered by this plea agreement and so the deal was off the table. >> all right. kara scannell in wilmington, delaware. thank you for bringing us up to speed. keep us posted -- let me ask finally, kara, has everyone left? are they done? is court closed for the day or is it possible they walk back into that room and meet with the judge again? is this it for today? >> i mean, when i left the courtroom they were still in there. they were still talking about the next step. it's possible both sides could have a sidebar. they could confer. the judge was still on the bench so the gavel had not closed and the hearing was not adjourned so technically as far as i know is still ongoing, and i haven't seen any of the parties to the case walk out of the courthouse just yet.

so we'll have to go back inside and see if there's been any additional developments, but both sides had said quite tomorrowly that the deal was off, as hunter biden's lawyers said they considered it null and void if they did not consider immunity from all other prosecutions. >> kara scannell, we will let you go back inside and we do appreciate you running out to bring us what has become a major development in this hearing. kara did a great job, but help us make sense. before we talk about what's next, let's just talk about what happened. >> this is exactly what we were speculating about five minutes ago. it sounds like it's what's happening. when the defendant pleads guilty in this case for tax charges. that's it for the tax charges. he can't be charged with those charges and he's covered and immunized and not in jeopardy of being prosecuted again for those tax charges, but what the judge said how about anything else? farah, the foreign agents registration act, and it has

nothing to do with taxes. is he covered for that? sometimes a plea agreement will say the defendant's covered for anything we know about as doj right now and sometimes the plea agreement will say he's only covered for the narrow charges that he's pleading guilty to. no. i'm actually surprised they didn't already have that worked out. the judge said if you don't have an agreement over whether hunter biden is covered for anything outside of the scope of this paper then you don't have a deal and the judge is right. i am astonished that the parties didn't have a clear understanding of that heading into today. >> did we hear hunter biden's team say if we don't have a deal then we don't have a deal. kara's reporting is yes, we can't walk him in here and have him plead when he might get charged with something else and we have to have an understanding about that, and i want to make this clear. there are two ways this goes now. one is the judge says i'm not accepting this plea. it's a contract. you don't have a meeting of the minds on relevant issues. the other thing sometimes

happens is the lawyers huddel and they go in the jury room maybe, let's work this out and i thought we had some understanding and was there miscommunication and they might not reduce it to writing and the judge will say tell us on this deal and the court reporter will take it down and both sides, is that your deal? the judge will ask if they have an actual plea agreement. >> and that's why we have kara scannell running back into the courtroom right now to see if there are still meetings taking place or if this is it for today. elie, number one, this gets to one of the things we were asking the minute this deal or non-deal was announced. again issue the hunter biden team said this concludes investigation business. the prosecutors were saying, no, there's still an investigation going on. >> right. >> this seems to indicate that they both had very different views from the very beginning and they were just saying what they thought. >> exactly. the question at the time was doj was saying this is ongoing in the sense that doj always says everything is ongoing and it is now clear that doj has other

things that they're looking at that are not as of this moment contemplated or covered in the understanding between the parties. >> remind us because this is an investigation that dates back years. remind us of some of the other universes, other worlds this investigations touched. >> this does go back to 2018. it's worth noting. this is a five-year-old investigation and we've had investigation from kara, paula reid and others and it looks at the without registering as a foreign agent. we don't know the universe here and i think that is what has hunter biden's lawyers concerned. >> want to bring in evan perez who has some reporting on this also, but elie, someone made a bad mistake here. am i wrong looking at this? someone whether it be hunter biden's defense or prosecutors here. >> how could there be such a big miscommunication? >> i cannot be ginn to know how

they walk into the courtroom and equally i can't begin to understand how hunter biden's lawyers walked him into the courthouse without knowing what the constraints and limitations of the deal are. >> evan perez, a good time for you to enter this conversation here. this took a turn today that we were not expecting. >> you know, that is the understatement of the year. i mean, look, we know a lot about this investigations. we certainly have been covering it since 2020, and we know that a lot of things that appear to be part of the disagreement are at the center of this. we know that investigators looked into money laundering charges. they looked into whether they charged hunter biden with violating the fara law, the foreign agents registrations act. all of those things were covered in-depth as part of this

investigation and certainly as part of our reporting we understood that, you know, some time last year the -- the investigators and the prosecution, everybody on the justice department's side had decided that the strongest part of this case was the tax charges and the part that is at the center of this agreement or at least we thought was going to be stamped by this judge. so the idea that according to prosecutors there is still some aspect of some other possible charges. they are still under investigations and that's certainly huge news to emerge at this court hearing and it's an amazing thing for hunter biden's lawyers to have entered into this agreement without getting the justice department to say whether the fara charges, whether the money laundering charges whether anything else that they had covered as part of this five-year-old investigation, whether any of that was still possible to

