Judicial Watch: Federal Court Hearing Set for FBI’s Records on Hunter Biden Gun Scandal – FBI Refuses to Divulge Number of Records Due to ‘Ongoing Criminal Investigation’

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced that a federal court hearing is scheduled for Friday, October 13 in its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records regarding the gun owned by Hunter Biden that reportedly was thrown in a trash can behind a Delaware grocery store. The FBI is refusing to disclose basic information about the records because it alleges doing so would interfere with the criminal prosecution of Hunter Biden.  

The court hearing, before Judge Jia M. Cobb of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is set for October 13, 2023, at 10 a.m. ET.

 In an August 2023 joint status report to the court, the FBI claims it has completed a search for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request and is “currently processing” the records but added that its “position is that the number of potentially responsive records is exempt from disclosure … as this case relates to an ongoing criminal investigation.”

 Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the FBI withheld records in response to a January 30, 2023, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:23-cv-00920)). Judicial Watch is asking for:

All records, including investigative reports, telephone logs, witness statements, memoranda, and firearms purchase documentation, related to the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of a firearm owned by Hunter Biden discarded in a Delaware trash receptacle circa October 2018.

All records of communications of FBI officials regarding the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of the firearm.

Judicial Watch argues that the Hunter Biden gun case “is indisputably of significant public intertest:”

It is also time sensitive. [Judicial Watch] has asked and Defendant has refused to provide the number of potentially responsive records that needs to be processed in this case. Without this number, Plaintiff cannot evaluate – let alone agree to – a processing time of 120 days. In addition, because it appears as though Defendant will be providing [Judicial Watch] with a “no number, no list” response at the end of the 120 days, it could be more efficient and economical for the parties to simply commence summary judgment briefing and for Defendant to file its opening brief in 60 days.

“The FBI unlawfully hid records about its Hunter Biden cover-up and now is using the compromised prosecution of Hunter Biden as an after-the-fact justification for its cover-up,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is simply remarkable that the Biden administration is invoking privileges – that are usually used to protect national security information – to hide details of the FBI’s clean-up operation about Hunter’s mishandling of his gun.”

In February 2023, from a separate lawsuit, Judicial Watch released records from the United States Secret Service that implicate the FBI in the unusual action of helping Hunter Biden.

In response to a February 24, 2021, email inquiry from Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger regarding the Secret Service’s involvement in the investigation of the Hunter Biden gun incident, the Communications Department asked for “more information or documentation.” Schreckinger responded: “Sure thing. Agents visited StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply and asked to take possession of the paperwork Hunter had filled out to purchase a gun there. The FBI also had some involvement in the investigation.”

In October 2020, The Blaze reported that in October 2018, Hunter Biden’s handgun was taken by Hallie Biden, the widow of then-presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son Beau. In 2021, Politico reported:

Hallie took Hunter’s gun and threw it in a trash can behind a grocery store, only to return later to find it gone.

Delaware police began investigating, concerned that the trash can was across from a high school and that the missing gun could be used in a crime, according to law enforcement officials and a copy of the police report obtained by POLITICO.

But a curious thing happened at the time: Secret Service agents approached the owner of the store where Hunter bought the gun and asked to take the paperwork involving the sale, according to two people, one of whom has firsthand knowledge of the episode and the other was briefed by a Secret Service agent after the fact.

Judicial Watch has multiple federal lawsuits focused on Biden family corruption.

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