House GOP chairmen demand DOJ docs related to Hunter Biden special counsel

The Justice Department “pulled punches” and “handicapped veteran investigators” over the course of its investigation into first son Hunter Biden, the Republican leaders of three House committees charge in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, demanding documents related to the appointment of a special counsel in the probe. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) on Monday called on the Biden administration to provide their panels with all documents and communications referring or relating to Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’s appointment as special counsel earlier this month in the government’s 5-year-long investigation into President Biden’s 53-year-old son. 

Weiss’s appointment “raises numerous concerns” because of previous statements by Garland indicating that the Delaware US attorney already had “ultimate” authority in the probe, the committee chairmen wrote in their seven-page letter to the attorney general, which was made public on Tuesday. 

“Now, recently reported information raises additional concerns about the Department’s unusual actions in this matter, and suggests that the Department under your leadership has been attempting to circumvent the rule of law in favor of Hunter Biden, President Biden, and the Biden family. Given the extremely serious nature of these issues, the Committees expect unfettered cooperation with our oversight from both you and the Department,” the lawmakers wrote. 

The chairmen highlight several allegations made by IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler earlier this year as “deviations from standard procedure” that concern them and that are indicative of “special privileges” granted to the first son, including claims that the DOJ tipped off Hunter Biden’s counsel that investigators would search one of his storage units and that the government allowed the statute of limitations to lapse on some potential felony tax evasion charges. 

The Republicans also slammed Weiss as the “architect of the sweetheart plea deal” brokered between the DOJ and Hunter Biden’s lawyers that fell apart in a Delaware courtroom last month, in questioning Garland’s elevation of Weiss to special counsel. 

“It is not clear why you have only now, after the investigation has been going on for five years, opted to appoint Mr. Weiss as special counsel, especially after you and the Department represented that Mr. Weiss already had ‘ultimate’ authority over the case. Indeed, the only explanation you have offered is that ‘extraordinary circumstances’ require the appointment,” the lawmakers wrote.

“The Department pulled punches in this investigation, handicapping veteran investigators and preventing them from freely pursuing the facts. The Department agreed to an apparently unprecedented plea deal with Hunter Biden after his attorneys threatened to call his father, President Biden, as a witness in the case,” Smith, Jordan and Comer argue.

“Now you have appointed as special counsel an individual who oversaw all the investigation’s irregularities, who spent the past two months claiming that he did not need special counsel status, and who was responsible for the plea agreement that collapsed in court and is widely viewed as an embarrassment for the Department.”

Garland has until Sept. 11 to respond to the document request.