House Republicans Sue Two DOJ Officials Over Refusal to Comply with Subpoenas in Hunter Biden Case

The House Judiciary Committee has taken legal action against two Department of Justice (DOJ) officials. On Thursday they filed a lawsuit against Mark Daly, a senior litigation counsel, and Jack Morgan, a trial attorney in the DOJ’s Tax Division for refusing to cooperate in subpoenas to testify before the committee. Gary Shapley, an IRS criminal investigator who has turned whistleblower who attended the same meeting the two were at when the DOJ was adamant that they not charge Biden for evading paying his taxes and for lying on his tax return.

According to the complaint:

“The Committee requires testimony from both Mark Daly and Jack Morgan, two current or former Tax Division attorneys who have firsthand knowledge of the irregularities in DOJ’s investigation that appear to have benefited Hunter Biden.

For example, as members of the team that recommended what charges to bring against Hunter Biden, Daly and Morgan initially agreed that DOJ should file charges for tax crimes related to 2014 and 2015. But months later, they gave a key presentation and argued just the opposite—that Hunter Biden should not be charged for tax crimes related to those years DOJ ultimately allowed the statute of limitations for those charges to lapse. Daly and Morgan are thus crucial to the Committee’s investigation.

After DOJ refused to make Daly and Morgan available for voluntary interviews with the Committee, the Committee subpoenaed them to appear for depositions.

But they defied the Subpoenas because their employer, DOJ, directed them not to appear. By refusing to appear, Daly and Morgan are frustrating Congress’s ability to conduct oversight and investigate Executive Branch corruption—a critical part of Congress’s Article I powers.

Because this investigation is also part of an impeachment inquiry, Daly and Morgan are likewise frustrating the Committee’s ability to determine whether President Biden has committed an impeachable offense. They are thus preventing the House from discharging its solemn power of impeachment, a power the Constitution vests exclusively in the House.

Daly, Morgan, and DOJ have not disputed that the Committee’s investigation is lawful. Nor have they disputed that Congress has the authority to pass legislation addressing the topic of the Committee’s investigation, or that it is entitled, as part of an impeachment inquiry, to investigate whether the President has abused his powers.

Indeed, multiple other DOJ officials have appeared before the Committee as part of its inquiry. Rather, DOJ has directed Daly and Morgan to defy the Committee’s Subpoenas only because, under House Rules, agency counsel (a lawyer who represents the Executive Branch’s interests, not Daly’s or Morgan’s) cannot attend.

Despite the Constitution’s clear command that each chamber of Congress “may determine the Rules of its Proceedings,” DOJ contends that subpoenas compelling testimony about an agency employee’s official duties, without agency counsel present, are unconstitutional and thus unenforceable.”

More from the Washington Examiner:

The DOJ has cited numerous reasons for objecting to the pair testifying, including that the department does not permit line-level employees to testify, particularly about open matters such as the Biden case. The DOJ brought nine tax charges against the first son last year, and the first son is currently fighting them in court. Allowing DOJ officials to speak outside of court about the case could jeopardize it, the DOJ has said.

The DOJ has also pointed to a Trump-era policy that established that DOJ lawyers are permitted to be present at depositions when privileged information could be involved. The House Judiciary Committee disagrees with that argument.

“The duty to comply with the Subpoenas (by appearing for depositions) is separate from any duty to disclose purportedly privileged material,” attorneys for the committee wrote in the court filings.

The attorneys repeatedly cited the House’s impeachment inquiry as the basis for their lawsuit, noting one of the inquiry’s tasks included determining whether Hunter Biden received preferential treatment from the department during its yearslong investigation of him. The attorneys noted that the House is also examining whether President Joe Biden pressured the DOJ in any way to go easy on his son. House investigators believe Morgan and Daly could speak to this, though several higher-level DOJ officials, including Morgan and Daly’s boss, have already denied in interviews with the committee that politics influenced decision-making in the Hunter Biden case.