U.S. attorney who refused to help prosecute Hunter Biden in California blamed limited resources

The U.S. attorney for the Central District of California declined to help investigators prosecute Hunter Biden for tax fraud because his office had limited resources, he testified last week.

House investigators grilled Biden-appointee Martin Estrada about his decision not to partner with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss in prosecuting the president’s son over his failure to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes in California.

In a transcript reviewed by The Washington Times, Mr. Estrada said he offered instead to provide Mr. Weiss with administrative assistance and office space to pursue charges against Hunter Biden on his own in California.

Mr. Estrada said his office was stretched too thin to pitch in on the case. Only 40 assistant U.S. attorneys were working in the office at the time and they were overwhelmed with criminal cases, many of them involving the deadly drug fentanyl, he said.

“We were very resource-strapped,” Mr. Estrada explained to investigators on the House Judiciary Committee, which interviewed him on Oct. 24. “We were trying to hire as much as possible and had very limited resources. And every attorney you assign to a case means you can’t do another case.”

Mr. Estrada refused to provide investigators with the conclusions reached by his assistant U.S. attorneys who had advised him “not to co-counsel or partner” with Mr. Weiss on charging the president’s son.

“What I can say at a high level is, generally, when we evaluate cases, we do so under the Justice Manual guidelines. We look at whether a federal offense has been committed and whether we believe that there is admissible evidence sufficient to prove to an unbiased trier of fact that an individual has committed an offense beyond a reasonable doubt,” he told investigators.

Mr. Estrada is one of two U.S. attorneys who refused to partner with Mr. Weiss on charging Hunter Biden for failing to pay his taxes.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, who was a former Biden campaign advisor, told House investigators earlier this month that Mr. Weiss could have charged Hunter Biden in Washington with tax fraud and would have received only administrative help from his office to do so.

The charges in Washington involved $124,000 in unpaid taxes from roughly $1 million in income Hunter Biden received in 2014 while serving on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma.

Mr. Graves refused to tell lawmakers why he made that decision, citing an ongoing investigation. He also declined to provide the names of the individuals in his office who worked on the decision with him.

Critics say the move by Mr. Graves was intended to shield the Bidens from a case that may have exposed evidence of influence peddling involving the elder Mr. Biden when he was vice president in the Obama administration.

In both the California and Washington cases, Mr. Weiss did not pursue the tax fraud charges and the statute of limitations expired.

In a statement provided to the Associated Press, Mr. Estrada said he told the House Judiciary Committee he believed Mr. Weiss had full authority to bring charges and offered him logistical support.

“I did not and could not ’block’ Mr. Weiss since he did not need my approval to bring charges in my district,” he said.

It’s not clear whether Hunter Biden will ever face charges for failing to pay his taxes.

Mr. Weiss has been appointed special counsel in the case and has filed three federal gun charges against Hunter Biden but has not revived charges of failing to pay more than $100,000 in taxes. Those charges were dismissed after a plea deal fell apart in court this summer.