I have no words. A member of Hunter Biden’s legal team allegedly pretended to be a Republican attorney to block information from coming out about the IRS whistleblowers.
Hunter is expected to plead guilty to “federal charges of tax evasion and weapons crimes.”
Main Players:
- Delaware US District Judge Maryellen Noreika – judge overseeing the case
- Theodore Kittila – House Ways and Means Committee top lawyer
- Samantha Grimes – Court official
- Jessica Bengels – director of litigation services at the New York-based law firm of Latham & Watkins
- Chris Clark – Hunter Biden’s attorney, former partner at Latham & Watkins
From The New York Post:
The drama began in the morning when the House Ways and Means Committee filed an amicus brief to Delaware US District Judge Maryellen Noreika arguing that the 53-year-old had benefited from “political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation” into alleged crimes including money laundering, felony tax evasion and failure to register as a foreign agent.
The filing included testimony by two IRS whistleblowers who sat for transcribed interviews May 26 and June 1.
What happened next was outlined in a letter sent to the judge Tuesday afternoon by the committee’s top lawyer, Theodore Kittila.
“[A]t approximately 1:30 p.m., we received word that our filing was removed from the docket,” Kittila said. “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.”
Kittila included email exchanges with court officials and Hunter Biden’s attorneys in the fresh filing.
“Hi Ted, Following up on our recent telephone conversation, the woman who called was a Jessica Bengels,” confirmed court official Samantha Grimes. “… She said she worked with Theodore Kittila and it was important the document was removed immediately or they could file a motion to seal. I do deeply apologize for all the confusion on our part.”
Bengels is the director of litigation services at the New York-based law firm of Latham & Watkins, where Hunter Biden attorney Chris Clark was formerly a partner.
Kittila confronted Hunter’s team. The attorneys allegedly tried to explain that “the filing contained confidential tax and identifying information, even though the whistleblower testimony has been public for more than a month.”
However, the emails contained time stamps. Those time stamps allegedly “indicated the request to take the document down was made after Kittila refused a request to file the testimony under seal.”
“As far as I am aware, the managing attorney from Latham called the clerk’s office to note that personal tax information of the defendant had been filed in a non reacted [sic] manner and to inquire regarding having the information sealed, as we told you we would and as you said you understood,” Clark wrote. “As far as I am aware the clerk took the filing down on their own accord. Your attempts to publicly file my client’s personal financial information with no protection ls [sic] are improper, illegal and in violation of applicable rules … We will seek all appropriate sanctions in response to your actions.”
“You should probably take a step back from your statements,” Kittila warned. “The clerk’s office advised that it was represented to her that the request was being made by my firm. We will be advising Judge Noreika of this improper conduct.”
“I stand by all of my statements and I hope you have an affidavit from the clerk in support of yours,” Clark replied.
Noreika supposedly told Hunter’s team they had until 9 PM on Tuesday to prove why the court shouldn’t sanction them. She also reminded them that none of them had “formally filed any request to seal evidence in the matter.”
We won’t know the answer because Noreika “ordered the filing sealed until close of business Wednesday.”
Scandal in Delaware on eve of Hunter Biden plea deal. Judge Noreika has given Hunter’s lawyers to 9pm to explain why they should not be SANCTIONED for “misrepresentations to the Court… to improperly convince the Clerk's Office to remove [GOP lawyer] materials from the docket” pic.twitter.com/h7SpGTMQKs
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) July 25, 2023
Who is this Jessica Bengels who called the Delaware court clerk today and allegedly made “misrepresentations” that she worked for GOP lawyer Ted Kittila and that he wanted his filing taken down? She works for Latham & Watkins, the former firm of Hunter’s lawyer Chris Clark pic.twitter.com/hwtwvgJWyF
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) July 26, 2023
Hunter Biden’s lawyers’ response here with affidavit from Bengels. It’s all been a “misunderstanding”. pic.twitter.com/aHDyK6Le9V
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) July 26, 2023
Jessica also helpfully included a screenshot of her call records today with the Delaware court. pic.twitter.com/ROqpijQweT
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) July 26, 2023
There’s something missing from Latham & Watkins’ response: Hunter’s lawyer Chris Clark earlier wrote that the Latham “managing attorney” called the clerk’s office. So was paralegal Jessica Bengels the only Latham representative to call the clerk yesterday? https://t.co/yeSxXbF9N4 pic.twitter.com/QuwkTKuVs3
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) July 26, 2023
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Comments
Latham & Watkins needs to be sanctioned by the Court, and the lead attorney should be disbarred.
They will blame Trump, and nothing will happen to Hunter or his corrupt lawyers.
I agree. Nothing will happen.
See that broom? See that carpet?
I see a broom and I see a rug, but no sanctions.
Who here thinks any serious sanction will be given to these lawyers?
This seems like precisely the actions that should lead to being disbarred.
Under no circumstances should a law firm be communicating, ex parte, with the clerk of the court to try and remove a document which has been filed by the opposing party !
The only remedy available to any party under these circumstances is to file a motion with the court, after notice to the opposing party, seeking the sealing of the motion.
The court clerk has no authority to delete anything that has been filed, which would have the effect of preventing the judge from seeing a submission by a party.
To try and persuade a court clerk to do this is obviously improper.
In over 40 years of law practice im various capacities, I have never heard of anyone trying to get a clerk to surreptitiously delete a filing by an opposing party.
The excuses proffered by Hunter’s law firm amount to a confession of wrongdoing, even if they are true, which I find doubtful.
When a lawyer can brazenly lie to the FISC in order to spy on American citizens and not even lose his law license, these are the results. That which gets rewarded, gets repeated.
Once I learned that the statute of limitations was deliberately allowed to run out on Hunter’s tax returns, I realized we had indeed become a banana republic. This maneuver is simply impossible organizationally and unprecedented. There is a ruling class and everyone else. This is what the diversity crowd is saying- “If you aren’t in the ruling class, you are no better than an 83 IQ street thug. Screw you, losers.”
Because Hunter’s painting techniques are so advanced his his cocaine is of such high quality—unlike anything found on earth—they are thinking of merging Hunter’s hearing with the UFO hearing.
Latham & Watkins can call a court clerk’s office, lie about who they represent, and get a paper filed by opposing counsel removed from the docket?
That they would think to try this at all suggests me this isn’t the first time.
In criminal cases, when an analytical lab has been found to have penciled in results instead of running the tests, every case that has used results from that lab can be re-examined. This rule should be applied, here. The revelation of corruption can and should be counted as new evidence.
As usual – – Nothing to see here, folks; move along. Grrrr!
Nothing to see here, just don’t spill the bong water.
all I expect to happen is a finger wag and the infamous stern statement from the bench. Best case scenario is the rarely imposed double secret probation and maybe an extra hour of continuing education.
Sleazy client, sleazy lawyer. Anyone really surprised?
Jessica Bengels is described in the filing as ‘Director of Litigation Services, Litigation Counsel’–she is an attorney, not a paralegal. (Her bio at L&W describes her a “thought leader” in the litigation support services field, whatever that means.) Hunter’s lawyer, Chris Clark, left L&W a few months ago to start his own shop. It is curious no attorney of record called the clerk’s office to ask that the exhibits at issue be restricted-access, much less removed.
“In fairness, your honor, I was led to believe by the routine practice of the government before the FISA court and other tribunals that a little prevarication was just aggressive advocacy.”
In the two years of the Biden regime, we are seeing things done in the name of government that we have never seen before. They have undermined so many things that we all held to be true and firm. It feels like we are in a developing nation where the party in power got there by a coup. Our Constitution is becoming an antique article to put on the wall of a museum.