IRS whistleblower says search warrants, charges for Hunter Biden blocked, Joe met Chinese client

A supervisory IRS agent divulged to Congress widespread interference in the probe of Hunter Biden, including the blockage of two search warrants and more extensive criminal charges, while also confirming the government had evidence that Joe Biden met with his son's Chinese business partners, according to testimony released Thursday,

Just the News obtained the testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley shortly after the House Ways and Means Committee voted to pierce Hunter Biden's tax privacy and make the agent's allegations of preferential treatment and political interference public.

He confirmed career prosecutors originally intended to charge Hunter Biden with numerous tax violations dating to 2014, but in the end appointees of Joe Biden nixed the plan for a more sweeping indictment. In the end, the charges were narrowed to two counts in 2017 and 2018 that most likely spared the presidential son prison time. 

"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 told lawmakers.

You can read the full testimony here.

Shapley divulged in his testimony that federal prosecutors twice blocked search warrants seeking evidence from Hunter Biden, including one for a storage locker with corporate documents and another for Joe Biden's Delaware residence where Hunter Biden was living, even though agents had met the standards for probable cause.

Shapley recounted how an assistant U.S. Attorney working on the case in Delaware she rejected the warrant for Joe Biden's home in December 2020.

"'The decision was whether the juice was worth the squeeze.' And also a statement made here was that she said that, well, we had to consider the optics of doing a search warrant on, you know, Hunter Biden's residence and/or the guest house of President Biden," he recounted. 

"She further states about the guest house of Joe Biden that there was no way we'd get that approved," he continued.

Later when agents pivoted to seek a search warrant for a storage locker where Hunter Biden stored some of his corporate records, they were thwarted again and instead prosecutors alerted the Biden legal team. Shapley said the denial was unprecedented in his many years as an IRS agent.

"So it was off the table. And that was even after the election. So there's many things. Any other case I ever worked, if they were like there's a storage unit with documents from the business and personal documents in relation to the years under investigation -- the risk was zero, because it's on a storage unit, it's not on a residence -- there's no prosecutor I've ever worked with that wouldn't say, go get those documents," he said.

Shapley also confirmed prosecutors had evidence that Joe Biden met with officials of his son's Chinese energy client called CEFC, describing an interview that family associate Rob Walker gave the FBI.

"Walker went on to describe an instance in which the former Vice President showed up at a CEFC meeting. Walker said: "We were at the Four Seasons and we were having lunch and he stopped in, just said hello to everybody. I don't even think he drank water. I think Hunter Biden said, 'I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys and could you?' And I think he was like, if I'm around and he'd show up," he recounted.

"The FBI agent asked: "So you definitely got the feeling that that was orchestrated by Hunter Biden to have like an appearance by his dad at that meeting just to kind of bolster your chances at making a deal work out?  Walker answered: "Sure." The FBI agent continued: "Any times when he was in office, or did you hear Hunter Biden say that he was setting up a meeting with his dad with them while dad was still in office?"

Walker answered: "Yes."

Both whistleblowers also addressed a WhatsApp massage Hunter sent to an associate demanding he account for an unfulfilled commitment and stating that he was waiting on a call with his father.

"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," the message reads.

Additional testimony from Shapley and an unidentified subordinate confirmed Just the News's earlier reporting that:

1) The DOJ allowed the statute of limitations to expire on alleged tax crimes dating from before 2017 involving hundreds of thousands of dollars more in undeclared income, including some from foreign firms such as Ukrainian gas firm Burisma.

2) The IRS criminal investigation team never learned that the FBI had recovered emails from Hunter's laptop showing that the first son was aware by 2017 that he had not paid taxes on at least $400,000 in income from Burisma from 2014.

3) Neither the IRS nor the FBI agents investigating Biden ever saw the confidential human source information the FBI received and documented in a form FD-1023 outlining an alleged bribery deal in which a Burisma executive paid $5 million each to Hunter and another Biden family member.

Both Shapley and his unnamed subordinate provided statements that neither they, nor anyone of whom they were aware working on the case ever received the information relating to that alleged scheme and consequently never explored the matter. An affidavit from Shapley references comments from former Attorney General William Barr, who has publicly stated that he referred the information to an ongoing investigation in Delaware.

Barr spoke to the Federalist in early June, during which he refuted claims from Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin that he had shut down the investigation into the bribery allegation.

"It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down," he said. "On the contrary, it was sent to Delaware for further investigation."

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said justice can't be "tipped in the favor" of wealthy and politically connected individuals.

"Only the Ways and Means Committee has the ability to report this information legally to the full House of Representatives and thereby make it known to the American public," he said during a news conference on Thursday. "Doing so is an important step in preventing future misconduct, encouraging other whistleblowers to come forward and considering possible future legislative reforms."