Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) is considering opening an impeachment investigation into Merrick Garland following accusations that the attorney general throttled an investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes to protect the president’s son.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley testified that U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is overseeing the Biden tax probe in Delaware, sought permission to charge the Hunter with tax crimes but was denied by his superiors at the Department of Justice. McCarthy cited the revelation in a tweet threatening to investigate alleged political bias at Garland’s DOJ.
“If it comes true what the IRS whistleblower is saying, we’re going to start impeachment inquiries on the Attorney General,” McCarthy told Fox News on Monday.
“We need to get to the facts, and that includes reconciling these clear disparities. U.S. Attorney David Weiss must provide answers to the House Judiciary Committee,” the speaker previously wrote on Twitter Sunday.
However, Garland has sought to downplay Weiss’s claims, saying on Friday: “I don’t know how it would be possible for anybody to block him from bringing a prosecution, given that he has this authority.” Weiss “was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own,” the attorney general added.
The probe into Hunter’s taxes began in 2018. The Washington Post reported in October 2022 – a month before the midterm elections – that both FBI and IRS agents were confident that there was sufficient evidence at the time to indict the president’s son. However, no charges were laid at the time.
In mid April, Shapley, then-an anonymous IRS agent, sought Congressional protection as a whistleblower in exchange for information concerning a “failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case.”
A letter, written by his attorney Mark Lytle, argued that the failure to act demonstrated “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.”
Shapley’s testimony led House Republicans to demand answers from the Biden administration. “It’s deeply concerning that the Biden Administration may be obstructing justice by blocking efforts to charge Hunter Biden for tax violations,” Representative James Comer (R., Ky.), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said in a statement at the time.
Last Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee claimed that an additional IRS whistleblower had joined Shapley, substantiating the accusation that the DOJ, FBI, and IRS interfered in the Hunter Biden tax probe. Both whistleblowers maintain that they were discouraged from pressing felony charges against Hunter, despite Weiss’s desire to do so.
“The allegations point to a steady campaign of: unequal treatment of enforcing tax law; Department of Justice interference in the form of delays, divulgences, and denials, into the investigation of tax crimes that may have been committed by the President’s son; and finally, retaliation against IRS employees who blew the whistle on the misconduct,” the committee said in an official statement.
Committee chairman Jason Smith (R., Mo.) said the whistleblowers testified about tactics used by the DOJ to “delay the investigation long enough to reach the statute of limitations.”
Last Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced a plea deal with Hunter in which he will likely avoid jail time despite being charged with illegally possessing a firearm and failing to pay taxes for two consecutive years.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, denounced the settlement. “Years of investigation into Hunter appear to have evaded any serious inquiry into the influence peddling operation of the Biden family. For critics, it will be like ticketing the get-away driver after a bank hold up,” the constitutional law expert wrote.