A federal judge directed parties involved in the case against Hunter Biden to refer any problems or questions to her directly and not to the clerk’s office, according to a court order filed on Friday.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika said she made the demand in light of “apparent misrepresentations” that Hunter Biden’s legal team allegedly made this week and after a clerk employee’s email was made public by an attorney for House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO).
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“I have already discussed my concerns about apparent misrepresentations made to a member of this Court’s Clerk’s Office,” Noreika wrote. “In addition to that, in a submission addressing those apparent misrepresentations … counsel for the House Ways and Means Committee needlessly included on the public docket an email from a Clerk’s Office staff member that contained her personal contact information.”
She lauded the work of the clerk’s office staff before adding, “I will not tolerate or countenance them being ill-used, disrespected, or lied to.”
On Tuesday, one day before Hunter Biden’s plea hearing, Theodore Kittila, an attorney representing Smith, alleged that a representative for President Joe Biden’s son called the clerk’s office and pretended to be associated with Smith’s legal team.
The representative, attorney Jessica Bengels of Hunter Biden’s firm Latham and Watkins, asked the clerk to remove allegedly sensitive documents about the younger Biden from the court docket, Kittila claimed.
Smith had submitted an amicus brief ahead of the hearing asking Noreika to consider whistleblower testimonies he had heard in May from two IRS criminal investigators, who alleged Hunter Biden had received preferential treatment in his case.
The amicus brief included documents, which are now under seal, that the younger Biden’s legal team sought to hide from the publicly visible docket, first through the phone call to the clerk and later through a motion to seal.
Noreika said the court investigated Kittila’s claim about misrepresentations and found it to be credible.
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. 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 on the eve of the plea hearing.
She then directed Hunter Biden’s legal team to submit to the court immediately any case it had for why they should not be sanctioned for the alleged untruth.
His attorneys adamantly denied Kittila’s allegation in a response, saying it “appear[ed] to stem from an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication between a staff member at our firm and employees of the Court.”
The plea deal between Hunter Biden and U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware unexpectedly fell through the next day because of concerns Noreika had with provisions of the deal that could possibly preclude the younger Biden from future charges.
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She did not address in the hearing the incident involving Bengels from the day before, but in response to a motion to seal from Hunter Biden’s attorneys, she ordered Smith to submit any objections to the motion by Monday.
Kittila and Chris Clark, an attorney representing Hunter Biden in the case, did not respond to a request for comment.
