The CEO of NatWest, on of the UK’s largest banks, resigned on Wednesday following an account-closing fiasco involving Nigel Farage, the former leader of the UK’s Independence Party.

CEO Alison Rose has exited stage-left after becoming the first woman to lead a major British bank.

The scandal began several weeks ago, when Farage said that his account at Coutts, a private bank owned by NatWest, had been closed due to his political views.

What followed was a pure debacle – with the bank lying to the BBC over what happened, only for internal Coutts documents to reveal that the reason for Farage’s cancellation included his retweet of a Ricky Gervais joke and his friendship with Novak Djokovic, which they pointed to as evidence of Farage being ‘xenophobic and racist.’ 

Since then, the bank has issued multiple apologies to Farage, including from the BBC and from Rose, who admitted on Tuesday that she had disclosed information to the BBC about Farage’s account. The BBC subsequently reported that Farage ‘no longer met the financial requirements for Coutts,’ when in fact it was his politics that got him booted.

The apology and a promise to review the bank’s policies was not enough to ease the pressure on Ms. Rose. Reports late Tuesday night that the government, which has a 39 percent stake in the bank, was “significantly concerned” about Ms. Rose’s leadership seemed to seal her fate. Before dawn, the bank announced her immediate departure.

The board and Ms. Rose agreed “by mutual consent” that she would step down, Howard Davies, the bank’s chairman, said in a statement. NatWest shares fell about 4 percent on Wednesday. –NY Times

“It is a sad moment,” said Davies, adding “She has dedicated all her working life so far to NatWest and will leave many colleagues who respect and admire her.”

The 53-year-old Rose has been with the bank since 1992, when she joined as a trainee. She was appointed CEO in 2019, which was accompanied with a planned overhaul of the bank – previously known as the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Last week, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “It’s not right for anyone to be denied financial services because they’re exercising their lawful right to free speech.”

The next day, the Treasury announced new rules governing the closure of accounts.

On Wednesday, PM Andrew Griffith, met with the heads of Britain’s six-largest lenders “to discuss the importance of protecting lawful freedom of expression for customers,” according to the Treasury, adding that the attendees acknowledged that recent events had eroded trust in the banks.

“It is right that the NatWest C.E.O. has resigned,” said Griffith, adding “This would never have happened if NatWest had not taken it upon itself to withdraw a bank account due to someone’s lawful political views. That was and is always unacceptable.”

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge has blocked the White House’s new rules for people seeking asylum at the U.S.–Mexico border, handing a win to left-wing immigration groups.

U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar—an Obama appointee—in Northern California found the rules unlawful because the mandate imposes conditions that Congress did not intend. Judge Tigar stayed his own ruling for 14 days, allowing the Biden administration to appeal before his order takes effect.

“The Court concludes that the Rule is contrary to law because it presumes ineligible for asylum noncitizens who enter between ports of entry, using a manner of entry that Congress expressly intended should not affect access to asylum,” the judge wrote on Tuesday.

“The Rule is also contrary to law because it presumes ineligible for asylum noncitizens who fail to apply for protection in a transit country, despite Congress’s clear intent that such a factor should only limit access to asylum where the transit country actually presents a safe option.”

In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implemented a series of measures that attempt to stem the flow of illegal immigration and better manage the influx of illegal aliens along the U.S.–Mexico border. It came after the Trump-era Title 42 pandemic rule that was used to expel people from the country expired earlier this year.

But Judge Tigar concluded that the new programs that provide illegal aliens an avenue to apply for asylum in the United States are specific to certain nationalities. He added that the rules aren’t meaningful for all people who seek asylum.

“The Rule therefore assumes that these exceptions will, at the very least, present meaningful options to noncitizens subject to the Rule. Parole programs are not meaningfully available to many noncitizens subject to the Rule,” he wrote.

“Though other parole programs exist, the Rule generally relies on the parole programs for Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan, and Ukrainian nationals. These programs are country-specific and ‘are not universally available, even to the covered populations.’”

Lawyers for the Department of Justice argued that the administration’s policy is different than a Trump administration version, with a lawyer for the DOJ arguing last week that the new policy includes legal pathways for people seeking asylum protection.

The Biden administration added that the asylum rule was a key part of its strategy to strike a balance between strict border enforcement and ensuring several avenues for migrants to pursue valid asylum claims. The rule was a response to political and economic instability fueling an exodus of migrants from countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela.

