The House Judiciary Committee took legal action on Thursday by filing a lawsuit against two attorneys from the Justice Department’s tax division. The reason for this lawsuit is their refusal to comply with subpoenas issued by the Republican-led panel that is co-leading President Biden’s impeachment inquiry.
The US District Court in Washington, DC has been asked by the complaint to issue a preliminary injunction. This injunction would compel DOJ lawyers Mark Daly and Jack Morgan to sit for depositions before the panel investigating the alleged involvement of the 81-year-old president in his family’s business dealings.
Daly and Morgan have actively participated in the Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged criminal activities. The investigation has spanned over five years and has led to the filing of 12 charges against the 53-year-old son, primarily focusing on tax and gun-related offenses.
According to the motion for the emergency order, the Committee has an urgent need for the testimony of Daly and Morgan. It states that their defiance of the Committee’s Subpoenas is causing delays and hindering the investigation, just when the Committee is trying to wrap up its fact-gathering process.
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Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, IRS whistleblowers, testified before lawmakers last year, revealing that Morgan and Daly had attended a meeting in June 2022. This meeting included special counsel David Weiss, IRS criminal investigators, and FBI officials. During the meeting, the DOJ Tax Division recommended against prosecuting Hunter Biden.
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During the testimony, Shapley highlighted that Morgan expressed a desire to eliminate Hunter Biden’s name from electronic search warrants. The IRS investigator found this request to be ethically questionable.
During the hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, Shapley revealed that Jack Morgan expressed his belief that even without mentioning Hunter Biden’s name, they would still be able to obtain “most” of the data they were seeking. Shapley expressed his disagreement, stating that he had never been involved in an investigation where obtaining only most of the data was deemed satisfactory.
According to the lawsuit, the Department of Justice has obstructed the House panel’s attempts to obtain testimony from Tax Division officials.
According to a court filing, the Department of Justice (DOJ) initially declined to allow Daly and Morgan to participate in voluntary interviews with the Committee. As a result, the Committee had to issue subpoenas for their depositions on two occasions. However, Daly and Morgan chose to disregard these subpoenas due to their decision to comply with the DOJ’s groundless and illegal instruction not to appear.
The lawsuit argues that the Subpoenas are considered invalid by the Department of Justice (DOJ) due to House Rules, which prevent agency counsel, who represents the Executive Branch’s interests, from attending. Additionally, the DOJ claims that the absence of agency counsel hampers the President’s ability to control the disclosure of potentially privileged information.
The filing highlights that the impeachment inquiry is also investigating whether the president exerted pressure on the DOJ to handle his son’s investigation with caution. House investigators believe that Morgan and Daly can provide valuable insights into this matter.
During the impeachment inquiry, several officials from the Department of Justice (DOJ) have testified that the Hunter Biden case was not influenced by political motivations.
