Hunter Biden was apparently tipped off about a surprise FBI interview in December 2020, according to a transcript of testimony from a former special agent obtained by Fox News.
The FBI supervisor told congressional investigators that knowledge of the interview by then-President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team and Secret Service headquarters resulted in a missed opportunity for investigators looking into Hunter Biden’s business deals, Fox News reported.
The transcript was released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee, which interviewed the agent under oath behind closed doors. The agent worked for the FBI for more than 20 years and retired last year.
The agent’s testimony comes amid whistleblower allegations about the Hunter Biden investigation. It also corroborates testimony from IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who said the Biden team and the Secret Service were “tipped off.”
U.S. Attorney David Weiss was appointed on Friday by Attorney General Merrick Garland as a special prosecutor in the case, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
“Tipping off the transition team and not being able to interview Hunter Biden as planned are just a couple of examples that reveal the Justice Department’s misconduct in the Biden criminal investigation that occurred under U.S. Attorney Weiss’ watch,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) alleged to Fox News.
“The Oversight Committee has no confidence in U.S. Attorney Weiss as Special Counsel given his inability to prevent the Biden transition team from being contacted, and federal agents were not permitted to interview Hunter Biden as planned,” Comer continued.
“Under the Weiss-led investigation, investigators were prevented from taking steps that could have led to Joe Biden, the statute of limitations was allowed to run with respect to certain felonies, and the U.S. Attorney’s office sought to give Hunter Biden an unprecedented sweetheart plea deal.”
The agent reportedly said the interview with Hunter Biden was to happen on December 8, 2020, one month after the presidential election.
“The initial plan was to have the local field office of the Secret Service be notified the morning of to diminish opportunities for anybody else to be notified. I was working with my management on that, as well as headquarters — our FBI headquarters,” the agent testified, as reported by Fox News.
Per the transcript, the agent said that on December 7, 2020, he was “informed that FBI headquarters had contacted Secret Service headquarters and had made a notification at that time, or somewhere around that time on the evening of the 7th.”
The agent said the notification upset him.
“I felt it was people that did not need to know about our intent,” he said, per Fox News. “I believe that the Secret Service had to be notified for our safety, for lack of confusion, for deconfliction, which we would do in so many other cases, but I didn’t understand why the initial notification.”
On the morning of the proposed interview, the agent testified that he was notified by his assistant special agent in charge that “we would not even be allowed to approach the house.”
“The plan, as told to us, was that my information would be given to the Secret Service, to whom I don’t know exactly, and, you know, my name, my contact, you know, my cell phone, for example, with the notification that we would like to talk to Hunter Biden; and that I was not to go near the house and to stand by.”
The agent was asked if he had “ever been told” to “wait outside of a target’s home until they contacted you.”
“Not that I recall,” the agent said. “I mean, there have been times where we waited for maybe something else operationally to happen, but, no, not from the point of view of the target, the subject of the investigation.”
Comer told Fox News that House Republicans “will continue our investigation into the Justice Department’s two-tiered system of justice and hold bad actors accountable.”
