Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Sunday threatened an impeachment investigation of Attorney General Merrick Garland over the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation of Hunter Biden, the son of the President.
“We need to get to the facts, and that includes reconciling these clear disparities. U.S. Attorney David Weiss must provide answers to the House Judiciary Committee,” McCarthy tweeted on Sunday, referring to the Trump-appointed prosecutor who brought charges against Hunter Biden.
McCarthy was responding to a tweet from journalist Byron York of the conservative Washington Examiner, who wrote, “IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley testified that US Atty in charge of Hunter investigation, David Weiss, said he wanted to bring charges in DC but was denied.”
York posted what appeared to be a statement from Shapely’s attorneys that said, “In an October 7, 2022, meeting at the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Attorney David Weiss told six witnesses he did not have authority to charge in other districts and thus requested special counsel status.”
McCarthy added in his tweet, “If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ.”
Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors last week for failure to pay taxes in a timely manner in 2017 and 2018, and he struck a deal with a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor for felony gun possession. He’d lied on his gun application about his struggles with drug addiction.
Trump-appointed Federal District Judge Maryellen Noreika has been assigned to oversee Hunter Biden’s case.
Garland has denied Shapley’s testimony that Weiss was hindered by the DOJ from pursuing a more aggressive investigation.
Since taking majority of the House in January, Republicans in both chambers have been holding hearings into what House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) has called “this weaponization of the DOJ against the American people.”
Some House Republicans, while pushing a measure to expunge the two impeachments of former President Trump that occurred when Democrats had majority, have launched multiple investigations into the Biden family and the Biden Administration in a search for evidence of wrongdoing.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who co-authored the resolution to expunge Trump’s impeachments, is pressing for the impeachments of President Biden, Garland, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray and a U.S. attorney who is prosecuting suspects in the deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
Garland has referred all questions to “filings in court” regarding Trump’s federal indictment related to his retention of classified documents post-Presidency, insisting that his appointment of prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel in the case “underscores the Justice Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability”
Trump, who has been indicted in recent months on dozens of criminal counts on both the state level in New York as well as the federal level, is running for reelection in 2024.
