Hunter Biden launched a lawsuit against the IRS on Monday, alleging IRS whistleblowers improperly disclosed information to congressional investigators about the Justice Department’s tax probe into his financial affairs.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers claim when IRS agents informed Congress and news organizations of the Justice Department’s alleged mishandling of its tax probe into the president’s son, the IRS whistleblowers allegedly disclosed the damning allegations improperly.
Among the allegations, the whistleblowers alleged Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf refused to allow investigators to ask about President Joe Biden being “the big guy,” the DOJ twice prevented United States Attorney David Weiss from bringing stronger charges against Hunter Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to name a special counsel in the tax investigation, and the IRS recommended charges against Hunter Biden that were not approved by Garland.
“This assault on Mr. Biden’s rights involved the public disclosure of his confidential tax information during more than 20 nationally televised and non-congressionally sanctioned interviews and numerous public statements,” the lawsuit alleges against his father’s government.
IRS agent whistleblowers told Congress that Hunter Biden fails to pay $125,000 in taxes from income received from Burisma Holdings — all while President Joe Biden supercharged the IRS to catch tax cheats upon assuming office. https://t.co/fDHYTJoqjy
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 19, 2023
The disclosures included “detailed allegations regarding the specific tax years under investigation, the amounts of deductions, the nature of those deductions, and allegations of liability regarding specific tax years and the amount thereof, that could only be known to them based on a review of the physical tax returns themselves,” the lawsuit claims.
The House Ways and Means Committee in June voted to make public the many instances of alleged political interference in which the DOJ “thwarted, hampered or interfered” with the IRS tax investigation into Hunter Biden. In turn, IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel confirmed in July the rights of agency whistleblowers to make protected disclosures to Congress.
“As employees, you are the first line of defense to call out issues that raise concerns, and I want it to be clear that we will always encourage a ‘see something, say something’ philosophy,” he wrote.Hunter Biden’s lawsuit against the IRS comes as his attorneys reportedly pushed the DOJ to prosecute the whistleblowers after the committee voted to approve the public disclosure of IRS whistleblower allegations.According to the New York Times, the DOJ planned to let Hunter Biden off the hook without charges until two whistleblowers came forward:Now, the I.R.S. agents and their Republican allies say they believe the evidence they brought forward, at the precise time they did, played a role in influencing the outcome, a claim senior law enforcement officials dispute. While Mr. Biden’s legal team agrees that the I.R.S. agents affected the deal, his lawyers have contended to the Justice Department that by disclosing details about the investigation to Congress, they broke the law and should be prosecuted.
Earlier this year, The Times found, Mr. Weiss appeared willing to forgo any prosecution of Mr. Biden at all, and his office came close to agreeing to end the investigation without requiring a guilty plea on any charges. But the correspondence reveals that his position, relayed through his staff, changed in the spring, around the time a pair of I.R.S. officials on the case accused the Justice Department of hamstringing the investigation. Mr. Weiss suddenly demanded that Mr. Biden plead guilty to committing tax offenses.
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As the testimony from the I.R.S. agents took hold, Mr. Biden’s legal team felt the ground shift beneath them. The U.S. attorney’s office suddenly went quiet.
Last week, Weiss indicted Hunter Biden on three gun related charges. No tax or FARA violations were filed, though Weiss “may soon file a new indictment against Hunter Biden in another federal court — potentially in California — over alleged tax crimes that the agents say they found in reviewing his finances from 2014 to 2019,” the Washington Post reported Monday.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality
