Hunter Biden indictment is total vindication for whistleblowers
Byron York
HUNTER BIDEN INDICTMENT IS TOTAL VINDICATION FOR WHISTLEBLOWERS. Remember when two IRS whistleblowers came forward to charge that the Biden administration gave the president’s son, Hunter Biden, special treatment in the tax investigation into his business affairs? The two — Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, both of whom were deeply involved in the Hunter Biden investigation — offered proof that the IRS had an open-and-shut case that Hunter Biden evaded taxes on large amounts of money he had made from foreign sources. But the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware, and the larger Justice Department, would not pursue it, and both men were removed from the case in retaliation for having the temerity to point out the inaction.
Capitol Hill Democrats sought to dismiss the whistleblowers’ allegations. Investigators are often gung-ho, they said, while Justice Department prosecutors have to measure carefully whether a criminal case is warranted. And in this case, Democrats maintained, no charges were warranted against Hunter Biden.
But the facts were the facts. Shapley’s and Ziegler’s testimonies supported the Republican charge that Justice Department officials stifled and slow-walked the investigation. GOP agitation forced the U.S. attorney leading the inquiry, David Weiss, to seek special counsel status, giving him the freedom to resume the investigation.
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Now Hunter Biden has been indicted on tax charges, and the indictment is a complete vindication of the IRS whistleblowers. The indictment largely follows the lines that Shapley and Ziegler set out. It says Hunter Biden avoided paying at least $1.4 million in taxes he owed from 2016 to 2019, when he was receiving large amounts of money from Ukraine, Romania, and China. The indictment alleges that Biden “subverted the payroll and tax withholding process” of his company and then withdrew millions from the company without paying taxes on it. And then, Hunter Biden, quoting from the indictment:
Spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills; in 2018 stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for tax year 2015; willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes; willfully failed to file his 2017 and 2018 tax returns on time; and when he did finally file his 2018 returns, included false business deductions in order to evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities he faced as of February 2020.
As this newsletter has noted many times, Hunter Biden did not ultimately pay his taxes. A rich Hollywood supporter of his father paid them.
The indictment goes through some of Hunter Biden’s more egregious alleged conduct, the short version of which is: “Between 2016 and October 15, 2020, the defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.”
The Justice Department could have brought similarly serious charges against Biden for the years 2014 and 2015, but the department’s foot-dragging meant that the statute of limitations expired for that time.
Back to the whistleblowers. “The charges in the indictment precisely track the recommendations Joe, Gary, and their supervisors originally made,” said Jason Foster, founder of Empower Oversight, the nonprofit whistleblower group representing Shapley. “That’s because the evidence Gary and Joe put together is compelling. Before they were whistleblowers, they and their team were the ones who gathered the evidence on which this indictment is based.”
It wasn’t easy. The two whistleblowers had to work around the obstacles the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office placed in their path. “They deserve credit for more than just blowing the whistle on the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office pulling punches in the case,” Foster said. “They also deserve credit for putting the case together in the first place despite the roadblocks. Their IRS team worked the case for years, methodically overcoming every hurdle thrown in their path. After apologizing to Joe and Gary for removing them in retaliation for whistleblowing, David Weiss should thank them for their work, without which he could not have finally brought this indictment.”
Of course, that apology is not going to come. But Shapley and Ziegler deserve a lot of credit in this case. The new indictment wouldn’t have happened without them.
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