Hubris and Elite Sense of Entitlement Prove a Dangerous Mix for Hunter's "Untouchable" Lawyers.
"Hubris" : (in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.
The following is based on news reports out of the Federal Court in Wilmington, Delaware, home to a Federal Judge who deserves all our praise for her steadfastness and precise adherence to her Oath of Office (what a quaint concept in our times, sad to say) in putting the brakes on the Hunter Biden sweethert deal gifted to the Biden family by the most corrupt Department of Justice in American History. If further reporting and/or evidentiary hearings show the facts to be more exculpatory of the Hunter Biden legal team, I will immediately revise this account, but what appears below is mostly based on the account of the Clerk of Court of that court who has a far greater presumption of integrity in my view than the Elitists with whom The King of Snort has surrounded himself. It is also based on the unusually strong language of the Order entered by Judge Noreika about the incident, which leaves little doubt as to who she believes in the matter.
I practiced law for more years than I care to admit here- let’s just say I practiced trial law, appearing before many Courts in many jurisdictions for a number of decades. All of which I say not just to demonstrate I am older than dirt, but to illustrate that I have some legitimate claim to genuine bona fides when it comes to Court procedures and, more importantly in this particular instance, the basic principles of legal ethics and professionalism. All of which is why, when I first heard of what the Biden legal team was alleged to have tried to pull off, I simply could not believe a lawyer or a law firm could possbily have thought they could get away with such a blatant stunt.
First, what it is alleged happened and, second, the statement on behalf of the Biden legal team in their own defense, out of an abundance of both caution and fairness, as we simply do not know for sure at this point what actually happened.
Here is the recitation from a piece entitled Hunter’s lawyers could face sanctions for allegedly impersonating congressional staff:
According to documents obtained by Fox News, one of Hunter’s attorneys allegedly misrepresented who she was when asking to remove amicus materials about IRS whistleblowers from the docket instead of making a formal request to the court, and asked the clerk to seal the information instead.
The judge gave Biden's legal team until 9 pm to explain their actions.
Earlier in the day, the House Ways and Means Committee filed an amicus brief to the judge arguing that the 53-year-old Biden had benefited from “political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation” into alleged crimes including felony tax evasion, money laundering, as well as failure to register as a foreign agent, and included the testimony from two IRS whistleblowers about their investigation into the president's son.
According to The New York Post, Theodore Kittila, the committee’s lawyer, sent a letter to the judge which read, “[A]t approximately 1:30 p.m., we received word that our filing was removed from the docket. We promptly contacted the Clerk’s office, and we were advised that someone contacted the Court representing that they worked with my office [emphasis original] and that they were asking the Court to remove this from the docket. We immediately advised that this was inaccurate. The Clerk’s Office responded that we would need to re-file. We have done so now.”
Those facts strongly indicate that someone did, indeed, contact the Clerk’s office and misrepresented serious facts, i.e., both who they represented and, through that lie (call it what it apparently was) asking that an official filing in the Record of the Court be removed from the Record. However, what was most persuasive to me was the next part of the scenario, in which the Judge herself became directly involved:
The judge’s order stated, "The Court has discussed the matter with the relevant individuals in the Clerk's Office and has been informed that the caller, Ms. Jessica Bengels, represented that she worked with Mr. Kittila and requested the amicus materials be taken down because they contained sensitive grand jury, taxpayer and social security information.”
According to The Post, Bengels is the director of litigation services at the law firm of Latham & Watkins, where Hunter's attorney Chris Clark was previously a partner.
The judge continued, "It appears that the caller 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.”
In my experience, this kind of extremely diect language indicates that the Judge satisfied herself on the basic facts of the matter to the extent that she felt free to name the individual who she thinks made the offending call as well as the name of her law firm.
According to an account by Prof. Jonathan Turley, humorously entitled “Friends” with Benefits? Hunter Biden’s Team Accused of Ethical Violation Before Plea Hearing, Biden’s lawyers submitted the following affidavit in their defense:
The court gave Latham a deadline of last night to respond and it is insisting that this was all due to “an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication.” They attached an affidavit from Bengels who said that it was all a misunderstanding:
“At around 11.54am, another Court employee called my Latham & Watkins phone number (which I believe she knew through caller ID) to let me know she would be removing the material from the docket. She did not ask which law firm I was affiliated with, and at no time during this call did I mention anything about my law firm affiliation… I believe there may have been some confusion when Julia passed the information on to the other Court employee, resulting in a mistaken understanding that I had called from Mr. Kittila’s firm…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.”
The entire matter could be a misunderstanding, but the clerk clearly did not think so.
For what it’s worth, neither do I. Any trial lawyer with real experience in actual courtrooms, as distinguished from those fine looking courtrooms in TV ads which are just mock-ups of the real thing, as are many of the lawyers in those ads, knows that there is no way to predict what is going to happen from one minute to the next in a trial, and the same may well be the case with regard to what clearly appears to be an egregiously serious violation of legal ethics by Biden’s lawyers.
While it may be easy to see this as a minor incident on the scale of the much larger issues related to the disgraceful, politically motivated sweetheart deal Merrick Garland made certain The First Son would receive, it could well wind up being a serious nemesis for any lawyer who was involved in this “dirty trick”, as Judge Noreika proved today she does not suffer fools - or, almost certainly, unethical lawyers - lightly.
I am very proud of the actions this Federal Judge took today and salute her courage and steadfastness in this matter, especially when contrasted with the despicable conduct of some of the Courts in DC regarding the treatment of the January 6 defendants.