The Department of Justice (DOJ) has officially come under the Trump administration as Trump’s nominee Pam Bondi was sworn in as the new Attorney General (AG) two weeks ago. However, things don’t seem to be moving as fast toward transparency as conservatives expected. The department is still withholding important information in cases of corruption involving the Bidens.
On February 14, conservative organization Judicial Watch filed a second Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the DOJ to obtain the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) investigation of Hunter Biden. In the press release announcing the lawsuit, Judicial Watch recounted that in response to their first lawsuit seeking the same records, filed in July 2023, Biden’s DOJ invoked Exemption 7(a), stating that due to an “ongoing law enforcement proceeding regarding Hunter Biden” the records could not be released. The lawsuit was dismissed.
In September 2024, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to all nine counts of tax charges against him. The convicted First Son was scheduled to be sentenced on December 12 but Joe Biden pardoned him on December 1, 2024. Juridical Watch wrote that in the wake of this pardon, no open law enforcement proceedings exist anymore while the original FOIA request remains open.
On his X (Twitter) page, which has now 3 million followers, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton announced the lawsuit by including a short video of his comments on Hunter Biden’s unprecedented pardon by his father a month before President Trump’s certification in the Congress as the 47th President of the United States.
https://twitter.com/TomFitton/status/1890823699999121589
Tom Fitton was cited in the release saying:
“This is a perfect opportunity for the Trump Justice Department to expose the extent of IRS/DOJ corruption to cover up Biden family corruption. The Justice Department is lawfully required to release all responsive records requested by Judicial Watch.”
In another update posted to its website the same day, Judicial Watch reported that Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the DOJ to declare whether it will be releasing the full audio of Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur. Judge Kelly ordered the DOJ to respond by February 19, 2025.
Judicial Watch’s lawsuit already forced the Biden administration to admit that the transcripts of the audio recordings had been altered and were not accurate. The DOJ under Biden resisted the release of the interview audio, even asking the court to rewrite the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) law to block the release of the audio. The press release says:
Further, the audio would educate the public about “whether Special Counsel Hur appropriately pursued justice by recommending to the attorney general that criminal charges should not be brought against President Biden concerning his mishandling of classified materials.
In another development along the same lines, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was also sued by another conservative group to unlock some facts about Biden administration’s handling of illegal immigrants. As reported by Fox News (February 17), the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) had requested the DHS in October 2024 to release the agency’s internal communications about data on illegal aliens with a criminal history present in the country. Their FOIA request was ignored by the DHS, which was then under the Biden administration. Now CASA has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia to obtain those records from the agency.