WASHINGTON (CN) — Partisan tensions flared in the House Oversight Committee Wednesday afternoon as the panel’s Republican majority needled two former federal officials who have said that an investigation into President Joe Biden’s son was intentionally hamstrung by the Department of Justice.
The hearing, which featured testimony from two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers involved in the inquiry into Hunter Biden’s business dealings, comes just weeks after the president’s son reached a plea deal with the Justice Department in which he agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and a firearms possession charge.
Congressional Republicans have derided the charges, which they disparage as a “sweetheart” deal between Hunter Biden and the Justice Department, and have accused the agency of unfairly softening the charges to protect the president. Democrats, meanwhile, have argued that their GOP colleagues have not produced any conclusive evidence to prove such preferential treatment had taken place.
At Wednesday’s hearing, House Republicans sought to frame the whistleblower testimony as a smoking gun.
“These individuals in front of us today are credible and sat for more nearly 15 hours of interviews with both Republicans and Democrats,” said Missouri Congressman Jason Smith, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, who was invited to participate in the oversight panel hearing.
“The question is, who are you going to believe,” said Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Jordan suggested the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss, who oversaw the Hunter Biden investigation, had painted an inconsistent picture of their authority to select charges against the president’s son.
“I think I’ll believe these guys,” said Jordan, referring to the tax agency whistleblowers. “I think they’re the ones telling the truth.”
The whistleblowers, former supervisory special agent Gary Shapley and former criminal investigator Joseph Ziegler, alleged in testimony that the IRS had recommended multiple felony charges against Hunter Biden between 2014 and 2019, but that the Department of Justice had obstructed the investigation and allowed several of the potential charges to exceed their statute of limitations.
“It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the U.S. Attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited and marginalized by DOJ officials, as well as other U.S. attorneys,” Ziegler told lawmakers. The whistleblower urged Congress to establish a special counsel to conduct a further inquiry.
Shapley took aim at U.S. Attorney David Weiss, the Delaware federal prosecutor spearheading the investigation, who he accused of seeking approval from Biden-appointed prosecutors before moving forward with charges against Hunter Biden. The former IRS special agent said he had attended a meeting in October 2022 during which Weiss admitted that “he was not the deciding person on whether charges were filed.”
“I had already seen a pattern of preferential treatment and obstruction,” Shapley said. “I am 100% certain of what the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office did, seeking approval from political appointees in D.C. and California.”
House Democrats meanwhile rejected Wednesday’s hearing as political theater. Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the oversight committee, accused Republicans of grasping at straws in an attempt to smear the Biden administration.
“One thing you will not hear today is any evidence of wrongdoing by President Joe Biden or his administration,” Raskin said. “Like every other try by our colleagues to concoct a scandal about President Biden, this one is a complete and total bust.”
Raskin pointed out that Weiss had been appointed in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, and that upon taking office Biden refused to put a stop to the prosecutor’s investigation and never publicly challenged it.
“Even though incoming presidents usually replace U.S. attorneys with their own appointees, [Biden] and his Attorney General Merrick Garland made sure that Mr. Weiss — appointed by Donald Trump — had full authority and resources to pursue this probe and charge it however and wherever he saw fit,” Raskin said.
The Maryland Democrat further chalked up the whistleblowers’ concerns about preferential treatment to internal disagreements about how the investigation should proceed, arguing that such a phenomenon was common practice.
House Republicans last week stepped up their inquiry into the Hunter Biden investigation, requesting testimony from a number of Justice Department officials, including Weiss himself. Attorney General Garland has said that his agency will not block Weiss from testifying before Congress.
The oversight panel, led by Kentucky Republican Jim Comer, has grilled administration officials and examined financial records from the Biden family in an effort to prove that the president has used his influence over the years to advance business dealings.
Hunter Biden, meanwhile, is unlikely to face jail time as part of his plea deal — if the president’s son follows court-mandated conditions he may sidestep prosecution for the felony gun charge levied against him.
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