The testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley contains numerous bombshells. We have rounded up 17 of them below.
Shapley is an Internal Revenue Service Criminal Supervisory Special Agent whose testimony was released by the House Ways & means Committee after President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was given a plea bargain for a couple of misdemeanors by his own DOJ. Read Shapley’s full testimony transcript here.
“I grew up in a little town in upstate New York and never thought that I would be in this position I am today,” Shapley told the committee. “I was taught to be proud of this country that had afforded me so many opportunities and to always do the right thing — the right thing, a simple philosophy that has me sitting here today. There is no reward for me for becoming a whistleblower. The only win for me is to not be fired or arrested or retaliated against.”
“I am blowing the whistle because the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Justice Tax, and Department of Justice provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest in an important and high-profile investigation of the President’s son, Hunter Biden,” he added.
EXCLUSIVE: In his first interview, CBS News sat down with the IRS agent who is blowing the whistle on what he says was preferential treatment during a federal investigation that CBS has learned is tied to the president’s son, Hunter Biden, for possible tax crimes. pic.twitter.com/CUVjVVNsh2
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) May 24, 2023
“I am alleging, with evidence, that DOJ provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in this investigation.”
Here are 17 bombshell moments from his testimony:
1. The FBI Had Authenticated Hunter Biden’s Abandoned Laptop by October 2019
“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. The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID.”
2. Investigators Were Blocked From Searching Joe Biden’s Guest House
“For example, we obtained a July 30th, 2017, WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, where Hunter Biden wrote: “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the
director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, 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.” Communications like these made it clear we needed to search the guest house at the Bidens’ Delaware residence where Hunter Biden stayed for a time.
For example, we obtained a July 30th, 2017, WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, where Hunter Biden wrote: ‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, 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.’
Communications like these made it clear we needed to search the guest house at the Bidens’ Delaware residence where Hunter Biden stayed for a time. In a September 3rd, 2023 [2020], pros meeting, the Assistant United States Attorney, Lesley Wolf, told us there was more than enough probable cause for the physical search warrant there, but the question was whether the juice was worth the squeeze. She continued that optics were a driving factor in the decision on whether to execute a search warrant. She said a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden, but said there is no way we will get that approved.”
3. Rejecting Enforcement Operations
“Even after investigative steps were denied, enforcement operations were rejected by DOJ, leading to the election in November 2020, we continued to obtain further leads in the Sportsman’s case and prepared for when we could go overt.
For example, in August 2020, we got the results back from an iCloud search warrant. Unlike the laptop, these came to the investigative team from a third-party record keeper and included a set of messages. The messages included material we
clearly needed to follow up on. Nevertheless, prosecutors denied investigators’ requests to develop a strategy to
look into the messages and denied investigators’ suggestion to obtain location information to see where the texts were sent from.
4. Stopping Investigators From Asking ‘About Dad’
“(US Attorney) Weiss was in and out for the rest of the meeting, but it went downhill from there. We shared with prosecutors our outline to interview Hunter Biden’s associate, Rob Walker. Among other things, we wanted to question Walker about an email that said: ‘Ten held by H for the big guy.’ We had obvious questions like who was H, who the big guy was, and why this percentage was to be held separately with the association hidden. But AUSA Wolf interjected and said she did not want to ask about the big guy and stated she did not want to ask questions about ‘dad.’ When multiple people in the room spoke up and objected that we had to ask, she responded, there’s no specific criminality to that line of questioning.”
5. Kicking All of the Investigators Off the Team
“However, on Monday, May 15th, my special agent in charge called me and told me that DOJ had requested an entirely new team from the IRS and that none of the 12 agents in my group would be able to work the case. This seems like clear retaliation for
me making my disclosures.”
6. Accusing the Attorney General of Giving False Testimony to Congress“And yet, when Senator Chuck Grassley asked Attorney General Garland about the case on March 1st, 2023, Garland testified, quote: “The United States Attorney had been advised that he has full authority to make those referrals you’re talking about or to bring cases in other districts if he needs to do that. He has been advised that he should get anything he needs. I have not heard anything from that office that suggests they are not able to do anything that the U.S. Attorney wants them to do.”
I don’t have any firsthand information into why Garland said that, but to all of us who have been in the October 7th meeting with Weiss, this was clearly false testimony.”
7. Refusing to Name a Special Counsel
“To add to the surprise, U.S. Attorney Weiss stated that he subsequently asked for special counsel authority from Main DOJ at that time and was denied that authority.”
8. Blocking Charges on the Most Serious Matters Like Burisma Due to Jurisdictional Games That Ran Out the Statute of Limitations
“That process meant no charges would ever be brought in the District of Columbia, where the statute of limitations on the 2014 and ’15 charges would eventually expire. 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 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. Because United States.
