IRS whistleblower speaks: DOJ "slow-walked" tax probe said to involve Hunter Biden
A whistleblower from inside the Internal Revenue Service has spoken publicly for the first time about a highly sensitive political probe he has supervised, which CBS News has determined is the ongoing probe into the finances of President Biden's son Hunter Biden.
He said he became so concerned about prosecutors' handling of "a high profile, controversial" investigation that he felt duty-bound to sound alarms.
"There were multiple steps that were slow-walked — were just completely not done — at the direction of the Department of Justice," said Gary Shapley, a 14-year veteran of the agency, who spoke exclusively to CBS News chief investigative correspondent Jim Axelrod on Tuesday. "When I took control of this particular investigation, I immediately saw deviations from the normal process. It was way outside the norm of what I've experienced in the past."
The accusations come more than three years into an investigation into Hunter Biden that's being conducted in Delaware by a U.S. Attorney appointed by then-President Trump and held over by President Biden to avoid any appearance of political bias. The investigation focuses on potential crimes related to outstanding tax debts connected to income earned from a controversial stint as a board member for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father was vice president, and a potential false statement related to a gun purchase. Last year CBS News reported that the past-due taxes were paid off with a loan from high-powered Hollywood attorney Kevin Morris, who provided Hunter Biden with financial backing.
Six months ago, a leak from the FBI revealed that agents there believed they had provided prosecutors with enough evidence to support criminal tax charges. No such charges have been brought as of this publication.
Shapley told CBS News he became increasingly concerned about measures being taken that he said appeared to shield the target of the investigation — which CBS News independently confirmed is Hunter Biden.
"Each and every time, it seemed to always benefit the subject," Shapley said. "It just got to that point where that switch was turned on. And I just couldn't silence my conscience anymore."
Shapley is a supervisory special agent with the IRS's criminal investigations department, currently overseeing a team of 12 agents who specialize in international tax and financial crimes. Previously, he was an officer with the National Security Agency's Office of the Inspector General. He was assigned to a "sensitive" investigation in January 2020, and within months, he said he grew concerned about how the Justice Department was handling the investigation. CBS News has learned that was the Hunter Biden probe. Shapley says he began do enting his concerns around June 2020.
"For a couple years, we'd been noticing these deviations in the investigative process. And I just couldn't, you know, fathom that DOJ might be acting unethically on this," he said.
Sounding alarms
The existence of a whistleblower inside the Hunter Biden probe became known last month after one of Shapley's attorneys, Mark Lytle, wrote to Congress seeking legal protections for his client, who was maintaining his anonymity at the time. Without those protections, Shapley said he can't share anything about a taxpayer investigation—including the iden y of the subject— without breaking tax secrecy laws.
Shapley is scheduled to appear before members of the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday, but his testimony will not be open to the public.
CBS News obtained a letter Shapley's attorneys sent last week to the Office of the Special Counsel, a federal agency dedicated to assisting government whistleblowers. The letter alleges "irregularities" in the Department of Justice's handling of the case,and cites a "charged meeting" Shapley's team had with Justice Department prosecutors last October. According to the letter, following that meeting, Shapley's team was effectively excluded from the investigation. Shapley would not say if he made prosecutors aware of his concerns but did acknowledge the incident prompted him to blow the whistle.
"It was my red-line meeting," Shapley said. "It just got to that point where that switch was turned on, and I just couldn't silence my conscience anymore."
In his April letter to Congress, Lytle said Shapley previously made whistleblower disclosures to the IRS, the Treasury inspector general for Tax Administration, and the Justice Department's inspector general. He also wrote his client would contradict sworn testimony "by a senior political appointee." In his interview with CBS News, Shapley declined to identify the sworn testimony or name the political appointee.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/irs-whi...-hunter-biden/
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