Hunter Biden Received Special Treatment From US Officials: House Report

Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in Congress in Washington on Sept. 20, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Department of Justice (DOJ) officials gave President Joe Biden’s son special treatment while investigating him for possible crimes, according to evidence outlined in a U.S. House of Representatives report released on Dec. 5.

The evidence primarily consists of emails and testimony.

Retired FBI agent Joe Gordon, for instance, testified that investigators were prepared to interview Hunter Biden as part of their probe into possible tax violations but were told by superiors to stand down.

“The plan, as told to us, was that my information would be given to the Secret Service, to whom I don’t know exactly ... with the notification that we would like to talk to Hunter Biden; and that I was not to go near the house and to stand by,” Mr. Gordon said.

In his 20-year career, that had never happened.

Investigators were never able to interview Mr. Biden.

They also learned that FBI headquarters had tipped off President Biden’s transition team about the plan to interview Mr. Biden. At the time, President Biden was the president-elect.

IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Zeigler, who also worked on the investigation into Mr. Biden, testified to seeing multiple deviations from standard practices during the probe. One was when Lesley Wolf, the assistant U.S. attorney for the district of Delaware, blocked investigators from looking into text messages involving President Biden, such as a message in which Mr. Biden wrote to a Chinese businessman that he was sitting with his father and “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”

Investigation Stymied

Investigators asked Ms. Wolf for permission to obtain location data that would determine whether Mr. Biden was actually with his father at the time, which could help establish probable cause to interview President Biden. Ms. Wolf denied the request.

Ms. Wolf also turned down a bid to obtain a search warrant for the guest house at President Biden’s home in Delaware, where Mr. Biden lived for some time, despite acknowledging on a 2020 call that “there was more than enough probable cause for the physical search warrant there” and “a lot of evidence in [the] investigation would be found,” Mr. Shapley testified.

Ms. Wolf was quoted as saying she was concerned about the “optics” of executing a warrant on the residence.

She later tipped off Mr. Biden’s attorneys about an impending warrant for a storage unit owned by Mr. Biden, the whistleblowers said, which Mr. Shapley said ruined the chance “to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed.” They were never able to search the unit.

Mr. Zeigler said the actions pertaining to the unit were “a defining moment” when it became clear that prosecutors were “providing preferential treatment” to Mr. Biden.

In one 2020 email sent by Ms. Wolf, she instructed officials to remove information about “political figure 1,” who was identified as President Biden.

Hunter Biden and his wife Melissa Cohen walk to a bookstore in Nantucket, Mass., on Nov. 24, 2023. Brendan Smialowsi/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. Attorney David Weiss for the district of Delaware, Ms. Wolf’s boss, and his team repeatedly directed investigators to remove Mr. Biden’s name from documents, such as search warrants, the whistleblowers said.

Mr. Weiss this year charged Mr. Biden with intentionally not paying taxes for 2016 and 2017, after the whistleblowers came forward.

But prosecutors let the statute of limitations lapse on possible crimes in 2014 and 2015, Mr. Weiss acknowledged while testifying. He would not say why. He said he would address that in the report he delivers to Attorney General Merrick Garland. The report is required after Mr. Garland appointed Mr. Weiss as special counsel over the summer.

US Attorneys

Mr. Weiss was appointed as U.S. attorney by former President Donald Trump. He had support from both Democrat senators representing Delaware, and previously served as interim U.S. attorney in President Barack Obama’s administration. He remained in his post at the request of President Biden, who asked other U.S. attorneys to resign.

Lawmakers also pointed to testimony from former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady, who was tasked with investigating tips that came in regarding Ukraine.

Mr. Brady testified that FBI officials repeatedly slowed down the process, including requiring sign offs from 17 different officials to take even small steps. He also said he was told by agents that FBI headquarters instructed them not to “affirmatively share information with us but that they were only to share information with us if we asked them a direct question relating to that information, which is not typically how the investigative process goes.”

Mr. Brady also said the FBI did not disclose key information, such as the fact that the bureau verified that a laptop computer with reams of information was owned by Mr. Biden.

“Overall, the testimony from Justice Department, FBI, and IRS officials substantiates the IRS whistleblowers’ prior testimony that the Justice Department’s ’sensitive' treatment of Hunter Biden’s case deviated from the normal investigative practices and fell well short of the department’s mission of impartial justice,” the new report, from the House Judiciary, Ways and Means, and Oversight committees, stated.

The probe into Mr. Biden started in 2018. It is still ongoing, according to DOJ officials.

The DOJ and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.