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For Almost a Year, “Jim Jordan” Has Been Saying Hunter Biden Didn’t Need to Testify

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I came to the Hunter Biden beat a bit late — only after I read Gary Shapley’s testimony. And so when Democrats mentioned that Abbe Lowell had sent Congress six letters in last week’s circus hearing — only two of which were cited in the contempt referral — I realized I hadn’t read them all.

I posted them all below.

It turns out, the two earliest ones — the ones I hadn’t read, ones which were sent to James Comer but not Jim Jordan — Abbe Lowell cited Jordan to lay out the impropriety of the requests for information from Hunter.

We know, from the Steve Bannon prosecution, that were the House to refer Hunter Biden for contempt, the first thing DOJ would do is ask for paperwork from both sides. On the January 6 Committee side, that all went through senior staffers. On Bannon’s side, Robert Costello claimed to have certain representations from Trump, but when asked, he admitted he didn’t have anything to backup that claim (Peter Navarro had still less since he didn’t lawyer up until after being charged). DOJ went so far as to get Costello’s call records to make sure there weren’t communications they didn’t know about.

Here, the first thing Abbe Lowell would do if Hunter were referred to contempt would be to share the six letters he had sent, documenting the authority on which he was relying for asking for further accommodations. The Oversight contempt referral — and even the letter issued Sunday moving toward setting up a deposition — made no mention of the earlier letters. As I noted, when DOJ asked the staffers in charge of the contempt referral what had happened, that hapless person would have to explain why the Committee withheld relevant documents from its contempt referral.

But as I also noted, even when relying on just the more recent letter, Jordan has said enough about the authority of subpoenas that he risked being a witness in any contempt investigation and then trial, something Bennie Thompson studiously avoided by letting staffers manage the guts of the legal issues.

That may explain why Jordan, whose chief counsel Steve Castor is bad faith but a good lawyer, saw the wisdom of issuing a new subpoena.

There’s still a conflict here. Lowell suggested hybrid accommodation in his letter from last week.

You have not explained why you are not interested in transparency and having the American people witness the full and complete testimony of Mr. Biden at a public hearing. If you issue a new proper subpoena, now that there is a duly authorized impeachment inquiry, Mr. Biden will comply for a hearing or deposition. 33 We will accept such a subpoena on Mr. Biden’s behalf.

33 During the January 10, 2024, Judiciary Committee markup, Representative Glenn Ivey suggested a procedure for a hybrid process—a public deposition/hearing with alternating rounds of questions for Republicans and Democrats, and with similar rules (e.g., role of counsel in questioning), as is done in a closed-door deposition. Four Republicans actually voted in committee in support of this process. Perhaps that could be the basis for our discussion.

In Sunday’s letter, Jordan and Comer rejected that, falsely claiming that the rules prohibit it (and ignoring Comer’s offer of public testimony in the past, something that came up in the contempt hearing).

While we welcome Mr. Biden’s public testimony at the appropriate time, he must appear for a deposition that conforms to the House Rules and the rules and practices of the Committees, just like every other witness before the Committees.26

26 For this reason, the Committees cannot accept the so-called “hybrid process” you propose. See January 12 Letter, supra note 1, at 8 n.33

I would not be surprised if Lowell did what Jim Comey did back in 2018, when House Republicans were conducting a similarly politicized non-public investigation into the Russian investigation. He sued to quash the subpoena, largely in an attempt to get some means of preventing Members from making false claims while hiding the transcript. That ended with an agreement that the House would release the transcript a day after the testimony.

The letter Lowell sent Mike Johnson on November 8 already extensively documented the false claims that Republicans had made about Hunter. There are some interesting false claims in the HJC report on the Hunter investigation that would not only further substantiate the need for transparency, but would also bolster Hunter’s claim — made in a motion to dismiss — that the House is unconstitutionally trying to conduct a prosecution of him.

Plus, there are other details of Jordan’s investigation — most notably the threats, which Becca Balint laid out during the contempt hearing last week. It is absolutely critical to Hunter Biden’s legal case that US Attorneys David Weiss and Martin Estrada as well as FBI Special Agent in Charge Thomas Sobocinski testified that threats were made in conjunction with this investigation, threats that in Delaware’s case preceded a radical reversal on the prosecutorial decision. Yet Jordan is sitting on that testimony.

Most people, myself included, think it’d be insane for someone fighting two indictments to appear before a hostile committee, much less without some means of acquiring his own record. But at the same time, Jordan keeps providing Lowell more evidence that the House, not DOJ, is the branch of government driving that prosecution.

1. February 9, 2023: Re request for documents [Comer]

[T]hen Ranking Member Jim Jordan (who sat next to you at your February 8th hearing) stated that a subpoena of President Trump and his family’s personal records was “an unprecedented abuse of the Committee’s subpoena authority[.]”1 Mr. Jordan described the subpoena for financial and business records as an “irresponsible and gravely dangerous course of conduct in a singular obsession of attacking President Trump and his family for political gain.”2 Mr. Jordan feared that Chairman Cummings would selectively release information gained from the subpoena “in a misleading fashion to create a false narrative for partisan political gain.”3

[snip]

Representative Jordan, citing Watkins, even emphasized that private persons have a limited place in Committee investigations: “[t]he Supreme Court has cautioned that Congress does not have ‘general authority to expose the private affairs of individuals without justification in terms of the functions of the Congress.’”4

2. June 14, 2023: Re records from art dealer Georges Bergès [Comer]

I am sure you will remember that it was now Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, in his hollering about the subpoena issued to the Presidents’ accounting firm, citing to the same Waikins case, who stated that private persons have a limited place in Committee investigations: “[t]he Supreme Court has cautioned that Congress does not have ‘general authority to expose the private affairs of individuals without justification in terms of the functions of the Congress. ™

[snip]

Let me remind you what then-Ranking Member Jim Jordan stated: that a subpoena of President Trump and his family’s personal records was “an unprecedented abuse of the Committee’s subpoena authority[.]”* (emphasis added). Mr. Jordan described the subpoena for financial and business records as an “irresponsible and gravely dangerous course of conduct in a singular obsession of attacking President Trump and his family for political gain.” (emphasis added). 1 explained in February that Mr. Jordan stated he feared that Chairman Elijah Cummings ‘would selectively release information gained from the subpoena “in a misleading fashion to create a false narrative for partisan political gain.”

[snip]

No sooner did You obtain these financial records then, as admitted in you letter, you released them to the public in your “First Bank Records Memorandum.” In so doing, you decided to ignore the warning of your colleague Chairman Jordan, who cautioned that Democrats would selectively release information gained from the subpoena “in a misleading fashion to create a false namative for partisan political gain.” Oh, what a difference a few years and a change in leadership has made.

3. September 13, 2023: Re Newsmax appearance [Comer]

I write on behalf of our client regarding your statement this morning, September 13, on Newsmax, in which you stated, “We’re headed to court, more than likely. We’ve requested bank records from Hunter Biden and Jim Biden early on, and obviously we never got a response back. We will re-request those this week; if they do not comply with our request, then we will subpoena and no doubt, undoubtedly head to court.”1 Your statement was surprising as it ignores our prior exchanges.

[snip]

We ask that you correct what you said, but more importantly, we remain available to have the discussion that I suggested some seven months ago.

4. November 8, 2023, to Mike Johnson: On false claims made by Republicans [Comer, Jordan, and Smith]

Chairman Jordan, for his part, used his airtime on November 1 to spew false, recycled, and debunked claims about Hunter’s time serving on the board of directors of Burisma, wielding it as an excuse to justify his obsession with pursuing an “impeachment inquiry” into President Biden when he declared: “Hunter Biden gets put on the Board of Burisma, fact number one. Fact number two, he’s not qualified to be on the Board of Burisma. Fact number three, the head of Burisma asks Hunter Biden, ‘can you help us relieve the pressure we are under from the Ukrainian prosecutor?’ Fact number four, Joe Biden does just that.” 9

[snip]

As to Chairman Jordan’s made-up, nonsensical claim that “the head of Burisma ask[ed] Hunter Biden, ‘can you help us relieve the pressure we are under from the Ukrainian prosecutor?,’” I simply would ask Chairman Jordan: what evidence do you have and when is it coming? The answer is “none” and “never.” For all the hours, months, and years Chairman Jordan and others (e.g., Senators Grassley and Johnson) have spent trying to invent a scheme in which Hunter assisted Burisma in any illicit or inappropriate way to “relieve the pressure” stemming from a Ukrainian corruption investigation, while his father was Vice President, they have produced an alarmingly scant amount of proof to show for their claims. Opposite evidence abounds.

5. November 28, 2023: In response to Comer’s Newsmax appearance [Comer and Jordan]

Mr. Chairman, we take you up on your offer. Accordingly, our client will get right to it by agreeing to answer any pertinent and relevant question you or your colleagues might have, but— rather than subscribing to your cloaked, one-sided process—he will appear at a public Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing. To quote your November 8, 2023, letter accompanying the subpoena, “Given your client’s willingness to address this investigation publicly up to this point, we would expect him to be willing to testify before Congress.”6 He is, Mr. Chairman. A public proceeding would prevent selective leaks, manipulated transcripts, doctored exhibits, or one-sided press statements.

December 6, 2023: Public testimony [Comer and Jordan]

As indicated in my November 28, 2023, letter, Mr. Biden has offered to appear at a hearing on the December 13, 2023, date you have reserved, or another date this month, to answer any question pertinent and relevant to the subject matter stated in your November 8, 2023, letter. He is making this choice because the Committee has demonstrated time and again it uses closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public—a hearing would ensure transparency and truth in these proceeding

January 12, 2024: After contempt [Comer and Jordan]

And you, Chairman Jordan, during a House Republican leadership press conference immediately after the actual impeachment inquiry resolution vote finally occurred,stated: “I want you all to think about something. This morning, I was in an impeachment deposition, but then had to leave that to come to the floor for a vote on the rules for impeachment. That [] says it all about this entire process. And it is a sad day.” 11

[snip]

You noticed an impeachment deposition a month before an impeachment inquiry vote was held to authorize such a deposition. Astonishingly, the sequence of events was the same as 2019. Almost four years to the day that Speaker Pelosi made her statement authorizing impeachment-based subpoenas before a House resolution authorized them, it was now Speaker Kevin McCarthy who, despite criticizing his predecessor for trying to do the same thing, did the same thing. On September 12, 2023, Speaker McCarthy said: “These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction, and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives. That’s why today, I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.” 12 Chairman Jordan, you should be similarly saddened by your own use of pre–impeachment inquiry subpoenas against Mr. Biden.

[snip]

Thus, “Resolution 660’s direction, however, was entirely prospective. . . . Accordingly, the pre-October 31 subpoenas, which had not been authorized by the House, continued to lack compulsory force.”19 As Resolution 660 was ineffective in 2019, so is Resolution 917 now. To quote you, Chairman Jordan, during the first impeachment of former President Trump, “[c]odifying a sham process halfway through doesn’t make it any less of a sham process.”

[snip]

Still further, on December 13, 2023, you issued a joint statement directly tying Mr. Biden’s subpoenasto the still yet-to-be-authorized impeachment inquiry: “Today, the House will vote on an impeachment inquiry resolution to strengthen our legal case in the courts as we face obstruction from the White House and witnesses. Today’s obstruction by Hunter Biden reinforces the need for a formal vote. President Biden and his family must be held accountable for their corruption and obstruction. And we will provide that to the American people.”27

Abbe Lowell Invites James Comer to Send a Valid Subpoena, Now That He Has Authority

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Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell sent James Comer and Jim Jordan a letter today that has gotten all the journalists who treat James Comer as a credible human being confused.

