really that much to say. this isn't the crime of the century. this was basically making false statements about drug addiction in order to get a firearm. if you compare that to the tax charges, tax charges can be very complicated, and particularly when international types of facts are involved because it's much harder to get the documentation and the evidence, in terms of witnesses and documentation from other countries. there are all sorts of treaties that are involved, and so it doesn't surprise me at all that the firearms charges are sort of cut and dried. the indictment doesn't have to be very complicated and it's not. but, you know, the tax charges and the firearms charges are not substantively related. we saw them put together for purposes of the attempted plea bargain a month ago, and that is not surprising because of course hunter biden wanted what we call global peace.

he wanted to make sure we took care of everything that the department of justice was concerned about with respect to hunter biden. that was firearms charges, tax charges, but there's no actual substantiative connection between them, so it sounds like the department of justice is working on the tax aspects and perhaps other aspects, foreign registration, but this is pretty cut and dried, these firearms charges. >> i also want to bring in nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter, and, tom, again, just to remind folks who david weiss is this prosecutor, he's a special counsel, appointed by merrick garland when the last plea deal we have been talking about so much fell apart. what can you tell us about him and how he might operate or what we know about how he operates? >> it's been stated many times and as you and i talked before, chris, he was appointed by the former president of the united states, donald trump. i think it's important for folks to remember, yes, he was appointed special counsel by merrick garland. it was because weiss asked for it, the agreements between the

two parties, tied to the possession of this gun, as well as tax charges, truly fell apart. it fell apart at the plea hearing that was held earlier this summer, but it then fully fell apart when both sides were asked to go back and discuss the details of this and federal prosecutors didn't want to go along with the same terms presumably that were offered to hunter biden and his legal team previously. it was weiss that stepped forward and wanted to have the opportunity to be a special counsel, and the reason for that, chris, is because as has been kind of alluded to, to package up what carol has said and mike has said, the gun charge has a specific nexus from delaware. that was clear from the pretrial, that's where the gun was purchased, and that's where the gun was ultimately recovered by law enforcement in a garbage can according to federal documents that have been previously filed in this case in a request from this reporter to the judge. so that's why we know that, and

that information is not contained to the best of what i have seen so far in today's indictment. but we know that from the previously filed pretrial diversion agreement. that's what we know about the facts on the gun. but then there's a whole separate question, and what david weiss's office has previously filed, one of the prosecutors that works for him has previously filed with the court which is, hey, we have no venue to bring this case, the tax component of this, in delaware because the years that we would want to file don't have any activity in delaware. so if i was the u.s. attorney in boston, i could not come to new york, chris, and file an indictment against you. that would be up to federal prosecutors in manhattan to do. so i can't do that. but if i'm special counsel, i can file them wherever i think they should be filed. some sort of nexus has to apply wherever your going to do that. with respect to the tax charges,

that's really in california, and that's probably going to be for the years 2017 and 2018. you've heard art statute of limitations with this gun. this gun was purchased, double checking the documents here october 12th of 2018. fast forward five years, that's pretty easy math. coming up middle of october this year that they would have had to have charged in that particular instance. with tax it's a little bit different in that the taxes would be five years after the date that they would have to be filed if you were to seek an extension. so that's middle of october. you just do the math. 2018, 2019. if i mentioned the dates wrong before, i apologize. it would be 2018 and 2019. those tax years, there's a statute of limitations concern coming up on 2018, so that's why i think we anticipate tax charges to be filed. and if so, the nexus for that is in california. does that happen literally as i'm speaking to you. does that happen in a couple of hours from now?

does that happen in the coming weeks? it remains to be seen. we don't have any intelligence on that at this point, but if they are going to bring a tax case, it appears the most likely place they will bring it is in california. now, breaking a little bit of news here, i had the opportunity to speak to one of the irs whistleblowers joseph ziegler earlier this week. in the course of our discussion, he laid out a number of years that initially prosecutors or i should say initially investigators and what he says were other attorneys that the doj tax section charges that they wanted to bring for a much wider scope of a time period going back to 2014. but of course the statute of limitations has run out on that. the potential liability or exposure for the president's son is much shorter, just in the years i mentioned, 2018 and 2019. there's a little bit of an asterisk here on this gun charge in that attorneys for hunter biden and the president's son believe, according to their filings, that the pretrial

diversion agreement is still in play. they say, look, we've got a signature on our side. hunter biden has signed it. his attorney has signed it, and then on the other side of this, we have federal prosecutors signing off on it. it's missing a signature line, which is the probation argument. they have an agreement that covers this already. why would we be going down that path. it will be interesting to see if they bring it up before the judge and litigate and address that issue. a pretrial diversion agreement is a contract between two sides, what was referred to in court as a bilateral agreement. you can expect them to talk about that. you can also expect them to point to a number of cases, chris, that have been resolved in the appellate courts about this specific gun charge and this specific issue. and courts have not looked kindly on this from a constitutional standpoint, so, again, is this going to be an issue -- >> haven't looked kindly on what, tom?

