The House Judiciary Committee demanded Tuesday that former special counsel David Weiss and seven current and former Justice Department lawyers testify before Congress about their work involving Hunter Biden, President Donald Trump, and other cases with political undertones.
Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote two letters, one to Weiss and another to Attorney General Pam Bondi, outlining his committee’s plans to question them as part of his inquiry into what he alleges was the Biden administration’s “alarming disregard for its constitutional responsibilities” at the expense of Republicans.
The inquiry is a continuation of Jordan’s work from the last Congress, when the chairman led a “weaponization” committee that probed the DOJ about the same concerns.
Bondi has said she is eager to cooperate with the Republican-led congressional investigations. Her cooperation and the fact that some of the cases in question have drawn to a close mean Republicans could garner more insights during this Congress.
In his letter to Weiss, Jordan conveyed disappointment that the former special counsel’s final report on his investigation and prosecutions of Hunter Biden omitted key information that Weiss promised Jordan he would include.
“You refused to answer several questions from the Committee during your transcribed interview and instead represented that your final report would contain the information sought by the Committee,” Jordan said, requesting that Weiss contact him by April 1 to arrange another interview.
Weiss successfully brought several tax charges against then-President Joe Biden’s son in 2023, but in his final special counsel report, he said he could not discuss any additional charges he had considered bringing against Hunter Biden because of the sweeping pardon he received from his father.
“In light of this pardon, I cannot make any additional charging decisions as to Mr. Biden’s conduct during those eleven years,” Weiss wrote in his report. “It would thus be inappropriate to discuss whether additional charges are warranted.”
A lawyer for Weiss did not respond to a request for comment.
In Jordan’s letter to Bondi, he asked to interview longtime attorney J.P. Cooney, a career prosecutor who was among those who Trump DOJ appointees fired at the start of the new administration. As part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s team, Cooney helped orchestrate “a partisan and politically motivated prosecution of President Donald J. Trump and his co-defendants,” Jordan alleged.
Jordan also asked to interview a former DOJ attorney who worked on former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry’s case. A jury convicted Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican, of lying to the FBI about campaign contributions, but an appellate court overturned the conviction, saying the case was brought in the wrong jurisdiction.
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The DOJ was in the process of bringing the case again when the Trump administration took over and tossed out Fortenberry’s case in January. The president called the case a “scam.”
Jordan also demanded interviews with two DOJ attorneys who worked on Mark Houck’s case. A jury acquitted Houck, an anti-abortion Catholic father and activist, in 2023 after the Biden administration brought charges against him under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Prosecutors at the time alleged that Houck assaulted a clinic worker, but surveillance footage painted a more complicated picture in which the worker confronted Houck and his young son, who were not blocking any entrances.