The chairman of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday indicated the powerful panel is reviewing claims from an alleged Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblower who is voicing concerns about possible political interference that some lawmakers say relates to the probe targeting Hunter Biden.
“Last week, a whistleblower came forward with troubling claims about abuses of power,” Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) told IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel during an oversight hearing on the agency. “We are conducting a review of this matter and will go wherever the facts lead us. I expect full cooperation from the IRS, particularly with regard to ensuring this whistleblower is protected from retaliation.”
Werfel did not comment on the IRS employee who came forward, saying that the agency won’t retaliate against the longtime worker.
“Can you commit that there will be no retaliation against that whistleblower?” Smith asked Werfel. “Mr. Chairman, while I can’t comment on a specific case, I can say without any hesitation there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower hotline,” the new IRS commissioner replied.
“We at the IRS will fiercely defend the integrity of the whistleblower process,” Werfel also remarked on Thursday. “We welcome suggestions on how to strengthen and improve it.”
Days before, in an April 19 letter, attorney Mark Lytle of the Washington-based law firm Nixon Peabody LLP addressed members of the House of Representatives and Senate, saying his unnamed client has been in charge of an “ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020 and would like to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.”
The attorney said his client wanted to offer a nonpartisan group of relevant committees information “necessary to exercise” their constitutional oversight function. His letter did not mention Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, who Republicans say has been engaged in corrupt overseas business practices to enrich his family.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Fox News in an April 20 interview that the anonymous IRS worker was bringing information about a potential conflict of interest with the Hunter Biden investigation. Other Republicans have made similar claims in recent days.
The younger Biden confirmed he was under investigation for tax fraud after the conclusion of the 2020 election. Few details have been revealed about the probe since then.
Meanwhile, the unnamed IRS whistleblower is “a career IRS criminal supervisory special agent who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020,” Lytle wrote.
“My goal is to ensure that my client can properly share his lawfully protected disclosures with congressional committees,” Lytle also wrote. “Thus, I respectfully request that your committees work with me to facilitate sharing this information with Congress legally and with the fully informed advice of counsel.”
Federal law requires the whistleblower to get special permissions from either Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, or Smith, the head of the House Ways and Means panel, to provide more information to Congress and his own lawyers.
On Thursday, Smith did not say whether he granted the whistleblower special permission to consult his attorneys. The aforementioned review is underway, he said, because “we value the importance and the role of whistleblowers in ensuring the integrity of our governing institutions.”
In 2019, the FBI also obtained the first son’s laptop, which was left at a Delaware repair shop. That device had allegedly contained extensive information about Joe Biden’s involvement with his relatives’ business dealings with associates from China, Mexico, Russia, and Ukraine.
During the latter stages of the 2020 election, the laptop became a topic of discussion and was referenced a number of times in the second presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Biden.
