Left: Patrick Byrne speaks during a panel discussion at the Nebraska Election Integrity Forum on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2022, in Omaha, Neb. (AP Photo/Rebecca S. Gratz). Right: President Joe Biden”s son Hunter Biden leaves after a court appearance, Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
Two attorneys are demanding that an appellate court take the extraordinary step of forcing a California federal judge to allow them to represent ex-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne at an upcoming trial in Hunter Biden’s defamation lawsuit, claiming that they know the defendant’s case better than anyone else on earth.
Stefanie Lambert, under indictment for allegedly trying to tamper with voting machines used in the 2020 election and previously disqualified from representing Byrne in a Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit for “relentless misconduct,” and Peter Ticktin, one of the attorneys sanctioned in Donald Trump’s failed RICO lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to issue a writ of mandamus directing U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson to grant their pro hac vice applications, allowing them on the case if in “good standing” despite not being licensed in the state.
Typically, judges will grant these requests, but they have discretion not to — and Wilson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, exercised that discretion in July, under “three-ring circus” circumstances.
That month, the defamation trial was set to begin, but Byrne suddenly fired his lawyers and both Lambert and Ticktin attempted to enter the case in their stead. The judge first refused to allow Lambert to represent Byrne, citing the aforementioned Dominion lawsuit.
“Ms. Lambert’s conduct in the Dominion case raises serious concerns,” Wilson wrote. “A court cannot effectively manage a trial without trusting that the attorneys will comply with its orders and speak truthfully. In Dominion, Ms. Lambert did neither.”
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Rather than handing Biden a win by default in a lawsuit claiming that Byrne defamed former President Joe Biden’s son when he falsely accused him of committing “despicable and treasonous crimes” involving bribery and Iran, Wilson rescheduled trial for Oct. 14.
In August, following Biden’s application for reconsideration regarding Ticktin, Wilson then withdrew his “grant of Mr. Ticktin’s pro hac vice status” and stated Ticktin could not represent Byrne at trial, noting that the attorney is “currently in good standing” but faced two suspensions of his license in 2009 and 2010 and was sanctioned in Trump v. Clinton for “bringing ‘frivolous’ claims that ‘lacked a reasonable factual basis[.]'”
Byrne, as Lambert and Ticktin point out, remains unrepresented by counsel. The situation has become more precarious because Biden’s lawyer Dick Harpootlian, the former South Carolina state senator who represented convicted double-murderer Alex Murdaugh, has asked the judge to issue a bench warrant against Byrne — who has been living in Dubai after claiming his life was in danger due to a Venezuelan “bounty” — to force him back to the United States and secure his appearance in court so the defamation case can be decided on the merits.
For Lambert and Ticktin, Wilson’s refusal to allow Byrne’s “counsel of choice” on the case amounts to “a severe violation of his constitutional rights” and should be reversed through emergency mandamus relief.
Calling Biden’s resistance to their presence on the case “a textbook example of abuse of process,” Lambert and Ticktin suggested they had special knowledge.
“[T]he error in question was a ruling which disallowed two highly qualified trial attorneys, knowledgeable in subject matter which is unknown by most attorneys, who are in good standing within their own jurisdictions to appear and practice before the District Court at the request of Defendant,” the filing said.
Styling themselves as “experts on the rarely known or understood subject matter,” the petitioners suggested an untenable situation is afoot, whereby Byrne can’t be represented by attorneys of his choice alongside local counsel and, at the same time, is under threat by the plaintiff of facing a bench warrant.
“Here, the Plaintiff’s counsel objected to the appearance of two attorneys who have extraordinary skill, as well as intricate knowledge of the facts and circumstances underlying the Plaintiff’s defamation claims and their client’s defense,” the filing said. “More importantly, Plaintiff’s strategy and the motives behind this baseless disqualification effort, is to keep the truth from being told. Of course, the truth is an absolute defense in a defamation case.”
“No other lawyers in the world know more about the facts, and the truth, underlying the Plaintiff’s claims against Dr. Byrne than the two attorneys that have been wrongfully disqualified and who are now unable to represent their client, Dr. Byrne, whose constitutional rights have been violated by the District Court’s unjust ruling,” the petition continued.
