Jim Jordan and Mike Turner threaten CIA with subpoena over Hunter Biden emails

Two House Republican leaders on Wednesday in a letter to CIA Director William J. Burns threatened to subpoena the agency over documents that they say show a coordinated effort to falsely discredit an ongoing Hunter Biden investigation.

Reps. Jim Jordan and Mike Turner, both Ohio Republicans, said in a news release that they have “renewed their requests for documents related to the investigation and warned that compulsory process may be necessary if the agency does not comply.”

Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, and Turner, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, in the letter said their committees are investigating an Oct. 10, 2020 “Public Statement” signed by 51 former intelligence community officials on the president’s son’s emails.

“This statement, signed by former intelligence community officials using their official titles and emphasizing their national security credentials, suggested that public reporting about Hunter Biden’s business dealings and Biden family influence-peddling ‘ha[d] all the hallmarks of a Russian information operation,’” the letter said.

“We have since learned that the statement was drafted and disseminated following communications between former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell and Biden campaign advisor—now Secretary of State—Antony Blinken.”

Jordan and Turner in the letter said the CIA is in possession of documents that are “responsive to our requests and necessary to our oversight.”

“The Committees have received evidence that the CIA, or at least an employee of the CIA, may have helped to solicit signatories for the statement about Hunter Biden,” the letter said.

“If accurate, this information raises fundamental concerns about the role of the CIA in helping to falsely discredit allegations about the Biden family in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election.”

The letter said that the CIA provided a “minimal production of documents” on May 9 but said the CIA admitted it hadn’t performed a comprehensive records search, noting that a CIA staffer in a May 12 phone conversation, committed to cooperating in full with the Committees’ oversight.

“We fully expect the CIA to produce all responsive documents to the Committees’ March 21, 2023, request in unredacted form no later than May 30, 2023. If the CIA does not produce all responsive documents, the Committees may resort to compulsory process.”

Read the full letter here.