Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, now special counsel in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ongoing Hunter Biden investigation, sent his colleagues an April 2022 column criticizing Attorney General Merrick Garland’s handling of the Hunter Biden case, an internal email obtained by the Daily Caller shows.
Weiss sent an April 28, 2022, column in The Hill to four colleagues at the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office, the internal email shows. The column, written by conservative legal analyst Andrew C. McCarthy, argued for a special counsel to oversee the Hunter Biden case after Garland testified it would not be necessary.
SEE THE EMAIL HERE:
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project obtained the internal email as part of its ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the DOJ for records related to the Hunter Biden case. The Federalist has reported on additional emails from Heritage Oversight’s lawsuit. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Heritage Foundation Presses DOJ To Investigate Joe Biden’s Aliases As Part Of Classified Docs Case)
Assistant Delaware U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf was one recipient of Weiss’ email. IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler have accused Wolf of tipping off Hunter Biden’s attorneys to a planned search of his northern Virginia locker and shutting down IRS agents’ attempt to search a guest house on President Joe Biden’s Delaware property.
“It is in the public interest to have a lawyer from outside the president’s own Justice Department lead the investigation of the president’s son — and perhaps the president’s own conduct,” McCarthy’s column reads. “Garland is aware of this. Far from increasing our trust in him, the regrettable fact that he is citing his own integrity to rationalize dodging a clear regulation is reason to question his judgment.” (RELATED: NYT Omitted Details About Hunter Biden Attorney Allegedly Pressuring DOJ To Investigate IRS Whistleblower, Lawyers Say)
“It is not enough to say that Weiss reports to Garland and Biden’s appointed deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco. In the Justice Department, tax cases are controlled not by the district U.S. attorney but by the Tax Division in main Justice,” he added.
“The controlling federal regulations dictate that a special counsel must be appointed. The longer Biden’s attorney general fights that reality, the more it increases suspicion that the president’s hands may not be clean,” McCarthy concluded.
Garland testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on April 26, 2022. Republican Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty asked Garland about the Hunter Biden case during his testimony.
“The Hunter Biden investigation, as I said, even in my own confirmation hearing, is being run by and supervised by the United States Attorney for the District of Delaware,” Garland said. “He is in charge of that investigation, there will not be interference of any political or improper kind.”
“I want to ask you this, under what circumstances do you consider, or how do you evaluate whether you would appoint a special counsel?” Hagerty questioned Garland.
“I think this is a fact and law question in each case determining and depending upon how cases go forward and a question of whether the Justice Department with its normal processes should continue, I want to be clear though, special counsels are also employees of the Justice Department. We don’t have an independent counsel statute anymore,” Garland said.
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 23: U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announces the arrest of Chinese chemical company employees as part of an investigation into the fentanyl precursor supply chain during a news conference at the Robert F. Kennedy headquarters building on June 23, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Garland made similar remarks to Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley in March 2023, one month before IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley first came forward with allegations that Hunter Biden received special treatment from investigators.
Shapley in May testified to the House Ways and Means Committee with information contradicting Garland’s assertion that the Hunter Biden case was free from political interference.
“However, I would later be told by United States Attorney Weiss that the D.C. U.S. Attorney would not allow U.S. Attorney Weiss to charge those years in his district,” Shapley testified. “This resulted in United States Attorney Weiss requesting special counsel authority from Main DOJ to charge in the District of Columbia. I don’t know if he asked before or after the Attorney General’s April 26th, 2022, statement, but Weiss said his request for that authority was denied and that he was told to follow DOJ’s process.”
