Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Ron Johnson have released records they say prove the Department of Justice under Joe Biden possessed significant evidence of potential prostitution-related crimes committed by Hunter Biden, and did nothing with it.
The two Republican senators obtained the documents after years of stonewalling. They first requested the records from the DOJ in 2022 and were turned away. Now, with the material finally in hand, they have made it public, and the contents raise pointed questions about whether the Biden-era Justice Department deliberately shielded the former president's son from prosecution.
The records include text messages between Hunter Biden and multiple women. Grassley and Johnson say those messages show the government had significant evidence of potential Mann Act violations allegedly committed by Hunter Biden dating back to at least October 2020. The Mann Act, Sections 2421 to 2423, makes it a federal offense to knowingly transport any individual across state lines for the purpose of prostitution or sexual activity that violates federal, state, or local law.
The Washington Examiner reported that the released material runs roughly 150 pages. The messages allegedly include discussions about paying women, arranging interstate travel in locations including Boston, using Cash App, wiring money, and sending certified checks.
One example cited in the records: messages showing Hunter Biden appeared to have purchased a flight from Los Angeles to an unknown destination for an unidentified woman in 2018. The destination and the woman's identity remain unclear from the released material.
None of this is new territory for the Biden family saga. In their September 2020 report on Hunter Biden's business interests in Ukraine while his father was vice president, Grassley and Johnson pointed to evidence that the younger Biden had paid women who were citizens of Ukraine and Russia. Some of those transactions were allegedly linked to what the senators described as "an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring."
In 2022, a reported nude photo of Hunter Biden handling a firearm with a prostitute surfaced publicly. The following year, he was accused of deducting tens of thousands of dollars in payments made to a prostitute and a sex club from his taxes. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) highlighted during congressional testimony of IRS agents that the Justice Department brought no charges against Hunter Biden for illicit sexual activity, using graphic images to make her case.
Grassley did not mince words. In a post on X announcing the release, the Iowa senator wrote that the records:
"support concerns we raised in our Sept 2020 Biden family report+ show double standard of justice."
Just the News reported that Grassley went further, stating that the "DOJ and FBI possessed evidence of potential crimes, yet it's unclear what steps they... took to fully investigate this shocking evidence." He added: "We do know President Biden followed it up by issuing an unprecedented pardon to get his son off the hook for serious crimes."
That pardon looms large over the entire matter. Jerry Dunleavy IV, chief investigative correspondent for Just the News, put it bluntly in a social media post: "Joe's pardon of Hunter means he can't be prosecuted federally for any crimes related to his participation in a Russia-linked escort/prostitution ring, paid for partly & unwittingly (?) by Joe."
The timeline tells a story of its own. The senators say the government had evidence of potential Mann Act violations as early as October 2020, weeks before the presidential election that put Joe Biden in the White House. The senators formally requested the records in 2022. The DOJ did not provide them. Only now, under a different administration, have the documents come to light.
Republican lawmakers say the Garland DOJ possessed these records for years but neither pursued prostitution-related charges nor fully disclosed the material during earlier congressional oversight. The Washington Examiner noted that Grassley wrote on X Monday that the records "show the Biden DOJ possessed text messages from Hunter Biden indicating potential trafficking/Mann Act violations."
The question is not whether Hunter Biden lived recklessly, the public record on that point is extensive. The question is whether the Department of Justice, under the leadership of his father's appointees, treated evidence of potential federal crimes differently because of who the suspect's father was.
That question has dogged the Biden DOJ across multiple fronts. Whistleblower claims of preferential treatment in the Hunter Biden investigation have circulated for years. The broader pattern, slow-walking document production, declining to bring charges that the evidence arguably supported, and ultimately clearing the way for a sweeping presidential pardon, fits a picture that conservatives have warned about since 2020.
The Biden administration's handling of sensitive investigations involving its own family has drawn scrutiny on multiple occasions, including when prosecutors examined the autopen controversy surrounding Joe Biden's official documents.
Joe Biden's pardon of his son was described at the time as "unprecedented" by Grassley, and the newly released records help explain why. If the DOJ had evidence of Mann Act violations from as early as October 2020, that means the government sat on potentially prosecutable conduct for the entire duration of the Biden presidency. The pardon then ensured that no future administration could act on it.
The Mann Act is not an obscure or trivial statute. The DOJ's own archives describe its offenses as covering the knowing transport of any individual in interstate or foreign commerce for the purpose of prostitution or criminal sexual activity. The evidence the senators describe, text messages discussing payments, travel arrangements, money transfers, goes directly to the elements of those offenses.
Yet no charges came. And now, none can.
The broader Biden family controversies continue to generate headlines even out of office. Jill Biden's post-White House activities have drawn their own share of public attention, but the legal questions surrounding Hunter Biden carry far more weight for the republic's institutions.
Several questions remain open. What specific DOJ office held the evidence? What investigative steps, if any, did federal agents take after obtaining the text messages? Did anyone at the DOJ direct that the evidence not be pursued? And why did the department refuse to produce the records when Grassley and Johnson first requested them in 2022?
Neither Hunter Biden nor his representatives have offered a public response to the released records, based on available reporting. The DOJ has not provided a direct response to the senators' allegations.
The allegations also intersect with broader concerns about federal accountability on trafficking-related matters. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has pressed Senate Democrats on what she described as child trafficking failures under Biden-era leadership, a theme that runs parallel to the senators' claims about the DOJ's unwillingness to pursue evidence of exploitation.
Meanwhile, the political landscape in Washington continues to be defined by questions of who investigates whom, and why. Democrats have openly discussed launching their own investigations should they reclaim congressional power, but the Hunter Biden matter stands as a reminder that the most consequential investigations are often the ones that never happen.
The released records, 150 pages of text messages, travel details, and financial transactions, do not prove guilt. They prove something arguably worse for public trust: that the federal government appears to have possessed substantial evidence of potential federal crimes committed by the sitting president's son and chose not to act. The pardon then sealed the file shut.
Grassley and Johnson have now put the evidence in public view. Whether it changes anything legally is beside the point. The pardon saw to that. What it changes is the historical record, and the record now shows a Justice Department that, when faced with evidence pointing at the most politically connected defendant in America, looked the other way.
Equal justice under law is chiseled into the marble above the Supreme Court's entrance. It is not supposed to come with a family exception.