How Hunter Biden’s Judge Came to Have Doubts on the Deal

Judge Maryellen Noreika kicked off Wednesday’s hearing on Hunter Biden’s proposed plea deal with the Justice Department by telling lawyers that they did not need to keep “popping” up and down every time she asked them a question.

That was not a reflection of informality. It was a signal that she was about to subject them to three-plus hours of relentless interrogation over elements of an agreement she described, variously, as “not standard, not what I normally see,” possibly “unconstitutional,” without legal precedent and potentially “not worth the paper it is printed on.”

Judge Noreika stunned the participants with her scouring skepticism, which led her to refuse to green-light the deal until she received “more information” from both parties. An exhausted Mr. Biden trudged out of Federal District Court in Wilmington, Del., looking a bit stunned, as his lawyers puzzled over what to do next.