Hunter Biden may have received a get-out-of-jail-free card from his powerful father, but President Joe Biden’s sweeping pardon only goes so far.
You might be amazed to learn that Hunter — Robert Hunter Biden Esq., as he is known on his lawyer’s license — may still be able to practice law. While the profession generally frowns on felons serving as attorneys, a complaint asserts the disgraced First Son could conceivably practice in the Connecticut legal system.
The Center for American Rights (CAR) this week filed a complaint urging the Connecticut Statewide Grievance Committee to take disciplinary action against Hunter Biden, who, despite his carte blanche pardon, has been convicted on multiple counts of fraud, tax evasion, and for basically being a big creep. President Biden’s pardon does not absolve his corrupt son of accountability before the state bar. Presidential pardons may wipe out federal crimes, but they don’t erase the responsibility that the Connecticut attorney grievance committee has in protecting the integrity of jurisprudence in the Constitution State, according to the complaint.
“The American people rejected the Biden-Harris Administration’s two-tiered justice system and deserve accountability for Hunter Biden’s crimes. Even a pardon from his father cannot excuse him from professional discipline as an attorney and officer of the court,” Daniel Suhr, president of the nonprofit public interest law firm, said in a statement.
‘Fitness as a Lawyer’
As the complaint notes, Hunter Biden was licensed to practice in Washington, D.C., and in Connecticut. The younger Biden was convicted in June on three counts related to illegal possession of a firearm after lying on a federal gun-purchase form that he was not a drug addict. In September, he pleaded guilty to all nine counts in another federal case, including three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax violations.
Such convictions are certainly grounds for an investigation and for revocation of a lawyer’s license. The D.C. Court of Appeals in June issued a temporary suspension of Hunter Biden’s license and ordered a disciplinary investigation, according to online records. The D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel wrote in an order that Hunter Biden was “suspended immediately from the practice of law” in D.C., following the verdict in his gun trial. He had been licensed to practice in D.C. since 2007.
His law license has been administratively suspended in Connecticut, but not for his felony convictions. He has for years failed to pay the “client Security Fund fee,” according to Connecticut court records. The Client Security Fund, according to the state Judicial Branch, was “established by the rules of the Connecticut Superior Court to provide reimbursement to individuals who have lost money or property as a result of the dishonest conduct of an attorney practicing law in the State of Connecticut, in the course of the attorney-client relationship.”
Suhr said the felon could potentially pay the lapsed fees and have his license reactivated to practice law in Connecticut, despite the fact that his conduct runs afoul of Connecticut Rules of Professional Conduct. It is understandably a violation of the rules for an attorney to “Commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects;” and engage “in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.” The record is clear, Hunter engaged in all of the outlined examples of misconduct.
“Though Mr. Biden is already temporarily suspended from practice in Connecticut due to his non-payment of the Client Security Fund fee, investigation and action are necessary to protect clients and the integrity of the profession in case he pays the fee to resume practice,” the complaint states.
While his dad may have pardoned him for more than a decade of potential crimes, such blanket absolution doesn’t cover malfeasance at the state and local levels. As the complaint notes, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, revoked former President Richard Nixon’s law license in 1976, two years after President Gerald Ford pardoned him following the fallout of the Watergate scandal.
The President’s Son ‘Should Be No Different’
In his pardon message, Biden whined that his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.” He wasn’t. If anything, as my Federalist colleague John Daniel Davidson wrote this week, Hunter would have escaped some of the charges against him “if the IRS whistleblowers Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley hadn’t come forward.”
“Weiss only indicted Hunter after Ziegler and Shapley revealed that federal prosecutors in Washington and California had refused to bring charges despite ample evidence of crimes. So far from Biden’s claim that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ Hunter received special treatment from Biden’s DOJ,” Davidson added.
The younger Biden was convicted of very serious crimes. He would have been sentenced, potentially to many years in prison, if his duplicitous D.C. creature father had stuck to his declaration that, “No one is above the law.”
While he won’t be held accountable for his federal crimes, those crimes still count before state bars, the Center for American Rights argues in the complaint.
“A full investigation and disciplinary action are necessary to protect clients and the integrity of the profession. In any other instance, an attorney convicted of crimes like these would face professional discipline — the son of the president should be no different,” Suhr said.
‘One Standard, and One Standard Only’
The process appears to be grinding on. The D.C. Court of Appeals directed the Board on Professional Responsibility to “institute a formal proceeding to determine the nature of the offense and whether it involves moral turpitude.” An official from the D.C. Bar could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon for a status update on the investigation. As the Washington Times reported earlier this year, the Bar “has been reluctant to dole out punishment to those with high-profile Democratic connections.”
America First Legal in January filed a complaint with the D.C. Bar seeking an investigation into the president’s son to determine if he should lose his law license over the gun-related crimes. Hunter had yet to be convicted at that time.
“The evidence is that Mr. Biden has engaged in professional misconduct, repeatedly and on a significant scale, thereby raising substantial questions as to his honesty, trustworthiness, and fitness as a lawyer,” Reed Rubinstein, an attorney with the conservative nonprofit legal foundation, wrote in his complaint.
What’s fair is fair, the complaint asserts. In other words, No one is above the law — not even a president’s son.
“The public’s faith in the integrity of our profession requires the Rules of Professional Conduct to be enforced fairly and consistently; there should be one standard, and one standard only, for Bar investigations and discipline,” the America First complaint stated.
So sayeth the Center for American Rights, noting that “the Grievance Committee and Connecticut courts have an independent obligation to ensure that lawyers who practice before them are persons of honesty and integrity, and to impose discipline regardless of what happens in a criminal context.”
The committee was slated to meet on Wednesday. Hunter Biden’s status in Connecticut’s legal community was not on the hearing agenda. He’s not noted on upcoming agendas, either.
“In this instance, imposition of discipline is all the easier because Mr. Biden was convicted on one set of counts and pled guilty on the other set of counts, even if he was not sentenced on either set, such that the facts are established and all that remains is an assessment of appropriate discipline,” CAR’s complaint states.
