An IRS whistleblower told CBS News that while helping to oversee the five-year probe of Hunter Biden he repeatedly was stopped from taking steps that would have been considered routine in other cases.
Gary Shapley, a 14-year IRS veteran who testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in May, spoke to CBS News Tuesday.
“We have to make sure as a special agent for IRS Criminal Investigation that we treat every single person exactly the same,” Shapley told CBS News. “And that just simply didn’t happen here.”
Shapley told CBS News that his efforts to investigate money trails that involved “dad” or “the big guy” – references to President Joe Biden – were blocked by a senior prosecutor working for U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who led the probe.
President Biden has denied involvement in his son’s business affairs.
“I would say that they limited certain investigative leads that could have potentially provided information on the president of the United States,” Shapley said.
Shapley and another whistleblower told the House panel that they questioned whether Weiss was free to bring charges he saw fit.
Shapley told CBS News that he provided lawmakers with a contemporaneous e-mail correspondence he wrote after a meeting on Oct. 7, 2022.
“Weiss stated that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed,” Shapley wrote to his supervisor.
“There were really earth-shaking statements made by David Weiss that really brought to light some of my previous concerns. And the first one was that he is not the deciding person on whether or not charges are filed,” Shapley told CBS News. “It was just shocking to me.”
Shapley also questioned Attorney General Merrick Garland’s comments on Friday that Weiss had “complete authority to make all decisions on his own” and required no permission from Justice Department headquarters to bring charges.
“I documented exactly what happened,” Shapley said. “And it doesn’t seem to match what the attorney general or the U.S. attorney are saying today.”
Members of the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday released redacted transcripts of testimony from Shapley and another IRS employee who worked on Hunter Biden’s tax evasion case. The two whistleblowers reported misconduct and government abuse from the agency and the FBI.
Early last week, a letter filed in U.S. district court in Delaware showed that Hunter Biden was charged with failing to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon and reached an agreement with the Justice Department.
As part of the agreement, Hunter Biden will plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses and is expected to reach an agreement with prosecutors on the felony charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user.
A hearing to approve the plea deal has been scheduled for July 26 before Judge Maryellen Noreika at the federal courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware.
Shapley told CBS News he believes stronger charges could have been brought.
“Based on my experience, if this was a small business owner or any other non-connected individual, they would have been charged with felony counts,” Shapley told CBS News.
Shapley told CBS News that Hunter Biden wrote off as business expenses the money he paid for “prostitutes, sex club memberships, travel for the prostitutes, hotel rooms for purported drug dealers, no-show employees.”