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  • Whistleblowers say IRS recommended far more charges, including felonies, against Hunter Biden | CNN Politics

    Whistleblowers say IRS recommended far more charges, including felonies, against Hunter Biden | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Two whistleblowers told Congress that IRS investigators recommended charging Hunter Biden with attempted tax evasion and other felonies, which are far more serious crimes than what the president’s son has agreed to plead guilty to, according to transcripts of their private interviews with lawmakers.

    The IRS whistleblowers said the recommendation called for Hunter Biden to be charged with tax evasion and filing a false tax return – both felonies – for 2014, 2018 and 2019. The IRS also recommended that prosecutors charge him with failing to pay taxes on time, a misdemeanor, for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to the transcripts, which were released Thursday by House Republicans.

    It appears that this 11-count charging recommendation also had the backing of some Justice Department prosecutors, but not from more senior attorneys, according to documents that the whistleblowers provided to House investigators.

    In a deal with prosecutors announced earlier this week, Hunter Biden is pleading guilty to just two tax misdemeanors.

    The allegations come from Gary Shapley, a 14-year IRS veteran, who oversaw parts of the Hunter Biden criminal probe, and an unnamed IRS agent who was on the case nearly from its inception. Shapley approached Congress this year with information that he claimed showed political interference in the investigation. He and the entire IRS team were later removed from the probe.

    “I am alleging, with evidence, that DOJ provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in this investigation,” Shapley told lawmakers.

    David Weiss, the Trump-appointed US attorney in Delaware who oversaw the Hunter Biden criminal probe, eventually reached a plea deal where the president’s son will plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay taxes on time. The plea agreement will also resolve a separate felony gun charge, if Hunter Biden abides by certain court-imposed conditions for a period of time.

    Hunter Biden isn’t pleading guilty to any felonies, and he wasn’t charged with any tax felonies. CNN reported that prosecutors are expected to recommend no jail time. He is scheduled to appear in federal court in Delaware on July 26.

    It isn’t uncommon for there to be internal disagreements among investigators over which charges to file against the target of an investigation, much like the disagreements that the IRS whistleblowers described. CNN reported last year that some FBI and IRS investigators were at odds with other Justice Department officials over the strength of the case, and that there were discussions over which types of charges were appropriate and whether further investigation was needed.

    Sources familiar with the criminal probe told CNN in April that prosecutors were still actively weighing a felony tax charge against Hunter Biden. And it is common for prosecutors to strike deals with defendants where they plead guilty to a small subset of the possible charges they could’ve faced.

    The Justice Department probe into Hunter Biden was opened in November 2018, and was codenamed “Sportsman.” According to Shapley’s testimony, federal investigators knew as early as June 2021 that there were potential venue-related issues with charging Hunter Biden in Delaware. Under federal law, charges must be brought in the jurisdiction where the alleged crimes occurred.

    If the potential charges couldn’t be brought in Delaware, then Weiss would need help from his fellow US attorneys. He looked to Washington, DC, where some of Hunter Biden’s tax returns were prepared, and the Central District of California, which includes the Los Angeles area where Hunter Biden lives.

    But Shapley told the committee that the US attorneys in both districts wouldn’t seek an indictment.

    A second whistleblower, an IRS case agent who also testified to the committee but hasn’t been publicly identified, also told lawmakers that this is what happened. He agreed that Weiss was “was told no” when he tried to get the cooperation of the US attorneys in in DC and Los Angeles, who are Biden appointees.

    Hunter Biden’s eventual plea agreement was filed in Weiss’ jurisdiction, in Delaware.

    Shapley contends in his interview that Attorney General Merrick Garland was not truthful when he told Congress that Weiss had full authority on the investigation.

    Shapley recounted a meeting on October 7, 2022, where, according to Shapley’s notes memorializing the meeting, Weiss said, “He is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed” against Hunter Biden. This undermines what Weiss and Garland have publicly said about Weiss’ independence on the matter.

    Shapley also testified to committee investigators that it was during this October 2022 meeting that he learned for the first time that Weiss had requested to be named as a special counsel, but was denied.

    In testimony to Congress in March, Garland said Weiss was advised “he is not to be denied anything he needs.”

    Regarding the claims of political interference with the Hunter Biden criminal probe, Weiss told House Republicans in a recent letter that Garland granted him “ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges.”

    After the transcripts were released Thursday, spokespeople for the US attorney’s offices in DC and Los Angeles issued near-identical statements reiterating that Weiss “was given full authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction he deemed appropriate.” The Justice Department echoed those comments in a statement saying Weiss “needs no further approval” to bring charges wherever he wants.

    The whistleblowers also allege that at multiple key junctures, investigators were thwarted in their efforts because prosecutors were concerned about interfering in the 2020 presidential election.

    In 2020, IRS investigators sought to conduct search warrants and take other overt steps. But according to Shapley, several weeks before the election, in September 2020, a Justice Department prosecutor questioned the optics of searching Hunter Biden’s residence and Joe Biden’s guest home.

    Later that year, other planned searches were delayed because then-President Donald Trump was refusing to concede and was continuing to contest the results.