Effectively, the letter says:

  • Whatever subpoenas you claim to have sent were invalid because you had no authority to issue an impeachment subpoena
  • Now that you have authority to issue an impeachment subpoena, if you issue one, Hunter is willing to appear at a hearing or sit for a deposition

Much of the rest of the 8-page letter is a legal discussion. There may come a time when a prosecutor or judge will weigh whether Abbe Lowell’s argument was sufficiently sound to mean that any contempt referral against Hunter Biden is garbage.

For the purposes of journalists who’ve believed that James Comer is a credible human being, though, this may be the most important detail: quoting Comer and Jordan asserting, on December 13, that the House needed to vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry “to strengthen our legal case” to subpoena Hunter Biden.

Still further, on December 13, 2023, you issued a joint statement directly tying Mr. Biden’s subpoenas to the still yet-to-be-authorized impeachment inquiry: “Today, the House will vote on an impeachment inquiry resolution to strengthen our legal case in the courts as we face obstruction from the White House and witnesses. Today’s obstruction by Hunter Biden reinforces the need for a formal vote. President Biden and his family must be held accountable for their corruption and obstruction. And we will provide that to the American people.”

If you believe James Comer is a credible human being, then you should take Comer at his word that until the House voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry on December 13, Comer and Jordan didn’t have a very good legal case to enforce an impeachment subpoena to Hunter Biden.

Abbe Lowell may well have had the better legal argument in any case. In his letter, he cites some of the earlier letters he sent that didn’t make the contempt referrals. Those earlier letters are quite central to the legal argument, and the fact that Oversight and Judiciary didn’t mention them in the contempt referrals is going to make things awkward for whatever staffer is going to have to testify about this contempt referral before prosecutors, much less a jury.

And Lowell cites things that Jordan has said himself about the standards for subpoenas. If Lowell is lucky, those past statements will give him a way to call Jordan to the stand, something Bennie Thompson avoided in both the Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro cases.

But for the purpose of journalists who treat James Comer as a credible human being, the important takeaway is this: If Lowell is right — or even if Lowell is just sufficiently right to keep Hunter out of jail for this — then it means everything that came up to this point involved Comer and Jordan deceiving you about what was going on; Comer and Jordan deceiving you, and you believing them, and misleading your readers or viewers about what was really going on.

All those stories about how Hunter Biden “defied” a subpoena? Retract them, or issue a correction and say, “my bad, there was no subpoena. Hunter wasn’t defying anyone.”

All those stories about Hunter refusing to respond to a subpoena requiring a non-public deposition? Retract those too, because there may be no valid subpoena. Up until there’s a clearly valid subpoena, Hunter had every right to seek accommodations, as others have. That’s probably why Lowell says that if Comer and Jordan issue a valid subpoena, Hunter may even be willing to sit for a closed door deposition. That is, it’s not the preference for publicity, it’s the deference to an actually legal subpoena.

You might even do a piece that says, “Wow. That was a really dumbass thing for Comer to do, to issue a subpoena that wasn’t legally valid, because he gave Hunter Biden two opportunities to make him look like a dumbass. If only I were savvy enough to understand that’s what was going on.”

Because, ultimately, if you’ve been treating Comer as if he is a credible human being, you’re not very savvy and you owe your readers an apology.

But, honestly, if you believed any of this was real, then you’re the dumbass. If you believe that Comer and Jordan really are concerned about influence peddling from family members of Presidents, you’re the dumbass. If you believe that Comer and Jordan are primarily interested in Hunter’s testimony, then you’re the dumbass. If you believe there was an accommodation that was going to meet Comer and Jordan’s demands, then you’re the dumbass — indeed, that’s surely why Comer retracted his generous offer to let Hunter testify in public.

There’s a some reason to believe that Comer and Jordan fucked up the accommodation process so badly because they want to ensure that DC USAO or David Weiss — whoever gets any contempt referral they send — decides this contempt referral is legally garbage. Because, they have already admitted in one of the few statements that has been true, they are only looking for something — anything!! — they can use to rationalize an impeachment.

The subpoena was designed, from the start, to fail. That’s because Comer and Jordan know you’re such a dumbass that when it does, you won’t report that the failure is their own damned fault.

Update: Comer and Jordan say they’ll issue a valid subpoena. Congratulations Hill reporters, you’ve spent three months chasing a con.

James Comer’s Second Impeachment Hearing More of a Circus than the First

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The House Oversight and Judiciary Committees are attempting to hold split screen mark-up meetings to hold Hunter Biden in contempt.

It was going to be a shit-show in any case. Between the two committees, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, and Scott Perry all blew off January 6 Committee subpoenas. Ranking Member of the Oversight Committee, Jamie Raskin explained what Perry had done in advance of January 6 as Perry visibly seethed.

Neither Chair — Jordan or Comer — keep their committees in order. Comer in particular has problems keeping Majorie Taylor Greene from doing really outrageous things (Jordan doesn’t make the same efforts to keep Matt Gaetz in line on HJC). Indeed, she attempted to submit something into evidence that led to a halt of the hearing as staffers from both sides discussed whether whatever she had on placards could properly come in; they did not.

One after another Democrat used their turn to focus on the emoluments report they recently released, with Republicans dedicating much of their time trying to explain away that Trump was on the take of China during his presidency, while Comer desperately tried to tie a 2017 or 2018 payment from CEFC to Hunter Biden to his father, after Biden left government.

Every public hearing is going to continue to be like this — testament not just that Donald Trump has done what Republicans have found no evidence showing Biden has — but also showing that rather than government, or funding government, Republicans continue to sniff Hunter Biden’s dick pics.

Democratic Representative Robert Garcia even said that, dick pics, in the hearing.

This is the face Donald Trump has demanded that House Republicans show to the American people.

And then, to make it worse, Hunter Biden showed up himself, with Abbe Lowell in tow.

Nancy Mace immediately accused Hunter of having no balls, because it’s never a House Oversight hearing without Hunter’s genitalia being the central issue.

Comer failed to find a way to get CSPAN to stop tracking how Hunter and his attorney were responding. He similarly was helpless to prevent CSPAN showing his miserable face as Raskin made point after point.

Jared Moskowitz asked for a show of hands of Republicans who wanted to just question Hunter right then and there. Until — as soon as MTG first spoke, they all got up and walked out of the room.

Before the Committees broke for votes, Raskin was taking to calling his colleagues cult members, doing the bidding of Donald Trump.

This is the face of the Republican House. That’s what Donald Trump is demanding will be the face of the Republican House.

Luke Broadwater’s Attempt at Fact-Checking Covers Up Fabrications and IRS Sloppiness

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NYT has two articles out fact-checking GOP lies in support of impeachment.

One, from Adam Entous, is really worth reading. It describes how a text that Hunter Biden sent his daughter Naomi, which joked about the fact that Joe Biden had made his sons work their way through college, has been misrepresented to instead suggest that Hunter was giving his father 50% of his diminished 2019 earnings.

Hunter felt dejected, and, while apparently under the influence of drugs, wrote a series of angry and often nonsensical messages to Naomi in which he threatened to cut her off financially.

“Find an apartment with Peter by next week,” Hunter instructed. “And send me the keys and leave all of my furniture and art. I love all of you. But I don’t receive any respect.”

Then he sent the text message that Republicans have used to suggest that Hunter’s foreign income was going to enrich his father.

[snip]

Hunter’s oft-told story about giving half of his salary to his father appeared to originate during his freshman year at Georgetown.

His roommate at the time recalled Hunter telling him and his twin brother “a million times” that then-Senator Biden encouraged him to work, saying, “You can keep half of the paycheck, but you have to hand over the other half for ‘room and board.’”

It was a story, and a theme, that Hunter continued to invoke, especially after he married Ms. Buhle and they had three daughters — Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy — all of whom attended Sidwell Friends, a costly Washington private school, where they were surrounded by wealthier families.

Hunter told close friends that he was worried that his daughters had become spoiled. According to family members, he would frequently tell them the story about how he had to work in college and pay half of his salary to his father, in hopes of encouraging them to be more self-sufficient.

In other words, Republicans are literally trying to impeach Joe Biden because he made his sons work their way through college, and at a time he was broke, Hunter tried to do the same with his daughters.

Note that the underlying back story Entous describes, in which Hunter attempted to find specialized medical care for his daughter Finnegan, shows that while in Fox News pundit Keith Ablow’s care, Hunter was somehow cut off from the digital world.

Then Ablow responds to his own email, which this time is marked [External], noting that “His [apparently meaning Hunter’s] email is screwed up,” and then saying he had texted Rock.

From: Keith Ablow <kablow[redacted]>
Sent: Thursday, January 3, 2019 11:40 AM
To: Positano [redacted]; rhbdcicloud
Subject: [EXTERNAL]Re: From Keith

CAUTION: External Email.

Rock
His email is screwed up

I texted you

The doctor responds — happy to help — and provides his contact. Ablow thanks him. Hunter responds to that, plaintively,

Guys are you getting my emails?

And though neither of the external interlocutors ever said a thing directly to Hunter, Ablow says, yes, suggesting they had gotten his emails, then instructs Hunter to contact the doctor and “send him the x-rays,” even though in the original email Hunter already sent 2 jpgs.

Hunter then tried to email the doctor directly, using the same email included in Ablow’s email (possibly even using the link from the doctor’s own email), and it bounces, “RecipientNotFound; Recipient not found by SMTP address lookup.”

Hunter’s digital rupture from the outside world is part of the back story to how his digital life got packaged up for delivery, eventually, to Congress. And it should raise provenance questions about every other aspect of this investigation.

Which brings us to the other NYT story, an attempt to fact check that was, instead a confession that NYT scribe Luke Broadwater either doesn’t care or doesn’t know how to assess evidence and claims for reliability.

Broadwater feigns fact-checking Republican representations of a text Hunter sent in 2017, claiming to be sitting next to his father while he was trying to strong arm a business associate, which is another communication that Republicans are sure proves Joe Biden was in business with his son.

Before I show you what Broadwater wrote, let me reconstruct how we have the claim in the first place. Gary Shapley provided the texts to Congress in May. He shared them, he claimed, as proof that investigators were denied the ability in August 2020 to obtain location data — he doesn’t say for whom — and to search the guest house at Joe Biden’s house.

For example, in August 2020, we got the results back from an iCloud search warrant. Unlike the laptop, these came to the investigative team from a third-party record keeper and included a set of messages. The messages included material we clearly needed to follow up on.

Nevertheless, prosecutors denied investigators’ requests to develop a strategy to look into the messages and denied investigators’ suggestion to obtain location information to see where the texts were sent from.

For example, we obtained a July 30th, 2017, WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, where Hunter Biden wrote: “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

Communications like these made it clear we needed to search the guest house at the Bidens’ Delaware residence where Hunter Biden stayed for a time. [my emphasis]

Already, at this point, the savvy interlocutor would have asked Shapley, “why do you need location data? You get about five different kinds of location information in an iCloud warrant. What more did you need?”

Which might have led Shapley to confess he really wanted to get a location warrant targeting Joe, not Hunter.

If these texts were ever introduced at trial, Hunter’s lawyers would likely point out that they were obtained in reliance on the laptop obtained from John Paul Mac Isaac. At the point they got those warrants in August 2020 — effectively obtaining text messages that were available on the laptop — the FBI still had never validated the laptop to make sure no one had tampered with it either before it got into the custody of John Paul Mac Isaac or while in JPMI’s custody. That is, the warrant to obtain these texts may well be a classic case of poisonous fruit, and the texts could be affected by an alteration done to Hunter Biden’s contact list in the period in January 2019 when he was staying in Keith Ablow’s property and seems to have been partially cut off from the digital world; his contacts were restored — from what, it’s not clear — on January 24, 2019.

