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Susan Shelley: The Hunter Biden investigation was the cover-up

June 25, 2023

Hunter Biden threw his dad’s name around in a July 2017 WhatsApp message to Chinese businessman Henry Zhao, according to an IRS whistleblower.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” the message began, warning that it must be resolved “now,” and threatening, “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

The Department of Justice would not allow IRS investigators to look further into that message.

That’s the testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, a supervisory special agent with the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division. Along with a special agent, also with IRS-CI, identified only as “Mr. X,” Shapley recently came forward to speak to the House Ways and Means Committee.

Hunter Biden’s long-running tax and gun scandals went under the rug this week with a sweeping announcement by his lawyers that he will plead guilty to two misdemeanors to dispose of the tax crimes and complete a diversion program to make the gun felony disappear. The plea agreement must be approved by a federal judge, and you won’t make any money betting that it won’t be. But on Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee released the transcripts of the whistleblower interviews, in which they describe the outrageous special treatment they witnessed in the Department of Justice’s handling of the case, after which they suffered retaliation that is probably illegal.

Shapley testified that the IRS was conducting an investigation into a “foreign-based amateur online pornography platform” when “Mr. X” developed an investigative lead that resulted in the IRS opening an investigation into Hunter Biden, “code name Sportsman.” That was November 2018.

In October 2019, the FBI “became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime.” In November 2019, the FBI “verified its authenticity” by “matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID.” The following month, the FBI took possession of the laptop and notified the IRS that it “likely contained evidence of tax crimes.”

This was was nearly a year before the New York Post reported on the emails that were found on the laptop showing apparent evidence of Biden family influence peddling. While former U.S. intelligence officials falsely suggested the laptop was “Russian disinformation,” the FBI knew it was all real, yet failed to mention that fact at its regular meetings with social media companies and news organizations.

Shapley’s team of experienced IRS investigators met biweekly with the FBI, the Delaware U.S Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice Tax Division. “It soon became clear to me this case was being handled differently than any I’d seen before,” Shapley testified.

By March 2020, the IRS was ready to seek search warrants in California, Arkansas, New York and Washington, D.C., and planned to conduct 15 contemporaneous interviews. On April 1, Special Agent “Mr. X” drafted an affidavit describing probable cause for the searches. But in early April, “former Vice President Joseph Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president,” and then “career DOJ officials dragged their feet on the IRS taking these investigative steps.”

Month after month, year after year, career employees of the Department of Justice denied investigative steps, rejected enforcement operations, and even tipped off Hunter Biden’s attorneys about developments. Shapley told the House Ways and Means Committee that in September 2020, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf acknowledged that there was probable cause for a physical search of the Bidens’ Delaware residence, where Hunter had stayed for a time, “but said there is no way we will get that approved.” He said Wolf stopped investigators from questioning Hunter Biden’s associate, Rob Walker, about the email that said, “Ten held by H for the big guy,” and wouldn’t allow investigators to ask about references to “dad.”

Shapley said the FBI tried to “dictate” to the IRS investigators who should be interviewed and would not give the IRS team direct access to the laptop. Later, the IRS would obtain records from an iCloud search that included relevant text messages the FBI had not produced. Further inquiry into them was blocked by the DOJ.

Early in 2022, Assistant U.S. Attorney Wolf “supported charging Hunter Biden for tax evasion and false return in 2014, 2018 and 2019, and for failure to file or pay for 2015, 2016 and 2017.” Then a new game began. “The proper venue for a tax case is where the subject resides or where the return is prepared or filed,” Shapley testified. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia had “venue” over the 2014 and 2015 tax years, but the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee, “personally reviewed the report and did not support it.” That meant “there was no ability to charge there.” The statute of limitations was allowed to expire.

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Shapley testified, “The years in question included foreign income from Burisma and a scheme to evade his income taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon. There were also potential FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] issues relating to 2014 and 2015. The purposeful exclusion of the 2014 and 2015 years sanitized the most substantive criminal conduct and concealed material facts.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland was less than truthful with the Senate when he said the investigation was being “run by and supervised by” Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss in Delaware. Weiss couldn’t or didn’t do anything when Graves refused to file charges in the District of Columbia. And he couldn’t or didn’t do anything when, for whatever reason, Hunter Biden’s 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 tax years were brought to the Central District of California in September 2022, where Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada was newly confirmed.

That’s how the trick was done. The same DOJ and FBI that made a fake Trump-Russia investigation materialize out of thin air made Hunter Biden’s shady financial crimes vanish like a magician’s elephant.

The investigation was the cover-up.

Write [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley

Orange County Register

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Susan Shelley: The Hunter Biden investigation was the cover-up

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