The Rule Is ‘Arbitrary and Capricious’

The judge wrote the government violated the Administrative Procedures Act, which sets guidelines on how agencies implement rules when it rolled out the latest asylum rule.

Read more here…

China and Russia are continuing to display to the world their deepening military cooperation with a series of joint military drills in regional waters, spanning different phases and multiple weeks.

Last week they held their four-day Northern/Interaction-2023 joint exercises in the Sea of Japan. It went through Sunday and was deemed a ‘success’, but are now quickly pivoting to their third joint naval patrol drills in a row set for this week, this time in western and northern parts of the Pacific Ocean.

“The drills met the expected goals of deepening mutual trust, enhancing friendship and boosting capabilities,” the PLA Navy said of the Sea of Japan portion of the exercises. 

“The exercises marked a major China-Russia joint combat operation in safeguarding the security of strategic maritime routes, as well as an important move in implementing the two militaries’ sea-air integrated joint capabilities,” said PLA Navy Rear Admiral Qiu Wensheng, as quoted in state media. 

Those exercises in particular emphasized anti-sea mine, anti-aircraft, anti-ship and anti-submarine operations in order to safeguard maritime routes. State media claimed the drills weren’t aimed at any outside power, FT has noted.

The increasingly close allies have ramped up their military cooperation and joint drills amid Washington’s pressure campaign related to the Ukraine war. At multiple points early in the conflict, Washington went so far as to accuse Beijing of secretly supplying Russia’s military for Ukraine operations, but US officials have since backed off pressing the allegations too far. 

State-run Global Times has summarized growing military cooperation of the past few years as follows:

China and Russia have had two joint naval patrols. One came after the Joint Sea-2021 naval drills in 2021, which saw Chinese and Russian navies form a joint flotilla and sail across the Sea of Japan, the West Pacific and the East China Sea in seven days in their first joint naval patrol, marking a circumnavigation around Japan. The other came after the Russia-led Vostok-2022 strategic drills in 2022, also in the Pacific Ocean.

The two countries also regularly hold joint aerial strategic patrols. The sixth patrol was held in June this year.

📹 Enjoy!
MoD RF: ” The joint Russian-Chinese drill “Northern/Interaction-2023” has been completed in the Sea of Japan. After the end of the exercise, Russian and Chinese ships set course for Vladivostok.. “https://t.co/LGbmo3wqnv
📹 ‘Zvezda’ pic.twitter.com/nS7Zek6V33

— Massimo Frantarelli (@MrFrantarelli) July 23, 2023

Likely driving their strategic rationale for greater cooperation is not only the increased US naval presence connected with supporting Taiwan, but Japan’s closer relations to NATO. China has also resisted US-EU pressure to take a firm line condemning the invasion of Ukraine.

President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Russia to meet with his counterpart Vladimir Putin in October, the Kremlin announced this week after the formal invitation was sent out.

Authored by Connor Freeman via The Libertarian Institute,

A recently released study exposes the “widespread dispersion” of radioactive fallout and devastation caused by the US government’s first detonation of a nuclear weapon. The “Trinity” atomic bomb test which caused  “environmental contamination and population exposures” was carried out in New Mexico on July 16th, 1945.

This new research shows within 10 days of the explosion, which saw a mushroom cloud as high as 50,000 – 70,000 feet, radioactive deposits were dispersed across 46 states, and even parts of Canada as well as Mexico.

The study covers the Trinity test as well as dozens more, above-ground, “atmospheric” nuclear tests, conducted as a result of the Manhattan Project. Not included in the study are the myriad underground nuclear weapons tests. Between 1951 and 1998, Washington blew up more than 800 subterranean nuclear weapons.

Utilizing a combination of data previously unavailable during past studies, the researchers used “high-resolution reanalyzed historical weather fields, U.S. government data, and complex atmospheric modeling to try to chart the distribution of radioactive fallout in the days following historical nuclear tests,” reports Gizmodo.

The study was led by Sébastien Philippe, a scientist and researcher from Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security. “Our results show the significant contribution of the Trinity fallout to the total deposition density across the contiguous U.S….and in New Mexico in particular,” the study reads.