sorry. haven't looked kindly on what? >> on this specific charge. in other words, from a constitutional standpoint. is this something that in four or five years from now, chris, if you and i are still here that we're talking about, and is going before the appellate courts, we'll see, does it die before a trial even occurs. we'll see on that too. there's a whole bunch of other complicated legal issues that will surround the gun component of this case. it's far from a slam dunk that a conviction would ultimately be upheld here. it's a charge i'll finish that is typically tacked on in drug cases, and we know that federal prosecutors have not indicated at all that they intend to charge hunter biden with anything related to that. >> the number of venues for conversation are copious, tom winter, as always, and even got a little breaking news in there, thank you my friend, really appreciate it. i want to bring in former assistant manhattan d.a.

catherine christian. one of the things he just said, and a lot of folks have asked about this, questioned it, the pretrial diversion agreement, is it still in play, and if so, what does that mean? >> well, you better believe that hunter biden's lawyers are going to say it is because i think a month ago, i was here discussing this. they filed a response to the -- what they called the reneging of the prosecutor of the plea deal. you know what, we signed an agreement with you where our client would get pretrial diversion on this gun charge and it stands. now, the government is arguing, no, it doesn't stand because probation never signed off on it. so you better believe that they're going to say that this indictment is not valid on that count because they already had an agreement on that, and also, you know, it was brought up, not to get into the weeds, but this particular charge will be going to the supreme court. what i mean by that, appellate courts, particularly the circuit has said this charge, possession

of a firearm by persons violates the second amendment. so that's a whole other issue that will come up. >> how? what's the argument? how does it violate the second amendment? >> that's just one circuit. >> right. >> so the prosecution is betting that by the time it ever gets to the supreme court, you know, this case will be resolved. but they, you know, that particular circuit, which is a conservative circuit, has said that it's a violation of the second amendment right to bear arms by saying because you were addicted to a drug or used it, that you cannot possess a firearm, so, again, that's just one circuit, but because of that, and there's another appellate court that says the same thing in a different circuit, then you have a conflict, then it goes to the supreme court. it will be the pretrial diversion agreement that the lawyers are going to be waving around and saying what happened here. the only thing usual about this indictment is that it involves a

president's son. this is what happens when plea deals blow up. the prosecutor says, okay, we want your plea back. you want to go to trial, then we're going to indict you. as carol lam said, the statute of limitations on this charge ends in october because you have five years, so if they didn't indict, there would be no case. they would not be able to indict. part of this was about, you know, the time clock. we have to indict now or it's never. >> catherine, thank you so much. we really appreciate you getting up your camera and coming on. i also want to bring in msnbc legal analyst, andrew weissmann, i'm just going to reset here. because we have been talking for a while now. it says at the bottom of your screen that the president's son, hunter biden, has been dieted on three gun-related charges. the key here is they say he signed a document claiming that he wasn't under the influence of any drugs, didn't have drugs,

that would be required for him in order for him to get a firearm. he got that firearm. they say, basically he lied on that document. andrew, tell me as you have had the chance now to look through this fairly quick indictment. it's really five pages, i guess, here, what your take is on it? >> sure. so the indictment is three charges as you've mentioned. it is in delaware, same jurisdiction where everything, as tom said, you know, imploded not that long ago. and so like tom, i'm expecting to see tax charges, either in d.c. or in california. here's my quick take on this. it is three identical charges. they all say exactly the same thing which is that hunter biden is accused of lying on a form when he obtained a single gun, the same gun in each of the three counts, it's the same --

essentially the exact same charge which is that he said he wasn't addicted to narcotics when he knew that he was addicted to narcotics. that's the case. it's just charged three different ways. i think you're going to see three challenges. as catherine and tom said, the first challenge is going to be now they've charged it as three felonies, but a month ago they were willing to not charge this at all, to defer it. the claim is going to be it's barred by the agreement, the private agreement between the parties. the second argument i think you're going to see is selective prosecution. this is really just retaliatory action for an agreement that fell apart and in many ways because the government put in a number of provisions that the court took issue with, and now they're throwing the book at him in a way that's really abusive, that this would not happen to anyone else. and the idea that i think

