The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after United States Secret Service (a component of DHS) failed to respond adequately to a March 25, 2021, FOIA request for records or communications about the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of a firearm owned by Hunter Biden found in a Delaware dumpster circa October 2018.

Judicial Watch is investigating whether and how the Secret Service intervened for Hunter Biden in an incident involving a gun owned by him.

In October 2020, The Blaze reported that in October 2018, Hunter Biden's handgun was taken by Hallie Biden, the widow of then-presidential nominee Joe Biden's son Beau. In 2021, Politico reported:

Hallie took Hunter's gun and threw it in a trash can behind a grocery store, only to return later to find it gone.

Delaware police began investigating, concerned that the trash can was across from a high school and that the missing gun could be used in a crime, according to law enforcement officials and a copy of the police report obtained by POLITICO.