President Biden’s son left federal court Wednesday after his pre-arranged plea deal with the Justice Department (DOJ) fell apart after surprising revelations that Hunter Biden is still under investigation for possible Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) crimes. 

Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a plea deal to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge.

But Judge Maryellen Noreika did not accept the plea agreement, questioning its constitutionality and the broad immunity Hunter Biden would have received, leading Hunter Biden to plead ‘not guilty’ instead.

Criminal prosection experts say that the younger Biden went from ‘a sweetheart deal’ to a ‘real poison pill’ that could ‘expose him across the board.’

‘The judge had an obligation to make sure that the defendant and the government have a very clear idea of what is implicated guaranteed,’ Jonathan Turley, criminal law professor at George Washington University, told Fox News, adding that ‘they didn’t have that.’

Turley said the plea deal dissolving in such a manor is ‘extremely rare’ akin to ‘a wedding where both the groom and bride object.’

Hunter Biden, 53, has been under federal investigation since 2018. That investigation into his ‘tax affairs’ began amid the discovery of suspicious activity reports that related to money from ‘China and other foreign nations.’ IRS whistleblowers said the investigation began as an offshoot from an existing probe into a foreign pornography platform.

Hunter was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay more than $1 million in federal income tax in exchange for immunity from other crimes.

He was also expected to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement for a separate felony charge of possession of a firearm – an element of which Noreika expressed questions of constitutionality.

Turley said the ‘sweetheart deal’ was an effort to ‘cap off’ the years-long federal probe into Hunter Biden’s taxes and foreign business dealings. ‘But now, it’s the worst possible situation for Hunter Biden,’ Turley said.

Turley said Biden ‘doesn’t have any protection at all’ and that the Department of Justice is in a position where they can bring to bear any or all of the remaining counts, including FARA.

‘And they usually do,’ Turley said. When a defendant ‘goes south’ on a plea deal, the DOJ usually ‘puts everything on the table for a potential trial.’

Jim Trusty, criminal prosecutor and former lawyer for former President Donald Trump, said the plea deal breakdown was unusual.

‘Up until today, Delaware was looking like the place where investigations go to die,’ Trusty told Fox News Digital.

But DOJ attorneys reiterated to the judge that there is an ‘ongoing investigation’ surrounding Hunter Biden.

At one point the judge asked DOJ prosecutor Leo Wise, ‘Is there an ongoing investigation here?’

Wise answered that ‘there is’ but said he couldn’t tell the judge what the investigation was into. When she asked if the government could potentially bring a FARA charge, Wise answered, ‘Yes.’

Scharf said that a likely next-step scenario is that a new plea deal will be put in place that will be limited to crimes within the jurisdiction of the District of Delaware, namely the tax crimes, gun and drug charges.

‘I think Hunter is just going to have to eat that and accept that he will continue to be under investigation for FARA,’ he said. 

‘Hunter is not out of the water. He is in a lot of trouble. And the situation is going to continue to develop. Today was, I think, in Hunter’s mind, supposed to be the end. And instead, he found out he’s really pretty close to the beginning,’ Scharf added.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The White House revealed Wednesday where it now stands on the possible existence of alien life, telling reporters they ‘don’t know’ whether the numerous sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) are proof whether extraterrestrials are real.

‘We don’t know. We don’t have the answers about what these phenomena are,’ National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a reporter at the daily White House press briefing who asked if the U.S. government believed there ‘may be life outside of our planet.’

Kirby said he didn’t have a position on it ‘one way or the other’ that he could immediately speak to, but did say the government believed ‘there are unexplained aerial phenomena that have been sighted and reported by pilots, Navy and Air Force, that these phenomena have in some cases had an impact on our training ranges, on our pilots’ ability to fly, train, operate and stay ready.’ 

‘That alone makes it a national security issue worth looking at,’ he added. ‘Unidentified aerial phenomena doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it’s an honest assessment of what we think about this problem set. And so we’ll see where it goes.’

Earlier in the briefing, Kirby told another reporter that he had ‘no information’ to provide ‘one way or the other’ on the existence of a ‘UAP crash retrieval and reverse engineering program,’ but admitted the White House takes the issue of UAPs seriously.

