The House Judiciary Committee on Friday issued a subpoena to President Biden’s ghostwriter, who was revealed to have had confidential material disclosed by the former vice president by federal investigators, for interviews that revealed classified information. The recording was also deleted.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) served a subpoena on the attorney representing Mark Zwonitzer, who helped compile Biden’s 2017 memoir, “Dad, Promise Me.” and sent a letter to the ghostwriter demanding that he turn over records of Mr. Biden’s work to a judicial court. According to the committee copy: letter Obtained by The Post.
Zwonitzer’s lawyer, Louis Freeman of Manhattan-based Freeman, Nuter & Ginsburg, had initially promised to submit documents related to the memoir by March 8, but has since missed that deadline. He later told the Judiciary Committee, “I will not submit documents without your consent.” Summons,” the letter reads.
Freeman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s unclear whether the records will provide further evidence in House Republicans’ ongoing impeachment inquiry into Biden, but part of the investigation is the Justice Department’s investigation into the five-year tax probe of his eldest son Hunter Biden. The focus is on allegations of interference.
In his letter, Jordan wrote that the Judiciary Committee “has the authority to conduct oversight of criminal justice issues in the United States to inform potential legislative reform.”
According to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report, Zwonitzer conducted several recorded interviews with Biden in 2017, during which the former vice president discussed sensitive national security and foreign policy matters. He was said to have read out the notes “almost verbatim”.
Mr. Zwonitzer deleted the recordings some time after Mr. Xu was appointed in January 2023 to investigate whether the president had mishandled classified material.
“The recordings had significant probative value,” Hoare wrote in his 388-page report, adding that he “considered whether to charge the ghostwriter with obstruction of justice” but decided not to.
“Mr. Zwonitzer maintains a nearly intact record containing incriminating information about Mr. Biden, including a transcript of a February 16, 2017 conversation in which Mr. Biden said, “I found all the classified information downstairs.” , Mr. Hoa said, calling the act “against the law.” Intent to obstruct the investigation by destroying evidence. ”
“The ghostwriter voluntarily provided investigators with the device from which his notes and recordings were recovered,” the FBI added.
Hsu also declined to prosecute the 81-year-old president, saying jurors would see Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
At a March 12 House Judiciary hearing, Huh argued that his report “does not exonerate” Biden and that the president “intentionally retained and disclosed classified material.” clearly stated.
Biden’s lawyers informed the National Archives that some of the classified documents were found in his former private office in Washington, D.C., and others were later seized by the FBI during a search of his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
Former President Donald Trump was criminally indicted in June 2023 at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiring to conceal national security documents from federal authorities.
