Department of Justice told the prosecutors not to comply with the subpoenas.
A federal judge on April 5 told U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys that the defiance of congressional subpoenas was hypocritical.
“There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he did not appear for a House subpoena,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said, Politico reported. “And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas.”
She added: I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing up. … You all are making a bunch of arguments that you would never accept from any other litigant.”
The judge was referring to Peter Navarro, a former adviser to ex-President Donald Trump, who recently started a prison sentence over a refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena.
The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee requested DOJ tax attorneys Mark Daly and Jack Morgan answer questions about the handling of the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. The DOJ declined the request, prompting subpoenas in 2023 and 2024.
The DOJ then directed the attorneys not to comply with the subpoenas, citing how the committee would not allow government lawyers to attend depositions. Officials cited one source, a 2019 opinion from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel that said “congressional subpoenas that purport to require agency employees to appear without agency counsel are legally invalid and are not subject to civil or criminal enforcement.”
The panel in March sued Mr. Daly and Mr. Morgan over the defiance of the subpoenas.
In the hearing on Friday, a status conference, DOJ officials defended instructing the attorneys not to comply with the decrees. James Gilligan, one of them, said the matter is different from the cases of Mr. Navarro and Steve Bannon, another former adviser to President Trump, because Mr. Daly and Mr. Morgan are current government employees. Mr. Gilligan also said the choice to instruct the attorneys to defy Congress came after deliberations “at a high level,” Courthouse News Service reported.
Judge Reyes, appointed by President Biden, did not seem impressed with those arguments and also criticized the reliance on the 2019 DOJ opinion.
