Two more IRS officials say David Weiss stymied and ‘not the deciding person’ on Hunter Biden tax crimes
Two more IRS officials say David Weiss stymied and ‘not the deciding person’ on Hunter Biden tax crimes
By
Josh Christenson and
Published Sep. 21, 2023, 9:56 p.m. ET
0 of 58 secondsVolume 0%
MORE ON:HUNTER BIDEN
- Nearly half of US thinks Biden did something ‘illegal’ concerning Hunter: poll
- Ignorant, pathetic Merrick Garland wilts on the hot seat before Congress
- Spies Who Lie will fit in great with Team Biden’s DHS’s serial liars
- Merrick Garland dodges and deflects on botched Biden-corruption probe
Two more IRS officials have come forward and detailed how now-Special Counsel David Weiss was “not the deciding person” over whether to charge President Biden’s son Hunter with tax crimes — contrary to sworn testimony from Attorney General Merrick Garland.
IRS Director of Field Operations Michael Batdorf and DC IRS Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon detailed how Weiss’ probe was thwarted in recent testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, transcripts of which have been reviewed by The Post.
Garland has repeatedly insisted to lawmakers — most recently on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee — that Weiss, the US attorney for Delaware, had “full authority” to bring cases against Hunter Biden anywhere he wished and that Garland would not personally interfere in the probe.
However, Batdorf told lawmakers during a Sept. 12 transcribed interview that the Justice Department’s Tax Division would have also had to sign off on any charges that Weiss wanted to pursue.
“[M]y understanding would be that DOJ Tax has to authorize it first,” recalled the 22-year veteran of the tax collection agency. “So, I mean, my understanding is that, I mean, he can’t make that [charging] decision without DOJ Tax authorization.”
Batdorf recalled sitting in on a June 2022 meeting involving Weiss, IRS criminal investigators, and FBI officials at which DOJ Tax personnel pushed back against charges for the first son — at the same time they were holding conferences with Hunter Biden’s legal team.
When asked how many times the two sides met, Batdorf could not recall specifically, but said there had been “more than two” meetings and possibly as many as four.
“Is it typical in a tax investigation to meet with defense counsel two, three, four times?” Batdorf was asked, to which he answered: “No.”
Batdorf also said he had signed off on a report recommending felony and misdemeanor tax charges dating back to 2014 against Hunter, now 53 — including counts related to income from the first son’s position on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.
That income was referenced in notes IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley took during an Oct. 7, 2022 meeting in which he alleged that Weiss divulged that he was not the “deciding official on whether charges are filed.”
In the same meeting, Shapley noted in an after-action report, investigators found out that the younger Biden would not be charged for alleged tax offenses committed in 2014 or 2015. In his report, Shapley said he disagreed with the decision not to charge, noting there was “a large amount of unreported income in that year from Burisma that we have no mechanism to recover.”
Waldon, who also participated in the Oct. 7 meeting, received a copy of Shapley’s notes about Weiss via email four days and confirmed to Shapley that he had “covered it all.”
Batdorf also testified that he had no reason to doubt Shapley’s notes and that Waldon did not convey to him any sense of doubt about them.
Waldon, in his Sept. 8 interview with the committee, said he understood Shapley’s description of Weiss not being the “deciding person” as referring to the process of working with fellow US attorneys to bring cases against Hunter Biden in Southern California and Washington, DC — again contrary to Garland’s testimony that “no one had the authority” to reject Weiss if he wanted to file charges there.
“Anytime a US attorney has to go into another
