WASHINGTON (CN) — The House Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday to enforce a pair of subpoenas for testimony by two Justice Department tax attorneys committee members say are “crucial” to their impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden.
In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the GOP-led committee identified Mark Daly and Jack Morgan — two attorneys with the Justice Department Tax Division — as having “firsthand knowledge of the irregularities in DOJ’s investigation that appear to have benefited Hunter Biden.”
The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Republican Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, is seeking evidence as to whether the Justice Department gave Hunter Biden “favorable treatment” because of his status as the president’s son in choosing not to bring charges.
According to the committee, Daly and Morgan were members of the team that recommended what charges to bring against Hunter Biden for his purported tax crimes in 2014 and 2015 when he served on the board of Ukrainian company Burma, and initially agreed the younger Biden should be charged. But after an unidentified number of months, the pair revised course and suggested Hunter Biden should not be charged.
Following Daly and Morgan’s reversal, the DOJ allowed the statute of limitations for the charges to lapse. The committee — represented in the suit by Matthew Berry, general counsel to the House of Representatives — highlights this sequence of events as a key part of why the committee sees their testimony as crucial.
The suit comes as the latest chapter in the GOP’s stalled efforts to move an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over accusations of financial malfeasance to enrich himself and his family while serving as vice president under former President Barack Obama.
After six months of the inquiry, Republicans’ efforts seem to have stalled in Congress, with concerns they may not have the votes with a narrow three-member majority in the House set to fall to two after Representative Ken Buck of Colorado announced he will retire Friday.
Thursday’s lawsuit may indicate a pivot by House Republicans to shift their focus to the Justice Department rather than President Biden, rather than close the investigation entirely and effectively absolve him of their charges.
According to the committee, the DOJ instructed Daly and Morgan to defy the committee’s initial subpoena, arguing that under House Rules, “a lawyer who represents the Executive Branch’s interests, not Daly’s or Morgan’s, cannot attend.”
The committee rejected that argument, pointing out that the House holds legal authority over such rules and noting that over 175 Executive Branch witnesses have appeared for depositions without agency counsel.
Daly and Morgan are not the first to push back against the committee, they said. Both the lead prosecutor and a former senior member of the prosecution team Daly and Morgan worked with refused to answer why the Justice Department decided to allow the statute of limitations lapse.
According to the committee, they asked two U.S. Attorneys appointed by President Biden why they chose not to partner with the prosecution team to bring charges against Hunter Biden, both of whom would have interacted with Daly and Morgan and both of whom refused to answer questions.
“Daly and Morgan either personally interacted with these U.S. Attorney’s Offices or have knowledge of the prosecution team’s interactions with them and can thus shed light on whether political interference played a role in these decisions,” they wrote in the suit. “Indeed, they have a legal obligation to do so.”
In a February letter responding to their subpoenas, the Justice Department raised concerns that the committee’s investigation was overstepping, especially considering Hunter Biden is again the subject of ongoing litigation after he was indicted on nine new tax charges in December.
“The committee has identified no reason to believe that any evidence exists of improper interference by President Biden in the department’s work, including as described in the impeachment resolution, much less evidence that would justify the additional testimony you seek in these subpoenas,” the Justice Department wrote to the panel.
Further, the Justice Department noted in the letter that it had already authored the testimony of six senior Department officials. That included special counsel David Weiss, who headed the investigation into Hunter Biden.
But the committee remains steadfast.
“In sum, the failure of Daly and Morgan to comply with their respective subpoenas is impeding the committee’s impeachment inquiry and its oversight of DOJ’s handling of the Hunter Biden investigation, matters of significant public concern,” the committee wrote.
“The Executive Branch’s purported reasons for frustrating this investigation lack merit, and the committee asks the court to compel both Daly and Morgan to appear before the committee and to testify,” they said.
Follow @Ryan_Knappy
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
