Two IRS whistleblowers have claimed they were banned from investigating Joe Biden amid the government’s probe into his son Hunter. Gary Shapley And Joseph Ziegler sat down with veteran journalist Catherine Herridge for an interview where they claimed the IRS looks the other way when it comes to the country’s powerful elite, which they call ‘sensitive persons.’ Ziegler said prosecutors specifically told IRS investigators ‘that they didn’t want to ask about the big guy, because they knew it was Joe Biden.’ The whistleblowers said the IRS, FBI and DOJ knew Hunter Biden‘s laptop was real but they were not allowed to look into it. ‘There were a lot of overt investigative steps that we were not allowed to take because we had an upcoming election,’ Ziegler added.
The whistleblowers said they have been punished for speaking out about the IRS’ treatment of Hunter Biden. ‘The IRS just has a smothering blanket on me hoping that I quit, that they find some way to terminate me or commit suicide or something,’ Shapley claimed. Ziegler, on his part, said he is up against ‘a machine that has millions of dollars that has the ability to fight me.’ Still, Shapley and Ziegler said they feel vindicated that Hunter Biden in the end pleaded guilty to the tax crimes outlined in the indictment against him. The two shared an email they received from their IRS supervisor after Hunter’s conviction thanking them for their work.
‘Those are words that are not supported by the actions of the agency,’ Shapley said. He added: ‘This to me was someone who knows the IRS watchdog is looking into the way that they’ve handled this and they see the writing on the wall. This really is an example of them just covering their backside like a true bureaucracy.’ Shapley and Ziegler previously told congress there was a pattern of ‘slow-walking investigative steps‘ into Hunter Biden, including during the Trump administration in the months before the 2020 election that Joe Biden won.
In testimony, Shapley alleged the DOJ dragged its feet in the probe into the president’s son’s taxes and Ziegler said Hunter ‘received preferential treatment‘ during the process. One of Shapley’s most detailed claims was that U.S. Attorney David Weiss in Delaware, the federal prosecutor who led the investigation, asked for special counsel status in order to bring the tax cases against Hunter Biden in jurisdictions outside Delaware, including the District of Columbia and California, but was denied.
Weiss and the Justice Department have denied that, saying he had ‘full authority‘ and never sought to bring charges in other states. Hunter Biden filed a civil lawsuit against the IRS claiming Shapley and Ziegler were part of a ‘campaign to publicly smear‘ the president’s son. Shapley first came forward in 2023 during an interview with CBS News.
Last month, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to misdemeanor and felony tax charges. The indictment brought last year grew out of an investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes that began in 2018 under the Trump administration. Prosecutors alleged that Hunter Biden lived lavishly while flouting the tax law, spending his cash on things like strippers and luxury hotels — ‘in short, everything but his taxes.’ The charges in both the gun and tax cases stemmed from a period in Hunter Biden’s life in which he struggled with drug and alcohol abuse before becoming sober in 2019.
These revelations were also published in the Catherine Herridge Reports newsletter
Source: Daily Mail
