Former FBI Agent Confirms Biden Team Received Tip About Hunter Investigation
A former FBI agent told the House Oversight Committee last month that the office had briefed President Biden’s transition team on plans to interview first son Hunter Biden in December 2020, backing up key statements by an IRS whistleblower.
The former FBI supervisory special agent – identified as Joe Gordon in whistleblower Gary Shapley’s testimony – told the panel in a statement Transcribed interview of July 17th that his superiors informed the Secret Service executives of the planned interrogation, rather than just notifying the local protection agency branch.
“I know I was upset when I found out about this,” the former investigator said, according to a transcript released Monday, adding that Shapley’s recollection of the matter was “correct.”
“And there was no explanation,” Gordon continued. “It just is.”
The Secret Service warning shattered plans to question Hunter and other witnesses as part of a planned “day of action” scheduled for December 8, 2020, days after the first son following Joe Biden’s election to the presidency received Secret Service protection had.
Neither Gordon nor Shapley were allowed near Hunter’s home — an order the former FBI agent says he had never received in his 20-year career in federal law enforcement — and were told to respond to a call on Dec. 8 wait The Secret Service gives them permission to interrogate Hunter.
But the call never came, and Gordon and Shapley both testified.
Regulatory Republicans said the statement bolstered claims by Shapley and IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler that US Attorney from Delaware David Weiss mishandled the Hunter investigation.
On Friday, US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel at the prosecutor’s request — weeks after a settlement his office negotiated with the first son failed in federal court.
“We have no confidence in U.S. Attorney Weiss as Special Counsel due to his inability to prevent contact with the Biden transition team and other wrongdoing during the criminal investigation into Biden,” the GOP lawmakers’ oversight said said monday on xthe site formerly known as Twitter.
On May 26, Shapley told the House Ways and Means Committee in a transcribed interview that FBI headquarters had briefed the Secret Service “essentially on the Action Day” plan.
The Dec. 7, 2020, phone call “warned a group of people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden and gave that group the opportunity to obstruct the approach to the witnesses,” he stressed.
“Gordon and I were waiting in the car outside Hunter Biden’s California residence, waiting for a call,” Shapley said. “It came as no surprise that the call SSA Gordon received was from his ASAC Alfred Watson advising us that Hunter Biden would be contacting us through his attorneys.”
“Later that morning we received a phone call from Hunter Biden’s attorneys saying he would accept service for all document requests, but we were unable to speak to his client,” he added.
Shapley recalled that investigators were only able to question one witness in the case, Rob Walker, a Biden family associate – who had helped distribute hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign sources to members of the first family.
Before testifying before Congress, the FBI sent Gordon a letter warning him not to say anything about “deliberations or ongoing investigative activities.”
The transcript shows that the letter prompted Gordon and his attorney to ask the committee to limit the scope of its questioning to the foiled approach to Hunter Biden. Attempts to discuss deliberations about possible charges against the first son were among the questions not admitted.
