House Republicans said the Justice Department deviated from \u2018standard processes\u2019 and gave Hunter Biden \u2018special treatment\u2019 in its years-long federal investigation into him.<\/p>\n
The House GOP\u2019s findings are laid out in an interim staff report released Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee, House Ways & Means Committee, and the House Oversight Committee.<\/p>\n
The chairmen of those panels \u2013 Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Jason Smith R-Mo., and James Comer, R-Ky. \u2013 are leading the impeachment inquiry against President Biden. The chairmen are investigating any foreign money received by the Biden family, whether President Biden was involved in his family\u2019s foreign business dealings, and steps allegedly taken by the Biden administration to \u2018slow, hamper, or otherwise impede the criminal investigation into the President\u2019s son, Hunter Biden, which involves funds received by the Biden family from foreign sources.\u2019<\/p>\n
The investigation began after two IRS whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, came forward this spring and told Congress that the Justice Department \u2018had impeded, delayed, and obstructed the criminal investigation of the President\u2019s son, Hunter Biden.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018The whistleblowers, who came forward only after IRS leadership failed to address their concerns, noted several deviations by Justice Department officials \u2018from the normal process that provided preferential treatment, in this case to Hunter Biden,\u2019\u2019 the report states.<\/p>\n
The report points to Shapley and Ziegler\u2019s claims that the Justice Department \u2018allowed the statute of limitations on certain charges against Hunter Biden to lapse, prohibited line investigators from referring to or asking about President Biden during witness interviews, withheld evidence from line investigators, excluded the investigative team from meetings with defense counsel, and tipped off defense counsel about pending search warrants.\u2019<\/p>\n
As part of the investigation, the committees have heard testimony from nearly a dozen DOJ officials, including Special Counsel David Weiss, who is leading the Hunter Biden probe, and have obtained \u2018hundreds of pages of documents.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The testimony and documents received by the committees to date corroborates many of the allegations made by IRS whistleblowers,\u2019 the report states.<\/p>\n
The committees found that the Justice Department and FBI \u2018afforded special treatment\u2019 to Hunter Biden. The report cites witness testimony, which revealed that there was a \u2018delicate approach used\u2019 during the Hunter Biden case. Those officials described the probe as \u2018sensitive\u2019 or \u2018significant.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Evidence shows Department officials slow-walked the investigation, informed defense counsel of future investigative actions, prevented line investigators from taking otherwise ordinary investigative steps, and even allowed the statute of limitations to expire on the most serious potential charges,\u2019 the report states. \u2018These unusual \u2013 and oftentimes in the view of witnesses, unprecedented \u2013 tactics conflicted with standard operating procedures and ultimately had the effect of benefiting Hunter Biden.\u2019<\/p>\n
The report also points to testimony which revealed Weiss, when serving as just U.S. attorney for Delaware, \u2018did not have \u2018ultimate authority\u2019 over the Hunter Biden case.\u2019 Weiss did testify during a transcribed interview that he was initially denied when requesting special prosecutor status, but \u2018From my mind, it\u2019s a sequencing event,\u2019 Weiss said. \u2018It\u2019s not a denial in any way, shape or form.\u2019<\/p>\n
He added: \u2018That\u2019s the way I interpreted it.\u2019<\/p>\n
Attorney General Merrick Garland, in August 2023, appointed Weiss as special counsel.<\/p>\n
The report states that there is \u2018no question that without the brave IRS whistleblowers, it is likely that the Biden Justice Department would have never acted on Hunter Biden\u2019s misconduct.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018When forced to act, the Biden Justice Department worked closely with Hunter Biden\u2019s counsel to craft an\u00a0unprecedented plea deal that was so biased in the direction of Hunter Biden it fell apart in open court,\u2019 the report states. \u2018When a federal judge rejected the Department\u2019s attempt to push through a sweetheart plea deal and quietly end the five-year investigation of Hunter Biden, Attorney General Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel and refused to answer questions about the case on the basis of the existence of an \u2018ongoing investigation.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The report adds: \u2018Using the \u2018ongoing investigation\u2019 as a veil to shield its misconduct, the Biden Justice Department unilaterally limited the scope of witness testimony and document productions to Congress, severely curtailing the Committees\u2019 ability to gather information.\u2019<\/p>\n
House Republicans said in their report that even amid these \u2018troubling findings,\u2019 there is \u2018more information that the Justice Department is keeping from the Committees.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018The Justice Department has still not fully complied with requests for relevant documents, and it has impeded the Committees\u2019 investigation by baselessly preventing two Tax Division officials \u2013 Senior Litigation Counsel Mark Daly and Trial Attorney Jack Morgan \u2013 from testifying, despite subpoenas compelling their testimony,\u2019 the report states. \u2018These documents and this testimony are necessary for the Committees to complete our inquiry.\u2019<\/p>\n
The report says the Justice Department\u2019s \u2018blatant disregard for the Committees\u2019 constitutionally prescribed oversight responsibilities is yet another stain that the Biden Administration has placed on the Justice Department\u2019s once-venerated reputation.\u2019<\/p>\n
House Republicans admitted that their investigation is \u2018far from complete,\u2019 but vowed to \u2018continue to gather evidence to determine whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden for consideration by the full House of Representatives.\u2019<\/p>\n
The White House has blasted the House impeachment inquiry against the president as baseless.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department, and individual DOJ officials, have denied whistleblower allegations that suggest politics played a role in prosecutorial decisions throughout the Hunter Biden probe.<\/p>\n
Hunter Biden has been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee and is expected to appear for a deposition on Dec. 13. House Republicans have promised to release the transcript of Hunter Biden\u2019s deposition and have vowed to schedule a public hearing so the president\u2019s son can testify publicly before the American people, as his attorney requested.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
House Republicans said the Justice Department deviated from \u2018standard processes\u2019 and gave Hunter Biden \u2018special treatment\u2019 in its years-long federal investigation into him. The House GOP\u2019s findings are laid out in an interim staff report released Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee, House Ways & Means Committee, and the House Oversight Committee. The chairmen of <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12549,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}