WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator’s Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter pressing the U.S. Secret Service to answer questions about its involvement with Hunter Biden.

Recently, the Secret Service told the senators that it did not provide protection to the Biden family in 2018 and did not discover any records relating to a October 2018 incident involving Hunter Biden’s discarded firearm. However, text messages allegedly from Hunter Biden indicate that the Secret Service was involved in this incident.

“Accordingly, your office’s assertion that it cannot locate records related to this incident demands further explanation. The Secret Service must explain, in detail, the steps that it took to respond to the committees, including whether your office communicated with any current or former personnel that may have been connected to the incident,” the senators wrote in a letter to the Secret Service yesterday.

The senators also requested the Secret Service respond to a five-month-old request for records showing agents’ travel plans involving Hunter Biden in 2015. This comes about a year after his protection was terminated.

The senators’ March 25, 2021, letters to the Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Hunter Biden’s firearm incident can be found here.

Full text of the letter can be found here and below.

April 5, 2021

VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION

Mr. James M. Murray

Director

U.S. Secret Service

Dear Director Murray:

We received the U.S. Secret Service’s (Secret Service) March 31, 2021, response to our March 25, 2021, letter regarding reports that Secret Service agents were involved in an October 2018 incident regarding Hunter Biden’s discarded firearm when he was no longer a protectee.  Your office’s response stated that the Secret Service “has not located any records responsive to [our] request.”^[1]  Although Secret Service could not locate any records about the alleged October 2018 incident, questions still remain regarding whether any individuals connected to the Secret Service were aware of or took any action relating to this matter.  It would seem particularly unusual and inappropriate if any individuals connected with the Secret Service were involved in light of your office’s acknowledgement that the “Secret Service did not provide protection to any member of the Biden family in 2018.”^[2]

Hunter Biden’s own alleged account of the October 2018 incident, described in recently released text messages, explicitly references the Secret Service’s involvement.  Hunter Biden allegedly wrote on January 29, 2019:

She stole my gun out of my truck lock box and threw [it] in a garbage can full to the top at Jansens [sic].  Then when the police the FBI the secret service came on the scene she said she took it from me because she was scared I would harm myself due to my drug and alcohol problem and our volatile relationship and that she was afraid for the kids.^[3]

Accordingly, your office’s assertion that it cannot locate records related to this incident demands further explanation.  The Secret Service must explain, in detail, the steps that it took to respond to the committees, including whether your office communicated with any current or former personnel that may have been connected to the incident.

Your letter also failed to provide responsive material to our October 20, 2020, information request regarding emails that reference travel plans for Hunter Biden involving Secret Service agents in the summer of 2015, approximately one year after his protection terminated.  Your office has had approximately five months to produce the records but has failed to do so. 

In order to better understand the steps the Secret Service took to respond to our letters, please provide the following information no later than April 19, 2021:

1. In order to determine whether the Secret Service was involved in the alleged October 2018 incident regarding Hunter Biden, did you or your office communicate with any current or former Secret Service personnel, including but not limited to, personnel in Delaware or Pennsylvania?  If not, why not?  If so, when and who?
2. Please describe, in detail, the steps you took to search for responsive records relating to the firearm incident.  In your answer, please describe the databases that you searched and whether you searched phone records, including call records, location data, texts, and emails.
3. Please describe, in detail, the steps you have taken and will continue to take to search for responsive records relating to Hunter Biden’s travel plans in the summer of 2015.  In your answer, please describe the databases that you searched and whether you searched phone records, including call records, location data, texts, and emails. 
4. Are you aware of incidents, separate from those mentioned above, where current or former Secret Service agents performed actions on behalf of the Biden family when they were not in a protectee status?  If so, please explain in detail. 

Should you have questions, please contact Josh Flynn-Brown of Senator Grassley’s Committee staff at 202-224-5225 and Brian Downey and Scott Wittmann of Senator Johnson’s Subcommittee staff at 202-224-3721.  Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Charles E. Grassley

Ranking Member

Committee on the Judiciary                 

Ron Johnson

Ranking Member

Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

[1] Letter from Benjamin P. Kramer, Special Agent In Charge, U.S. Secret Service, to Charles E. Grassley, Ranking Member, S. Comm. on the Judiciary, and Ron Johnson, Ranking Member, S. Subcomm. on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (March 31, 2021).

[2] Id.

[3] Emma-Jo Morris and Bruce Golding, Hunter Biden texts contradict claims Secret Service wasn’t involved in gun case, New York Post (March 26, 2021)  https://nypost.com/2021/03/26/hunter-biden-texts-shoot-down-secret-service-denial-over-gun-incident/. Emphasis added.

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