Showing posts with label Lesley Wolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lesley Wolf. Show all posts

Saturday, December 23, 2023

While everyone watched Hunter Biden grandstand on Dec 14th, the woman at the center of the allegations that the Merrick Garland DOJ slow-walked and obstructed the investigation against the Bidens, Lesley Wolf, did exactly that to Congress

Look! Over there! A deer! And Congressman Eric Swalwell is with him!

Lesley Wolf, prosecutor accused of working to 'limit' questions about 'big guy' in Hunter probe, out at DOJ

 

Lesley Wolf left the DOJ weeks ago, a source said

 

Hunter Biden skips deposition and angers Republicans

Fox News correspondent David Spunt has the latest on the first son's refusal to testify on 'Special Report.'

 

The assistant U.S. attorney who was accused of limiting questions related to President Biden during the federal investigation into Hunter Biden is no longer employed by the Justice Department, Fox News has learned. 

Lesley Wolf, who served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware, is no longer with the DOJ, according to a source familiar with the situation. 

The source said Wolf had longstanding plans to leave the Department of Justice and did so weeks ago. 

Wolf, who IRS whistleblowers claimed slow-walked the Hunter Biden investigation, is sitting for a transcribed interview before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning. 

Specifically, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley alleged that Wolf worked to "limit" questioning related to President Biden and apparent references to Biden as "dad" or "the big guy."

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

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WASHINGTON — The former federal prosecutor who allegedly shielded President Biden and his son Hunter during a criminal investigation testified 79 times to Congress that she was “not authorized” by the Justice Department to answer questions about the case, according to a transcript reviewed by The Post.

Former Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf repeatedly cited a five-page authorization letter from Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer as she refused to answer questions during a House Judiciary Committee deposition last week.

Weinsheimer’s Dec. 12 letter, also reviewed by The Post, says: “[T]he Department generally does not authorize congressional testimony from line-level personnel, especially relating to an ongoing investigation with charges pending in court. The Department has declined to do so in connection with this matter.”

Wolf’s dozens of refusals to answer questions — just one day after the full House voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden — frustrated attempts to firm up the storyline involving what whistleblowers say was a sweeping cover-up by Wolf and colleagues to protect the Biden family.

President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden arrive at Fort McNair, Sunday, June 25, 2023, in Washington.

A former federal prosecutor who allegedly shielded President Biden and his son Hunter during a criminal investigation testified that she was “not authorized” to answer questions about her actions, according to a transcript. AP

The near-blanket rejection of questions follows pressure from House Republicans on the administration to allow witness testimony and could bolster GOP arguments that the White House is obstructing the inquiry, which itself could form an article of impeachment.

Two IRS agents who worked on the long-running tax fraud investigation into Hunter Biden, which focused on his foreign income from countries such as China and Ukraine, alleged in prior testimony to House committees that Wolf tipped off the first son’s lawyers to investigative steps and forbade inquiries into Joe Biden, even when communications mentioned him.

Wolf served on the squad of prosecutors that signed off on a probation-only plea deal in June for the first son on tax and gun charges, which fell apart the following month under scrutiny from a federal judge.

Lesley Wolf in an undated picture.

Lesley Wolf (above) repeatedly cited a five-page authorization letter from Bradley Weinsheimer as she refused to answer questions during a House Judiciary Committee deposition. Fedbar.org

IRS supervisor Gary Shapley, who oversaw the Hunter Biden investigation for three years, and case agent Joseph Ziegler, who worked on the inquiry for five years, made a series of specific claims against Wolf, which she did not refute in her testimony.

Tax investigators learned in December 2020 that Wolf “reached out to Hunter Biden’s defense counsel and told them” about investigators’ plans to search a northern Virginia storage unit that contained business records, “circumventing our chance to get to evidence from potentially being destroyed, manipulated or concealed,” Ziegler testified in July.

Shapley testified that investigators were months earlier barred from searching a guest house at Joe Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home, where Hunter often stayed.

Wolf's refusals to answer questions comes one day after the full House voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.

Wolf’s refusals to answer questions come one day after the full House voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden. REUTERS

Shapley said that on Sept. 3, 2020, “Wolf told us there was more than enough probable cause for the physical search warrant there, but the question was whether the juice was worth the squeeze.”

