by Ben Whedon
IRS Whistleblower Gary Shapley’s legal team hit back on Friday against accusations from Hunter Biden’s attorney suggesting he had claimed to be a whistleblower to escape punishment over his own alleged misconduct.
Biden attorney Abbe Lowell on Friday wrote to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, suggesting Shapley and a second unnamed IRS agent of blowing the whistle “in an attempt to evade their own misconduct,” Axios reported. The “timing of the agents’ leaks and your subsequent decision to release their statements do not seem innocent.”
The Ways and Means Committee previously released the transcripts of interviews with both Shapley and one of his subordinates that suggested political appointees played a key role in stifling the investigation into the first son and preventing the most serious of charges from being brought against him.
Lowell further accused Smith of releasing the transcripts to “feed the misinformation campaign to harm our client, Hunter Biden, as a vehicle to attack his father.”
In a statement Friday, Shapley’s legal team fiercely denied Lowell’s allegations and asserted that he had gone through the proper legal channels to make his disclosures.
“All the innuendo and bluster that Biden family lawyers can summon will not change the facts. Lawful whistleblowing is the opposite of illegal leaking, and these bogus accusations against SSA Shapley by lawyers for the Biden family echo threatening emails sent by IRS leadership after the case agent also blew the whistle to the IRS Commissioner about favoritism in this case—as well as the chilling report that Biden attorneys have also lobbied the Biden Justice Department directly to target our client with criminal inquiry in further retaliation for blowing the whistle,” his team stated.
“These threats and intimidation have already been referred earlier this week to the inspectors general for DOJ and the IRS, and to Congress for further investigation as potential obstruction of their lawful inquiries as well as retaliation against our client,” they continued.
Prior to the conclusion of the Hunter Biden case that saw the first son reach a plea deal and the DOJ recommend no prison time, Shapley’s legal informed Congress that the DOJ had removed him and his entire team from the case in what his attorneys deemed an act of retaliation.
Shapley’s attorneys also state that they are working with Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden to arrange supplementary Senate testimony.
“IRS SSA Gary Shapley has scrupulously followed the rules and blew the whistle to Congress about the unequal application of tax laws pursuant to 26 U.S.C. §6103(f)(5) and 5 U.S.C. §2302(b)(8)(C), a process facilitated lawfully by the authority of both Chairs of the tax committees, including Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR)—with whom we are still working cooperatively to arrange follow-up testimony to supplement for the Senate any topics not covered in the transcripts of questioning by Republican and Democrat staff already released by the House Ways and Means Committee,” they wrote.
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Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.
Photo “Hunter and Joe Biden” by Louise Palanker. CC BY-SA 2.0.
