One of the critical former federal prosecutors who protected President Joe Biden and 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 assistant Delaware 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 December 12th 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.”
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,” case agent Joseph Ziegler, who worked on the inquiry for five years, testified in July.
The Post reports that Wolf’s dozens of refusals to answer questions — just one day after the full House voted to authorize an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden — frustrated attempts to firm up the storyline involving what whistleblowers say was a sweeping coverup 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” writes The Post.
Wolf served as one of the prosecutors that signed off on a probation-only plea deal in June for Hunter on tax and gun charges, which fell apart the following month under scrutiny from a federal judge.
The Post also notes that in Wolf’s testimony she did not refute a series of specific claims IRS supervisor Gary Shapley, who oversaw the Hunter Biden investigation for three years, made against Wolf.