DOJ vows Weiss will publicly testify to counter ‘any misrepresentations about our work’
Ashley Oliver
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The Department of Justice told House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Monday that U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who has led the federal investigation into Hunter Biden, will appear for a public hearing with the committee to combat “any misrepresentations” about Weiss’s work.
Carlos Uriarte, an assistant attorney general, wrote in a letter to Jordan that Weiss could appear in late September or October for the hearing, long after President Joe Biden’s son and Weiss have finalized their plea agreement, which is set to take place at a hearing Wednesday.
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Hunter Biden is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and enter a pretrial diversion agreement for a felony gun charge, an agreement Jordan and many other Republicans have denounced as a “sweetheart deal.”
Jordan has been pressing Weiss and nearly a dozen other lower-level DOJ officials to meet with the committee to discuss concerns that Hunter Biden has received special treatment in the investigation and vowed in a letter on Friday to Attorney General Merrick Garland to subpoena the lower-level officials should Garland not work with Jordan to schedule interviews with them.
Jordan, in coordination with Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Jason Smith (R-MO), have more broadly been investigating allegations that Joe Biden was wrapped up in his son’s well-documented business dealings and that he may have participated with his son in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme in at least one instance while he was vice president.
Additionally, Smith in May met with two IRS criminal investigators who testified that Weiss was blocked in two jurisdictions from bringing harsher charges against Hunter Biden and that Weiss had at one point sought special counsel status in the investigation but was denied it.
Weiss has rebutted these allegations in various communications to Congress but with new and, according to Jordan, conflicting detail each time.
“Weiss’s shifting statements about his authority to bring charges against Hunter Biden, especially his authority to bring charges outside of Delaware, suggest that improper political considerations factored into the Department’s investigative and prosecutorial function,” Jordan wrote in his letter to Garland on Friday.
Uriarte wrote Monday in response, “We are deeply concerned by any misrepresentations about our work—whether deliberate or arising from misunderstandings—that could unduly harm public confidence in the evenhanded administration of justice, to which we are dedicated.”
Uriarte noted that DOJ therefore believed it was “strongly in the public interest for the American people and for Congress to hear directly” from Weiss on “questions about his authority.”
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He also challenged the direct subpoena threat, saying DOJ was “deeply concerned” by it.
“Any attempts at compulsory process are unjustified and premature,” he wrote, noting the department had partaken and would continue to partake in discussions with Jordan to “ensure” it “understand[s] the Committee’s interests.”
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