‘There’s a whole office at the Pentagon that is stood up to analyze the data, collect reports, collate those reports and forward them up appropriately. And that’s, I think, testament to the fact that we know that in some cases these phenomena have impacted military training, have an impact on military readiness,’ he said.

The reporter pressed Kirby, asking whether President Biden felt claims of the existence of such a program warranted further investigation, and if the White House saw them as credible.

‘If the president didn’t believe that the sightings by pilots were serious enough to be considered, he wouldn’t have wanted the Pentagon to stand up an office to look at this, to analyze the data, to collect reports and provide a system by which we can collate the information and better figure out what we’ve got here,’ Kirby responded. 

‘But that work is ongoing. So if your question is do we think we need to be transparent with the American people, of course, we need to be as transparent as we can be. But the truth is… we don’t have hard and fast answers on these things. We are trying to get smarter on it,’ he added.

Kirby’s statements come on the same day that the House Oversight Committee held a hearing concerning the sightings of UAPs and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), which included testimony from whistleblower David Grusch, who testified under oath his life was threatened and that he was instructed to keep quiet about a secret government-run crashed UFO retrieval program. 

Another witness told members of the committee he believed ‘something is going on in our airspace.’

Fox News’ Chris Eberhart contributed to this report.

The legal woes of Hunter Biden and today’s dropped plea deal likely accelerates the possibility of a formal impeachment inquiry by House Republicans.

Some Republicans were skeptical of launching any sort of inquiry – let alone impeaching the President.

But issues with the plea deal did nothing but pose more questions from Republicans. 

That’s why this likely spurs more serious conversation about impeachment inquiry.

This will be about the math.

The full House must vote to formally begin an impeachment inquiry. It’s fair to say that the House is a little closer to that now than it was before the Hunter Biden deal blew up. 

Moreover, voting to ESTABLISH an impeachment inquiry gives the House WIDE LATITUDE to go after more documents, information and conduct depositions. The Hunter Biden deal situation poses more questions than answers. So more Republicans may be inclined to pursue such a plan. 

Meantime, Democrats seem to be caught off guard by the change with Hunter Biden’s deal. They were prepared to just dismiss this and move on. But they can’t anymore. So far, Democrats have presented little cohesive strategy about how to deal with this turn events – and protect the president. 

We could hear more about this Thursday and Friday as this is the last time until mid-September that the House will be in town. 

Expect lawmakers to pepper House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) about the next steps. And also, pose questions to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) about the defense Democrats may need to mount on behalf of the president.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) indirectly revealed Wednesday that President Biden’s son Hunter Biden is still under investigation for a potential violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

During a contentious court hearing in a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, federal prosecutor Leo Wise confirmed to Judge Maryellen Noreika of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware that the DOJ is still investigating Hunter Biden over a potential FARA violation. According to the DOJ, a willful violation of FARA could result in a five-year imprisonment and $250,000 fine, or both.

‘Yes,’ Wise stated after Noreika asked him whether the government could bring a charge against Hunter Biden related to FARA.

Wise’s affirmative response sparked a disagreement between prosecutors and defense counsel which ultimately led to the collapse of Hunter Biden’s plea deal. Chris Clark, an attorney representing Hunter Biden, remarked that the plea deal is ‘null and void.’

The hearing occurred Wednesday morning and was expected to be routine. 

Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as part of plea deal to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge. He was also expected to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement regarding the charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

‘Something is rotten in the state of Delaware, and the judge sniffed it out today. We’re thrilled her reasoning tracked with the arguments we laid out in our brief to the Court,’ Mike Howell, the director of the Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital.

‘Hunter Biden won’t be able to use this sweetheart plea deal as a get out of jail free card for any charges that may arise from the ongoing investigation into him,’ Howell added. ‘And that means that President Biden didn’t get a pass either.’ 

Republican lawmakers who are leading the congressional oversight investigation into the Biden family’s foreign business dealings similarly applauded Noreika’s questioning of the plea deal Wednesday. GOP leaders have loudly criticized the DOJ for putting the deal forward earlier this year after a multiyear investigation into the president’s son.

‘Today District Judge Noreika did the right thing by refusing to rubberstamp Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal. But let’s be clear: Hunter’s sweetheart plea deal belongs in the trash,’ House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement.

‘No one should be above the law,’ House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., added. ‘Even if your last name is Biden.’

