The Department of Justice (DOJ) prevented United States Attorney David Weiss from bringing charges against Hunter Biden in Washington, DC, and California, according to the New York Times, which independently confirmed IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley’s allegations on Tuesday.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) told reporters on Thursday the Justice Department twice prevented Weiss from bringing stronger charges against Hunter Biden.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) testifies at the Capitol in Washington on May 30, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The establishment media’s reaction to the allegations appeared muted. CBS News and ABC News evening programming failed to report on Thursday night. And on Friday at about noon, Breitbart reported the Washington Post, Politico, New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC refused to post a story about the allegations on their front pages.
This June 22, 2019, file photo shows the exterior of the New York Times building in New York. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Five days later, on Tuesday, the Times’ Glenn Thrush and confirmed in the 21st paragraph of their story the IRS agents’ allegations of the DOJ’s stonewalling, “according to a person with knowledge of the situation”:
A similar request to prosecutors in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, was also rejected, Mr. Shapley testified. A second former I.R.S. official, who has not been identified, told House Republicans the same story. That episode was confirmed independently to The New York Times by a person with knowledge of the situation.
The Times explained the DOJ’s practices demand that Weiss obtain approval and cooperation from the U.S. attorneys in California and Washington, DC, before proceeding with charges in their districts.
“If Mr. Weiss wanted to move ahead without their approval, he could have brought the issue to Mr. Garland’s attention, and the attorney general could then appoint him ‘special attorney,’ which would allow him to bypass the standard chain of command,” the Times reported.
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks at the Department of Justice in Washington on January 24, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Garland maintains Weiss had full autonomy to bring charges against the president’s son and pointed to a letter Weiss sent to Congress claiming he had full authority over the investigation.
Garland’s claims, however, ignored his statement to Congress in March in which he admitted he would have to authorize any potential charges.
“I would then have to authorize it and permit it to be brought in another jurisdiction & that is what I promised I would do,” he said.
According to IRS whistleblowers, Weiss also asked Garland for a special counsel, but Garland refused to name one. The special counsel could have provided a degree of separation between President Joe Biden and his DOJ.
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The Times chalked up the diverging accounts as “reflect[ing] possible factors like miscommunication, clashing substantive judgments among agencies over how best to pursue a prosecution, or personal enmity among officials working on a high-pressure, high-profile case.”
“Investigators like Mr. Shapley whose job it is to uncover evidence often have different perspectives from prosecutors who have to take into account how to treat defendants fairly and present cases to juries,” the Times wrote.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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