Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for Hunter Biden Pardon Records

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for all records from the Offices of Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, and Associate Attorney General regarding Joe Biden’s controversial pardon of Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:25-cv-02143)).

On December 1, 2024, then-President Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon to Hunter Biden for any federal offenses “which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.”

Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department after it failed to respond to a December 2, 2024, FOIA request for: 

Records and communications of the Offices of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, and/or Associate Attorney General or their designated representatives, about the pardoning of Robert Hunter Biden by his father, President Joe Biden.

The Biden Justice Department officials at issue are: then-Attorney General Merrick Garland; then-Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco; then-Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer.

Fox News reported on June 5, 2025, that the pardon of Hunter Biden was the only one of the over 1,500 pardons issued in the waning days of the Biden Administration that President Biden signed by hand. All others were signed by the so-called presidential autopen, the report states. The pardon also covers the time Hunter Biden served on the board of directors of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.

“The Hunter Biden pardon for undefined crimes going back a decade is invalid on its face. The Trump Justice Department should immediately release any and all records about the Biden pardon scandal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

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

 A hearing was recently held in the May 2023 FOIA lawsuit against the National Archives for Biden family records and communications regarding travel and finance transactions, as well as communications between the Bidens and several known business associates (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. National Archives (No. 1:23-cv-01432).

In February 2025, Judicial Watch field a lawsuit against the Justice Department for records and communications regarding the Internal Revenue Service’s investigation of Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:24-cv-03387)).

In June 2024, Judicial Watch received records from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) showing Mike Morell, former acting CIA director under President Obama, requesting CIA permission to publish a letter by former intelligence community leaders stating that they believed the laptop emails exposing Hunter Biden’s connections to Ukraine were Russian disinformation. Morrell’s request for prepublication review was approved in just six hours by the CIA (Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence Agency (No. 1:23-cv-01844)).

In October 2022, Judicial Watch sued DOJ for all records in the possession of FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten regarding an August 6, 2020, briefing provided to members of the U.S. Senate. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) raised concerns that the briefing was intended to undermine the senators’ investigation of Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:22-cv-02821)).

Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department on April 20, 2022, for messages sent through the SMART (State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolkit) system that mention Hunter Biden (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:22-cv-01066)).

In December 2020, State Department records obtained through a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit showed that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings. Previously in this case, State Department records included a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and Sally Painter, co-founder and chief operating officer of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic lobbying firm which was hired by Burisma Holdings to combat corruption allegations. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden was serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00229)).

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