David Weiss, the US Attorney for the District of Delaware charged with investigating Biden, has a lot of explaining to do when he testifies before Congress in September or October. Thanks to the efforts of Senator Grassley, the public now has then the FBI Form 1023, with the account of outright bribery bribery of the Biden crime family following what sounds like a shakedown of Burisma. The 1023 account is based on a still-anonymous Confidential Human Source (CHS) who had previously proven reliable.

David Weiss

But now, thanks to the work of Professor Margot Cleveland, we learn that FBI agents from the Pittsburgh field office vetted the claims of the CHS and found support for them. More importantly, David Weiss, the US Attorney for Delaware, was briefed on the allegations and their corroboration on October 2020.  Prof. Cleveland writes:

The Federalist has now learned that the Pittsburgh FBI office had corroborated several details contained in the FD-1023 as part of the intake process that former Attorney General William Barr established before the election under the leadership of the Western District of Pennsylvania’s then-U.S. Attorney Scott Brady. Significantly, in briefing the Delaware U.S. attorney on the results of their office’s screening of evidence related to Ukraine, the Pittsburgh FBI agents told the Delaware office they had corroborated multiple facts included in the FD-1023, an individual with knowledge of the briefing told The Federalist.

Following the late June 2020 interview with the CHS, the Pittsburgh FBI office obtained travel records for the CHS, and those records confirmed the CHS had traveled to the locales detailed in the FD-1023 during the relevant time period. The trips included a late 2015 or early 2016 visit to Kiev, Ukraine; a trip a couple of months later to Vienna, Austria; and travel to London in 2019. 

There is further corroboration offered in the article.

Keep in mind that the Pittsburgh FBI office was granted a very limited role by then-AG Barr:

As Barr previously made clear, the role of the Pittsburgh office was limited to providing a “clearing-house function” for information related to Ukraine to weed out “any potential disinformation.” The purpose of the intake process, Barr stressed, was to “check[] out the source and credibility of evidence before assigning it to one of the ongoing investigations already pending in the Department,” such as the Delaware investigation into Hunter Biden. 

As such, the Pittsburgh office lacked the authority to subpoena witnesses or records or to use grand jury proceedings to further corroborate the FD-1023. That responsibility fell with the Delaware office.

Weiss’s subsequent behavior raises a lot of questions for Congress to explore:

But not only did the Delaware office apparently ignore the allegations contained in the FD-1023, as well as the corroborating evidence already allegedly accumulated by the Pittsburgh FBI office, but U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s office allegedly secreted the very existence of the FD-1023 from the whistleblowers. Both IRS whistleblowers testified last week that they did not even learn of the existence of the FD-1023 until Barr publicly confirmed he had sent the information to Delaware for further investigation. 

Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf also excluded the IRS agents working the Hunter Biden investigation from the meeting at which the Pittsburgh FBI agents briefed the office on the FD-1023 and the corroborating evidence they had already uncovered. The IRS whistleblowers further testified that portions of Hunter Biden’s laptop were withheld from them and they were explicitly prohibited from taking any investigative steps connected to Joe Biden — or questioning anyone by using Joe Biden’s name, “Dad,” or “the Big Guy.”

Assistant Us Attorney Lesly Wolf also behaved in  other questionable was, as Prof Cleveland earlier wrote:

Grassley then highlighted the numerous ways Wolf appeared to have obstructed the investigation into Hunter Biden’s potentially criminal business activities. “IRS whistleblowers have affirmed that AUSA Wolf prevented investigators from seeking information about Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s criminal business arrangements,” Grassley said, adding that she also “frustrated investigative efforts” by the IRS agents to question Hunter Biden’s business partner, Rob Walker, about Joe Biden.

Wolf also refused to allow agents to search Joe Biden’s guest house, even though there was “more than enough probable cause,” and she prevented investigators from searching a storage unit used by the now-president’s son, the letter said. In fact, Grassley stressed, Wolf alerted Hunter Biden’s lawyers to the investigators’ interest in the storage unit.

Given what Grassley called Wolf’s “questionable and obstructive conduct,” he asked Weiss whether Wolf had taken “similar proactive measures to frustrate any investigation into the FD-1023.” Grassley also probed Weiss’s knowledge of the accusations leveled against Wolf and how he has handled them. From Grassley’s questions, he seems to believe Wolf knows whether the DOJ buried evidence that Joe and Hunter Biden received bribes from the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma. 

AUSA Wolf should answer for these actions, but it appears that the Justice Department maybe trying to obstruct testimony to Congress, as Debra Heine writes at American Greatness:

In their response, the Department said Weiss was the right person to address the allegations of the two IRS whistleblowers and the committees’ questions about the scope of his authority.

“The Department believes it is strongly in the public interest for the American people and for Congress to hear directly from U.S. Attorney Weiss on these assertions and questions about his authority at a public hearing,” the letter to Jordan said. “To address these issues, U.S. Attorney Weiss is available to appear at a public hearing before the Committee, consistent with the law and Department policy, after the House returns from its August district work period.”

But Uriarte added the Department was “deeply concerned” by the chairmen’s notification on Monday that the Committee had authorized deposition subpoenas for the other individuals identified in their June 29 letter.

“Any attempts at compulsory process are unjustified and premature,” he wrote. “The Committee authorized subpoenas less than a business day after your July 21 letter and before the stated deadline in that letter. It has been less than a month since the Committee’s original requests, and little more than a week since the Department responded to that letter on the date requested by the Committee.”

Uriarte said the Department would continue to discuss the matter with the Committee.

Those discussions should include Congress’s constitutional duty to provide oversight for the executive branch. That duty entitles Congress to subpoena responsible employees of the Justice Department, like Wolf. Anything less smacks of conspiracy to obstruct Congress and cover up serious crimes.

Photo credit: Department of Justice