As Shapley was walking Congressional staffers through these texts, he admitted that they weren’t WhatsApp messages themselves, they were summaries. He wasn’t sure who had done the summaries.

Q Okay. And these aren’t WhatsApp messages, these are summaries of WhatsApp messages, correct?

A Yeah, that’s correct. Because it was something about the readability of the actual piece, right? It was easier to summarize in a spreadsheet.

Q Okay. And who did the summary? Who prepared this document?

A It was either the computer analysis guy or [Ziegler], one or the other.

Who did the summaries matters, because whoever it was did a shoddy job. In one crucial case, for example, whoever did the summaries interjected their opinion about what a screen cap that showed in the message was. It is the only indication in the exhibit shared with Congress that identifies the first name of Hunter’s interlocutor.

This interjection — a parenthetical comment recording that this was “(believed to be Zhao)” but included inside quotation marks as if it was part of the screencap — is the only place where Zhao’s first name is identified. Elsewhere, he is always referred to as “Zhao” or “Z,” even in a summary also referring to “Zang” and “Zhang.” Nowhere in this “summary” is his WhatsApp identifier included, as it would be in reliable WhatsApp texts summaries (here, from Vladislav Klyushin’s trial). It’s not the only parenthetical comment included as if it were part of a direct quote, but as we’ll see, it is a critical one.

Even in spite of the inherent unreliability of this summary, the shoddiness of the underlying IRS work, Republicans love it.

Jason Smith took these unreliable summaries and fabricated them into texts, creating the illusion that they had a solid chain of evidence for these texts.

Smith’s tweets of these texts went viral.

In spite of the fact that Abbe Lowell has attempted to get Congress to correct this viral claim twice, Smith left it up.

The summary and the fabrications of the text and Smith’s use of the initials “HZ” matter because there’s a dispute between Republicans and their IRS source about the identity of the person involved.

Shapley said the texts involved Henry Zhao, consistent with Smith’s fabrication.

But in a later release, James Comer described the interlocutor as Raymond Zhao — which is consistent with the interjection in the summary (and other communications regarding this business deal).

On July 30, 2017, Hunter Biden sent a WhatsApp message to Raymond Zhao—a CEFC associate—regarding the $10 million capital payment:

As we’ll see, Broadwater predictably “fact checks” this as a dispute between Democrats and Republicans. It’s not. Before you get there, you first have to adjudicate a conflict between the guy who led the IRS investigation for more than two years, Gary Shapley, and James Comer. It’s a conflict sustained by the shoddiness of the underlying IRS work.

This is a story showing not only that James Comer and Jason Smith don’t know what they’re talking about, but are willing to lie and fabricate nevertheless, but even the IRS agents may not know what they’re talking about, and if they don’t, it’s because the standard of diligence on the investigation of Joe Biden’s son was such that they didn’t even include the identifier of the person to whom Hunter was talking, which would make it easy or at least possible to adjudicate this dispute.

This is a story that discredits the IRS agents — for their sloppy work and for their bogus claims to need location data to further investigate this and the conceit that it ever would have been appropriate to get location data for Joe Biden or search his guest home in August 2020. It is a story that shows that when faced with uncertainty created by the sloppiness of their IRS sources, Republicans instead just make shit up.

But here’s how Luke Broadwater describes the conflict:

‘I am sitting here with my father’

One WhatsApp message that has received much attention was provided by an I.R.S. investigator who testified before Congress under whistle-blower protections. In it, Hunter Biden invoked his father, who was then out of office, while pressing a potential Chinese business partner in 2017 to move ahead with a proposed energy deal.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to know why the commitment has not been fulfilled,” the message states. On its face, the message seemed to suggest Joe Biden was in league with his son pressuring for a payment to the family.

But Democrats have argued it is more likely an example of Hunter Biden’s bluster than an accurate statement of Joe Biden’s involvement in a shakedown. A lawyer for Hunter Biden says he does not remember sending the message.

The president has denied he was present at the time.

Broadwater turns this into an unknowable question about whether Biden was sitting next to Hunter, and claims it’s just about competing partisan arguments.

But this is a confession about Broadwater’s own abilities or work ethic, not a fact-check of truth claims. Because if you don’t understand or explain that the claim itself builds off provenance problems, you’re actively covering up several layers of shoddiness in this impeachment stunt.

If the point is to test the reliability of the impeachment inquiry, it’s that other story that needs to be told.

“Struck By Lightning:” The Deliberate Trump Politicization of the Hunter Biden Investigation

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In his latest podcast, Popehat delivered this opinion about the two indictments of Hunter Biden and Abbe Lowell’s aggressive attack on them.

In a way — and I don’t think this comparison is going to endear me to people — I think he’s doing very much what Trump is doing with his cases all over the place, calling them out about how they’re political and illegitimate and that type of thing. The truth is, the gun case is complete chickenshit but the tax case is absolutely the real deal, it’s something that, you know, if you get struck by the lightning that is IRS deciding to select you out to investigate you, you will absolutely get charged on that stuff and you’ll absolutely go to jail on that stuff. So it’s not a political case to that extent. The way it’s been handled might be political.

You should definitely listen to or read the podcast, as he and Josh Barro are two of the only people who even pretend to have read the motions to dismiss Hunter filed last week and you should never read just me on a topic.

They don’t mention two aspects of the tax indictment, which impact on whether it’s “absolutely the real deal.” First, something that even Weiss included in the plea statement but left out of the indictment: that Hunter has paid off his tax debt, along with up to $400,000 in penalties, for the charged years. And second, that Hunter’s lawyers at least claim (but have not substantiated publicly) that his accountant overstated his income for 2018, the year for which felonies have been charged. So (Hunter’s lawyers claim) when Hunter did belatedly pay his taxes, he overpaid them. Abbe Lowell has claimed that would mean the indictment would violate IRS guidelines, but it will also make it much hard to prove that whatever misrepresentations Hunter made in his 2018 tax filings were intentional.

To their credit, Popehat and Barro managed to lay out the content of much of the four motions to dismiss submitted last week, which I summarized this way.

The only things they missed were the Appropriations claim against David Weiss’ appointment, and the Separation of Powers claim about Congressional influence — though perhaps Popehat meant to invoke that in his characterization of the MTD as “it’s all politics.”

What’s interesting about the podcast is that Popehat continues to cling to his article of faith that Hunter’s claims of politics (he has made the same claims about Hunter’s accusations, which are backed by public evidence, that Rudy Giuliani and others have hacked his data) are all prospective: an attempt to taint anything Trump might do in a second term as political.

In the event that Donald Trump is elected President [Hunter Biden] is likely to be charged with a lot worse and a lot crazier stuff. And so what they’re really doing, I think, is using every situation that comes up as ways to get ahead of that, to get intel on it, to undermine it, and that type of thing.

Popehat gets a great deal right about this case (including the near-impossibility of winning a selective and vindictive prosecution claim). But it borders on insanity that he would read that MTD and then dismiss Hunter’s claims of politicization as an attempt to stave off future attacks from Trump.

The MTD about which Popehat made this argument — that the possibility of Trump politicization is all prospective — cited the following evidence:

  • In testimony he would subsequently caveat, Joseph Ziegler claimed that Bill Barr made the decision to put the tax investigation into Hunter Biden under David Weiss in May 2019, which would have been days after Joe Biden declared his run for President.
  • During his first impeachment, Trump sent tweets attacking Hunter Biden on October 6, October 10, October 12, October 13, November 15, 2019.
  • Rudy Giuliani traveled the world searching for dirt on Hunter Biden and got DOJ to open a dedicated channel, via Scott Brady, to accept the information he obtained.
  • Trump sent another tweet attacking Hunter on September 24, 2020.
  • Weeks before the election, Rudy Giuliani obtained what Hunter calls, “stolen electronic data,” manipulated it, and released it in an attempt to undermine Joe Biden’s election.
  • After Rudy released the “laptop,” President Trump led chants of “Lock him up” about Hunter Biden.
  • In the wake of the laptop release in mid-October 2020, Trump raised the Hunter prosecution with Bill Barr.
  • Bill Barr admitted having personal knowledge of how information from Scott Brady got shared with Weiss’ team, including on October 23.
  • In December 2020, after the investigation into Hunter was publicly revealed as a tax investigation but while Trump was still President, Trump tweeted twice more about the investigation.
  • On December 27, 2020, in the same hours-long phone call where Trump first floated replacing Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, Trump also raised the Hunter Biden investigation.
  • During his January 6 speech, Trump claimed that if more people had known about the contents of the “laptop,” he would have won and he also taunted, “Where’s Hunter?”
  • Trump posted about Hunter on March 31, 2023 after learning about the Alvin Bragg indictment.
  • Trump posted about the Hunter Biden plea deal three times on the day it was released on June 20, 2023, in one case calling it “The Hunter/Joe Biden settlement.”
  • On June 24, after the IRS agents’ transcripts were released, Trump made two more posts suggesting allegations against Hunter tied to Joe.
  • On June 26, Trump linked to a post falsely claiming that Hunter had shared classified documents with “foreign regimes.”
  • On July 11, Trump accused Weiss of giving Hunter a “traffic ticket instead of a death sentence.”
  • On November 23, Trump asked whether Joe had paid taxes on money he [claimed Joe had] made from Hunter.

This is the document Popehat claims to have read and decided Hunter was only doing this to claim that Trump was acting politically in some future prosecution.

And that’s not even the only evidence about Trump’s past politicization that Lowell has cited. In the subpoena request Abbe Lowell invoked in the MTD package, Hunter’s lawyer further described that Richard Donoghue ordered Weiss’ office to accept a briefing on an FD-1023 reporting a claim Mykola Zlochevsky made in late 2019, a briefing that occurred on October 23, 2020. By date, this briefing happened after Trump called Barr about the Hunter Biden investigation.

In a letter Lowell sent to Matthew Graves about Tony Bobulinski’s interview with the FBI on October 23, 2020, he noted that:

  • Bobulinski was Trump’s guest at the Nashville presidential debate on October 22.
  • Bobulinski’s claim to have attended a 2017 meeting with CEFC with Hunter Biden, at which — he claimed — Hunter received a diamond, conflicts with Bobulinski’s own communications from the period.
  • In her book, Cassidy Hutchinson described a clandestine meeting between Bobulinski and Mark Meadows weeks afterwards at which Trump’s Chief of Staff handed Bobulinksi something that might be an envelope; the excerpt describes Meadows having the meeting because, “The boss asked him to meet up with Tony Bobulinski.”

Plus, there’s a bunch that Lowell has not (to my knowledge) cited.

For example, FBI Agent Johnathan Buma claims that in January 2019, two Ukrainians with ties to the Prosecutor General’s Office — later deemed to be part of an information operation — shared allegations about Hunter Biden and Burisma with the Los Angeles US Attorney’s Office. The allegations were passed onto Baltimore FBI agents investigating Hunter Biden. The Ukrainians were later invited to an event hosted by the Trump White House.

In IRS agent Ziegler’s testimony, he described that it took him three tries before justifying a criminal (rather than civil) investigation into Hunter Biden; as part of that, he made claims about 2014 payments from Burisma that are explained in the tax indictment against Hunter. He similarly described learning, second-hand, that his supervisor during the first full year of the investigation documented repeated examples of potential improper political influence.

[M]y IRS supervisor, Matt Kutz, created memos which he put in the investigative files regarding the investigation potentially violating the subject’s Sixth Amendment rights. He also referred to Donald Trump’s tweets at the time.

