A judge appointed by President Biden slammed the Justice Department’s apparent hypocrisy Friday for allowing lawyers involved in the Biden family investigation to oppose subpoenas — even as former Trump adviser Peter Navarro sat on the prison for doing the same thing.
District Judge Ana Reyes blasted the DOJ in a status conference for not allowing DOJ attorneys Mark Daly and Jack Morgan to testify as part of the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the Biden family and the impeachment inquiry into the president.
“There’s a person in jail right now because you all brought a criminal lawsuit against him because he didn’t appear for a House subpoena,” Reyes said during a hearing on the Judiciary Committee’s lawsuit, according to Politico, seemingly referring to Navarro.
HUNTER BIDEN CLAIMS HE’S NOT ‘STANDING TO GET ANYTHING’ IN CONTROVERSIAL BURISMA DESPITE MILLIONS.
Peter Navarro, White House trade advisor to former US President Donald Trump, arrives to speak to the press at the Country Mall Plaza before reporting to the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami, Florida, on March 19, 2024. (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
Navarro was sent to prison in March for four months, charged and convicted of contempt of Congress after he refused to comply with a congressional subpoena requesting his testimony and documents related to the January 6 attack. , 2021 at the US Capitol. Navarro said he could not cooperate with the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack because Trump invoked executive privilege, an argument that lower courts rejected.
Former White House adviser Steve Bannon also received a four-month sentence for similar contempt of Congress charges but was allowed to remain free pending an appeal.
“I think it’s quite rich you guys pursue criminal investigations and put people in jail for not showing,” but then direct current executive branch employees to take the same approach, Reyes blasted. “You all make a bunch of arguments that you wouldn’t accept from any other litigant.”
The US Department of Justice seal on a podium in Washington, DC (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“And now you guys are flouting those subpoenas. . . . And you don’t have to show up?” Reyes continued.
He said the DOJ’s position will cheer defense attorneys up and down the country.
“I imagine that there are hundreds, if not thousands of defense attorneys. . . who will be glad to hear that the position of the DOJ is, if you do not agree with a subpoena, if you believe that it is unconstitutional or illegal, you can unilaterally not show up,” said Reyes.
HUNTER BIDEN ATTORNEY SLAMS ‘ABNORMAL WAY’ SPECIAL COUNSEL WEISS HANDED CASE AFTER JUDGE DENIES DISMISSAL
Daly and Morgan, two lawyers in the Justice Department’s tax division, were subpoenaed for their “firsthand knowledge of irregularities in the DOJ investigation that appear to have benefited Hunter Biden,” according to the Courthouse News Service.
The committee said the pair were members of a team that recommended what charges to bring against Hunter Biden for alleged tax crimes in 2014 and 2015 when he served on the board of the Ukrainian company Burisma.
That group initially agreed that Hunter Biden should be indicted but later reversed course and suggested that he should not be indicted.
Following the reversal, the Justice Department allowed the statute of limitations for those charges to lapse. The committee believes that looking at this timeline is important to its investigation.
Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Donald Trump, speaks to the media on November 15, 2021, after appearing in court on contempt-of-Congress charges for failing to comply with a subpoena. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Justice Department attorney James Gilligan tried to argue that the decision to oppose the subpoena came after lengthy discussions “at a high level.”
He also argued that Daly and Morgan were current government employees, while Navarro and Bannon were no longer part of the government when their testimony was sought, but Reyes seemed unimpressed with that argument.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
But his criticism wasn’t all directed at Biden’s DOJ.
Reyes mocked the opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel during the Trump era which contended that executive branch employees could refuse such subpoenas if Justice Department lawyers were not allowed to attend.
He also wonders why Gilligan won’t promise to call Daly and Morgan to testify if the committee rejects its insistence that government counsel was not in the room for their depositions.
“I can’t answer that right now,” he said. To which Reyes responded, “Are you kidding me?”
Anders Hagstrom of Fox News contributed to this report.
Former US President Donald Trump speaks outside a courtroom in New York, on March 25, 2024. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
