US vs. Hunter Biden: Meet the Prosecutors, Defense Attorneys and Judge at the Center of the Legal Saga Surrounding the President’s Son
Hunter Biden is heading to a federal court in Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday where he is expected to plead not guilty to firearm charges. It’s the latest step in a years-long process that resulted in an earlier failed plea agreement and now federal indictments for the gun charge and a separate pair of misdemeanor tax charges.
As the legal saga continues, the Messenger has compiled a comprehensive list of the current prosecutors, defense lawyers, and the federal judge, involved in the case.
The Prosecutors
Special Counsel David Weiss; U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware
David Weiss, the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden and also the U.S. attorney for the District of DelawareU.S. Department of Justice District of Delaware
On Aug. 11, attorney General Merrick Garland announced he appointed Weiss as the special counsel for the Hunter Biden probe. Weiss, the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, already oversaw the probe and requested the upgraded title, which gives him wider authority to pursue his investigation beyond the immediate jurisdiction he oversees.
Weiss was nominated to his current position by then-President Donald Trump in 2017 and assumed the post in 2018. Before that, he served as both acting and interim attorney in the office as well as first assistant U.S. attorney.
He is one of a handful of U.S. attorneys retained following the end of the Trump administration and the beginning of the Biden administration. Garland has said he will retain his role despite assuming the role of special counsel.
Leo Wise; Office of the Special Counsel; DOJ trial attorney
Wise, a trial attorney for the Department of Justice, is one of several attorneys assigned to work alongside Weiss in the Hunter Biden case. Wise was on the prosecution team that secured a plea deal with Hunter Biden’s legal team and was present at the hearing where it collapsed.
He has a long career working as a trial attorney focusing on fraud. Before his current job, Wise worked with the U.S. attorney‘s office for the District of Maryland, serving first as the assistant U.S. attorney and then as the chief of the fraud and public corruption unit. He was involved in a high-profile case involving alleged mortgage fraud and perjury by the former Maryland State’s attorney for Baltimore, Marilyn Mosby.
Wise also previously worked with the Department of Justice, beginning in 2005. He was a trial attorney for several units including the Criminal Division’s fraud section. He then became counsel to the assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Criminal Division.
Derek E. Hines; assistant U.S. attorney, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Hines, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, is another attorney assigned to work alongside Weiss in the Hunter Biden case. His name is listed on the plea document for Hunter Biden.
He has experience handling white-collar crime and high-profile prosecution and has worked for the DOJ for just a little more than seven years. He started out working as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland alongside Wise. He then left the office to work in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, working first as deputy chief of the narcotics and organized crime unit.
Benjamin Wallace; U.S. attorney‘s Office, District of Delaware; assistant U.S. attorney
Wallace, the assistant U.S. attorney for the U.S. attorney‘s Office for the District of Delaware, was hired three months before Hunter Biden was charged. His name is listed on the plea document for Hunter Biden.
He joined Weiss’ office after working for just more than a year at a law firm in Washington, D.C., where he became a partner. Wallace also previously worked for the Justice Department as an attorney/advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel and worked as a law clerk for then-Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
Lesley Wolf; assistant U.S. attorney
Wolf, an assistant United States attorney in Wilmington, was featured prominently in IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley’s testimony to Congress.
A top deputy to Special Counsel David Weiss, Wolf reached out to Hunter Biden’s lawyer Christopher Clark, and offered to make a deferred prosecution agreement that would allow him to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and avoid prosecution on the gun charge by enrolling in a diversion program, according to The New York Times. The plea deal later fell through.
During his testimony to Congress, Shapley accused Wolf of telling investigators that “optics were a driving factor” in deciding whether or not to search President Joe Biden’s home.
Shapley said Wolf told his team there was probable cause for a physical warrant but the question was “whether the juice is worth a squeeze,” according to the hearing transcript. He also accused her of tipping off Hunter Biden’s defense counsel about a possible storage unit search.
The Judge
Judge Maryellen Noreika, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware
Maryellen NoreikaU.S. District Court District of Delaware
Judge Noreika was assigned to the Hunter Biden case in 2023 and presided over the dissolution of the plea deal struck between prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s legal team.
Hunter Biden’s plea deal was not her first case relating to him as she threw out a portion of a defamation suit brought by the owner of a Delaware-based computer repair shop where he allegedly left a laptop there for repair in 2019.
Noreika was nominated to her current position in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump and confirmed in August 2018. Prior to that, she spent 25 working in patent litigation and made partner at the Wilmington, Del. – based firm Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell.
The Defense Attorneys
Abbe Lowell; partner and co-chair, government investigations, enforcement, and compliance at Winston and Strawn LLP
NJ Sen. Bob Menendez Arraigned On Corruption ChargesKena Betancur/Getty Images
Lowell, a high-powered defense attorney based in Washington, D.C., and a partner at Winston and Strawn LLP, has now expanded his role with Hunter Biden’s legal team following the collapse of the plea deal.
Lowell has been known as a go-to lawyer for high-profile political figures involved in scandals and rose to prominence working for Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against then-President Bill Clinton. Lowell is also defending U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., in his upcoming criminal trial on federal bribery charges.