charge against hunter biden and the idea at at this late hour and at the final moment this judge, they are saying we don't really agree on this and it is just astonishing and something that we know that was a big part of this and guys, going back to the politics of this, you heard from those irs whistle blowers, that is parts of what they believe certainly was strong enough to bring charges on, but prosecutors decided warrant st wasn't strong enough and they didn't know it was quite there and they decided to narrow the tax charges to the 2018 misdemeanor. it's a very surprising turn of events and this is a history-making case by all accounts and certainly something like this doesn't happen every day in federal court. >> elie, role play with me for a moment.

you and john do this very well. you've been a federal prosecutor. say you were on hunter biden's team at this point. are you trying to get this kind of squared away today or do you feel like you're going back to the drawing board because there are so many questions about what your legal exposure is? >> so the concern that hunter biden's lawyers have right now is yes, he's going back to court and the plan was for him to plea to the charge and have it diverted and he needs to be covered for everything else out there. evan laid out the universe that we know of and there's probably more in doj, that doesn't mean he will necessarily be charged and you can't walk in and take a plea and find out that two months from now he's being charged from something more from the prosecutor's view. it's the converse of that. we're give being him this plea, but does it cover him for all time for all things or is it limited to the tax and gun charge? i keep saying this. this is a contract, a deal

between these two parties and provision, how broad is the coverage is one of the most important provisions and the fact that it's not specifically written out and the fact that the parties, it was just revealed do not actually have an understanding and the meeting of the minds is a failure on both sides. again, sometimes these things do get rectified pretty quickly in court. it was one point con tension and misunderstanding and tee see if they can confirm quickly and if not, we're back to square zero. >> if you're trying to figure out how they navigate through this, if there were to be a possible solution here, is there an agreement to be made where you say, okay, on the things that you've investigated so far, right? at this point, you are not being charged for that. however, if new information comes to light we aren't saying you can't be charged for information that we're not aware of yet. >> that is exactly how the deals are structured in this type of

case. usually in a play agreement the understanding and it will be written is, the defendant will plead guilty to charges one, two and three and will not be further prosecuted for anything within the knowledge of the justice department which includes the fbi as of this date. you're not going to give someone immunity moving forward because who knows what they might do in the future. >> right. >> that's all still fair game so, yes, john, that is exactly how the deals are usually structured, but here they don't seem to be quite literally on the same page. it's hard to believe that this conversation didn't take place. it's not a conversation. it's the conversation. >> what's happening is i'm agreeing to plea to this and in exchange you give me immunity for that. >> it's the central issue here. it's not a peripheral matter. this is not window dressing. this is a primary concern especially from the defense saturday, from hunter biden's side and it could be an understanding not reduced to

writing and it could be some nuance maybe that they haven't agreed to, but yes, this is not some side issue and this is the core of what a plea agreement is about. >> stand by again. we have kara scannell back in the federal courthouse as discussions seem to be going on still. we'll figure out if there's any new development and in the meantime let's bring in sara murray who has been covering this from all kinds of different angles for months and months now. was there any sign that there was trouble heading into the last few minutes, sara? >> well, look, i don't know that anyone was expecting things to fall apart in this spectacular hour, and trying to work through some of the disagreements and there were signals from david weiss, the u.s. attorney that this investigation of the ongoing and everyone was sort of trying to read the tea leaves about what this meant. did this just mean that the of the have gagz was ongoing in the sense that you have to wait for hunter biden to formally enter his plea, for the judge to approve it and for the judge to

sign off on the sentencing or could there be another piece of it and weiss' letter to capitol hill, he did signal that there may be another piece of this ongoing. when he was agreeing to show up for testimony in front of the house judiciary committee led by republicans in september and october, his letter about that notes that there could be investigative steps and prosecutorial proceedings that he was not able to talk about and a lot of people looked at that line and thought about that just means let's get through the plea deal and the sentencing, but what you're hearing in court today is that there may be more of this going on and points of this where hunter biden's team was where they stood. >> i'm not sure if they were in the same book, let alone the same page based on the reporting that you have over the last few minutes and whether that changes or not i guess we will have to

