Republicans Hold Off Contempt Citation Against Presidential Son Hunter Biden

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans changed their minds this week on holding Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena to testify about an apparent conflict of interest in his business dealings.

They instead reached an agreement with attorneys for the president’s son that would give lawmakers an opportunity to question him in a closed-door session.?

Republicans were seeking a House vote on the contempt citation as soon as Thursday but canceled it “to give the attorneys additional time to reach an agreement,” according to a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee.

Hunter Biden was subpoenaed to give close-door testimony to Congress on Dec. 13 but instead spoke at a press conference behind the Capitol in which he denounced the “illegitimate investigations of my family.”?

He acknowledged personal mistakes during a problem with drug addiction but added, “My father was not financially involved in my business.”

He explained his refusal to participate in the closed-door deposition by describing it as Republican political maneuvering. He said he would testify but only in a public setting.?

“There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing,” he said.

The chairmen of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., and Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, were unsatisfied with Hunter Biden’s explanation.

“Mr. Biden’s flagrant defiance of the Committees’ deposition subpoenas — while choosing to appear nearby on the Capitol grounds to read a prepared statement on the same matters — is contemptuous, and he must be held accountable for his unlawful actions,” the reports they released said.

Comer and Jordan said they would be willing to allow Hunter Biden to testify publicly but only after a closed-door session.

The committees are investigating whether Joe Biden used his influence as a political leader before and during his presidency to help business ventures of his son and brother. Hunter Biden’s business has included consulting work for Ukrainian and Chinese companies.

His emails obtained by media outlets imply he might have used his father’s name in an attempt to win contracts.

Congressional Republicans want to know whether President Biden encouraged his son to earn money through name-dropping and influence-peddling. If so, they threaten to impeach the president.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.

SpaceX Lawsuit Opposes Authority of National Labor Relations Board

SpaceX is suing the National Labor Relations Board in a lawsuit that seeks to undercut the agency's fundamental authority to rule in workplace disputes.

SpaceX hit back with the lawsuit one day after the NLRB filed a labor complaint against the company.?

The NLRB says eight employees were improperly fired after they criticized chief executive officer Elon Musk for remarks regarding sex he posted on social media.

The SpaceX lawsuit says the NLRB lacks constitutional authority because the agency does not allow parties to legal disputes the right to jury trials. The space technology company seeks an injunction against the NLRB.

A win for SpaceX would undermine the authority of many federal agencies that Congress allows to adjudicate regulatory issues.

“The NLRB’s current way of functioning is miles away from the traditional understanding of the separation of powers,” says the lawsuit filed in federal court for the southern district of Texas.

The NLRB is an independent federal agency that protects the rights of private sector employees to organize to improve their wages and working conditions, with or without union representation.

The agency cited SpaceX after its management staff allegedly questioned, monitored and punished employees who participated in writing an open letter to SpaceX executives.

The employees were responding to Musk’s posts on X – formerly Twitter – in which he denied or joked about a SpaceX worker’s allegations her boss exposed himself and propositioned her.

The 2022 letter criticized Musk “for issuing inappropriate, disparaging, sexually charged comments on Twitter.”

The employees also said Musk’s words and actions appear to violate the company’s policies on diversity and workplace misconduct. The letter called on SpaceX officials to condemn Musk’s actions.

Instead, company officials said employees could “quit if they disagreed with the behavior of Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk,” according to the NLRB’s complaint against SpaceX.

SpaceX’s lawsuit says the NLRB’s procedures for handling complaints by employees violates the Seventh Amendment’s right to a jury trial in federal civil matters. Persons or organizations cited by the agency are entitled to administrative hearings but they normally are held before some of the same officials who decide whether to prosecute them.

SpaceX’s lawsuit says “the NLRB is also unconstitutionally structured because its members exercise all three constitutional powers—legislative, executive, and judicial—in the same administrative proceedings.”

If the five-member NLRB decides SpaceX violated labor laws, it could order the fired workers reinstated and that they receive back pay. SpaceX also could be fined.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.

Grand Juror Sentenced to Jail After Filming Court Proceedings

A former Smithsonian Institution security guard was sentenced last week to eight months in jail after he taped criminal grand jury proceedings in D.C. Superior Court then posted them on Instagram and in group chats.

Alexander Hamilton was serving as a member of a grand jury when he secretly recorded nine grand jury sessions with his cellphone, some of them based on homicide investigations. He pleaded guilty to contempt of court and obstruction of justice.

The jurors were told the proceedings were secret when they were sworn in on Sept. 9, 2022. Just before he took the oath, Hamilton recorded a selfie in which he whispered, "I'm about to lie."

He texted his recordings to friends and posted them on Instagram Story and on Instagram Live, where he has about 10,000 followers. During one posting he called a grand jury witness a "vicious rat."

As evidence he knew his postings were illegal, prosecutors presented one of his Instagram messages in which Hamilton said that "they can lock you up for this … having your phone back here."

U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ordered that he serve one year of probation after he is released from jail. Hamilton, 29, is the father of two children who worked as a special police officer at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Prosecutors had argued for a three-year sentence after saying his offense "strikes at the heart of the criminal justice system."

