Prosecutor Likely Intervened in Hunter Tax Probe to Shield President Biden, Impeachment Witness Testifies

A prosecutor overseeing the Hunter Biden tax probe likely intervened to protect President Biden from Department of Justice scrutiny, Eileen O’Connor, former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Tax Division, testified at the first House Oversight impeachment hearing Thursday.

The impeachment inquiry, which was formally opened earlier this month without a full House vote, builds on the committee’s months-long probe into Biden’s alleged foreign influence peddling.

U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss led the investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes, which began in 2018, and was assisted by assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf.

IRS whistleblowers who worked on the probe, and have since provided a trove of information to the committee, identified many deviations from standard procedure, which they claim were driven by Weiss and his staff as well as officials at main Justice in an attempt to slow walk or otherwise obstruct the probe.

The whistleblowers highlighted the fact that attorneys from the DOJ’s tax division suggested the removal of Hunter’s name from documents, including subpoenas, and pointed out that prosecutors at the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware prohibited IRS and FBI investigators from asking about or referring to “the big guy” or “dad” in witness interviews.

Wolf also ordered investigators not to escalate the tax probe into a campaign-finance probe, according to a document the GOP committee obtained from the whistleblowers. Specifically, she told them not to pursue the possibility that a hefty sum Hunter received from a major Democratic donor to pay his back taxes may have constituted an illegal campaign-finance contribution.

Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, one of the whistleblowers, wrote in a May 3, 2021, memo: “Through interviews and review of evidence obtained, it appears there may be campaign finance criminal violations. AUSA Wolf stated on the last prosecution team meeting that she did not want any of the agents to look into the allegation.”

Hunter allegedly borrowed over $2 million from Hollywood lawyer  Kevin Morris, a major Democratic donor, to make good on two years of unpaid federal income taxes. James Biden, the president’s brother, told investigators he did not know how Hunter Biden knew Morris, but said that Hunter later asked him to thank Morris for the payment “on behalf of the family,” Republican representative Jason Smith said Thursday.

Smith then asked O’Connor to explain why Wolf would have blocked further campaign-finance inquiries. O’Connor testified that Wolf’s behavior suggests she wanted to prevent the tax probe from escalating to the point that the Department of Justice’s public integrity unity would become involved, as that would place President Biden under direct scrutiny.

“If it’s a campaign contribution then it implicates political person number one,” O’Connor said. Biden was referred to as “Political Figure 1” in a redacted warrant obtained by the committee. O’Connor added that the $2 million was intended to cover Hunter’s liabilities surrounding late and unpaid taxes for two years.

“Agents follow the leads wherever they take them,” O’Connor said of normal investigation protocol. “In this case, a legitimate investigation was being done into the money that was being paid and the assistant U.S. attorney who was orchestrating the investigation to say ‘don’t look at that anymore.’ I think the reason is…she didn’t want to get public integrity involved and that tells us she was looking beyond Hunter Biden into a person whose activity would be subject to public integrity.”

Public integrity is a unit of the DOJ that deals with the investigation and prosecution of all federal crimes affecting government integrity, including bribery of public officials, election crimes, and other related offenses.

On August 2020, Wolf emailed federal investigators that any mention of “Political Figure 1” should be stricken from a warrant “as a priority.” She directed them to “focus on FARA evidence only,” referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which the whistleblowers accused Hunter of violating.

Further, IRS investigators wanted to interview Hunter’s adult children about money that he purportedly gave to them for various expenses such as tuition and clothes, which he had deducted from his taxes, according to a committee summary. However, on October 21, 2021, Wolf warned investigators that they would be in “hot water” if they did so, a restriction that whistleblower Special Agent Joseph Ziegler described as “completely abnormal” because it is “part of [the] normal process” to interview people who are receiving money from the case subject.