IRS whistleblower attorneys denounce Hunter Biden’s lawsuit as ‘frivolous smear’
Ashley Oliver
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Hunter Biden’s lawsuit against the IRS is another effort to intimidate whistleblowers who testified President Joe Biden‘s son received special treatment from the federal government, according to attorneys for one of the whistleblowers.
Empower Oversight, a group that provides legal representation for whistleblowers, said in a statement the lawsuit was a “frivolous smear” against client Gary Shapley, a veteran IRS criminal investigator who testified to Congress about missteps during the Department of Justice’s yearslong investigation into the younger Biden.
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“This suit against the IRS is just another frivolous smear by Biden family attorneys trying to turn people’s attention away from Hunter Biden’s own legal problems and intimidate any current and future whistleblowers,” Empower Oversight wrote.
The group’s remarks came after Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s lead defense lawyer, alleged in a complaint that Shapley, Joseph Ziegler, who is another agent on the case, and their legal counsel spoke publicly about tax information of Hunter Biden’s that was “squarely prohibited” from disclosure.
“These agents’ putative ‘whistleblower’ status cannot and does not shield them from their wrongful conduct in making unauthorized public disclosures that are not permitted by the whistleblower process,” Lowell wrote.
The lawsuit alleged the IRS whistleblowers improperly disclosed Hunter Biden’s tax information and comes after the first son was indicted last week on three felony charges related to a 2018 gun purchase.
The gun crimes first surfaced as part of a plea deal special counsel David Weiss reached with Hunter Biden in June. However, the deal was never finalized after a federal judge raised points about how it could shield the president’s son from future charges.
Amid the plea deal’s unraveling and the recent gun-related indictment, Hunter Biden’s defense team has gone on offense, suing not just the IRS but also denouncing the indictment as a product of Weiss succumbing to Republican pressure and suing several people for allegedly unlawfully accessing Hunter Biden’s computer data.
Shapley and Ziegler, for their part, alleged to Congress in May that Weiss had limited authority over the Hunter Biden case and that U.S. attorneys in Washington, D.C., and California had blocked Weiss from bringing charges against the president’s son in those jurisdictions. They also alleged the case was “slow-walked” and that federal investigators faced abnormal roadblocks.
While the whistleblowers followed standard protocol by reporting their concerns internally before raising them with Congress, Hunter Biden’s lawyers alleged that media appearances the whistleblowers and their attorneys made, during which they discussed the case, crossed a line.
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Empower Oversight countered that neither the group’s attorneys nor Shapley “have ever released any confidential taxpayer information except through whistleblower disclosures authorized by statute. Once Congress released that testimony, like every American citizen, he has a right to discuss that public information.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a longtime advocate of whistleblowers, said in a statement that Shapley and Ziegler “saw serious wrongdoing and government misconduct and did their job by lawfully exposing it. Now Weiss needs to do his. Retaliatory efforts to smear these whistleblowers reeks of desperation.”