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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Prosecutor who allegedly shielded Joe, Hunter Biden testified 79 times she's 'not authorized' by DOJ to give answers
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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