Hunter Biden investigation: Court denies Heritage request for DOJ case records on plea deal
Kaelan Deese
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A federal appeals court in the District of Columbia denied a request for the expedited release of a set of records related to U.S. Attorney David Weiss‘s investigation of Hunter Biden ahead of his Wednesday plea deal hearing.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that plaintiffs at the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, which sought documents related to the five-year investigation into Hunter Biden, would likely not satisfy the criteria necessary to grant an emergency motion for an injunction over a previous denial for the records.
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Last week, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich denied Heritage’s request for a broader set of documents that included all communications from Weiss’s office relating to “special counsel status” and all communications Weiss’s office may have had with other U.S. attorneys’ offices “with venue to bring charges against Hunter Biden.”
Friedrich held that the plaintiffs had not demonstrated irreparable harm, a finding that was reiterated by the appeals court on July 24 in its denial of the emergency motion. A clerk was directed to enter a briefing schedule, and a three-judge panel will consider the Oversight Project’s request at a later date.
The Oversight Project filed its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in June, shortly after Hunter Biden was charged with two misdemeanor tax charges and a felony gun charge. The group later sought a preliminary injunction compelling nearly a full response to their FOIA request by July 21, just days before Hunter Biden’s criminal proceedings.
Through its FOIA request, the Oversight Project wrote in court filings it was seeking answers to the following question: “Was Weiss’s investigation truly independent?”; “Did the Attorney General mislead the American public when he assured them Weiss’s investigation was independent?”; “Was Weiss blocked from bringing felony charges against Hunter Biden in the District of Columbia or the Central District of California?”; “Did the Department refuse requests from Weiss for statutory or regulatory Special Counsel status?”
President Joe Biden‘s son is slated to enter a plea deal in a federal district court in Delaware on Wednesday with Weiss. The terms of the deal include the younger Biden pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charges and entering a pretrial diversion agreement for the felony gun charge, meaning he will not face any prison time.
Mike Howell, director of the Oversight Project, filed an amicus brief on Tuesday at the Delaware court asking the judge to reject the plea deal in light of his group’s aggressive pursuit of the documents.
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“This is not an ordinary criminal plea agreement,” Howell wrote in the amicus brief.
“Because of the substantial record and conflict on the issue of the very independence of the Department’s conduct of this case, Amici urge this Court to defer consideration of the plea agreement until more information is known,” Howell wrote.