Congress enacted FARA to minimize the impact of foreign propaganda in the United States. It requires ‘certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute’ to update the Justice Department on their activities periodically. They must also provide receipts and disbursements regarding the work.

Failure to do so can result in up to five years in prison and hefty fines. The New York Post reported that potential charges would have to come soon, given that it carries a five-year statute of limitations and Hunter Biden left the Ukrainian gas company Burisma’s board in 2019. They also noted that its most lucrative Chinese government-linked partnership occurred in 2017 and 2018.

The White House, meanwhile, has continued to say it respects the independence of the DOJ and that there has been no interference from the president on behalf of his son.

‘Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and this was a personal matter for him. As we have said, the president, the first lady — they love their son and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life,’ White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday. ‘This case was handled independently, as all of you know, by the Justice Department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president, President Trump.’ 

The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was on the receiving end of another barrage from House Republicans on Wednesday as he faced the House Judiciary Committee and was quizzed about the administration’s efforts to tackle the border crisis.

‘I’ve been in Congress seven years. I think you’re the most dishonest witness that has ever appeared before the Judiciary Committee, and I think I speak for a lot of my colleagues,’ Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., said. ‘This is such a frustrating exercise for us because our constituents want answers.’

The fireworks came as part of a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the department, which has been at the center of the handling of the ongoing crisis at the southern border in its third year.

Mayorkas has become a lightning rod for the crisis, with Republicans blaming him for running ‘open border’ policies they say sparked and then fueled the border crisis, which saw over 1.7 million migrant encounters in fiscal 2021 and over 2.4 million in fiscal 2022.

Republicans say that the rollback of Trump-era policies, including border wall construction, the Remain-in-Mexico policy and others, along with a reduction of interior enforcement and expansion of catch-and-release, has led to the historic surge. House Republicans have accused Mayorkas of dereliction of duty, with some backing a potential impeachment.

Mayorkas and the agency have pushed back consistently against those claims, arguing his agency is working in a broken system in need of reform by Congress while dealing with a hemisphere-wide crisis. The agency has pointed to a sharp drop in encounters after the end of the Title 42 public health order.

While encounters are still high, with over 144,000 in June, they were the lowest numbers since February 2021. It has led to claims by DHS that its post-Title 42 strategy is working. The strategy includes a historic expansion of the use of humanitarian parole to allow migrants in legally at ports of entry while limiting the ability of migrants who enter illegally to claim asylum.

‘Our approach to managing the borders securely and humanely even within our fundamentally broken immigration system is working,’ Mayorkas said. ‘Unlawful entries between ports of entry along the southwest border have consistently decreased by more than half compared to the peak before the end of Title 42.

‘Under President Biden’s leadership, we have led the largest expansion of lawful, safe and orderly pathways for people to seek humanitarian relief under our laws. At the same time, imposing tougher consequences on those who instead resort to the ruthless smuggling organizations that prey on the most vulnerable.’

But Republicans are unconvinced and have accused the administration of abusing parole, which is defined by Congress as an authority to be used on a case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian purposes or for significant public benefit.

They have said the use of parole — which includes up to 1,450 a day at the border via the controversial CBP One app and a policy to fly in up to 30,000 a month from four countries — is illegal. 

Supporters of the use of parole by the administration have noted that multiple administrations have used it to grant relief on multiple occasions, including migrants fleeing Cuba and Vietnam and, most recently, ‘parole in place’ to prevent deportation of illegal immigrant family members of military veterans. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., noted it had been used as far back as the Eisenhower administration.

‘We have used our parole authority consistent with the law and consistent with past practices of different administrations,’ Mayorkas said.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., accused Mayorkas of orchestrating an ‘amnesty dance’ with the CBP One app, which allows migrants to come to the border and schedule appointments to be paroled into the U.S.

‘You’ve taken this app, and you’ve digitized illegal immigration. And you’ve scaled it to the moon,’ Gaetz said. ‘This app that you’ve got everybody downloading is like the Disney Fast Pass into the country, never to be subject to actual removal, just removal proceedings as you call them.’

‘I disagree with everything you said,’ Mayorkas responded.

Gaetz and Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, repeatedly grilled Mayorkas in an effort to get key data, including the number of migrants who have been released into the U.S. during the Biden administration and have now been removed.