During the time period analyzed by the researchers, there were 101 nuclear tests conducted. Since Trinity, there were subsequently 93 more atmospheric tests in Nevada which saw nuclear fallout distributed across the country yet again by radioactive mushroom clouds. The US government also launched 45 “airburst” tests, which saw nuclear bombs, tipped on rockets, detonated within the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

40,000 people lived within 50 miles of Trinity’s blast, many of the victims and their relatives have been afflicted with various cancers ever since. Washington has never compensated these Americans.

“When the initial shock wore off, [locals] returned to their daily lives. They drank from cisterns full of radioactive debris, ate beef from cattle that had grazed on the dust for weeks on end, and breathed air full of tiny plutonium particles. Only later would the real impact become clear,” as Responsible Statecraft’s Connor Echols notes. The test site was chosen by Robert Oppenheimer.

As a result of the Trinity test, infant mortality in New Mexico increased by 56% between 1944 and 1945. Locals, including those who saw the explosion themselves, were lied to by US officials with a cover story that this was all an accident which occurred at a nearby ammunition depot.

And to think it was less than a year ago when a demonically hawkish Jerome Powell triggered what would end up being a brutal tech bear market, when during his 2022 improvised Jackson Hole speech the Fed chair warned pain, fire and brimstone was coming.

Well, what a difference a year makes: after a neutral FOMC statement which said nothing besides informing the public of a 25bps rate hike – which sent rates to the highest level in 22 years – and keeping most of the June language in line, the S&P 500 reversed earlier modest losses to spike to a session high after the Fed chair said that “there was disinflation”, and that inflation was a little better than expected.  If that wasn’t enough, Powell unleashed another dovish shot when he said that the Fed can start rate cuts before 2% inflation is hit (which is important since Powell also said that 2% inflation won’t hit until 2025).

Unwilling to be cornered by the market, Powell also said that officials haven’t made a decision to go to every other meeting, and will instead “be going meeting-by-meeting.”

With stocks expecting a far more hawkish message from Powell, the S&P 500 promptly spiked to session highs, gains which were the first during Wednesday trading, and extended the latest rally into a fourth day. The index rose as much as 0.3% to the highest since early April – and March 2022 when the Fed first started hiking – before retreating a bit. Meanwhile, the Dow gained (and closed green) for a 13th consecutive session, matching the record stretch from January 1987!

However, things quickly reversed toward the end of Powell’s presser and and spoos slumped from a session high over 4,600 after Powell said that the Fed no longer was forecasting a recession, which the market quickly interpreted as hawkish forward guidance, and suggesting that conditions would stay higher for longer.

Ironically, the market – with its 15 millisecond attention span of a gnat – forgot that this is nothing new and is a recap of what the Fed’s June SEP showed, reversing the March economic forecast of a shallow recession. But since it was also headline scanning algos in control by this point, stocks promptly slumped to session lows.

What else happened? Well, in a day when the market correctly predicted that today’s FOMC would be a nothingburger with the smallest implied straddle for a Fed day since 2021…

… that’s exactly what happened, with most asset classes trading basically unchanged. Well that’s not exactly right: both stocks and yields fell…

… but as Bloomberg notes, under the hood the moves were not necessarily what you’d expect if the outlook was for lower yields. That raises the possibility that the rally in bonds may be driven by flows rather than the barely-changed policy outlook.

The decline in stocks was led by info tech, while communication services was up the most today (thanks to Google parent Alphabet’s better-than-expected earnings).

Banks were also solidly in the green after yesterday’s PacWest take under was somehow spun as bullish.

In credit, shorter-duration bonds have tightened more on the day while the Treasury curve is steeper.

The greenback eased lower after Powell said the central bank will continue to make decisions meeting by meeting and upcoming data will inform decisions; notes that either hike or steady policy possible at September meeting.  

And with the dollar sliding, both precious metals…

… and bitcoin sprinted higher, showing clearly what will happen once the Fed is no longer hiking but is forced to start easing.

Authored by Guy Ciarrocchi via RealClear Wire,

After the Republican bloodbath that was the 2022 midterm election, there was no shortage of reactions.

“We have to ballot-harvest, too.”

“We have to stop the stealing.”

“Only Trump can save us.”

“We have to move away from Trump.”

“We have to reposition on abortion.”

“We have to kick out the RINOs.”

“We have to win-back the never-Trumpers.” And so on.

