Hunter Biden's former lawyer threatened to have Joe Biden testify in a bid to scare prosecutors from bringing charges.
The detail was included in an article from Politico describing the negotiations that led to Hunter's now-defunct sweetheart plea deal.
Attorney Chris Clark reached out to U.S. attorney David Weiss, the federal prosecutor overseeing the Hunter Biden case, in October after news leaked that Hunter might face charges for lying on a gun form about his drug use.
Clark warned the leak was "illegal" and that pursuing charges would destroy the reputation of the Justice Department by making it appear as if the DOJ was bowing to pressure from Donald Trump and Republicans.
As a further disincentive to charging Hunter Biden with a crime, Clark invoked the possibility of calling the president to testify in his son's defense, painting the scenario as a dire "constitutional crisis."
“President Biden now unquestionably would be a fact witness for the defense in any criminal trial,” Clark wrote.
"This of all cases justifies neither the spectacle of a sitting President testifying at a criminal trial nor the potential for a resulting Constitutional crisis."
It's a threat that one may reasonably speculate had an effect on the prosecutor - who, it appears, did everything possible to avoid bringing charges against the first son.
Weiss was initially reluctant to charge Hunter at all, according to a separate report in the New York Times on the negotiations that led to Hunter's sweetheart plea deal.
As recently as May, Hunter and his lawyer expected to receive a deferred prosecution agreement that would have spared Hunter from even having to plead guilty.
But Weiss shifted after a pair of IRS whistleblowers went public with allegations that the investigation into Hunter had been stymied.
The plea deal Hunter nearly received would have been still generous: it offered blanket immunity from federal charges, including serious crimes like money laundering, and no jail time. But the plea unraveled in court under the scrutiny of a judge, bringing a trial back into play.
Weiss has since been appointed a Special Counsel, but Republicans have blasted the move as part of an ongoing cover-up, citing his role in the plea deal.
Meanwhile, evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his son's influence peddling scheme has continued to pile up - with Hunter's former business partner Devon Archer describing Joe Biden as "the brand" his son was selling overseas.
However, Republicans in Washington have yet to begin pursuing impeachment.
