Update (04/21/2023): Several Hunter Biden stories have begun gaining traction in the last 24 hours, including a report by NBC News (so, ‘the narrative’) that federal prosecutors are eyeing charges on three tax crimes and a charge related to a gun purchase.
The possible charges are two misdemeanor counts for failure to file taxes, a single felony count of tax evasion related to a business expense for one year of taxes, and the gun charge, also a potential felony.
NBC News does let us know that there’s “growing frustration” inside the FBI because both FBI and IRS investigators finished with their Hunter investigations around a year ago and nothing has been done.
The Washington Post previously reported that federal investigators believed they had gathered enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun purchase.
The decision on which charges to file, if any, will be made by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was appointed by President Donald Trump and retained by the Biden administration to continue the Hunter Biden investigation. There are no indications a final decision has been made, said the two sources familiar with the matter. -NBC News
In short – the DOJ is lagging on Hunter’s slap on the wrist.
We’re sure the above reporting was triggered by the IRS whistleblower – the guy in charge of the agency’s Hunter Biden investigation – who came forward earlier this week in a letter to lawmakers, accusing the DOJ of ‘mishandling’ the Hunter Biden case. What’s actually notable here is that the story is big enough that the NY Times can’t avoid reporting on it.
The disclosure fed claims by congressional Republicans that a Justice Department run by the president’s political appointees could not be trusted to make a decision about his son based on the facts and law.
The letter said the client had information that would contradict sworn testimony to Congress from a senior political appointee, an apparent reference to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who has offered assurances that the U.S. attorney in Delaware, David C. Weiss, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, would be free to run the investigation.
In response, Hunter Biden’s criminal defense lawyer, Christopher Clark, fired back on Thursday, claiming that the I.R.S. supervisor broke the law by disclosing confidential taxpayer information and called on the Justice Department to investigate the supervisor. Mr. Clark said that the only way it was known that the supervisor’s complaints could be linked to the Hunter Biden investigation would be if the supervisor or his lawyer disclosed it, either of which, he said, would have been improper. -NY Times
“It is a felony for an I.R.S. agent to improperly disclose information about an ongoing tax investigation,” said Biden’s lawyer. “The I.R.S. has incredible power, and abusing that power by targeting, embarrassing or disclosing information about a private citizen’s tax matters undermines Americans’ faith in the federal government.”
“Unfortunately, that is what has happened and is happening here in an attempt to harm my client. It appears this I.R.S. agent has committed a crime, and had denied my client protections that are his right.”
Yes, just a private citizen whose family the CCP definitely doesn’t have any leverage over while orchestrating a controlled demolition of the west. No ‘Trump Tower’ implications to report on, right entire MSM? We digress.
* * *
In what should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, an IRS supervisor has stepped forward to blow the whistle on the Biden administration for improperly handling the criminal investigation into the President’s son, Hunter Biden.
In a Tuesday letter sent to Congress by a “career Internal Revenue Service criminal supervisory special agent,’ the whistleblower claims to have information that would contradict sworn testimony by a “senior political appointee,” as well as a “failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case,” according to the Wall Street Journal, citing the letter.
What’s more, the supervisor says he has evidence showing “preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.”
According to the report, the supervisor has been overseeing an “ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020,” which insiders say is Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden is facing a criminal investigation related to his taxes and whether he made a false statement in connection with a gun purchase. When he said in December 2020 that his tax matters were under investigation, Hunter Biden said he was “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”
Mark Lytle, a lawyer for the IRS agent, said in the Tuesday letter addressed to both Republican and Democratic leaders on the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, that his client is seeking whistleblower protections in exchange for his information.
“Despite serious risks of retaliation, my client is offering to provide you with information necessary to exercise your constitutional oversight function and wishes to make the disclosures in a nonpartisan manner to the leadership of the relevant committees on both sides of the political aisle,” reads the letter, signed by Lytle, who claims that the employee previously disclosed the information internally at the IRS and to the DOJ inspector general.
US Attorney David Weiss, the top federal prosecutor in Delaware under the Biden administration, has been leading the DOJ’s investigation of Hunter. According to AG Merrick Garland, Weiss has broad authority to pursue charges.
“He has been advised he is not to be denied anything he needs,” Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 1. “I have not heard anything from that office to suggest that they are not able to do everything the U.S. attorney wants to do.“
This post was originally published at Zero Hedge