On July 25, 2019 Trump withheld congressionally appropriated funds to support Ukraine to get Volodymyr Zelenskyy to announce an investigation of Hunter Biden and Burisma, asking him to contact Barr and Rudy, the men who would later set up the channel via which information was ultimately shared with the Hunter Biden team. Two impeachment witnesses testified that Zelenskyy brought up a Burisma investigation, though the name does not appear in the transcript.

In addition to the details of Scott Brady’s task that Lowell did cite, Brady also described that he and Weiss spoke every four to six weeks about “the assignment.” Brady also describes getting Weiss to order his team to provide Brady details of the Hunter Biden investigation, which Brady described as “interrogatories.”

On September 12, Tim Thibault testified that, after such time as Steve Bannon would have had the “laptop” in 2020, the FBI made his propagandist Peter Schweizer an informant regarding matters pertaining to Hunter. The lead FBI supervisor on the Hunter Biden case asked the Washington Field Office to stop sending Schweizer’s reporting because it would give Hunter’s attorney, if he were ever charged, evidence to discredit the investigation.

FBI supervisor Thomas Sobocinski and David Weiss, along with other House Judiciary Committee witnesses, have testified that after the IRS agents’ claims went public — and so after Trump posted six times between when the plea deal was released and the hearing at which it failed — the investigative team, especially AUSA Lesley Wolf, began to get “pervasive” threats.

These are the kinds of Trump attacks that, the DC Circuit has found, have “real-world consequences” on those he attacks.

The record also shows that former President Trump’s words have real-world consequences. Many of those on the receiving end of his attacks pertaining to the 2020 election have been subjected to a torrent of threats and intimidation from his supporters. A day after Mr. Trump’s “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” post, someone called the district court and said: “Hey you stupid slave n[****]r[.] * * * If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly b[***]h. * * * You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.” Special Counsel Br. 5; see United States v. Shry, No. 4:23-cr-413, ECF 1 at 3 (Criminal Complaint) (S.D. Tex. Aug. 11, 2023). The Special Counsel also has advised that he has received threats, and that a prosecutor in the Special Counsel’s office whom Mr. Trump has singled out for criticism has been “subject to intimidating communications.” Special Counsel Mot. 12.

In all the litigation about the danger of Trump’s rhetoric, there has been no discussion of threats that Trump’s comments (or the members of Congress) may have ginned up against Hunter Biden’s prosecutors.

Again, all this evidence of Trump’s effort to dictate prosecutorial outcomes for Joe Biden’s son have already happened. They happened while he was President and while he was running against Hunter’s father. None of this is remotely speculative, and much of it has been described by Republican witnesses.

And the latter examples — the stuff Trump did while President — are particularly problematic. That’s because (as Abbe Lowell has noted on at least two court filings) it is a crime for the President to order up IRS investigations of someone.

77 President Trump initiated the investigation of Mr. Biden illegally. 26 U.S.C. § 7217 provides: “It shall be unlawful for any applicable person [including the President] to request, directly or indirectly, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service to conduct or terminate an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.”

A separate law prohibits someone, who does not need to be President anymore, to intimidate someone investigating tax crimes.

After unlawfully requesting that Mr. Biden be investigated, President Trump violated 26 U.S.C. § 7212 of the Internal Revenue Code by interfering with that investigation. The section has two substantive provisions. The “Officer Clause” forbids “corruptly or by force or threats of force (including any threatening letter or communication) endeavor[ing] to intimidate or impede any officer or employee of the United States acting in an official capacity under [the Internal Revenue Code].” (emphasis added). The second clause, the “Omnibus Clause,” forbids “corruptly or by force or threats of force (including any threatening letter or communication) obstruct[ing] or imped[ing], or endeavor[ing] to obstruct or impede, the due administration of [the Internal Revenue Code].” (emphasis added). Mr. Trump has done both.

Here, Lowell overstates. I’m aware of no evidence that Trump ordered up the IRS investigation of Hunter, like he did Peter Strzok and others.

The available evidence shows that at least one strand of the investigation into Hunter Biden  — the one under Joseph Ziegler — started from a Suspicious Activity Report. And Barr is one of the people who would have been permitted to ask for an investigation into someone.

But it is nevertheless the case that the supervisor overseeing the investigation deemed Trump’s public demands for an investigation to be inappropriate. And at a time in 2020 after Trump knew there was an IRS investigation into Hunter, at a time he remained President, he privately and publicly pushed for an aggressive investigation. Those efforts, including publicly issued threats, have continued to this day.

The DC Circuit described how Trump uses social media posts to address people he knows are likely aware of his posts.

So too if the defendant posts a message on “social media knowing that [witness] is a social media follower of his,” id. 33:20–23, or that the message will otherwise likely reach the witness. In each of these scenarios, the defendant’s speech about witness testimony or cooperation imperils the availability, content, and integrity of witness testimony.

Accordingly, the district court had the authority to prevent Mr. Trump from laundering communications concerning witnesses and addressing their potential trial participation through social media postings or other public comments.

So whether or not Trump ever directly spoke to someone in the IRS about the investigations into Hunter Biden, under this theory of “laundering” communications, his tweets would have qualified as indirect communication.

Sure, a second Trump term will be worse.

But Hunter Biden is demonstrably among the handful of people who have experienced the kind of wholesale politicization of criminal investigations journalists imagine will only come in a second Trump term.

Udpate: Added some more details from Brady’s testimony.

Update: Fixed intro to DC Circuit opinion.

Hearing Footsteps: The Paper Trail of Political Interference David Weiss Is Trying to Bury

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Update: Given confusion mentioned in comments, I thought I’d do another handy dandy chart to describe the motions to dismiss, like I did for Trump’s. This post addresses the MTD Selective Vindictive Separation of Powers. 

Abbe Lowell’s motion to dismiss the gun charges against Hunter Biden for selective and vindictive prosecution and violation of separation of powers only asks for discovery in passing.

Often, MTDs for selective prosecution are requests for discovery. For comparison, in a bid to argue that Jan6er David Judd was charged more harshly than Portland rioters, his excellent public defender, Elizabeth Mullin, conceded that she did not yet have proof he was treated worse because he was a Trump supporter, but then asked for six specific things to prove the case.

Mr. Judd does not yet contend the allegations below are sufficient for dismissal of the charges against him. However, they are sufficient for the Court to compel specific discovery regarding disparities in charging decisions.

[snip]

(1) Communication between the Department of Justice (“Main Justice”) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon regarding prosecution of defendants arrested in connection with protests in 2020.

(2) Communication between management at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon and line Assistant U.S. Attorneys regarding prosecution of defendants arrested in connection with protests in 2020.

(3) Communication between the Department of Justice (“Main Justice”) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia regarding prosecution of defendants arrested in connection with the January 6 demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol.

(4) Communication between management at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and line Assistant U.S. Attorneys regarding prosecution of defendants arrested in connection with the January 6 demonstrations at the U.S. Capitol.

(5) Communication between the Department of Justice (“Main Justice”) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia regarding prosecution of the D.C. Fireworks Defendant.

(6) Communication between management at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and line Assistant U.S. Attorneys regarding prosecution of the D.C. Fireworks Defendant.

Mullin’s bid didn’t work. Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that January 6 was different than Portland — though he did use her argument to treat Jan6ers leniently at sentencing.

Compare that statement with this one, from page 50 of Abbe Lowell’s 60-page selective and vindictive MTD, where he asserts that this is the exceptional case where a defendant can prove vindictive prosecution without discovery.

Cases where a defendant can show actual vindictiveness without discovery may be few and far between, but this is surely one.

Lowell closes the entire brief with a similar statement, footnoted with the assertion that, “Were there to be any doubt at all, the basis for discovery and an evidentiary hearing has well been established.”

“[O]ur society is not bettered by law enforcement that. . . is not conducted in a spirit of fairness or good faith.” Banks, 383 F. Supp. at 397. This prosecution falls in that category, and the Court should dismiss the indictment. 109

109 As stated through this and the other motions to dismiss, the record available to the Court supporting dismissal is extraordinary. Were there to be any doubt at all, the basis for discovery and an evidentiary hearing has well been established.

This argument — that if Hunter Biden hasn’t met his burden for outright dismissal, then surely he should be granted discovery — is four other times relegated to a footnote.

One such footnote appears in a passage purporting to lay out the legal standards that govern this issue, in which Lowell cites a bunch of precedents from other circuits about dismissal in case of selective, vindictive, or separation of powers violations.

When a prosecution is selective, vindictive, or violates separation of powers, the tainted charges must be dismissed. See id. at 700 (“Preservation of this system of checks and balances requires the courts to invalidate actions that. . . undermine the authority and independence of one or another coordinate Branch.”) (citations omitted); In re Aiken Cnty., 725 F.3d 255, 264 n.7 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (“If the Executive selectively prosecutes someone based on impermissible considerations, the equal protection remedy is to dismiss the prosecution . . . .”).42

42 Where a defendant has not carried his burden, but has demonstrated a “colorable claim,” discovery and an evidentiary hearing should be permitted. United States v. Heidecke, 900 F.2d 1155, 1159 (7th Cir. 1990); United States v. Jones, 159 F.3d 969, 978, n.8 (6th Cir. 1998) (granting discovery to give the defendant “the opportunity to move to dismiss the indictment” for selective prosecution). See Mr. Biden’s Discovery Mot (filed concurrently). [my emphasis]

Armstrong, the precedent making it almost impossible for a defendant to get discovery, the one that Principal Senior Assistant Special Counsel Leo Wise cited 48 times in his bid to defeat subpoenas, does not appear in this section (though it does appear in several other places and in the discovery motion).

As this footnote does, two other such footnotes specifically cite a motion for discovery and evidentiary hearing filed the same day. In those other two instances, Lowell cites the line in this NYT article describing that David Weiss told an associate that he preferred not to bring any charges because the average American would not be charged for these crimes.

[T]he New York Times reported that “Mr. Weiss told an associate that he preferred not to bring any charges, even misdemeanors, against Mr. Biden because the average American would not be prosecuted for similar offenses.” 9

9 Michael Schmidt et al., Inside The Collapse Of Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal, N.Y. Times (Aug. 19, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/19/us/politics/inside-hunter-biden-plea-deal.html. The article does not disclose the source. The account is most likely true considering the charging statistics, DOJ enforcement policies described below, and Mr. Weiss’s initial reluctance in prosecuting Mr. Biden on this charge. If it is true, it is extremely damning evidence of discriminatory prosecution. Thus, to the extent there is any doubt, the Court should grant Mr. Biden’s request for discovery and an evidentiary hearing. See Mr. Biden’s Discovery Mot. (filed concurrently).

[snip]

DOJ confirmed its own improper motive when, under fire from Congress and the public, it resorted to a rarely used gun charge that reports indicate Special Counsel Weiss himself admitted would not have been brought against the average American.85

85 Michael S. Schmidt et al., Inside The Collapse Of Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal, N.Y. Times (Aug. 19, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/19/us/politics/inside-hunter-biden-plea-deal.html. As noted above, the article does not disclose the source, and to the extent there is any doubt about the veracity of the claim, the Court should grant Mr. Biden’s request for discovery and an evidentiary hearing. See Mr. Biden’s Motion for Discovery and an Evidentiary Hearing (filed concurrently). [my emphasis]

I have repeatedly predicted we’d see this language in Hunter’s selective prosecution motion, because it provides what virtually no defendant ever has: proof that the prosecutor himself recognized he was selectively prosecuting a defendant.