see. sara murray, thank you very much. >> not to belabor the point, but how rare is it as a prosecutor that you are walking into this type of hearing and you are walking out perhaps with the deal falling apart? >> it's very, very rare. sometimes you do have a miscommunication about what the scope as we'll call it the coverage is. how much is this person covered moving forward? that is in some sense the most important issue in this case. look at this case. if hunter biden agrees to one, two or three misdemeanors, that's fine, but the agreement is no prison time. the biggest concern is is he going to get a pass from to have it fall apart in this fashion is really surprising. it doesn't reflect well on either of the two parties. >> if they walk out of here and we have the live cameras to figure out if they are walking out with no deal, what happens then from a prosecutorial

standpoint? do they file charges tomorrow? >> they are back to the drawing board. they could say, we don't have a deal, we're going back to our investigative work. you might get indicted straight up or we might conclude that we don't have enough to charge here. they are already on record saying they believe he committed a misdemeanor. >> he was agreeing to plead guilty to tax charges. you would think they would say, okay, we're going to charge you. >> if this falls apart, there's next to no chance the doj says the deal fell apart, no charges for him at all. they are already on record saying they believe he committed both the tax charge and the gun charge. there's a very high risk to hunter biden if this deal falls apart. >> talk to us about -- let's take hunter biden out of this. as a person facing charges f you walk into a courtroom with a deal in your head that you thought you were getting, it's very important that you get it ironed out what exactly that deal means because of potential legal exposure.

>> this is the most important deal to make. forget about buying a house or a car, this is 100 times more important. especially if you believe you worked out a deal that will likely spare you prison time, as in this case. it's up to the judge. to so the number one question i would have if i was the defense lawyer, the deal is he's going to plead guilty to these two misdemeanors. . we're going to divert the gun charge. but what happens with the other stuff that's been swirling for five years? if you don't have a straight answer on that, you don't have a deal, the judge is right to not accept it. >> standby for a minute. let's bring back our senior correspondent evan perez. if you will just take a step back and look at all of this now, where does this leave things in your mind? where are we now if this deal falls apart in the investigation? >> reporter: there's a couple big questions for prosecutors. i think they are looking at

statute of limitations, that they are going to be bumping up against it's the case. you heard this from one of the whistleblowers already that as a result of how long this case has gone on, how much foot dragging, they say, was going on behind the scenes, they already lost one year of the statute of limitations of one possible year of a possible tax crime that could have been charged. at least that's according to the testimony from the whistleblowers. the question for prosecutors is, if you don't have a deal, then you have to decide whether you're going to go to trial on this. and you don't have a lot more time to work with. certainly, the 2017 tax year could be in jeopardy here. one of the things that i think for prosecutors, one of the reasons they want to take deal was they wanted to salvage some part of this for hunter biden to agree. already in court he's said he was planning to plead guilty to not paying his taxes on time for 2017 and 2018.

and so if -- if there is no deal, prosecutors have to decide whether they are ready to bring charges on those tax years, whether there's any other possible crimes they could bring. again, the time sensitive nature of this, this is stuff that's so old already. we're talking about an investigation that's been going on for five years. for them, there's going to be an incentive to try to come to terms with whether they can do this, whether they have to do more investigation, how much longer can they do that. that's part of what is also probably working behind the scenes in the minds of the prosecution here. >> we should say that both sides, farce we know, are still in recess trying to figure out if they can reach an agreement today, or if this goes back to the drawing board. we don't know.

>> who doesn't want to walk out of that courthouse without a deal more? who has the biggest incentive to settle things over the next several hours here? we have about a minute left. >> hunter biden by far. for doj, it's a question of do we get the plea on the books or carry on the investigation. there maybe political ramifications, but hunter biden is the one at risk here. he was -- he and his lawyers believe they had a deal in place that would almost certainly have spared him from prison. if this deal collapses, and it should be noted i have seen lawyers get together under the gun and put things together very quickly, so this could still sort of come back to life. but if it does not, he's going to walk out of that courtroom and have no agreement with doj, no assurance, no protection against my of those other potential crimes that evan just laid out. anything is in play at that point. >> thank you for very much. we'll let you run to the next camera. the major breaking news that at

least for now, the hunt er bide plea agreement appears to have fallen apart. no deal in place just yet. lawyers still working behind the scenes. we have a lot of major developments coming in. much more ahead, i'm sure, "inside politics" is going to be interesting. don't go far. ♪ ♪ helplps you stay connected, ♪ safe ♪ and charged. ♪ the all-new chevy trax starting at $21,495. the possibilities are endless.

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