XPost: alt.news-media, misc.survivalism, alt.atheism   
   XPost: can.politics, or.politics   
   From: remailer@domain.invalid   
      
   A federal judge tore into the Justice Department on Friday for blowing   
   off Hunter Biden-related subpoenas issued in the impeachment probe of   
   his father, President Joe Biden, pointing out that a former aide to   
   Donald Trump is sitting in prison for similar defiance of Congress.   
      
   U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, a Biden appointee on the federal District   
   Court in Washington, spent nearly an hour accusing Justice Department   
   attorneys of rank hypocrisy for instructing two other lawyers in the DOJ   
   Tax Division not to comply with the House subpoenas.   
      
   “There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal   
   lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,”   
   Reyes said, referring to the recent imprisonment of Peter Navarro, a   
   former Trump trade adviser, for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6   
   select committee. “And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas. … And   
   you don’t have to show up?”   
      
   “I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put   
   people in jail for not showing up,” but then direct current executive   
   branch employees to take the same approach, the judge added. “You all   
   are making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any   
   other litigant.”   
      
   It was a remarkable, frenetic thrashing in what was expected to be a   
   relatively routine, introductory status conference after the House   
   Judiciary Committee sued last month to enforce its subpoena of DOJ   
   attorneys Mark Daly and Jack Morgan over their involvement in the   
   investigation of Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes.   
      
   Republicans are demanding the two attorneys testify and say it’s crucial   
   for their ongoing impeachment probe of the elder Biden. But the Justice   
   Department argues that subpoenaing two rank-and-file, or “line,”   
   attorneys to seek details about an ongoing investigation would be a   
   violation of the separation of powers.   
      
   Reyes has been on the bench for just over a year. Rarely seeming to stop   
   to catch her breath, she repeatedly dressed down DOJ attorney James   
   Gilligan as he sought to explain the department’s position, scolding him   
   at times for interrupting her before continuing a torrid tongue-lashing   
   that DOJ rarely receives from the bench. She delved into great detail   
   about the nuances of House procedure — like the chamber’s rule against   
   allowing executive branch lawyers to attend depositions — and even asked   
   whether the Judiciary Committee had followed internal rules requiring   
   that the ranking Democrat on the panel be notified of the subpoena to   
   the DOJ attorneys before it was issued.   
      
   Yet, perhaps even more remarkably, Reyes seemed inclined to support   
   DOJ’s central argument that the line attorneys cannot be compelled to   
   answer substantive questions from Congress. They just need to show up   
   and assert privileges on a question-by-question basis, she said — the   
   type of thing, she said, that DOJ demands from others “seven days a week   
   … and twice on Sunday.”   
      
   Indeed, while Reyes was withering in her attacks on the DOJ’s position,   
   she was similarly unflinching in her criticism of the House for its   
   stance in the dispute — particularly its claim that line lawyers working   
   on the Hunter Biden tax probe are not entitled to attorney-client   
   privilege. She also said she thought it absurd for the House to argue   
   that privilege was waived because it was obscuring some crime or fraud   
   within the executive branch.   
      
   “I don’t think you’re going to win that fight,” the judge told House   
   Counsel Matthew Berry, saying at one point that she “can’t imagine”   
   ruling for the House on that issue.   
      
   At bottom, Reyes said she viewed it as unlikely that the two DOJ   
   attorneys would ultimately be required to answer anything of substance   
   from Congress, but that the department’s effort to prevent them from   
   showing up at all was a brazen affront.   
      
   “I imagine that there are hundreds, if not thousands of defense   
   attorneys … who would be happy to hear that DOJ’s position is, if you   
   don’t agree with a subpoena, if you believe it’s unconstitutional or   
   unlawful, you can unilaterally not show up,” the judge said.   
      
   Gilligan suggested that the employees subpoenaed in the dispute at issue   
   are current employees, while Navarro and another Trump adviser who was   
   convicted of similar charges, Steve Bannon, were no longer on the   
   government’s payroll when their testimony was demanded.   
      
   The judge didn’t seem impressed with that distinction and downplayed the   
   significance of a Trump-era Office of Legal Counsel opinion contending   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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