The GOP-controlled House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday accused Hunter Biden’s legal team of attempting to block evidence ahead of the president’s son’s upcoming plea deal set for Wednesday.
On Tuesday morning, the committee filed an amicus brief to Delaware U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, who will review Hunter Biden’s plea agreement. The brief alleged that the deal was “tainted,” noting the testimony of two IRS whistleblowers who sat for transcribed interviews. Hunter Biden had benefited from “political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation” into alleged offenses including money laundering, felony tax evasion, and failure to register as a foreign agent, the New York Post reported.
“The situation here is not that the Justice Department exercised charging or plea negotiation discretion, but the presence of credible allegations that the investigation, charging decisions and plea negotiations were tainted by improper conduct at various levels of the government,” Theodore A. Kittila, an attorney who filed the brief on behalf of House Ways and Means chairman Jason Smith, wrote.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers attempted to prevent Smith from filing the brief, arguing that he had no standing and that it inappropriately revealed confidential taxpayer information, the New York Times reported. Noreika agreed to seal the filing.
But then, about 1:30 p.m., Kittila reported that the filing had been removed from the court’s docket, the Post said.
“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 said. “We immediately advised that this was inaccurate. The Clerk’s Office responded that we would need to re-file. We have done so now.”
In the new filing, Kittila added email correspondence with court official Samantha Grimes and Hunter Biden’s lawyers, according to the Post.
“Hi Ted, Following up on our recent telephone conversation, the woman who called was a Jessica Bengels,” one message from Grimes read. “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 employed at New York-based law firm Latham & Watkins. Hunter Biden attorney Chris Clark was formerly a partner at that firm, the Post noted.
Hunter’s legal team doubled down on the defense that the filing had confidential tax information embedded when Kittila demanded an explanation for its removal. Time stamps from the emails showed that Hunter Biden’s lawyers asked the court to take the filing down after Kittila denied a request to file under seal the whistleblowers’ testimony, which had been public for over a month.
In June, IRS whistleblowers told Congress in closed-door testimony that the DOJ, FBI, and IRS interfered with and orchestrated a cover-up of the Hunter Biden tax probe. They testified that they pushed for felony charges against Hunter Biden in the tax probe and that Delaware U.S. attorney David Weiss wanted to bring charges against him in D.C. and Southern California last year but was denied by DOJ officials both times.
The DOJ announced in June that Biden agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors related to his failure to pay his taxes in 2017 and 2018. He entered a diversion agreement that allowed him to avoid jail time for lying on a federal form when buying a handgun in 2018 at the time that he was a drug user.
“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 to Kittila. “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 replied to Hunter Biden’s lawyer. “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 said in response.