The lawyer crossed the aisle during the Trump administration, taking on both Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
He joined Hunter Biden’s legal team in December 2022 and has led the response to claims from Republican lawmakers that his client sold access to his father, Joe Biden, to foreign businessmen when he was a vice president. Lowell has also acted as coordinating counsel in Hunter Biden’s other civil and criminal matters.
Richard I.G. Jones, Jr., Esq.: partner at Berger Harris, LLP’s corporate and commercial litigation group
Berger serves as Hunter Biden’s Delaware counsel and is a lawyer who specializes in corporate and commercial litigation.
He is a new addition to the team hired to work alongside Lowell after several Latham & Watkins LLP attorneys all filed a motion to withdraw as counsel for Hunter Biden.
Paul B. Salvaty; partner at Winston and Strawn LLP; lawyer for Hunter Biden in various suits
Salvaty is a partner at Winston and Strawn LLP and works as a trial lawyer in the firm’s Los Angeles office. He is also a lawyer for two separate suits filed on behalf of Hunter Biden.
He is named as plaintiff’s counsel in a complaint filed in federal district court in central California against former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler for allegedly illegally hacking into Hunter Biden’s laptop and iPhone and publishing its data. The lawsuit said Ziegler posted more than 100,000 emails, photos, and other documents obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop. The civil lawsuit against Ziegler accuses him of improperly “accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging computer data that they do not own,” which violates California’s computer fraud laws.
Salvaty is also named as a Hunter Biden attorney in another lawsuit filed in the same district court in California against Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his lawyer Robert Costello. The lawsuit alleges that both men spent years “hacking into, tampering with, manipulating, copying, disseminating, and generally obsessing over” data that was “taken or stolen” from a laptop whose data was copied and given to them by the owner of a Delaware computer repair shop. The lawsuit said both men’s actions resulted in the “total annihilation” of Hunter Biden’s digital privacy.
Bryan Sullivan; partner at Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP; lawyer for Hunter Biden in various suits
Sullivan is a partner at the California-based law firm Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP and is a lawyer for Hunter Biden in various suits. Sullivan advises and represents clients as a legal strategist.
He’s working with Salvaty in the lawsuits against Giuliani and Costello, as well as Ziegler.
Sullivan also sent a letter to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the cable network demanding they correct falsehoods regarding Hunter Biden or risk a defamation suit. Sullivan requested a retraction by “spending a significant amount of air-time on such retraction” as well as apologies from Carlson, host Sean Hannity, and other on-air commentators. He requested the network respond in writing and that it preserve all communications and documents related to the matter.
Kevin Morris; Hollywood lawyer, novelist, and confidant to Hunter Biden
Kevin Morris, a California attorney and novelist representing Hunter Biden, is seen here in June, 2014, during a book party in New York.Craig Barritt/Getty Images
Morris, a wealthy Hollywood lawyer and novelist, has taken on the role of a financier and confidant to Hunter Biden.
After meeting him in December 2019 at a campaign fundraiser for his father, Joe Biden, Morris and Hunter Biden developed a long-lasting friendship, according to The New York Times.
He lent more than $2 million to Hunter Biden to support his family and pay back taxes he owed that later became the subject of a federal investigation, the Times reported. He also advised Hunter Biden through separate paternity and child support lawsuits, helped with his burgeoning art career, and helped him with his memoir Beautiful Things. Morris is also funding a documentary that will continue the memoir’s story.
Christopher J. Clark, Esq.; partner at Clark Smith Villazor, former partner at Latham and Watkins LLP
A former assistant attorney in the Southern District of New York and lawyer who has represented several high-profile public figures like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Mark Cuban. He was a long-time lawyer for Hunter Biden and served as the lead defense for his plea deal.
While at Latham and Watkins, Clark was the lawyer who helped negotiate the original plea deal after Weiss’s deputy, Leslie Wolf, reached out to him to offer a deferred prosecution agreement, The New York Times reported. Clark agreed to the proposition and then sent her the team’s version of the agreement. The deal included probation for two tax misdemeanors and a diversionary agreement on a felony for owning a weapon while using drugs. Clark also floated the idea of putting Hunter Biden’s father, President Joe Biden, on the witness stand.
Clark was front and center on July 26, 2023, when the plea deal fell apart over Judge Noreika requesting more information regarding a request for sweeping immunity. On Aug. 15, Clark requested to withdraw from the case due to the possibility he could be called as a witness in upcoming proceedings.
Jessica Bengels; director of litigation services; Latham and Watkins LLP
Bengels is a managing attorney in Latham & Watkins LLP’s New York office, the law firm formerly representing Hunter Biden. In July 2023, Noreika wrote in a brief order that Bengels had misrepresented her identity to her to gain information.
Judge Noreika said Bengels called the court clerk’s office and falsely claimed to work for a Republican lawyer to persuade the clerk to remove documents that allegedly contained personal tax information for Hunter Biden. She also threatened sanctions against the firm as a result.
The law firm denied the allegation, saying the employee identified herself as a staffer for the law firm and made the call from a phone in the firm that usually displays “LATHAM” as the caller ID. The firm called it an “unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication” and Bengels herself submitted a formal declaration denying the allegation.
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