Jonathan Turley vs Abbe Lowell

As I've noted here, Jonathan Turley is a generational member of the Establishment:

His father, John (Jack) Turley was an international architect, partner at Skidmore, Owens [sic], and Merrill, and the former associate of famed modernist architect Mies van der Rohe. . . . His mother, Angela Piazza Turley, was a social worker and activist who was the former president of Jane Addams Hull-House in Chicago.

He's a law professor at George Washington University who also has a column in the Washington Post, which suggests that intellectually, he's never going to wear stripes with plaid, nor white trousers before Memorial Day. But at the moment, he's verging on conspiracy theories. In his latest column, he repeatedly refers to Attorney General Garland as putting in the "fix" on the Hunter investigation by designating David Weiss as special counsel:

The Weiss appointment definitively established Garland as a failure as attorney general. As someone who initially praised Garland’s appointment, I now see that he has repeatedly shown he lacks the strength and leadership to rise to these moments.

On the other hand, he's also beginning to encompass the idea that's being quietly mooted elsewhere, that the Democrats should throw Hunter under the bus:

None of this means that Hunter Biden will be protected by Weiss from additional charges. He will likely pursue long dormant charges, such as Hunter’s being an unregistered foreign agent. He could also pursue felonies on the crimes detailed in the now-defunct plea bargain.

But this brings us to Abbe Lowell, who now appears to have replaced Chris Clark as Hunter's lead attorney on the Delaware cases. Yesterday, I pointed out here that Judge Noreika's mere act of questioning Hunter's plea deal on July 26 changed Hunter's legal situation, however she eventually rules on it, or indeed even if the prosecution is now successful in dropping the whole Delaware tax case as it petitioned to do on Friday.

The fact is that by removing certainty from Hunter's future, the judge has established that Hunter's interests are no longer the same as either Joe's or Attorney General Garland's, since both now have to scramble to protect themselves from the mere existence of Hunter, who can no longer be quietly ushered into obscurity.

Abbe Lowell has effectively acknowledged this on the weekend talk shows. I mentioned his appearance Friday on CNN in my last post. Yesterday, he expanded on his views on Face the Nation. His point was that both the prosecution and the defense had agreed on the diversion agreement, which kept Hunter out of jail and insulated him from further prosecution. But as soon as this began to look like it wouldn't fly politically, the prosecution reneged on what they'd agreed.

If the now Special Counsel decides not to go by the deal, then it will mean that he or they decided that something other than the facts and the law are coming into play.

On Friday, now-Special Counsel Weiss asked Judge Noreika for the authority to “voluntarily dismiss” the charges that Hunter Biden had committed willful failure to pay more than $1.2 million in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018. The judge gave Hunter's attorneys until today to reply. In a filing last night, Mr Lowell repeateed the arguments he made on Face the Nation. Via Red State:

The first thing to notice is that Hunter Biden’s team is now asserting that the questions presented by Judge Maryellen Noreika on July 26th are now mooted in agreement with the prosecution, which is seeking to dismiss the charges in Delaware in order to supposedly move them to another district.

Secondly, the filing also notes that the original plea and diversion agreement worked out between the two parties did constitute a complete end to the “sprawling five-year investigation.” The notion of broad immunity comes immediately after that in the filing when Hunter Biden’s team says the diversion agreement is in effect[.]

This strikes me as something of a Hail Mary play on Lowell's part. Yes, if everything works out exactly right, and the judge throws her hands up and says this thing has gone too far to withdraw at the last minute, and the agreement the prosecutors signed must stand, including its interpretation by the defense that precludes any other case being brought against Hunter ever, then Hunter gets the status quo ante that everyone had assumed going into the courtroom on July 26, Hunter walks, and most important for Joe and Merrick Garland, it's all forgotten well before next year's election.

But even Mr Lowell knows that most important part isn't going to happen, because in his own words, "you have every MAGA right-wing, fanatical person yelling and screaming and saying, 'It’s not right. And it’s not fair. And it’s not just.'" You can't go back to things as they were before July 26, because things weren't even as Mr Lowell claims they were before July 26. That's why Weiss and Garland reneged on the deal, if in fact even that's as Mr Lowell claims.

The only outcome that Mr Lowell is working for, of course, is the restoration of a blanket immunity deal for Hunter. Hunter could then, at least theoretically, retire to obscurity and let the resulting storm rage on without him, but even that is something of a fantasy. Jonathan Turley probably has a more accurate view of the likely outcome no matter what happens to Hunter:

As it stands, Garland [by naming Weiss special counsel] has virtually ensured that Congress will pursue an impeachment inquiry as the only body seriously investigating the scandal.

Mr Lowell must be enough of a realist to recognize the political realities here. Joe has been a doting father eager to protect his son for only as long as it's suited Joe, and the winds are beginning to change. Even Joe's defenders are promoting the story that Hunter was a con artist who sold the "illusion" of access to Joe, but Joe was an innocent victim of the scheme. At some point, Mr Lowell is going to need a new strategy, likely derived from John Dean's Watergate survival plan: a new guilty plea that still keeps him out of prison, but in which he now testifies against Joe.

That must surely be a contingency in Mr Lowell's thinking.