A pair of Republican chairmen subpoenaed four officials at the FBI and IRS on Monday to appear before Congress for depositions related to the Department of Justice’s investigation of Hunter Biden, escalating a fight over access to investigators into the president’s son.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) wrote in letters accompanying the subpoenas, which were obtained by the Washington Examiner, that they believed the officials had information about a critical meeting last year attended by special counsel David Weiss, the lead prosecutor in Hunter Biden’s case.
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Two of the subpoenas were sent to FBI special agents Thomas Sobocinski and Ryeshia Holley, who work out of the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office.
Jordan, who issued those two subpoenas, said the pair would have had oversight responsibility for activity in the Wilmington Resident Office, where the investigation into Hunter Biden was based.
Additionally, Jordan said they both attended a meeting on Oct. 7, 2022, that two IRS whistleblowers testified about in May. The whistleblowers said that at the meeting, Weiss said he was not the deciding authority on whether to charge Hunter Biden, which Weiss later refuted.
The other two subpoenas were sent by Smith to IRS Director of Field Operations Michael Batdorf and IRS Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon, both of whom, Smith said, had key information about the same Oct. 7 meeting.
Smith wrote that Congress was continuing its investigation of Weiss’s nearly five-year inquiry into Hunter Biden, as well as allegations that the inquiry “was purposely slow-walked and subjected to improper and politically motivated interference.” Jordan expressed similar sentiments.
Hunter Biden came under scrutiny by both the DOJ and Congress over concerns about his past foreign business dealings and whether he inappropriately used his father, who was vice president at the time, as leverage or for bribery.
The DOJ’s inquiry, led by Weiss, nearly ended in a plea deal that would have involved the younger Biden pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and entering into a pretrial diversion agreement to avoid a felony gun charge.
The deal came apart during a plea hearing in July, when a federal judge raised concerns about provisions in the deal, including whether they would grant Hunter Biden immunity from future charges. Now the younger Biden’s lawyers and Weiss, who recently asked to be made special counsel in the case, are at what court filings described as “an impasse” over the agreement and could be headed for trial.
In the meantime, House Republicans are continuing to press forward with their own investigation into the Bidens, as well as the DOJ’s handling of the yearslong inquiry.
Jordan, for his part, has sought to speak with 11 officials at the DOJ and FBI, including the aforementioned two, who he believes may have pertinent information on the matter. Smith has gone through a similar back-and-forth with the IRS, but both chairmen have been met with resistance, largely because of the ongoing nature of the DOJ’s investigation.
The chairmen wrote that they had engaged in “good faith” with the DOJ and IRS about having the requested officials meet with the committees voluntarily for interviews but that both departments had still failed to comply with Congress without sufficient reason.
The DOJ declined to comment.
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The subpoenas required Sobocinski, Holley, Batdorf, and Waldon to appear for depositions on Sept. 7, 11, 12, and 8, respectively.
Read the chairmen’s letters below.
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