Hunter Biden Probe Tensions Mounted, IRS Agent Alleges
Unnamed agent’s lawyer details differences between prosecutors and investigators in tax investigation of president’s son
WASHINGTON—In a charged meeting last year, federal prosecutors were informed of investigators’ “longstanding concerns” about what they described as irregularities in the handling of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, a lawyer for an IRS supervisory agent said in a letter.
The letter to the Office of Special Counsel, an independent investigative body that handles federal government personnel matters, refers to a meeting in October 2022 and comes days before the supervisory agent is set to give closed-door testimony on Capitol Hill.
The account offers a glimpse into simmering tensions in the yearslong investigation into Hunter Biden, which is focused on his taxes and whether he made a false statement in connection with a 2018 gun purchase. The younger Biden has denied any wrongdoing, saying he has handled his affairs legally and appropriately.
The Internal Revenue Service supervisory agent, who hasn’t been publicly identified, again raised concerns after the October 2022 meeting in a call with federal prosecutors. After that exchange, he and his investigative team were “no longer invited to any further prosecutorial team calls and meetings on the case, effectively excluding them from the case,” wrote the lawyer, Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research, a nonprofit focused on oversight of government and corporate wrongdoing.
From then on, the IRS team only received updates on the investigation when a top agent took advantage of other opportunities to ask the U.S. attorney overseeing the probe about its progress, Leavitt wrote in the May 17 letter.
In the copy of the letter obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. attorney’s name was blacked out. The Journal has previously reported that the office of David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who was appointed by President Trump, is handling the Hunter Biden investigation.
A Justice Department spokesman and a spokeswoman for Weiss’s office declined to comment. CNN first reported on the letter.
By the October 2022 meeting, the IRS supervisory agent had already begun making what Leavitt described in the letter as “protected disclosures” alleging that the Justice Department wasn’t following established precedent in the probe. The IRS supervisor began making such disclosures in the summer of 2020, according to the letter, which doesn’t detail the specific complaints the agents had.
The letter followed on the heels of an April missive to lawmakers in which lawyers for the IRS supervisory agent claimed to have evidence of political interference and “preferential treatment” in the investigation. While the letters don’t name Hunter Biden, referring only to an investigation that involves “a high-profile, controversial subject,” the Journal has confirmed that the inquiry at issue involves the president’s son.
In more recent letters, lawyers for the IRS supervisory agent told lawmakers that he had been passed over for a promotion and that he and his “entire investigative team” had been removed from the criminal inquiry. The IRS supervisor was informed that the team’s removal came at the request of the Justice Department, according to a copy of that letter obtained by the Journal.
On Saturday, lawyers for the IRS supervisory agent sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel alleging retaliation. The letter included a copy of an email a second IRS agent sent to Werfel expressing concerns about his removal from the investigation into Hunter Biden. The IRS agent’s name was redacted in the copy reviewed by the Journal.
The IRS has said it can’t comment on specific taxpayer matters but is “deeply committed to protecting the role of whistleblowers.”
The IRS supervisory agent is set to be interviewed behind closed doors Friday before the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee, according to a letter to lawmakers. Lawyers for the IRS agent expressed frustration that the House panel and the Democratic-led Senate Finance Committee couldn’t agree to a date for a single, joint interview.
“In addition to the risks he is already taking with his career and livelihood to offer you information, he should not have to take the additional risks associated with being forced to testify twice, in two different settings, with two different transcripts in the control of two different committees, led by two different chairmen with opposing partisan interests,” wrote Leavitt and another lawyer, Mark Lytle.
“In short,” they added, “our client is unwilling to be a political football, and is disappointed that the committees have been unwilling to negotiate one voluntary interview at which all could participate fully.”
Representatives of the two committees didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.