    Republicans have slammed the plea agreement Hunter Biden struck as a “sweetheart deal,” and said it amounted to “a slap on the wrist.”

    House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith said earlier Thursday that the transcripts reveal “credible whistleblower testimony alleging misconduct and abuse” at the Justice Department that “resulted in preferential treatment for the president’s son.”

    The Missouri Republican highlighted the whistleblowers’ allegations that the Justice Department “overstepped” in their efforts to intervene in the Hunter Biden criminal probe.

    “The testimony … details a lack of US attorney independence, recurring unjustified delays, unusual actions outside the normal course of any investigation, a lack of transparency across the investigation and prosecution teams, and bullying and threats from the defense counsel,” Smith said.

    Democrats on the committee said the transcripts were “a premature and incomplete record” of what happened with the Hunter Biden probe and accused the GOP of a “stunning abuse of power.”

    Hunter Biden’s lawyer pushed back in a statement Friday against the whistleblowers claims, saying it was “preposterous and deeply irresponsible” to suggest that federal investigators “cut my client any slack” during their “extensive” five-year probe.

    “A close examination of the document released publicly yesterday by a very biased individual raises serious questions over whether it is what he claims it to be,” attorney Chris Clark said. “It is dangerously misleading to make any conclusions or inferences based on this document.”

    Shapley, the IRS supervisor-turned-whistleblower, told House lawmakers that Justice Department prosecutors denied requests to look into messages allegedly from Hunter Biden where he used his father as leverage to pressure a Chinese company into paying him.

    “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” according to a document Shapley gave to Congress, which quotes from texts that are allegedly from Hunter Biden to the CEO of a Chinese fund management company.

    The message continues: “Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand. And now means tonight.” The message goes onto say, “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

    The second, unnamed IRS whistleblower also testified to lawmakers about this alleged WhatsApp message, saying prosecutors questioned whether they could be sure Hunter Biden was telling the truth that his father was actually in the room in the messages. The unnamed whistleblower testified that they did not know whether the FBI investigated the message.

    Shapley told House investigators that a Justice Department attorney insisted that the FBI not ask directly about Joe Biden when doing interviews. But the FBI did manage to ask one key witness about Joe Biden, and Shapley said the witness told investigators that some suggestions of the president’s involvement were overstated.

    An email sent among business partners of Hunter Biden said an equity stake should be held “for the big guy,” an apparent reference to Joe Biden, who was vice president at the time. But one of the associates told the FBI that it was probably just “wishful thinking or maybe he was just projecting” that Joe Biden would get involved if he did not run for president in 2016.

    Joe Biden has repeatedly denied having any involvement in his son’s overseas business dealings, where he made millions of dollars from China, Ukraine and other countries. House Republicans have used their oversight probes to look for evidence that Joe Biden was actually involved.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Pentagon watchdog finds some Western weaponry sent to Ukraine was stolen before being recovered last year | CNN Politics

    Pentagon watchdog finds some Western weaponry sent to Ukraine was stolen before being recovered last year | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Criminals, volunteer fighters and arms traffickers in Ukraine stole some Western-provided weapons and equipment intended for Ukrainian troops last year before it was recovered, according to a Defense Department inspector general report obtained by CNN.

    The plots to steal the weaponry and equipment were disrupted by Ukraine’s intelligence services and it was ultimately recovered, according to the report, titled “DoD’s Accountability of Equipment Provided to Ukraine.” CNN obtained the report via a Freedom of Information Act request. Military.com first reported the news.

    But the inspector general report noted that after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the Defense Department’s ability to track and monitor all of the US equipment pouring into Ukraine, as required by law under the Arms Export Control Act, faced “challenges” because of the limited US presence in the country.

    According to the report, which examined the period of February-September 2022, the Office of Defense Cooperation-Kyiv “was unable to conduct required [end-use monitoring] of military equipment that the United States provided to Ukraine in FY 2022.”

    “The inability of DoD personnel to visit areas where equipment provided to Ukraine was being used or stored significantly hampered ODC-Kyiv’s ability to execute” the monitoring, the report added.

    The report is dated October 6, 2022. In late October, the US resumed on-site inspections of Ukrainian weapons depots as a way to better track where the equipment was going. The department has also provided the Ukrainians with tracking systems, including scanners and software, the Pentagon’s former under secretary of defense for policy, Colin Kahl, told lawmakers in February.

    But the report underscores how difficult it was in the early days of the war for the US to track the billions of dollars worth of weapons and equipment it was sending to Ukraine.

    Republicans have criticized the Biden administration over what they view as a lack of accountability over the billions of dollars of aid going to Ukraine. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said earlier this year that he supports Ukraine but doesn’t “support a blank check.” The same sentiment has been shared by Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    CNN reported in April 2022 that the Biden administration was willing to take the risk of losing track of weapons supplied to Ukraine despite a lack of visibility, as they saw it as critical to Ukraine’s defeat of Russian forces.

    “We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero,” a source briefed on US intelligence told CNN at the time. “It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.”

