People are now questioning a rather unusual move by the Department of Justice regarding the Hunter Biden case.
When the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office listed their prosecutorial team when they filed the charges in the matter, they listed three people who had not been involved in the case or the investigation over the years: Assistant US Attorneys Leo Wise, Derek Hines, and Benjamin Wallace. They appear to have swapped out the people who had been handling it for a while — AUSAs Lesley Wolf, Shawn Weede, and Shannon Hanson — raising the question of why the very unusual switch right before minor charges were filed against Hunter Biden?
A lawyer for IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley said, “None of the three [listed] were involved in the underlying investigation during Gary’s tenure, to my knowledge.”
One of the prosecutors listed on Weiss’s letter, Assistant US Attorney (AUSA) Ben Wallace, only joined the Delaware office in March this year.
On Monday DailyMail.com revealed that another, Derek Hines, has a potential conflict having worked from 2013 to 2015 as ‘Special Counsel’ to one of Hunter’s business partners, ex-FBI director Louis Freeh.
And AUSA Leo Wise was drafted to the Delaware office after being demoted from Chief of the Public Corruption and Fraud Unit at the Maryland US Attorney’s Office to a mere line prosecutor in the same unit in March, the Baltimore Sun reported.
So why was the more experienced team switched out for these guys, and did that in any way affect the charges that were filed?
When the IRS whistleblowers testified to Congress in May, they had a lot to say about the old team, in particular AUSA Wolf, who Shapley and the other whistleblower mentioned between them 83 times, including how Wolf told investigators they weren’t allowed to ask about Joe Biden or who the “Big Guy” was. Wolf also decided against a search warrant for the guest house at Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home, where Hunter was living at one point, because of the optics.
So why weren’t she and the others listed on the filing of the charges? The Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office isn’t talking.
DailyMail.com asked the Delaware US Attorney’s office why Wolf did not appear on the documents, and why new and less experienced prosecutors had been drafted in
A spokesperson said: ‘We decline to comment on staffing and personnel matters.’
Are they trying to hide the folks like Wolf, who might be questioned more if they were still on the case? That isn’t going to stop Congress from subpoenaing them; they’ve already made it clear they want to talk to Wolf. If it’s removing the prior folks because they think they did something wrong, then that should be spelled out, or once again, they’re not being transparent and revealing why they’re doing things. Or is it that they specifically want to sub in the new guys, including the guy who used to work with Louis Freeh?
Meanwhile, Shapley revealed they could have gone for other charges but that Central California U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada and DC U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves refused Weiss’s request to prosecute in their districts. So all that is going to have to be explained to Congress in any event by Weiss and Wolf.