Questions have swirled surrounding Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings ever since emails found on his abandoned laptop became public just over two years ago.

Colorado lawyer Kevin Evans is demanding that the Department of Justice (DOJ) release 400 pages of documents regarding the topic. However, he says the DOJ is focused on protecting the president.  

DOJ allegedly acknowledged that documents exist

According to the Daily Mail, Evans filed a lawsuit in federal court last March after his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was denied.

Specifically, the attorney sought information regarding "any relationship, communication, gift(s), and/or remuneration in any form' between the Biden family and China, Russia, or Ukraine."

The Daily Mail quoted Evans as saying that DOJ lawyers "eventually produced about 60 pages of documents, but they’re all letters from senators and congressmen asking about Hunter, and letters from DOJ back."

"Then towards the end of last year they said, 'Well we have these 400 pages of potentially responsive documents, we need to review them,'" Evans explained, stressing that government attorneys later repeated the admission in court.

Precedent for denial of FOIA requests

The Daily Mail noted how there is legal precedent for government agencies to deny FOIA requests when the information being sought could pose a threat to national security.

That stems from the CIA's 1975 refusal to provide the Los Angeles Times with information about the USNS Hughes Glomar Explorer, a vessel which was covertly constructed to recover a sunken Soviet submarine.

In its response to the Times, the CIA refused to either confirm or deny that it possessed any documents relating to the ship.

However, a guidance letter published by the DOJ in 1985 noted, "Such an extraordinary response can be justified only when the confirmation or denial of the existence of responsive records would, in and of itself, reveal exempt information."

In 2005, federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected an attempt by the Department of Defense (DOD) and CIA to use the Glomar precedent in their effort to hide information about abuse by American personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Lawyers says "FOIA has become a toothless vehicle"

"I don't know how the heck they now can take the position that Glomar is applicable," Evans said. "To me, it seems the cat's out of the bag here after [them] having disclosed the documents exist."

Rather he predicted that the DOJ "will move for summary judgment on the privacy exemptions under FOIA in an effort to avoid having to produce these documents."

Evans went on to complain that "FOIA has become a toothless vehicle," adding, "Courts do not comply with the spirit of the law, they're more inclined to bend over backwards to accept the government's position rather than force disclosure."