The attorney for an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblower criticized U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Friday appointment of prosecutor David Weiss as special counsel for the Hunter Biden investigation.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley sent an email in Oct. 2022 claiming that Weiss told a group of law enforcement officials he is “not the deciding person on whether charges are filed” in the Hunter Biden investigation. Weiss has denied the claim.
Shapley’s attorney, Tristan Leavitt, said in a Friday interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum that Garland and Weiss dishonestly assured the public that Weiss had all the authority he needed to investigate Hunter. Leavitt also said Weiss had petitioned Garland for special counsel authority over a year ago, but had been denied.
“First and foremost, it’s clear that the Department of Justice is looking to avoid further transparency and accountability for everything that’s happened in the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office,” Leavitt said. “I think, a top line thing to recognize here is that today’s move unquestionably vindicates the IRS whistleblowers who pointed out that Weiss asked for this authority a year and a half ago, but Weiss, who just three months ago was saying he had all the authority he needed, as Attorney General Merrick Garland was also telling Congress Weiss had all the authority he needed. [He] clearly didn’t if they had to take the steps they did today.”
“The only reasoning for this — I think, again — is to, I mean, part of it is to be able to bring the charges against Hunter because their cute move in Delaware to try and sneak this past the judge failed, and so now they’re boxed into a corner,” Leavitt continued. “They had to do something, but exactly as the whistleblower said, is what’s happened. To bring those charges, David Weiss had to have further authority, which he maintained that he had, and now he has finally been given but clearly didn’t have before.”
Hunter previously struck a deal with Weiss in which he would plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges and avoid jail time. During his hearing in July, Judge Maryellen Noreika refused to sign onto the plea deal due to a disagreement between the prosecution and defense about whether the DOJ could charge Hunter for other crimes in the future, including violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Hunter then changed his plea to not guilty, setting up the possibility of a trial and of further charges.
Leavitt told MacCallum that Weiss’ lie to the American people about his own authority to charge Hunter Biden should disqualify him from being the special counsel in the case.
“What it comes down to is, Weiss and Garland told the American people something that wasn’t true. And now that’s clear to everybody, and so for them to double down on it still, you know, again, that train has left the station. The time has come to appoint an independent special counsel. For them to select Weiss at this point is just almost to spit in the face of Americans,” Leavitt concluded.
Leavitt said Garland made the appointment due to the whistleblowers’ testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee in June. Shapley, along with fellow IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler, testified that the Department of Justice (DOJ) lied when they claimed that the investigation into Hunter would have no political interference and that the DOJ slow-walked the investigation by withholding certain pieces of evidence from investigators. (RELATED: ‘A Debacle For The Justice Department’: CNN Guest Criticizes Merrick Garland’s Handling Of Hunter Biden Probe)
Whistleblowers have also come forward with evidence of Hunter’s business dealings with foreign associates in Ukraine, China and Romania. Zeigler, one of the IRS whistleblowers, told Congress that the Biden family made $17 million from the business associates in those countries and that the DOJ withheld information on a WhatsApp message sent by Hunter indicating his father’s involvement with his business dealings.
Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer told the House Oversight Committee that Hunter put his father on speaker phone while surrounded by foreign business associates on over twenty occasions.