DOJ told Hunter Biden prosecutor to ‘follow the process’ after special status ask

Special Counsel David Weiss was told by President Biden’s Justice Department to “follow the process” after requesting special authority in the Hunter Biden investigation.

The Delaware US attorney was adamant, however, in his voluntary testimony before the House Judiciary Committee earlier this week, that he was eventually given authority to bring charges against the 53-year-old first-son in California and Washington, DC – jurisdictions that declined to partner with Weiss –  if he “chose to do so.”

Weiss told the committee that he first “raised the idea” of being granted special attorney authority – referred to as 515 authority – with senior DOJ officials Bradley Weinsheimer and John Carlin in the spring of 2022, according to a transcript of Weiss’ testimony reviewed by The Post.

“I raised the idea of 515 authority at that time because I had been handling the investigation for some period of time,” he said. “And, as I said, they suggested let’s go through the typical process and reach out to D.C. and see if D.C. would be interested in joining or otherwise participating in the investigation.” 

“It wasn’t granted. They said, follow the process. I followed the process,” Weiss later clarifies. 

The process entailed reaching out to DC US Attorney Matthew Graves and California US Attorney Martin Estrada and getting them to partner with him on investigating and potentially bringing charges against Hunter Biden for alleged tax crimes committed between 2014 and 2015, when the first son sat on the board of directors of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma. 

“He was – you know, he was receptive,” Weiss said of his initial call with Graves.

“I know that the teams met, but ultimately, I received word from my staff that the US Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia had decided not to join the case as a partner or co-counsel moving forward,” he added. 

After Graves refused to partner with him, Weiss told the committee that he once again reached out to the Justice Department. 

“John Carlin at that time said, ‘Look, if you decide to proceed in DC, you have the authority to do so, and you have the authority to – under 515, to bring whatever charges you deem appropriate,” Weiss said, noting, “In my next conversation with Carlin and Weinsheimer, I did ask for 515 authority.”

Weiss, however, refused to explain why he didn’t move forward with charges against Hunter Biden in DC. 

The special counsel’s efforts to partner with the California US Attorney’s Office similarly failed. 

“I had a brief conversation with US Attorney [Martin] Estrada. It was in October of ‘22, and Mr. Estrada informed me that his office was – declined to participate with us or to join us in that case,” Weiss told the committee. 

Weiss confirmed that the statute of limitations on the alleged crimes committed by Hunter Biden from 2014-2015 had lapsed, and the prosecutor said he would explain why they were allowed to lapse in a future report on his investigation. 

“I’ll address it in the report, but even though the statute of limitations has lapsed and even though charges won’t be filed, if there were to be an outstanding tax prosecution, there is no reason to believe that evidence pertaining to prior years, or witnesses involved in prior years, wouldn’t be part of that litigation,” he said. 

Weiss, who was granted special counsel status by Attorney General Merrick Garland in August after a plea agreement with Hunter Biden fell apart in a Delaware courtroom, insisted that he was not done investigating the first son, even if Delaware District Judge Maryellen Noreika had accepted the terms of the plea deal – which would have had Hunter Biden enter a pretrial diversion program instead of facing felony gun charges and plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges.

“Our efforts were not concluded,” Weiss said of the status of the investigation at the time the plea deal was derailed in July. 

Weiss would not discuss several aspects of the Hunter Biden case, the personnel on the case or anything associated with the investigation during his testimony. 

“He won’t answer a lot of questions,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said of Weiss’ testimony Wednesday, also describing Weiss as inconsistent.

“He maintains, ‘Oh I would have always been able to get it if I had asked for it.’ But then his answer was, ‘I asked for it and wasn’t given it,’” Jordan said.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley contacted Congress in April to allege a coverup in the Hunter Biden case, which Shapley supervised for more than three years. Shapley said that Weiss told investigators at an October 2022 meeting that he lacked ultimate decision-making authority, contrary to Garland’s under-oath claims to Congress.

Shapley, backed up by another IRS agent, Joseph Ziegler, alleged numerous irregularities in the investigation of the first son over about $2 million in unpaid taxes from 2014 to 2019.