If Lowell can find these witnesses — experts on gun crimes who said Hunter was charged only because he was prominent and a Weiss associate whom Weiss purportedly told he knew that average Americans would not be prosecuted for such crimes –and get them to testify, then he would have what virtually no other defendant would: Proof that the prosecutor who brought the charge knew that similarly situated defendants would not be charged, but charged the defendant anyway.

But I assumed the proof that David Weiss had said that would require witness testimony.

Perhaps it doesn’t.

Consider that the last instance (in this filing) where Lowell relegates a request for discovery and an evidentiary hearing to a footnote, he makes an assertion — that DOJ has long believed that Hunter’s rights must take precedence over efforts by Trump to interfere in this prosecution — that he does not cite.

But as DOJ itself has long believed, Mr. Biden’s rights must come first and efforts by members of Congress and the former President to interfere have tainted this prosecution beyond purification. As a result, there is no constitutional option but to dismiss this case.40

40 If the Court has any doubt that the material set out in this motion is sufficient to warrant outright dismissal of these charges, it should permit discovery and conduct an evidentiary hearing. Mr. Biden has already sought discovery from DOJ and information from third-parties with knowledge of former President Trump’s influence, and DOJ has not responded to the requests and filed an opposition for this information to be disclosed. [my emphasis]

To be sure, we know that David Weiss’ investigative team, led by Lesley Wolf, made repeated efforts — not always successful — to shield the investigative team from Trump’s efforts to interfere.

For example, Tim Thibault told the House Judiciary Committee that one reason he shut down Peter Schweizer as a source was because then-Supervisory Special Agent Joe Gordon reached out, insinuating they already had laptop-based evidence, and said that if a case against Hunter Biden ever went to trial and Hunter’s attorneys found the FD-1023 from Schweizer that the Washington Field Office had shared with the Hunter team, it would give Hunter’s attorneys ammunition.

A And then fast-forward to sometime in October, I received an unsolicited call —

Q Uh-huh.

A — from the supervisor of the Hunter Biden case. I knew him because he had been assigned to Washington Field Office as the case agent.

[snip]

A And I said: Okay. What are your concerns? And basically said: Look, the information isn’t of any value to us, number one. My — I deduced from everything he said that they already had the information —

Q Uh-huh.

A — from some other source, some other channel, maybe not a human source but some other channel. He also said that that person was politically connected —

Q Uh-huh.

A — and partisan in his view and he was concerned about the source being on media platforms.

[snip]

A So I was getting a call from this supervisor. And my — my takeaway was we don’t need your source reporting and also: Why are you sending a file to our — to our case file that we didn’t know about? Right? So Washington Field Office wrote this 1023 and it went to headquarters and it went to Baltimore.

[snip]

A I understand you don’t need the reporting anymore. I understand that if this goes to trial, Hunter Biden’s attorney —

Q Uh-huh?

A — could have some ammunition.

Regarding that very same laptop, Gary Shapley complained to Congress that Weiss’ office had prevented Joseph Ziegler from seeing a report addressing the “quality and completeness of imaged/recovered information from the hard drive.”

Ziegler himself complained that he hadn’t been able to interview Tony Bobulinski — the guy whom Donald Trump personally hosted at an election debate and who subsequently had a clandestine meeting with Trump’s chief of staff — because, prosecutors told him, Bobulinski, “was not viewed as a credible witness.”

In investigative team meetings that occurred after this, I can recall that agents on the investigative team brought up on multiple occasions to the assigned prosecutors that they wanted to do an interview of Bobulinski with the assigned case agents. I can recall being told that they would think about it and then ultimately being told there was no need for the team to interview Bobulinski and that Bobulinski was not viewed as a credible witness.

And Scott Brady not only confirmed Gary Shapley’s claim that Lesley Wolf repeatedly refused to be briefed by Scott Brady’s team because she didn’t want dirt from Rudy Giuliani, but also that David Weiss had to — and did — intervene before Wolf would share information about her investigation with Brady.

Okay. So, looking at paragraph four on page 2, as it continues onto page 2, the second full sentence, it says: The prosecution team discussed the Hunter Biden related work of the Pittsburgh USAO on several occasions, as it was a line item on the recurring prosecution team’s call agenda for a long period of time. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf told us the Pittsburgh USAO and U.S. Attorney Scott Brady requested to brief the Delaware USAO’s Hunter Biden’s investigative team on multiple occasions, but they were turned down by AUSA Wolf and the Delaware USAO. Is it accurate that you had requested multiple times, you or your office, to brief the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office?

A Yes.

[snip]

Chairman Jordan. Got it. Got it. Now, also, based on what you said, throughout the process, you said that the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office wasn’t willing to cooperate, so much so that you had to send interrogatories?

Mr. Brady. Yes, we had conversations, asked for communication and a flow of information, mostly one way from us to them, but also, as I testified, we wanted to make sure we weren’t duplicating what they were doing. They would not engage. And so finally, after me calling Mr. Weiss and saying can you please talk to your team, this is important, this is why we want to interact with them, the response that we got back is you can submit your questions to our team in written form, which we did.

This is an important instance where, at least per Scott Brady, Lesley Wolf was attempting to prevent the politicization of the case, but David Weiss overruled her.

Finally, Shapley also provided documentation of his own complaint that, “This investigation has been hampered and artificially slowed by various claims of potential election meddling.”

There are abundant examples where Lesley Wolf attempted to shield the investigative team from Trump’s efforts to intervene. Lowell cites none of them, nor other public evidence, such as Ziegler’s testimony that there were emails (probably his original supervisor’s memorialization of Trump’s improper influence). Instead, he asserts without citation that DOJ has long believed that Hunter’s rights must come first.

I’m mindful that, in the exhibits accompanying his motion to dismiss because the diversion immunizes Hunter Biden from further charges, Lowell also didn’t include the bulk of documentation that NYT and Politico appear to have relied on for stories about how the plea deal collapsed.

That is, it’s possible that one of the documents that NYT received records someone — possibly Wolf — sharing with Chris Clark the explanation that Weiss really wanted to avoid any charges, even misdemeanors. If Abbe Lowell has that document, he’s playing coy.

Indeed, that’s an important dynamic in the motion for discovery and an evidentiary hearing. In a footnote (footnote six in this post), it purports to support both the selective and vindictive motion and the immunity one.

1 To the extent the Special Counsel disputes the facts laid out in Mr. Biden’s Motion to Dismiss the Indictment Based on Immunity Conferred By His Diversion Agreement and the Declaration of Christoper Clark (his former counsel), filed contemporaneously, as noted in that Motion at Note 1, an evidentiary hearing where all the participants to the negotiations (including U.S. Attorney David Weiss) should be held on that motion as well.

The footnote it cites in the immunity motion (footnote seven) asks Judge Maryanne Noreika, if she needs more proof regarding the immunity conferred by the diversion agreement, to include David Weiss (and “responsible members of his prosecution team,” which would include Wolf) among the witnesses.

If the Court believes that parol evidence should be considered, Mr. Biden requests an evidentiary hearing in which all participants in the negotiation of the Diversion Agreement, including Mr. Weiss and the responsible members of his prosecution team, can be called as witnesses to address the extensive recapitulation provided in Mr. Clark’s Declaration.

Even in the discovery motion, Lowell doesn’t provide a list of things like the one that David Judd’s attorney included in hers.

Instead, he simply points to the October 8 and November 15 discovery requests he already made and describes that Weiss’ team responded with silence.

On October 8, 2023 and November 15, 2023, as well as in follow-up correspondence on November 15, Mr. Biden wrote to the prosecution with tailored and enumerated discovery requests, many of which are routine in a criminal defense case such as this one. 2 The October 8 requests included customary Rule 16 discovery requests and 19 specific requests under Brady, Agurs, Giglio, and the Fifth Amendment, Rule 26/Jencks Act and similar requests. These requests have largely been met with silence and will be the subject of a motion to compel should this case proceed. However, the November 15, 2023 requests as well as the motion for Rule 17 subpoenas filed that same day seek information bearing directly on the issues addressed in the motions to dismiss filed concurrently herewith—selective and vindictive prosecution, political interference, and separation of powers concerns. The prosecution has not responded to or addressed these requests by Mr. Biden in any fashion. During a meet and confer phone call on December 1, 2023, Mr. Biden’s counsel even asked Messrs. Wise and Hines for a status update of the prosecution’s discovery, and specifically whether the government intended to make any additional productions in the near-term or respond to our various discovery request letters, to which Mr. Hines responded that the government would “let the discovery stand for itself.”3 [my emphasis]

The November 15 discovery request is similar to the subpoena request from the same day (which Lowell invokes in footnote 3), though it includes any communications discussing an investigation of Hunter that involve Geoffrey Berman as well.

1. All documents and records reflecting communications from January 20, 2017 to the present (the “Relevant Time Period”) to, from, between, or among Donald J. Trump, William P. Barr, Geoffrey Berman, Scott W. Brady, Richard Donoghue, or Jeffrey A. Rosen relating to or discussing any formal or informal investigation or prosecution of Hunter Biden, or a request thereof.

2. All documents and records reflecting communications from the Relevant Time Period to, from, between, or among Donald J. Trump, William P. Barr, Geoffrey Berman, Scott W. Brady, Richard Donoghue, or Jeffrey A. Rosen and any Executive Branch official, political appointee, Department of Justice official, government agency, government official or staff person, cabinet member, or attorney for President Trump (personal or other) discussing or concerning Hunter Biden.

SDNY investigated both Hunter and James Biden as part of their investigation into Patrick Ho and Gal Luft, so there may be communications between Berman and Weiss on that topic. Berman’s investigation of Lev Parnas would have covered the October 2019 meeting at which Parnas believed he’d receive laptop-based dirt from a Burisma associate. Plus, Berman would have been told to stand down on Rudy Giuliani’s December 5, 2019 meeting with Andrii Derkach, in deference to Richard Donoghue. His book describes that those discussions were quite heated.

The October 8 request is — as Lowell claims — more conventional (at least on its face). It asks for the evidence Weiss has about Hunter’s addiction. It asks for affidavits in support of warrants. And some of that — a request for communications on the drafting of the plea agreement and stats on prosecutions of these gun charges — definitely would support Lowell’s motions to dismiss.

There are unsurprising additions, such as any communications regarding leaks to the press, including through cut-outs (which is how I think the October 6, 2022 leak happened).

Any documents and/or information reflecting communications between anyone in your Office or any member of the investigative team or their supervisors (including FBI and IRS agents) with any member of the press or public concerning the investigation, and any documents and/or information reflecting leaks of information concerning the investigation or prosecution of Mr. Biden to the press, any private person, or any government official or employee who was not authorized to receive such disclosure.

Sure, this likely aims to discover whether Shapley and Ziegler had any role, including through cut-outs, in the leaks in this case. But as I noted in my post on that NYT story, there are several claims in it attributed to a “senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the situation” who claimed to have knowledge of things only David Weiss would know.

Then there are things that look innocuous, but might be particularly problematic for Weiss. Given my suggestion above that there may be documentation of a claim that Weiss told an associate he didn’t want to charge Hunter at all, a collection of all the communications anyone in his office had with lawyers for Hunter might pose hazards for this prosecution.

Any documents and/or information reflecting communications between anyone in your Office and any attorney representing Mr. Biden from the onset of the investigation to June 20, 2023.

Normally, when someone takes over a case from a prior defense attorney, they usually get the case file from their predecessor. Lowell would be expected to ask Clark for this. But there are at least two other sets of lawyers who would have been involved (including an investigative interview with George Mesires), which would justify this request. Complying with this request would involve Principal Senior Assistant Special Counsel Leo Wise seeing communications that David Weiss may have attempted to use him to sheep dip from this prosecution.