Wolf also allegedly objected during a meeting on Dec. 3, 2020, to questioning a key Biden family associate, Rob Walker, about the president.

“Wolf interjected and said she did not want to ask about the big guy and stated she did not want to ask questions about ‘dad,’” he said. 

“When multiple people in the room spoke up and objected that we had to ask, she responded, there’s no specific criminality to that line of questioning. This upset the FBI, too,” Shapley testified.

Wolf served as a key point person for the investigation, serving under Delaware US Attorney David Weiss.

The whistleblowers accused Weiss’ office of giving Hunter Biden’s legal team advance knowledge of a planned interview attempt in late 2020, scuttling a planned approach, and said prosecutors didn’t pass along a paid FBI informant’s tip that Joe and Hunter Biden received $10 million in bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which paid Hunter a salary of up to $1 million to serve on its board beginning in 2014 when his vice president dad led US policy toward the country.

Wolf allegedly instructed FBI agents in August 2020 to remove references to Joe Biden from a search warrant affidavit, writing, “Someone needs to redraft [the affidavit] … There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here,” according to an email released by the Ways & Means Committee.

“That email, I think, is super important because it’s a one-off example in writing of the constant concern of following investigative leads that might lead to Joe Biden,” Ziegler said last week in a Fox News interview.

“The FBI agents who drafted that affidavit, they believed that they had sufficient evidence — probable cause — to support including Political Figure 1 in that affidavit,” said the self-identified Democrat.

IRS supervisor Gary Shapley (not pictured) oversaw the Hunter Biden investigation for three years.

IRS supervisor Gary Shapley (not pictured) oversaw the Hunter Biden investigation for three years. REUTERS

“That related to [Ukrainian energy company] Burisma, access to Joe Biden and access to the administration and there was ample evidence that was included in that affidavit that’s supported including Political Figure 1. That has a waterfall effect on the investigation because those emails that we’re searching for might not come through to the team.”

Shapley and Ziegler said they were not allowed to get cellphone geolocation data that could have proved Joe Biden was with his son in July 2017 when Hunter sent a threatening text message to a Chinese government-linked businessman saying, “I am sitting here with my father,” and warning of retribution. 

Within 10 days of that message, $5.1 million flowed to accounts linked to Hunter and first brother James Biden from CEFC China Energy — after a tranche of $1 million earlier that year, less than two months after Biden left office as vice president.

Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley testify in the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing about alleged meddling in the Justice Department's investigation of Hunter Biden.

Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley testify in the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing about alleged meddling in the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden. REUTERS

A May 2017 email penciled in Joe Biden, referred to as the “big guy,” for a 10% cut from CEFC dealings.

The IRS whistleblowers say that — in addition to preferential treatment for Joe and Hunter Biden — Attorney General Merrick Garland misled Congress under oath about Weiss’ ability to independently bring criminal charges against Hunter Biden.

Biden-appointed US attorneys in Los Angeles and Washington have confirmed in testimony that they declined to partner with Weiss, who in August was elevated by Garland to be a special counsel, allowing him to bring charges independently outside of Delaware.

The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Wolf’s testimony.

 

Saturday, August 12, 2023

The Hunter Biden special prosecutor, David Weiss, is the Delaware US Attorney appointed by Trump who signed off on the softball agreement thrown out by the judge in the first place

Merrick Garland's evil genius:

Appoint a screw-up appointed by Trump to place him and the Hunter investigation off the political stage at the Republican House hearings, and hope Weiss keeps screwing up. 

 

 

 

Weiss has long maintained that Garland hamstrung his investigation of Hunter Biden, but on the other hand Weiss let both Lesley Wolf and long time close Biden family operative Alexander Mackler work in his office to deflect the heat on Hunter Biden according to IRS whistleblowers, which just goes to show that a poor appointment is a poor appointment. In addition to going soft on Hunter Biden, the plea agreement Weiss originally negotiated with Hunter Biden gave him a get out of jail free card.

How did Weiss miss that and the judge didn't?

