Prosecutors listed in Hunter Biden filings 'had no previous involvement in case'

Lawyers are questioning whether the Delaware attorney's office kicked their most experienced prosecutors off the Hunter Biden case – just before they filed minor charges against the president's son.

Whistleblowers who ran the IRS criminal probe into Hunter for five years told Congress about their travails with veteran Delaware prosecutors Lesley Wolf, Shawn Weede, and Shannon Hanson.

But in a letter to a federal judge last week announcing the charges against Hunter, Delaware US Attorney David Weiss listed three different prosecutors who have apparently had no previous involvement in the case – leading to questions of a last-minute overhaul by the Delaware DoJ. 

Under Weiss's signature, the June 20 letter lists Assistant US Attorneys Leo Wise, Derek Hines, and Benjamin Wallace.

Te office has been criticized for only filing 'slap-on-the-wrist' charges against the First Son, two cases of willful failure to pay tax and a firearms charge for which he will take pre-trial diversion 

The three original Delaware prosecutors who worked on the five-year investigation into Hunter Biden appear to have been replaced in the case just before the first son was officially charged

Veteran Delaware prosecutors Lesley Wolf, Shawn Weede, and Shannon Hanson spent five years working on the case with IRS whistleblowers 

Delaware US Attorney David Weiss's court filings in the Hunter criminal case did not include Wolf, Weede, or Hanson's names 

A lawyer for IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who ran the agency's five-year criminal probe into the First Son, told DailyMail.com: 'None of the three were involved in the underlying investigation during Gary's tenure, to my knowledge.'

One of the prosecutors listed on Weiss's letter, Assistant US Attorney (AUSA) Ben Wallace, only joined the Delaware office in March this year.

On Monday DailyMail.com revealed that another, Derek Hines, has a potential conflict having worked from 2013 to 2015 as 'Special Counsel' to one of Hunter's business partners, ex-FBI director Louis Freeh.

And AUSA Leo Wise was drafted to the Delaware office after being demoted from Chief of the Public Corruption and Fraud Unit at the Maryland US Attorney's Office to a mere line prosecutor in the same unit in March, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Shapley, an IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent, and his subordinate who has not been identified, blew the whistle to Congress this year, claiming the Justice Department 'slow-walked' the Biden probe and failed to prosecute when they had ample evidence before the 2020 presidential election.

In more than 400 pages of transcribed sworn testimony published by the House Ways and Means Committee last month, the two IRS officials named several members of Weiss's office who they worked with for years on the probe.

But Wise, Hines and Wallace's names are nowhere to be found in their testimony.

The three prosecutors appear to have been replaced with Assistant US Attorneys Derek Hines and Leo Wise

Benjamin Wallace, the third prosecutor listed on Weiss's letter,  only joined the Delaware office in March this year

Under Weiss's signature, the June 20 letter lists Assistant US Attorneys Leo Wise, Derek Hines, and Benjamin Wallace

Weiss's deputy, AUSA Wolf, appears to have been a key figure in the Delaware prosecution team, but was not listed on Weiss's letter to the judge.

There were 53 mentions of Wolf in Shapley's testimony, and 30 mentions of her in the testimony of Shapley's IRS special agent subordinate and fellow whistleblower. 

Shapley and 'Whistleblower X' also referenced Delaware criminal chief prosecutor Shawn Weede, and assistant prosecutor Shannon Hanson, in their testimony. 

Neither appeared on Weiss's court filings in the Hunter criminal case.

The whistleblowers were critical of Wolf in their comments to the House Ways and Means Committee, saying she blocked attempts to investigate Joe Biden's involvement in Hunter's crimes.

They accused Wolf of tipping off Hunter's lawyers and the Biden presidential transition team to impending FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation interviews of key witnesses, and allowing Hunter's lawyers to get the jump on investigators hoping to search his storage unit.

Wolf allegedly told investigators interviewing Hunter's business partner and Biden family friend Rob Walker that they were not allowed to ask about Joe Biden or the infamous 'big guy' email, which suggested that Hunter would hold 10% of the equity in a deal with a Chinese oil giant on behalf of his father.

Wolf also allegedly told investigators that there was 'more than enough' evidence for a search warrant for the guest house at Joe Biden's Delaware mansion, but questioned whether 'the juice was worth the squeeze' and ultimately decided not to ask for one due to the 'optics'.

DailyMail.com asked the Delaware US Attorney's office why Wolf did not appear on the documents, and why new and less experienced prosecutors had been drafted in.

Hunter reached a deal to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax offenses and face probation for lying on a federal form to purchase a gun, which will see him likely avoid jail time. The deal was slammed by Republicans as an obvious show of preferential treatment for President Joe Biden's 52-year-old son

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley told CBS News that Hunter Biden did receive special treatment – and said he was prevented from taking the routine steps during the investigation into the president's son

A spokesperson said: 'We decline to comment on staffing and personnel matters.'

Wallace, one of the three assistant prosecutors named in Weiss's June 20 letter to the judge, was working as a law partner at the Washington DC office of Kirkland & Ellis until March 2023 when he joined the Delaware US Attorney's Office.

He previously worked as a law clerk at the US Supreme Court. He graduated high school in 2008 in Wilmington, Delaware, then studied at the University of Virginia and Yale Law School.

His colleague Wise was recently drafted to Weiss's team from the Maryland US Attorney's Office in Baltimore.

Wise has a history of tackling corruption cases including prosecutions against the city's former mayor Catherine Pugh, the former police chief, two state lawmakers and a squad of corrupt Baltimore cops.

However, a report in the Baltimore Sun on March 28 this year said that Wise had been demoted from his role as chief of the Maryland office's public corruption and fraud unit.

Wise was leading the prosecution of former State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby for perjury and false mortgage applications as the unit's chief, but was reportedly demoted to a mere line prosecutor in the unit, while his colleague AUSA Harry Gruber was promoted to be the new chief.

It is unclear what caused the demotion.

Wise's LinkedIn page says that his role at the Baltimore office ended this year, and updated his profile with a job as Trial Attorney at the DoJ Criminal Division beginning last month.

Weiss's June 30 letter comes more than a week after Hunter Biden reached an agreement with the government to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses

David Weiss – a Trump appointee who was kept on by Biden – has come under intense scrutiny after Shapley and his fellow whistleblower claimed the Delaware attorney had enough evidence to charge Hunter in 2019 and has been sitting on incriminating information about the First Son for years.

Some of Hunter's alleged tax crimes occurred in Washington DC and California, requiring federal prosecutors in those districts to take up the cases.

But Shapley told House staff in sworn testimony that both Central California US Attorney Martin Estrada and DC attorney Matthew Graves refused Weiss's request for them to prosecute in their districts.

The whistleblowers also claimed Weiss told them he was denied special authority from Attorney General Merrick Garland to override his California and DC colleagues – contradicting Garland's sworn testimony to the Senate in March.

Weiss wrote a letter to Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan on Friday insisting he had 'ultimate authority' over the Biden probe 'including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges'.

The federal prosecutor said he had 'been assured' he would be granted authority to file charges 'in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter' if it were required.