Then there’s a request for 302s.

A. Any draft FBI-302s, FD-1023s or interview memoranda describing such interviews.

B. Any requests by investigating agents or members of the Department of Justice to edit, revise, or otherwise change the content of any 302 or interview memorandum

This would include the FD-1023s from Peter Schweizer and the Zlochevsky informant, the 302 from Luft, as well as the draft 302 from Tony Bobulinski (and any record that DOJ intervened to prevent its completion), at least three of which Wolf attempted to keep from investigators.

Weiss may be imaging he can withhold these based on a claim that the gun charge doesn’t implicate these documents pertaining to politicized witnesses, and normally he’d be right. Except Judge Noreika already permitted Jason Smith to file an amicus, including protected grand jury materials, based in part on the argument that this has gotten so much publicity already. Plus, in both Jack Smith’s prosecutions of the former President and the serial treatment of Mike Flynn, there is arguably support for sharing such information (I asked Weiss’ spox if his team would adhere to the discovery approaches in those cases and got no response whatsoever to my question).

Finally, there are communications with Congress.

Any documents and/or information reflecting communications between any Member of Congress, Committee or Subcommittee of Congress, or congressional staff and any person at the U.S. Department of Justice, including your Office, concerning the investigation or prosecution of Mr. Biden, including the decision to bring any particular charges.

This would include the letter, cited in the selective MTD, that Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson sent in 2021 regarding any gun charges against Hunter.

It would include the many letters sent to Merrick Garland.

It would also include the transcripts of the many interviews — including Brady, Thibault, from Lesley Wolf last week, and from Weiss himself — Jim Jordan did. At least some of those were shared with DOJ for an accuracy review. And in Weiss’ transcript, he made a claim that has already been rebutted in Chris Clark’s declaration, in which he described Weiss’ First AUSA saying there was no ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden.

This is an area where the Jack Smith precedent may be pertinent: in a response to Trump’s demand to subpoena Congress (which Lowell doesn’t do), Thomas Windom revealed that Smith shared 260 January 6 Committee transcripts with Trump. Jim Jordan has spent five months quizzing almost every member of the Hunter Biden investigative team about whether there was political interference on this case, which seems to make it relevant for any litigation about Congress’ usurpation of David Weiss’ role.

Normally, none of this would be discoverable and Principal Senior Assistant Special Counsel Leo Wise is likely to come back and say it is Jencks, which only will be relevant if these witnesses testify.

As I keep saying, normally none of this goes anywhere. I am assuredly not saying this will work.

What I am trying to lay out is that Lowell is going about via different tactics, in part by arguing this known proof of political interference is Brady (Brady about Brady!), not just evidence of selective prosecution hidden behind 48 invocations of Armstrong.

If Lowell prevails with his argument — his strongest argument, in my opinion — that Hunter is immune from prosecution on the gun charges, none of this may matter (until Lowell makes the same argument in Los Angeles, before a different Trump appointed judge). But once you get into the argument about improper influence on this case, David Weiss might begin to hear footsteps.

Hunter Biden Twice Alleges that “Laptop” Data was “Stolen” from Him

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Amid the shoddy coverage of Hunter Biden’s press conference and the impeachment vote yesterday, a detail got missed.

In both his press conference and in a motion to dismiss submitted Monday, Hunter alleged that “personal information … was stolen from me.”

James Comer, Jim Jordan, Jason Smith, and their colleagues have distorted the facts by cherry picking lines from a bank statement, manipulating texts I sent, editing the testimony of my friends and former business partners, and misstating personal information that was stolen from me. [my emphasis]

Some of the other false statements he accuses the GOP Chairmen of making are readily identifiable. For example, Abbe Lowell has scolded Smith for altering some WhatsApp texts several times. In the same Lowell letter, he complains about a misrepresentation Smith made from Rob Walker’s 302.

But it’s unclear what personal information Hunter is referencing.

In the motion to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution, Abbe Lowell is more clear about who — if not what — he’s discussing: It’s Rudy.

And just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Giuliani obtained stolen electronic data from Mr. Biden and disseminated its purported contents (as well as manipulating some of it) in an attempt to create a media spectacle and undermine his President Biden’s political campaign. [my emphasis]

This is consistent with — though far stronger than — the allegation made in the lawsuit against Rudy and Robert Costello, that the men hacked his data. Rudy claims to be broke (and could be far broker once the Ruby Freeman jury, which is about to start deliberating, comes back), and is struggling to keep lawyers. Costello is not; I can’t assume Hunter would make this claim if he’s not prepared to back it up.

But if Lowell is alleging that Congress — which, best as I understand it, got a hard drive from “the laptop” from John Paul Mac Isaac — was “misstating personal information that was stolen from me,” it would not implicate Rudy. That version of the hard drive wouldn’t have gone through Rudy. It might implicate the blind computer repairman, though that claim is not part of Hunter’s countersuit of JPMI.

It could implicate the way in which the laptop was packaged up. The latter is where I’ve always suspected the potentially worst theft may have happened, but Hunter’s team has never alleged that publicly.

Whichever it is, Hunter’s evil Doppelganger Rudy has been wailing about “the laptop” at Ruby Freeman’s defamation trial. If Hunter’s team has more certainty about the way in which his data was stolen, that would be significant news.

Update: In the selective and vindictive prosecution motion, Hunter also said the dick pics were unlawfully obtained.

Setting a new low for the standards of decency in Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene used an official Oversight Committee proceeding to gratuitously display blown-up sexually explicit and lewd photos—albeit unlawfully obtained—of Mr. Biden under a guise that fooled no one that her actions had something to do with “legislating.” 14

Garanimals in a SCIF: David Weiss’ Attempt to Sheep Dip Bill Barr’s Hunter Biden Prosecution

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On July 11, 2023, David Weiss’ First AUSA Shannon Hanson responded to an inquiry from Judge Maryanne Noreika’s courtroom deputy, Mark Buckson. He wanted to know when “the final versions of the documents” pertaining to the Hunter Biden plea deal would be completed. Hanson responded within five minutes. Before she explained that she didn’t know when they’d have the final documents, but hoped to have them to Judge Noreika by Thursday (so July 13), she described that, “I will be speaking with the team later today (I understand they are in a secure location and cannot readily be contacted at the moment.”

Hanson was describing “the team” — she had cc’ed Delaware AUSA Benjamin Wallace and Baltimore AUSAs Leo Wise and Derek Hines — as something of which she was not a part. And she was describing that team as being in a SCIF.

Hunter Biden’s attorneys included the email with their motion to dismiss based on an argument that the diversion agreement Hunter signed prohibits the indictment charging him with three gun charges. The email shows that the final documents filed with the court on July 20, by Wallace, had just one change from the version submitted on June 8, by Hanson. Wallace explained:

The parties and Probation have agreed to revisions to the diversion agreement to more closely match the conditions of pretrial release that Probation recommended in the pretrial services report issued yesterday.

Hunter’s team submitted it to show that, following the Probation Office’s recommendation of Hunter for diversion on July 19, the parties submitted it as a finished agreement.

This motion makes a strong argument that the government entered into an agreement with Hunter for which he sacrificed his rights — including by allocuting to the facts regarding the gun purchase — and therefore must honor the contractual protections it offered to get Hunter to sacrifice those rights.

Indeed, in a footnote it goes further than that: it argues that because the immunity agreement language was in the gun diversion, all the charges tied to the informations that were before Noreika are barred, including the tax charges filed in California.

7 Although the only charges now before the Court are the gun charges in the prosecution’s lone Indictment of Mr. Biden in this District, Mr. Biden notes that the sweeping immunity of the Diversion Agreement would seem to bar any plausible charge that could be brought against him (including the recently filed tax charges in California). The only charges that are not be barred by the immunity provision are those filed in the pre-existing Informations filed against him in this District. The Diversion Agreement called for the eventual dismissal of the gun charge Information upon the conclusion of the diversion period, but the prosecution already has dismissed it. Although the Plea Agreement was not accepted on the misdemeanor tax charge Information, the prosecution has dismissed that Information as well. Consequently, the Diversion Agreement’s immunity for gun and tax-related charges would bar any similar charge from now being filed. This sweeping immunity may make it difficult for the prosecutors to appease Mr. Trump and the Republican congressmen who have criticized them, but this is the deal that the prosecutors made and it reflects their choice to place the immunity provision in the Diversion Agreement.

I’m less certain that’ll fly, but it’s a hint of where things are headed in California.

That’s what the documents show with regards to the motion to dismiss, which I’ve always said is probably Hunter’s best argument to have the indictment dismissed.

But the documents are as interesting for what they show of David Weiss’ attempt to sheep dip this prosecution — to give it a virgin birth under the direction of now-Principal Senior Assistant Special Counsel Leo Wise or, as Joseph Ziegler’s attorney described it when he invited the disgruntled IRS agent to explain how irreplaceable he was, to replace one Garanimal with another.

Mr. Zerbe. I want to make sure — you made one point. I think you need to clarify it for him. He asked if the case is going forward. I think for everybody here, explain though that it’s not just kind of Garanimals where they can swap you in and out. Talk about, you not being on the case, you have to put somebody in new, but kind of how that impacts. I just want you to understand that.

Mr. [Ziegler]. So what’s frustrating — and I think it’s obvious is he removed two of the people who have been challenging and been kind of like this is the — we’re trying to do the right thing, we’re trying to do the right thing. And it was kind of like we got loud enough, and they found an avenue to remove us. I have been told by so many people on this case that we’re where we are today because of my work. It’s 5 years of an investigation. You can’t just pick up that and move it onto someone else. And if they removed all the prosecutors, DOJ Tax, and had a brand-new team, I would understand that completely if that’s the decision that they made. But they just removed us.

Ziegler made that comment on June 1. And he was right, at that point — as he sat in a room making claims about Lesley Wolf’s conduct that documents he himself released almost four months later would substantially debunk — that “they” had not yet “removed all the prosecutors.” But they would, within days.

As Chris Clark described in his declaration describing plea negotiations, that same day, June 1, Lesley Wolf invited Clark to come to the US Attorney’s Office the next day to work on the plea agreement, in part so they could share language with David Weiss in real time.

20. On June 1, 2023, AUSA Wolf sent me an email inviting me to meet at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wilmington on June 2 to work together on the agreements’ specific language and provisions. The idea was for the AUSAs and defense counsel to be in the same room with access to U.S. Attorney Weiss, so that the terms could be worked out. A true and correct copy of AUSA Wolf’s June 1, 2023, email to Chris Clark is attached hereto as Exhibit H.

21. On June 2, 2023, co-counsel Matthew Salerno and I went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wilmington, where the USAO presented us with its draft of a new Diversion Agreement, along with a draft Plea Agreement. This was the first time that we had seen the USAO’s draft Agreements. Each draft Agreement was accompanied by a broad and lengthy Statement of Facts, each of which had been drafted solely by the USAO in advance of the June 2 meeting. At this meeting, AUSA Wolf expressed the view that it was in Mr. Biden’s interest to have broad Statements of Facts included because the scope of immunity (under Paragraph 15 of the Diversion Agreement) would be tied to the Statements of Facts. The Agreement included a more limited immunity provision than I had discussed with AUSA Wolf or that Mr. Biden would accept. Among the revisions, during or shortly after that June 2 meeting, references to tax liability for years 2016 and 2019 were specifically added to the Plea Agreement’s Statement of Facts.

