Members of the House Ways and Means Committee, following an executive meeting Thursday, released redacted transcripts of whistleblower testimony from two IRS employees who, after working on Hunter Biden’s tax evasion case, reported misconduct and government abuse from the agency and the FBI.
“Today, the Ways and Means Committee voted to make public the testimony of IRS employees blowing the whistle on misconduct at the IRS and the Biden Department of Justice regarding unequal enforcement of tax law, interference, and government abuse in the handling of investigations into criminal activity by President [Joe] Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and retaliation against IRS employees blowing the whistle on this abuse,” Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., said in a statement about the vote.
The whistleblowers’ allegations, the committee reports, “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 American people deserve to know that when it comes to criminal enforcement, they are not on the same playing field as the wealthy and politically connected class,” Smith said. “The preferential treatment Hunter Biden received would never have been granted to ordinary Americans.”
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He added that the testimony that was given showed that the Justice Department used tactics to delay the investigation “long enough to reach the statute of limitations” and evidence that they “divulged sensitive actions by the investigative team” to Hunter Biden’s attorneys.
Further, he said the testimony shows that the DOJ “denied requests by the U.S. attorney to bring charges against Biden.”
One of the whistleblowers was identified in a transcript of his interview as IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley. The name of the second whistleblower, however, was redacted in the testimony transcript.
The testimony also revealed that the whistleblowers faced retaliation, despite a commitment IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel made to the Ways and Means Committee to uphold their legal protections, Smith added.
“They were removed from this investigation after they responsibly worked through the chain of command to raise these concerns,” he said.
A June 7 letter to the committee from Werfel, also released Thursday, outlined that the IRS has “significant restrictions” from speaking about pending criminal tax investigations, and said that the allegations from the whistleblowers about retaliation measures have been forwarded through the agency’s channels.
The committee listed that it has learned several revelations, including that even though IRS officials recommended Biden be charged with criminal activity that “includes attempts to evade or defeat taxes, fraud and false statements, and willful failures to file returns, supply information, or pay taxes for over $8.3 million in income,” he received preferential treatment, striking a plea deal that will most likely keep him out of jail.
The whistleblowers also revealed that the DOJ interfered in the investigation through a “delay, divulge, and deny” campaign.
For one, there were delays in authenticating a message between Hunter Biden and Chinese officials, the testimony indicated.
The message, shown during a press conference held Thursday, shows that “Hunter Biden demands payment from Chinese officials, noting that his father is in the room,” Smith told reporters.
The testimony shows that U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf told investigators that “there is no way” a search warrant for evidence would get approved, as evidence was located in a guest house owned by then-former Vice President Biden.
The investigators also said they learned from the whistleblowers that Hunter Biden’s attorneys were tipped off about actions that were related to the investigation, including learning that the lawyers were informed when investigators had probable cause to search a Northern Virginia storage unit where he was storing files.
The committee further reported that U.S. Attorney of Delaware David Weiss had tried to bring charges against Biden in the District of Columbia in March 2022, but was denied. In addition, Weiss tried to bring charges in the Central District of California in Fall 2022, and had the request denied in January 2023, and also sought special counsel status from the DOJ in Spring 2022, and was also denied.
Meanwhile, the pattern of retaliation that led the IRS employees to come to the Ways and Means Committee included removing them from the process when they raised concerns through their chain of command.
“One whistleblower was not selected for a position when he was more qualified than the candidate who was selected,” the report said. “Limits and pauses have been placed on other, unrelated investigations that the whistleblowers are working on — which hamper the investigators’ ability to do their work or advance.”
The whistleblowers and their whole investigative team were removed from the investigation this May 15 after reaching out to Congress, the committee noted.
House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., who has been heading an investigation into allegations of a bribery scheme involving President Biden, his son Hunter, and a Ukrainian oligarch, said in a statement following the release of the whistleblower testimony that all along, “Americans have been wondering why the Justice Department took five years to do what H&R Block could have done in five hours.”
“Now we know that Biden’s Justice Department has been actively engaged in a cover-up to protect the Bidens from facing justice,” Comer said. “We now also know that critical evidence contained within the FBI’s Biden bribery record was not shared with tax investigators who have since revealed they had potentially corroborating evidence during the investigation. Americans are angry about this two-tiered system of justice that allows the politically connected to operate above the law.”
He added that in the past five months, his committee has “revealed evidence of corruption, influence peddling, and possibly bribery.”
But Hunter Biden, with a “sweetheart plea deal” and the DOJ’s “efforts to obstruct justice only embolden our efforts to follow the facts and deliver answers, transparency, and accountability to the American people,” said Comer. “We will not rest until the full extent of President Biden’s involvement in his family’s schemes is revealed. Accountability is coming.”
Comer also pointed out that the second IRS whistleblower gave a supplemental document saying that an FD-1023 form concerning an informant’s allegations that President Biden, while vice-president, and his son Hunter had each received $5 million as part of a bribery scheme with the Ukrainian, a Burisma official, was not shared with the tax investigators.
“The whistleblower emphasized it would have been relevant to the investigation, since they had email correspondence from May 2014 referencing a $5 million payment,” said Comer.