A grand jury in the Central District of California returned a 56-page indictment against the first son
Hunter Biden's Los Angeles indictment both vindicates the whistleblower claims of IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, while also calling into question Special Counsel David Weiss' credibility, an attorney for Shapley told Fox News.
Biden was charged last week in a 56-page indictment, which included felony charges, that also laid out his salacious spending habits and lifestyle while cataloging alleged related tax violations.
"The fact [is] that the current indictment that just got released, the nine-count indictment, essentially vindicates these whistleblowers," attorney Mark Lytle said Monday on "The Story."
"This is the case they recommended more than two years ago."
SHAPLEY ATTORNEY: HUNTER BIDEN PROSECUTOR ‘ALL OVER THE MAP,’ SHOULD TESTIFY TO CONGRESS
Special Counsel David Charles Weiss. (Fox News screenshot)
Lytle told "The Story" how Shapley claims he was told by Weiss – who is also the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware – that he could not bring charges outside of his Wilmington vicinity.
The attorney said both Shapley and Ziegler's decision to come forward ultimately led to the bombshell charges out of California last week.
He also credited Delaware Judge Maryellen Noreika for scrutinizing the plea deal between Weiss' prosecutors and Hunter Biden's team that would have prevented the first son from potentially serving jail time.
"They tried to ram this plea agreement… and luckily [Noreika] stopped that," he said.
The new charges out of the Central District of California create potential credibility issues for Weiss, Lytle suggested.
Anchor Martha MacCallum asked Lytle if Weiss might be embarrassed by the development, given he had previously maintained he couldn't bring charges outside of Delaware.
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"Weiss is not only the special counsel assigned to bring charges, but he's also supposed to write a report at the end of this to explain what happened. He's not the right guy to do that because he's the one who's the focus of most of the misconduct…" Lytle said.
Lytle claimed both the whistleblowers and Hunter Biden's side have also had gripes with Weiss. He pointed to Biden counsel Abbe Lowell claiming prosecutors are now caving to political pressure in bringing the California charges.
Lowell recently said if Hunter's last name were not Biden, no charges would have been brought. He also alleged he wrote to Weiss requesting a meeting and was instead met with "media leaks" and the indictment as a purported response."
Lowell told MSNBC on Saturday that Weiss has been under enormous pressure from fellow Republicans and the "MAGA-Right" media.
Former President Donald Trump, who originally appointed Weiss, has dismissed claims of Weiss' GOP bona fides, previously saying Delaware's two Democratic senators – Tom Carper and Chris Coons – "got to choose and/or approve him," in an apparent reference to the senatorial "blue slip" custom.
Lytle told Fox News that all things considered, Weiss should not be able to continue leading the investigation and certainly not the figure to be tasked with preparing a postmortem report, given the apparent discrepancies between Weiss' own claims and the indictment being dropped.
In an August interview on Fox News, Shapley himself criticized Weiss, calling attention to the fact he worked with President Biden's deceased elder son, then-Delaware Attorney General Joseph "Beau" Biden III in Dover.
"His credibility is and is just nonexistent at this point. He played his cards," Shapley added at the time.
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to