The Whistle Blows
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From the WSJ...
The Beltway press corps spent the week quoting “experts” assuring the public that Hunter Biden’s plea deal didn’t amount to special treatment. You can believe that, or you can read the sworn testimony of Internal Revenue Service investigators who say the opposite.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith on Thursday released the testimony of Gary Shapley and another, anonymous IRS whistleblower. They tell a story of blocked search warrants, tip-offs to Mr. Biden’s team, squelched avenues of investigation, downgraded charges, and interference by Joe Biden’s appointees. Mr. Shapley, a 14-year IRS veteran, said the Justice Department, its Tax Division and the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office “provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest.”
The president’s son on Tuesday scored a sweet deal, pleading guilty to two misdemeanors for “failure” to pay taxes, and a pretrial “diversion” agreement to avoid a felony firearms charge. He’ll likely avoid jail time. We now have a better idea of how this wrist-slap came about.
Mr. Shapley, leader of an elite team of agents specializing in international tax investigations, was brought in as supervisor of the Hunter case in January 2020. He says he quickly was stopped from taking normal investigatory steps. One example: He says his team was told in September 2020 by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf that they couldn’t pursue a search warrant of Joe Biden’s guest house (Hunter’s onetime residence) because of the “optics” and because “there is no way we will get that approved.”
In December 2020 the team wanted to search a storage unit in Virginia where Hunter had moved business documents. Ms. Wolf again objected, then tipped off Hunter’s defense counsel, “ruining our chance to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed,” Mr. Shapley said. Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters also tipped Hunter’s Secret Service team to a proposed “day of action” in which members of U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s team intended to conduct surprise interviews of witnesses—including Hunter. This gave a group “close to Hunter” the opportunity to “obstruct the approach,” and of the “12 interviews we hoped to conduct on our day of action, we only got one substantive interview.” Hunter lawyered up.
Along the way, according to Mr. Shapley’s testimony, Ms. Wolf told investigators not to ask any questions about “dad” or “the big guy.” They were blocked from pursuing leads about the financial transactions of Hunter’s children, since she said they’d get “into hot water if we interview the president’s grandchildren.” They were ordered not to look into evidence of campaign-finance violations. They were told to take Hunter’s name off official document requests, which Mr. Shapley said was “absolutely absurd.” The second whistleblower told the committee that he became “sick of fighting to do what’s right.”
The IRS team nonetheless prepared a document in late 2021 covering tax years 2014-19, in which it recommended charging Hunter with felony tax evasion, felony false tax returns, and failures to pay tax. Mr. Shapley says this was partially based on Hunter’s “textbook” tax evasion of declaring his income from the Ukrainian firm Burisma as a “loan.” Mr. Shapley says the team was also looking into a Foreign Agents Registration Act case.
According to Mr. Shapley, the Weiss team was prepared to pursue these charges but was blocked by Biden appointees—despite Attorney General Merrick Garland’s public claim of Mr. Weiss’s independence. Mr. Shapley notes that the proper venue for a tax case is where a subject resides or a return is filed; in Hunter’s case, the District of Columbia or California. But he says the U.S. attorney in the capital, Matthew Graves, refused to bring charges, and when Mr. Weiss asked for authority to bring charges there, he “was denied.” Mr. Shapley said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada of California’s Central District, similarly declined to bring charges. Messrs. Graves and Estrada were both appointed by Joe Biden.
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“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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From the WSJ...
The Beltway press corps spent the week quoting “experts” assuring the public that Hunter Biden’s plea deal didn’t amount to special treatment. You can believe that, or you can read the sworn testimony of Internal Revenue Service investigators who say the opposite.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith on Thursday released the testimony of Gary Shapley and another, anonymous IRS whistleblower. They tell a story of blocked search warrants, tip-offs to Mr. Biden’s team, squelched avenues of investigation, downgraded charges, and interference by Joe Biden’s appointees. Mr. Shapley, a 14-year IRS veteran, said the Justice Department, its Tax Division and the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office “provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest.”
The president’s son on Tuesday scored a sweet deal, pleading guilty to two misdemeanors for “failure” to pay taxes, and a pretrial “diversion” agreement to avoid a felony firearms charge. He’ll likely avoid jail time. We now have a better idea of how this wrist-slap came about.
Mr. Shapley, leader of an elite team of agents specializing in international tax investigations, was brought in as supervisor of the Hunter case in January 2020. He says he quickly was stopped from taking normal investigatory steps. One example: He says his team was told in September 2020 by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf that they couldn’t pursue a search warrant of Joe Biden’s guest house (Hunter’s onetime residence) because of the “optics” and because “there is no way we will get that approved.”
