IRS whistleblowers cast doubt on the attorney general’s testimony.
In her report yesterday about the IRS whistleblowers who claim that the Hunter Biden case has been sabotaged by the Justice Department, our Brittany Bernstein notes that, according to the whistleblowers, the prosecutor assigned to the case, Delaware U.S. attorney David Weiss, was blocked by Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in Washington, D.C., and California from filing tax charges against Biden in their districts. Moreover, Weiss is said to have asked Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department to appoint him as a special counsel so he could file charges against Biden despite the objections of the two Biden appointees, but that request was denied.
Brittany elaborates that the main whistleblower, IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley, wrote a letter to Congress accusing Garland of committing perjury when the AG testified that “the investigations into the younger Biden would operate free from political interference.”
I thought it would be helpful, then, to excerpt some of Garland’s relevant testimony. On March 1, 2023, during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Garland was questioned by Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) on his commitments to Weiss’s independence. The video of the hearing is here, and the relevant testimony starts around the 58-minute mark. I’ve made a transcript of it:
Grassley: I’m going to set up a hypothetical fact-pattern for you and ask you to tell me how you would handle it: The Justice Department and FBI have received information from over a dozen sources — that’s the first one. Second, the sources provide similar information about potential criminal conduct relating to a single individual. And third, that information was shared with the Department and the FBI over a period of years. According to the policies and procedures, what steps would the department take to determine the truth and accuracy of the information provided by those sources?
Garland: I’m sorry, these are whistleblowers? So they’re internal sources, is that what you’re saying? I’m not sure —
Grassley: It doesn’t matter where they come from. Just the fact that — I want to know, you got that information, how would you go about handling it?
Garland: So, reports of wrongdoing are normally reported to whatever the appropriate department component is. It might be a U.S. attorney’s office’s district in which it took place. It might be directly to FBI components or task forces. Cases involving whistleblowers, of course there are specific provisions for making complaints to the Inspector General’s Office, the Office of Professional Responsibility, or the Inspections Division of the FBI.
Grassley: Recent whistleblower disclosures to my office indicate that the Justice Department and the FBI had, at one time, over a dozen sources that provided potentially criminal information relating to Hunter Biden. The volume and similarity of the information would demand that the Justice Department investigate the truth and accuracy of the information. According to the — accordingly, what steps has the Justice Department taken to determine the truth and accuracy of the information provided? Congress and the American people, I think, have a right to know.
Garland: So, as the committee well knows from my confirmation hearing, I promised to leave the matter of Hunter Biden in the hands of the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, who was appointed in the previous administration. So, any information like that should — should, or should have gone to that U.S. attorney’s offices and the FBI squad that’s working with him. I have pledged not to interfere with that information and I have carried through with my pledge.
Grassley: In 2022, you testified to Senator Hagerty that the Biden investigation was insulated from political interference because it was assigned, as you just now told me, to the Delaware attorney’s office. However, that could be misleading because, without special-counsel authority, he could need permission of another U.S. attorney, in certain circumstances, to bring charges outside the District of Delaware. I’d like clarification from you with respect to these concerns.
Garland: The U.S. attorney in Delaware has been advised that he has full authority to make those kind of referrals that you’re talking about, or to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it’s necessary. And I will assure that if he does, he will be able to do that.
Grassley: Does the Delaware U.S. attorney lack independent charging authority over certain criminal allegations against the president’s son outside the District of Delaware?
Garland: He would have to bring — if it’s in another district, he would have to bring the case in another district, but as I said, I promise to ensure that he’s able to carry out his investigation, and that he’d be able to run it, and if he needs to bring it in another jurisdiction, he will have full authority to do that.
Grassley: If you provided the Delaware U.S. attorney with special-counsel authority, isn’t it true that he wouldn’t need permission of another U.S. attorney to bring charges?
Garland: It’s a kind of a complicated question. If — under the regulations, that kind of act he would have to bring to me — to the Attorney General — under the regulation, those kind of charging decisions would have to be brought. I would then have to, you know, authorize it and permit it to be brought in another jurisdiction, and that is exactly what I’ve promised to do here already. But if he needs to do — to bring a case in another jurisdiction, he will have my full authority to do that.
Grassley: Has the Delaware U.S. attorney sought permission from — permission of another U.S. attorney’s office, such as in the District of Columbia or California, to bring charges? If so, was it denied?
Garland: I don’t know the answer to that. I do know — and I don’t want to get into the internal elements of decision-making by the U.S. attorney — but he has been advised that he is not to be denied anything that he needs, and if that were to happen, it should ascend through the department’s ranks, but I have not heard anything from that office to suggest that they are not able to do everything that the U.S. attorney wants to do.
Grassley: Let me give you my view: If Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware must seek permission of a Biden-appointed U.S. attorney to bring charges in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation, it isn’t insulated from political interference, as you’ve publicly proclaimed. if the Justice Department received information that foreign persons had evidence of improper or unlawful financial payment paid to elected officials or other politically exposed persons, and those payments may have influenced policy decisions, would that pose a national-security concern and demand a full investigation? And when Wray was here, he seemed to answer that question — that it was an issue of national-security concern. I want your opinion.
Garland: In the way that you’re — if I follow the question exactly right, if it’s an agent of a foreign government asking someone — paying someone — to do things to support that foreign government in secret, yes, I definitely think that would be a national-security problem.
Obviously, Garland and Weiss, among others, should be subpoenaed forthwith by the appropriate committees. I would also observe that, while it’s been reported that Hunter Biden and the Justice Department have reached a plea deal, Hunter has not pled guilty yet. No deal is final until a defendant pleads guilty in court and that plea is accepted by the judge.
On the other hand, the whistleblower testimony explains that, because of the Biden Justice Department’s years of willful dithering, significant criminal charges are already time-barred under the statute of limitations — in particular, in the 2014–15 time frame, Biden’s failure to register as a foreign agent and evasion of taxes for the lavish amounts the corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid him. The longer the delay in indicting Biden, or resolving the case by plea, the more likely it is that additional charges will become time-barred.
That, of course, is the main reason for the slow-walking.