Hunter Biden mystery: Why did Delaware prosecutor not bring charges his office approved?

An IRS document from early 2022 states Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ office signed off on bringing a felony tax evasion case against Hunter Biden that stretched back to 2014 and money from Ukraine, creating fresh intrigue as to how the president’s son ultimately escaped more serious charges and got a plea deal on tax misdemeanors involving conduct years later.

The document, a prosecution “conclusions and recommendations” memo, escaped much notice when it was released last month by the House Ways and Means Committee along with the testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley.

But it is taking on new significance now that Weiss has issued several carefully crafted statements to Congress appearing to contradict Shapley and a second whistleblower’s account of what when in the case.

Shapley and a publicly unnamed colleague were the top two IRS agents on the Hunter Biden tax case and they told Congress in a transcribed interview that Weiss’ office wanted to bring a felony tax case against Hunter Biden charging him for crimes dating to 2014 but was turned down by his Joe Biden-appointed colleagues in Washington and Los Angeles where the alleged crimes occurred.

Weiss was appointed by former President Donald Trump and was kept on by the Biden administration to continue overseeing the Hunter Biden case.

The whistleblowers allege Weiss told the investigative team he requested to be named a special counsel so he could bring the charges himself but was turned down by the Biden Justice Department and then Weiss’ office let the statute of limitations expire on crimes before 2017, a claim that directly contradicts Attorney General Merrick Garland’s testimony there were no political roadblocks to prosecuting Hunter Biden.

Weiss has issued multiple letters to Congress since Shapley’s testimony was made public, saying he couldn’t talk much about the deliberations because Hunter Biden has not yet appeared in court to consummate his plea deal.

But the chief federal prosecutor for Delaware acknowledged his ability to file criminal charges was "geographically limited” from bringing tax charges in the two other cities and would have first consulted his colleagues in those districts. He also has flatly denied he ever requested or was denied special counsel status while suggesting he could have requested “special attorney” status to bring the charges in the districts outside Delaware.  

“I've followed the process outlined in my June 30 letter and have never been denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction," Weiss wrote in a letter this week to Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Weiss’ current account to Congress is essentially that he had the authority to bring the charges, which is begging the question across Washington as to why he did not charge Hunter Biden for the felonies dating to 2014 that Shapley and the other agent described in their testimonies.

That question is taking on more significance with the IRS memo completed Jan. 27, 2022, that flatly states both a prosecutor in the DOJ tax division named Mark Daly and Weiss’ top deputy on the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf, reviewed the memo and that Wolf herself signed off on charging Hunter Biden for felony tax charges alleging he did not pay taxes all the way back to 2014, including on $400,000 in income from the controversial Burisma Holdings energy company in Ukraine.

“The recommendation for prosecution is based on the facts above and recommends that RHB (Robert Hunter Biden) be prosecuted under the provisions of Title 26 USC Sections 7201and 7206 (1) for the tax years 2014, 2018 and 2019 and under the provisions of Title 26 USC Section 7203 for the tax years 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019,” the IRS memo signed by the case agent and approved by Shapley stated.

“A draft of this SAR has been given to DOJ-Tax Senior Attorney Mark Da!y, as well as Assistant United States Attorney Lesley Wolf,” the memo also states. “AUSA Wolf has reviewed the appendices and the charges cited in this report and agrees with the prosecution recommendation of the above cited charges against RHB.”

You can read that memo here.

Congressional investigators and one of Shapley’s lawyers told Just the News they are confused about why Weiss is claiming he had the authority to bring whatever case he wanted, then didn’t bring the one his office signed onto in the prosecution memo.

“Lesley Wolf concurred with the recommendation memo from the agents that the 2014 year should be charged and that they should be charged as felonies,” Empower Oversight whistleblower center found Jason Foster, one of Shapley’s lawyers, told the John Solomon Reports podcast. "She is Weiss's agent in those discussions. She is the primary person at the ground level. She's the person who Gary Shapley would have had the most interactions with the most frequently on the prosecution team."

“She wouldn't have agreed and put that in and allowed them to put that in writing if she didn't have Weiss's agreement,” Foster also said. “So then the question becomes for Weiss, why on earth would, if he had the authority to bring the charges, this magic golden ticket that was never written down, apparently by Merrick Garland that he could bring charges wherever he wanted, whatever he wanted, then why did he not do so?”

Such intrigue has even reached the presidential campaign trail, where GOP candidate and former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie has openly questioned Weiss’ performance.

“U.S. attorney Weiss has to explain himself, and he has to explain himself in public,” Christie told Fox News this week. He added: "This investigation into Hunter Biden in Delaware is either a lie or is incompetent.”

“There’s no way that it should take five years to get to a two-count misdemeanor tax plea and to dismiss the gun charges.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has added a second line of inquiry about Weiss, revealing this week that Weiss’ office in the person of Wolf was briefed two weeks before the 2020 presidential election that the FBI had an informant alleging Joe Biden was involved in a bribery scheme involving Ukraine and Burisma. The briefing occurred in October 2020.

The revelation “begs the question that I’ve been asking since the start of my oversight in this matter: What steps have the Justice Department and FBI taken to investigate the allegations?” Grassley wrote Weiss on Sunday, “You, Attorney General Garland, and Director Wray have failed to answer.”