Former U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, who leads the years-long federal probe into Hunter Biden, was recently elevated to special counsel status by Attorney General Merrick Garland following the collapse under scrutiny of a dubious plea deal for Biden and amid criticism that Weiss was constrained from fully prosecuting the president's son.
Now comes accusations that Weiss has actually been collaborating and coordinating with AG Garland's Justice Department to stymie congressional inquiries into the ongoing probe of Hunter Biden, according to Breitbart.
Indeed, emails released by way of the Freedom of Information Act have revealed multiple instances in which the DOJ itself responded to congressional letters sent solely to Weiss, as well as that Weiss purportedly authored a response to a letter that had been sent to Garland but not to him.
The Federalist reported that suspicions were first raised in June 2022 when the DOJ’s Office of Legislative Affairs issued a response to a May 9, 2022, letter from Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) that was addressed solely to then-U.S. Attorney Weiss with regard to the status of the Hunter Biden investigation at that time.
That same situation played out once more just a month later in 2022 and then again this year, albeit in reverse, when Weiss responded on June 7 to a May 25 letter addressed solely to Garland from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) that questioned the actual level of authority Weiss had to bring criminal charges against Hunter Biden.
Those crisscrossed responses led to a Freedom of Information Act request and a subsequent lawsuit from the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project, which is led by Director Mike Howell and exists specifically to inundate the Biden administration with FOIA requests and lawsuits in the interest of public transparency.
According to Howell, the relevant internal DOJ emails turned over in response to a court order show that, contrary to AG Garland's insistence that Weiss had the full authority to oversee the investigation and prosecution of Hunter Biden, Garland was also "simultaneously running communications from Weiss to Grassley through the political controls of Main Justice," which Howell described as "a slap in the face."
The Federalist observed that the "veracity" of multiple exchanges between then-U.S. Attorney Weiss and members of Congress have now been called into question in light of what appears to be strong evidence that the DOJ intervened in the matter for the purpose of stalling and misleading legitimate congressional probes into an issue of substantial public interest.
"The only reason these documents are starting to trickle out is because we sued for transparency," Howell explained. "We’ve faced taxpayer-funded resistance at every step of the way and haven’t given up," and added that "the DOJ is under a judicial order to continue this production."
Breitbart reported that Kash Patel, a former federal public defender and top staffer for House Intelligence Committee Republicans, said the revealed DOJ intervention in responding to the letters to then-U.S. Attorney Weiss was not too unusual, at least at first glance, given that "It is standard procedure for congressional inquiries to be routed through the agency’s legislative affairs shop."
"What is not standard," he continued, is for the DOJ to engage in "conspiratorial schemes concocted to subvert valid constitutional oversight and stonewall documentation production."
"It also shows how Republicans allow themselves to be dominated by DOJ’s criminal conduct by flailing about with another strongly worded letter," he added. "Impeach them for breaking the law, or stop complaining when you get punched in the face."
These revelations of the DOJ intervening to respond on Weiss' behalf, and vice-versa, come amid allegations put forward in sworn testimony from whistleblowers that the DOJ had more broadly interfered in Weiss' investigation of Hunter Biden, including denying him the authority to file criminal charges in jurisdictions outside of Delaware or giving Biden's attorneys advance notice of impending investigative actions, among other things.
It would probably be a safe assumption that the pertinent congressional committees probing the Hunter and the Biden family -- including the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees -- will likely have a few new questions of their own to ask both Weiss and Garland when those two officials eventually decide to appear for long-sought-after testimony about the status of Weiss' probe.
