Hunter Biden Prosecutor Rejects IRS Whistleblower Claim: I ‘Have Never Been Denied the Authority to Bring Charges’

David C. Weiss, the U.S. attorney for the district of Delaware and lead investigator into Hunter Biden, shot down one of the incendiary claims of an IRS whistleblower who worked on the case in a letter addressed to Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee on Monday.

The whistleblower, Gary Shapley, served as the lead IRS official on the Biden case, and testified that Weiss had requested special counsel status only to be turned down by Attorney General Merrick Garland, as well as claiming that prosecutors in New York and California rebuffed his requests for Biden to be charged for crimes committed in those jurisdictions.

In his letter to Graham, Weiss directly contradicted Shapley’s claim that he asked for special counsel status:

To clarify an apparent misperception and to avoid future confusion, I wish to make one point clear: in this case, I have not requested Special Counsel designation pursuant to 28 CFR § 600 et seq. Rather, I had discussions with Departmental officials regarding potential appointment under 28 U.S.C. § 515, which would have allowed me to file charges in a district outside my own without the partnership of the local U.S. Attorney. I was assured that I would be granted this authority if it proved necessary. And this assurance came months before the October 7, 2022, meeting referenced throughout the whistleblowers’ allegations.

Shapley has alleged that Weiss briefed him on his requests being denied at several different stages of the investigation during the October 7 meeting.

The letter did not, however, directly address Shapley’s claim that prosecutors had refused his requests for bringing charges against Biden. Late last month, the New York Times independently confirmed that prosecutors in the Central District of California had told Weiss that they would not honor that request.

Weiss did say that he has “never been denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction,” though, providing more support for Garland’s denial of Shapley’s allegations against the higher-ups in the Department of Justice.