Two Republican senators are asking the directors of the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for details of their alleged investigation into a handgun that belonged to Hunter Biden that was reported missing in 2018.
In their letters, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson refer to a report from Politico this week about the gun incident.
According to Politico, on Oct. 23, 2018, Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law, Hallie Biden, called police in Delaware to report that she had thrown Biden’s gun in a trash can behind a grocery store.
Hallie, who was also dating Hunter, said that she went to retrieve the gun after growing worried someone might find it and use it in a crime, but that it was no longer in the trash can.
The FBI responded to the scene of the investigation, as did ATF. The U.S. Secret Service also became involved in the investigation and contacted the gun store that sold the firearm to Biden, according to Politico.
The store owner provided documents to the ATF, but “refused to supply the paperwork” to the Secret Service out of concerns that “the Secret Service officers wanted to hide Hunter’s ownership of the missing gun in case it were to be involved in a crime,” Politico reported.
Nobody was arrested in connection with the incident.
The Secret Service denied this week that the agency was involved in the incident, though text messages that came to light on Friday show that Hunter Biden wrote to someone that the FBI and Secret Service showed up to investigate an incident that resembles the one in Delaware.
“U.S. Secret Service records confirm that the agency did not provide protection to any member of the Biden family in 2018, and that the Secret Service had no involvement in this alleged incident,” the agency said in a statement.
The New York Post reported Friday that Biden said in a Jan. 29, 2019, text message that Hallie Biden had taken the gun out of his truck lock box and dropped it in a garbage can behind a grocery store.
“She stole the gun out of my trunk lock box and threw it in a garbage can full to the top at Jansens [sic]. Then told me it was my problem to deal with,” Biden wrote, according to the Post.
“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,” wrote Biden.
Grassley and Johnson noted in their letter to Secret Service Director James Murray that neither Joe nor Hunter Biden were under Secret Service protection at the time of the incident.
Politico also reported that an anonymous law enforcement official said that Secret Service agents “kept an informal hand in maintaining the former vice president’s security.”
“If true, USSS must explain to Congress why such informal actions were taken and whether they were necessary in light of the circumstances,” the senators wrote.
The report comes as the U.S. Attorney’s office in Delaware is investigating Hunter Biden over tax issues. The investigation began in 2018, the same year as the gun incident.
