US Attorney strikes back against some whistleblower claims: Gary Shapley, the IRS whistleblower who claims he was told he was not allowed to follow certain leads in the Hunter Biden probe, has had some claims challenged by the U.S. attorney in the case, David Weiss.
Hunter Biden Drama Show, Act 5054
Last week, Gary Shapley, the IRS whistleblower who oversaw some of the investigations into the president’s son Hunter Biden, stated that “his inquiry was prevented from following certain leads that could have potentially led investigators to the current president,” USA Today reported.
This was in addition to previous allegations from Shapley, who claimed that he and others were told by U.S. Attorney David Weiss that he was being prevented from bringing charges in non-Delaware jurisdictions. This became public after the announcement of a deal in which the younger Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanors but not face prison time.
Republicans in Congress, as a result of this, have threatened to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy expressing interest in possibly going down that road.
Garland has stated that Weiss indeed had that power.
“As I said at the outset, Mr. Weiss, who was appointed by President Trump as the U.S. Attorney in Delaware and assigned this matter during the previous administration, would be permitted to continue his investigation and to make a decision to prosecute any way in which he wanted to and in any district in which he wanted to,” Garland said last month.
Garland is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in September, where he is likely to be asked about the Hunter Biden issue, as well as the indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney, wrote a letter at the end of last week, defending the investigation.
“As the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, my charging authority is geographically limited to my home district. If venue for a case lies elsewhere, common Departmental practice is to contact the United States Attorney’s Office for the district in question and determine whether it wants to partner on the case. If not, I may request Special Attorney status from the Attorney General,” Weiss wrote in the letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, as reported by CNN.
“Here, I have been assured that, if necessary after the above process, I would be granted § 515 Authority in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter.”
Meanwhile, national security journalist Marcy Wheeler wrote that “Republican House Chairmen are resorting to immunizing crimes in an attempt to gin up scandals to use against Joe Biden.”
Per Wheeler, IRS agents are not allowed to leak details from private tax returns, but that Shapley has testified that he used such information in his testimony.
“Shapley’s media appearances might constitute a crime. But how is Merrick Garland’s DOJ going to prosecute it, now that the right wing has made Shapley a hero for floating the latest manufactured scandal about Hunter Biden?,” Wheeler wrote. “Hell, Shapley is going to be the cornerstone of an attempt to impeach Garland, not for prosecuting Shapley for breaking the law, but because Garland let a Trump appointee prosecute the President’s son unimpeded.”
The attorney general, per Wheeler, allowed a Trump-appointed prosecutor to investigate the son of the president, which is “something that should be a remarkable, however sober, feat of due process, but which Republicans want to undermine because a Republican US Attorney didn’t find enough crime for their needs, because they need this story to go on and on and on.”
Hunter Biden is set to appear in court for the plea agreement in late July. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported over the weekend about a child support agreement involving Biden’s daughter from a relationship a few years ago, the granddaughter who the president has never met.
Expertise and Experience: Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
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