Did the AG Lie?
If not, Garland slept through the Hunter probe
IMPARTIALLY investigating wrongdoing by someone who has the power to fire you is virtually impossible, at least if you intend to keep your job. That’s why, in an Appropriations Committee hearing in April 2022, I asked Attorney General Merrick Garland whether he and the Biden Department of Justice were overseeing Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ investigation covering at least $8.3 million acquired over a short period by the Biden family via shady foreign influence deals.
“[Weiss] is in charge of that investigation. There will not be interference of any political or improper kind,” Garland testified.
Garland’s response became a pivotal moment of contrast for investigators, who were simultaneously being stymied by Garland’s DOJ behind closed doors.
This testimony set off a series of events that led to recently released sworn testimony of apolitical IRS criminal investigators working the case.
They testified that the Garland DOJ helped hamstring perhaps the most devastatingly slimy scandal in the history of the American presidency.
Indeed, that testimony revealed a far different reality than that portrayed to me by Garland.
IRS criminal investigator Gary Shapley testified that Weiss told him, “I am not the deciding person on whether charges are filed.”
If investigators’ testimony is accurate, Garland’s statements to me last year and to the public in a Friday press conference were inaccurate.
Something Garland said last Friday is potentially revealing: “I don’t know how it would be possible for anybody to block [Weiss] from bringing a prosecution, given that he has that authority.” The phrasing here suggests a certain dissociation from reality, as if efforts by Biden’s political appointees to thwart Weiss technically shouldn’t have happened, even if they did.
In other words, can deny that he himself blocked Weiss — perhaps instead turning a blind eye while his subordinates blocked him — and talk publicly about Weiss’ vague, theoretically expansive authorities.
Garland used a similar verbal dodge in addressing testimony that Weiss sought special counsel status: “Mr. Weiss never made that request to me.” But did he make it to one of Garland’s subordinates?
In my 2022 questioning of Garland, I asked how Americans can be confident in a Biden administration investigation of the Bidens.
“Because we put the investigation in the hands of a Trump appointee,” Garland replied. In light of recent testimony, whether it was truly in his hands is now highly questionable.
Garland continued, “And because you have me as the attorney general, who is committed to the independence of the [DOJ] from any influence from the White House in criminal matters.”
Garland may well be committed to that concept, but does it matter if he’s asleep at the wheel of a department run amok with politics? His job is not to pontificate high-minded hopes, but to ensure that our Justice Department dispenses justice.
If the whistleblowers’ testimony is true, is Garland complicit in the cover-up and the slow-rolling by commission or by omission?
As a former judge, Garland well knows that crimes of omission are still crimes.
It’s important to remember what was being swept under the rug and why career investigators were left aghast.
They were watching Weiss being rebuffed by DOJ, while they were aware that Hunter Biden had said in a text message to his Chinese Communist Party partner, “I am sitting here with my father” and if the “commitment” isn’t fulfilled, “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.”
Less than a week later, as he was demanding a $5 million payment, he followed up: “The Bidens are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman [in China] wants from this partnership.”
Within 10 days, more than $5 million had hit Hunter’s bank accounts thanks to his CCP-affiliated partners, who evidently took his extortionary threat very seriously — so much so that they were willing to cough up $5 million to avoid the Bidens’ “forever grudge.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy has indicated that the House may soon initiate an investigation into these shocking whistleblower allegations and whether DOJ’s conduct and public statements merit Garland’s impeachment.
Despite gasps and pearlclutching from the expected places, McCarthy’s stance is the only responsible response to these revelations.
Congress is the only institution that has the capability of getting to the truth here. Even in this hyper-partisan era, most Americans still long for truth and equal justice under the law.