A second whistleblower, who had hitherto remained anonymous, testified before the House Oversight Committee that the Justice Department deviated from normal procedures when it came to the Hunter Biden investigation.
Biden reached a plea deal with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss last month under which he agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges for failing to file taxes for 2017 and 2018.
Both years were ones in which the Biden family reportedly raked in millions from the Chinese military intelligence-linked energy firms CEFC Energy and State Energy HK Limited.
Whistleblower in the Open on Hunter Biden
Until Wednesday, IRS Special Agent Joseph Zeigler had kept his identity a secret. However, Ziegler previously was identified in the Marco Polo report on the Hunter Biden laptop as associated with the Biden case.
Ziegler echoed his boss Gary Shapely’s concerns, stating that investigators suggested charging Hunter Biden with even more serious crimes than what he ended up being charged with.
“It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the US attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited, and marginalized by DOJ officials as well as other US attorneys,” Ziegler said in his testimony.
He alleged, along with Shapely, that Justice Department officials interfered with their effort to follow leads that could have potentially led to the president and his grandchildren.
“When the subject’s father is somehow related to the finances of the subject, in the normal course of any Investigation, we would have to get that information, to properly vet the financial flows of money, and determine what we end up charging,” Shapley said.
Weiss and Attorney General Merrick Garland both have vigorously rejected claims they interfered with the investigation. Shapely claimed that Weiss blocked his promotion.
“… [T]he Department of Justice did not retaliate against “an Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent and whistleblower, as well as his entire investigative team… for making protected disclosures to Congress,” Weiss said in his letter responding to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan last month. “As the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, my charging authority is geographically limited to my home district.”
Ziegler sought to deny that he had any sort of a partisan agenda with how he had handled the Hunter Biden investigation by invoking the fact he is gay and legally married to another man.
“People have said, because I’m gay and that I am working as the case agent on this investigation, that I must be a far-left liberal, perfectly placed to fit some agenda. This was stuff that was on social media regarding me,” Ziegler told the committee. “I can tell you that I am none of those things. I’m a career government employee, and I have always strived to not let politics enter my frame of mind when working cases.”
Democrats and Republicans Cross Swords Over Testimony
Many would argue that Democrats worked to undermine the law-enforcement agents’ testimonies.
“While our witnesses here today may disagree with the U.S. attorney’s decisions, it is undeniable that Hunter Biden was subject to a thorough and rigorous investigation,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.
Ranking member of the House Oversight Committee Rep. Jamie Raskin dismissed their testimony as a nothingburger.
“Like every other try by my colleagues to concoct a scandal about President Biden, this one is a complete and total bust,” Raskin said.
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., rankled feathers when she showed a picture of a naked Hunter Biden with a prostitute from a photo on his abandoned laptop during the hearing, which Democrats decried as inappropriate.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
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