(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday gave his most detailed and direct defense yet to allegations raised by IRS agents of potential wrongdoing and political influence in the Justice Department’s probe of Hunter Biden.

For the first time, Garland disputed outright one of the main allegations leveled by the purported whistleblowers: that Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss had requested to be named a special counsel and was turned down by Garland.

“The only person with authority to make somebody a special counsel or refuse to make somebody a special counsel is the attorney general,” Garland said. “Mr. Weiss never made that request to me.”

Garland further said that the level of authority he had chosen to grant Weiss in determining to bring charges actually gave him “more authority than the special counsel would have had” to bring a case against Hunter Biden.

Garland also emphasized that Weiss was never prohibited from bringing charges in jurisdictions other than Delaware — another one of the accusations put forward by the IRS agents.

“I don’t know how it would be possible for anybody to block him from bringing a prosecution, given that he has this authority was never told no,” Garland said.

ABC News then pressed Garland as to whether he would authorize Weiss to speak directly to some of the more specific allegations put forward by the IRS agents, given Weiss has all but declined any requests to comment on the matter other than his letter sent to...

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