Too often, we hear that there’s only one path forward. But my experience as a candidate, working to rebuild the party after setbacks going back to 1986 and spending much of the last few years listening, leads me to believe that it’s a mix of things. There is no “home run” idea; but there are a lot of singles that we can hit. And if we bunch the singles together – and avoid errors – we can win. (Forgive me; I’ve been coaching softball for 24 years.)

First, let’s dismiss the bad ideas. You can’t grow the party by focusing on who doesn’t belong. Too many Republicans spend too much time discussing how to make our minority party even smaller. We need to focus on addition, not subtraction, especially in swing states – and most of all, in the suburbs.

I have advice for fellow Republicans as they look to the suburbs. As a friend might say to his pal who has spent years chasing a woman who doesn’t respond: “She’s just not that into you.”

More and more upper-income suburban voters don’t share our priorities, don’t like our solutions – and wouldn’t tell their neighbors that they agree with Republicans, even if they did.

Many suburban voters are just not Republicans, no matter what their voter registration card says. And don’t discount their desire to be loyal to their new “boyfriend” (the Democrats), who they started dating in 2008 and have been going steady with for a while.

But there is hope. Let’s talk about our issues and highlight our solutions to real problems – not mythical, virtue-signaling problems. (Hint: those voters aren’t our voters.) There are things that the GOP can do to grow its numbers in the suburbs and win states like Pennsylvania. 

First, “It’s about parents, stupid.” Support for school choice is on the rise. A recent survey commissioned by the Commonwealth Foundation showed that 73% of Pennsylvanians support Lifeline Scholarships – the proposal to offer school choice to families of kids trapped in failing schools. This is happening because of frustration with the stranglehold the teachers’ unions hold over schools, falling test scores, the unnecessarily long school closures, a deemphasis on advanced courses and grades, and controversial school curricula that focuses less and less on math, reading, and science.

Most Democrats have adamantly opposed all forms of school choice. The GOP should embrace this issue and campaign on it – everywhere, including the suburbs.

Second, while it’s true that more white, suburban, upper-income voters are parroting left-of-center positions, there is another potential pool of new GOP voters: first- and second-generation new citizens from India, China, Latin America, and Africa. As a group, these citizens support small businesses, embrace capitalism, want schools to focus on academics – and oppose socialism and big, intrusive federal government. They respect families and the role of parents.

Third, the story of the black Democratic state legislator in Georgia becoming a Republican offers a lesson applicable elsewhere – like, say, Philadelphia: African-Americans living in neighborhoods where violent crime is rising and schools are failing feel angry and abandoned. The elitist, progressive-run Democratic Party that has focused on defunding police, protecting the teachers’ unions (not kids), and defending school boards (not parents) is not their party. (I call them the “Cherelle Parker coalition” – named after the winner of the Philadelphia Democratic mayoral primary.)

But our outreach must be genuine and ongoing – and we must fight tirelessly to deliver on our commitments of safety and school choice.

Finally: yes, the GOP needs better election tactics. We need a focused effort to triple our tally of mail-in ballots. And, yes, the GOP must make sure that elections are legally conducted and fairly, openly counted. It should be easy to vote and impossible to cheat, and we should have results that we can trust.

Focus on growing the party, not kicking people out. Promote our issues and solutions to people actually interested in listening – even if these voters have never voted before, or never voted for our party before. Genuinely reach out; ask for their support; and fight for their issues.

Singles need to be strung together. But, as a coach, I can tell you: we’re behind, they have a more expensive roster, and the umpire doesn’t like us. But if we play our game, we can win.

By Alan Condon of Becker Hospital Reviews

Healthcare bankruptcies have spiked this year as staffing shortages and climbing interest rates continue to challenge hospitals, health systems, physician staffing groups and other healthcare  companies, according to Bloomberg.

The healthcare sector was propped up largely by demands stemming from the pandemic. The federal government distributed more than $700 billion in health spending related to the pandemic, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That includes $160 billion in grants to hospitals, assisted living facilities and other providers.

The end of the government money brought a “day of reckoning” for many struggling companies, Dragelin said.

SiO2 Medical Products, which filed for Chapter 11 in March, said in its filings that its “liquidity crisis can be traced, at least in part, to government contracts the Company was awarded in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rapid ensuing change in government and customer demand.”

