By Brittany Bernstein. Media: National Review.
Two IRS whistleblowers claim the Justice Department, FBI, and IRS interfered with the Hunter Biden tax probe, according to testimony released by the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday.
“The allegations point to a steady campaign of: unequal treatment of enforcing tax law; Department of Justice interference in the form of delays, divulgences, and denials, into the investigation of tax crimes that may have been committed by the President’s son; and finally, retaliation against IRS employees who blew the whistle on the misconduct,” the committee said Thursday.
Committee chairman Jason Smith (R., Mo.) said the whistleblowers testified about tactics used by the DOJ to “delay the investigation long enough to reach the statute of limitations.”
The two IRS agents told the committee they pushed for felony charges against Hunter Biden in the tax probe and that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss wanted to bring charges against the younger Biden in the District of Columbia and Southern California last year but was denied by DOJ officials both times.
Weiss also asked to be appointed special counsel in the case on several occasions, including in Spring 2022, but those requests were also rebuffed by the DOJ.
Gary Shapley, who worked as an IRS investigator for over ten years and oversaw the agency’s tax investigation into Hunter Biden, came forward as a whistleblower with claims that the IRS violated normal investigatory protocols to Biden’s benefit.
Shapley wrote a letter to Congress accusing attorney general Merrick Garland of perjuring himself before Congress when he claimed that the investigations into the younger Biden would operate free from political interference.
He said he came forward because “the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Justice Tax, and Department of Justice provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest in an important and high-profile investigation of the President’s son, Hunter Biden.”
Shapley claimed investigators sought to search the Bidens’ Delaware residence in connection with the Hunter Biden tax probe because the younger Biden had spent significant time there. But assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf allegedly warned investigators to consider the optics of performing such an investigation, Shapley said, though investigators believed there was a significant chance they would find a lot of evidence in the home.
“Lesley Wolf told us there was more than enough probable cause for the physical search warrant there,” Shapley said in testimony last month, “but the question was whether the juice was worth the squeeze.”
Shapley said Wolf told the team during a September 2020 meeting that “optics were a driving factor in the decision on whether to execute a search warrant. She said a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden, but said there is no way we will get that approved.”
The IRS agent also claimed that in a July 2017 Whatsapp message from Hunter Biden to his Chinese associate Henry Zhao, a CCP official, the younger Biden wrote that he was “sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.”
“Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” Hunter Biden allegedly wrote in a text to Zhao, whose Harvest Fund Management invested in Hunter Biden’s BHR Partners. “And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
Shapley also claimed Wolf let the younger Biden’s lawyers know that investigators had probable cause to search his North Virginia storage unit, a tip-off that would give him an opportunity to remove evidence ahead of the search.
“The IRS prepared an affidavit in support of a search warrant for the unit in December 2020, but . . . Wolf once again objected,” Shapley said.
Wolf also wouldn’t answer any questions about an email from Hunter Biden’s business associate Rob Walker about “Ten held by H for the big guy.” The email, which was made public by the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s recovered laptop, is suspected to refer to President Biden.
The committee voted on Thursday to release the transcripts. The vote came days after the DOJ announced that Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors related to his failure to pay his taxes in 2017 and 2018. He will also enter a probation agreement that will allow him to avoid jail time for possessing a handgun while intoxicated in 2018.
The gun charge centered on the younger Biden’s acknowledgment in his recent autobiography that he was using crack nearly every 15 minutes around the time he purchased a handgun in 2018 despite claiming on a federal background check that he was not using illicit drugs.
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