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DOJ Prosecutors Who Allegedly Refused To Charge Hunter Biden Donated To Joe Biden And Kamala Harris, Records Show

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One of the federal prosecutors who allegedly declined to charge Hunter Biden with tax fraud donated to President Joe Biden and the other gave money to Vice President Kamala Harris while working in the private sector, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.

U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-appointee who led the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into Hunter Biden, requested the U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to each bring tax charges against Hunter Biden, according to testimony from IRS Whistleblower Gary Shapley.

Weiss’ requests were rejected by Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves and Biden-appointed U.S Attorney for the Central District of California E. Martin Estrada, Shapley testified. Weiss requested special counsel authority after each request was rejected, and Attorney General Merrick Garland denied his requests, according to Shapley. (RELATED: NYT Confirms DOJ Prosecutor Was Blocked From Bringing Charges Against Hunter Biden)

Biden’s alleged tax evasion from 2014-15 would have to be charged in D.C. prior to the statute of limitations expiring, Shapley said. “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,” he continued.

“That process meant no charges would ever be brought in the District of Columbia, where the statute of limitations on the 2014 and ’15 charges would eventually expire. The years in question included foreign income from Burisma and a scheme to evade his income taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon. There were also potential FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] issues relating to 2014 and 2015. The purposeful exclusion of the 2014 and 2015 years sanitized the most substantive criminal conduct and concealed material facts,” Shapley added.

Graves was nominated by the Biden administration at the recommendation of Democratic D.C. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton. In November 2021, he was sworn in as the U.S. Attorney for D.C., leaving his job as a partner at law firm DLA Piper, according to his official bio. The firm’s website touts its support for “diversity and inclusion” and “sustainability” measures.

When Graves was working at DLA Piper, he donated to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign on two separate occasions, FEC records show. Graves gave Biden for President $500 in April 2020 and $1,000 in May 2020 during the Democratic presidential primary. Prior to his work at DLA Piper, Graves worked in the Fraud and Corruption unit in the U.S. Attorney’s office and was promoted to Acting Chief of the division in 2015.

Similar to Graves, Estrada was nominated by President Biden and became a U.S. Attorney in September 2022, right before prosecutors presented their case against Hunter Biden to California’s Central District, Shapley said. (RELATED: Meet The US Attorney Who Allegedly Covered For Hunter Biden)

“Prosecutors stated that they presented the case to the Central District of California in mid-September. That happened to correspond with the confirmation of the President Biden appointee to the United States Attorney, Martin Estrada. The case agent and I asked to participate in that presentation, but it was denied,” Shapley testified.

“In January of this year, I learned United States Attorney Estrada had declined to bring the charges in the Central District of California. For all intents and purposes, the case was dead, with the exception of one gun charge that could be brought in Delaware,” he added. His account was independently confirmed by The New York Times via a person with knowledge of the situation.

Estrada worked in the private sector as a partner for the Los Angeles-based law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP. The firm’s website says “diversity, equity and inclusion” has been a “cornerstone of our firm” since its founding in 1962. Law360 ranked Munger Tolles & Olson in seventh place for its “high percentage of equity partners of color,” and the firm got a perfect score from LGBTQ activist organization Human Rights Campaign’s 2020 Corporate Equality Index.

In 2015, Estrada donated $500 to then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ Democratic primary campaign for the state’s open Senate seat, FEC records show. Harris served in the Senate from 2017-21, when she was sworn in as Vice President.

Estrada previously served on the board of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, a left-wing legal organization devoted to “fighting for justice, equity, and hope for people living in poverty throughout Greater Los Angeles,” its 2020 annual report reads. He was also a board member of the Alliance for Children’s Rights, an advocacy group for foster children that came out against Texas’ ban on transgender medical procedures for minors in February.

Estrada was a 2015 fellow at the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, a group that works to make the legal profession more diverse, according to its website. Estrada was an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California from 2007-14 and prosecuted a variety of violent and organized criminal violations.

Hunter Biden was charged June 20 with two misdemeanors for tax avoidance and felony gun possession. He is expected to plead guilty to the charges and avoid jail time. Weiss said the probe into Biden was still ongoing shortly after the charges were announced.

Shapley’s IRS testimony showed Garland appeared to lie under oath to Congress about the Hunter Biden investigation and confirmed the FBI knew Hunter Biden’s laptop was real in 2019. His testimony also revealed a threatening text Hunter Biden allegedly sent to a Chinese business executive, purportedly accusing the DOJ of slow-walking the Biden investigation and claiming Joe Biden was in the room with him at the time.

The White House has said Joe Biden was “not in business” with his son and Hunter Biden’s attorney said his client’s words are “solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family.” Garland on Friday denied Shapley’s allegations of interference in the Hunter Biden probe.

House Republicans on the Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees on Thursday requested Weiss, Graves, Estrada and other DOJ attorneys to testify about the Hunter Biden investigation.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect recent developments in Hunter Biden’s plea deal.

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