Senator Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) is requesting an investigation into Hunter Biden’s legal team after a judge admonished his attorneys for allegedly deceiving court officials to have key documents pulled from public view.
Delaware US District Judge Maryellen Noreika released an order on Friday saying she had “concerns about apparent misrepresentations” by the first son’s legal team in his tax case.
A former colleague of Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark, Jessica Bengels, of New York-based firm Latham & Watkins, was accused by House Ways and Means Committee chief counsel Theodore Kittila of telling the clerk’s office she was from his firm to convince them to take down the committee’s amicus brief.
“I write to you regarding the apparent unethical conduct of members of the New York State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar. As you know, the cornerstone of the legal profession is ethics,” Ricketts wrote in a letter to courts in New York and Washington DC on Saturday.
“All legal professionals, lawyers and non-lawyers alike, are expected to maintain strict standards for the protection of colleagues, clients, and the court,” Ricketts wrote in the letter, obtained by Fox News.
“I am asking both the New York Departmental Disciplinary Committee for the First Department and the District of Columbia’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel to take swift action to examine the actions of attorneys Christopher Clark and Jessica L. Bengels.”
Hunter Biden’s legal team said it was “an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication between a staff member at our firm and employees of the Court.”
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“While the exact details of this matter are uncertain, it appears an ethical line was crossed,” Ricketts said of the misrepresentation accusations. “Regardless of whether or not it was Ms. Bengels or another staff member at Latham & Watkins who called the clerk, the circumstances surrounding the incident demand an investigation.”
The panel’s filing included testimony by two IRS whistleblowers who sat for transcribed interviews at which they alleged high-level interference in the Hunter Biden probe.
Following Wednesday’s chaotic hearing, Clark and colleague Richard Jones filed a motion to seal the committee’s filing, saying it contained “the type of grand jury materials and taxpayer information that is otherwise protected from disclosure.”
The documents had already been available to the public for months.
The judge’s order came days after Hunter Biden’s proposed plea bargain fell apart.
He instead pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay taxes and enter a diversion program on a felony federal weapons charge.
