Obstruction Of Justice! Hunter Biden Should Thank His Daddy

In an effort to get four witnesses to testify about the Department of Justice’s extensive investigation into Hunter Biden, House Republicans stepped up their pressure on the agency on Thursday. They said the agency is keeping staff members involved in the case from answering congressional subpoenas.

The House Judiciary Committee was able to get a letter from Attorney General Merrick Garland in which he said that the DOJ had previously instructed two employees of the Tax Division to ignore their subpoenas.

At a June 2022 conference at DOJ headquarters, trial attorney Jack Morgan and senior litigation counsel Mark Daly represented the Tax Division in decisions on the first son’s prosecution. They had a hand in the Hunter Biden legal matter. While attending the meeting, IRS criminal investigator Gary Shapley, who later became a whistleblower, told Congress that the Tax Division was not in favor of charging Biden.

The committee is still investigating whether Biden obtained preferential treatment that protected him from prosecution for the tax years 2014 and 2015. A year later, the DOJ issued nine tax charges against the first son relevant to the tax years 2016 to 2019.

As part of their impeachment inquiry, Republicans are looking into whether President Joe Biden’s administration was involved in his son’s investigation. They’re also investigating the DOJ’s probe into Biden.

Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chairman of the judiciary, wrote to the DOJ, demanding that it “reverse the Department’s order to the witnesses that they do not cooperate with the Committee’s properly approved and issued subpoenas.” Jordan said that the Department’s obstruction in this case had caused the Committee to run months behind schedule in its inquiry and that in order to determine whether to prepare articles of impeachment against President Biden or create legislative changes, the Committee needed to compile all pertinent facts.

Several DOJ agents who have already testified before Congress on the matter have disputed that political meddling had any role in Hunter’s case, according to transcripts obtained by the Washington Examiner. Subpoenas from the committee, however, indicate that it is still looking into the matter.

Along with Morgan and Daly, Jordan has also subpoenaed U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves of Washington, D.C., and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf of Delaware. The Department of Justice placed limitations on the topics these interviews might discuss, but the officials had already testified that they were aware of the Biden investigation. The committee is asking the two for more information, based on their subpoenas.

About Morgan and Daly, Jordan’s letter from this Thursday is the latest in a long correspondence over them that the committee has been having with the DOJ since last September at the latest. Republicans made it plain in their previous year’s impeachment resolution that they would sue the officials if the DOJ refused their demands to testify. At this point, it appears that Republicans will act in that manner unless they can reach a last-minute compromise with the department.

In several letters to the committee, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has maintained that it has a long-standing policy against line-level employees like Daly and Morgan testifying, particularly in relation to matters that are still pending, such as the investigation and prosecution of Hunter Biden. The Washington Examiner was able to access the most recent letter from the DOJ, dated February 29.

Republicans have previously interviewed Daly’s boss, Morgan, and Stuart Goldberg. As a 35-year department veteran and head of the Tax Division, Goldberg stated that the division has been crucial in advising the department on what tax-related charges to bring in connection with the Biden probe.

The DOJ has also referenced a Trump-era rule that says department attorneys can lawfully attend depositions if the witnesses are department workers. However, the committee is exempt from this policy, which maintains that Morgan and Daly may bring personal counsel to their depositions but not department attorneys.

In the most recent letter, Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte of the DOJ also asked that the committee provide questions to Morgan and Daly prior to any possible depositions with them.

Jordan said that “a face-to-face interview is a sort of fact-finding that is fundamentally different from written questions and answers” and refused the request, calling it a “demand at the eleventh hour.”

In response to Jordan’s letter, the DOJ said on Thursday that it is “committed to collaborating with Congress in good faith.”

“In that spirit, we made six supervisory individuals available to appear before the Committee last year on this matter,” the spokeswoman said. “The Department will continue to protect the integrity of the prosecution’s work and our ongoing investigations in the meantime, as both are essential to the Department’s goal.”