FBI agent Elvis Chan, who has been accused of lying under oath about his part in censoring the story about Hunter Biden's laptop, did not appear Thursday for his scheduled testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, according to a source familiar with the proceedings.
Chen's interview was scheduled after he was subpoenaed on Sept. 21 when he previously did not attend another scheduled interview, reports The Daily Caller.
"Everything is on the table for Mr. Chan, including contempt," Russell Dye, a spokesperson for the House Judiciary Committee, commented.
Initially, Chan was to testify on Sept. 15, but a dispute between the Department of Justice and the committee caused the interview to fall through. The FBI commented, though, that "after an FBI employee traveled across the country to voluntarily participate in a scheduled interview, he was denied the right to have his chosen legal counsel accompany him. Upon arrival at the Capitol, Committee staff directed agency counsel to leave the premises, and the interview was unable to proceed."
The Judiciary Committee, however, accused the DOJ of obstructing Chan's testimony by sending a lawyer to represent him, when he had previously decided to be represented by a personal attorney.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in August, shared internal Facebook documents appearing to show that Chan lied under oath about meeting with the social media company, commenting on X, previously Twitter, that the special agent had made "false statements in testimony about the FBI's role."
According to the "Twitter files" documents released, Chan worked on the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) before the 2020 election and worked with social media companies to censor online speech.
On Oct. 14, 2020, Chan joined with FITF Section Chief Laura Dehmlow to meet with Facebook about the reporting in The New York Post about the Biden laptop.
Dehmlow testified that the FBI told Facebook "no comment" when the company asked if the contents of the laptop were real, but IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley testified to the House Ways and Means Committee in May that the FBI verified the laptop's authenticity in November, 2019, when it was matched to Biden's iCloud identification.
Jordan also shared an internal document that he said proved Chan had a "secret follow-up call" with Facebook on Oct. 15.
"Chan advised that he was up to speed on the current state of the matter within the FBI and that there was no current evidence to suggest any foreign connection or direction of the leak," a Facebook employee said, according to internal communications Jordan released.