‘Let me ask real quick: Can you get that number to us, like, tomorrow, or is it — you’ve got to go back and is it going to take weeks and months and haggling back and forth and all the letters we do? Congress writes letters to agencies, and we haggle back and forth, all that dance we have to do. Or can you just get us the number?’ Jordan said.

‘Mr. Chairman, we’ll provide that data to you as promptly as possible,’ Mayorkas responded.

Democrats generally praised Mayorkas for the work he is doing and attempted to push back against Republican talking points.

Ranking member Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., accused Republicans of pushing a ‘dangerous’ narrative of an invasion at the border.

‘The invasion narrative some members push in this hearing room is bigoted, fact-free and dangerous,’ Nadler said, tying the rhetoric to the 2019 El Paso, Texas, shooting.

‘We can draw a straight line from the hateful rhetoric we hear from some congressional Republicans to that horrific tragedy.’

He also slammed Republicans for ‘outlandish claims’ made at the hearings, particularly claims the border is open. 

‘The border is not open, and to say so is not only false but is really an insult to the brave men and women at Border Patrol who work every day to keep us safe,’ he said.

But a number of Republicans doubled down on accusing Mayorkas of pushing ‘open border policies’ and expressed anger at what they saw as Mayorkas not answering any of their questions.

Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., at one point exploded at Mayorkas for his alleged lack of responsiveness.

‘You’re not answering questions,’ Spartz said. ‘You’ve not answered any Republican questions. Is it something that your intent is not to respond to any questions from Republicans? You came with that intent?’

‘That is incorrect, Congresswoman,’ he responded.

New York City plans to shelter up to 1,000 migrants in the parking lot of Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital in Queens.The temporary facility will exclusively house adult men.‘New York City continues to receive thousands of asylum seekers each week, and we have stepped up and led the nation, but this national crisis should not fall on cities alone to navigate,’ Democratic Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. ‘We need a national solution here.’

New York City will set up a shelter for up to 1,000 migrants in the parking lot of a state psychiatric hospital as thousands of asylum seekers continue to arrive in the city weekly, officials said Wednesday.

The new emergency relief center at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital in the Queens borough of New York will house adult men who are asylum seekers and will offer services including meals and medical care, the officials said.

‘This center will provide not just a place to stay but also critical services to support these individuals on their journey,’ Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said at a City Hall news conference.

New York state will provide the space at the 300-acre Creedmoor facility and will reimburse the city for setting the migrant center up and staffing it, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said.

There are currently more than 56,000 migrants in New York’s care, with more people arriving daily, officials said.

Mayor Eric Adams has scrambled to house migrants while asking for help from the federal government.

‘New York City continues to receive thousands of asylum seekers each week, and we have stepped up and led the nation, but this national crisis should not fall on cities alone to navigate. We need a national solution here,’ the mayor said in a statement.

Adams, a Democrat, announced last week that some adult asylum seekers without children in the city’s shelter system would be given 60 days notice to find other accommodations in order to make room for families with children. Dr. Ted Long, senior vice president of the city’s public hospital system, which oversees the migrant shelters, said Wednesday that about 100 migrants have been given notice so far.

Officials said the Creedmoor migrant center should be up and running at some point next month.

Over the past year, New York City has rented out hotels to house migrants, and has placed asylum seekers in locations including a cruise ship terminal and a former police academy building.

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The potential collapse of Hunter Biden’s plea deal with prosecutors during a contentious court hearing in federal court in Delaware on Wednesday will likely provide Republicans with more ammunition as they aim to link President Biden to his son’s high-profile legal difficulties.

But looking ahead to the president’s 2024 re-election campaign, while Democratic strategists scoff at the notion that the younger Biden’s scandals could weaken his father’s bid for re-nomination and potentially help primary challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a veteran political analyst told Fox News that ‘this is not a good situation for a man who’s weak in the polls and is running for re-election.’

Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as part of plea deal with federal prosecutors to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge. The younger Bien owned a handgun in 2018 – during a period where he’s admitted he was regularly using cocaine. That violates federal law, which prohibits drug users from possessing firearms.

But after the judge in the case refused to accept the plea agreement – due to questions of the constitutionality of the deal – Hunter Biden pleaded ‘not guilty’ as federal prosecutors confirmed the president’s son is still under federal investigation. 

