House Subpoenas Mayorkas, Secret Service Officials as Hunter Biden Probe Expands
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is seeking to know what steps the Secret Service took to tip off Hunter Biden in the criminal investigation into his overseas business activities.
The committee issued six subpoenas to the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service, a division of the DHS, on Tuesday. The subpoenas come after the DHS prevented the Secret Service from providing information requested by Congress.
The subpoenas were sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to compel him to provide all documents and communications regarding the Biden transition team being tipped off about the FBI and IRS planning to interview Hunter Biden in December 2020.
“The Department of Justice initiated the Biden family coverup, and now DHS, under the leadership of Secretary Mayorkas, is complicit in it,” House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer said in a public statement. “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.”
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley first informed the House Ways and Means Committee that Biden was tipped off about plans for the FBI and the IRS to interview him in December 2020.
The subpoenas also seek all documents and communications related to Congress’ request. The committee also wants depositions with DHS and Secret Service employees involved with providing the response to Congress.
Comer noted the Oversight Committee is working with the House Judiciary and House Ways and Means committees in the investigation.
“The Department of Homeland Security is obstructing our investigation by muzzling the Secret Service from providing a response to Congress,” Comer added. “The American people deserve transparency, not obstruction. House Republicans will hold the Biden administration accountable for running interference for the Biden family’s corruption and criminal activity.”
Shapley explained that FBI and IRS investigators sought to interview Hunter Biden on Dec. 8, 2020, but a day earlier, FBI headquarters tipped off Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team about the planned actions. An FBI special agent involved in the investigation confirmed this to the committee.
In June 2023, Comer, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., wrote to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle requesting the agency make all Secret Service employees who received the Dec. 7, 2020, tip-off from the FBI and all Secret Service employees who could have passed this information to the Biden family or presidential transition team available for transcribed interviews.
The individual subpoenas were sent to Homeland Security officials Mayorkas; K. Shiek Pal, director of oversight in the Office of Legislative Affairs; Stephen Jonas, senior adviser to the general counsel; and Zephranie Buetow, assistant secretary for the Office of Legislative Affairs.
The deposition subpoenas were sent to Secret Service officials Vincent Tutoni, assistant director of the Office of Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs, and David McKeown, acting special agent in charge for the Congressional Affairs Program.
