Since the initial reports in 2020 of a 2018 incident involving Hunter Biden and a missing handgun, the Secret Service has insisted that it had no involvement whatsoever in what happened, despite allegations that the agency attempted to intervene on behalf of President Joe Biden's son.

Now, however, as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the Secret Service has finally acknowledged that it does possess records pertaining to the incident involving Hunter Biden's lost handgun, the Daily Wire reported.

Watchdog group Judicial Watch is now calling out the Secret Service for changing its story after the agency had previously asserted that it had no relevant records in response to a FOIA request because it had played no role in the incident.

Secret Service repeatedly insisted no involvement in Biden gun incident

TheBlaze first reported in Oct. 2020 on the Oct. 2018 incident in which Hallie Biden, the widow of deceased Beau Biden, the older brother of Hunter Biden, with whom she was romantically involved, had taken Hunter's handgun from his truck and thrown it away in a grocery store dumpster, and how various local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies soon became involved after Hallie and Hunter went to retrieve the weapon but found it missing.

That report cited unnamed sources who claimed that the gun store that sold the handgun to Hunter Biden was shortly thereafter visited by agents of both the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives -- the ATF agents to retrieve the federal paperwork for the purchase and the Secret Service agents in search of the missing gun itself.

Five months later, Politico reported on the incident and largely confirmed the reporting from TheBlaze while adding in new details, such as the revelation that Hunter Biden had lied on the federal purchase form for the gun when the admitted drug addict checked "No" to the question about illicit drug use.

The Politico report also revealed that, per sources, the Secret Service had arrived at the gun store first and asked the store owner to turn over the paperwork for Biden's gun, but fearful that the agents sought to cover up Biden's ownership of the firearm, the owner refused to do so and instead later gave the paperwork to ATF agents, as is required by law.

In that Politico report, the Secret Service said in a statement, "U.S. Secret Service records confirm that the agency did not provide protection to any member of the Biden family in 2018, and that the Secret Service had no involvement in this alleged incident."

However, the New York Post reported at the same time in March 2021 that, according to text messages recovered from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, Biden himself had acknowledged that the Secret Service had been involved as he relayed an account of the incident to former celebrity psychiatrist Keith Ablow.

Secret Service's "changing story on records" exposed

Fast-forward to Nov. 10 of this year and a joint filing in court between Judicial Watch and the Department of Homeland Security, of which the Secret Service is a part, and it was acknowledged by the Secret Service that despite an initial claim in April 2021 that it had records responsive to the FOIA request -- then a claim in Oct. 2022 that it had no records -- the agency finally admitted that it had "run supplemental searches and located over 100 records, totaling over 400 pages, potentially responsive to Judicial Watch’s request under the clarified understanding of that request."

For several years now, the Secret Service has played dumb about the Hunter Biden incident and falsely declared that it had no records in relation to what happened, only now to admit that it was involved and does have records that pertain to the incident. Per the joint filing, those records may be publicly released beginning on Jan. 9, 2023.

"The Secret Service’s changing story on records raises additional questions about its role in the Hunter Biden gun incident," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. "One thing is clear, Judicial Watch’s persistence means the public may get records that the Secret Service suggested didn’t exist."