Judge Noreika specifically balked at that on July 26th, contrary to what most drive-by media want you to think the blowup of the agreement was about:

However, near the end of the diversionary agreement was a paragraph reading, in part, “The United States agrees not to criminally prosecute Biden, outside of the terms of this Agreement, for any federal crimes” committed by the first son for which the statute of limitations had not already expired. ... US District Judge Maryellen Noreika smelled a rat, complaining that she was not given a copy of the crucial paragraph until just before the hearing began.

More

Expect nothing satisfactory from Weiss' investigation going forward.

 

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Well, well, well, close Biden family associate Alexander Mackler worked in the Delaware US Attorney's office 2016-2019

 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf featured prominently in the testimony of two IRS agents who spent years working on the Hunter Biden investigation. Both Gary Shapley and Ziegler, the IRS whistleblowers, said Wolf intervened to stop multiple investigative steps from moving forward, including by preventing FBI agents from asking witnesses any questions about Joe Biden’s involvement in foreign business affairs and by tipping off Hunter Biden’s attorneys about a planned search of his storage unit.

Wolf worked alongside Mackler in the U.S. attorney’s office before Mackler’s departure. She and Mackler prosecuted a major case together, for example.

More.

Saturday, June 24, 2023

Influence-peddling WhatsApp message to Chicoms from Hunter Biden in July 2017 came from his father's guest house in Delaware

 Byron York, here:

Hunter Biden wanted something from Zhao — it appears it was a payment of some sort — and he wanted it immediately. "I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled," Hunter Biden wrote. "Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father."

Shapley said the IRS team discovered the message in August 2020. Even for people who questioned the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop — and we now know the FBI had verified its authenticity in December 2019 — the WhatsApp message was worth investigating. "In August 2020, we got the results back from an iCloud search warrant," Shapley said. "Unlike the laptop, these came to the investigative team from a third-party record keeper and included a set of messages. The messages included material we clearly needed to follow up on."

No kidding. The July 30, 2017, WhatsApp message was the clearest evidence ever that Joe Biden, then the former vice president, knew about his son's business dealings. Now, maybe Hunter Biden was lying in the message. Maybe his father wasn't in the room. Maybe there's some other explanation. What was clear was that the WhatsApp message was evidence that needed to be investigated. But Shapley and the other IRS investigators soon ran into a brick wall at the Justice Department.

The IRS team wanted to execute a search warrant at the guest house and Joe Biden's house in Delaware, where Hunter Biden was staying at the time of the message. In discussions with the Justice Department, they were told that there was more than enough probable cause to get a warrant but that "optics" were a problem. A Justice Department official told them, in Shapley's words, that "a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden but said there is no way we will get that approved."

IRS team investigating Hunter Biden's alleged crimes never investigated the Ukraine-Burisma bribes allegations

Jerry Dunleavy, here:

Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian owner of Burisma, was the "foreign national" involved in the alleged "criminal bribery scheme" aimed at shaking an alleged investigation into Burisma by then-Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, according to sources familiar with the FBI record who described its contents to the Washington Examiner.

The sources said Zlochevsky said he believed it would be difficult to unravel the alleged bribery scheme for at least 10 years because of the number of bank accounts involved.

Amid the threat of being held in contempt of Congress, FBI Director Christopher Wray allowed members of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee to review an FD-1023 form this month that contained redacted versions of the allegations from the paid FBI informant.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, repeatedly claimed following a late May FBI briefing that Barr and his “hand-picked prosecutor” — Scott Brady, then the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania — ended the investigation into the bribery claims in 2020. But Barr quickly said that is false.

“It’s not true,” Barr soon told multiple outlets in early June. “It wasn’t closed down. On the contrary, it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) also revealed this month that a less redacted version of the form he has viewed says Zlochevsky claimed to have 17 recordings of his conversations with Joe Biden and Hunter Biden (two of the former and 15 of the latter) as an "insurance policy." 

Zlochevsky’s alleged reference to Joe Biden as the “big guy” appears independent of the apparent reference to the now-president as the “big guy” by a Hunter Biden business associate during negotiations with Chinese intelligence-linked businessmen. The China-related reference occurred in a May 2017 email not made public until October 2020.

Shapley said that Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf instructed FBI and IRS investigators not to ask witnesses about “dad” (Joe Biden) or about “the big guy.”

