WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project filed a motion Friday in its case in Delaware against the Department of Justice (DOJ) for records related to the Hunter Biden investigation.   

The motion seeks to compel production of records that shed light on the scope of the Justice Department’s examination of whether Hunter Biden violated the Mann Act, a 1910 law prohibiting the transportation of prostitutes across state lines, and whether DOJ fulfilled its obligations under federal law to Hunter Biden’s alleged victims.  

The Oversight Project’s lawsuit flows from political interference in Special Counsel David Weiss’s investigation of Hunter Biden and the Oversight Project’s successful effort to convince a federal judge to throw out the sweetheart plea deal between the Biden Justice Department and Hunter Biden last year.  

Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, commented on Friday’s filing: 

“While you shouldn't transport prostitutes within state lines, it is clearly a federal offense to transport them across state lines. This is another criminal offense that Hunter has not been charged for, one that we are forcing the Department of Justice to admit that they are tracking, as well as refusing to prosecute.” 

In the brief filed Friday, the Oversight Project cites a significant amount of evidence that the Justice Department was indeed investigating Hunter Biden for Mann Act violations, including testimony from an IRS Whistleblower working on the Biden investigation to Congress that explicitly said as much. The Justice Department claimed that even acknowledging these records, which the public already knows exist, would violate Hunter Biden’s privacy interests. The Oversight Project’s brief rebuts those claims in detail.