GOP legislators sue DOJ tax attorneys for refusing to cooperate in Biden impeachment probe
WASHINGTON, DC: The House Judiciary Committee launched a legal offensive on Thursday, March 21, as it filed a lawsuit against two attorneys from the Justice Department’s tax division.
The lawsuit stems from their refusal to comply with subpoenas issued by the Republican-led panel, which is co-leading President Joe Biden’s impeachment inquiry.
Urgency of testimony
The complaint, lodged in the US District Court in Washington, DC, seeks a preliminary injunction mandating DOJ lawyers Mark Daly and Jack Morgan to participate in depositions before the panel investigating allegations of President Biden’s involvement in his family’s business dealings.
The urgency of the matter was emphasized in the motion for the emergency order, stating, "The Committee’s need for Daly’s and Morgan’s testimony is urgent... every day that they defy the Committee’s Subpoenas delays and hinders its investigation at a time when the Committee is seeking to conclude its fact gathering."
“The Judiciary Committee has attempted to make reasonable accommodations for Daly’s and Morgan’s testimony, but those efforts are at an impasse, and Daly and Morgan continue to refuse to appear for their depositions,” the lawsuit added.
Daly and Morgan were involved in the Department of Justice's extensive five-year probe into Hunter Biden’s alleged criminal activities, complicating matters in the unfolding legal battle. The investigation has resulted in a dozen charges against Hunter Biden related to tax and gun crimes, the New York Post reported.
Testimonies from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler shed light on the pivotal role of Daly and Morgan in a critical June 2022 meeting. The meeting, attended by now-special counsel David Weiss, IRS criminal investigators, and FBI officials, saw the DOJ Tax Division recommend against prosecuting Hunter Biden.
Shockingly, Shapley revealed that Morgan “wanted to remove Hunter Biden’s name from electronic search warrants,” a move deemed "unethical" by the IRS investigator.
“Jack Morgan said, doing it without Hunter Biden’s name would probably still get us, in quote, ‘most’ of the data we sought,” Shapley told the House Ways and Means Committee. “I have never been part of an investigation where only getting most of the data was considered sufficient.”
Obstruction allegations
The lawsuit underscores the Department of Justice’s obstruction of the House panel's efforts to secure testimony from Tax Division officials. Despite attempts to facilitate voluntary interviews, the DOJ's refusal prompted the Committee to issue subpoenas.
“At first, DOJ refused to make Daly and Morgan available for voluntary interviews with the Committee, forcing the Committee to subpoena them for depositions, twice. But they defied the subpoenas because they elected to comply with DOJ’s baseless and unlawful direction not to appear,” the filing states.
“They have deferred to DOJ’s claim that the Subpoenas are invalid because, under House Rules, agency counsel (a lawyer who represents the Executive Branch’s interests, not Daly’s or Morgan’s) cannot attend,” the suit continues. “Among other things, DOJ argues that the inability of agency counsel to attend supposedly interferes with the President’s ability to control the disclosure of potentially privileged information.”
Crucially, the impeachment inquiry aims to ascertain whether President Biden exerted pressure on the DOJ to handle his son's case delicately, a matter Daly and Morgan could elucidate.
Although other DOJ officials involved in the impeachment inquiry testified that the Hunter Biden case remained apolitical, the Committee seeks a comprehensive understanding of the events.
Responding to the lawsuit, a Justice Department spokeswoman highlighted the department's significant efforts to cooperate with the Judiciary Committee, saying it "took the extraordinary step of making six supervisory employees available to testify on appropriate topics last year."
"It is unfortunate that despite this extraordinary cooperation from senior DOJ officials, the Committee has decided, after waiting for months, to continue seeking to depose line prosecutors about sensitive information from ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions," she said. "We will continue to protect our line personnel and the integrity of their work. We will review the filings and respond in court.”
The House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Hunter Biden, which has yet to yield evidence of criminal wrongdoing, suffered a setback with the indictment of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, after he was accused of providing false information about Joe Biden and his son during the 2020 presidential campaign, NBC News reported.
Social media reactions
The lawsuit's filing reverberated across social media platforms, with reactions ranging from criticism of the Committee's actions to calls for aggressive pursuit of justice.
"That’ll go over well," one posted on X.
"You guys are the worst investigators ever," another fumed.
"Stop wasting taxpayer money," a comment read.
"Play hardball. They do," someone else insisted.
"GET THEM!" another wrote.
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