Washington, DC In an effort to get answers on their allegations of Justice Department meddling in the lengthy investigation of the president’s son, House Republicans subpoenaed a federal prosecutor on Tuesday who is working on the criminal case against Hunter Biden.
A copy of the congressional subpoena acquired by The Associated Press states that Lesley Wolf, the deputy U.S. attorney for Delaware, was summoned by Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, to appear before the committee by December 7.
Jordan sent Wolf an accompanying letter that stated, “Based on the Committee’s investigation to date, it is clear that you possess specialized and unique information that is unavailable to the Committee through other sources and without which the Committee’s inquiry would be incomplete.”
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the Justice Department.
As part of their extensive investigation into President Joe Biden’s impeachment, Jordan and other Republican chairs have issued numerous demands, the subpoena to Wolf being the most recent. Republicans are attempting to gain momentum in their almost year-long probe, which has so far failed to unearth any evidence directly implicating the president in any wrongdoing. Last week, his youngest son Hunter and brother James received subpoenas.
The investigation centers on the foreign business dealings of the Biden family as well as the Justice Department’s probe of Hunter Biden, which Republicans assert has been impeded and obstructed ever since the case was launched in 2018.
Whistleblowers from the Internal Revenue Service have accused Wolf, who works with David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware overseeing the case, of “deviating from standard investigative protocol” and giving Hunter Biden, the president’s son, preferential treatment.
Republicans assert that it was evident the prosecutors were unwilling to look at any evidence that may implicate Hunter Biden’s father. In one case, IRS employee Gary Shapley, who was assigned to the case, testified that he and other investigators wanted to address an email exchanged by allies of Hunter Biden that mentioned the “big guy” in a meeting with Weiss and Wolf following the 2020 election. Wolf, according to Shapley, declined to comply, claiming that she didn’t want to inquire about “dad.”
Additional allegations concern an email sent by Wolf in August 2020 instructing investigators to strike any reference to “Political Figure 1,” who was identified as Biden, from a search warrant. In a different occasion, to prevent a possible shoot-out between two law enforcement agencies, FBI authorities informed Hunter Biden’s Secret Service detail beforehand of their intention to interrogate him and some of his business colleagues.
Officials from the Justice Department have refuted these allegations by highlighting the unique circumstances surrounding a criminal case involving a subject who was, at the time, the son of a prominent presidential candidate. For a long time, department policy has cautioned prosecutors from bringing cases that might have political undertones during election seasons in order to prevent any potential effect on the result.
This month, Weiss personally conducted a closed-door interview in which he refuted claims of political meddling.
He informed the committee, “Political considerations played no part in our decision-making.”
Despite Wolf’s refusal to come in voluntarily over the summer, Republicans are still asking that she testify before legislators because she has “first-hand knowledge of the Department’s criminal inquiry of Hunter Biden.”
“You are uniquely situated to shed light on whether President Biden played any role in the Department’s investigation and whether he attempted, in any way, to directly or indirectly obstruct either that investigation or our investigation,” Jordan wrote in the letter to Wolf, citing his crucial role in the Hunter Biden investigation.