IRS whistleblower attorney pushes back against AG Merrick Garland after allegations dispute over Hunter Biden case

Attorneys for IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley escalated a war of words with Attorney General Merrick Garland — who has disputed allegations that officials inside the Department of Justice hamstrung their own probe into Hunter Biden.

Shapley has insisted that David Weiss, the US Attorney for Delaware handling the case, was not allowed to pursue certain charges against Hunter Biden, and made multiple, unsuccessful attempts to elevate himself to the rank of Special Counsel to get around the problem.

On Saturday, Shapley demanded Garland “reconcile” the denials with the available evidence.

“In an October 7, 2022, meeting at the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Attorney David Weiss told six witnesses he did not have authority to charge in other districts and had thus requested special counsel status,” they said through the non-profit public accountability group Empower Oversight.

“Mr. Shapley would have no insight into why Mr. Weiss’s would make these statements at the October 7, 2022 meeting if they were false. That Mr. Weiss made these statements is easily corroborated, and it is up to him and the Justice Department to reconcile the evidence of his October 7, 2022 statements with contrary statements by Mr. Weiss and the Attorney General to Congress,” the statement continued.

Empower Oversight founder Jason Foster also shared a contemporaneous IRS email from Shapley summarizing the meeting with Weiss in which he reported that “Weiss stated that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed.”

The comments add fuel to a fire going since Shapley first came forward in May to allege official misconduct by those tasked with investigating the criminal activity of the First Son.

On Friday Garland broadly refuted Shapley’s claims.

“As I said at the outset, Mr. Weiss was appointed by President Trump as the US Attorney in Delaware and assigned this matter during the previous administration and would be permitted to continue his investigation and to make a decision to prosecute any way in which he wanted to and in any district in which he wanted to,” Garland said.

Garland additionally cited as evidence a June 7 letter Weiss sent to the House Judiciary Committee in which the prosecutor said “I have been granted ultimate authority over the matter including responsibility for deciding where, when and whether to file charges.”