22. The AUSAs and we took turns working on the specific language of each Agreement—with AUSA Wolf running the changes by Office leadership, including U.S. Attorney Weiss. No final agreement was reached that day, and the meeting concluded with the AUSAs agreeing that the USAO would work on composing acceptable language on an immunity provision.

23. That same evening (Friday June 2), at or around 9:43 PM EST, I emailed AUSA Wolf, copying my co-counsel, and proposed one revision to Paragraph 15 of the Diversion Agreement (the provision governing immunity): that Paragraph 15 provide that “The United States agrees not to criminally prosecute Biden, outside the terms of this Agreement, for any federal crimes arising from the conduct generally described in the attached Statement of Facts (attachment A) and the Statement of Facts attached as Exhibit 1 to the Memorandum of Plea Agreement filed this same day.” (Emphasis added.) In the email, I advised AUSA Wolf that it was “very critical for us” that the Diversion Agreement include “[t]his language or its functional equivalent.” A true and correct copy of Chris Clark’s June 2, 2023, email to AUSA Wolf, copying co-counsel, is attached hereto as Exhibit I. [emphasis original]

Wolf was still on the team when — after Clark spoke with Weiss directly on June 6 about the importance of protecting Hunter from any further legal exposure — she sent Clark new language seemingly addressing Clark’s concerns about the immunity language.

28. After extensive discussion with AUSA Wolf in which she repeatedly stated that U.S. Attorney Weiss was unwilling to revise the language of the Agreement’s immunity provision, I conveyed that if this language could not be revised, we would not have a deal and that it was the most important term in the Agreement that Mr. Biden get finality. Accordingly, I requested to speak directly with U.S. Attorney Weiss, whom I was told was the person deciding the issues of the Agreement. Later that afternoon, on June 6, 2023, I spoke directly with U.S. Attorney Weiss. During that call, I conveyed to U.S. Attorney Weiss that the Agreement’s immunity provision must ensure Mr. Biden that there would be finality and closure of this investigation, as I had conveyed repeatedly to AUSA Wolf during our negotiations. I further conveyed to U.S. Attorney Weiss that this provision was a deal-breaker. I noted that U.S. Attorney Weiss had changed the deal several times heretofore, and that I simply could not have this issue be yet another one which Mr. Biden had to compromise. The U.S. Attorney asked me what the problem was with the proposed language, and I explained that the immunity provision must protect Mr. Biden from any future prosecution by a new U.S. Attorney in a different administration. The U.S. Attorney considered the proposal and stated that he would get back to me promptly.

29. Later that same evening on June 6, 2023, at or around 5:47 PM EST, AUSA Wolf emailed me proposed language for the immunity provision that read: “How about this- The United States agrees not to criminally prosecute Biden, outside of the terms of this Agreement, for any federal crimes encompassed by the attached Statement of Facts (Attachment A) and the Statement of Facts attached as Exhibit 1 to the Memorandum of Plea Agreement filed this same day.” (Emphasis in original.) After speaking with Mr. Biden, I responded to AUSA Wolf that the language she sent me “works” and is suitable for Mr. Biden as well, at which point the Parties had a deal. A true and correct and correct copy of AUSA Wolf’s June 6, 2023, email to Chris Clark is attached hereto as Exhibit K. [all emphasis in Clark’s declaration]

And Wolf was still on the team on June 8, the day when the documents were first filed with the court.

That is, Wolf was still on the team when Jim Jordan and Bill Barr had already intervened in the case.

Wolf was still on the prosecutorial team — and negotiating a plea deal that would have ruled out FARA charges — on June 7.

That’s the same day Weiss sent the first response, to a May 25 letter Jim Jordan sent Merrick Garland about the IRS agents’ complaints of being removed from the investigation. In it, he cited Rod Rosenstein’s explanation to Chuck Grassley in 2018 how congressional interference might politicize an investigation (in that case, the Mueller investigation).

The information sought by the Committee concerns an open matter about which the Department is not at liberty to respond. As then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote in 2018 in response to a request for information from the Honorable Charles Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary:

Congressional inquiries during the pendency of a matter pose an inherent threat to the integrity of the Department’s law enforcement and litigation functions. Such inquiries inescapably create the risk that the public and the courts will perceive undue political and Congressional influence over law enforcement and litigation decision.

[snip]

Weiss might claim that he replaced Wolf with Wise and in the process had Wise reassess the prior prosecutorial decisions. But, given the date of that letter, there was never a moment he had done so before the political pressure started. David Weiss cannot claim he did so before being pressured by Jim Jordan.

And Jordan’s letter wasn’t the only political pressure. On the same day that Weiss said he couldn’t share information — the likes of which Shapley had already started sharing — because it might politicize an ongoing investigation, Bill Barr (one of the people Lowell wants to subpoena) publicly intervened in the case, insisting the FD-1023 recording Mykola Zlochevsky making a new allegation of bribery had been a live investigative lead when it was shared with Weiss in October 2020, the FD-1023 Weiss specifically said he could not address because it was part of an ongoing investigation.

On a day when Lesley Wolf remained on the case, both Jordan and Barr had already intervened. And because there was never a time that Weiss had replaced Wolf with Wise before the political pressure started, there was little time he had done so before the physical threats followed the political pressure.

But June 8 — the day the plea deal first got shared with the court — was the last day that Lesley Wolf shows up in Clark’s timeline.

She wasn’t removed for misconduct. In his testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, Weiss agreed that Wolf, “did her work on the Hunter Biden matter in a professional and unbiased manner without partisan or political considerations.” He said,

I believe she did. As I said, she served the Department for more than 16 years, and I believe her to be a prosecutor with integrity.

But per Michael Batdorf, she was, nevertheless, replaced.

On June 19, Principal Senior Assistant Special Counsel Leo Wise made his first appearance. Joseph Ziegler, a disgruntled IRS agent spreading false hearsay claims, succeeded in getting Wolf replaced.

That same day, June 19, Hanson requested that Clark modify the statement he was going to release. But, in a phone call, she told him that there was no pending investigation against Hunter Biden.

35. On June 19, 2023, at 2:53 PM EST, after I had a phone call with AUSA Hanson indicating I would do so, I emailed AUSA Hanson a proposed press statement to accompany the public release of both Informations that read, in part, “I can confirm that the five-year long, extensive federal investigation into my client, Hunter Biden, has been concluded through agreements with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware.” (Emphases added.) A true and correct copy of Chris Clark’s June 19, 2023, email to AUSA Hanson is attached hereto as Exhibit P.

36. Shortly after that email, I had another phone call with AUSA Hanson, during which AUSA Hanson requested that the language of Mr. Biden’s press statement be slightly revised. She proposed saying that the investigation would be “resolved” rather than “concluded.” I then asked her directly whether there was any other open or pending investigation of Mr. Biden overseen by the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, and she responded there was not another open or pending investigation. Thereafter, at 4:18 PM EST that day, I sent AUSA Hanson a revised statement that read: “With the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved.” (Emphases added.) The new statement revised the language from “concluded” to “resolved,” a stylistic change that meant the same thing. A true and correct copy of Chris Clark’s June 19, 2023, email to AUSA Hanson is attached hereto as Exhibit Q [Clark’s italics, my bold]

I hope to hell Clark has notes of that conversation, because the assertion that there was no pending investigation of Hunter Biden on June 19 directly conflicts with a claim that David Weiss made to the House Judiciary Committee.

On November 7, David Weiss repeated a claim his office made when they first announced the deal: that it was ongoing. “I can say that at no time was it coming to a close,” Weiss told the House Judiciary Committee. “I think, as I stated in the one statement I made at the time … the investigation was continuing. So it wasn’t ending there in any event.”

That is, Weiss’ First AUSA, Shannon Hanson, allegedly told Clark something that directly conflicts with something Weiss said to Congress.

That may be why Abbe Lowell, while arguing that no hearing is necessary to dismiss the indictment based on the contract that existed between the government and Hunter Biden, said that if Judge Noreika thinks she does need a hearing, then to please have David Weiss prepared to testify as a witness.

If the Court believes that parol evidence should be considered, Mr. Biden requests an evidentiary hearing in which all participants in the negotiation of the Diversion Agreement, including Mr. Weiss and the responsible members of his prosecution team, can be called as witnesses to address the extensive recapitulation provided in Mr. Clark’s Declaration.

It’s going to be a lot harder for Weiss to claim that US Attorneys-turned-Special Counsels can’t testify when he was willing to testify to Congress.

This is undoubtedly why Lowell asked to be able to subpoena Bill Barr’s communications, through the present, about the Hunter Biden investigation — a version of which he made in formal discovery as well (Lowell also noted Barr’s recent comments on the investigation in the selective and vindictive prosecution MTD). Because Bill Barr intervened in this case before such time as Wolf was apparently removed and replaced by Principal Senior Assistant Special Counsel Leo Wise. Barr intervened publicly, and given Wise’s concerns about DOJ materials in the possession of former DOJ employees in his response to that subpoena request, it seems acutely likely that Weiss recognizes that Barr intervened in a way that shared privileged information.

Likewise, specific regulations govern the disclosure of DOJ materials in the possession of former DOJ employees, and the government is unable to assess the applicability or propriety of disclosure without identification of the specific documents. See 28 C.F.R. § 16.26 (outlining considerations governing appropriateness of disclosure); see generally 28 C.F.R. pt. 16, subpt. B (proscribing Touhy regulations for disclosure of official materials, including those held by former DOJ employees); United States ex rel. Touhy v. Ragen, 340 U.S. 462 (1951). Only once those materials are specifically identified can the government assess the appropriateness of disclosure, including whether such materials are privileged

Worse still, per Weiss’ testimony in November, this effort to mine the investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky that Barr personally orchestrated remains ongoing — or remained ongoing until such time, CNN recently reported, as it closed the investigation into Zlochevsky’s changed statements about the Bidens around the same time DOJ’s criminal investigation into him was closed down by Bill Barr’s DOJ.

When Steve Castor asked about the FD-1023 that, per Chuck Grassley, was the result of Scott Brady’s effort to mine the recently closed Zlochevsky investigation, David Weiss responded that it was part of an ongoing investigation.

Q Are you familiar — let’s mark this as the next exhibit — with an FD-1023 dated June 30, 2020, summarizing a confidential human sources meeting with Burisma executives during which they discussed bribes allegedly paid to Joe Biden and Hunter Biden?

A I’m sorry. What was your question about this document?

Q Are you familiar with this?

A I’m not going to comment on that. I appreciate your question, but it concerns a matter that is subject to an outstanding investigation. It’s something that I absolutely cannot comment on either way. [my emphasis]

This is why I’m interested in Hanson’s description that “the team” was in the SCIF on July 11. Wise and Hynes are — or were, until getting their big promotion to Senior Assistant Special Counsels — Baltimore AUSAs. There’s no reason for them to be in SCIF together with Wallace except on the Hunter Biden case. There is no conceivable classified information in the two Hunter Biden indictments (one, two).

But on July 10 — the day before Hanson said “the team” was in a SCIF — Weiss told Lindsey Graham that the FD-1023 was part of an ongoing investigation. And on November 7, Weiss told Steve Castor that it was part of an ongoing investigation.

And the possibility of a FARA charge is what Leo Wise used on July 26 to blow up an investigation that — as of June 19 — was done.

There is a good deal of reason to believe that David Weiss used the effort Bill Barr set up four years ago to launder dirt from Russian spies into the Hunter Biden investigation as an excuse, after private citizen Barr had intervened in this investigation, to reopen the investigation after Republicans demanded it.

Documents

Motion to dismiss because the diversion agreement prohibits the gun charges

What Might Happen If Hunter Biden Refuses to Testify (Behind Closed Doors)

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Update: Hunter did, as I supposed here, show up in DC only to make a public statement. 

