Whatever hope Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Biden administration had of using Hunter Biden’s plea deal to end oversight of Biden family business dealings was crushed with the blockbuster testimony of two IRS whistleblowers who scrupulously cataloged how and when Justice Department officials interfered with their investigation of the president’s son.
Any notion that the whistleblowers had a political ax to grind in coming forward was laid to rest early in the hearing when special agent Joe Ziegler noted that he was a lifelong Democrat married to another man. “People are saying that I must be more credible because I’m a Democrat who happens to be married to a man,” Ziegler said. “I’m no more credible than this man sitting next to me due to my sexual orientation or my beliefs. The truth is, my credibility comes today from my job experience with the IRS and my intimate knowledge of the agency’s standard and procedures.”
Ziegler and his supervisor, Gary Shapley, then detailed why the plea deal U.S. Attorney David Weiss accepted from Hunter Biden last month was too lenient given the facts they had established through a lengthy investigation. Not only was Hunter Biden not required to pay any taxes from the income he received from the foreign energy company Burisma in 2014, but he was also not required to amend his false 2018 tax return that includes improper deductions for prostitutes and sex clubs.
Both Shapley and Ziegler testified that based on these facts, Hunter Biden should have been charged with willful evasion of taxes. “I thought the felony charges were well supported,” Ziegler said.
As damning as the details on Hunter Biden’s actions were, the details on how DOJ officials interfered with the investigation were worse. Not only was the IRS denied full access to Hunter Biden’s laptop, but when agents were set to interview the president's son, Justice Department officials intervened and told them to back off. Instead, Hunter Biden was supposedly instructed to call the agents for an interview. But the call never took place.
As a result, the entire investigation was completed without a single interview of Hunter Biden himself. Not only did Justice Department officials actively work to thwart any interrogation of Hunter, but agents were also told they were forbidden any contact with other members of the Biden family, even those who received millions of dollars in income from foreign sources connected to Hunter Biden.
Shapley testified that the “handling of the Hunter Biden tax investigation was very different from any other case in my 14 years at the IRS.”
In addition to the tax charges Hunter Biden should have faced, the IRS agents also noted that while it was outside their jurisdiction, the DOJ seemed to be completely uninterested in the fact that he failed to register as a foreign agent, as he is required to do by law, while he was taking millions of dollars from foreign entities.
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Given the DOJ’s already record low approval rating, Garland and the Biden administration cannot ignore the force of the evidence of nepotism and cover-up that has been presented. The public is now aware and should be aghast at the way in which Biden family wrongdoing was swept under the carpet. There must be answers. Each and every one of the investigatory anomalies identified by the whistleblowers must be transparently and thoroughly addressed.
The House Committee that hosted the whistleblowers should be commended for its work, and we have no doubt it is preparing a list of follow-up questions for the DOJ. President Joe Biden’s political appointees at the DOJ must reverse course, stop running out the clock, and answer the committee's questions exhaustively as soon as possible.