they're going to be helped by the fact that it's three charges for the exact same gun, for the exact same conduct. i have never seen that. i mean, it seems really over the top to me to go from a deferred prosecution agreement to give repetitive charges on the exact same facts and exact same gun. and then i think the third thing that you're going to see which catherine alluded to, and i'm going to put a slightly different take on it is that this is not a valid charge by operation of law. the issue that's going before the supreme court is the issue of who can be barred from carrying a gun, and justice amy coney barrett, before she was on the supreme court raised this issue that she thinks that this statute that bars certain people from carrying guns violates the second amendment, and the supreme court is going to be deciding that issue. that's not what's charged here,

though. this is not a crime saying that hunter biden did not have the right to own the gun. it was that he lied on a form. and so that's a slightly different charge than he was not allowed to possess the gun. this is about lying in connection with gun. the reason i think there's still going to be a legal issue in order for the lie to be charged criminally, it has to be material. it has to matter. if it turns out if the underlying crime of possessing the gun is unconstitutional, which is supreme court is going to be deciding, then i think the argument you're going to hear is whether he lied or didn't lie is irrelevant because he constitutionally could obtain this gun. that will be the argument. we'll see how that fares in the courts, but it is a real issue, and i think those are three things that we're going to see

on the part of the defense here as well as we should certainly expect to see tax charges. but my overall take in addition to that, this does not real to me like the government's finest day. i don't think it shows an appropriate use of prosecutorial discretion to go from a deferred prosecution to three repetitive felony counts. >> can i go back for a second, andrew, to the two number, which is your retaliatory claim. even before if it was retaliatory, which, you know, again, it would be the defense making that argument, even before that, is this a case that normally would be brought? michael schmidt from the "new york times" was talking about how rare this is. >> yeah, that's a great question, and by the way, by my saying it's retaliatory, that's the argument that the defense will make. i mean, the government will respond to that as to why it isn't. but i think you're asking exactly the right question here.

in my -- i was a prosecutor in the government for over 20 years. i never saw this charge. i saw lying on forms, but it would be one of the ways that you could lie is whether you were a convicted felon who's now possessing a gun, and you lie about your being a convicted felon, which is much more serious. it's not that you want people to lie, and it's not that you want people addicted to drugs to have guns, but that is somebody who is -- there's a lot of reason to think that they don't even have the mens rea, which is the intent that you have to show if they're truly addicted at the time that they are actually purchasing the gun. and so that is just not commonly charged. i think it was -- it may have been the former u.s. attorney

lamb who said, and i agree, when you see this charge, which is very rare, it's usually an addition when somebody's being charged with other things, and that's not what's happening here. and so it is an extremely rare crime in my experience to see -- of course, i was in new york and in d.c. where basically there were a lot of other and bigger kinds, and maybe that in smaller jurisdictions this is more common, but i do think that you're going to be hearing a lot about that from the defense because it's hard to see that they won't make that argument. there's no real downside to them to bring that argument about selective prosecution and retaliation in this case. >> let me bring in nbc's ken dilanian. a couple of things, the special counsel, as i understand, david weiss has said you're not going to hear from me, meaning not that there couldn't be something else legal happening, but he's not going to hold a press

conference, as some people may wonder as this indictment was put out there. he has issued a statement. what does he have to say, ken? >> a typical justice department statement that simply recites the fact of the indictment that we have been talking about for the last hour. it does say at the end that hunter biden faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison on these charges but of course he notes as they always do, actual sentences for typical crimes are less than the maximum penalties and of course a judge will determine any sentence pursuant to u.s. sentencing guidelines. obviously he's not going to get 25 years in prison, but these are felonies and now some of our guests have been talking about the potential for a plea deal that still could happen once these charges have been brought but the fact that the charges have been brought changes the situation a little bit. it's generally, as a rule, the justice department, once they charge a felony, they demand you plead to a felony if you're making a deal in that case.

before, there was no such term on the table. he was going to go into a diversion program, this charge would have been dropped. the other thing i wanted to point out. we were talking about the potential unconstitutionality of this statute, which hunter biden's lawyers certainly have brought up in conversations with various people. the issue here is the supreme court decision called bruin, in firearms regulations and right to permit in new york. they said in that case, there has to be a historical tradition going back hundreds of years for any gun regulation in the united states. and some judges who have looked at this particular statute in other districts have said, well, there's no historical tradition of prohibiting a drug user from buying a gun, therefore this is unconstitutional. that's the basis for why this might be questionable constitutionally, and the last thing i'll say is hunter biden's defense for this, in addition to the fact that he's going to argue that there is an existing

diversion agreement on the table as tom winter was alluding to before, everyone signed it except the probation department. hunter biden's lawyers are going into court and argue before a judge that the whole indictment is invalid because they should enforce the agreement, and they're also going to argue that this statute is rarely charged, that it's unfairly brought in this case, that hunter biden wasn't much of a gun owner, didn't do anything with that gun and that this is prosecutorial overkill. those are the kinds of things you'll be hearing. >> i want to bring in msnbc legal analyst, lisa rubin who joins us at the table. what motivates a plea deal, and obviously look at it in the context of this and the plea deal that fell apart. most people who are not lawyers can see why hunter biden wants to get this over with and move on. what is in it for the prosecution's side. >> the charges are predicated on

