Top Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are seeking interviews with a slew of federal officials involved with an investigation into President Joe Biden’s son.
The allegations come from IRS agents who have become whistleblowers.
“The Committees must obtain the first-hand testimony from these individuals to fully assess the serious allegations raised by these brave IRS whistleblowers,” the congressmen said.
They wrote similar missives to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.
Besides Wolf, Weiss, and Daly, the congressmen are looking to talk to FBI officials Tom Sobocinski and Ryeshia Holley; IRS officials Michael Batdorf and Darrell Waldon; and DOJ officials Matthew Graves, Martin Estrada, and Stuart Goldberg.
They also want to question any Secret Service employees who were told in late 2020 that FBI headquarters notified the Secret Service headquarters about plans to interview Hunter Biden.
“This essentially tipped off a group of people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden and gave this group an opportunity to obstruct the approach on the witnesses,” one of the whistleblowers said.
“The federal government is supposed to work for the American people, but whistleblower evidence shows that several federal employees were working overtime to cover up for the Bidens. We need to hear from these federal employees and other witnesses about this weaponization of federal law enforcement power,“ the chairmen said in a joint statement. ”Americans are counting on us to ensure actors are held accountable and restore the equal enforcement of the law.”
A Secret Service spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email: “I don’t have any information at the moment on this but we look forward to reviewing [the] request.”
The FBI and DOJ declined to comment.
The did not respond to a request for comment.
Jordan leads the House Judiciary Committee. Smith leads the House Ways and Means Committee. Comer leads the House Oversight Committee.
The requests have no force of law at this time. But the Republicans warned that the committees will resort to subpoenas if the interviews do not happen voluntarily.
Whistleblowers
The move comes after Gary Shapley, an IRS agent, and a second IRS agent who has not yet been publicly identified, testified to the committee that the investigation into Hunter Biden was interfered with and delayed.Shapley said that on Dec. 10, 2020, investigators learned that Hunter Biden vacated the Washington office of his business and had the documents transported to a storage unit in Virginia.
The IRS prepared to apply for a search warrant for the unit, but assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Wolf allegedly objected.
Shapley and a colleague scheduled a call with Weiss and Weiss agreed in the call that a warrant could be executed if the unit was not accessed for 30 days.
“No sooner had we gotten off the call then we heard AUSA Wolf had simply reached out to Hunter Biden’s defense counsel and told him about the storage unit, once again ruining our chance to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed,” Shapley said.
Shapley also said that there was a plan for the IRS to interview Hunter Biden in Los Angeles but that the night before the planned interview, he learned the FBI had tipped off both the Secret Service and Joe Biden’s transition team.
The other whistleblower, who asked that his identity not be revealed, told members of Congress that Weiss was not in charge of the investigation despite Garland telling members in a public hearing that Weiss was.
Weiss, a Trump appointee, tried charging Hunter Biden in Washington and California but was blocked both times, the whistleblowers said.
Weiss recently charged Hunter Biden in Delaware with failure to pay taxes and a gun charge. Hunter Biden admitted to the tax crimes. He was allowed to enter a pretrial diversion agreement for the gun charge, which may lead to the charge being dropped.
The two tax counts each carry a penalty of up to one year in prison. The tax charge carries up to 10 years behind bars.