Attorney Weiss had no ability to charge 2014 and 2015, DOJ allowed the statute of limitations to expire. There is no mechanism available to collect the tax owed by Hunter Biden for 2014 other than in a voluntary fashion.”
9. Pressured Not to Interview the Biden Grandchildren
“These delays extended through September and into October. Then the United States Attorney’s Office raised other objections. Part of what we examined were charges made with Hunter Biden’s card that might conceivably have been done by his
children. However, on October 21st, 2021, AUSA Wolf told us it will get us into hot water if we interview the President’s grandchildren.”
10. Tipping Off Hunter Biden That Investigators Were Going to Search His Storage Unit
“On December 10th, 2020, the prosecutorial team met again to discuss the next steps. One piece of information that came out of the day of action was that Hunter Biden vacated the Washington, D.C., office of Owasco. His documents all went into a storage unit in northern Virginia. The IRS prepared an affidavit in support of a search warrant for the unit, but AUSA Wolf once again objected.
My special agent in charge and I scheduled a call with United States Attorney Weiss on December 14th just to talk about that specific issue. United States Attorney Weiss agreed that if the storage unit wasn’t accessed for 30 days we could execute a
search warrant on it.
No sooner had we gotten off the call then we heard AUSA Wolf had simply reached out to Hunter Biden’s defense counsel and told him about the storage unit, once again ruining our chance to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed.”
11. Tipping Off the Bidens About a Planned Interview
“Hunter Biden was assigned Secret Service protection on or around our December 3rd meeting. So we developed a plan for the FBI Los Angeles special agent in charge to reach out at 8 a.m. on December 8th to the Secret Service Los Angeles special agent in
charge and tell them that we would be coming to the residence to seek an interview with Hunter Biden and that it was part of an official investigation.However, the night before, December 7th, 2020, I was informed that FBI headquarters had notified Secret Service headquarters and the transition team about the planned actions the following day. This essentially tipped off a group of people very
close to President Biden and Hunter Biden and gave this group an opportunity to obstruct the approach on the witness.”
12. Delaying Search Warrants
“As early as March 6th, 2020, I sent a sensitive case report up through my chain of command at IRS reporting that by mid-March the IRS would be ready to seek approval for physical search warrants in California, Arkansas, New York, and Washington, D.C.
Special Agent drafted an April 1st, 2020, affidavit establishing probable cause for these physical search warrants. We also planned to conduct approximately 15 contemporaneous interviews at that time.
Yet, after former Vice President Joseph Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee for President in early April 2020, career DOJ officials dragged their feet on the IRS taking these investigative steps.
By June 2020, those same career officials were already delaying overt investigative actions. This was well before the typical 60- to 90-day period when DOJ would historically stand down before an election. It was apparent that DOJ was purposely
slow-walking investigative actions in this matter.”
13. No Physical Search Warrant Allowed
“Also on an October 22nd, 2020, pros team call, AUSA Wolf stated that United States Attorney David Weiss had reviewed the affidavit for search warrant of Hunter Biden’s residence and agreed that probable cause had been achieved. Even though the legal requirements were met and the investigative team knew evidence would be in these locations, AUSA Wolf stated that they would not allow a physical search warrant on Hunter Biden.”
14. Obstructed Investigators From Seeing All of the Evidence
“Investigators were Obstructed from seeing all of the evidence Special Agent asked about the full filter reviewed copy of the contents of the devices. He stated he had not been provided with the data. AUSA Lesley Wolf stated that she would not have seen it because, for a variety of reasons, prosecutors decided to keep it from the investigators. This decision is unprecedented in my experience.
Investigators assigned to this investigation were obstructed from seeing all the available evidence. It is unknown if all the evidence in the laptop was reviewed by agents or by prosecutors.”
15. Stopping the Investigation Before the Election
“On September 4th, 2020, Deputy Attorney General Donoghue issued a cease and desist of all overt investigative activities due to the coming election. AUSA Wolf made several odd statements, to include that DOJ was under fire and it was self-inflicted. She stated that DOJ needed to repair their reputation.”
16. Denying Search Warrants
“On September 3rd, 2020, the slow-walking of process continued when AUSA Wolf stated that a search warrant for the emails for Blue Star Strategies was being sat on by OEO. That’s the Department of Justice Office — actually, I’m sorry. I don’t know what it means, the acronym.
She indicated it would likely not get approved. This was a significant blow to the Foreign Agents Registration Act piece of the investigation.”
17. Stopping Investigators From Obtaining Information About Texts
“For example, in August 2020, we got the results back from an iCloud search warrant. Unlike the laptop, these came to the investigative team from a third-party record keeper and included a set of messages. The messages included material we
clearly needed to follow up on.
Nevertheless, prosecutors denied investigators’ requests to develop a strategy to look into the messages and denied investigators’ suggestion to obtain location information to see where the texts were sent from.”