Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
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Thursday, a day after the nation heard first-hand the testimony of a pair of IRS agents who complain that President Joe Biden’s son was given preferential treatment in a tax investigation, the attorney for one whistleblower reiterated the allegations of wrongdoing.
As first reported by Fox News, the attorney for IRS Special Agent Gary Shapley says President Joe Biden meddled in an IRS investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes by appointing sympathetic officials to “shut down” or “curb” investigators’ actions.
According to Tristan Leavitt, Shapley’s attorney, Delaware officials were comfortable bringing charges against Hunter but the Biden appointees nixed the idea.
“Prosecutors in Delaware were on board,” Leavitt said. “They sent it to [the] Justice Department’s tax division and they recommended multiple felony charges for 2014 through 2019 as well as a number of misdemeanors. So it wasn’t just prosecutors versus investigators. Everybody was on board until the president appointed officials to shut the opportunities to prosecute down.”
This was not the first time that similar allegations have been made against the Biden administration. Shapley and Special Agent Joseph Ziegler had previously testified about this to the House Ways and Means Committee.
Wednesday, Ziegler, a Democrat, stated that members of the Biden family or their associates had received $17 million of payments from Ukraine, China, and Romania.
Last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland denied the accusations, saying U.S. attorney David Weiss, the top DOJ official in Delaware, had autonomy in choosing to charge or not charge Hunter Biden.
“David Weiss was appointed by President Trump as the U.S. attorney in Delaware and assigned this matter during the previous administration,” Garland said. “He was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own.”
Weiss has corroborated Garland’s claim in at least one letter to Congress, but Republicans accused him of modifying his stance in subsequent communication.
Wednesday, Shapley and Ziegler offered their testimony to the House Oversight Committee.
“It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the U.S. attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalized by [DOJ] officials as well as other U.S. attorneys,” Ziegler said.
A six-hour marathon hearing revealed what Americans already know about Washington, D.C. – Republicans and Democrats are divided when it comes to the business of the Bidens.
The split was evident in every facet of the hearing, from a disagreement as to whether Weiss changed or clarified his remarks in a pair of letters to the nature of the relationship among investigators.
Oversight Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) downplayed the agents’ complaints, characterizing the interplay between agents and prosecutors as part of a “tug-of-war” common to criminal investigations.
Other Democrats said the lack of prosecution was proof that Hunter’s taxes had been thoroughly reviewed by a large collection of officials.
But, Republicans retorted that Hunter had been found to have shortchanged the federal government on his taxes, something which he has since agreed to fix as part of a plea deal.
“Hunter Biden owes the U.S. government at least $125,000 in back taxes,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) tweeted. “That’s two times the average Ohio household income.How can President Biden ask Americans to pay more in taxes when his son has failed to pay the taxes that he owes?”
Hunter Biden owes the U.S. government at least $125,000 in back taxes.
That’s two times the average Ohio household income.
How can President Biden ask Americans to pay more in taxes when his son has failed to pay the taxes that he owes?
More from today’s @GOPOversight hearing: pic.twitter.com/33OhsbXyE2
— US Rep. Mike Turner (@RepMikeTurner) July 19, 2023
REPUBLICANS CONTINUE PRESS ON GARLAND
As with anything in politics, there was more to Wednesday’s hearing than just a long-held conservative desire to cast the president and his family in an unfavorable light.
House Republicans have also kept a keen eye on opportunities to impeach a high-ranking member of the Biden White House.
Garland is firmly in the crosshairs in that regard, and Republicans have sought to strengthen their claims that Garland has lied to Congress in previous testimony about the Hunter investigation as well as other hot-button matters.
Shapley stated directly that his testimony was not an allegation of an impeachable offense by Garland, although to call Shapley’s statement a ringing endorsement of Garland would be inaccurate. Shapley took a middle-road approach to the question, both absolving Garland and calling for others to assess the attorney general’s remarks to Congress.
“Let me be clear, although these facts contradict the attorney general’s testimony and raise serious questions for you to investigate, I have never claimed evidence that Attorney General Garland knowingly lied to Congress,” Shapley said. “This for others to investigate and determine whether those letters contain knowingly false statements.”
NEW ALLEGATIONS FOR PRESIDENT AND HUNTER
The heat of the IRS hearing had barely cooled when, Thursday, Republicans released multiple documents they say indicate Hunter Biden is, or at least was, a man out of control or that President Joe Biden ran interference to keep his son out of trouble.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who showed censored versions of graphic sexual photos taken from Hunter Biden’s laptop during the Wednesday whistleblower hearing, accelerated her allegations on Thursday when she cited a U.S. Treasury report while accused Hunter of flying a woman across country for the sake of purchasing sex.
“Hunter Biden violated the Mann Act by flying a woman across the country to pay her for sex,” Greene tweeted. “Hunter sex trafficked her. This isn’t the only case of sex trafficking crimes committed by the Bidens. There are dozens of cases outlined in Suspicious Activity Reports … in the Treasury.”
The Mann Act to which Greene referred is a federal law, one enacted in 1910, that makes it a federal crime to transport women or girls across state lines for the purpose of prostitution.
Greene’s remarks, which were roundly criticized and rejected by Democrats, were part of a larger release of information meant to damage President Biden or his family.
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released an FBI document that contains an as-yet-unverified claim that then-Vice President Biden coerced Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was looking into Hunter’s business dealings.
“[Thanks] to whistleblowers now the world can see what [I’ve] seen & what the FBI tried to conceal,” Grassley tweeted. “Serious allegations from trusted FBI source[.] What did the FBI do to investigate????”
https://twitter.com/ChuckGrassley/status/1682081403742068746
Democrats have accused Republicans of peddling unfounded rumors.
“As the antics and pratfalls continue to multiply, it’s now clear that Chairman Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Wray in contempt over a document that Senator Grassley already had in his possession and Chairman Comer had already viewed,” Raskin said in a much longer statement. “Now Chairman Comer and Senator Grassley are disseminating these unverified claims without the critical context provided by the FBI in a briefing to Chairman Comer and myself because, as Senator Grassley admitted, they do not care about the accuracy of these allegations, evidently just their political utility.
“This FBI document released by Republicans records the unverified, secondhand, years-old allegations relayed by a confidential human source who stated he could not provide ‘further opinion as to the veracity’ of these allegations.”