The criminal probe into Hunter Biden took another wild turn as an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigator who was dismissed from the case says agency officials have been ignoring claims that the Justice Department has been mishandling the inquiry led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss.
A special agent, who works under the IRS supervisor seeking to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress regarding allegations that the investigation has been corrupted by lies and politics, said efforts to bring forward these “issues” have been ignored by their direct IRS superiors in the Criminal Investigation Division for years, according to an email to agency leadership.
“The ultimate decision to remove the investigatory team … without actually talking to that investigatory team, in my opinion was a decision made not to side with the investigators but to side with the US Attorney’s Office and Department of Justice who we have been saying for some time has been acting inappropriately,” the special agent added.
Lawyers representing the IRS supervisor attached the subordinate’s email in a weekend transmission to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. Their message, published on Monday by Just the News, warns about actions that “chill the disclosures of other IRS whistleblowers who may wish to come forward.”
The lawyers, Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt, said they learned of “additional reprisals” against agents after their client’s entire IRS investigative team was abruptly removed last week from the Hunter Biden inquiry at the request of the Justice Department.
Other emails, also attached to the transmission to Werfel, show IRS brass scolding the special agent for apparently not following the proper chain of command — even suggesting that the agent’s email sent to IRS leadership may have been criminal by potentially containing grand jury material — and advising others to refrain from discussing case-related activity without proper authorization.
So far, the IRS has refused to publicly respond directly to the whistleblower claims, but the agency has insisted that “retaliation against any IRS employee making a whistleblower allegation” will not be tolerated. The Daily Wire also reached out to Justice Department representatives seeking comment on the allegations, which have only been confirmed to be about the Hunter Biden probe in various media reports over the past month.
Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, announced not long after the 2020 election that federal investigators were looking into his tax affairs. The First Son has said he expects to be cleared of wrongdoing.
Leavitt, who is president of a group called Empower Oversight, also wrote to the Office of Special Counsel. In that email, he shares a number of specific allegations, including that the supervisor was passed over for a promotion that went to a less experienced individual. The email also claims the IRS investigative team involved in the Hunter Biden inquiry had been excluded from prosecutorial calls after the U.S. attorney became aware of FBI and IRS officials communicating concerns about the handling of the case.
“We look forward to working with the Office of Special Counsel to ensure no additional retaliation occurs and to obtain corrective action,” Leavitt wrote in concluding the email.