“Once the government money ran out, once all the stimulus dollars around healthcare ran out, there was essentially going to be this backwash,” Timothy Dragelin, a healthcare director at FTI Consulting said. “The fact that labor costs increased substantially—you also had the issues with supply chain and supply chain caused some disruptions.”

Sluggish economic factors that have contributed to a general rise in Chapter 11s have also hurt the healthcare business. But the industry requires large staffing and the aftereffects of rising labor costs have been particularly acute.

Five things to know:

1. In the first quarter, 17 healthcare companies with more than $10 million in liabilities, including a hospital, senior living centers and a pharmaceutical developer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, according to Gibbins Advisors, a healthcare restructuring consulting firm. Seven companies filed for Chapter 11 in the same period in 2020. 

2. Economic challenges have led to a general rise in Chapter 11s bankruptcy filings, according to the report. The healthcare industry has been hit particularly hard as it grapples with a nationwide staffing shortage and rising labor costs.

3. Two private equity-backed companies, Envision and GenesisCare, and two hospitals — Madera (Calif.) Community Hospital and Beverly Hospital in Montebello, Calif. — are among the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in healthcare so far this year. 

4. Healthcare bankruptcies spiked in late 2022, and cooled slightly in the first quarter of 2023. However, first-quarter numbers are up year over year, and the rate of new bankruptcy filings are expected to spill over into coming quarters, according to the report. .

5. Inflation and rising interest rates are also contributing to challenges in the healthcare sector. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement generally comprise a large portion of a healthcare providers’ revenue, but federal payments typically lag behind inflation, Clare Moylan, co-founder of Gibbins Advisors, told Bloomberg.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Speaking during a townhall style interview Tuesday, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr slammed public heath agencies for going along with the government in implementing mass lockdowns during the COVID pandemic.

RFK Jr told the crowd that the actions were completely antithetical to the established course of action that should be taken during such an event.

“What they were doing violated all of the orthodoxy,” Kennedy noted, adding “We’ve had the WHO, CDC, the DHS, and all the three-letter agencies have thought about pandemics for a hundred years. And they’ve worked on very, very carefully on pandemic preparedness protocols. And all of those protocols said you never lock down a population.”

“You cannot stop a respiratory virus with lockdowns. You’re going to actually amplify it, because they spread indoors,” Kennedy continued, citing historic medical papers that long ago criticized lockdown measures as a means of mitigating the spread of viruses.

“And what all the orthodox protocols said is that you quarantine the sick, you protect the vulnerable, and then you let the population continue. Because, when you shut down businesses, that kills people. Unemployment kills people,” RFK Jr. further urged.

Watch:

Kennedy also vowed to stop government agencies from being weaponised against political opponents:

*  *  *

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Update (1200ET): Hunter Biden’s plea deal with the Justice Department fell apart on Wednesday, according to federal prosecutors and the defense. The First Son had been expected to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and for not paying federal taxes on crime.

NBC’s Tom Winters says on MSNBC the plea deal is in jeopardy after Hunter Biden’s legal team demanded the deal also cover *future* prosecution of the First Son, even if they’re not directly related to the charges filed thus far.

Obviously, the judge & prosecutors disagree. pic.twitter.com/KIf7T2PXFn

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 26, 2023

NBC’s Tom Winters notes on MSNBC that, if the differences can’t be resolved between prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s legal team, “the trial clock is on” and, as he left the courtroom, the judge was talking “as if there was no plea agreement at all.” pic.twitter.com/eSQjhW9a44

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 26, 2023

Regime media, meanwhile, is having a meltdown.

CNN melting after their favorite drug-addled artist gets smacked down in court:

“I cannot begin to understand how Hunter Biden’s lawyers walk him into that courthouse without knowing exactly what the constraints, what the limitations of that deal are!” pic.twitter.com/CIo8dmLgIq

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) July 26, 2023

*  *  *

Hunter Biden’s lawyers face sanctions after they were accused on Tuesday night of an ethical violation by impersonating a government attorney in order to try and have an amicus (or “friend of the court”) brief removed from a filing in his criminal tax case.

The amicus in question is 448 pages of congressional testimony from IRS whistleblowers.

Earlier Tuesday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith filed the brief with the court, which suggests that the judge, Maryellen Noreika, toss Hunter’s ‘sweetheart’ plea deal with Delaware prosecutors due to preferential treatment.

