House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) told reporters Thursday that the Justice Department twice prevented United States Attorney David Weiss from bringing stronger charges against Hunter Biden.
Upon the committee’s vote to unseal IRS whistleblower evidence of alleged Justice Department political interference in the Hunter Biden tax probe, Smith said IRS whistleblowers allege that President Joe Biden’s DOJ twice prevented charges against Hunter Biden in Washington, DC, and California in 2022.
Attorney General Merrick Garland told Congress in March that he would have to personally authorize any potential charges levied against Hunter Biden by Weiss. Yet Garland also said Wednesday he gave Weiss “full authority to decide the matter as he decided was appropriate.”
On Tuesday, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to only two federal tax violation charges and one charge of violation of gun laws.
“Testimony shows that U.S. Attorney of Delaware David Weiss tried to bring charges in the District of Columbia around March of 2022 and was denied. Weiss sought Special Counsel status from the DOJ in the spring of 2022 and was denied,” Smith told reporters. “And Weiss once again sought to bring charges in the Central District of California in the fall of 2022 and had that request denied in January of 2023.”
Smith also said the IRS recommended charges against Hunter Biden that were not approved by Garland.
“Mr. Biden personally received $8.3 million,” Smith added. “Whistleblowers detail foreign payments to Mr. Biden, including $664,000 from the Chinese company, state energy HK, a large diamond worth $80,000, and a Porsche worth $142,000. These payments are just a fraction of the total, but they provide insight into a world of wealth and influence that no ordinary American would recognize.”
In addition, Smith told reporters the probe into the president’s son was afflicted with unusual problems, including whistleblower claims that Hunter Biden received special treatment because his father is the president:
IRS investigators say they found themselves hamstrung internally. The testimony we have just released details a lack of U.S. Attorney independence, recurring unjustified delays, unusual actions outside the normal course of any investigation, a lack of transparency across the investigation and prosecution teams, and bullying and threats from the defense counsel.
This was a campaign of delay, divulge, and deny. Whistleblowers say recurring unjustified delays pervaded the investigation, including authenticating a WhatsApp message in which Hunter Biden demands payment from Chinese officials, noting that his father is in the room.
The whistleblowers revealed IRS investigators were told by U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf that because the evidence would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden, “There is no way” a search warrant for evidence would ever get approved.
Smith also said the investigation forewarned Hunter Biden of any future searches for materials that could be used as evidence:
IRS whistleblowers told this committee that crucial information about the investigation was devolved to Hunter Biden’s attorneys. For example, even [when] investigators had probable cause to search a Northern Virginia storage unit in which Hunter Biden had stored files, attorneys for Biden were made aware prior to any search, providing them valuable time to remove any materials that could be useful evidence.
Throughout the investigation, Garland refused to name a special counsel in the tax investigation, which could have provided a degree of separation between President Joe Biden and his Justice Department, according to allegations revealed in April by an IRS whistleblower.
On July 26 Hunter Biden will appear before a judge, who will presumably accept the plea deal. If the judge accepts the plea deal, Hunter Biden’s lawyer claimed in an interview with MSNBC, no additional allegations of wrongdoing alleged by Republicans could ever be brought against the president’s son.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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