Former Head Of DOJ Tax Division Urges Federal Judge To ‘Trash’ Hunter Biden Plea Deal
The former chief of the Justice Department’s tax division is calling on the federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s plea bargain with U.S. prosecutors to reject the agreement.
Eileen O’Connor, who ran the DOJ tax division from 2001 to 2007, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday outlining why the plea agreement Hunter Biden struck with the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office ought to be dismissed.
“Judges can reject plea agreements,” O’Connor wrote. “That would be an appropriate disposition here.”
“The Justice Department’s alleged foot-dragging and refusal to permit IRS special agents to follow the evidence allowed the statutes of limitations for 2014 and 2015 to expire, notwithstanding that Mr. Biden’s defense counsel had, according to [whistleblower Gary] Shapley, agreed to more than one extension,” O’Connor wrote. “Far worse, Mr. Garland’s failure to designate Mr. Weiss a special counsel essentially guaranteed that Mr. Biden wouldn’t be prosecuted for any of his alleged tax crimes.”
“The ‘criminal information’ — the charging document in the absence of an indictment,” O’Connor explained, “states that Mr. Biden received but didn’t pay federal taxes on ‘taxable income in excess of $1,500,000.00’ in 2017 and 2018.”
“House Oversight Committee Republicans claim to have seen Treasury Department suspicious-activity reports suggesting that Mr. Biden received vastly more than that during the years the IRS was investigating,” O’Connor wrote. “Congress, in fulfillment of its oversight obligation, must learn and share with the American public what evidence the IRS gathered, what evidence its agents weren’t permitted to obtain, and what charges might have been brought if they had.”
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thefederalist.com
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