Refusal to Explain Order to Remove Joe Biden from Search Warrant in Hunter Biden Case. Testimony of Former U.S. Assistant Attorney General (Delaware) Lesley Wolf
"She insisted political bias did not play a role in her decision to have Joe Biden removed from the search warrant"
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Former Assistant U.S Attorney for the District of Delaware Lesley Wolf did not tell lawmakers why she protected Joe Biden from a planned search warrant ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
Wolf testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 14 and declined to discuss an email she sent in August 2020 instructing FBI Agent Joshua Wilson to take Joe Biden’s name off a draft search warrant during the Hunter Biden investigation, according to a transcript reviewed by the Daily Caller.
“This is an email chain between you and FBI Special Agent Joshua Wilson. In the last sentence of the email that you sent, it states, ‘There should be nothing about political figure 1 in here.’ Can you tell us who political figure 1 is?” Wolf was asked.
“Looking at page 2 of the document, it would be, well, who’s described as former Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., now President Biden,” Wolf responded.
“And can you tell us why you wrote ‘There should be nothing about political figure 1 in here’?”
“So I am not able to answer questions about this particular search warrant or this particular draft,” Wolf replied. She proceeded to give a lengthy explanation of how drafting search warrants works and the requirements to obtain one.
“So in this instance, you stand by your statement that there should be nothing about political figure 1 in here?”
“I’m not able to speak to this particular warrant” Wolf said.
She insisted political bias did not play a role in her decision to have Joe Biden removed from the search warrant and referred to her opening statement where she defended herself. Throughout her testimony, she claimed her actions on the Hunter Biden case were in line with Department of Justice (DOJ) policy.
“Okay. But in your opening statement, I think you indicated that none of these decisions were made for political reasons. Is that fair to say?”
“That is reflected in my opening statement, and I agree with that,” Wolf stated.
“Okay. So to extent you didn’t you asked the agents to take out political figure 1, there was no political motivation in requesting that?”
“I refer back to my opening statement where I said at no time there was politics playing a role in those decisions,” Wolf answered.
IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler have accused Wolf of giving Hunter Biden special treatment by slow-walking and shutting down investigative steps, such as searching Joe Biden’s Delaware guest house and Hunter Biden’s northern Virginia storage locker.
She recently left the DOJ in the wake of the IRS whistleblower accusations. Wolf similarly refused to address a memo written by Shapley detailing how she ignored potential campaign finance issues surrounding Hunter Biden’s financier Kevin Morris.
The House Ways and Means Committee released a trove of documents in September provided by the IRS whistleblowers to support their initial testimony.
Among those documents was the email Wolf sent Wilson in August 2020 referring to “political figure 1” and telling him to remove the figure from the Blue Star search warrant. A draft copy of the search warrant shows “political figure one” was then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
“As a priority, someone needs to redraft attachment B. I am not sure what this is cut and pasted from but other than the attribution, location and identity stuff at the end, none if it is appropriate and within the scope of this warrant. Please focus on FARA evidence only. There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here,” Wolf emailed Wilson.
When he first testified in May, Shapley explained how Wolf and the DOJ’s stonewalling of the Blue Star search hindered the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) aspect of the Hunter Biden probe.
“On September 3rd, 2020, the slow-walking of process continued when AUSA Wolf stated that a search warrant for the emails for Blue Star Strategies was being sat on by OEO,” Shapley told the House Ways and Means Committee.
“She indicated it would likely not get approved. This was a significant blow to the Foreign Agents Registration Act piece of the investigation.”
Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings hired Blue Star to lobby the Obama administration in late 2015 ahead of then-Vice President Biden’s December 2015 trip to Ukraine. Blue Star sent Burisma Joe Biden’s talking points for the trip a few days before it took place, a memo released by the Ways and Means Committee shows.
The year before, Joe Biden used an alias to exchange dozens of emails with Hunter Biden’s business associate Eric Schwerin, with most of their communications happening around Joe Biden’s June 2014 Ukraine trip, email metadata released Dec. 5 by the Ways and Means Committee revealed.
In late 2016, Blue Star and Schwerin celebrated a “victory lap” when it appeared Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky was going to be cleared by Ukrainian authorities, emails show. Blue Star also did lobbying work for the Ukrainian prosecutor who decided to go easy on Zlochevsky, according to internal State Department emails.
The Ukrainian prosecutor who let off Zlochevsky replaced Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor who was fired after Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion of funding for Ukraine. Burisma considered Shokin a “threat” to the firm’s business, former Burisma board member and Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer told Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson in August.
Ep. 13 Part 2. Devon Archer pic.twitter.com/R1sxSuPrKq
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 4, 2023
Archer testified before the House Oversight Committee in July and recalled how the Biden family “brand” protected Burisma from scrutiny. He also told lawmakers about a spring 2015 dinner Joe Biden attended alongside Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi.
Burisma paid Hunter Biden over $80,000 per month when his father was leading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, bank records indicate. His salary from Burisma dropped significantly when former President Trump took office, a federal indictment leveled against Hunter Biden in California shows.
Hunter Biden is facing nine federal tax charges in California in addition to three federal gun charges in Delaware as part of special counsel David Weiss’ ongoing criminal investigation. Weiss, the Delaware U.S. Attorney and Wolf’s old boss, defended her when he testified in November before the House Judiciary Committee, according to a transcript reviewed by the Caller.
In September, Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to answer questions about Wolf when he testified publicly before the Judiciary Committee because of alleged physical threats to her safety.
Garland appointed Weiss special counsel in August after the IRS whistleblowers first came forward and Hunter Biden’s guilty plea deal in Delaware for two tax misdemeanor charges collapsed in federal court.
Delaware U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika derailed Hunter Biden’s guilty plea arrangement by scrutinizing a prosecutorial immunity provision inside of a pretrial diversion agreement for a felony gun charge tied to the guilty plea arrangement.
Wolf declined to answer specific questions surrounding the diversion agreement and instead made general claims about her understanding of pretrial diversion agreements.
Christopher J. Clark, Hunter Biden’s defense attorney at the time, subsequently withdrew from the case because of his role in the failed negotiations.
Wolf played a central role in orchestrating the guilty plea and diversion agreement after spending years on the Hunter Biden case, Politico first reported. Clark submitted a court filing Dec. 11 confirming Wolf’s central role in the negotiations to support Hunter Biden’s attempt to get the Delaware gun charges dismissed. His legal team has argued the diversion agreement is still legally binding.
House Republicans released a lengthy report Dec. 5 detailing how testimony from Weiss and other DOJ, FBI and IRS officials confirmed significant allegations brought forward by the IRS whistleblowers prior to Weiss’ special counsel appointment. Shapley and Ziegler said in a statement after the Dec. 7 California indictment they had been vindicated.
The White House pushed back against the IRS whistleblower allegations and the House GOP in a Dec. 5 memo circulated by spokesperson Ian Sams.
Hunter Biden is suing the IRS for alleged illegal disclosures by the whistleblowers. Ziegler has accused Hunter Biden of trying to silence them with the lawsuit.
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Henry Rodgers contributed to this report.
James Lynch can be reached on Twitter @jameslynch32.