his addiction, the false statements, all under the notion that he was addicted to drugs at the time. whether or not he was using, he's still an addict, and many americans can sympathize and emp thaz with a person in that position. the danger for prosecutors is they overplay their hand and hunter biden comes across as a sympathetic target. >> what do you think the chances are this could go to trial? >> i don't see it going to trial to be honest. this and the other indictments we have been talking about endlessly with the former president and the coconspirators and i think that ken is absolutely right in terms of the points he makes around what you can expect to hear from hunter biden's defense team. i do expect them to raise the arguments around the fact that perhaps this indictment may not be valid because of the previous agreement but perhaps the indictment may not be valid

because of the notion of this pending sort of movement in the supreme court to try to invalue kate this charge itself on the basis of second amendment violations. if all of that fails, should that not prove successful, i don't think that hunter biden's defense team wants to take this case to trial. i understand lisa's point, and i agree that in the face of the nation watch, you do run the risk, even in front of a jury of overplaying your hand, people connect with the notion, and challenges with respect to substance abuse. never the less, hunter biden will want to get this over with. if the arguments don't get traction, i anticipate we'll see a plea deal and this does not go to trial. >> what do you think? >> i think the prosecutors here aren't indicating that they want to make a deal, and i'll tell you why. i look at the statement from david weiss, a maximum penalty

of 25 years in prison, that's not just because that's the maximum sentence. that would be true if he got the maximum for each of the three charges and served them consecutively, rather than concurrently. in the federal system, it's more common for a defendant who's sentenced to serve all of their sentences at the same time. in other words, they collapse to the maximum, the sort of highest penalty becomes the number of years that you serve. here, 25 years, which david weiss is signaling could be the maximum here would only happen if hunter biden were to get the maximum on each charge and serve a sentence for each of these three charges, one stacked on top of another. that indicates they're trying to make a statement about how aggressive they're being. the other thing, chris, that i want to mention about this that strikes me from looking at this overall is it reinforces how messy hunter biden's life has been. the charge here on guns, it emanates from hunter's then girlfriend, hallie biden, his brother's widow, finding hids

his gun and throwing it in a trash can outside an upscale market in wilmington. hunter instructed her to go back and retrieve it. when she went back to the market, it was missing. that's when law enforcement got involved. allegedly, according to "politico," the secret service went to the gun owner and asked for the paperwork. except for the messiness, would the gun have been found. those facts are politically inconvenient to the hill for the current president. >> andrew weissmann, let me go back to one more thing that ken said, which is that since the charge is for a felony, if there were a plea deal, it would have to be a felony. does that mean that it would automatically be jail or prison time? >> no, not at all.

it's also possible to be charged with a felony and to have a plea deal that's less than a felony. in fact, that's exactly what this prosecutor had offered and apparently had signed off on doing a deferred prosecution, meaning there would be no requirement to plead guilty to this, but he was going to be required to plead to the tax charges. even though there are felony charges here, it doesn't mean at the end of the day that the government will insist on a felony plea. i also just want to quickly correct something i said. there are three charges. it's the third charge that does raise directly the issue that the supreme court is going to decide, which is is this even a constitutional provision. the other two charges, though, are false statement charges, and it is legally conceivable that those could stand even if the

third count is found to be unconstitutional because one is just about making false statements, which are a crime, and the other is about who can actually own the gun. that is a very live issue in the supreme court and i think they're sort of betting on that is that it's going to be in favor of the second amendment and gun rights, so it may be that the third count is unconstitutional, that would not be fatal to the whole case because the first and second charges are about lying, not about the possession. >> let me talk a little bit about politics now. there is a late ap norc poll that half of americans have little or no confidence that the justice department is handling the investigation into hunter biden in a fair and nonpartisan way. i want to bring in symone sanders townsend, former spokesperson for kamala harris

and host of "simone" nick confessore is an msnbc political analyst. good to have both of you here. your old boss, kamala harris, was asked about this in the last hour. no surprise, she didn't have anything to say about it. up until this point, president biden's line on all things related to hunter is i love my son. now as we get closer into the election season and these indictments have come back again, does he need to say more than that? >> well, does he need to say more, will he say more, chris, i think are two different questions. on one hand, one could argue that some of the american people, they may want to hear more from the president about his son. will he say more, though, i think the answer to that question is no. i think that the biden administration, joe biden himself, and the folks directly around him have been absolutely clear that when it comes to hunter biden, it is a personal

