Contradicting Merrick Garland, IRS Whistleblower Insists Justice Department Gave Hunter Biden Special Treatment, Hampered Prosecutor’s Probe

The Internal Revenue Service agent who claims his investigation into Hunter Biden was hampered for political reasons is again speaking out, insisting that federal prosecutors in Delaware wanted to expand their probe of Mr. Biden fils but were shut down by higher-ups in the Department of Justice. His allegations directly contradict the recent and vociferous denials from Attorney General Garland.This comes as new disclosures from Hunter Biden’s encrypted text messages have led to calls for multiple impeachment inquiries against executive branch officials, including Mr. Garland.The IRS supervisory agent, Gary Shapley, spoke with Fox News’s Bret Baier in an interview being aired Wednesday evening, excerpts of which were released Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday evening, Mr. Shapley also spoke to CBS News. Speaking with CBS News’s Jim Axelrod, he said the first son would have faced much harsher punishment if his last name were not Biden. “We have to make sure as a special agent for IRS Criminal Investigation that we treat every single person exactly the same,” Mr. Shapley told the outlet. “And that just simply didn’t happen here.” In the interview set to air Wednesday evening, Mr. Shapley spoke with Mr. Baier about his claim that the DOJ denied a federal prosecutor’s requests for special counsel status, permission to charge Mr. Biden in jurisdictions other than Delaware, and to seek felony indictments. Based on excerpts that have been released from his forthcoming Fox News interview, Mr. Shapley will detail an October 2022 meeting in which the United States attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, said he was hampered by the DOJ. During this meeting, which Mr. Shapley attended with several colleagues, Mr. Weiss allegedly told the group that his attempts at executing search warrants and issuing charges against the first son in California and the District of Columbia were being hamstrung by his superiors. “I even had him repeat that,” Mr. Shapley said about Mr. Weiss’s statement at that meeting. “Not only do I remember it crystal clear, but I documented it” in an email message, he added. In a notable twist in the Hunter Biden saga, the New York Times on Tuesday reported it had confirmed some of Mr. Shapley’s allegations. “But in mid-2022, Mr. Weiss reached out to the top federal prosecutor in Washington, Matthew Graves, to ask his office to pursue charges and was rebuffed, according to Mr. Shapley’s testimony,” Glenn Thrush and Michael Schmidt of the Times wrote. “A similar request to prosecutors in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, was also rejected, Mr. Shapley testified. A second former IRS official, who has not been identified, told House Republicans the same story. That episode was confirmed independently to The New York Times by a person with knowledge of the situation.”For the first time, Mr. Shapley is publicly disclosing some of the specific financial abuses Mr. Biden allegedly committed, which included writing off as business expenses “prostitutes, sex club memberships, travel for the prostitutes, hotel rooms for purported drug dealers, no show employees.”“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,” Mr. Shapley said in his interview with Mr. Axelrod. Other financial crimes experts agree with his assessment. One former federal prosecutor, Gene Rossi, told Mr. Axelrod that the “sweetheart” plea deal Mr. Biden entered into is “embarrassing” for the Department of Justice. “Should he have gotten a felony?” Mr. Rossi asked rhetorically. “Absolutely yes.”Mr. Biden recently entered into a plea agreement with the United States attorney’s office in Delaware that requires him to admit to two misdemeanor charges of willful tax evasion. It is unclear if those business expenses Mr. Shapley detailed are a part of the plea agreement or were investigated by prosecutors at all. The U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Shapley’s allegations have gained increased public attention in recent days as the congressional investigation into the Biden family has yielded new evidence. The recent disclosure of an encrypted text message to a business partner in Communist China in which the younger Mr. Biden invokes his father has press outlets relentlessly questioning White House officials about the president’s involvement. “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction,” the first son wrote to his associate, Henry Zhao, in July 2017. “I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”On Tuesday, when President Biden was asked by Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich if he was sitting next to his son when that message was sent, he said he was not. When asked again Wednesday if he had knowledge of or was involved with his son’s business dealings in Communist China, the president yelled “no” at the reporter who had asked on the South Lawn of the White House.Another series of encrypted text messages released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee show the first son invoked his family name again during business dealings with partners in Communist China. “I can make [$5 million] at any law firm in America,” Mr. Biden wrote in August 2017 to an associate, Gongwen Dong, who was employed by an energy firm linked to the Chinese Communist Party. “If you think this is about money, it’s not. The Biden’s [sic] are the best … at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this partnership,” Mr. Biden said of the chairman of the energy firm for whom he hoped to do work. Mr. Biden demanded $10 million in payment to his company, which led his partner to counter with $5 million. These investigations into the younger Mr. Biden could yield political trouble for executive branch officials involved in the matter. On Monday, Speaker McCarthy said he would initiate impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Garland on July 6 if the nation’s chief law enforcement officer failed to provide information to Congress about the independence of federal prosecutors’ investigation into the first son.

Contradicting Merrick Garland, IRS Whistleblower Insists Justice Department Gave Hunter Biden Special Treatment, Hampered Prosecutor’s Probe

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