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House investigators issued six subpoenas Tuesday seeking information about the government’s role in allegedly obstructing a criminal probe into Hunter Biden over hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes and lying on a gun background check form.
The subpoenas seek “all documents and communications” related to the FBI tipping off the Secret Service and the Biden presidential transition team about an interview the IRS and FBI planned to conduct with Hunter Biden in December 2020.
“Investigators were never able to interview Hunter Biden during the criminal investigation because Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were tipped off about the planned interview,” said House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, who issued the subpoenas.
Homeland Security officials say they were working on the House request and there was no need to slap them with subpoenas, which were issued to Mr. Mayorkas and five other officials in DHS and the Secret Service.
The subpoenas were issued after Mr. Comer, Kentucky Republican, and other top Republicans wrote to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in June. They sought to interview the Secret Service employees who were tipped off by the FBI and who may have passed the information along to the Biden family or Mr. Biden’s transition team.
While the Secret Service attempted to respond to the June request from Congress, they were blocked from turning over the information by the lawyers and other top officials from the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Secret Service.
Homeland Security officials told Secret Service officials “not to provide the original response” it had prepared, Mr. Comer said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Instead, the Secret Service sent a different response and copied in Homeland Security lawyers.
The Secret Service officials told Congress it could find no employees who had first-hand knowledge of tipping off the Bidens about the planned Hunter Biden interview.
“The Department of Homeland Security is obstructing our investigation by muzzling the Secret Service from providing a response to Congress,” Mr. Comer said. “The American people deserve transparency, not obstruction.”
A DHS official told The Washington Times that Mr. Comer’s obstruction assertion is “categorically false” and the subpoenas “are entirely without basis.”
The official said the department “was following standard procedures for the review and submission of materials to Congress,” and that such reviews are needed to protect law enforcement procedures “and matters relating to ongoing investigations, privacy and privilege issues, consistency in our responses, and more.”
Mr. Comer’s subpoenas seek Homeland Security documents and communications, as well as interviews with top Homeland Security officials who were involved in blocking the Secret Service from responding to the congressional inquiry.
House investigators first learned about the failed effort to interview Hunter Biden from IRS whistleblowers who were investigating the president’s son for tax fraud.
An FBI and IRS agent planned to interview Hunter Biden on Dec. 8, 2020 and wanted to do it without giving him advance warning.
But on Dec. 7, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley was told by his supervisors that “FBI headquarters had notified Secret Service headquarters” and the Biden presidential transition team about the plan.
The interview never occurred and was part of a pattern identified by the whistleblowers that they believe showed the president’s son received favorable treatment in his criminal probe.
Hunter Biden was ultimately charged with two misdemeanor tax crimes that carried no recommended jail time and was offered a diversion program to avoid the gun charge.
The deal fell apart in court after prosecutors backtracked on an agreement that Hunter Biden would not be prosecuted for other past crimes, including unregistered foreign lobbying.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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