A DOJ official reportedly approached Shapley after he first came forward anonymously in April and again prior to his congressional testimony. Shapley’s lawyers told the Daily Mail the DOJ official was open to investigating his claims during an April phone call, but took a much different tone in a May discussion ahead of his testimony. (RELATED: DOJ Official Reportedly Approached IRS Whistleblower About Hunter Biden Accusations Before He Testified)
Discovering what led to the Apr. 26 meeting and what happened between then and May 11 is critical to understanding DOJ HQ’s involvement in a case where AG Merrick Garland swore there was none. It goes to the heart of whether Weiss and Garland misled Congress. /19 pic.twitter.com/2MoDy2FLM0
— Tristan Leavitt (@tristanleavitt) August 25, 2023
On July 10, Shapley’s attorneys released an email the whistleblower sent Oct. 7, 2022, describing the meeting where Weiss allegedly said the Biden-appointed D.C. U.S. attorney blocked him from charging Hunter Biden and the DOJ rejected his special counsel request.
Earlier July 10, Weiss wrote a letter to Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham saying he never requested special counsel authority and that he had never been denied the authority to bring charges against Hunter Biden. Weiss’ letter to Graham contradicted a letter he wrote in June to Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, in which Weiss said his charging authority was limited to his home district.
Shapley further testified that Weiss was blocked from charging Hunter Biden in the Central District of California by a Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney, which The New York Times (NYT) independently confirmed. Garland has denied the accusations of political interference in the Hunter Biden case.
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 19: Supervisory IRS Special Agent Gary Shapley (L) and IRS Criminal Investigator Joseph Ziegler arrive for a House Oversight Committee hearing related to the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden, on Capitol Hill July 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Hunter Biden’s plea agreement for two tax misdemeanors collapsed during a July 26 court appearance because of scrutiny from Delaware U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika, who took issue with an immunity provision tucked into the proposed diversion agreement for Biden’s felony gun charge.
Noreika’s questioning caused a disagreement between Biden’s defense counsel and DOJ special attorney Leo Wise, resulting in Biden pleading not guilty to the tax charges. DOJ prosecutors led by Wolf negotiated Hunter Biden’s plea agreement before it collapsed in court in July, according to Politico.
Weiss was not planning on having Hunter Biden plead guilty to the tax charges before the IRS whistleblowers testified before Congress, according to the NYT.
Garland appointed Weiss special counsel in the Hunter Biden case Aug. 11, and Weiss immediately moved to withdraw the two tax misdemeanors to potentially charge Biden in either Washington, D.C., or the Central District of California. Noreika granted Weiss’ request and dismissed Biden’s tax charges without prejudice.
Republicans led by House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer of Kentucky reacted negatively to Weiss’ appointment because of the IRS whistleblower testimony about how investigators allegedly slow-walked and obstructed the Hunter Biden case under Weiss’ leadership. Likewise, Andy McCarthy has come out against Weiss’ special counsel appointment in the pages of conservative magazine National Review.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has threatened to launch an impeachment inquiry if the DOJ uses Weiss’ special counsel designation to block congressional investigators.
Weiss is seeking an indictment from a Delaware grand jury for Biden’s felony gun charge by the end of September, the DOJ said in a Wednesday court filing. Biden’s legal team responded by claiming the diversion agreement was put into effect, despite the DOJ’s insistence the agreement was never implemented.
BREAKING: DOJ expects Hunter Biden to be indicted for his felony gun charge by the end of the month @DailyCaller https://t.co/nhVxaqJn3v pic.twitter.com/wyfXn9SWjt
— James Lynch (@jameslynch32) September 6, 2023
The House Ways and Means, Oversight and Judiciary Committees continue to investigate the IRS whistleblower accusations and sent subpoenas in August to witnesses of the meeting that allegedly occurred Oct. 7, 2022. A DOJ official responded to the subpoena with a letter to the House Judiciary Committee saying the subpoenas “cannot constitutionally be enforced,” the Washington Examiner first reported.
House Oversight is also investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and the role his father allegedly played in them while he was vice president. Bank records released by the committee show the Biden family received more than $20 million from Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese, Kazakh and Romanian business associates.
The DOJ did not respond to the Caller’s request for comment by the time of publication. The Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.