What They Are Saying: U.S. Attorney Weiss’ Response to Graham Creates More Questions Than Answers
WASHINGTON – At the end of June, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to David Weiss, U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, regarding the whistleblower allegations that suggest the Department of Justice (DOJ) and others slow-walked the Hunter Biden investigation. U.S. Attorney Weiss responded on Monday, but his response created more questions than answers.
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board:
“In a Monday letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham, Mr. Weiss repeats his recent claim to House Republicans that he had ultimate ‘authority’ to charge the President’s son, while also providing a few more details. Mr. Weiss says he never requested a special-counsel designation, but that he did have ‘discussions with Departmental officials’ about a ‘potential appointment’ as a special attorney. The latter would have let him ‘file charges in a district outside my own without the partnership of the local U.S. Attorney.’ He says ‘I was assured that I would be granted this authority if it proved necessary.’ This conveniently gels with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s claim that Mr. Weiss never asked for special-counsel status but could have filed charges anywhere. Yet those claims conflict with the testimony of IRS investigator Gary Shapley.
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“Mr. Weiss’s letter doesn’t say if that’s what he told Mr. Shapley and the others in October. It also doesn’t answer whether U.S. Attorneys appointed by President Biden blocked Mr. Weiss from filing charges against Hunter in their D.C. and California districts. That’s Mr. Shapley’s claim, and the New York Times reports that it has confirmed the California story…In his letter Mr. Weiss again refused to discuss anything further about his ‘ongoing investigation.’ But if he’s settled the case, why is it ‘ongoing’? Congress is right to demand that Mr. Weiss answer its questions.” Hunter Biden’s Prosecutor Keeps Dodging Congress, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, July 10, 2023
Andrew McCarthy for the New York Post:
“The Justice Department’s deceitfulness regarding Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal gets more audacious by the day. Thanks to the media-Democrat complex’s partisanship, it also gets tougher to pierce — which, of course, is the point. Delaware US attorney David Weiss is in a vice of DOJ’s own making.”
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“On Monday, Weiss tried to squirm his way out of this vice in a terse, disingenuous letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“In a nutshell, Weiss is straining to back up Garland while hoping no one notices that he does not deny the whistleblower allegations.”
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“To begin with, if Weiss were denying the accounts of Shapley and at least one other whistleblower (the main IRS investigator on the case), he would say so. He hasn’t.” Opinion: The deceit behind Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal gets even more audacious by the day, New York Post, July 11, 2023
William McGurn for The Wall Street Journal:
“Notwithstanding the partisan sniping and media catcalls, Congress has done a decent job of unearthing specific information that the Justice Department and FBI didn’t want public. Their stonewalling now presents the ultimate oversight issue: Did the FBI and Justice properly investigate? Or did the Biden name prevent that?
“Attorney General Merrick Garland insists Mr. Weiss was free to bring whatever charges he wanted anywhere he wanted to bring them. Mr. Weiss’s public statements back that up.
“But Mr. Shapley testified that Mr. Weiss stated, in the presence of six witnesses, ‘I’m not the deciding official on whether charges are filed.’” Opinion: The ‘Ongoing Investigation’ Dodge on Hunter Biden, The Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2023
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