Embarrassing new details that have emerged about Hunter Biden’s murky business practices and President Biden’s alleged involvement with certain deals could threaten the affirmation of a plea agreement that a judge is supposed to approve on Wednesday morning. The disclosures could also spell trouble for the elder Mr. Biden’s political future. 

The increasing trouble for Mr. Biden fils is unfolding on multiple fronts. Most significantly, Speaker McCarthy now says he’s seriously considering an impeachment inquiry into the Bidens following reports that a former close friend and business associate of Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, will testify before a House committee next week that the elder Mr. Biden participated in several of Hunter Biden’s business meetings, in person and by phone. This would contradict repeated denials by the president that he had anything to do with his troubled son’s business affairs, including a denial he made directly to voters during a presidential debate.

The propriety of Hunter Biden’s art sales is now being called into question. One recipient of Mr. Biden’s artwork, his lawyer, Kevin Morris, received the paintings as a gift, but only after giving Mr. Biden $2 million to resolve tax issues with the IRS.

One purchaser of his artwork, according to Insider, is a Democratic Party donor and political appointee in the Biden administration, Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real estate investor and philanthropist. Since the beginning of 2023, Ms. Naftali donated $13,414 to Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign as well as $29,700 to the Democratic National Campaign Committee, which is charged with electing Democrats to the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority. 

Just months before she purchased an undisclosed amount of art from the younger Mr. Biden, Ms. Naftali was appointed by the president to the prestigious Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which identifies and preserves “cemeteries, monuments, and historic buildings in Eastern and Central Europe that are associated with the heritage of U.S. citizens,” according to the agency’s website. 

Previously, Ms. Naftali served on the Biden campaign’s national finance committee during the 2020 campaign and as deputy finance chairwoman for the Democratic National Committee. 

Another purchaser of Mr. Biden’s art is a lawyer friend, Kevin Morris, who also paid off millions of dollars of Mr. Biden’s tax debt. He is also believed to have given Mr. Biden the use of his private jet to attend a recent child support hearing in Arkansas.

The allegations soon to spill out from Devon Archer, as well as the reports of seven-figure art sales, come as a Delaware judge is under increasing pressure from Republican lawmakers and legal filings by the conservative Heritage Foundation to throw out Hunter Biden’s plea deal, which she’s expected to approve tomorrow.

The plea deal represents Mr. Biden’s effort to make his legal troubles disappear without serving prison time. The deal between Mr. Biden and the United States attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, calls for Mr. Biden to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax evasion and enter a “judicial diversion program” to make amends for an illegal firearms purchase. 

For the last several weeks, the deal has been called into question by two IRS whistleblowers who’ve testified under oath that they heard Mr. Weiss say in private conversations that he had lost control of the investigation into Mr. Biden fils and that he was not allowed to get special counsel status or expand the scope of his inquiry beyond the narrow tax and firearms offenses, due to meddling from above. 

Mr. Weiss, in carefully written statements, has denied being obstructed and overruled; who is telling the truth in this affair would be a central line of inquiry in any impeachment investigation.

The IRS whistleblowers also made new and disturbing disclosures about the extent of Hunter Biden’s tax offenses, testifying that he took tax deductions on payments to prostitutes, membership in a high-end “sex club,” and on a vacation to a chateau in France where, according to Mr. Biden’s recent memoir, he learned how to cook crack cocaine. The whistleblowers claim that these tax offenses would normally warrant years in prison and millions of dollars in fines for a less privileged individual. 

House Republicans have been seeking testimony from Mr. Weiss regarding the IRS whistleblowers’ claims that Mr. Biden received “preferential treatment” in the course of the investigation. On Monday, that request was granted by the DOJ. 

“The Department is ready to offer U.S. Attorney Weiss to testify shortly after Congress returns from the August district work period,” the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, Carlos Uriarte, wrote to Republican members of Congress. “U.S. Attorney Weiss is the appropriate person to speak to these issues, as he is both the senior Department official responsible for the investigation as well as the person with direct knowledge of the facts necessary to respond to the assertions in which you have expressed interest.”

Mr. Uriarte stated that Mr. Weiss is available to testify on September 27, September 28, October 18, and October 19.

That will not come in time for Wednesday’s hearing regarding Mr. Biden fils’ plea deal. 

The jurist in this hearing, Judge Maryellen Noreika, has unilateral power to decide whether to accept Mr. Biden’s plea, which includes admitting to two misdemeanor counts of “willful” income tax evasion. 

Some Republicans hope that Judge Noreika pays close enough attention to the news that she would either delay or outright reject the plea deal. A lawsuit from the Heritage Foundation sought documents and communications related to the allegation that Mr. Weiss sought special counsel status in the hopes that Judge Noreika would be able to weigh the possibility of “preferential treatment” before making a determination on the merits of the plea agreement. 

That lawsuit was tossed out by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday morning. 

Another request to Judge Noreika — sent by Mayor Giuliani and a former aide to President Trump, Garrett Ziegler, who helped disclose contents of Mr. Biden’s infamous laptop — asks that the jurist reject the plea deal on the basis that Mr. Biden is receiving preferential treatment because of his family name. 

“Not only will the plea deal in front of you, if accepted, make a mockery of the phrase ‘slap on the wrist,’ but it will also send a sobering message to citizens which demonstrates that nepotism and proximity to political power determines outcomes in our criminal justice system,” the letter to Judge Noreika states. It was sent by the nonprofit run by Mr. Ziegler, Marco Polo, and was signed by Mr. Giuliani. 

Mr. Biden’s laptop contains “evidence for, at the very least, 459 violations of state and federal laws and regulations on the device,” the letter claims. “The breakdown is as follows: 140 business-related crimes, 191 sex-related crimes, and, lastly, 128 drug-related crimes. These instances of criminal wrongdoing are supported by primary source evidence: emails, photos, videos, text messages, audio files, et al. The plea deal for your consideration is so meager that the phrase ‘limited hangout’ does not describe the situation.”