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Hunter Biden’s longtime lawyer asks to be removed from his tax and gun case
Hunter Biden’s lead criminal defense attorney, Christopher Clark, has asked to be taken off his criminal case because he could be called as a witness in the future, CNN reported.
“Based on recent developments, it appears that the negotiation and drafting of the plea agreement and diversion agreement will be contested, and Mr. Clark is a percipient witness to those issues,” Biden’s lawyers said in a motion filed with the Delaware judge overseeing the case.
Last week, a plea deal put forward in President Joe Biden's son's case involving tax misdemeanors and a gun charge fell apart. The deal had been attacked by many Republicans as smacking of preferential treatment.
"Federal prosecutors said last week they reached an impasse on a plea deal related to tax offenses and a related “diversion agreement” to resolve a gun possession charge," CNN reported. "They asked the judge to withdraw a late August deadline she previously gave both sides to re-negotiate the agreements after she refused to approve them at a hearing last month," CNN's report stated.
Trump’s gambit to get Judge Chutkan booted from DC case is ‘virtually impossible’: analysis
Former President Donald Trump has been trying to get Judge Tanya Chutkan booted from overseeing his Jan. 6 case in Washington D.C. based on comments she made while sentencing a rioter who stormed the United States Capitol.
However, an analysis written by Slate's Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern argues that Trump has "no chance" at succeeding with this strategy.
In their analysis, the two authors break down the remarks that Chutkan made that Trump claimed prove that she is biased against him.
"The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this county and not to the principles of democracy," Chutkan said in remarks recently seized upon by Trump. "It’s blind loyalty to one person, who, by the way, remains free to this day."
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Lithwick and Stern argue that this comment, variations of which have been made by multiple judges overseeing Jan. 6-related trials, falls laughably short of what would be needed to compel a higher court to remove Chutkan from the case.
"Chutkan’s comment shows not actual proof of bias, but rather a perfectly defensible viewpoint that’s shared widely among her colleagues on the bench," they argue. "Second, even if it did evince bias, it does not begin to rise to the level necessary to trigger recusal under federal law. The same standards that make it immensely difficult to force Judge Aileen Cannon off the Mar-a-Lago case (despite her actual showing of obvious bias in Trump litigation) make it virtually impossible to force Chutkan off the Jan. 6 case."
DON'T MISS: Trump ally mocked reporter's purported ignorance of Georgia law — now she's been indicted
Threat of financial ‘ruin’ could see co-defendants throw Trump under the bus: legal experts
Now that he has been indicted in a sweeping racketeering probe by Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis into efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump faces a unique threat.
He has many co-defendants – many of whom are not wealthy and face financial destruction from their indictments. That gives them huge incentive to flip on him to save themselves, Salon reported.
Legal experts say that the risk to Trump is very real, according to the website's analysis Tuesday.
New York University law professor Melissa Murray wrote on X, "Given the 5-year min for RICO, lots of opportunities for folks to flip and cooperate," referring to the prison sentence that could accompany a guilty verdict.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti agreed, posting, "Unlike Trump, the other defendants aren’t wealthy. They aren’t raising money from donors to pay their legal bills. Most people have their lives turned upside down by an indictment, and plead guilty to avoid ruin.
"Indictments like this will deter future election shenanigans."
This comes as many other unindicted co-conspirators in Trump's four criminal cases are rumored to be cooperating, with some 30 mentioned in the indictments. Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who was indicted in Willis' case, has been suspected by legal experts to be cooperating in the other election case against Trump that was brought by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith.
Trump is not only extremely wealthy, but has leveraged his position as a presidential candidate to raise millions for his own legal defense.
The former president and his allies appear to be aware of the risk that his allies could be financially pressured into cooperating against him; earlier this month, The New York Times reported that Trump is building a new entity, Patriot Legal Defense Fund Inc., that is dedicated to covering the legal bills of witnesses and co-defendants — a move that would potentially not just remove the threat of financial ruination from accused co-conspirators, but allow them to coordinate their defenses.
How Boris Epshteyn rocketed to the top of Trump world — and how it could crash and burn
Former President Donald Trump's longtime associate Boris Epshteyn may be the mysterious sixth unindicted co-conspirator, argued MSNBC anchor Ari Melber on Monday.
