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I'm thinking at this point that the judge doesn't sign off on the sweetheart deal Hunter got. IRS Whistleblower: Hunter's Whats App Messages Were Produced by Apple After Search Warrant; Weiss Blamed 'Prosecutors' for Denials, Delays
IRS Whistleblower Gary Shapley, who gave explosive testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee that was made public last week, sat for a wide-ranging interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier that aired Wednesday night. Shapley reiterated the testimony he’d previously given, which does not align with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s previous testimony to Congress and which Garland disputed last Friday. Shapley also gave additional detail on a few topics he’d testified about, and doubled down on his assertion that the US Attorney David Weiss wasn’t allowed to bring criminal charges against Hunter Biden in jurisdictions outside Delaware.
The main points Shapley made are:
Biden-appointed US Attorney for D.C., Matthew Graves, refused to allow Weiss to bring criminal charges against Hunter Biden in his jurisdiction
Multiple requests by Weiss to the DOJ for special counsel authority, which would allow him to charge outside his jurisdiction without that US Attorney’s permission, were denied
Hunter’s Whats App messages were produced by Apple pursuant to an electronic search warrant, not simply harvested from the laptop in the FBI’s possession (meaning, they’ve been authenticated)
Investigators were prohibited from looking into whether Joe Biden was involved in Hunter’s business dealings
Hunter Biden failed to report at least $8.3 million in income received between 2014 and 2019
Another issue that stood out was the number of times Weiss said that “prosecutors” wouldn’t allow something to go forward, whether a search warrant or charges. He is the prosecutor. Was he making excuses to the IRS criminal investigators and slow-walking it himself, or was someone else? If it was someone else, who? Now that Republicans in the House have demanded that Weiss, Graves, AUSA Lesley Wolf, US Attorney for the Central District of California Martin Estrada, and more, sit for transcribed interviews with committees, perhaps we’ll get some answers to those questions.
Shapley had testified that David Weiss told him in an October 2022 meeting that the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee, refused to allow charges to be filed against Hunter Biden in his jurisdiction in March 2022, and that Weiss’ subsequent request for special counsel authority was denied. He reiterated this to Baier:
[T]hey went to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office in March of 2022 and they presented this case to them. At the same time of that — same time as that was occurring, they requested discovery from the agents, which is a typical step when they’re getting ready to charge. Now, I wasn’t in those meetings. I asked to be in those meetings, as did the case agent. So — we didn’t help present to them. But after that occurred, he was no longer looking to charge in that district….
[Then] David Weiss, on October 7, 2022, said that the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office will not allow us to charge there. And then he added that he…requested special counsel authority and was denied. In that meeting I even had him repeat that, because I knew how important that fact was and I wanted to make sure I understood it.
Looking at this course of action through a cynical lens, it could seem that someone (or multiple someones) wanted to know exactly what evidence the IRS-CI agents possessed so they could either pass that along to Hunter Biden’s attorneys or slow-walk the rest of the steps so the statute of limitations would run out, which it did in December 2022 for certain tax years.
To those who might think Shapley possibly misunderstood what Weiss was saying, Shapley said he documented the meeting in an email and another attendee verified his recollection.
And I sent that e-mail to two senior executives, one of which was at that meeting. And I said, is this an accurate reflection of what occurred during the meeting? And the response was, you covered it all. So, there are other things in that e-mail, to include that he needed to go to California, and he had gone to California to request a charge there. And then he even opines that if they decline to allow charges that he would have to request special counsel authority from the Deputy Attorney General or Attorney General.
The authenticity of the Whats App message has been questioned, especially by one influential Democrat political consultant. However, Shapley says the message was produced in response to an electronic search warrant served on Apple.
when we received the attorney-client-filter reviewed copy of information from the search warrant to Apple, which produced that document, we went back to the prosecutors and we requested to take various investigative steps, and they were not supported. And when they weren’t supported, they said, well, maybe he wasn’t co-located with him. So, well, we can take investigative steps to — to see if that happened. And they didn’t support anything in relation to that effort, and it’s consistent with their ongoing theme of not allowing us to pursue or ask questions about President Biden, the big guy.
In discussing various search warrants and their execution, Shapley mentions “the prosecutors” separately from Weiss, and refers to Weiss saying that “the prosecutors” didn’t want to do something, as if that tied his hands. This is something that needs to be examined.
Between April and June of 2020, we drafted an affidavit to execute a search warrant in a couple of different locations, and the prosecutors at the time stated that probable cause had been achieved. But as we moved closer to the election, it just seemed like they kept putting it on the back burner, and they eventually didn’t allow us to do that search warrant, even though the legal requirements to execute that search warrant were met.
Transitioning into another search warrant was on a storage unit in Northern Virginia. And during the day of action December 8 of 2020, we got updated information that said that records were in that location that were — that would be evidence in this particular investigation. And the prosecutors initially were supportive of it, and an affidavit was drafted the night of December 8, 2020, to go forward for approval. Eventually, the prosecutors decided they didn’t support it.
So I called U.S. Attorney David Weiss with my senior executive on the phone, and we said we needed to execute this search warrant. They — he responded that the prosecutors didn’t want to, and I asked if — in 30 days, if that storage unit wasn’t accessed, and that was the deadline for the document request that was served on that day, then we can execute the search warrant? And he agreed to that.
And no sooner I had gotten off the phone with David Weiss had we learned that the prosecutors were informing defense counsel of that storage unit and the evidence that existed there. So, it completely ruined our chance to access those unfettered.
