Impeachment Probe Dramatically Pivots to Questions of CIA, DOJ Coverup in Hunter Biden

by Steven Richards and John Solomon

After a bombastic hearing with Hunter Biden’s business partners, House impeachment investigators are dramatically pivoting to allegations of a possible coverup in the first son’s criminal tax case as the inquiry transitions to a new phase.

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee sued the Justice Department seeking to force two attorneys there to comply with subpoenas and testify about whether there was any political interference in Hunter Biden’s tax prosecution.

A few hours later, that committee joined with the House Oversight Committee to release a letter to CIA Director William Burns that revealed impeachment investigators have a whistleblower who alleges the spy agency tried to interfere with a witness interview in the case.

“Recently, the Committees received information from a whistleblower alleging that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intervened in the investigation of Hunter Biden to prevent the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) investigators from interviewing a witness,” Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Oversight Chairman James Comer wrote. “We therefore write to request relevant material from the CIA.

“According to the whistleblower, in August 2021, when IRS investigators were preparing to interview Patrick Kevin Morris, an associate of Hunter Biden, the CIA intervened to stop the interview,” they continued. “Two DOJ officials were allegedly summoned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia for a briefing regarding Mr. Morris. At that meeting, it was communicated that Mr. Morris could not be a witness during the investigation.”

Morris, a Hollywood attorney who befriended Hunter Biden, has acknowledged to Congress during an impeachment inquiry interview that he has provided millions of dollars in the form of loans to help the first son pay expenses and legal bills.

The pair requested that Burns provide to them materials related to the investigation of Hunter Biden as well as documents and communications related to Morris and his relevance to the agency.

The double-barreled development signaled a shift in the probe. After releasing evidence they said shows  the Biden family and their partners made millions from China, Russia, Ukraine and other countries in a influence peddling scheme, lawmakers are looking at whether government actors tried to impede the discovery or prosecution of crimes, such as the gun and tax charges Hunter Biden now faces in federal court.

Comer hinted at the shift in an interview with Just the News a few days ago.

“We also want to hold people accountable for wrongdoing, not just the Bidens, but people in the government, the deep state actors who have been part of the cover up,” Comer said. “You know, you’ve got the Biden financial crimes, and you’ve got the cover up from the government because there are too many government agencies that were investigating the Biden’s for too long.”

In its new lawsuit, the House Judiciary Committee laid out in detail why it believes there is still an ongoing coverup in the the agency’s Hunter Biden tax crimes investigation as it faces continued obstruction into its probe of favorable treatment towards the first son alleged by the IRS whistleblowers.

According to the suit, DOJ lawyers Mark Daly and Jack Morgan have first-hand knowledge of the case. The complaint alleges that “DOJ has directed Daly and Morgan to defy the Committee’s Subpoenas” and that the DOJ contends that subpoenas compelling testimony about an “agency employee’s official duties, without agency counsel present, are unconstitutional and thus unenforceable.”

The House Committee’s suit points out that since the 1980’s “more than 175 Executive Branch witnesses have appeared for depositions without agency counsel.” The case has been assigned to Judge Ana C. Reyes, an Uruguayan-born American lawyer appointed to the bench by President Biden in 2023. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the DOJ has 60 days in which to respond to the suit.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee widely criticized the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden at its first public hearing on the matter Wednesday. One Democratic committee member said “Biden impeachment’s dead.” Yet, several unanswered questions remain about the evidence and testimony uncovered by the probe.

The 59-page lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday highlights another aspect of the investigation being pursued by the Judiciary Committee that has garnered less media coverage yet remains ongoing: allegations that Biden’s Justice Department improperly treated the first son favorably and thwarted efforts by IRS investigators to carry out their probe.

“The Department is committed to working with Congress in good faith. We took the extraordinary step of making six supervisory employees available to testify on appropriate topics last year. It is unfortunate that despite this extraordinary cooperation from senior DOJ officials, the Committee has decided, after waiting for months, to continue seeking to depose line prosecutors about sensitive information from ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions. We will continue to protect our line personnel and the integrity of their work. We will review the filings and respond in court,” a Justice Department spokeswoman told Just the News on Thursday.

The allegations against the DOJ first came to light last year when two IRS whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, brought the claims to the House Ways and Means Committee along with evidence in the form of emails, memos, and witness interview notes backing them.

Both whistleblowers testified to a pattern of preferential treatment in the investigation into the first son, including Justice Department efforts to block search warrants and to limit the investigators’ pursuit of information related then-candidate Joe Biden, citing political sensitivities.

Shapley and Ziegler also testified to significant delays in their investigation imposed by agency officials and confusion sowed by the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office about authorities to charge the alleged crimes they had uncovered.

Ultimately, U.S. Attorney David Weiss allowed the statute of limitations to expire on the 2014 and 2015 tax years during which Hunter Biden allegedly failed to pay federal taxes and made false statements regarding his income from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company where he served as a board member. Hunter Biden was ultimately charged with three tax felonies and six misdemeanors in California for the 2016 to 2019 tax years. Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said at the time that his client was a victim of politics and if the president’s son’s “last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought.”

Multiple witnesses interviewed by the three House committees leading the impeachment probe have since confirmed key pieces of the Shapley’s and Ziegler’s accounts, including an unnamed FBI agent, the former head of the DOJ’s Tax Division, Stuart Goldberg, and U.S. Attorney David Weiss himself.

Hunter Biden’s legal team, for its part, has attempted discredit the IRS whistleblowers. Biden’s lawyer Lowell attacked the agents in a letter to the House committee labeling them “disgruntled agents.” Eventually, Hunter Biden sued the IRS over the whistleblowers’ disclosures, claiming they had unlawfully disclosed his private tax returns. That case is ongoing, and the IRS has filed a motion to dismiss the claims of invasion of privacy, to which Biden’s lawyers are scheduled to respond by April 12, 2024.

In a recent court filing in Hunter Biden’s tax case in California, Lowell once again argued in a footnote the whistleblowers had violated the law by bringing their concerns to Congress and compared their conduct to an IRS employee sentenced to five years in prison for leaking President Donald Trump’s taxpayer information.

“Nevertheless, two IRS agents on the prosecution’s team investigating Mr. Biden blatantly and publicly did the same thing, on television no less, and yet they have not been prosecuted or even fired by the IRS,” Lowell wrote in the court document. Yet, the congressional Republicans argue the whistleblowers are protected under federal law, specifically 26 U.S.C. § 6103(f)(5) which outlines requirements for proper disclosure to Congress.

As the Judiciary Committee seeks answers to the concerns raised by the whistleblowers, it has faced efforts to obstruct the investigation by the Justice Department, according to its lawsuit. The most recent example is the Department’s decision to prevent two attorneys from the DOJ Tax Division from testifying to the committee. The committee believes these attorneys have first hand knowledge of the handling of the Hunter Biden probe.

When the Judiciary…