Later that day, someone from Hunter’s attorney Chris Clark’s former law firm called the Delaware clerk, allegedly pretending to be from the office of Chairman Smith’s attorney, Theodore Kittila, asking the court to remove the original filing – and the attached 448-pages of Congressional testimony from the whistleblowers.

The documents were then taken down and sealed.

The real Kittila quickly filed an outraged letter with the court, asking for a reversal.

“We promptly contacted the clerk’s office, and we were advised that someone contacted the court representing that they worked with my office and that they were asking the court to remove this from the docket,” wrote Kittila, adding “We immediately advised that this was inaccurate.”

BREAKING: Hunter Biden’s lawyers are facing sanctions after they allegedly lied to the Delaware clerk in his criminal tax case.

The Biden Crime Family is at it again.

According to the Daily Mail, someone from Hunter Biden’s attorney’s law office called the Delaware clerk… pic.twitter.com/eiJS7KWYSz

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 25, 2023

More via the Daily Mail:

In a fiery email exchange with Kittila about the apparent skullduggery, Hunter’s lawyer Clark hit back, denying any improper conduct and claiming ‘the clerk took the filing down on their own accord’.

But the top Republican’s lawyer included in his filing a copy of an email from the Delaware clerk, backing up his claims.

‘The woman who called was a Jessica Bengels,’ he wrote adding her phone number.  

‘She said she worked with Theodore Kittila and it was important the document was removed immediately,‘ the clerk, Sam Grimes, wrote to Kittila.

According to Grimes’s email, the alleged trickster is New York-based Latham & Watkins litigation services director Jessica Bengels.

Bengels’ LinkedIn page says she has been ‘litigation services counsel’ at the firm since January 2023, and has worked there since 2006. She went to Brown University then Fordham law school.

Clark worked for Latham & Watkins up until April this year. –Daily Mail

Hunter’s lawyers, meanwhile, claim that the filing contained “personal tax information,” and should therefore be sealed, despite the fact that the House Ways and Means Committee released the same documents publicly a month ago.

“Your attempts to publicly file my client’s personal financial information with no protections are improper, illegal and in violation of applicable rules,” Clark wrote to Kittila, adding “I stand by my statements.”

Judge is pissed

In a Tuesday afternoon order, Judge Noreika demanded Hunter’s lawyers explain themselves.

“It appears that the caller misrepresented her identity and who she worked for in an attempt to improperly convince the clerk’s office to remove the amicus materials from the docket,” reads the order. “Therefore, it is hereby ordered that, on or before 9pm today on July 25, 2023, counsel for defendant shall show cause as to why sanctions should not be considered for misrepresentations to the court.”

Hunter’s lawyers responded, claiming it was nothing more than a “an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication.”

“The matter under consideration appears to stem from an unfortunate and unintentional miscommunication between a staff member at our firm and employees of the Court. We have no idea how the misunderstanding occurred, but our understanding is there was no misrepresentation,” wrote Hunter’s Latham & Watkins lawyer Matthew Salerno in response – blaming a convoluted game of telephone tag.

“We stand prepared to address any inquiries of the Court to rectify this misunderstanding. Should the Court consider this letter and the accompanying materials to be an insufficient explanation for this misunderstanding, we request an opportunity to more fully brief and be heard on the issues of concern to the Court,” the response continues.

BREAKING: Hunter Biden’s attorneys respond after they allegedly lied to the Delaware clerk to get key documents against Hunter retracted.

Hunter’s plea deal is now in jeopardy.

According to Hunter’s lawyers, the situation is just one big misunderstanding.

“We stand prepared to… pic.twitter.com/78f99KQ5gw

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 26, 2023

Includes a declaration from Jessica Bengels – the attorney accused of misrepresenting her firm.

“At no time during any call with the Court today or ever did I misrepresent my firm affiliation.”

What will the court do? Probably nothing. pic.twitter.com/7zdBPUa49Z

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) July 26, 2023

As Jonathan Turley notes;

The entire matter could be a misunderstanding, but the clerk clearly did not think so. The problem for Hunter could be a delay in accepting the plea bargain. It is not clear what additional evidence the Court could secure on the issue, but it could want interviews on the record.

I still believe that it is unlikely that the court would refuse to sign off on the plea bargain. Most judges are leery of demanding more charges against a defendant. That is a matter usually left to the discretion of the prosecutors. The investigation and implications of this dubious deal will ultimately be left to Congress.