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At Wednesday’s Marathon House hearings, Democrats on the Oversight Committee ran into Buzzsaw. Two IRS whistleblower officers — Superintendent Gary Shapley, who was made public several weeks ago, and Joseph Ziegler, the lead investigator in the case, who was first made public during the hearing.
Investigators outlined in gory detail how President Joe Biden’s Justice Department squelched the Biden corruption investigation from within while pretending it was being conducted publicly with independence and integrity.
When the Democratic Commission tried to poke holes in their testimony, they ended up getting what they weren’t bargaining for. Namely, the barrage of facts, the horrific millions of dollars of data gleaned by the president’s son and his family from the corrupt anti-U.S. regime’s fabric.
White House mocks Hunter Biden hearings as ‘waste of time’, confronts Housegop on Twitter
Anyone who has ever participated in a criminal tax investigation should not have been surprised by the investigator’s excellent performance. During my almost 20 years as a prosecutor, as a case attorney, I knew more about criminal law as it applies to, for example, extortion, international terrorism, money laundering, admissibility of evidence, and standards of proof than the FBI and other agencies I worked with, many of whom were non-attorneys. Tax enforcement was an exception.
IRS Supervising Special Agent Gary Shapley (left) and IRS Criminal Investigator Joseph Ziegler take oath to testify before the House Oversight Committee hearing related to the Justice Department’s Hunter Biden investigation at the Capitol on July 19, 2023. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Tax law is one of the most complicated areas of law. Experienced investigators know more about the matter than most prosecutors. I have learned more from IRS officials than I have learned from them. In fact, tax enforcement is so arcane that prosecutors across the country need approval from the Tax Office of the Department of Justice in Washington to file charges. Almost all other cases can be prosecuted without the supervision of the judge-rapporteur.
It turns out that the Biden case had been assigned the highest tax enforcement officer in this highly specialized field. Shapley and Ziegler combine decades of education and experience in tax law and financial bookkeeping practice.
They have been involved in some of the most significant tax audits ever conducted in the United States, including international planning. They were trusted to carry out big cases because they were in a position of importance and knew what they were doing.
And because they’ve been investigators for so long, they know how to testify — how not to be intimidated (especially if you know far more than the person asking the question) or accept the premise of a question that is inaccurate or misleading.
it was shown. Jamie Ruskin of Maryland was the Democratic frontrunner on the panel and therefore the first of the minorities to ask the question. He is a tireless progressive partisan, a former law professor who never tires of posing as a legal giant. But his questions were riddled with misinformation, for which witnesses accused him.
For example, he began to argue that prosecutors and investigators often disagreed about whether felonies should be indicted. Rather than simply accepting the proposition as true, Shapley explained why it was irrelevant. In this case, the case attorney and the field prosecutor agreed that a felony was appropriate. It was the top officials of the Justice Department who put the brakes on the case.
In this regard, it is vital that Republicans on the committee keep an eye on Ball.
Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, a member of yesterday’s committee and chairman of the judiciary committee that oversees the Justice Department, wrestled during the hearing to point out that while the whistleblower’s story was completely consistent, Delaware’s U.S. Attorney David Weiss repeatedly changed his story.
![Joe Ziegler](https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/07/joseph-ziegler.jpg)
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Whistleblower X Joe Ziegler testifies before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee during a hearing on the criminal investigation into the Biden family at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., July 19, 2023. (Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Investigators say they were ordered by prosecutors not to pursue leads that may have gathered evidence against Joe Biden. Despite all obstacles, they managed to launch a strong case against Hunter Biden, but were unable to do so because Weiss told them he was not the ultimate decision maker and was obstructed by the Biden Department of Justice.
But Attorney General Merrick Garland has publicly maintained that Mr. Weiss was responsible and was assured that he had all the necessary powers to press charges in any jurisdiction, and all Mr. Weiss needed to do was ask.
At first, Mr. Weiss supported the story. But then, when Shapley first came out as a whistleblower, Weiss changed his tone and struggled to support Garland while not contradicting Shapley’s well-substantiated testimony.
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First, Weiss said he had authority. He then admitted he had no authority to press charges outside his district in Delaware (i.e., the area where Hunter allegedly committed tax crimes), but awkwardly added that he had consulted with the Justice Department on the matter. And he, he argued, was not seeking an appointment as a special prosecutor, who would be empowered to sue anywhere.
it was shown. Jamie Ruskin, of Maryland, was the Democratic frontrunner on the panel and thus the first of the minorities to ask the question. He is a tireless progressive partisan, a former law professor who never tires of posing as a legal giant. But his questions were riddled with misinformation, for which witnesses accused him.
Meanwhile, Shapley’s account never wavered. Weiss told a room packed with investigators that the Justice Department had refused to give Shapley special counsel powers and that Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in Washington, D.C. and California were blocking heavy tax charges against Hunter.
Jordan is correct in saying that Weiss is a weasel. But Weiss is the wrong target here. He’s a complete failure for Garland. Contrary to what the Attorney General would have the country believe, it was not Weiss’ job to seek the powers of the Special Counsel. It was Mr. Garland’s duty to appoint a special counsel the moment he became aware of a conflict of interest that interfered with the Justice Department’s normal investigation.
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There could be no more serious confrontation than the Biden Justice Department’s position to investigate President Biden’s son and other family members in a global corruption probe in which the president himself is heavily involved.
Mr. Biden’s attorney general did not appoint a special counsel because his top priority was to protect his boss, the president. That is why the case, so convincingly described by whistleblowers at the public hearing, was sabotaged. Weiss is not the culprit here. Garland.
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