Epshteyn, an attorney, political strategist and former Sinclair Broadcast Group commentator, has admitted to playing a role in the fake electors plot. Separately he is facing new allegations of sexual misconduct. Melber claimed, Epshteyn climbed his way to the top by schmoozing Trump and indulging his every impulse. That is now the same thing that could land him in legal jeopardy.
"When it comes to the secrets to success in Trumpworld ... for Epshteyn, it's no secret anymore," said Melber, who is also an attorney. "It is political loyalty, perhaps even above political acumen. It was his zealous advocacy on TV and his repeated and demonstrated [a] willingness to go where other Trump Republicans won't, to do what other Trump aides will not. That, clearly, catapulted him to the top of the orbit of the most important Republican in the Republican Party right now. Someone who, for all his legal problems, could still be the nominee. And that's all even with the alleged demerits made by colleagues, lawyers, and others around Mr. Epshteyn."
"So, all of that might've gotten him right here," Melber continued. "It might have got him to be among the company of other lawyers, and maybe he got on the right side of that line. Maybe he found a way name-check Giuliani to do some of the bidding, but not be named the co-conspirator. Or maybe the DOJ ultimately will determine things that put them under more legal scrutiny. But it's the tactics, the loyalty, the advocacy, and the perseverance that these individuals have shown that does tie them together."
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
"Mr. Eastman was willing to reverse himself — to lie, if you want to put it blatantly — about what was the law," said Melber. "Mr. Chesebro and Sidney Powell went so far that they had to sometimes deal with people saying, this is, quote, 'wild,' 'unusual,' or as Trump said about Powell's claims, 'crazy.' Mr. Clark and Mr. Eastman ... they've been searched — Mr. Epshteyn's phone was also taken, pursuant to these points — because the DOJ thought those people looked more like co-conspirators."
"The question tonight, and what we've learned about Mr. Epshteyn, is, will he remain so close to the sun that he can no longer provide the kind of defense that Donald Trump so desperately wants and needs, or has he threaded this needle, politically, legally, and otherwise?" Melber added. "All of the former president's people, some of the former president's co-conspirators. Rarely have we seen so much heat around so many people who are someone trying to make the biggest pivot of all. A pivot away from a jail cell and into the Oval Office."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Ari Melber on Boris Epshteyn www.youtube.com
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Ted Cruz snaps as Dem invokes famous 2013 clash: ‘You’re not Dianne Feinstein’
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) interrupted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing Tuesday to tell the Texas Republican she felt "personally aggrieved" by his lecturing — only to have Cruz fire back by invoking the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, snapping, "You're not Dianne Feinstein."
The blowup came after Cruz delivered a lengthy monologue at a hearing on the Supreme Court's Louisiana v. Callais ruling — a 6-3 decision gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — accusing Democrats of believing Black candidates can only win in gerrymandered districts.
"The Democrats are fond of telling this story that is, and I wish I could find a kinder way to say it, a flat-out lie," Cruz said, rattling off Black Republican lawmakers elected in majority-white districts: Sen. Tim Scott, Reps. Burgess Owens, Byron Donalds, John James, and Wesley Hunt.
"In the Democrats' world, you're not Black if you're not a liberal Democrat," Cruz declared. "There is an arrogance to African American voters."
The Texas Republican then accused Democrats of being the real gerrymandering offenders, demanding to know how many Republicans represent New England in the U.S. House.
"Zero. Zero," Cruz said. "They've drawn every district in a naked gerrymander, and yet they're very upset that their illegal pursuit of power has now been stopped by the Supreme Court."
That's when Hirono cut in.
"Point of personal privilege," she said. "I feel personally aggrieved to sit here and to be lectured by my colleague from Texas."
Hirono then reached back more than a decade to invoke a now-famous clash between Cruz and Feinstein, who memorably told a freshman Cruz during a 2013 hearing on gun safety that she was "not a sixth grader."
"This reminds me of the time when he was first elected to the Senate, and the Judiciary Committee had a hearing on gun safety, and he felt a need to lecture Dianne Feinstein," Hirono said. "And she said to him, something along the lines of, 'I did not sit here on this committee for however many years she did, only to be lectured by you.'"
"And that is how I feel," Hirono continued. "So why don't you just stop lecturing the rest of us? Just because you think you are the smartest person in the world doesn't mean the rest of us agree with that."
Cruz didn't let it go.
"I knew Dianne Feinstein. I served with Dianne Feinstein," he shot back. "And you're not Dianne Feinstein."
