House Republicans subpoenaed five Biden-Harris administration officials for sworn depositions on Thursday after they refused to disclose details about their agencies’ roles in President Biden’s federal election interference.
“Americans deserve transparency and trust in their elections. However, the Biden Administration has refused to comply with a lawfully issued congressional subpoena and cooperate with our investigation into their plan to use federal agencies to ‘get out the vote,’” Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., said in a statement.
At issue is Executive Order 14019, which was issued by Biden in March 2021. The legally questionable directive instructed hundreds of federal agencies to interfere in state and local election administration by using taxpayer dollars to engage in voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities.
Agencies were also instructed to collaborate with so-called “nonpartisan third-party organizations” that have been “approved” by the White House to provide “voter registration services on agency premises.” Many of the groups identified as having worked with the administration are extremely left-wing.
Departments were additionally ordered to draft “strategic plan[s]” explaining how their agencies intended to fulfill Biden’s directive. The administration has routinely stonewalled efforts by Congress and conservative organizations to acquire these plans by slow-walking its response to federal court orders and heavily redacting any related documents it’s released.
Steil, the chair of the House Administration Committee, first sent letters to Biden cabinet officials on May 15 requesting details on their plans to fulfill the “Bidenbucks” (now dubbed “KamalaCash”) order. After receiving no response for nearly a month, the Wisconsin Republican issued subpoenas to 15 federal agencies demanding they forfeit copies of their “strategic plans” and communications with third-party groups related to their work on “Bidenbucks.”
Following another month of stonewalling, Steil issued letters to leading officials within the Departments of Labor, Justice, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture on July 29, in which he informed them that failure to comply with the committee’s repeated requests would result in “additional remedies for noncompliance.”
The subpoenas issued by the committee on Thursday were sent to officials within the aforementioned agencies.
“These Biden Administration agencies failed to produce their strategic plans to implement Executive Order 14019 on multiple occasions,” Steil said. “It’s time that these officials explain to the Committee what is in these plans, and how their agencies are implementing their plans.”
A lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the executive order is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. A decision on whether to hear oral arguments in the case, however, will not be considered until Sept. 30, meaning a ruling on the order’s legality likely won’t occur until after the November election.
