Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, who has testified before Congress multiple times and even represented the body in court, supported Merrick Garland to be the U.S. attorney general.
Originally published by WND News Center. Used with permission.
But now he’s wondering “what is worse: that Garland was clueless or duplicitous.”
The comment came after the New York Times, which leans far left in its reporting, confirmed one of the “bombshells” in the case involving Hunter Biden and his tax and gun law violations.
Two whistleblowers confirmed that special counsel David Weiss, appointed to review Hunter Biden’s acts that appeared to violate federal criminal law, sought to have charges brought against Hunter Biden in California and Washington, D.C.
But he was blocked by the Department of Justice.
Fox News reported the problem is that Garland has claimed the opposite – that Weiss was NOT blocked.
The tax and gun charges apparently have been ended with Hunter Biden’s guilty plea to two misdemeanor tax violations and by his accepting a “diversion” program on the felony gun registration charge.
The gist of the whistleblowers’ testimony included that Hunter Biden got preferential treatment from the DOJ, which is supervised by his father.
They charged that Weiss was told by the DOJ he “could not bring charges against Hunter Biden in California and Washington, D.C. Attorney General Merrick Garland denied there being any interference in the probe,” the report said.
“The Times is now confirming that Weiss did in fact make such claims about the DOJ.”
That report charged, “But in mid-2022, Mr. Weiss reached out to the top federal prosecutor in Washington, Matthew Graves, to ask his office to pursue charges and was rebuffed, according to Mr. Shapley’s testimony. A similar request to prosecutors in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, was also rejected, Mr. Shapley testified. A second former I.R.S. official, who has not been identified, told House Republicans the same story. That episode was confirmed independently to The New York Times by a person with knowledge of the situation.”
Garland repeatedly has claimed there was no wrongdoing on the part of the DOJ, and that Weiss was not blocked.
Just last week, he claimed, “As I said at the outset, Mr. Weiss, who was appointed by President Trump as the U.S. attorney in Delaware and assigned this matter during the previous administration, would be permitted to continue his investigation and to make a decision to prosecute any way in which he wanted to and in any district in which he wanted to. Mr. Weiss has since sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee confirming that he had that authority. He was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own behalf.”
The testimony from the whistleblowers also has firmly encircled Joe Biden in the scandalous activities that remain under review by the U.S. House.
They revealed a social media statement which Hunter Biden allegedly sent to a Chinese business associate. In that message, which Republicans suggest was an illicit extortion scheme, Hunter Biden threatened to have his father make his targets regret what they were doing if they didn’t cooperate immediately.
Turley noted the Times actually engaged in “burying the lede” by noting the detail 21 graphs down in its story.
“If the New York Times is confirming that the ‘episode’ was the repeated blocking of Weiss, Garland stands contradicted in statements that he has made for months, including just days ago. Garland appeared irate at the suggestion that Weiss was denied any opportunity to bring charges anywhere,” he wrote.
“I am not sure what is worse: that Garland was clueless or duplicitous,” Turley said. “There is also a danger of willful blindness on the part of Garland in avoiding such knowledge as underlings undermined Weiss. We simply do not know, but we need to know.”