Who are the “prosecutors” David Weiss refers to?
So, December 8, 2020, we finally were going over in this investigation, after several delays, So, we eventually did a day of action, where we were approaching the subject and several other witnesses. We had a plan of how we were going to approach Hunter Biden that morning. And, ultimately, we found out that, the night before, I was told the FBI headquarters contacted Secret Service and the transition team and told them of the pending action the next day.
So, ultimately, I don’t know how it affected the witnesses, but there was clear opportunity for them to be tipped off before we even approached them. And of the 12 interviews that we attempted, we only received one substantive interview, and that was of Rob Walker. And that was a very important interview, as the exhibit in the House Ways and Means Committee transcript indicates.
Two of Hunter Biden’s Whats App messages have been made public in the past week that certainly make it seem that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s deals and served as an enforcer of sorts. Of course, Democrats have questioned their veracity, but Shapley said they were produced by Apple pursuant to an electronic search warrant.
So I can’t say with specificity the exact time frame we received that, but I can say that we did an electronic search warrant to Apple, and it was produced in that batch.
Here is that text: pic.twitter.com/51rbUaur4X
— Rep. Jason Smith (@RepJasonSmith) June 24, 2023
A big question is whether Joe Biden was involved in Hunter’s business deals, and if he was, to what extent. Certainly taking Whats App messages at face value leads one to conclude that Joe was/is at least somewhat involved in Hunter’s business, and possibly a full partner. That’s information is certainly relevant to investigators wanting to determine what tax liability Hunter might have, yet Shapley’s team wasn’t allowed to even investigate.
And the importance of that WhatsApp message is that, as an IRS criminal investigator, we need to understand all the financial flows of money. We’re working an investigation on Hunter Biden. We’re trying to assess a true and accurate tax assessment for him. So if there is money that’s going elsewhere, whether it’s President Biden or elsewhere, we need to follow the investigative steps to ensure that happens, and they were just not allowed in this particular investigation.
So that’s kind of the crux of one of the issues here, is that we weren’t allowed to ask questions about dad. We weren’t allowed to ask about the big guy. We weren’t allowed to include certain names and document requests in search warrants. So we were precluded from following that line of questioning.
…
We were conducting an investigation of Hunter Biden, and we were trying to follow the normal process. We were trying to get to the bottom of it. And, ultimately, if it was going to lead to another individual, we should would follow that to determine what is actually happening. But there were definitely hindrances that I have never seen before in my 14 years concerning this investigation that didn’t allow us to follow through an investigation of any other individual, to include President Biden.
Shapley believes that most of the unreported income Hunter received has been spent and says that the total amount his team was able to track from CEFC, Ukraine, and Romania was $8.3 million from 2014 through 2019 – but that it could be higher.
there were certain things that — when prosecutors don’t allow you to put the subject’s name on document requests or on search warrants, then it raises the possibility that there’s more information out there we didn’t find. But based on all of the financial records that we did find, you know, they’ve been analyzed. It was around $8.3 million he received.
…
And even the Burisma money — and it’s kind of an aspect that we didn’t get into, but the 2014 and 2015 tax years is when the Burisma money was coming in. I mean, to this day, there is still around $400,000 of unreported income from Burisma in 2014. Hunter Biden was told by his partner, Eric Schwerin, that he needed to amend his returns, and he never did. So, the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office declining those charges, David Weiss requesting special counsel authority and being denied, and then the statute of limitations then expires in November or December of 2022. So those years are gone, and there’s no way to recoup the money from that Burisma income.
It was mentioned in the whistleblower testimony that some back taxes had been paid by Hunter Biden, but Shapley contends that since that money was given to him by a Hollywood attorney and Hunter classified it as a loan that hasn’t been paid back to date, to say that he’s paid the taxes is debatable.
Well, to say he paid is a misnomer, right? Because it was an individual, Patrick Morris, that he met at a campaign finance event, and then he immediately starts giving Hunter Biden money to pay off tax debts, to pay living expenses. The money that was given to Hunter Biden by Morris was — showed up on his tax returns as a loan to him. So when you have a person that you meet at a campaign finance event, then he’s all of a sudden giving you millions of dollars, and now it’s a loan to you, I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily say that the subject paid those taxes.
Although Hunter’s finally been charged with a few misdemeanors, Shapley said there was evidence to support charging “substantive felony charges” against him.
The most substantive felony charges were left off the table…which would have been evasion for ’14, false return for ’18 and 2019. So, as of right now in the Information that’s been out there in the public, it uses a term in excess of $100,000 for 2017, separately for 2018. The true number is $580,000 of failure to pay for 2017 and $620,000 for 2018. Yet this document puts it close to $100,000.
[T]he relevance of 2018 tax year is, that doesn’t even include the false business expenses that he claimed and that the prosecutors refused to charge. So, there’s still outstanding tax due and owing above that $620,000 that, because of this deal, they will never recoup.
Shapley ended the interview by saying that he wasn’t disappointed in the outcome, but disappointed that the investigation wasn’t allowed to be fully completed. Still, now that we’ve seen what even an obstructed investigation has produced, the American people deserve nothing less than a full and complete investigation, followed by appropriate charges and punishments.
https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2023/06/29/irs-whistleblower-whats-app-messages-were-produced-by-apple-after-search-warrant-weiss-blamed-prosecutors-for-denials-delays-n768743
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