matter for hunter. this is the president's son, and furthermore, the president will not be commenting on any active investigations that the justice department has, and so seeing these charges, and frankly, let's remember, we have all been talking about it, the justice department has been investigating hunter biden since 2018, it is a very active investigation that is not seeming to die down anytime soon. i don't think you'll hear from joe biden, and you won't be hearing from the vice president either. when i was her spokesperson, i would have told her the news and said, ma'am, we are not answering. >> so if she's still listening to you from afar, your voice is sounding in her head. nick, as you know, one thing that isn't dying down is the controversy, the accusations that republicans want to make on capitol hill, and james comer whose committee is looking into hunter biden, our crew just caught up with him on capitol hill. i'm not sure what he said but let's listen together. >> that's one of about a dozen crimes that hunter biden has

committed, and ironically, that's the one crime that he committed that you cannot tie joe biden into. so we'll see what happens with the other eleven or so crimes that the president's son has committed. >> what do you make of that, nick? >> look, it's only a crime if you're convicted by a jury of your peers in this country. >> for starters. >> let's state the obvious. it's never a good thing in politics if you're a candidate for president and your son is on trial. that's just bad. it's messy, and it's ugly. but i do think in some ways, this presents a comparison or contrast for president biden. look, the most powerful man on earth, the president is going on trial in america, and there's nothing the president can or wants or will do about it. that is quite a contrast to the behavior of his opponent or likely opponent, donald trump who tried to subvert an election and he's on trial for it in

20,000 different places. again, it's not good for joe biden at all, but i do think in some ways, having the book thrown at hunter biden for these offenses, you know, kind of removes some of the whiff of any kind of favoritism that could be alleged around a plea deal that was earlier under consideration. and there is, you know, some meaning to that more broadly, however tragic and hard it is for hunter biden. >> yeah, and obviously on the democratic side, they are putting together their forces because they have been talking about this for a while now. and separating clearly the president from any of this. eric swalwell and adam schiff, we caught up with them on capitol hill, let's play what they had to say. >> president biden has credibility, he believes in equal justice under the law, and allowed donald trump's investigator stay on board, and you're not going to see a democrat losing their mind saying we need to burn down the whole government because the president's family members is

being investigated. we believe if the rule of law, and i think it's clear that the other side believes in chaos. >> the justice department will do its will. that's as it should be. and we're going to continue focusing on getting the work of the country done. >> so is that what we're going to hear is that the correct messaging as you see it, simone, from the democratic side? >> absolutely. democrats cannot and frankly will not be hypocrites on this issue. across the board, democratic elected officials have been clear they believe in the rule of law. that if you have broken a rule and are found to have broken a rule after thorough investigation, you should, in fact, be held accountable, and that is true for democrats. it's true for independents. it's true for republicans, and so i think the democrats have strong ground to stand on here. i want to say something about what jim comer, he said this is the one crime that you can not tie joe biden to. house republicans have been able

to tie president biden to any crimes which is why this impeachment inquiry is absurd, and frankly why speaker mccarthy doesn't have the votes because there has been no evidence. i think this notion about is this bad for joe biden when it comes to the election boils down to what the american people believe about the legal issues that hunter biden is dealing with, and in that ap norc poll that you mentioned, the majority of folks polled noted that this was an issue, again, hunter biden's legal problems for hunter biden and they did not attribute to joe biden. it's a long way to november 2024. i think that is an important metric that i'm sure the biden campaign and the biden team are watching. >> and i wonder sometimes, nick, if it adds to the exhaustion factor. is this what the american people want to have their elected officials talking about, and the

danger if this leads to a government shutdown. >> look, i think that plenty of americans can kind of look at this story and see hunter biden's career and think that it is corrupted and proper, that he was trading on his dad's name. that is a question that is different than what is joe biden personally benefitting from this. should he be impeached because his son was an influence peddler. they have not been able to tie joe biden directly to the income streams that hunter biden was getting. he has a son in the lobbying business, and influence business. there are a lot of people in washington who have sons and spouses and daughters in the lobbying industry. and so the question for voters is going to be is this something we think should be impeached. >> you guys are going to stay with us, nick and simone. i want to go, if i can, to ken dilanian. you had some extraordinary reporting this morning and disturbing reporting because there are a lot of folks obviously working on this case,

including members of the fbi and prosecutors. they have faced so many threats that they've had to set up a special unit just to handle them all. is that right? >> that's right, chris, and that's threats to the fbi in general, which have basically doubled since the fbi raid on mar-a-lago last summer. there's just been an incredible barrage of specific threats, and you remember there was that attack on the fbi office in cincinnati, a few days after the search a man capable in with a rainfall and was later killed. this level of threats has built to the extent that the fbi had to create a ten-person team that does nothing but investigate and try to mitigate those threats, and what we learned this week is that some of the people working on the hunter biden case who have been named particularly by republican members of congress as having, you know, not -- potentially not been tough enough on hunter biden or in one case, a prosecutor or an fbi

