The Department of Justice (DOJ) planned to let Hunter Biden off the hook without charges until two whistleblowers came forward to expose political interference in the investigation, despite the claims of Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The New York Times exposed the inside dealings of Hunter Biden’s attorneys with senior officials at DOJ, who had constrained U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss even as Garland was testifying to Congress that Weiss had full authority to act in the case.
United States Attorney David C. Weiss. Screen shot/CBS News
WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 16: U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and Attorney General Merrick Garland walk into the East Room for the Public Safety Officer Medals of Valor ceremony at the White House on May 16, 2022, in Washington, DC. The medals are given for “extraordinary valor above and beyond the call of duty” (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Times reported that not only did the whistleblowers stop the cover-up, but that Hunter Biden’s lawyers now want them to be prosecuted for speaking out against his special treatment — a violation of President Biden’s promise to protect whistleblowers:
Now, the I.R.S. agents and their Republican allies say they believe the evidence they brought forward, at the precise time they did, played a role in influencing the outcome, a claim senior law enforcement officials dispute. While Mr. Biden’s legal team agrees that the I.R.S. agents affected the deal, his lawyers have contended to the Justice Department that by disclosing details about the investigation to Congress, they broke the law and should be prosecuted.
Earlier this year, The Times found, Mr. Weiss appeared willing to forgo any prosecution of Mr. Biden at all, and his office came close to agreeing to end the investigation without requiring a guilty plea on any charges. But the correspondence reveals that his position, relayed through his staff, changed in the spring, around the time a pair of I.R.S. officials on the case accused the Justice Department of hamstringing the investigation. Mr. Weiss suddenly demanded that Mr. Biden plead guilty to committing tax offenses.
…
As the testimony from the I.R.S. agents took hold, Mr. Biden’s legal team felt the ground shift beneath them. The U.S. attorney’s office suddenly went quiet.
Read the full article here.
Key figures that emerge from the Times narrative are Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf, who has been accused of interfering on Hunter Biden’s behalf; and Christopher J. Clark, a well-connected lawyer for Hunter Biden.
The whistleblowers, IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary A. Shapley Jr. and IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, told the House of Representatives that prosecutors would not let them pursue Hunter Biden’s tax crimes, and had sometimes tipped off the president’s son about impending searches or interviews.
The result was a “sweetheart” plea deal that would have prevented Hunter Biden from being investigated further — until federal judge Maryellen Noreika, a Donald Trump appointee, balked.
Earlier this month, Garland named Weiss a Special Counsel in the case, raising suspicions that his real purpose was to continue the cover-up. Charges were withdrawn from Noreika — ostensibly to be pursued elsewhere, but possibly to avoid her jurisdiction.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
