Chris Clark Is Off Hunter's Case

On Sunday, I intuited,

{N}ow that [Abbe] Lowell is the one talking to CNN, it looks as though Chris Clark has been shunted aside.

It turns out I was right. Via Breitbart,

Hunter Biden’s criminal defense attorney Chris Clark requested Tuesday to withdraw from representing his client, citing a conflict of continuing to represent the president’s son in a potential trial in which he could be asked to be a witness.

This is a remarkable development, since he left the white-shoe Latham & Warkins law firm only this past April to add his name to another firm, Clark Smith Villazor, primarily to represent Hunter as its flagship client. According to Law.com,

Chris Clark, a prominent litigation partner at Latham & Watkins who has been representing Hunter Biden in a high-profile tax investigation, has left the elite firm to join boutique Smith Villazor in New York.

With his arrival, the boutique has been renamed Clark Smith Villazor, the partners announced Thursday. He joins Patrick J. Smith and Rodney Villazor, who launched the white-collar litigation boutique in 2016 after leaving DLA Piper.

According to press reports, Clark has been representing Biden in a tax investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware. In an interview Wednesday, Clark said his representation of Biden was not a factor in his decision to make the move and that he will continue to work with Biden. Latham will continue advising Biden as well, he said.

The main effect of Latham's continuing advice to Hunter Biden has been for Latham to risk sanctions in connection with accusations that a member of their staff misrepresented whom she worked for while requesting that amicus filings from a House committee chair be removed from the public docket. Clark was quite possibly behind this move, which arguably was a factor that prompted Judge Noreika's unwillingness to approve Hunter's plea deal on July 26.

In the wake of his request for removal as Hunter's attorney, Clark's web page hasn't been updated yet; it still says,

Chris Clark is a pre-eminent litigator who has successfully handled the highest stakes and highest profile matters in nearly every type of major dispute.

Chris has delivered amazing results for clients. . . . Chris currently represents Robert Hunter Biden in his federal criminal investigation. Clients come to Chris for smart, aggressive, and proactive handling of their weightiest issues and come back because of extraordinary results.

According to the Breitbart link,

Clark cited a Delaware rule that prevents lawyers from advocating on behalf of their clients if it is likely a lawyer will be called as a witness.

“Pursuant to Delaware Rule of Professional Conduct 3.7(a), ‘a lawyer shall not act as advocate at a trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness unless… disqualification of the lawyer would work substantial hardship on the client,’” Clark wrote in his filing.

In general, when lawyers request to withdraw from a case, it's for the most neutral public reasons, especially to avoid damaging the client's interests, but also to preserve the lawyer's own reputation. But some of Abbe Lowell's recent public remarks suggest he wasn't happy with Clark's performance, such as on CNN Friday evening:

So, the proceedings on July 26th, obviously disclosed a disagreement. And the disagreement was that we said what we understood the agreement to mean, which is what Chris said.

So, let me ask you, and anybody, who's paying attention, the following question. What group of experienced attorneys would have their client plead guilty, on Monday, to a misdemeanor, believing that the prosecutors could bring a felony, on Wednesday?

What group of experienced attorneys indeed? My wife, a retired attorney, thinks this is a humiliating development for Clark, who on his own website was clearly anticipating a victory in Hunter's headline case, getting him off with a misdemeanor plea and a diversion agreement. Think of the white-collar crooks who'd be lining up to have him defend them after that! But the celebration has turned out to be premature.

Instead, he's off the case amid what's so far looking like a catastrophic development, with Clark himself potentially a key trial witness in a Watergate-level scandal. And I'm not sure if the whole question of how someone from Latham & Watkins called Judge Noreika's clerk to have an amicus filing taken off the docket has been resolved -- Clark may well still have questions to answer there, too.

My wife thinks Clark was probably overhyped and overrated from the start, and it's probably also the case that Latham & Watkins is now heaving a sigh of relief that he's out the door. Meanwhile, Abbe Lowell has his work cut out to salvage Hunter's plea deal.