‘Maybe we were asked for a favor?’ Secret Service accused of a ‘cover-up’ of Hunter Biden’s gun

The Secret Service has been accused of a “cover up” for its alleged involvement in a police investigation when Hunter Biden’s lover dumped his gun in a trash can near a school in 2018.

Judicial Watch, a nonprofit justice watchdog organization, announced Friday that it received 487 pages of Secret Service (USSS) records on the incident, saying the documents cast further doubt on the agency’s claims that was not involved.

Hunter’s mistress and brother’s widow, Hallie Biden, left his .38 pistol on top of a trash can at Jansens supermarket in Wilmington, Delaware, in October 2018, prompting a police investigation.

In text messages on his abandoned laptop, Hunter claimed that when Delaware cops found the gun, “the FBI and Secret Service” got involved, though USSS has repeatedly denied this.

He wrote that Hallie told officers she took the gun because she was “scared for the kids” and “because she was afraid he would hurt me because of my drug and alcohol problem.”

‘Maybe they asked us as a favor?’ a Secret Service team member wrote on October 30, 2020

Judicial Watch obtained hundreds of pages of internal communications between Secret Service officials about the incident.

Records show that agency officials discussed media reports about their alleged involvement and one found it “odd” that the USSS was involved in the investigation when Joe and Hunter Biden were not receiving Secret Service protection at the time.

Another official responds: ‘Maybe they asked us for a favor?’

“These new documents suggest that one cannot take at face value the Secret Service’s denial that it was not involved in the Hunter Biden gun cover-up,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told DailyMail.com.

A flurry of internal emails began on October 29, 2020, when a website called Blaze published an article about Hallie dumping Hunter’s gun in a supermarket trash can.

One official emailed another in the Protective Intelligence and Evaluation Division with a link to the article.

Another official, whose name is redacted, responded: ‘My God…’

After reading the article, a Secret Service protection intelligence investigation specialist wrote to his colleagues: ‘Is it a little strange that we were involved in the investigation of the missing weapon when neither Hunter nor Joe were receiving protection from the USSS at the time? ? Hmm.’

Another official responds: ‘Maybe they asked us for a favor?’

The documents also show the agency’s response to a Politico reporter who inquired about its involvement.

In 2021, Ben Schreckinger reported on the news site that Secret Service agents approached the owner of the store where Hunter purchased the gun and asked him to take the sales papers. The store owner refused.

Hallie wrapped the gun in a plastic bag and put it in a garbage truck outside Janssen’s Market in Wilmington.

Gun store owner Ron Palmieri said Secret Service agents visited the store and asked for records proving Hunter owned the gun. He refused to hand them over.

At the same time, Secret Service agents visited Starquest Shooters (pictured) and asked for records proving Hunter possessed the gun.

Politico said its sources included someone “informed by a Secret Service agent after the fact.”

DailyMail.com also published texts exposing the incident, which were cited in the USSS email trove.

In a three-way text message with his therapist and Hallie, Hunter wrote: “She stole the gun from my trunk lockbox and dumped it in an overflowing trash can in Jansens.” [sic]. Then he told me that it was my problem to deal with.

“Then when the police, the FBI, the secret service arrived on the scene, she said she took it from me because she was afraid it would hurt me because of or [sic] my problem with drugs and alcohol and our volatile relationship and that she feared for the children.’

Since Joe Biden was no longer vice president at the time, neither he nor his family were entitled to Secret Service protection.

However, DailyMail.com has revealed several cases where USSS agents, or recently retired agency officials, appeared to be providing protection to the Biden family.

A .38 revolver, similar to the one Hallie found in Hunter’s truck.

In response to Politico’s 2021 report, the Secret Service said: “US Secret Service records confirm that the agency did not provide protection to any Biden family members in 2018, and that the Secret Service had no involvement in this alleged incident.”

Fitton told DailyMail.com that he believed the Secret Service may have had a hand in the gun incident without creating official records.

“There is nothing inconsistent in their denying that there are records of the incident, and that they are actually doing something informally, which is what the other email suggests that may have happened.

‘As the official said, did you do someone a favor? Politico did not retract the reports from him despite the Secret Service’s careful and detailed response.

They say they have no records. But they could have gotten a phone call and gone downstairs and grabbed some stuff. They could have taken it and given it to a colleague at the FBI.

Hunter’s drug and alcohol problems are well documented. He is shown in one of a series of compromising photos that surfaced during his father’s campaign.

There is at least one federal law enforcement agency, the FBI, that took unusual steps. And the Secret Service emails don’t really answer the question one way or the other.

‘I believe Hunter. He’s not a silly bunny. He is a smart person. He is not someone oblivious to what happens around him. He’s not going to confuse the Secret Service with someone else.

Officials named in the records obtained by Judicial Watch include James Henry, then Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Field Office; Michael D’Ambrosio, deputy director of the US Secret Service in charge of overseeing all domestic and foreign Secret Service offices of the Secret Service; Steven Stanford, then deputy assistant principal; Leonza Newsome III, then assistant director; and Douglas Henderson, Deputy Assistant Director of the Bureau of Investigations.

The watchdog had to file a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to obtain the records, after USSS failed to provide them through Judicial Watch’s freedom of information request.

The agency reviewed the records for months, at first saying in April 2021 that it had “potentially responsive records,” then in October 2022 stating that it was wrong and that there were no records.

Hunter Biden is pictured on February 4 boarding Air Force One with his father

House Republicans have stepped up their investigation into the Biden family by demanding that Hunter, his business partner and the president’s brother, James, turn over documents related to their business dealings.

A month later, and after Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit, the agency finally admitted that it had more than 400 pages of records.

“The Secret Service’s changing history in the records raises additional questions about its role in the Hunter Biden gun incident. One thing is clear, the persistence of Judicial Watch means the public can obtain records that the Secret Service suggested did not exist,” Fitton said at the time.

The Secret Service has also come under fire from Congress after failing to provide records about Hunter’s security details and travel to foreign countries.

Senator Chuck Grassley, who led a four-year investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, criticized the agency for withholding documents last year.

“In response to the Senators’ earlier request, the USSS provided 259 pages of heavily redacted documents and did not provide any records from 2010, 2011, or 2013,” Grassley wrote in January 2022.

“We determined that, although Hunter Biden was a USSS protégé from January 2009 to July 2014, the USSS did not produce any communication regarding Hunter Biden’s travels during the years 2010, 2011, and 2013.

“The lack of communications from the USSS during these years raises questions given that USSS travel records show that Hunter Biden made trips to China and other destinations around the world, including Russia, Italy, Spain and Mexico.”

DailyMail.com has published records from Hunter’s laptop showing he did business with and visited Russian oligarchs in Moscow, had a multi-million dollar deal with a Chinese government-linked oil giant that is now under criminal investigation by the FBI, and he arranged for his billionaire Mexican business partners to meet then-Vice President Joe Biden at the White House and the vice president’s residence, as well as flying his business partner on Air Force Two to meet with the Mexican businessmen.