Prosecutor Rebuts I.R.S. Official’s Account of Request in Hunter Biden Case
David C. Weiss, the federal prosecutor in Delaware who has led the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden, on Monday rebutted a key element of testimony to Congress by an Internal Revenue Service official who said that Mr. Weiss complained about being blocked from pursuing the case the way he wanted.
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Weiss said that he had never asked Justice Department officials to give him special counsel status to pursue the case, contradicting testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee by the I.R.S. official, Gary Shapley, who said Mr. Weiss had sought that status and been turned down.
Mr. Weiss suggested that Mr. Shapley might have misunderstood him during an October 2022 meeting. Mr. Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, who was appointed to the role under President Donald J. Trump, said in the letter that he had approached a department higher-up about the possibility of requesting status as a special attorney, not as a special counsel.
Deputizing a federal prosecutor as a special attorney is distinct from making one a special counsel. The special attorney provision is, in essence, a workaround that allows an outsider to intervene in cases that span multiple jurisdictions or have special conditions. The special counsel regulations, by contrast, contain internal Justice Department reporting requirements and congressional oversight provisions.
Source: The New York Times
