Military Veterans and Patriots

Tag: Whistleblower

  • Hunter prosecutor: IRS whistleblower is … telling the truth?

    Hunter prosecutor: IRS whistleblower is … telling the truth?

    AP Photo/Susan Walsh

    ED MORRISSEY | HotAir

    And here we thought the State Department report on Joe Biden’s disgrace in Afghanistan was the long-holiday Friday night document dump. That turned out to only be an appetizer, however. US Attorney David Weiss, the man behind the very lenient and very convenient plea deal for Hunter Biden, finally responded to House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan’s demand for an answer to whistleblower accusations that he and Merrick Garland misled Congress on the extent of his authority and independence.

    Weiss rebutted that claim by, er … admitting to it? Read for yourself:

    https://twitter.com/ChuckRossDC/status/1674971372387291137?

    Relevant portion transcribed below:

    As the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, my charging authority is limited to my home district. If venue for a case lies elsewhere, common Departmental practice is to contact the United States Attorney’s Office for the district in question and determine whether it wants to partner on the case. If not, I may request Special Attorney status from the Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515. Here, I have been assured that, if necessary after the above process, I would be granted § 515 in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter.

    That matches up a lot more closely to the claims from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley et al than to what Merrick Garland told Congress and the public. A week ago, Garland insisted that Weiss had already been granted that kind of authority (via Twitchy, see note at end):

    “As I said at the outset, Mr. [David] Weiss, who was appointed by President [Donald] Trump as the U.S. Attorney in Delaware and assigned this matter during a previous administration, 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 during a press conference at Justice Department headquarters about a crackdown on fentanyl precursors.

    “I don’t know how it would be possible for anybody to block him from bringing a prosecution given that he has this authority,” Garland added. “He was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own.”

    Apparently, that’s news to Weiss, who just told Jordan that he didn’t have that authority even now, let alone last October when he met with Shapley. That lines up with Shapley’s whistleblowing testimony, in which he claims that Weiss made clear in a meeting that he didn’t have final authority on charging decisions, and which others involved in the meeting and contemporaneous documentary evidence have corroborated. US Attorney for DC Michael Graves, a Biden appointee, refused to charge Hunter with any felonies. So did another US Attorney in central California, also appointed by Biden:

    The next meeting was in person on October 7th, 2022, and it took place in the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office. This meeting included only senior-level managers from IRS CI, FBI, and the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office. This ended up being my red-line meeting in our investigation for me.

    United States Attorney Weiss was present for the meeting. He surprised us by telling us on the charges, quote: “I’m not the deciding official on whether charges are filed,” unquote.

    He then shocked us with the earth-shattering news that the Biden-appointed D.C. U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves would not allow him to charge in his district.

    To add to the surprise, U.S. Attorney Weiss stated that he subsequently asked for special counsel authority from Main DOJ at that time and was denied that authority. Instead, he was told to follow the process, which was known to send U.S. Attorney Weiss through another President Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney.

    This was troubling, because he stated that, if California does not support charging, he has no authority to charge in California. Because it had been denied, he informed us the government would not be bringing charges against Hunter Biden for the 2014-2015 tax years, for which the statute of limitations were set to expire in one month.

    All of our years of effort getting to the bottom of the massive amounts of foreign money Hunter Biden received from Burisma and others during that period would be for nothing.

    This point is critical. If Weiss actually had plenary charging authority as Garland claims, Hunter could have been charged with felonies just around the midterm elections (which took place on November 8, 2022, almost exactly a month after this meeting). Weiss couldn’t get either Biden-appointed US Attorney to partner with him on those charges, however. And either Weiss didn’t request Special Attorney status at that time, or Merrick Garland denied his request.

    Instead, it looks like Weiss caved and cut a sweetheart plea deal to cut Hunter loose — and help keep the cover on the scandal through another election cycle.

    Note well that this letter from Weiss also rebuts a new effort from Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell to claim that these aren’t actual whistleblowers and that their testimony is false. Power Line’s Scott Johnson dissects that effort:

    Further executing his “best defense” strategy this week on Hunter Biden’s behalf, Lowell sent a wild 10-page letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith yesterday. The letter is posted online here. Lowell attacks congressional Republicans for their investigation of the Biden family business (that’s not how he puts it). He attacks the IRS whistleblowers whose testimony Smith released last week.

    Lowell is all but swinging his arms in windmill fashion. He alleges, for example, that the Smith’s release of the transcripts “violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the tax laws and federal rules governing investigations[.]” So I take it that Smith didn’t violate any law releasing the transcripts.

