WASHINGTON – Sens.
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and
Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations, are pressing the U.S. Secret Service to answer questions about
its involvement with Hunter Biden.
The Secret Service
recently told
the senators that it did not provide protection to the Biden
family in 2018, and could not locate any records relating to a reported
October 2018
incident involving Hunter Biden’s discarded firearm.
However, text messages allegedly from Hunter Biden indicate that the Secret
Service was involved in this incident.
“Accordingly, your office’s assertion that it cannot
locate records related to this incident demands further explanation. The Secret
Service must explain, in detail, the steps that it took to respond to the
committees, including whether your office communicated with any current or
former personnel that may have been connected to the incident,” the senators
wrote in a letter today to the Secret Service.
The senators also called on the Secret Service to
fully respond to a
five-month-old
request for records showing agents’ travel plans involving
Hunter Biden in 2015, roughly a year after his protection was terminated.
The senators’ initial March 25, 2021, letters to the
Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Hunter Biden’s firearm incident can be
found
here.
Full text of today’s letter to Secret Service is
here and below:
April 5, 2021
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
Mr.
James M. Murray
Director
U.S.
Secret Service
Dear
Director Murray:
We
received the U.S. Secret Service’s (Secret Service) March 31, 2021, response to
our March 25, 2021, letter regarding reports that Secret Service agents were
involved in an October 2018 incident regarding Hunter Biden’s discarded firearm
when he was no longer a protectee. Your
office’s response stated that the Secret Service “has not located any records
responsive to [our] request.”
[1] Although Secret Service could not locate any
records about the alleged October 2018 incident, questions still remain
regarding whether any individuals connected to the Secret Service were aware of
or took any action relating to this matter.
It would seem particularly unusual and inappropriate if any individuals
connected with the Secret Service were involved in light of your office’s
acknowledgement that the “Secret Service did not provide protection to any
member of the Biden family in 2018.”
[2]
Hunter
Biden’s own alleged account of the October 2018 incident, described in recently
released text messages, explicitly references the Secret Service’s
involvement. Hunter Biden allegedly
wrote on January 29, 2019:
She stole my gun out of my
truck lock box and threw [it] in a garbage can full to the top at Jansens
[sic]. Then when the police the FBI the
secret service came on the scene she
said she took it from me because she was scared I would harm myself due to my
drug and alcohol problem and our volatile relationship and that she was afraid
for the kids.
[3]
Accordingly,
your office’s assertion that it cannot locate records related to this incident
demands further explanation. The Secret
Service must explain, in detail, the steps that it took to respond to the
committees, including whether your office communicated with any current or
former personnel that may have been connected to the incident.
Your
letter also failed to provide responsive material to our October 20, 2020,
information request regarding emails that reference travel plans for Hunter
Biden involving Secret Service agents in the summer of 2015, approximately one
year after his protection terminated.
Your office has had approximately five months to produce the records but
has failed to do so.
In order
to better understand the steps the Secret Service took to respond to our
letters, please provide the following information no later than April 19, 2021:
- In order to determine
whether the Secret Service was involved in the alleged October 2018
incident regarding Hunter Biden, did you or your office communicate with
any current or former Secret Service personnel, including but not limited
to, personnel in Delaware or Pennsylvania?
If not, why not? If so, when
and who?
- Please describe, in detail,
the steps you took to search for responsive records relating to the
firearm incident. In your answer,
please describe the databases that you searched and whether you searched
phone records, including call records, location data, texts, and emails.
- Please describe, in
detail, the steps you have taken and will continue to take to search for
responsive records relating to Hunter Biden’s travel plans in the summer
of 2015. In your answer, please
describe the databases that you searched and whether you searched phone
records, including call records, location data, texts, and emails.
- Are you aware of
incidents, separate from those mentioned above, where current or former
Secret Service agents performed actions on behalf of the Biden family when
they were not in a protectee status?
If so, please explain in detail.
Should
you have questions, please contact Josh Flynn-Brown of Senator Grassley’s
Committee staff at 202-224-5225 and Brian Downey and Scott Wittmann of Senator
Johnson’s Subcommittee staff at 202-224-3721.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Charles
E. Grassley
Ranking
Member
Committee
on the Judiciary
Ron
Johnson
Ranking
Member
Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations
-30-
[1] Letter from Benjamin P. Kramer,
Special Agent In Charge, U.S. Secret Service, to Charles E. Grassley, Ranking
Member, S. Comm. on the Judiciary, and Ron Johnson, Ranking Member, S. Subcomm.
on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (March 31, 2021).
