Rule of Law may be on life support in this country, but we just saw its finger twitch. And we have a heretofore anonymous U.S. district judge to thank for it.

Actually, we have a carelessly abandoned laptop computer, a Republican House victory in the 2022 midterms, and a handful of courageous FBI and IRS whistleblowers to thank for it, but it was Judge Maryellen Noreika who brought things to a head yesterday in a stunning reversal of fortune for Joe Biden’s reprobate son Hunter.

As the Washington Examiner reports: “Hunter Biden reported Wednesday morning to a U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, and was expected to plead guilty to tax misdemeanor charges as part of an announced plea deal. He was also expected to enter a diversion agreement for a felony gun charge.”

But there’s many a slip twixt cup and a lip, and Hunter learned that the hard way yesterday when his outrageous one-of-a-kind sweetheart plea deal leaked out of his smarmy, influence-peddling mouth and all over his nice white shirt and silk tie. Judge Noreika asked a very simple question — whether the investigation into his criminal activities was still ongoing. When the prosecutor said that it was indeed still ongoing, Noreika replied: “I have concerns about the agreement. I can’t let him plea to something if he thinks he has protection from something and he doesn’t.”

Ka-boom.

As the Examiner added: “A major sticking point for Noreika was a provision that would preclude the Department of Justice from enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act against Hunter Biden if he were found to be in violation. The DOJ said it would reserve the right to charge Hunter Biden under the act if necessary.”

“These agreements are not straightforward and they contain atypical provisions,” said Noreika. “I’m not in a position where I can decide to accept or reject a plea agreement and I need to defer it.”

You’re telling us they’re not straightforward. As former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, himself a former U.S. attorney, told Fox News this morning, “The judge is required to look at all of the defendant’s relevant conduct, and that includes videotapes of a user in possession of a firearm, and whistleblower testimony … about payments from China and Ukraine and other countries to Hunter Biden, and potential FARA violations.”

Did Judge Noreika have time to delve into, for example, the devastating whistleblower testimony of recent weeks — especially that of the two intrepid IRS agents who testified before the House last week? We suspect not.

And we suspect she may have been put off by the scummy behavior of Hunter’s defense team, which came to light Tuesday night. That’s when one of their lawyers allegedly misrepresented herself when asking the court to remove amicus materials from the case file.

How did she misrepresent herself? By posing as a member of the legal team for the prosecution. Disbarment, anyone?

As for the other “relevant conduct” Ratcliffe mentioned, we can only assume he’s talking about all the incriminating material on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop — you know, the laptop whose contents the FBI, in collusion with Facebook and Twitter, successfully kept from the American people just prior to the 2020 election; you know, the laptop whose contents we were told by 51 senior U.S. intelligence officials had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” (We’ve gotta hand it to ol’ Vladdy: He and his comrades did an unbelievable job of making it look like Boy Scout Biden was schtupping Russian hookers, falling asleep with a crack pipe in his mouth, and waving a pistol around in his birthday suit.)

As Ratcliffe pointed out: “This isn’t just a sweetheart deal; this is a unicorn case. In over 4,000 cases involving users in possession [of a firearm] like Hunter Biden, the only one who’s been offered pretrial diversion is Hunter Biden.”

How will all this ultimately shake out? The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson rightly warns against settling for the Garland DOJ’s appointment of a special counsel:

As this story develops, it’s becoming obvious that the point of the FBI and DOJ’s obstruction is to protect the president and suppress further evidence of the Biden bribery scheme. That’s why a special counsel won’t cut it. The deep state isn’t going to get to the bottom of this, and the corporate press is going to keep aggressively ignoring it. If the federal courtroom circus on Wednesday demonstrated anything, it’s that we’re going to need an impeachment inquiry to find out the truth about President Biden’s corruption.

There’s something rotten on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building, and something rotten in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, and the two are inextricably linked to the Biden Crime Family.

As yesterday’s hearing drew to a close, Hunter Biden changed his pre-planned plea from “guilty” to “not guilty,” but he may switch it back again if the prosecution and the defense can agree on a revised sweetheart plea deal between now and the next scheduled court date, August 25. Let’s hope the white-hot spotlight that’s now on prosecutors keeps them from disgracing themselves any further. And let’s hope Hunter can now spend some sleepless nights wondering about what might’ve been.

But as our Nate Jackson noted yesterday, all roads lead to the Big Guy: “Cognitively disabled deadbeat granddad Joe Biden should be removed from office for a number of reasons, but perhaps chief among them is his involvement in influence-peddling corruption with his son Hunter Biden. It always bears repeating that Hunter doesn’t matter; Joe does.”

Indeed, much as we laugh about the hookers and the blow, this is a story about bribery, corruption, abuse of power, and two-tiered justice. Oh, and a mainstream media that’s been willfully blind to all this for the past couple of years. It’s definitely about that, too.