Garrett Ziegler, the former White House aide and founder of the website Marco Polo, through which he posted more than 125,000 emails from Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop and is now the subject of a lawsuit brought by the first son, filed a motion to have the judge in the case recuse himself.
Attorneys for Ziegler filed a motion on Thursday seeking the recusal of U.S. District Judge Hernan D. Vera, a 2023 Joe Biden appointee. Further, the judge donated at least $1,600 to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020, they claim.
A hearing has been set for April 25 at the Central District of California courthouse.
Ziegler’s attorneys argue that it isn’t just the donation or the judicial appointment of Vera.
“Rather, this Motion is brought because the subject matter of the litigation, the relief sought, and the surrounding facts and circumstances would cause a reasonable observer to question whether Judge Vera’s decisions in this case will be impartial,” read the filing.
Ziegler’s attorneys also surface the timing of Vera’s appointment relative to when the lawsuit was brought by Hunter Biden.
“The outcome of this litigation could affect the outcome of the presidential impeachment inquiry. If Judge Vera grants the injunction, it would prevent the public, media, and Congress from accessing Defendants’ investigative reporting and contents on the Biden Laptop, possibly impacting the impeachment investigation,” the motion said. “A reasonable person would question whether Judge Vera has a bias in ensuring that President Biden stays in office, given his political contributions to President Biden’s 2020 presidential election campaign and his appointment to the federal court by President Biden just three months before this case was assigned to him.”
Hunter Biden filed a lawsuit in September accusing Ziegler, former economic adviser to Donald Trump and aide to Peter Navarro, of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by creating an online searchable database of his more than 128,000 emails in May 2022. Biden claims Ziegler and his Marco Polo site violated computer privacy laws.
The emails reportedly span from December 2009 to March 2019 — shortly before Hunter Biden dropped off his MacBook Pro at a Delaware computer store, but never returned to pick it up.
The emails formed the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, which led to depositions of Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother, last month.
“An injunction would eliminate access of the public, media, and members of Congress to the information on the websites that implicate matters of national and international concern – the potential foreign compromise and criminal wrongdoing of the First Family of the United States. Furthermore, an injunction might substantially impede the impeachment inquiry as well,” Ziegler’s motion read.
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