On the eve of Hunter Biden’s plea hearing in a federal criminal court, a court filing on behalf of a Republican U.S. House lawmaker seeking to torpedo a planned plea deal led to the threat of court sanctions and claims that a member of Biden’s legal team lied to the court.
Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes for failing to pay taxes during a hearing in Wilmington Wednesday, the result of a five-year investigation by federal law enforcement authorities and headed by Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss.
Separately, and for years, the president’s son has been dogged by Republican lawmakers who have instigated congressional investigations into his income and financial dealings and how those could potentially relate to his father.
Recently, Republican lawmakers have turned their focus on Weiss, the top federal law enforcement official in Delaware, and how he led the investigation into the president’s son. Lawmakers leading that inquiry have derided the planned plea deal as a “slap on the wrist.”
AHEAD OF THE HEARING:Did Hunter Biden get a sweetheart deal? How these cases play out with other defendants
So far, that inquiry has included congressional testimony last week from two former Internal Revenue Service officials that investigated Hunter Biden. The investigators detailed to members of Congress how they felt authorities within the Department of Justice improperly interfered with their investigation and gave Hunter Biden preferential treatment.
Weiss has refuted the allegations in a letter to lawmakers, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
USA TODAY Coverage: Hunter Biden goes to court as fight continues between GOP and White House
What happened Tuesday?
On Tuesday, the eve of the hearing in Hunter Biden’s criminal case, a top Republican lawmaker sought to interject the IRS investigators’ testimony into the judge’s consideration over whether to accept Hunter Biden’s plea deal.
The filing was submitted on behalf of U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, a Missouri Republican who chairs a congressional committee that hosted testimony from the IRS investigators last week.
The brief states that Hunter Biden “appears to have benefited from political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation of the U.S. Attorney’s Office” and that the court should consider the investigators’ testimony when evaluating whether to accept the plea deal.
Presiding Judge Maryellen Noreika will discuss the plea deal with Hunter Biden and prosecutors during the hearing, but it is rare for a judge to reject a negotiated plea agreement. In the letter, Theodore Kittila, a Wilmington, Delaware attorney representing Smith, excerpted portions of the IRS investigators’ testimony and made a legal argument that Noreika can reject the plea deal.
Along with the brief, Kittila submitted to the court hundreds of pages of documents as exhibits that include the IRS investigators’ testimony and other information gathered by congressional investigators.
Why are sanctions being discussed?
The last minute intervention by Smith led to a separate late-night drama involving claims that Hunter Biden’s legal team lied to court officials to remove exhibits involving Hunter Biden’s finances that were submitted by the attorney representing Smith.
The exhibits were posted Tuesday morning alongside the legal brief on a publicly-available docket for Hunter Biden’s criminal case.
Shortly after, Hunter Biden’s attorneys complained to Smith’s attorneys that the filing contained sensitive information that violated court rules and demanded the documents be refiled, but sealed from public view. Smith’s attorneys rejected this argument, stating the exhibits contained material that was already publicly available through relevant congressional committees, according to emails posted in court documents.
Then, at some point Tuesday, an attorney employed by a firm that is part of Hunter Biden’s legal team called the court and represented that she worked with Kittila, the attorney representing Smith, and requested the exhibits be taken down, according to a narrative of events outlined by Noreika on the court’s docket.
INVESTIGATION:How Hunter Biden played hand in bringing business to University of Delaware’s STAR Campus
The documents were then taken down from public view. A late-evening oral order issued by Noreika and posted in the case docket followed.
“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,” the order stated, commanding Biden’s attorneys explain why the court shouldn’t consider sanctions for “misrepresentations to the court.”
Noreika also ordered that the documents in question be temporarily sealed so Hunter Biden’s attorneys can make a legal argument that they should be hidden from the public.
In a 9 p.m. filing, Matthew S. Salerno, an attorney that is part of Hunter Biden’s legal team, wrote to the court that another attorney from his office was responsible for the phone call, that the attorney in question properly identified themselves and the situation “stems from an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication between a staff member at our firm and employees of the court.”
It is unclear if the issue will be addressed during Hunter Biden’s hearing Wednesday morning.
YET TO COME:Hunter Biden to appear in Delaware federal court Wednesday. What to expect at the hearing
