Impartially investigating wrongdoing by someone who has the power to fire you is virtually impossible, at least if you intend to keep your job.
That’s why, in an Appropriations Committee hearing in April 2022, I asked Attorney General Merrick Garland whether he and the Biden Department of Justice were overseeing Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ investigation covering at least $8.3 million acquired over a short period by the Biden family via shady foreign influence deals.
“[Weiss] is in charge of that investigation. There will not be interference of any political or improper kind,” Garland testified.
Garland’s response became a pivotal moment of contrast for investigators, who were simultaneously being stymied by Garland’s DOJ behind closed doors.
This testimony set off a series of events that led to recently released sworn testimony of apolitical IRS criminal investigators working the case.
They testified that the Garland DOJ helped hamstring perhaps the most devastatingly slimy scandal in the history of the American presidency.
Indeed, that testimony revealed a far different reality than that portrayed to me by Garland.
IRS criminal investigator Gary Shapley testified that Weiss told him, “I am not the deciding person on whether charges are filed.”
And another, unidentified IRS whistleblower corroborated Shapley’s testimony, saying, “[Weiss] really wasn’t in charge,” because he had to go through Biden “political appointees,” noting that DOJ officials in DC and California blocked Weiss from bringing charges.
Gary Shapley memorialized Weiss’ words in an email, documenting that “Weiss requested special counsel authority [to bring charges against Hunter Biden] when it was sent to DC and Main DOJ denied his request and told him to follow the process.”
A senior IRS agent witnessed the conversation and replied to Shapley’s email, “Thanks Gary. You covered it all.”
If these investigators’ testimony is accurate, Garland’s statements to me last year, to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in March and to the public in a Friday press conference were inaccurate. Did he know this?
Something Garland said last Friday is potentially revealing: “I don’t know how it would be possible for anybody to block [Weiss] from bringing a prosecution, given that he has that authority.”
The phrasing here suggests a certain dissociation from reality, as if efforts by Biden’s political appointees to thwart Weiss technically shouldn’t have happened, even if they did.
In other words, entirely consistent with the reality portrayed by the whistleblowers, it’s possible that Weiss sought to bring charges yet Biden-appointed prosecutors who worked for Garland pushed back, leading Weiss to stop or fatally delay that critical effort to prosecute far more substantial alleged crimes.
This allows Garland to deny that he himself blocked Weiss — perhaps instead turning a blind eye while his subordinates blocked him — and talk publicly about Weiss’ vague, theoretically expansive authorities.
Garland used a similar verbal dodge in addressing testimony that Weiss sought special counsel status: “Mr. Weiss never made that request to me.” But did he make it to one of Garland’s subordinates?
For his part, Weiss wrote the House Judiciary Committee at Garland’s behest, stating that he’d “been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when and whether to file charges.”
This statement contradicts the now-released whistleblowers’ testimony. And its vagueness generates more questions than answers: What does “ultimate authority” mean? Could others limit his “responsibility” for decision-making via bureaucratic foot-dragging? Who else helped draft the letter?
In my 2022 questioning of Garland, I asked: How can the American people be confident in a Biden administration investigation of the Bidens?
“Because we put the investigation in the hands of a Trump appointee,” Garland replied.
In light of recent testimony, whether it was truly in his hands is now highly questionable.
Garland continued, “And because you have me as the attorney general, who is committed to the independence of the Justice Department from any influence from the White House in criminal matters.”
Garland may well be committed to that concept, but does it matter if he’s asleep at the wheel of a department run amok with politics?
His job is not to pontificate high-minded hopes, but to ensure that our Justice Department dispenses justice.
If the whistleblowers’ testimony is true, is Garland complicit in the cover-up and the slow-rolling by commission or by omission?
As a former judge, Garland well knows that crimes of omission are still crimes.
It’s important to remember what was being swept under the rug and why career investigators were left aghast.
They were watching Weiss being rebuffed by DOJ, while they were aware that Hunter Biden had said in a text message to his Chinese Communist Party business partner, “I am sitting here with my father” and if the “commitment” isn’t fulfilled, “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”
Less than a week later, as he was demanding a $5 million payment, he followed up: “The Bidens are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman [in China] wants from this partnership.”
Within 10 days, more than $5 million had hit Hunter Biden’s bank accounts thanks to his CCP-affiliated partners, who evidently took his extortionary threat very seriously — so much so that they were willing to cough up $5 million to avoid the Bidens’ “forever grudge.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy has indicated that the House may soon initiate an investigation into these shocking whistleblower allegations and whether DOJ’s conduct and public statements merit Garland’s impeachment.
Despite gasps and pearl-clutching from the expected places, McCarthy’s stance is the only responsible response to these revelations.
Congress is the only institution that has the capability of getting to the truth here.
And as Watergate demonstrated, the path may be painful, but is necessary to restore confidence in our nation’s institutions.
Even in this hyper-partisan era, most Americans still long for truth and equal justice under the law.
US Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican, represents Tennessee.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