    US European Command tried to alleviate the issue last year by requesting and maintaining hand receipts from the Ukrainians, which the Ukrainians made a “good faith effort” to provide, the report says, citing EUCOM personnel. The personnel did not provide the IG with corroborating paperwork by the time the investigation concluded, however, the report notes.

    The Office of Defense Cooperation-Kyiv also asked the Ukrainian government for expenditure, loss, and damage reports for US-provided equipment, the report says, and they “made efforts to prevent illicit proliferation of defense material provided by the United States.”

    Still, criminal organizations managed to steal some weaponry and equipment provided by the US and its allies, the report says.

    In late June 2022, an organized crime group overseen by an unnamed Russian official joined a volunteer battalion using forged documents and stole weapons, including a grenade launcher and machine gun, and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, the report says. Ukraine’s intelligence service disrupted the plot, according to the report.

    That same month, Ukraine’s intelligence services also disrupted a plot by arms traffickers working to sell weapons and ammunition they stole from the frontlines in southern Ukraine, as well as a separate plot by Ukrainian criminals posing as aid workers who stole $17,000 worth of bulletproof vests, the report says.

    And in August 2022, Ukraine’s intelligence services discovered a group of volunteer battalion members who stole 60 rifles and almost 1,000 rounds of ammunition and stored them in a warehouse, “presumably for sale on the black market.”

    The report does not specify whether the weapons and equipment were American, but the anecdotes are outlined in a highly redacted section that deals with Ukrainian tracking of US-provided weaponry.

    The Pentagon inspector general wrote that some larger items like missiles and helicopters were easier to track through intelligence mechanisms. Smaller items, like night-vision devices, however, were harder to monitor.

    The report ultimately does not make any recommendations, noting that the Defense Department “has made some efforts to mitigate the inability to conduct in-person” monitoring.

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  • Could Donald Trump serve as president if convicted? | CNN Politics

    Could Donald Trump serve as president if convicted? | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Donald Trump has been indicted on federal charges related to 2020 election subversion, a stunning third time this year that the former president has faced criminal charges.

    But could the former president, who remains the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, assume the Oval Office again if convicted of the alleged crimes? In short, yes.

    University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard L. Hasen – one of the country’s leading experts on election law – said Trump still has a path to serving as president should he win reelection in 2024.

    “The Constitution has very few requirements to serve as President, such as being at least 35 years of age. It does not bar anyone indicted, or convicted, or even serving jail time, from running as president and winning the presidency,” he said in an email to CNN.

    Could a president serve from prison? That’s less clear.

    “How someone would serve as president from prison is a happily untested question,” Hasen said.

    The newest criminal counts against Trump include: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.

    Those are in addition to a total of 40 counts in a separate federal indictment related to the special counsel’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents, as well as 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in Manhattan related to an alleged hush money payment scheme and cover-up involving an adult film star.

    If Trump were to be convicted before the 2024 election and win the contest, he could try to grant himself a pardon, according to Hasen.

    “Whether he can do so is untested. The Supreme Court may have to weigh in,” Hasen said, adding that Trump could potentially appeal a conviction to the conservative Supreme Court.

    Special counsel Jack Smith told reporters that he will seek a “speedy trial,” but if Trump was to be elected before a trial concluded, he may be able dismiss it entirely.

    Robert Ray, an attorney who defended Trump in his first impeachment trial, said on CNN following Trump’s June indictment in the classified documents case that the former president “would control the Justice Department” if reelected, adding that if the documents case was pending at that time, “he just dismisses the case.”

    Asked about the latest indictment, Trump defense attorney John Lauro told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins he thinks a potential trial could last “nine months or a year.”

    Lauro said he will need to see the evidence but that his client deserves as much time as any other American. “Every single person in the United States is entitled to due process, including the former president,” he said.

    If Trump is convicted of a felony at the federal level or in New York, he would be barred from voting in his adoptive home state of Florida, at least until he had served out a potential sentence.

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  • FBI investigating ‘suspicious death’ of woman on Carnival cruise ship | CNN

    FBI investigating ‘suspicious death’ of woman on Carnival cruise ship | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The FBI is investigating the “suspicious death” of a female passenger onboard the Carnival Sunshine cruise ship, the agency announced in a news release Sunday.

    The woman was found unresponsive during the ship’s February 27 voyage to Nassau, Bahamas, the FBI field office in Columbia, South Carolina, said.

    Medical staff and crew members attempted life-saving measures after learning she was unresponsive, but the woman was pronounced dead on the ship, the FBI said.

    “Both the deceased and her husband were debarked in Nassau and Bahamian authorities have already investigated the circumstances and are conducting an autopsy,” Carnival Cruise Line spokesperson Matt Lupoli said in a statement to CNN.

    “We are fully cooperating. This is a matter for authorities in the Bahamas and Charleston and we have no further comments,” said Lupoli.

    On March 4, when the ship returned to Charleston, an FBI team processed the passenger’s room for evidence, the FBI release states.

    The incident was isolated and there wasn’t a threat to any other passengers before or after the woman was found dead, the FBI said.

    The FBI investigates suspicious deaths of US nationals as well as “certain crimes on the high seas,” the release states.

    The incident remains under investigation, the FBI said.

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