In December 2020 the team wanted to search a storage unit in Virginia where Hunter had moved business documents. Ms. Wolf again objected, then tipped off Hunter’s defense counsel, “ruining our chance to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed,” Mr. Shapley said. Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters also tipped Hunter’s Secret Service team to a proposed “day of action” in which members of U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s team intended to conduct surprise interviews of witnesses—including Hunter. This gave a group “close to Hunter” the opportunity to “obstruct the approach,” and of the “12 interviews we hoped to conduct on our day of action, we only got one substantive interview.” Hunter lawyered up.
Along the way, according to Mr. Shapley’s testimony, Ms. Wolf told investigators not to ask any questions about “dad” or “the big guy.” They were blocked from pursuing leads about the financial transactions of Hunter’s children, since she said they’d get “into hot water if we interview the president’s grandchildren.” They were ordered not to look into evidence of campaign-finance violations. They were told to take Hunter’s name off official document requests, which Mr. Shapley said was “absolutely absurd.” The second whistleblower told the committee that he became “sick of fighting to do what’s right.”
The IRS team nonetheless prepared a document in late 2021 covering tax years 2014-19, in which it recommended charging Hunter with felony tax evasion, felony false tax returns, and failures to pay tax. Mr. Shapley says this was partially based on Hunter’s “textbook” tax evasion of declaring his income from the Ukrainian firm Burisma as a “loan.” Mr. Shapley says the team was also looking into a Foreign Agents Registration Act case.
According to Mr. Shapley, the Weiss team was prepared to pursue these charges but was blocked by Biden appointees—despite Attorney General Merrick Garland’s public claim of Mr. Weiss’s independence. Mr. Shapley notes that the proper venue for a tax case is where a subject resides or a return is filed; in Hunter’s case, the District of Columbia or California. But he says the U.S. attorney in the capital, Matthew Graves, refused to bring charges, and when Mr. Weiss asked for authority to bring charges there, he “was denied.” Mr. Shapley said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada of California’s Central District, similarly declined to bring charges. Messrs. Graves and Estrada were both appointed by Joe Biden.
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@Jon said in The Whistle Blows:
At some point Weiss needs to speak, either on his own or via subpoena.
So does Garland.Garland dismissed these questions as (ready?) "A threat to our democracy."
“I certainly understand that some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department, its components, and its employees by claiming that we do not treat like cases alike. This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy and essential to the safety of the American people,”
Yeah, questioning the government's actions is a threat to democracy. Funny how everything the Biden administration doesn't like is either MAGA extremists or a threat to democracy.
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Well I’m talking about a very specific question. Does Weiss have the authority the DoJ claims he does?
I agree that what the republicans have been trying to do - subpoena evidence of ongoing investigations for the sole purpose of leaking bits of it out of context - is a threat to the rule of law and DoJ is right to resist it.
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Well I’m talking about a very specific question. Does Weiss have the authority the DoJ claims he does?
I agree that what the republicans have been trying to do - subpoena evidence of ongoing investigations for the sole purpose of leaking bits of it out of context - is a threat to the rule of law and DoJ is right to resist it.
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Turley: Who's lying?
“I’m not the deciding official.”
Those five words, allegedly from Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, shocked IRS and FBI investigators in a meeting on October 22, 2022. This is because, in refusing to appoint a special counsel, Attorney Garland Merrick Garland had repeatedly assured the public and Congress that Weiss had total authority over his investigation.
IRS supervisory agent Gary A. Shapley Jr. told Congress he was so dismayed by Weiss’s statement and other admissions that he memorialized them in a communication to other team members.
Shapley and another whistleblower detail what they describe as a pattern of interference with their investigation of Hunter Biden, including the denial of searches, lines of questioning, and even attempted indictments.
The only thing abundantly clear is that someone is lying. Either these whistleblowers are lying to Congress, or these Justice Department officials (including Garland) are lying.The rest of the column deals with what a
political hackdisappointment Garland has been. -
Garland is lying. It's not just this one thing, but it's a trail of questionable answers...Lawyer doublespeak admitting nothing, and saying he never heard of incidents, investigations and people that you know damn well an AG knows about through his briefings.
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G George K referenced this topic on
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By the way, some talking head pointed out something interesting.
The whistleblower attested to these allegations under oath.
Garland said it at a press conference.
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By the way, some talking head pointed out something interesting.
The whistleblower attested to these allegations under oath.
Garland said it at a press conference.
@George-K said in The Whistle Blows:
By the way, some talking head pointed out something interesting.
The whistleblower attested to these allegations under oath.
Garland said it at a press conference.
I might have heard the same talking head as you. They also pointed out that Garland never actually said no, he just deflected to a statement that the investigators had authority to make decisions.
