Elle Purnell of the Federalist argues that the U.S. Justice Department’s major problems extend beyond its leader.
Following the sensational whistleblower testimony that dropped Thursday, revealing how the Department of Justice systematically blocked an IRS investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter and diverted agents from examining the incriminating evidence against his presidential father, House Republicans are threatening the overdue impeachment of Attorney General Merrick Garland — except most of the pro-Biden interference in the DOJ happened before Garland was installed, while President Donald Trump was still in office.
Does Garland still deserve impeachment for his assortment of abuses, such as sitting on his hands to avoid real accountability for the younger Biden (and his pop), while weaponizing the country’s top law enforcement agency to try to send Biden’s top presidential challenger to federal prison? Absolutely. Is it smart politically for Kevin McCarthy to use the current momentum to hold Garland to account? Probably. Is the alleged involvement in a foreign bribery scheme enough to merit Biden’s own impeachment? Most definitely.
But if the blame — and punishment — for the DOJ corruption revealed by whistleblowers stops with Merrick Garland or even Joe Biden, it will happen again.
That’s because the Justice Department’s pattern of shielding the Biden family from the law wasn’t masterminded by either man. It happened because of career officials and bureaucrats, whose names most Americans don’t know, and whom Americans will never have the chance to vote out. They didn’t have to be told what to do.
According to whistleblower Gary Shapley, it was in late 2019, a year before Joe Biden was elected, that the FBI acquired and authenticated the infamous laptop Hunter Biden left at a Delaware computer repair shop. The IRS began an investigation into likely tax crimes almost immediately.
Between April and June 2020, when IRS agents were preparing to execute interviews and search warrants, it was “career DOJ officials,” Shapley said, who “purposely slow-walk[ed] investigative actions.”
