When transcripts of IRS whistleblower testimony were released last month, with the startling claims that U.S. Attorney David Weiss told IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley that he wasn’t the one making the decisions on filing criminal charges against Hunter Biden, that he had been denied the ability to file charges in both Washington, D.C. and California, and that he had been denied Special Counsel authority, it certainly seemed that all of the assurances Attorney General Merrick Garland had given Congress about Weiss having full authority to investigate and prosecute were bunk. Garland repeatedly told Congress under oath that Weiss had unrestricted authority, but Shapley’s testimony, also under oath, and contemporaneous emails told a different story.

Consider, though, the possibility that both Garland and Shapley were telling the truth and that Weiss himself has been the roadblock the entire time. Here’s how it could have gone down.

By the time Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the probe into Hunter Biden’s finances had been going on since November 2018. As we learned from the whistleblower testimony, that investigation was initiated by IRS investigators working in a special task force in D.C. as a result of a separate investigation into an online pornography network. Unbeknownst to them, a second investigation into Hunter’s finances had been opened by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Delaware in January 2019 based on bank records, and then-Attorney General Bill Barr consolidated the investigations in March or April 2019 and decided to venue the investigation in Delaware over the objection of at least one IRS whistleblower. So, it had been nearly two years since the investigations were combined and essentially nothing had happened. No early-morning raids, no indication that an aggressive prosecutor – appointed by Donald Trump – was looking to make a splash. All in all, it was looking pretty good for the Bidens.

During the same time frame, Merrick Garland was confirmed as Attorney General in a 70-30 vote after promising that Weiss would continue his work as a U.S. Attorney and that he’d have full authority to continue the investigation into Hunter Biden and file any necessary criminal charges, regardless of jurisdiction. Garland would have already known that Weiss wasn’t seriously pursuing Hunter – whether on his own accord or because of any pressure from others at DOJ – and might’ve thought, well, let’s have Weiss continue to not really investigate, and we’ll have the benefit of seeming impartial in the eyes of the American public since Weiss was a Trump appointee.

Ted Lieu’s questioning of FBI Director Christopher Wray during Wednesday morning’s hearing certainly lends credibility to that last thought.

“It is not the fault of the FBI that Donald Trump surrounded himself with criminals” — brilliant line of questioning here from Ted Lieu highlighting how a range of Trump staffers were convicted by a DOJ overseen *by Trump staffers* pic.twitter.com/Y2hP4hoGzH

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 12, 2023

Lieu listed multiple Trump-connected people who’d been convicted in federal court — Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen — then stated who the Attorney General was at the time of those convictions and asked who appointed that Attorney General. As we know, they were Trump-appointed AGs. Leaving the merits of those convictions (or lack thereof) out of this discussion, Lieu claims that this proves there isn’t a two-tiered system of justice in the United States, and his barking seal supporters lap it up. Of course, those convictions actually represent a two-tiered justice system and the pervasiveness of the Deep State, but people who don’t pay a ton of attention to politics are easily swayed by the argument that if a Trump-appointed Attorney General oversaw those prosecutions, they’re double extra legitimate.

As Andrew McCarthy writes, in deep blue states especially, it doesn’t matter that the U.S. Attorney is a Trump appointee:

In deep-blue states with two Democratic senators, either of whom could block confirmation of Trump appointees, Trump appointed Weiss types — prosecutors who resist angering Democrats while nonetheless brandishing their Republican credentials. These self-styled “nonpartisan public servants” are administrative-state staples, moving from one prestigious title to the next by not making waves.

In fact, as Delaware Online reported in 2017, the state’s Democrat U.S. Senators (Tom Carper and Chris Coons) actually “recommended Weiss to the White House for the job.” Does anyone believe that Coons would be okay with a U.S. Attorney for Delaware who really wanted to hold Democrats accountable for corruption?

Weiss certainly seems to fit the mold McCarthy described. He started his career in the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office, then went into private practice for a bit before returning. Barack Obama then appointed him as Acting U.S. Attorney for Delaware from 2008 through 2011, after which Weiss served as First Assistant U.S. Attorney for Obama’s appointee until 2017.

When Biden was preparing to take office, and the question of whether to allow Weiss to continue the investigation was being discussed in punditry circles, The Huffington Post ran interference, downplaying the Trump appointment and casting Weiss as a nonpartisan who’d — gasp — prosecuted at least one Biden-adjacent person for tax violations and illegal campaign contributions (to Biden). So, he has total credibility, right?

Yeah, it seems that Weiss has the “not making waves” thing down and understands how to navigate the political waters in tiny Delaware. It’s really not that hard. Don’t go after the Bidens.

The two IRS whistleblowers didn’t get that memo, though. As I wrote a few weeks ago, after Gary Shapley appeared on Bret Baier’s show, Weiss continually blamed “the prosecutors” for denials and delays, though he was supposedly the prosecutor and had authority to do whatever the investigation required and file any criminal charges that were warranted. If “the prosecutors” isn’t Weiss, he must tell Congress who that person(s) is. Otherwise, it sure looks like Weiss was making repeated futile attempts to let the whistleblowers know that they should drop their requests and stop working so hard.

Shapley and his colleague both told House Ways and Means Committee staff that they were confident they could prove crimes, and Shapley said that there was evidence to support substantive felony charges, but those were left off the table by “the prosecutors.” Going back to what Andrew McCarthy wrote about “self-styled ‘non-partisan public servants'” such as Weiss, his description is perfect for this case:

In a case where the investigators are confident they can prove crimes but the Powers That Be do not want crimes to be charged, that involves a lot of telling the investigators, “There’s nothing I can do, my hands are tied,” while hoping that the people who are tying your hands — but need to deny they are doing so — will not feed you to the wolves if the investigators get angry and decide to call BS on the whole thing, in public.

The investigators, at least two of them, have decided to call BS on the whole thing, in public. And now that we know that AUSA Lesley Wolf and FBI Special Agents from the Baltimore field office were briefed on the FBI FD-1023 form related to the alleged bribe paid by Mykola Zlochevsky to Joe and Hunter Biden on October 23, 2020 — a topic directly related to the investigation at issue — but that the IRS-CI investigators were excluded from that briefing, it’s even easier to believe that Weiss is the one who’s been obstructing the investigation all along, and by extension, obstructing justice.