FOIA Advisor

FOIA News: GOP Senators allege that FOIA does not apply to their request for Hunter Biden travel records

FOIA News (2015-2023)Allan BlutsteinComment

Grassley, Johnson Demand Secret Service Fully Comply With Requests For Hunter Biden’s Travel Records

Press Release. Office of Sen. Chuck Grassley, Jan. 19. 2022

WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary, with U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent a letter to the Director of U.S. Secret Service (USSS), James M. Murray, reiterating requests for Hunter Biden’s travel records. This request continues the senators’ oversight of Hunter Biden’s use of Secret Service protection while his father was Vice President. In response to the senators’ previous request, the USSS provided 259 pages of heavily redacted documents and failed to provide any records from 2010, 2011, or 2013.

The senators wrote, “The USSS’s production contains extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) redactions, which do not apply to Congress and should not be applied to this production. These inappropriate redactions impede our offices’ ability to understand the full scope of the interactions between Hunter Biden, his associates, and the USSS.”

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Commentary: The Department of Justice “unequivocally” advised agencies in 1984 that requests for records from individual members of Congress do not qualify for special access under FOIA unless submitted by the chairperson of a committee or subcommittee. See FOIA Update, Congressional Access Under FOIA, Jan. 1, 1984.