    The whistleblowers aren’t whistleblowers. They don’t understand the merits of the lenient deal Hunter Biden has arranged with prosecutors. They themselves are possibly guilty of illegal misconduct. And so on, and so on.

    Scott has the response from Shapley’s attorneys too, which accuses Lowell of participating in an “intimidation” campaign. They make clear that Shapley et al will not get bullied:

    These threats and intimidation have already been referred earlier this week to the inspectors general for DOJ and the IRS, and to Congress for further investigation as potential obstruction of their lawful inquiries as well as retaliation against our client.

    It’s going to get tougher to keep up this offense while Weiss is stipulating to the facts in Shapley’s testimony. The next step is to get Merrick Garland under oath in a House hearing and force him to testify as to what authority Weiss actually had, when Weiss applied for §515 status (if he ever did), and why Garland has lied about Weiss’ status to the public and to Congress for the last two years. It might take a grant of immunity to Garland aides to force the truth out of the Department of Justice for their attempt to bury the Biden influence-peddling scandal — and to see just how high up the deceit and corruption actually go.

    Original Here

  • IRS Whistleblower Calls Merrick Garland’s Bluff, Starts Naming Names

    IRS Whistleblower Calls Merrick Garland’s Bluff, Starts Naming Names

    AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

    Bonchie |

    As RedState reported, AG Merrick Garland answered questions on Friday related to the sweetheart deal that was recently given to Hunter Biden. Despite five years of investigation and numerous other possible chargeable crimes, including drugs, sex trafficking, false statements, and tax fraud, the president’s son escaped with two misdemeanors, pre-trial diversion, and no jail time.

    How did things get to that point? An IRS whistleblower named Gary Shapley has been at the center of exposing the DOJ’s cover-up of the matter, and Garland’s response was to call him a liar without actually saying it directly.

    https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1672287108738760705?

    When further pressed on whether DOJ leadership stepped in at any point to stop Weiss from charging Hunter Biden with more serious crimes in other jurisdictions, Garland had this to say.

    GARLAND: I’m saying he was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own.

    It’s incredibly telling that when given the chance to just say “no,” Garland chose to hedge instead. After all, the question isn’t just whether Weiss had the authority to make decisions or not, but whether other DOJ officials, including possibly Garland, interfered in those decisions in some way.

    That’s the charge that Shapley made in his testimony, which was given under oath before Congress. So who’s telling the truth? In response, Shapley put out a statement via his lawyers that can only be described as calling Garland’s bluff.

    https://twitter.com/EMPOWR_us/status/1672311676438282240?

    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.

    Astonishingly, Shapley is now actually naming the six witnesses present at the meeting in question, including members of the FBI and IRS investigative teams that were working the Hunter Biden case. That certainly adds to his credibility. If he weren’t telling the truth, there’s very little reason to believe Shapley would be naming names and essentially challenging others to go under oath about what was said.

    Compare that to Garland’s response, which was coy at best, insisting that Weiss had the power to charge in any district while not actually answering whether he was ever stopped from doing so, if even with a “suggestion” from the upper levels of the DOJ.

    For my money, the guy who is naming names and who has been willing to go under oath is far more believable than the guy hiding behind weasel phrases while refusing to answer basic questions. It’s fairly clear that the DOJ stepped in and put boundaries around Weiss.

    That Weiss is playing along isn’t surprising. A lot is made of the fact that Donald Trump appointed him, but the former president wasn’t exactly known for doing much homework on mid-level appointments. It’s perfectly possible that Weiss, despite being nominated by Trump, is trying to protect the DOJ from further blowback in what is a completely self-inflicted scandal.

    The questions aren’t going to stop. The investigations into this aren’t going anywhere. Garland and Weiss better buckle up because it sure seems like Shapley has the receipts.

    Original Here

  • Whistleblower Told Carlson Biden Admin’s IC is Illegally Monitoring

    Whistleblower Told Carlson Biden Admin’s IC is Illegally Monitoring

    REPORT: Whistleblower Told Tucker Carlson Biden Admin’s IC is Illegally Monitoring His Electronic Communications

    In what may be an early example of the saying “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” Tucker Carlson reported on his show Monday night that he has received notice — AND EVIDENCE — that internal communications among the staff of his show are being monitored by the Intelligence Community of the Biden Administration.  This would be the first reported instance that I’m aware of regarding a Biden Administration official leaking information to a news media outlet calling attention to allegedly illegal/objectionable conduct taking place inside the Administration.

