WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland and first son Hunter Biden will attend the White House state dinner Thursday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hours after new evidence emerged of an alleged Justice Department coverup in the tax fraud case against the first son.
The roughly 400-person guest list includes Hunter, 53, and his uncle James Biden, with whom the first son partnered on some of his lucrative foreign dealings, including in China.
America’s top law enforcement official has claimed that he was not involved in the investigation of President Biden’s son, which concluded Tuesday with the announcement of a probation-only plea deal.
But two IRS whistleblowers revealed in congressional depositions made public Thursday that Garland allegedly misled Congress about the ability of US Attorney David Weiss to bring charges outside of Delaware.
Intentionally lying to Congress is a crime and the testimony by IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley and an IRS case agent who has remained anonymous directly contradicts Garland’s assertions.
Garland and the Biden clan will celebrate Modi’s presence with a number of prominent cultural and political figures, including filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, Apple CEO Tim Cook, fashion designer Ralph Lauren, former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
According to the the freshly revealed whistleblower testimony, Weiss requested at least twice to be named a special counsel so that he could independently bring criminal charges against Hunter — after Biden-appointed US attorneys in California and Washington, DC, refused to prosecute Hunter for evading taxes in their districts, the whistleblowers said.
The Justice Department’s leadership allegedly refused Weiss’ requests to be granted the powers of a special counsel to allow him to bring charges independent of Biden’s appointees for Hunter’s alleged failure to pay $2.2 million on $8.3 million in income earned between 2014 and 2019.
Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf, who played a key role in the case, including allegedly steering investigators away from focusing on Joe Biden’s possible role in business dealings, supported efforts to charge Hunter with serious felonies, Shapley said, but the effort was stymied last year by Biden-appointed US attorneys Martin Estrada and Matthew Graves.
“AUSA Wolf supported charging Hunter Biden for tax evasion and false return in 2014, 2018, and 2019, and failure to file or pay for 2015, 2016, and 2017,” Shapley said. “The proper venue for a tax case is where the subject resides or where the return is prepared or filed. That meant the proper venue for the years we were looking into would either be Washington, D.C., or California, not Delaware,” resulting in the impasse with Biden’s appointees.
Weiss’s office said Tuesday that Hunter would plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges for failing to file timely tax returns in 2017 and 2017. The first son also agreed to a diversion agreement that will allow the first son to avoid a felony conviction for illegal gun possession while abusing drugs.
Hunter was not charged with money laundering, drug crimes or working as an unregistered lobbyist under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, despite alleged evidence of such crimes in bank records and documents from his abandoned laptop.
Shapley, who oversaw the Hunter Biden investigation since January 2020, and a case agent who worked on the case since it opened in 2018, testified over the past month in private to Ways and Means Committee staff.
The 13-person IRS investigatory group was removed from the case on May 15 after Shapley contacted Congress to allege “preferential treatment” and false testimony by Garland.
Exactly one week after Shapley’s initial contact with Congress, Hunter Biden’s lawyers met with Justice Department officials in Washington on April 26 in a sign that a final charging decision was close.
Garland testified under oath to Congress earlier this year that Weiss was empowered to bring charges outside of Delaware.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) pressed Garland in March on whether Weiss was truly able to bring charges without the approval of other Justice Department officials, specifically if the alleged crime occurred outside Delaware.
“The US attorney in Delaware has been advised that he has full authority to make those kind of referrals that you’re talking about or to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it’s necessary. And I will assure that if he does, he will be able to do that,” the AG said.
Grassley pressed: “Does the Delaware US attorney lack independent charging authority over certain criminal allegations against the president’s son outside of the district of Delaware?”
“If it’s in another district, he would have to bring the case in another district, but as I said, I’ve promised to ensure he’s able to carry out his investigation and that he be able to run it and if he needs to bring it in another jurisdiction, he will have full authority to do that,” Garland said.