person accused of playing a role in sur pressing a story about hunter biden's laptop, these people have been targeted by threats. one prosecutor working for david weiss, no longer on the case, had to seek help from the u.s. marshals who often protect courthouse personnel. it's a huge problem. the hunter biden investigation fits into a larger picture of an up tick in threats against the fbi, against prosecutors, against law enforcement that is directly connected to what a lot of my sources say, directly connected to former president trump's rhetoric, accusing the justice department of not just that he disagrees with them, but engaging in criminal conspiracies to frame him, and a lot of republicans have adopted that rhetoric and others, and millions of people believe it and violent threats have ensued, chris. >> let's talk about that because the very real threat and correct me if i'm wrong, but when i've talked to folks about this in

the past and as you say, this isn't something that's absolutely new, ken, but you need this kind of manpower because while there may be many people who are cowards, who are making threats, who would never go through with them, but want nothing but to sow fear, the problem is the one person who really will do something. >> that's right, and we've seen, unfortunately, examples of that over and over again, that case in cincinnati i mentioned, the man who attacked paul pelosi. there's been a string of incidents, and it only takes, right, it's a tiny, tiny percentage of people who would actually act on this rhetoric, but then there's a larger group of people who are willing to call and harass not only fbi agents but family members of fbi agents. it's pretty easy once you know somebody's name, to track down their address and relatives, through various internet search tools. there have been instances of swatting against fbi agents where people phone in a false

report of a dangerous situation at someone's home, which leads the police to rush in, perhaps in the middle of the night with weapons drawn, which can be a horrible situation for the residents of the home, could lead to bad outcomes. that's the kind of harassment that has been targeted at fbi agents who were trying to do their jobs, chris. >> and you and i, simone, have witnessed this firsthand, obviously spent a lot of time around secret service, having worked at the white house, but this is something different. this is a different level when you are going to families, when we hear the kinds of reports about the threats that are out there. people showing up at their door. folks who don't even want their name out there when they make a phone call to get, you know, delivery for some dinner. it's different, isn't it, now? >> i absolutely think it is different, chris, and what ken is describing that a number of fbi agents have been dealing with, and i would even go broader to also say public

officials, public servants who have just been doing their jobs, many of whose names have come up in various quote unquote, investigations from house republicans. the rhetoric is radicalizing people, chris, and i really think we have to take a step back and think about the fact that as ken detailed and a lot of the folks that are being targeted, fbi agents are folks who were deemed not tough enough on hunter biden, who were named by republican members of congress. there is a responsibility that elected officials have, democrats, republicans, and otherwise to what they say, words have power, words have consequences and people are being radicalized by this rhetoric, and it's coming from the top. >> simone, nick and ken. thank you so much. also joining us, former doj spokesperson and msnbc justice and legal affairs analyst, anthony cole. the idea that they have to put together this group, ten people,

who are focused on threats coming in to people who are doing nothing, anthony, but doing their jobs. >> right. >> these are folks you work with. you know how much they have to put in every day. i just wonder what your reaction is that it's come to this. >> it's really a sad state of commentary on the state of the world, and really all of this is driven by one man, donald trump. donald trump and his allies are the ones who are continuing to spread disinformation and misinformation. and trump can put a stop to it at any time. >> let's talk about the case itself because there are a lot of people looking at this, why are we going here, this is not a case that would be brought in other circumstances. how much of this is because of the profile of it. this is about justice, when the organization you work for is under attack, and whether or not they are really pursuing is justice, put that in context for

me. >> the attorney general once told ne that it's not enough to do justice. you have to appear to do justice. what does that mean? putting in place people and processes that make sure that the rule of law, treating like cases alike is reinfused throughout every aspect of the department. that's how we got to david weiss. february 2021, i was at doj at the time. that was a month before merrick garland was confirmed by the senate, but the doj leadership at the time asked why is this trump appointed u.s. attorney to stay over to handle this case, and they did so in part to ensure public confidence that whatever decision was appropriate, that it was indisputably determined by the facts and the law. that's how we got here. >> so andrew weissmann, to that point, should we be hearing from mr. weiss? should we -- should there be a different level of care in

presentation, given the stakes here? again, this is not a prosecution against a former president. it's certainly not a prosecution against the current president. but the implications for 2024 are real. the implications for people's lives are very real. how do we get to the point where frankly, it is not just justice, but it is the appearance of justice. what has to happen? >> i'm not surprised that david weiss is not speaking. that is sort of a standard play for prosecutors not to speak about charges or to do very very minimal speaking. so i do think that your question is a good one because, you know, the big question that i have and that i think remains is how did we get from something where the government agreed that there

