David Weiss, the lead U.S. attorney on the Hunter Biden investigation, sent a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) disputing whistleblower claims that he had requested special counsel status.
Weiss’s Monday letter was in response to a request Graham made on June 28 in which he asked about testimony from two IRS whistleblowers given to the House Ways and Means Committee. The whistleblowers alleged the Department of Justice blocked Weiss from filing charges in the jurisdiction of his choice and that his request for special counsel status was denied.
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In the letter, Weiss claimed he had not requested special counsel status but had talked with DOJ officials about the separate designation of special attorney. Special attorney status allows an outside entity to intervene and file charges in cases that span multiple jurisdictions, whereas a special counsel is appointed to investigate and prosecute a case in which the usual prosecuting authority has a conflict of interest.
Weiss said that special attorney status would have “allowed me to file charges in a district outside my own without the partnership of the local U.S. Attorney.”
“I was assured that I would be granted this authority if it proved necessary. And this assurance came months before the October 7, 2022, meeting referenced throughout the whistleblowers’ allegations,” he said.
The legal team for one of the IRS whistleblowers, supervisory agent Gary Shapley, said it makes “no difference” whether he requested special counsel or special attorney status.
“Under no circumstances should ‘the process’ have included political appointees of the subject’s father, because Congress had been assured it would not — but it did,” they said in a statement.
The whistleblower’s lawyers also said in a statement on June 23 that there were six witnesses who could corroborate that Weiss told people he didn’t have the authority to charge in other jurisdictions so he had requested special counsel status. Shapley’s legal team also named the six witnesses.
Weiss did not respond to questions Graham raised regarding claims made in an unverified FBI-generated FD-1023 tip sheet in which a paid FBI informant said they had been tipped off about an alleged multimillion foreign bribery scheme involving Hunter Biden and then Vice-President Joe Biden.
The informant claimed that the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company in which Hunter Biden was a board member, paid the younger Biden and his father each $5 million to pressure the Ukrainian government to fire Viktor Shokin, a Ukrainian prosecutor who was allegedly investigating Burisma.
The whistleblowers said the DOJ “concealed” these allegations from IRS and FBI investigators on Hunter Biden’s criminal case. Graham, in his June 28 letter, said he had been informed that Weiss’s office was briefed on the allegations raised in the FD-1023.
Graham asked Weiss in his letter if the U.S. attorney was briefed on the allegations, and if so, to explain what actions were taken to investigate the allegations and what the final conclusion was.
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Weiss said he couldn’t answer the questions about the FD-1023 because they relate to an investigation that is in progress.
The DOJ has said the younger Biden plans to plead guilty to two misdemeanors tax crimes in his criminal case. The plea has yet to be accepted by a judge.