IRS whistleblower says entire team removed from Hunter Biden probe

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
17 May 2023 11:07

The agent's lawyers say they were informed of their removal by the Department of Justice.

Hunter Biden disembarks from Air Force One at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York, on Feb. 4, 2023. (Reuters)

An IRS whistleblower, who said that the United States has interfered in an ongoing tax evasion investigation into Hunter Biden, claimed that his team was removed from the probe, according to a letter released by his lawyers to media outlets.

The letter suggested that the measure could “constitute obstruction of a congressional inquiry," given the interest of some Republican legislators in the case.

“Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress,” attornies Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt said on Monday.

The lawyers added that the whistleblower was “informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice,” arguing that “this move is clearly retaliatory” against the IRS agent.

The whistleblower has earlier requested legal protections in order to reveal alleged misconduct by DOJ officials in the case.

Last month, Lytle said the agent had evidence suggesting a “failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest” and “preferential treatment” in the investigation.

The lawyer added that his client seeks to disclose the evidence “in a nonpartisan manner to the leadership of the relevant committees on both sides of the political aisle.”

Lytle noted that the agent's statement might contradict sworn testimony to Congress about the case provided “by a senior political appointee,” referring to an official in US President Joe Biden's administration.

Reports said the whistleblower met with inspectors general from the US Treasury and Justice Department on the matter but has not yet appeared before legislators.

The buildup

The probe into Hunter Biden was launched in 2018 as a broader investigation into his businesses abroad. The inquiry later narrowed down on some of his overseas revenues, in addition to false claims he made when buying a firearm.

US House Judiciary Committee said earlier this month that senior Biden administration campaign officials colluded with the CIA to debunk accusations against Hunter Biden and label them as "Russian disinformation" before the 2020 presidential elections.

The Committee discovered through its investigations that Blinken, who was then a key advisor to the Biden campaign, pushed for a letter to the public in which 51 former intelligence officials claimed that a New York Post article about Hunter Biden's laptop had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

It also claimed that senior members of the Biden administration then "coordinated efforts to disseminate" the public letter to the media in an effort to refute the accusations made against Hunter Biden.

Moreover, it underlined how the testimonies, emails, and other evidence indicated that former CIA Deputy Director Micahel Morell helped with writing the public statement to get ex-intelligence officials to sign it.

Within three days of the letter's release, Joe Biden brought it up in a debate with Donald Trump, claiming that "there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he's accusing me of, is a Russian plan."

Russia has continuously and vehemently rejected any intervention in US elections allegations made by US officials.

This comes after reports from April said California Republican Darrell Issa had underlined that his party had Hunter Biden's laptop and was poring over the "treasure trove" of data it had.

The computer, according to Issa, contains evidence of direct communication between Joe and Hunter Biden while the former was vice president, evidence that Joe Biden was making "sure his business deals went forward," including in Russia and China, and evidence of Hunter's drug use, which could have made the VP's son vulnerable to blackmail by foreign intelligence agencies.

Hunter Biden has a long history of crime. In late 2020, Biden was subjected to federal investigation for "tax affairs" related to business dealings in Ukraine and China, and Fox News reported that he had failed to report $400,000 in income from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

The announcement was preceded by a scandal in October 2020, when the New York Times published an article about two emails that the 52-year-old had supposedly received from a top Burisma executive while serving on the company's board of directors.

Burisma Board Advisor Vadym Pozharskyi allegedly asked Hunter Biden to "use [his] influence" to help the Ukrainian company gain political support in a May 2014 email, while Pozharskyi thanked the younger Biden for setting up a meeting with his father, then-US Vice President Joe Biden, in an April 2015 email.

Emails recovered from Hunter's abandoned laptop show that he played a major role in the acquisition of millions of dollars in funding for Metabiota, a Department of Defense contractor specializing in research on pandemic-causing diseases that could be used as bioweapons.