should be a deferred prosecution agreement, and signed an actual deferred prosecution agreement saying that this does not warrant bringing charges. so long as the person is essentially on good behavior during a time period. so how did we get from that, where the government thought in its discretion that's what should happen, and this is very much to anthony's point, to a place where they're bringing three charges, one of which is currently being challenged in the supreme court, and the other two may not be material, meaning that the false statement that's alleged may not really be a material false statement, which is required in this case. how did we get there that prosecutorial discretion at one hand was to do x, and now it's to do something that's really in my experience, draconian in these kinds of cases, especially if we now see more tax charges.

so additional felonies. and to me it sort of reads like, okay, we got chastised by the court. this fell apart. we didn't have very good answers to a judge. we now are getting pressured by certain people in congress and others. and so we're just not going to get -- we're not going to do our independent job, which i really think is anthony's exact point, which is you're there to do justice. you have to put aside all of that sort of political noise and explain how you went from a situation where many people, including myself thought that the agreement that they were standing by just, you know a month ago, was already fairly harsh in terms of how people are treated. how did we get from that to a situation where i think many people view this and correctly should view this as kind of over

the top in terms of what the justice department is doing. >> so i think, and i'm looking to the lawyer to my left here, i think one of the issues here is a statute of limitation question, right, that if there were going to be charges brought, they would to be brought over the next several weeks. that's the first thing. i think there's a broader question here, and that is doj's hands in many ways were tied. they didn't have much of a choice but to bring these charges in the absence of there being a plea agreement. they couldn't just put their heads in the sand and just not believe what hunter biden wrote about in his book. they didn't have a choice. >> say, well, the deal fell apart, and so, right? >> what are they supposed to do? >> hunter biden's attorney spoke to my colleague alex wagner just last week.

this is what he had to say about the gun charges and about that plea deal falling apart. >> hunter had a gun for eleven days. it was never loaded. it was never used. there has never been a stand alone gun charge brought by this office ever. they decided it made sense to do a diversion because of hunter's condition at the time, and now they're talking about changing that. what's changed? not the facts and if people have paid attention, the only law that's changed has been a court of appeals in the federal system that has called that statute unconstitutional, so then what changed? not the facts, not the law, but we have seen over the last six weeks, the politics have certainly influenced the outcome. >> lisa, what do you think happened here? how did we get here? >> i think something else happened too is that the department of justice and hunter biden's initial team was clever by half. they tried to construct a deal where the plea on the tax charges and the pretrial diversion agreement on the gun

charges were interdependent. and you're looking at me like why does that matter, why should we care. they did that because they wanted a judge to nak a decision in the future on whether hunter had violated the agreement so as to incident lately it from a future potentially corrupt, potentially highly partisan department of justice. they did not want a potential new trump administration to be in charge of deciding whether hunter had acted in compliance with that deal, and that is why they constructed this interdependent deal that the judge, mary ellen noreca said i can't do that. that's problematic for me. >> that's the question i get, and i'm not a law, how do you get to the point where highly paid lawyers, skilled lawyers, very experienced lawyers, bring something to a judge who said what. >> i don't think they thought

she would question whether she had the authority to do. so at that hearing, you remember that day, our colleague tom winter was outside. >> that was wild, people who don't remember, that was a wild day. >> it was a wild day. i think they really didn't anticipate that she would see it as a constitutional issue, that she was being asked as a federal district judge to pass on something that she didn't think should rightly be within her jurisdiction, and that to me, not the prospect on foreign lobbying is where the whole deal fell apart. to anthony's point on justice, none of these gun charges would be brought in isolation against any other defendant. take that separate and apart from the tax charges. i think it might be justice to charge hunter with the tax charges independent of a deal. the gun charges give me pause here, particularly given some o. background exacerbating factors having to do with where his life was and where his addiction was at the time. >> so we just heard from chris coons. he is the senator from delaware.