    These kinds of leaks were endemic during the Trump Administration, as liberal Trump-hating officials in the government bureaucracy regularly leaked information to media outlets hostile to Trump such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN.  Now we have a Biden Administration Official engaged in the same conduct — but this time the operations being “leaked” are targeted at a media outlet hostile to Biden.

    The segment that runs a little over two minutes is captured in the Tweet below by my new BFF Cernovich.

    https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1409674145114198020?s=20

    While the piece is relatively short, there are a few issues covered by Carlson that need to be unpacked, starting with the claims about the NSA.

    Carlson reports that over the weekend he was in contact with a “whistleblower within the US Government.”  Later Carlson adds that the Whistleblower is “in a position” to know the information he/she was providing.

    According to Carlson, the Whistleblower told him the NSA is monitoring communications for the purpose of later leaking them to the public with the goal of taking Carlson’s show off the air. To prove that the information was legitimate, the Whistleblower described back to Carlson information about a story his staff is working on that could have only come from text messages and email communications between Carlson and members of his staff. Carlson told his audience that they filed a “Freedom of Information Act” request earlier today seeking any and all information about surveillance activities being conduct against him or members of his staff by any government agency.

    There are a few legal and technical inaccuracies in Tucker’s story — not really his fault; he’s just got a few details wrong. The NSA is not “spying” on Carlson — the NSA “spies” on everyone all the time.  The NSA gathers “signals intelligence.” Pretty much every form of communication or data transfer that takes place in electronic fashion is monitored and recorded by the NSA in massive database facilities in various locations. It is listening to everyone all the time. NSA’s technical capabilities involve simply “riding” the structural “spine” of the internet, and copying data as it passes through. It similarly intercepts electronic data in the atmosphere and downloads it.

    Accessing the contents of those databases by government officials for the purpose of pulling out and listening to/looking at the communications by specific individuals is the act of “spying.” The NSA does not have a cadre of employees/agents who engage in that activity on their own. The NSA workforce simply pulls out data at the request of other government agencies in the intelligence community and passes along the requested information to them.

    There is a legal process for doing this. But with respect to United States citizens, that process is supposed to involve an appropriate warrant issued by a federal judge based on the correct kind of showing under an appropriate statute, all justifying access to the stored communications. It is certainly possible that some agency has gone through that process to access the communications of Carlson and his staff, but it is hard to come up with any kind of plausible “legal” scenario involving a subject matter that might involve. The fact that a Whistleblower reached out to Carlson to alert him to what was happening and communicated to him that the motives behind the acts are political lends substantial credence to the idea this is an illegal enterprise being conducted for political goals.

    A second issue raised by Carlson tonight is his report that FBI “Agents” — plural — to whom he spoke over the weekend confirmed that the FBI did have “sources” or “informants” among the crowd during the protests on January 6.

    I’m not sure that is a shocking revelation as federal law enforcement often mixes in, or has sources providing information who are mixed in among protest crowds at public gatherings.  Carlson’s report on what he was told by the Agents ends with that, but Carlson added words to the effect “So the FBI knew what was going to happen.”  It is impossible to know if that is true without knowing what information the FBI sources had learned prior to the protests beginning.  Just having sources in place is oftentimes not enough — it all depends on whether the place where they have positioned themselves is such that they can acquire non-public information known only to a limited number of people.

    But, more important in my view is the contact reported by Carlson confirms something that I have long tried to convince readers about — that there are “anti-Biden” and “anti-Democrat” people employed across the federal workforce — including in the Intelligence Community and the FBI — and these people will be a source of information to the outside world in the same way that “anti-Trumpers” inside the Trump Administration were sources of information to the outside world.  These people exist, in large numbers, and they hate what the Democrats and the Biden Administration are starting to do to the institutions where they work and to the country as a whole.

    The next task is uncovering the operation that has targeted Carlson and exposing the Biden Administration Officials involved.
    By: Shipwreckedcrew – June 28, 2021 https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2021/06/28/report-nsa-spying-on-tucker-carlson-fox-news-show-staff-with-intent-to-leak-and-force-show-off-the-air-n404090

    Comment: Now here’s where Shipwreckedcrew and I differ in our opinions: The “leaks” which appeared in CNN, WaPo, NYT and CNN were in fact footnoted extensively in the final Mueller Russian collusion and Pres. Trump impeachment hoax; approximately 200+ times and presented by Weissmann & company as irrefutable proof of collusion. So to infer this is simply a tit for tat situation….I would beg to disagree .

    However, as for the NSA, I am in complete agreement – they are data collectors and spy on everyone.


    ….as liberal Trump-hating officials in the government bureaucracy regularly leaked information to media outlets hostile to Trump such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN. ….