IRS by Nick Youngson is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
On June 22, 2023, transcripts of testimonies from IRS whistleblowers were made public by the House Ways and Means Committee, shedding light on the Hunter Biden tax fraud case. Among those who provided testimony was Gary Shapley, a veteran IRS agent with 14 years of service. Shapley, who supervised the Hunter Biden IRS Investigation, expressed frustration with the limitations that impeded him from executing his duties effectively.
According to Shapley, the investigation into Hunter Biden was marked by distinct differences compared to other cases he had worked on throughout his career:
“In this country, we believe in the rule of law, and that applies to everyone. There is not a two-track justice system depending on who you are and who you’re connected to.
But the criminal tax investigation of Hunter Biden, led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, has been handled differently than any investigation I’ve ever been a part of for the past 14 years of my IRS service.”
Shapley further detailed his concerns, noting that the case seemed influenced by partisan attitudes and was impaired by many administrative barriers. These factors, he explained, added difficulty to the case and posed significant challenges for his team:
“Some of the decisions seem to be influenced by politics. But whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation. These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before elections to ensure the investigation did not go overt well before policy memorandum mandated the pause. These are just only a few examples.”
In his testimony, Shapley continued to offer specific details about how the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office and the Department of Justice’s tax division allegedly interfered with the Hunter Biden investigation. He claims that extent of this interference had led him to believe it was imperative to become a whistleblower.
Click here to read the full transcript of Mr. Shapley’s testimony.