Hunter Biden’s attorneys face potential sanctions over “misrepresentations to the court” after his legal team allegedly lied to the clerk in his criminal case.
The president’s son is set to enter a plea agreement on Wednesday after his legal team secured a sweetheart plea agreement on Biden’s charge by federal authorities of illegally possessing a handgun and failing to pay two years’ worth of federal taxes.
On Tuesday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) submitted a brief to U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika that argued she should reconsider Biden’s plea agreement in light of an IRS whistleblower’s recent claim that the Department of Justice (DOJ) stifled their investigation into Biden.
“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, Theodore Kittila, wrote in a court filing. “It is critical that the Court consider the Whistleblower Materials before determining whether to accept the Plea Agreement.”
However, Biden’s attorneys face possible sanctions after a member of the legal team “misrepresented her identity” to “improperly” convince the clerk to remove Smith’s brief from the docket.
“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,” Noreika wrote in an order on Tuesday.
Noreika gave Biden’s legal team a 9:00 p.m. deadline to show why sanctions should not be brought.
“Therefore, it is hereby ordered that, on or before 9pm today on July 25, 2023, counsel for defendant shall show cause as to why sanctions should not be considered for misrepresentations to the court,” Noreika ordered.
Jessica Bengles, who works at the law firm that Biden attorney Christopher Clark formerly worked at, is accused of calling the Delaware court clerk and pretending to be someone from Kittila’s office requesting Smith’s filing be removed from the docket.
Once Kittila learned about this representation, his office “immediately advised” the court it was inaccurate.
“We promptly contacted the clerk’s office, and we were advised that someone contacted the court representing that they worked with my office and that they were asking the court to remove this from the docket,’ Kittila wrote in a second filing to the judge. “We immediately advised that this was inaccurate.”
According to an email sent from the court clerk to Kittila, “the woman who called was a Jessica Bengels,” who “said she worked with Theodore kittila and it was important the document was removed immediately or they could file a motion to seal.”
Bengels is the litigation services director at the New-York based law firm Latham & Watkins, where Clark worked until April this year, according to the Daily Mail.
“I do deeply apologize for all the confusion on our part. I have put the rest of the Clerk’s Office on notice that if someone is trying to do anything with the criminal or MJ case, they need to contact me,” the clerk continued.
Biden’s legal team denied any involvement and insisted the court clerk “took the filing down on their own accord” in an email exchange with Kittila.
“Your attempts to publicly file my client’s personal financial information with no protections are improper, illegal and in violation of applicable rules,” Clark wrote to Kittila. “I stand by all of my statements.”
In its response to the court, Biden’s attorneys claimed the fiasco was a “misunderstanding” rather than a “misrepresentation.”
Matthew S. Salerno of Latham & Watkins wrote to the judge:
The matter under consideration appears to stem from an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication between a staff member at our firm and employees of the Court. We have no idea how the misunderstanding occurred, but our understanding is there was no misrepresentation. Our staff member, who serves as our Director of Litigation Services (“Lit Services”), represented her affiliation with Latham & Watkins LLP to the ECF Clerk with whom she spoke earlier today.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden respond to allegations of deceiving the court clerk to remove documents from the docket:
It was a “misunderstanding” – the was no misrepresentation. https://t.co/vYqLXKXZSx pic.twitter.com/zZ45LdNp2X
— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) July 26, 2023
Still, Judge Noreika placed a temporary seal on Smith’s filing, meaning it will not go public until after Biden’s plea hearing on Wednesday, as the Daily Mail noted.
Noreika has the power to reject the plea agreement negotiated between Biden and the DOJ, but it is unlikely she will assert that power. Biden is not expected to serve any jail time as part of his plea agreement.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.
