House Republicans have issued a subpoena to Lesley Wolf, a top prosecutor on the Hunter Biden investigation, demanding that she testify on December 7 as part of an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
The subpoena, issued by the House Judiciary Committee and obtained by Politico, comes months after former IRS criminal investigator Gary Shapley told the House Ways and Means Committee that Wolf stood in the way of investigators’ efforts.
Shapley, who worked as an IRS investigator for over ten years and oversaw the agency’s tax investigation into Hunter Biden, told the committee earlier this year that investigators sought to search the Bidens’ Delaware residence in connection with the Hunter Biden tax probe because the younger Biden had spent significant time there. But Wolf, an assistant U.S. attorney in Delaware, allegedly warned investigators to consider the optics of performing such an investigation, Shapley said, though investigators believed there was a significant chance they would find incriminating evidence in the home.
“Lesley Wolf told us there was more than enough probable cause for the physical search warrant there,” Shapley testified, “but the question was whether the juice was worth the squeeze.”
He said Wolf told the team during a September 2020 meeting that “optics were a driving factor in the decision on whether to execute a search warrant. She said a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden, but said there is no way we will get that approved.”
Shapley said Wolf also let the younger Biden’s lawyers know that investigators had probable cause to search his North Virginia storage unit, a tip-off that would give him an opportunity to remove evidence ahead of the search.
“The IRS prepared an affidavit in support of a search warrant for the unit in December 2020, but . . . Wolf once again objected,” Shapley said.
Special Counsel David Weiss, who is leading the investigation into the younger Biden, told the Judiciary Committee in closed-door testimony this month that Wolf is “an excellent lawyer” and a “person of integrity.” He claimed political concerns did not shape her decisions.
The subpoena comes after the Department of Justice failed to make Wolf available for a voluntary interview, according to House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan.
House Republicans have now issued several subpoenas as part of their impeachment inquiry, including to Hunter Biden, his business associate Rob Walker, and President Biden’s brother, James Biden. They also requested that other family members and Biden family associates appear for transcribed interviews, including Sara Biden, Hallie Biden, Elizabeth Secundy, Melissa Cohen, and Tony Bobulinski.
They have also issued subpoenas to former White House counsel Dana Remus and several other current and former Biden aides, including director of Oval Office operations Annie Tomasini, Jill Biden adviser Anthony Bernal, chief of staff aide Katherine Reilly, and special assistant Ashley Williams. The aides have been asked to meet with the committees to discuss President Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and any role he may have in his family’s foreign business dealings.
Meanwhile, Jordan said earlier this month that Weiss’s closed-door testimony confirmed allegations from Shapley that Weiss did not have the ultimate charging authority in the Hunter Biden investigation.
“When he was specifically asked, did you ever request special attorney authority under Section 515, Mr. Weiss’s response was yes, in the spring of 2022. So that that goes to the heart of the matter,” Jordan told reporters.
“He won’t answer a lot of questions. But that’s the key takeaway, because this whole deposition was about the changing story we got from DOJ, regarding the authority that he had,” he added.
“And that answer, I think the key is, is entirely consistent with what Mr. Shapley said after the October 7, 2022 meeting, when he said USA Weiss requested Special Counsel authority when it was sent to D.C. and Main DOJ denied his request and told him to follow the process,” he continued.
Shapley previously testified that the U.S. attorney for D.C., whom President Biden appointed, had the final say over whether charges would be brought against Hunter Biden and that the Biden appointee was the one who made the call not to charge the younger Biden with a felony.
Shapley told the House Oversight Committee that despite Weiss claiming he had ultimate authority over the investigation, D.C. U.S. attorney Matthew Graves was in charge.
“After U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves, appointed by President Biden, refused to bring charges, I watched Mr. Weiss tell a room full of senior FBI and IRS investigators on October 7, 2022, that he was ‘not the deciding person on whether charges are filed,’” Shapley said.
Meanwhile, Weiss has publicly flip-flopped over whether he had authority on when and whether to bring charges. He said in a June 7 letter to House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan that he did in fact have charging authority, but later walked back that claim in a second letter on June 30.
In a July letter to Senator Lindsey Graham, Weiss said he did not request special counsel authority and that he instead had discussions with departmental officials regarding a “potential appointment” under Section 515, “which would have allowed me to file charges in a district outside my own without the partnership of the local U.S. Attorney.”
Weiss later requested special counsel authority in August 2023, at which point Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him as a special counsel.