House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) subpoenaed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secret Service officials over allegations that the Justice Department tipped off Hunter Biden’s Secret Service detail and his father’s transition team to an interview investigators wanted to conduct for their criminal investigation into the president’s son.
The committee is subpoenaing six officials: two Secret Service employees and three Department of Homeland Security officials for depositions and, in Mayorkas’s case, for documents.
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The Mayorkas subpoena is for all documents and communications regarding the Hunter Biden investigation involving current or former Secret Service or DHS officials from Dec. 1, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2020. The committee is also requesting all communications or documents since June 29, 2023, relating or referring to a letter Comer sent on that date.
In June, Comer sent a letter to the Secret Service requesting interviews on the matter, with the agency’s lack of compliance prompting the subpoena. The Secret Service is under the DHS, which is why Mayorkas and the other DHS officials were also subpoenaed.
The subpoenas come after testimony from an IRS whistleblower, supervisor agent Gary Shapley, who alleged that in December 2020, members of President Joe Biden’s transition team and Hunter Biden’s Secret Service detail were tipped off that IRS investigators planned on conducting an interview with the president’s son in connection with the criminal tax investigation into him.
This was confirmed by the anonymous FBI whistleblower who sat for a transcribed interview before the Oversight Committee.
“The Department of Justice initiated the Biden family coverup and now DHS under the leadership of Secretary Mayorkas is complicit in it,” Comer said in a 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. This is just one of many examples of the misconduct and politicization during the Department of Justice’s investigation.”
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A DHS official disputed Comer’s characterization that the department obstructed or withheld a response to Congress and that it was working to respond to the inquiry “appropriately.”
“DHS works across all our components to respond to congressional inquiries in a uniform and accurate way,” the DHS official said. “DHS was following standard procedures for the review and submission of materials to Congress, which have been utilized across multiple Congresses. These reviews are a normal and necessary step in the process to ensure protection of law enforcement sensitivities, matters relating to ongoing investigations, privacy and privilege issues, consistency in our responses, and more.”
