Baltimore FBI Agent Agrees Weiss Didn’t Have Ultimate Authority to Charge Hunter Biden
BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | SEPTEMBER 14, 2023
MARGOT CLEVELAND
VISIT ON TWITTER@PROFMJCLEVELAND
The assistant special agent in charge (ASAC) of the Baltimore FBI office sat for a transcribed interview on Monday with the House Judiciary Committee. The transcript from the closed-door session, which The Federalist has reviewed in full, reveals a rare find: an FBI agent still involved in the Hunter Biden investigation who will admit the obvious — that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss did not have ultimate authority to charge the president’s son.
Monday’s interview of the Baltimore ASAC, whose name is being withheld by the House Judiciary Committee, followed the questioning last week of her boss, Thomas Sobocinski, the special agent in charge. Both Sobocinski and the ASAC attended the Oct. 7, 2022, meeting in which, according to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, Weiss said he was not the final decisionmaker on whether to bring charges against Hunter Biden.
In questioning the ASAC, the Judiciary Committee asked about her understanding of Weiss’s authority. She initially testified that she understood Weiss had the authority “to move forward and bring charges if that was what the determination was and he would go forth in doing that.” But after several back-and-forths, which included the ASAC reviewing the statutory language that would allow Weiss to bring charges in another district, she acknowledged that Weiss did not have the ultimate authority to charge Hunter Biden.
“But based on what we just discussed, it’s true that Mr. Weiss alone was not the deciding person on whether charges are filed?” the House attorney queried.
“I would say, based on the statute, seeing that, as it reads here … yes, I would say that there is someone else, the Attorney General, as it’s noted here in the statute, that is involved in this process,” the ASAC replied.
The House attorney continued: “[I]s it your understanding today that there is another person involved in whether Mr. Weiss could bring charges in another jurisdiction?”
“Yes,” the ASAC concurred.
The ASAC’s answer has been obvious to everyone for months, yet Democrats, the legacy media, and Weiss and Merrick Garland apologists have refused to acknowledge the reality. Even the ASAC’s boss, throughout his interview with the House Judiciary Committee, maintained, “Weiss had the authority in the U.S. to bring the charges where venue presented itself,” wherever he wanted, whether it be in California or D.C. And even when pushed on the limitations of a U.S. attorney’s authority, Sobocinski said Weiss had the authority and it was merely a matter of administrative hoop-jumping for the Delaware U.S. attorney to charge Biden in another district.
In fact, that Sobocinski couldn’t admit the truth rendered his entire testimony not credible. That is precisely why no one should believe anything Weiss and AG Garland say about the Hunter Biden investigation either — because they first deceived Congress and the American public about Weiss’s authority and have since doubled down on their misrepresentations.
Garland, for his part, told Sen. Chuck Grassley under oath that “the U.S. attorney in Delaware has been advised that he has full authority … to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it’s necessary.” Weiss then covered for Garland, telling the House Judiciary Committee in a letter on June 7, 2023, that “as the Attorney General has stated, I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges and for making decisions necessary to preserve the integrity of the prosecution…”
Then after the transcript of Shapley’s congressional closed-door interview was released, revealing the whistleblower’s testimony that during the meeting on Oct. 7, 2022, Weiss had said he was not the ultimate decisionmaker on whether to charge Hunter Biden, Weiss clarified his statement. While saying he stood by what he had written in his June 7, 2023, letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Weiss wrote in an early July follow-up letter that he wished to expand on what he meant. He acknowledged that as the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, he lacked the authority to charge Hunter Biden in other districts. Yet, not to worry, Weiss assured the House oversight committee: Garland had promised him that, if necessary, the AG would grant Weiss special attorney status to allow him to prosecute Hunter Biden in D.C., California, or any other jurisdiction.
The most revealing fact from Monday’s interview is that it took this long and this ASAC to say openly what the attorney general, the U.S. attorney, and the special agent in charge of the Baltimore FBI field office continue to obfuscate about: Weiss’s pre-special counsel authority. The only real reason to hide the reality that Weiss lacked the authority to charge Hunter Biden in D.C. and California is that it means the failure to charge him for felony tax offenses falls on the U.S. attorneys and attorney general his father appointed.
Thus the ASAC’s testimony also confirmed that the Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in D.C. and California had refused to bring charges against Hunter Biden in their districts where they had proper venue for the alleged tax felonies.
On the question of what, precisely, Weiss had said during the Oct. 7, 2022, meeting, the ASAC was less helpful, however, not remembering many of the details. But not only didn’t she remember what Shapley claimed was said during the meeting. She also didn’t remember what her boss, Sobocinski, admitted to saying during the meeting. Her lack of recall thus doesn’t carry much of a punch, especially when she hadn’t taken notes during the meeting, as Shapley had.
Of course, during the interview, the DOJ and FBI’s attorneys tried to spin Shapley’s email notes as merely a summary of the meeting written later, but the IRS whistleblower has already destroyed that narrative. On Wednesday, his attorneys provided the House Judiciary Committee a copy of the handwritten notes he had taken during the meeting.
While those notes corroborate Shapley’s testimony, we are much beyond the question of what Weiss said during the meeting. We are now at the point that the House needs to launch additional impeachment inquiries of Garland, Weiss, and FBI Director Christopher Wray to uncover what the DOJ and FBI did (or didn’t do) to cover up for Hunter and Joe Biden and then cover up their cover-up.
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