The federal prosecutor in charge of the investigation against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter is disputing reports that he was prevented from pursuing criminal charges in Los Angeles and Washington.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal prosecutor in charge of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s inquiry is disputing reports that he was barred from pursuing criminal charges in Los Angeles and Washington, and he denies retaliating against an IRS official who revealed details about the case.
U.S. Attorney David Weiss in Delaware justified the protracted probe of Hunter Biden’s financial dealings in a two-page letter to House Republicans on Friday.
Weiss, who was appointed to the position by President Donald Trump and was kept on by the Biden administration, said in his letter that the department “did not retaliate” against Gary Shapley, an IRS agent who claimed the prosecutor aided in blocking Shapley’s job promotion after the tax agency employee had contacted congressional investigators about the Biden case.
Shapley is one of two IRS employees questioned by Republicans looking into practically every aspect of the younger Biden’s business transactions.
The House Ways and Means Committee
one of the investigative panels, voted to publicly release legislative testimony from IRS employees shortly after the plea deal was disclosed on June 20.
Shapley and an anonymous agent spoke about a habit of “slow-walking investigative steps” and postponing enforcement measures. in the months leading up to Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election victory in 2020.
It’s unclear whether the friction they describe is a result of internal disagreement about how to proceed with the probe or a practise of meddling and preferential treatment. To prevent affecting the outcome of an election, the Justice Department has traditionally advised prosecutors to exercise caution when prosecuting cases with potential political implications near the time of the election.
Shapley further claimed that Weiss requested special counsel status from the Justice Department in March 2020 in order to bring the tax proceedings in jurisdictions other than Delaware, including Washington and California, but was denied.
In response, the agency stated that Weiss has “complete authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and how.” whether to file charges as he sees fit. He doesn’t need any more permission to do so.”
Weiss stated in his letter that he was informed by the department that if he sought to file charges in a jurisdiction other than Delaware, he would be granted special status to do so. When filing criminal charges, U.S. attorneys are generally limited to their own jurisdictions.
Biden, 53, agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanour tax offences with federal authorities. As long as Biden follows the terms of the plea agreement, he will avoid prosecution on a felony charge of illegally possessing a handgun as a drug user. He is scheduled to appear in a Delaware court later this month.
Leaders of the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee, In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Oversight and Accountability and Ways and Means committees requested that nine Justice Department officials and two FBI agents investigate the IRS employees’ assertions.
Weiss stated in a letter to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, that he is willing to address such matters with congressional officials, but that the case is still under criminal investigation and that there is little else he can say at this time.
Republicans have placed a lot of emphasis on an unsubstantiated tip to the FBI alleging a bribery plot involving Joe Biden when he was vice president. The unproven claim, which surfaced in 2019, was that Biden urged Ukraine’s chief prosecutor to resign. in order to halt a probe into Burisma, an oil-and-gas business on whose board Hunter Biden served.
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, described the Republican inquiries spanning numerous congressional committees as a “obsession.”
“Since taking the majority in 2023, various leaders of the House and its committees have discarded established protocols of Congress, rules of conduct, and even the law in what can only be called an obsession with attacking the Biden family,” he wrote.