he served alongside joe biden for many many years. he is one of his closest friends. and obviously closest allies. he brushed off the latest charges against hunter biden saying, it's not news. it's the same charges that were presented before, right? asked if he's concerned the federal indictment of the president's son will be a liability for biden. coons said not particularly. that goes back to what you were talking about. the question he's asking are the same charges that were presented before, right, so i do think there is a level of folks looking at this from the outside, this costs money. this costs taxpayer money. can we get this done, and can we get this done fairly quickly? what's the answer to that? >> well, i do think that we're not going to see anything soon in terms of a new deal until tax charges are brought. and i agree with tom winter that

that is the next shoe to drop. it seems very unlikely that they would go be so forward leaning on gun charges and not be bringing the tax charges as well. so i do think we're going to see those additional charges. those additional charges may well have to be absent hunter biden waiving venue, those would have to be brought in another district, so he could be facing two separate charges, but as i said, i think you're going to see a lot of motion practice by hunter biden. now, on a political side that has all sorts of consequences because it keeps it in the news, it's pending, et cetera, the panel you have on is very much looking at this from a legal perspective, in terms of the justice department, in terms of what kind of challenges could be brought, and i think there will be a lot of questions about sort of the behavior of the special counsel, and by the way, i keep

on saying the justice department, which is probably really not fair because merrick garland is not dealing with this, and it's not on his plate. it is the special counsel who is, you know, recently appointed. he is a hold over from the prior administration. and so he certainly has insulated himself from criticism that he's been too lenient to hunter biden by doing this, but i do think he's opened himself up to a lot of litigation on the way that they are proceeding in this case, and whether it follows the rule of law. you know, with respect to president trump, an issue that people legitimately raise, is he being treated consistent with how other people are being treated. and that's a real and important issue, and when you are in the justice department, to make sure you are treating like cases alike. and so when you think of the mar-a-lago documents case,

people are routinely prosecuted for that who do much much less. if you think the january 6th cases, we have current cases of people who are going to jail for significant periods of time for doing what the former president is charged with, and it's there to ask that for hunter biden as well. the same question, is he being treated, consummate with how other people are being treated in this situation. i unfortunately don't think that the answer to that is going to be particularly favorable to the special counsel's decision here: and i do think he's going to be subject to selected prosecution argument by the testifies. we'll see how that goes. >> assuming the next shoe to drop is indeed taxes, let me ask you about the venue issue. so many people who have been following the other case know that a lot of folks have filed and said i don't want to be

tried in state court, i want to be tried in federal court. that's not the issue here, but the issue is there seems to be no venue in delaware. it was ken who said most likely in california. in a case like a tax case, unlike a criminal case, does it matter where it's done or not? >> so just one quick slight correction, a tax case will be a criminal case. it's just criminal tax case. and so i do expect that it will either be in california or in washington, d.c. those seem like places where there's venue, quick primer on that, the constitution of the united states requires a case to be brought where the crime occurred. sometimes it's in numerous places that a crime occurs, not just one state. but here it appears that for the tax case, there's no venue in delaware, which is why people are talking about california and d.c. why could that matter?

it could matter because you have a different judge and jury pool. but in terms of the strength of the case, that shouldn't matter. it could be a very strong case that the government has. i think by all accounts we now know that we have a plea allocution, where we know that this is not a far-fetched prosecution. we know that hunter biden was willing to admit his guilt to the tax case, and so it is a righteous case. obviously he will have a right to go to trial. it means it has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. and as we're sitting here now, he's presumed innocent. as a matter of fact, we know that this is something the government has good reason to bring that case, and tax charges are routine. unlike the gun case that we have been talking about, tax charges are routinely brought. those are a situation where you

could understand if a deal falls apart that those would be brought again. they typically, though, don't in this kind of case, lead to jail time or significant jail time, you know, people may agree or disagree on whether that should be the case, but in terms of if he is found guilty, the kind of sentence he would face would typically not be terribly long. >> in our closing minute, lisa, what are you looking for going forward? >> i'm looking for what's going to happen next in terms of tax charges being brought. i think it's very likely we'll see those other charges in no small part because david weiss has told us essentially to expect them by september 29th. he filed something saying both cases were still live. i'll be watching the dockets in both the federal district court and d.c. and california to see if we're going to see additional charges against hunter biden.

>> any last thoughts? >> i expect republicans to try to make this a moral equivalence to what we're seeing with donald trump, and the facts just don't bear that out. these are vastly different things. hunter biden has never been an elected official but that's not going to stop republican members of congress from trying to say that there's more here than what there is. >> my extraordinary good fortune to have been with all of these folks over the last two hours with this breaking news. that is going to do it for us. make sure to join us for "chris jansing reports" every weekday 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. eastern here on msnbc. and our coverage of this breaking news, hunter biden indicted on three gun-related charges continues with "katy tur reports" right after this break. r reports" right after this break. in studies, the majority of people reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. i'm under 7. ozempic® lowers the risk of major cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack, or death in adults also with known heart disease. i'm lowering my risk. adults lost up to 14 pounds.

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good to be with you, i'm kailt kate. -- katy tur. the president of the united states's son has been indicted. david weiss filed three gun-related charges in the state of delaware, accusing him of committing felonies when he bought a gun. there were no charges regarding his taxes. could those be next? president biden said a loved one's drug addiction is something most american families have had to deal with. does that make the troubles more