U.S. Attorney David Weiss reportedly informed IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley in last month’s disclosed testimony from an IRS whistleblower that he was not the one making the choices on pressing criminal charges against Hunter Biden.
Weiss said he was denied the capacity to bring charges in the District of Columbia and the right to act as Special Counsel in the Golden State. Shapley’s testimony and the contemporaneous emails showed that Weiss did not have full investigative and prosecutorial power, despite what Attorney General Merrick Garland had assured Congress.
The investigation of Hunter Biden’s finances has been ongoing since November 2018. Investigators from the IRS’s D.C. task force began looking into the internet pornography network, which sparked the current probe. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Delaware started a second inquiry into Hunter’s finances in January 2019 after reviewing bank data, although they were unaware of this. Over at least one IRS whistleblower’s protest, Attorney General Bill Barr merged the investigations in March or April of 2019 and opted to venue the inquiry in Delaware.
During his questioning of FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday morning, Ted Lieu listed several people with ties to Trump who had been convicted in federal court, stated who the Attorney General was at the time of those convictions, and asked who appointed that Attorney General. The barking seals who back Lieu seem to think this confirms his argument that the United States has no such thing as a two-tiered judicial system.
Even if Trump appoints the U.S. Attorney, it won’t matter in reliably Democratic states. Trump has selected attorneys similar to Weiss, who are cautious about offending Democrats while proudly displaying their Republican credentials. These so-called “nonpartisan public servants” are a mainstay of the administrative state, hopping from one high-profile position to the next without making any waves.
No one told the two IRS whistleblowers about that. Even though he was ostensibly the prosecutor and could conduct whatever investigation necessary and file whatever criminal charges were appropriate, when Gary Shapley appeared on Bret Baier’s show, Weiss repeatedly blamed “the prosecutors” for rejections and delays. Weiss must identify who “the prosecutors” are if they are not himself.
