IRS special agents are the agency’s criminal investigators. They are the best in the world at tracking down the proceeds of crime. Because of this, they are frequently invited by other federal law-enforcement agencies to participate in matters far removed from tax crimes. They work hand-in-glove with assistant U.S. attorneys and Justice Department tax prosecutors to obtain search warrants and other authorizations necessary to explore leads.
The IRS opened its investigation into Hunter Biden in November 2018 as an offshoot of an investigation it was conducting of a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform. In October 2019 the Federal Bureau of Investigation learned of certain devices, including laptops, that had been abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. According to Mr. Shapley, FBI agents had confirmed within weeks that the devices belonged to Mr. Biden and that their contents were authentic. After taking possession of the devices in December 2019, FBI agents notified the IRS that they likely contained evidence of tax crimes. Notwithstanding this notification and that the FBI had legitimate possession of the devices and unfettered access to their contents, Mr. Shapley’s testimony describes how prosecutors never permitted the IRS special agents to examine them.
This is only one of the roadblocks the whistleblowers claim prosecutors threw in the way of their investigation into Mr. Biden’s financial dealings. The IRS special agents testified that they requested and were denied permission to search the guest house at
Joe Biden’s Delaware mansion and the storage locker Hunter Biden maintained in Northern Virginia. The whistleblowers claim they had reason to believe they would find records in those locations of at least some of the numerous pass-through entities that reportedly served as conduits for illicit and likely unreported payments to Hunter Biden and possibly other members of his family.
Federal rules provide that the government generally must prosecute an offense in the district in which it was committed. Charges brought in an improper venue can be dismissed. U.S. attorneys are the chief federal law enforcement officers for their districts. When a U.S. attorney discovers crimes that need to be charged in another district, he generally transfers the case and, if necessary, details some of his own staff to handle it.
By June 2021, Mr. Weiss’s prosecution team had gathered enough evidence to understand that Delaware wasn’t the proper venue in which to prosecute Hunter Biden’s tax crimes. Crimes allegedly committed in 2014 and 2015 would have to be charged in the District of Columbia and those allegedly committed 2016-19 would have to be charged in the Central District of California.
According to the whistleblowers’ testimony, the U.S. attorneys in the capital and Central California refused Mr. Weiss’s requests to charge Hunter Biden in their districts. Mr. Shapley testified that Mr. Weiss then asked “Main DOJ” to name him special counsel and was denied—possibly not for the first time. In March testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee the attorney general said that although he hadn’t made Mr. Weiss special counsel, he had given Mr. Weiss all the authority he needed to bring charges in any district he deemed appropriate.
But on Oct. 7, 2022, Mr. Shapley claims, Mr. Weiss declared in a meeting of the prosecution team that in fact he wasn’t the final decision maker with respect to charges that might be brought against Hunter Biden. It was this statement that shocked and troubled Mr. Shapley such that he braved the consequences of becoming a whistleblower and sought legal counsel on how to do so.
The Justice Department’s alleged foot-dragging and refusal to permit IRS special agents to follow the evidence allowed the statutes of limitations for 2014 and 2015 to expire, notwithstanding that Mr. Biden’s defense counsel had, according to Mr. Shapley, agreed to more than one extension. Far worse, Mr. Garland’s failure to designate Mr. Weiss a special counsel essentially guaranteed that Mr. Biden wouldn’t be prosecuted for any of his alleged tax crimes.
The “criminal information”—the charging document in the absence of an indictment—prepared by Mr. Weiss’s office, to which Hunter Biden will reportedly plead on July 26, states that Mr. Biden received but didn’t pay federal taxes on “taxable income in excess of $1,500,000.00” in 2017 and in 2018. House Oversight Committee Republicans claim to have seen Treasury Department suspicious-activity reports suggesting that Mr. Biden received vastly more than that during the years the IRS was investigating.
Judges can reject plea agreements. That would be an appropriate disposition here. And Congress, in fulfillment of its oversight obligation, must learn and share with the American public what evidence the IRS gathered, what evidence its agents weren’t permitted to obtain, and what charges might have been brought if they had.
