Attorney General Merrick Garland denied that U.S. Attorney David Weiss asked for special counsel powers to investigate Hunter Biden, a day after whistleblower accounts alleged years of Justice Department stonewalling.
Garland also denied that Weiss was twice blocked from bringing criminal charges against President Joe Biden's son in jurisdictions outside of Delaware.
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The whistleblower claims came from two IRS Criminal Investigation agents who played key roles in the Hunter Biden investigation: Gary Shapley, a supervisory special agent with the IRS’s criminal investigation, and an unnamed IRS case agent who is referred to as “Whistleblower X.”
The whistleblowers said they were told that Weiss had sought special counsel powers but was denied and that the Delaware federal prosecutor had sought to bring criminal charges against President Joe Biden's son in both California and Washington, D.C., (where the younger Biden’s tax crimes had occurred) but that Biden-appointed federal prosecutors in those districts rejected those efforts.
Garland denied all of this on Friday during a press conference following the announcement of charges related to Chinese fentanyl precursor chemical manufacturers.
“As I said at the outset, Mr. Weiss, who was appointed by President Trump as the U.S. Attorney in Delaware and who was assigned this matter in 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, adding, “I don’t know how it would be possible for anybody to block him from bringing a prosecution given that he ever has this authority.”
Weiss had told the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee earlier this month that “I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges.”
Garland said Friday that Weiss “was given complete authority to make decisions on his own” when asked if any of his charging requests were ever rejected.
The Biden attorney general also denied that Weiss requested special counsel designation, saying that “the only person with authority to make somebody a special counsel or to refuse to make somebody a special counsel is the attorney general” and that Weiss “never made that request to me.”
In his first remarks since the whistleblower allegations were made public, Garland defended his decision not to make Weiss a special counsel, contending that the Delaware federal prosecutor had “more authority than a special counsel would have had” and that “he had and has complete authority to bring a case wherever he wants in his discretion.”
On Tuesday, Weiss's office announced Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to two counts of "willful failure to pay" his federal income taxes, and the Justice Department said he would be entering a "pretrial diversion agreement" pertaining to possession of a firearm "by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.”
The bombshell IRS whistleblower claims were revealed on Thursday.
Shapley recounted an Oct. 7, 2022, meeting at the federal prosecutor’s office in Delaware, where Weiss was present along with “senior-level managers from IRS CI, FBI, and the Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office.” The whistleblower said that “this ended up being my red-line meeting in our investigation for me.”
He said that Weiss “surprised” the assembled group by directly telling them, "I'm not the deciding official on whether charges are filed.”
Shapley said Weiss then “shocked us with the earth-shattering news” that U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves of the District of Columbia (who was appointed by Joe Biden) “would not allow him to charge in his district.”
He said that another “surprise” was Weiss “stated that he subsequently asked for special counsel authority from Main DOJ at that time and was denied that authority” and that “instead, he was told to follow the process, which was known to send U.S. Attorney Weiss through another President Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney.”
The whistleblower called this “troubling” because Weiss stated he had no authority to charge in California and the denial meant that Hunter Biden would not be charged for violations in the 2014-2015 tax years, "for which the statute of limitations were set to expire in one month.”
Shapley lamented that “all of our years of effort getting to the bottom of the massive amounts of foreign money Hunter Biden received from Burisma and others during that period would be for nothing.”
Shapley said that Weiss also "told us" that if the new U.S. attorney for the Central District of California declined to support charging the younger Biden "for the 2016 through 2019 years, he would have to request special counsel authority again from the Deputy Attorney General and/or the Attorney General.”
The whistleblower said that he “couldn't understand why the IRS wasn't told in the summer of 2022 that D.C. had already declined charges” and that “everyone in that meeting seemed shellshocked," and the whistleblower also “felt misled” by Weiss’s office.
“At this point, I expressed to United States Attorney Weiss several concerns with how this case had been handled from the beginning,” Shapley said. “The meeting was very contentious and ended quite awkwardly. It would be the last in-person meeting I had with United States Attorney Weiss.”
Shapley said there was one more call 10 days later, which Weiss wasn’t on, and that “in response to questions about more subpoena requests, we were told there was no grand jury any longer to issue subpoena requests out of.”
The whistleblower said that “when we asked when the Central District of California might make its decision” on charges, Mark Daly of the DOJ Tax Division said, "I'm not the boss of them."
After that call, the DOJ “either stopped scheduling prosecution team meetings or else just stopped inviting the IRS to them.”
Shapley said that “in January of this year, I learned United States Attorney Estrada had declined to bring the charges in the Central District of California,” and so, “for all intents and purposes, the case was dead, with the exception of one gun charge that could be brought in Delaware.”
Whistleblower X explained the IRS sent a prosecution report to the DOJ Tax Division and to Weiss in February 2022, noting that the “proper venue for the case was in D.C. and California” because “we had no venue in Delaware whatsoever for the tax charges.” The second whistleblower said the proper venue for Biden’s criminal actions in 2014 and 2015 was Washington, while the proper venue for 2016 through 2019 was California.
The second whistleblower also referenced the October 2022 meeting with Weiss, where he recounted that Weiss had said that “I'm not the deciding official on whether charges are filed.” The second whistleblower added that Weiss “has no authority to charge in California, essentially, is what is told to me about that meeting.”
“David couldn't sign an indictment that's out of district. He had to have that U.S. Attorney there,” Whistleblower X said. “That's what my understanding is, at least. And I've come later to hear — through multiple people, that California also said no.”
The second whistleblower called it "frustrating" they were not "afforded" the opportunity to move forward on alleged Biden crimes in Washington, D.C., and California.
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“Looking back at it, the U.S. attorney, David Weiss, he had to follow the normal process,” Whistleblower X said. “He had to go to Washington, D.C., the U.S. Attorney's Office, them saying no. So he really wasn't in charge. He had to follow the process.”
Garland said Friday that “I would support Mr. Weiss explaining or testifying on these matters when he deems it appropriate.”