"Knowing that individuals like Mr. Hamilton will scorn, abuse, humiliate and even possibly harm them, makes victims and witnesses to crime reluctant to cooperate, justifiably fearful of retribution for testifying in a court of law," prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum.

Hamilton's federal public defender, Ned Smock, recommended six-month home detention.

"This conduct, though certainly serious, was not the calculated act of a man bent on causing harm to others or subverting the criminal justice system," Smock wrote in his sentencing memorandum.

The case is U.S. v. Hamilton in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.

Consumer Groups Says Starbucks Allows Exploitative Labor Practices

A Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Starbucks Corp. saying the company falsely labels its coffee and tea as "100% ethical" despite a history of what it called "slave-like conditions" on farms where the coffee beans and tea are grown.

The lawsuit says Starbucks uses its reputation for ethics as a marketing strategy while its farms in Brazil, Guatemala and Kenya exploit laborers.

"On every bag of coffee and box of K-cups sitting on grocery store shelves, Starbucks is telling consumers a lie," Sally Greenberg, chief executive officer of the National Consumers League, said in a statement.

Starbucks denied any wrongdoing and pledged to fight the lawsuit. The company says it accepts coffee beans and tea products only after each supply chain is checked and verified as meeting ethical labor standards.

The abuse of workers has included child laborers, grueling work, use of illegal migrants and requiring women to have sex with the managers who hire them, according to the lawsuit filed in District of Columbia Superior Court.

Washington, D.C., which is the headquarters of the National Consumers League, has a law called the Consumer Protection Procedures Act. The law forbids a variety of deceptive business practices.

In the case of Starbucks, the National Consumers League says the deceit is the company’s claim of "100% ethical" while exploiting workers in foreign countries. The group listed several examples:

• At Kenya’s James Finlay tea plantation, undercover British Broadcasting Corporation journalists reported they found sexual abuse of workers, including supervisors requiring women to have sex with them in exchange for their jobs. Finlay workers have filed a class action lawsuit alleging brutal working conditions and low pay. It says supervisors fire chronically injured workers instead of providing them with healthcare.

• At Brazil’s Starbucks-certified Mesas Farm, law enforcement officers rescued 17 workers, including a 15-, 16- and 17-year old, from grueling work conditions, the lawsuit says. They were required to work outdoors without protective equipment, sometimes in bad weather, while lifting coffee sacks weighing more than 130 pounds.

• In Guatemala, an investigative news story reported that children under 13 years old were working 40 or 50 hours per week at three Starbucks-certified farms, according to the lawsuit.

Starbucks’ certification program, called Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices, was one of the coffee industry’s first set of ethical sourcing standards when it started in 2004.?

The C.A.F.E. Practices consist of guidelines Starbucks developed to ensure the coffee and tea it buys are good for the environment and the supply chain’s workforce. It includes requirements for fair labor standards, sustainable agricultural practices and environmental measures to manage waste, protect water quality and conserve energy.

"We take pride in conducting business responsibly and supporting communities where we do business, from bean to cup,” the website says. “As a company that buys three percent of the world’s coffee, sourced from more than 400,000 farmers in more than 30 countries, Starbucks understands our future is inextricably tied to the future of farmers and their families.”

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop Starbucks from continuing to advertise "100% ethical coffee sourcing" without first improving working conditions for farmworkers in its supply chain. The lawsuit also wants the court to order a corrective advertising campaign by Starbucks as well as payment of damages.?

The case is National Consumers League v. Starbucks Corp. in District of Columbia Superior Court.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.

Former D.C. Police Officer Convicted of Selling Private Information from Reports

A former Washington, D.C., police was convicted last week of accepting bribes for giving a conspirator confidential information from traffic accident reports that appears to have helped attorneys find clients.

Six other people already pleaded guilty in the scheme. They included another police officer and two police department civilian employees.

They are accused of selling Information about traffic accident victims to middlemen who then would resell it to legal and medical service providers looking for clients or patients. The information included the injured persons’ names, nature of their injuries and home addresses.

Local laws require that the information be kept confidential to protect the privacy of accident victims.

Nevertheless, one of the civilian employees sold information from 12,206 accident reports in five months, according to prosecutors.

The former officer convicted last week, Vincent Forrest, 35, sold information from 2,316 accident reports to a middleman for $15,000, according to prosecutors. He had been fired from his job before the conviction in U.S. District Court on charges of bribery, conspiracy and making false statements.

Both Forrest and the other convicted police officer are awaiting sentencing. One of the middlemen – also known as a “runner” – has completed an 18-month prison sentence. Another runner was sentenced to five years of probation.

Forrest allegedly communicated with his runner through encrypted messages. They exchanged documents and money in person, according to the prosecution.

One item of evidence introduced against the former officer was a May 10, 2019 text message in which he promised to start getting accident reports the next day. The runner allegedly responded with a message saying, “Please that would be nice. I’m thinking we should do all 7 districts.”

Forrest answered, “Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll give you whatever is there,” court documents show.

For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: [email protected] or phone: 202-479-7240.