The acting U.S. Attorney in Delaware has told a federal judge that the Justice Department is not yet ready to release the search warrants from the agency's investigation of Hunter Biden – which according to congressional, whistle-blower testimony has been politicized and slow-walked. 

Shannon Hanson, the acting U.S. Attorney for Delaware, told a federal judge on Friday that the DOJ “is in the process of identifying privacy and grand jury secrecy interests to be protected” in connection with the request to unseal information from the DOJ’s investigation of President Joe Biden’s son, but said that “this process takes time” as she asked for another month.

It was announced on Tuesday that two IRS whistle-blowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who shed light on failures to properly investigate Hunter Biden – and who were retaliated against by their Biden-era superiors as a result – were given senior positions by the new Trump-led Treasury Department. The whistle-blowers were harshly critical of then-special counsel David Weiss’s handling of the Hunter Biden investigation, pointing out how he had slow-walked the case.

Shapley had also told congressional investigators in 2023 that Hanson was a key part of Weiss’s team and that she was present at a key meeting where Weiss said he was limited in his criminal charging authority. Joe Biden had asked all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump for their resignations in February 2021, with Weiss being the exception.

Jake Smith, a Delaware radio show host with WGMD, had asked the courts in late February to unseal and make public four search warrants and search warrant applications related to Hunter Biden, arguing that “the American public and press have a presumptive right to inspect the search warrant materials under common law.”

U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika ordered both Hunter Biden’s lawyers and the DOJ prosecutors to “provide the Court with their respective positions on the request to unseal the search warrant applications and affidavits” by March 7.

Hanson told the court she was joining the case as the acting U.S. attorney on the March 7 deadline, and asked for an initial two-week extension, arguing that “given that the Special Counsel has resigned from the Department of Justice, [Hanson] did not become aware of the Court’s Order until yesterday” and so “as a result, the Department is only now evaluating the Court’s request and needs additional time to formulate its position.”

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, also told the judge that day that “Mr. Biden respectfully seeks the same extension of time to respond, so that the parties’ responses may be considered by the Court at the same time and so that Mr. Biden’s counsel can confer with the government regarding the request sought therein.”

The judge granted a 14-day extension as a result, with March 21 as the new deadline.

But Hanson told the judge on Friday that she still wasn’t ready, asking for 30 more days to “provide a response which is as fulsome and helpful to the Court as possible” and noted that Hunter Biden’s lawyers wanted the same extension.

“The government will be proposing redactions to specified passages of the affidavits at issue along with identified interests supporting those redactions. Over the last two weeks, various equity holders and subject matter experts within the Department of Justice and the IRS have been engaged in discussions about the interests at issue and the extent of appropriate redactions. Those efforts continue,” Hanson told the court.

“Despite diligent work on an approach which balances the various privacy and grand jury interests involved and assists the Court in making the required findings, the government needs more time to craft proposed redactions and confer with counsel for Mr. Biden.”

The IRS whistle-blowers had told congressional investigators they were told that Weiss had sought special counsel powers but was denied and that the Delaware federal prosecutor had sought to bring criminal charges against Hunter Biden in both California and Washington, D.C., (where the first son's Biden’s tax crimes had occurred) but that Biden-appointed federal prosecutors in those districts rejected those efforts.

The GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee voted to release the IRS whistle-blower congressional testimony to the public in June 2023. The IRS whistle-blowers said in congressional transcripts that Weiss claimed that he was limited in his prosecutorial decision-making despite then-Attorney General Garland’s claims to the contrary. Weiss also defended his “ultimate authority” over the decision to charge the then-president’s son.

But Shapley’s congressional testimony included a copy of an Oct. 7, 2022, email he sent after a meeting with Weiss, which recounted that “Weiss said he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed” and that “Weiss requested special counsel authority.” The email also said that Weiss had told them that the federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital “said they could not charge in his district.”

Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon, who also attended the Weiss meeting, replied to Shapley’s email and confirmed that “you covered it all.”

Shapley told the GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee in May 2023 about the October 2022 meeting where Weiss said he didn’t have the authority to file certain charges against Hunter Biden, and the whistleblower said Hanson was present at the meeting, describing her as Weiss’s number “two type person.” Shapley said Hanson would have overheard Weiss say what Shapley testified he had said.

Republican House Committee leaders demanded that Garland make Hanson and others involved in the Hunter Biden investigation available for transcribed interviews, arguing in a June 2023 letter that “the Committees seek to examine whistleblower claims that the Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden was purposely slow-walked and subjected to improper and politically motivated interference.”

The GOP congressional leaders also pressed Hunter Biden’s attorneys on the legal team’s interactions with the Biden DOJ and about leaks to the media, saying in a September 2023 letter that “information contained in these articles reinforces serious concerns regarding whether the Department has handled a case involving President Biden’s son in an impartial manner that is consistent with other prosecutions.”

The GOP letter specifically asked about “the June 19 e-mail” from Hanson to Hunter Biden lawyer Chris Clark “asking to remove two words from the statement describing the status of the investigation that is referenced in the New York Times article.”

The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee asked Attorney General Pam Bondi this week to make Weiss available for testimony.

Hunter Biden initially reached a plea agreement with then-special counsel Weiss on federal charges related to tax crimes and the illegal purchase of a handgun. The deal collapsed under scrutiny by a federal judge the next month, thanks in part to the revelations made by the IRS whistleblowers.

Republicans praised Judge Noreika – who is still overseeing the remainder of the case – for refusing to “rubber stamp” Hunter Biden’s “sweetheart plea deal” in 2023.

After his plea deal collapsed, Hunter Biden was convicted by a Delaware jury on gun charges in June, then pleaded guilty to tax charges in California in September. He was found guilty of making a false statement on his gun application and being in possession of a firearm while being an illegal drug user. Hunter Biden then pled guilty to what the DOJ described as “a four-year scheme in which he chose not to pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed.”

Lawyers for the whistle-blowers have said that Shapley and Ziegler were removed from the Hunter Biden investigation in May 2023, and alleged that their clients have been repeatedly retaliated against since then. The IRS whistle-blowers have consistently argued that they did nothing "unlawful" and followed all the laws and procedures when they blew the whistle about DOJ and IRS stonewalling on the federal case against Hunter Biden.

Shapley and Ziegler revealed how federal investigators had slow-walked the investigation into Hunter Biden. The whistleblowers revealed how their investigation into Biden’s dealings with CEFC China Energy – a since-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate – was blocked by higher-ups. Shapley testified that “after an electronic search warrant on Biden’s Apple iCloud led us to WhatsApp messages with several CEFC China Energy executives where he claimed to be sitting and discussing business with his father Joe Biden, we sought permission to follow up on the information in the messages” – but “prosecutors would not allow it.”

A federal prosecutor also instructed investigators to “don’t ask about the big guy” – in reference to Joe Biden. Investigators were also reportedly blocked from investigating Hunter Biden’s lucrative business dealings in Ukraine through Burisma under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Then-President Biden pardoned his son in December of 2024, despite repeatedly saying that “I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted."

The IRS whistle-blowers responded by saying that “no amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President's son off the hook for multiple felonies.” The whistle-blowers wrote that “we produced mountains of evidence and testified under oath about the machinations his Justice Department, including Mr. Weiss, used to shield the Biden family from a thorough investigation of alleged corruption in Ukraine, Romania, and China.”

When it was released in January, Weiss’s final report was only 27 pages long, followed by lengthy appendices. The IRS whistleblowers said that “the Weiss report leaves too many important questions unanswered, and the American people deserve answers.”

The IRS whistleblowers previously revealed that the FBI verified the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop by November 2019 – nearly a year before the laptop emerged and the infamous laptop letter was written.