Because a dumbass Congressman from Kentucky has not told Hill journalists what was in Hunter Biden’s motions to dismiss the other day, at least some of them have no conceivable way of knowing what’s in there, much less the specifics.

As I noted, along with the selective prosecution claim that Katy Tur was sure was the totality of it and the vindictive prosecution that was also obvious, Abbe Lowell also argued that the House GOP has usurped DOJ’s prosecutorial authority and effectively forced David Weiss to charge Hunter Biden with 6 felonies.

No one appears to know whether Hunter Biden will show up for his scheduled 9:30 deposition today, and if he does, whether he’ll do the thing virtually all defense attorneys would advise — to simply invoke the Fifth — or whether he’ll just refuse to answer questions unless a live camera is rolling. But if he does anything but invoke the Fifth, that separation of powers claim is going to take on vastly new significance.

Before I explain why, let me first talk about some wild coincidences. First, Hunter filed the motions to dismiss on Monday, two days before this subpoena, based off a requested schedule change Abbe Lowell made on October 13 and Judge Maryanne Noreika approved on October 19. James Comer sent Hunter the subpoena, setting today’s date and time, back on November 8. According to reports, only in recent weeks have Comer and Jim Jordan and Speaker Mike Johnson decided they’ll hold the vote to authorize the impeachment inquiry that is one of two bases on which Comer issued the subpoena to Hunter this afternoon — after the scheduled time for the deposition that has been scheduled for over a month. And the suit that resulted, yesterday, in NY’s top court issuing an order for redistricting by February was first filed on June 28, 2022; Dave Wasserman says the decision could endanger the seats of five GOP Congressmen, as well as flipping the seat recently vacated by George Santos.

Abbe Lowell didn’t mastermind those coincidences. In fact, Speaker Mike was the one who made the only recent decision: to schedule the impeachment inquiry vote that would give more legal authority for the subpoena issued to Hunter on November 8, for after the scheduled Hunter deposition. On December 6 — the day after Speaker Mike decided to schedule an impeachment inquiry vote — Comer and Jordan sent a letter threatening to initiate contempt proceedings, “If Mr. Biden does not appear for his deposition on December 13.” But Congress is scheduled to leave town tomorrow and this Congress claims to have a rule that members get notice before any votes.

Republicans say they have the votes to approve the inquiry. Maybe they do! Maybe they still do after the redistricting decision! If that’s right, it’ll be one of the only votes the GOP has managed to pass in the entire year of their majority without Democratic votes. Quite literally, the only thing the GOP would have accomplished in a year would be to start an impeachment inquiry that virtually all sentient beings admit is based on no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.

But if Hunter Biden does anything but plead the Fifth (or testify), that impeachment vote will have been cast after Comer refused what he offered a few weeks ago: an offer for Hunter to testify publicly.

Similarly, a contempt vote — a second contentious vote for those five NY Congressmen and others in Biden districts — would be held after Comer refused what he has boisterously said was sufficient: public testimony. It’ll come from Jim Jordan, not exactly the model for principled use of contempt to enforce Congressional subpoenas. Even so, Trump will exert a great deal of pressure to pass a contempt vote, even on those five NY Congressmen facing an even tougher reelect battle. Let’s assume it passes! All that would make still more clear that this Congress only exists to serve the beck and call of Donald Trump, not Members’ constituents.

If the House held Hunter Biden in contempt, Merrick Garland’s DOJ would likely do what he always does: give it to a Special Counsel. And there’s already a Special Counsel prosecuting closely related issues. Doing anything but giving it to David Weiss would signal all sorts of confidence or legitimacy problems with his authority, even if they’re merited.

If David Weiss were to receive a contempt referral from the House, he’d be looking at what might be a clearcut case of contempt (particularly if Hunter simply doesn’t show up). Based on the Steve Bannon precedent, there’d be a great deal of pressure to charge Hunter Biden with contempt. But that would result in Weiss doing precisely what Hunter’s motion to dismiss accuses him of already: prosecuting him because Congress demanded he do so, prosecuting him to show up for an inquiry that has, over and over, made claims — mostly unsubstantiated — about crimes Hunter allegedly committed. As the motion to dismiss described it,

Many members of Congress, including the last Speaker of the House, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and the Chairman of the Ways & Means Committee are actively interfering with DOJ’s investigation, using their authority to pressure and malign DOJ, and using congressional committees limited to investigating government agencies to conduct a criminal investigation of private conduct by a private citizen— one they are conducting based on a publicly stated presumption of guilt.

On its face, contempt would be justified. Except Congress has not hidden their belief that they are pursuing — this deposition was meant to investigate — crimes they imagine Hunter Biden committed.

Venue would be in DC. And while blowing off a subpoena might be an easy question for a DC jury (it was in the Bannon and Peter Navarro cases), in his communications with Congress, Lowell has established that:

  • He offered to cooperate starting in February
  • He repeatedly raised false claims Congress had made about Hunter
  • Hunter offered to testify in public, which Comer offered then retracted

And that’s before you consider that the subpoena was issued prior to an impeachment resolution, but any contempt trial would happen after an impeachment resolution would have made it clear that this always was about impeachment.

I don’t know how this turns out today. But there’s a distinct possibility that it will result in demonstrating precisely what Abbe Lowell has laid out in one of his motions to dismiss. There’s a distinct possibility that the actions Comer and Jordan take today will provide yet more evidence Hunter will use to argue that the entire case must be dismissed.

I’m not saying it’ll work! I am laying out the dynamic exacerbated by a bunch of coincidences that even Abbe Lowell couldn’t have planned.

In Motion to Dismiss, Hunter Biden Accuses House GOP of Separation of Powers Violation

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It’ll take me a few days to get through the pile of motions to dismiss Hunter Biden filed yesteday.

As I noted, I think the challenge to his gun charges based on a claim that the diversion agreement remains valid is strong. I think both the challenge to the constitutionality of the gun charge and the challenge to David Weiss’ appointment are designed to create appealable issues — I really hate the appointment challenge, but Republicans might love it. While strong, the selective and vindictive prosecution motion likely still isn’t strong enough to get by the near-impossible standard set for such things.

While I suspected we’d see some version of all of those (I expected a different challenge to Weiss’ Special Counsel appointment, given that he has admitted no political officers have or are supervising him), there’s something I didn’t expect, at least not in this form: a claim, as part of the selective and vindictive prosecution claim, that Congress has impermissibly usurped DOJ’s role in Hunter Biden’s prosecution.

Altogether, between two or three different passages, the filing spends over ten pages (of almost 70) cataloging House GOP interference (footnotes omitted):

Republican Members of Congress were quick to take credit for sabotaging Mr. Weiss’s proposed Plea Agreement, celebrating the end of the deal as their doing. House Oversight Committee Chairman Comer declared outside the Capitol: “I think that you’re seeing our investigation that’s shined a light on the many wrongdoings of the Biden family has picked up a lot of credibility today, because now we see that there are a lot of crimes that this family’s committed and that played out in court today.”29 Chairman Smith told Fox News that afternoon “justice has been served,”30 and later said: “Announcement of a special counsel only happened because congressional GOP exposed the two-tiered judicial system by shining light onto the investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged financial crimes & the political interference that shielded both him & POTUS from scrutiny.”31 See infra Section I.A. (discussing congressional admissions of interference with DOJ). And now these same Republican leaders are praising the new tax charges that were just piled on in California (years after DOJ had the relevant facts and after it agreed to resolve them with a plea to misdemeanor offenses), while simultaneously criticizing them as an effort to “protect” Mr. Biden and demanding even more charges.32

In other words, these officials have (1) accused DOJ of trying to protect Mr. Biden by resisting calls to investigate him based on baseless accusations in the first place, (2) criticized DOJ for declining to charge him with a crime for which no similarly situated person would be charged, (3) claimed credit for Mr. Weiss caving to their pressure and forcing Mr. Biden to enter a Plea Agreement he should never have had to consider, (4) claiming credit for Mr. Weiss subsequently yielding to their pressure and scrapping that plea deal, (5) boasting that the appointment of a Special Counsel (which those officials had demanded for years) was their doing , and (6) declaring they were the cause for Mr. Weiss now bringing misdemeanor and felony tax charges DOJ had not believed were warranted until they intervened. This ludicrous and shameless behavior would be comical if it were not so deeply unfair to Mr. Biden, embarrassing to the country, and offensive to the concept of justice. It is overwhelmingly clear that nothing the Justice Department could charge Mr. Biden with, no matter how unjustified, would satisfy these officials, which is no surprise given that their real objective is to attack the President and the Democratic Party before an election. 33

In sum, politicians and public officials at war with their political rivals are flouting separation of powers to intentionally interfere with the Executive Branch’s handling of this case, and the casualties are Mr. Biden’s constitutional rights, any objective appearance of fairness, and public confidence in the justice system. DOJ is responsible for preventing this, but the agency was bullied into investigating Mr. Biden in the first place and now everything the agency does (or does not to) earns it condemnation and reprisal.

Relying on a losing effort to make a similar argument, Abbe Lowell argued that the things that decision said would amount to a separation of powers violation exists here.

Here, however, the scale tips the other way. A lone congressman is not just cajoling and exhorting. Many members of Congress, including the last Speaker of the House, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and the Chairman of the Ways & Means Committee are actively interfering with DOJ’s investigation, using their authority to pressure and malign DOJ, and using congressional committees limited to investigating government agencies to conduct a criminal investigation of private conduct by a private citizen— one they are conducting based on a publicly stated presumption of guilt. They have gone as far as releasing agents’ entire investigative file during the investigation. Their actions have overcome Special Counsel Weiss’s independent judgment, causing him to abandon the very resolution of this case that he proposed prior to their pressure. As noted above, these Republican House Members have publicly claimed credit for causing Special Counsel Weiss to cave under their pressure. See supra Section IV (discussing congressional interference).105 There was no such evidence in Mardis.

[snip]

Congress has intruded on the executive function to an extent that only dismissal of these charges can cure, and DOJ has abdicated its responsibility and pledge to prevent it from doing so. The Court should not hesitate to step in and safeguard Mr. Biden’s rights, the independence of purity of government, and the integrity of the justice system.

105 Because the Congress and DOJ are both part of the United States Government which prosecutes a criminal defendant, there is “no difference between prejudicial publicity instigated by the United States through its executive arm and prejudicial publicity instigated by the United States through its legislative arm.” Delaney v. United States, 199 F.2d 107, 114 (1st Cir. 1952). “Pretrial publicity originating in Congress, therefore, can be attributed to the Government as a whole and can require postponement or other modification of the prosecution on due process grounds.” 10 Opinions Of The Office Of Legal Counsel Of The United States Department Of Justice 77 (1993) (April 28, 1986, Statement of Charles J. Cooper, Deputy Asst. Att’y Gen., Off. of Legal Counsel).

As always, the chances any of this works are really slim. And given how Judge Maryanne Noreika dealt with an amicus filing that Jason Smith submitted (mentioned in the brief), I doubt she’ll look too kindly on the argument.

Some of this is absolutely correct: Trump can be gagged to ensure a fair trial process. Yet not only aren’t Congress parties to these prosecutions (so they couldn’t be gagged), but under Speech and Debate, there’s almost no way that a judge could silence them.

But there is similarly a real risk that Hunter Biden could never get a fair trial, because the GOP has generated a non-stop media blitz claiming he is guilty of things for which there’s not a shred of evidence.

It will take months for this to be resolved. But it bears notice, the day before Hunter is due to appear for a subpoena, that it’s a key part of the argument here.