BREAKING: Request Filed to Unseal Hunter Biden Search Warrant Documents — Judge Gives Parties One Week to Respond

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File

A talk radio host in Delaware filed a letter with the U.S. District Court for Delaware requesting that the court unseal the search warrant applications and affidavits in Hunter Biden’s criminal case, and the judge gave the parties one week to file their responses.

President Joe Biden’s son was pardoned by his father on December 1 after being convicted on federal gun and tax evasion charges, a move that was blasted by both Republicans and even many of the president’s supporters. Pursuant to that pardon, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika docketed the pardon and terminated the case on December 2.

The letter sent to the Delaware federal court, addressed to Noreika, was dated February 21 and was sent by Jake Smith, a talk radio host with WGMD, a station that serves the area Delaware known locally as “Delmarva,” including Rehoboth Beach, where the president has a home.

Smith wrote that he was making the request “[a]s a member of the public and press, and as a broadcaster here in Delaware,” asking Noreika to “unseal the search warrant applications and affidavits corresponding to the warrants this Court unsealed by oral order on January 26, 2024” in Hunter Biden’s case.

The specific documents Smith requested included the following:

Screenshot via federal court records.

“The American public and the press have a presumptive right to inspect the search warrant materials under the common law,” wrote Smith, citing several cases to support his argument that the situations where a court ruled against unsealing records did not exist here because “there is no apparent possibility that this specific investigation will be harmed (given the unprecedented depth and breadth of the presidential pardon), or third-party privacy interested impacted as the case has already gone to trial, the jury has rendered a verdict, and the defendant has already received a pardon.”

Smith concluded his letter by asking the court to unseal the requested records “without redactions” and to put his letter in the public docket for the case.

The letter was posted to the public docket on Friday, followed by an oral order from Judge Noreika that “on or before the close of business on March 7, 2025, the parties shall provide the Court with their respective positions on the request to unseal the search warrant applications and affidavits referenced in the [Jake Smith] letter.”

In addition to Jake Smith’s show, “Delmarva Live,” WGMD has aired syndicated radio programs including Sean Hannity, Dan Bongino, Charlie Kirk, Mark Levin, and Bill O’Reilly, plus supplementing its news broadcasts with content from Fox News.

Read Smith’s letter below:

Jake Smith Letter to Delaware Court by sarahrumpf

This is a breaking news story and has been updated to correct a geographic description.