Hunter Biden reached a plea deal on federal charges related to tax crimes and the illegal purchase of a handgun, Weiss’s office revealed in a court filing on Tuesday.

The IRS whistleblower claims detailing the politicization and slow-walking of the Justice Department investigation were made public on Thursday, including allegations that Weiss had sought special counsel status from the DOJ and sought to file charges in California and in the nation’s capital but was repeatedly denied. The whistleblowers also pointed to new apparent links between Joe Biden and his son’s China deals and that the FBI authenticated Hunter Biden’s laptop by November 2019.

 

I don't know but I'm guessing her initials are Lesley Wolf

The question remains who within the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office withheld the FD-1023 from Shapley and his team when Barr had directed that the CHS’s reporting be sent there for further investigation. Further, Barr has recently confirmed the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office was briefed on the detailed allegations contained in the FD-1023, following then-U.S. Attorney Scott Brady’s conclusion that the CHS’s reporting did not appear to be misinformation. ...

Every indication suggests it was the FD-1023 that the FBI HQ’s team falsely labeled disinformation, which raises the specter that individuals in the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office were colluding with FBI HQ to protect the Biden family. It is now up to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s whistleblower to close the circle.

More.

Friday, June 23, 2023

IRS whistleblower says FBI confirmed authenticity of Hunter Biden laptop in November 2019, almost one year before New York Post laptop story

“In October 2019, the FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime. The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID,” Shapley said.

The laptop’s contents linked Joe Biden to his son’s dealings, including in China and Ukraine — contradicting his public claims he never discussed business with his son Hunter or brother James Biden.

Despite the FBI’s internal corroboration, 51 former US intelligence agency leaders signed a pre-election letter saying that the laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” ...

But behind the scenes, “when the FBI took possession of the device in December 2019, they notified the IRS that it likely contained evidence of tax crimes,” Shapley said.

Shapley, who has worked at the tax agency for 14 years, supervised a 12-person team that determined Hunter Biden had failed to pay $2.2 million on $8.3 million in income earned between 2014 and 2019 from foreign countries where his father held sway as vice president, such as China, Romania and Ukraine.

The case was resolved Tuesday with the announcement of a probation-only plea deal with the first son, despite investigators attempting to recommend felonies, Shapley and another IRS whistleblower told the committee.

On October 19, 2020 — the same date the “spies who lie” letter was fed to Politico — Shapley said he emailed Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf to tell her: “We need to talk about the computer.”

More.

So the Delaware Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf is the one who stymied the FBI investigation of Joe Biden's links to Hunter Biden's deals

[Whistleblower] Shapley said that, prior to the interview with [Hunter Biden business associate Rob] Walker, “we had obvious questions like who was H, who the big guy was, and why this percentage was to be held separately with the association hidden.” But the whistleblower said that Delaware assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf “interjected and said she did not want to ask about the big guy” and stated that she did not want to ask questions about "dad."

The whistleblower said that “when multiple people in the room spoke up and objected that we had to ask, she responded, there's no specific criminality to that line of questioning.” Shapley said, “This upset the FBI too.”

“There were multiple times where Lesley Wolf said that she didn't want to ask questions about dad,” Shapley said. “We referred to Hunter Biden's father, you know, as dad.”

Shapley quoted the Delaware prosecutor as saying, “I don't want to talk about the big guy. I don't want to ask about dad. … Don't ask about the big guy.”

Shapley said, “The IRS and FBI agents conducting this interview [of Walker] tried to skirt AUSA Wolf's direction.” He added that the FBI agent tried to get Walker to talk about the email “while not directly contradicting” the direction by Wolf not to ask about “the big guy.”

The IRS whistleblower argued that “based on guidance provided by the prosecutors on a recurring basis to not look into anything related to President Biden, there is no way of knowing if evidence of other criminal activity existed concerning Hunter Biden or President Biden.”

The whistleblower said that “in August 2020, we got the results back from an iCloud search warrant” and that “the messages included material we clearly needed to follow up on.” Shapley said that “nevertheless, prosecutors denied investigators' requests to develop a strategy to look into the messages and denied investigators' suggestion to obtain location information to see where the texts were sent from.”

More.