Michael Ramirez Essay: Hunting For Answers
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Michael Ramirez Essay: Hunting For Answers
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HUNTING FOR ANSWERS
By Michael Ramirez, July 23, 2023
IRS agents and whistle-blowers testified on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, claiming that their investigation of Hunter Biden was impeded by the Department of Justice. Both agents seem to have sterling credentials and no axe to grind
.The first to come forward, Gary Shapley, is a supervisory special agent with 14 years of experience who, according to a CBS News profile, led a dozen agents specializing in international tax and financial crimes. Prior to that, he worked in the Inspector General’s office of the NSA. He is a Republican, but he has not made any political contributions nor worked for any campaigns.
WhistleBlower X turned out to be Joseph Ziegler, an IRS agent with the Criminal Investigations Division. He’s been with the IRS for 13 years and was the lead case agent in the Hunter Biden investigation. Previously, he was an external investigator with Ernst and Young. He is a Democrat with an MBA from John Carroll University.
Ziegler wanted to charge Hunter with multiple felonies and misdemeanors in 2021 for improper business deductions for personal expenses, including deducting college tuition for his children, hotel bills, and escort payments.
Ziegler corroborated Shapley’s testimony that David Weiss told him he wanted to pursue some of the felony charges, but he was being “blocked” by DOJ officials. That delay allowed Hunter Biden to avoid charges by exceeding the statute of limitations. Ziegler also testified that he had found some leads that may have led to President Biden, but was blocked in pursuing those as well.
The best-case scenario for officials in the DOJ and FBI is that Hunter just received preferential treatment. The worst-case scenario is far more nefarious. In that scenario, politically motivated officials had delayed investigations, allowed some felony charges to expire, impeded following leads involving President Biden, blocked Weiss’ pursuit of Special Council status to allow him to have unrestricted authority, and tipped off Hunter’s attorneys on a planned search of his Northern Virginia storage unit.
Now David Weiss has contradicted their testimony, stating that he was given the authority to proceed in whatever manner he chose, and he denies asking for Special Counsel status. However, there is subtlety in the wording of his written statements that some have seen as giving him a little maneuvering room.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has explicitly and forcefully denied all charges and any influence in this case.
The two IRS agents have testified under oath.
Perhaps it is time for Attorney General Garland and U.S. Attorney Weiss to testify under oath as well.
Is Hunter a criminal?
According to Hunter’s political memoir, “Beautiful Things,” he is. Last time I checked, crack was still against the law, and Hunter freely admitted in his book that after a family intervention and fifteen years of rehab and relapses, he convinced his family that he would, once again, check into a rehab facility… but instead, checked into a hotel near BWI Airport, smoked crack, and then flew to Los Angeles for another bender.
Does his freeloading off of foreign entities constitute a crime? They can certainly be described as unethical, improper, unscrupulous, wrong… pick your adjective. But, unless there is a quid pro quo, an exchange resulting from a direct service, it is not against the law.
James Roosevelt, Don Nixon, Billy Carter, Hugh Rodham, Neal Bush… the list goes on and on.
While some on the Right bring up Hunter’s role on the board of Burisma, linking Biden’s 2016 speech threatening to withhold Ukraine aid on the tarmac, and the firing of Shokin as proof of corruption, they have only exposed themselves as willing to deviate from the truth to score political points.
You know who you are… and I wouldn’t believe another word they say.
There is no question that Hunter was not qualified to sit on the board of Burisma or anything else for that matter. Like Neal Bush wasn’t an expert on semiconductors, Hugh Rodham wasn’t an expert on hazelnuts, and Billy Carter wasn’t an expert on Libya, Hunter is no expert on energy production… unless you’re talking about the rush you get from taking drugs. I was going to say, he’s not an expert on natural gas, but having seen him in his tighty-whities laptop photos… well… I digress.
Now, I am not completely discounting the possibility of some nefarious connection between the Bidens and all of these international entities. There certainly was a lot of money making the rounds at Biden family reunions, but there is no concrete proof linking it to a service provided by the big guy… yet.
There is also no link to Biden’s threat, “You’re not getting the billion-I leave in six hours, if the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” and the subsequent dispatching of Ukrainian Prosecutor Shokin to protect Hunter.
The threat was made because Shokin was not cracking down hard or moving fast enough against corruption.
Here’s the quick timeline:
The UK had seized $23 million found in a UK bank while investigating Burisma and its owner, Zlochevsky in February of 2014. That same month, Ukraine launched an investigation of Burisma and Zlochevsky for embezzling public funds. In December, the UK government warned Ukraine to assist in their investigation, but the case went dormant. In February 2015, Shokin became Prosecutor General, but no progress was made.
On September 25th of 2015, in a rare public display, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine accused the country of subverting the corruption investigation.
In 2016, US Embassy officials in Ukraine urged the Obama administration to tie Ukraine aid to efforts exposing corruption. In February 2016, the IMF (The International Monetary Fund) withheld $40 billion in aid to Ukraine because of corruption. In March 2016, Biden made the speech threatening to withhold aid. On March 23rd Shokin was removed as prosecutor.
It is important to make sure prosecutors are held accountable for the charges they bring, and for the charges they do not bring... which brings us back to Hunter.
Many legal experts believe that these types of tax charges, that Hunter was faced with, are rarely charged or result in jail time. And while using firearm charges as the lead charge in an indictment is typical, most are used to go after narcotic traffickers and/or criminals, and not just drug addicts. But some experts believe that Hunter did receive preferential treatment on the gun charge.
The dichotomy of the Biden Department of Justice screaming for stricter gun controls and accountability for illegal gun possession, and at the same time giving Hunter a pass, makes for a good cartoon.
I suppose if it was my son, I would want him to receive the lightest sentence possible. But then again, I don’t have a son that smokes crack.
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