Wednesday’s legal fireworks come after Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblower testimony revealed allegations of Department of Justice misconduct throughout the years long investigation into the president’s son, which began during former President Donald Trump’s administration.

Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealing with Ukraine when his father was serving as vice president in the Obama administration are also in the spotlight. A separate whistleblower has alleged that the FBI and the Justice Department are in possession of an unverified document that claims a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. 

And this week House Speaker Kevin McCarthy floated that the Republican majority in the chamber may consider an impeachment inquiry into the president over the unproven claims of financial misconduct.

‘There’s a lot of questions and we need some answers,’ Republican presidential candidate and former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

Haley argued that ‘now there’s enough questions and enough whistleblowers to say ‘OK, should there be a congressional inquiry into looking into this and I think that’s what Speaker McCarthy’s talking about and if he decides to go through the inquiry, it would totally be warranted.’

The White House has pushed back against Republicans, criticizing what it says were ‘unfounded, unproven, politically motivated attacks against the president and his family’ made ‘without offering evidence for their claims or evidence of decisions influenced by anything other than U.S. interests.’

Hunter Biden’s legal saga and the mounting inquiries come as the battle for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is heating up, and as Biden faces longshot primary challenges from Kennedy – the environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine critic, and scion of arguably the nation’s most famous family political dynasty – and best-selling author and spiritual adviser Marianne Williamson, who’s making her second straight White House run.

Fox News reached out to Kennedy’s campaign for reaction to Wednesday’s legal developments but didn’t receive a response by the time this story was published. 

But Kennedy, in a Fox News Channel interview this past weekend, said he backs McCarthy’s potential probe into the Bidens.

‘The issues that are now coming up are worrying enough that we really need a real investigation of what happened,’ Kennedy told host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’

‘I mean, these revelations …where you have Burisma, which is this notoriously corrupt company, that paid out apparently $10 million to Hunter and his dad, if that’s true, then it is really troubling….So I think … it needs to be investigated,’ Kennedy said. 

Whether the controversy surrounding the Bidens will boost Kennedy’s bid against Biden is under debate in New Hampshire, which will likely be ground zero for attempts by Kennedy and Williamson to try and upend the president’s renomination.

Pointing to the president’s approval ratings – which have been underwater for nearly two years – and polls suggesting Democrats are anything but enthused with the 80-year-old Biden seeking a second four-year term in the White House, New Hampshire Institute of Politics executive director Neil Levesque told Fox News that ‘there is a lot of chatter right now and nervous Democrats concerned about Biden running anyway, and the polls indicate that.’

‘So if you add on any legal difficulties that his son might have that also tarnish the president’s image, it’s not good for him. This is not a good situation for a man who’s weak in the polls and is running for re-election,’ Levesque argued.

And he said that ‘every week that goes by where Hunter Biden has more legal troubles it creates a precarious position’ for the president.

But veteran political scientist Dante Scala of the University of New Hampshire disagreed, emphasizing that ‘until Democrats are confronted with incredibly solid evidence that the father himself has some wrongdoing in all this, their default is to confine the sins of Hunter Biden to Hunter Biden.’

‘Until something emerges that clearly shows that the president did something wrong here, I think Democratic primary voters shrug. Especially given the alternatives. The alternative in no way is Robert F. Kennedy or Marianne Williamson,’ Scala argued.

Voicing what many Democratic strategists are saying in a party that appears united behind the president, New England based Democratic consultant Joe Caiazzo told Fox News that ‘the reason why the Republicans are going after the president on Hunter Biden is because they cannot attack him on his record of governing because he’s been a success.’

‘I think Democratic primary voters are focused on making sure that we win back the House and keep control of the Senate and keep President Biden in the White House in 2024,’ added Caiazzo, a veteran of multiple Democratic presidential campaigns.

The behavior of some controversial Republicans in Congress may also be energizing Democrats to support Biden.

Pointing to conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who is facing plenty of criticism for prominently displaying explicit photos of Hunter Biden at recent House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing, a progressive activist in New Hampshire said when it comes to Democratic primary voters, ‘even if there was something on Biden, it’s lost in all the nonsense and false accusations.’

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Aubrie Spady contributed to this report