Pro-Ripple Attorney Says SEC Lost its Privilege Over Hinman’s Documents

Attorney Hogan said the U.S. SEC had lost its privilege issue over Hinman’s documents.

In a tweet today, Hogan & Hogan law firm partner attorney Jeremy Hogan reiterates that the Securities and Exchange Commission has lost its “privilege” argument over the drafts of Director William Hinman’s June 2018 controversial speech.

With the SEC losing the privilege over Hinman’s documents, the federal agency has chosen to move on to seal the documents from being filed or referenced publicly by Ripple, attorney Hogan said.

According to Hogan, the general rule for sealing documents from being filed publicly is that the moving party must show an overriding interest. Attorney Hogan added that the SEC’s overriding interest in sealing Hinman’s documents is the agency’s argument that it will fight the DPP privilege in other courts. 

“The SEC lost the privilege issue, so it’s moving on to the “sealing” issue. The general rule is the moving party must show an “overriding interest” ( I think is the verbiage) and the SEC is arguing it will fight the DPP privilege argument in other courts, and that is the interest.” Hogan said.

SEC Maintains That Hinman’s Documents Are Privileged

His recent comments on the matter come less than two days after the Securities and Exchange Commission claimed that the drafts of Hinman’s controversial speech were privileged. The SEC made it known in its recently-filed motion to seal certain documents in connection with the summary judgment motion.

The SEC said it surrendered Hinman’s documents to Ripple after the court denied its objection to Judge Sarah Netburn’s ruling that the drafts were not protected by deliberative process or attorney-client privileges.

“The SEC respectfully maintains that the Hinman Speech documents are protected by these privileges. But if these documents were to become a part of the public record, the SEC would be foreclosed from making any such argument in the future (on appeal in this litigation or other litigation), which would be highly prejudicial to the SEC,” the regulator noted.

Hogan Curious to Know the Content of Hinman’s Documents

Reacting to the development, attorney Hogan said it “blows his mind” that the Securities and Exchange Commission is still arguing that Hinman’s documents are privileged despite losing the issue about “100 times.” Attorney Hogan added that the agency’s quest to keep Hinman’s documents away from the public makes him curious to know the content of the documents.

The SEC is STILL arguing that the Hinman emails are privileged despite losing that issue about 100 times already. Blows my mind.

AND makes me recurious (is that a word?) about what is in them. https://t.co/E0yRzKIXI1 pic.twitter.com/Bqc6SRgL01

— Jeremy Hogan (@attorneyjeremy1) December 22, 2022

Meanwhile, attorney John Deaton, founder of Crypto Law, said Ripple has not yet released the drafts of Hinman’s speech because there is a protective order between the parties over the documents.