If confirmed, the explosive allegations leveled by two federal whistleblowers take the Biden family scandal to the next level. These two informants are career investigators at the Internal Revenue Service and they've now attested under oath that while in the process of investigating Hunter Biden, they were undermined and resisted at every turn. In her new Wall Street Journal column, Kimberly Strassel summarizes: "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." She quotes one of the agents -- a 14-year veteran of the agency -- asserting that Justice Department “provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest.” Some details:
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.”
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Summarizing the whistleblowers' accusations, Strassel relays how the investigatory team developed a "textbook" tax evasion case against Hunter Biden, particularly involving actions in 2014-2105. They were also pursuing a FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) violation case, which DOJ has wielded to hammer several Trump associates. But Biden-appointed US Attorneys in two key jurisdictions refused to file charges:
These actions, and the lapsing of the statute of limitations, spared Hunter the gravest charges—those relating to his 2014 and 2015 tax returns, which Mr. Shapley says showed his “scheme to evade” taxes and possible FARA violation: “The purposeful exclusion of the 2014 and 2015 years sanitized the most substantive criminal conduct and concealed material facts.” Mr. Shapley says that Hunter still hasn’t reported or paid tax on some $400,000 of Burisma income.
The Justice Department says these decisions were ultimately made by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee. Strassel responds that in light of what she describes in her piece, "there’s plenty more—including Mr. Shapley’s evidence of intimidation and retaliation against his team. But even this glimpse turns this week’s Hunter plea into a joke. The Justice Department needs to provide answers." To say the least. There's also this serious component of the whistleblowers' claims:
A reporter that actually gets responses from the White House needs to get an on the record response from Joe Biden on whether he was with Hunter Biden on July 30, 2017.
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) June 22, 2023
It's entirely possible his crackhead son was lying to the Chinese, but Joe Biden needs to say that. pic.twitter.com/JHud6uO8Q2
Is this too 'on the nose,' to the point of warranting some caution? Perhaps, and I'll address that below. But could the president's son just be this cartoonishly bad and corrupt? Based on everything we know about his character, absolutely. That apparent message shows Hunter Biden allegedly using his father's name and power to threaten and shake down a Chinese business associate for a desired financial payment. Then there's this:
Shapley said that [Hunter Biden business associate Rob] “Walker went on to describe an instance in which the former Vice President showed up at a CEFC meeting.” Walker told the FBI, "We were at the Four Seasons and we were having lunch and he [Joe Biden] stopped in, just said hello to everybody. I don't even think he drank water. I think Hunter Biden said, 'I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys and could you?' And I think he [Joe Biden] was like, ‘if I'm around,’ and he'd show up." The FBI agent then asked, "So you definitely got the feeling that that was orchestrated by Hunter Biden to have like an appearance by his dad at that meeting just to kind of bolster your chances at making a deal work out?" "Sure,” Walker replied. The FBI agent then asked if there were “any times when he was in office, or did you hear Hunter Biden say that he was setting up a meeting with his dad with them while dad was still in office?" "Yes,” Walker replied...Texts from [Biden business associate Tony] Bobulinski also suggest that Joe Biden met with him, Hunter Biden, and James Biden as the president’s son and brother pursued a deal with CEFC. That alleged meeting appears to have taken place on the night of May 2, 2017, in Los Angeles.
Some on the Left are already suggesting that the incriminating WhatsApp text mentioned above might be fake. As I said on television earlier, I'm of course open to all evidence, and want to make sure accusations are corroborated -- but this wouldn't be the first time we were told that something belonging to Hunter Biden wasn't authentic, when it very much was:
On the newly-revealed Biden whistleblower allegations… pic.twitter.com/rGWjEmXqqh
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) June 23, 2023
Any 'benefit of the doubt' for Hunter Biden ran dry long ago. The same applies to Joe Biden, who categorically stated that he knew absolutely nothing about Hunter's overseas business dealings -- which has been exposed as untrue several times over. That would be the same Joe Biden who prejudiced the Hunter Biden probe by highly inappropriately stating out loud that his son had done "nothing wrong." The leader of the executive branch spoke, and within weeks, his son was let off the hook with no jail time (with multiple additional alleged crimes not even fully examined) at the apparent conclusion of an investigation that inexplicably lasted five years. I'll leave you with the White House taunting critics by ostentatiously welcoming a confirmed criminal and repeat violator of federal gun laws to last night's State Dinner featuring a foreign head of state:
Hunter Biden and Merrick Garland attended the same state dinner last night just hours after the Department of Justice was accused of a massive cover up involving Hunter's tax fraud case.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 23, 2023
They are laughing at you.
They think you are stupid.
They are in one big elite club with… pic.twitter.com/vgN1XNUlAD
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