Hunter Biden plea: Judge threatens sanctions on Biden attorneys for suspicious phone call
Kaelan Deese
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A judge presiding over Hunter Biden‘s forthcoming plea agreement threatened to sanction his attorneys late Tuesday evening after a member of his legal team purportedly “misrepresented her identity” to court officials.
The younger Biden’s legal team stands accused of misrepresenting themselves to remove a brief about IRS whistleblowers testimony from the Delaware federal court docket. U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika gave Biden’s legal team until 9 p.m. on Tuesday to explain their position, according to a screenshot of the docket obtained by the Washington Examiner before it was later sealed.
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The judge’s order came down hours after House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) filed a brief to the judge, asking her to consider denying Hunter Biden’s plea deal with Delaware prosecutors over whistleblower claims that the president’s son was offered preferential treatment during the nearly five-year investigation.
“The Defendant appears to have benefited from political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation of the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Smith’s attorney wrote in a court filing, which went on to say, “It is critical that the Court consider the Whistleblower Materials before determining whether to accept the Plea Agreement.”
The filing included testimony by two IRS whistleblowers who sat for transcribed interviews on May 26 and June 1.
What occurred in the subsequent hours was described in an email by the committee’s top lawyer, Theodore Kittila, which was then summarized in Noreika’s order.
“Mr. Kittila asserts that an individual associated with the firm representing Defendant called the Clerk’s Office pretending to be associated with Mr. Kittila and representing the amicus materials be removed from the docket, which the Clerk’s Office did,” a screenshot of the docket shows.
The individual who misrepresented herself was identified as Jessica Bengels, according to the order. Bengels is the director of litigation services at the New York-based law firm Latham & Watkins, where the younger Biden’s attorney Chris Clark was formerly a partner.
Noreika wrote that it appears Bengels “misrepresented her identity and who she worked for in an attempt to improperly convince the clerk’s office to remove the amicus materials from the docket.”
“The Court will temporarily place the document under seal until close of business on July 26, 2023 to afford Defendant the opportunity to try to make the requisite showing,” the order read, adding that the defendant shall “show cause as to why sanctions should not be considered for misrepresentations to the Court.”
Just before 9 p.m., Bengels submitted an affidavit that said there was a miscommunication among the clerks for the removal of Smith’s filing.
“I am completely confident that I never indicated that I was calling from Mr. Kittila’s firm or that I worked with him in any way,” a copy of the affidavit obtained by the New York Post read. “The only mention of his name was when [the clerk] had asked me if the filings had been entered by Mr. Kittila’s firm and I answered that I believed that to be the case.”
Hunter Biden is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and enter into a pretrial diversion program that will allow him to bypass prosecution on a separate felony gun charge.
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It is unclear whether the Tuesday evening activity on the docket will affect Noreika’s decision about whether to accept the younger Biden’s plea, which Republican critics have described as a “sweetheart” deal.
The Washington Examiner contacted the younger Biden’s attorney for a response.