The IRS has removed a whistleblower and his team from a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes and business dealings at the request of the Department of Justice, according to the whistleblower’s attorneys.
“He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice.”
Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, has been under federal investigation for alleged tax fraud, lobbying crimes, and money laundering.
‘Clearly Retaliatory’ Move
The unnamed IRS agent had been overseeing an “ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020,” his lawyer, Mark D. Lytle, a former DOJ lawyer, told Congress in an April 19 (pdf) letter.The IRS’s removal of the whistleblower from the criminal probe into Hunter Biden is “clearly retaliatory and may also constitute obstruction of a congressional inquiry,” Lytle and another attorney, Tristan Leavitt, told lawmakers in the May 15 letter.
Internal Disclosures to Federal Agencies
In the April 19 letter, Lytle said his client “would like to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.”Lytle said at the time that his client had already provided “legally protected disclosures” internally at the IRS, the U.S. Treasury Inspector General, the Office of Inspector General, and the Department of Justice.
The disclosures alleged that federal prosecutors had, in part, failed to “mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case,” he wrote.
The Biden administration also engaged in “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,” he added.
Attorneys Urge Congressional Action
The whistleblower’s two lawyers said the IRS’s move contradicts what IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel testified in Congress on April 27—that “there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower hotline.”“We respectfully request that you give this matter your prompt attention. Removing the experienced investigators who have worked this case for years and are now the subject-matter experts is exactly the sort of issue our client intended to blow the whistle on to begin with,” they told the lawmakers.
Lytle and Leavitt also noted that under federal law, the IRS whistleblower “is protected ... from retaliatory personnel actions—including receiving a ’significant change in duties, responsibilities, or working conditions’ (which this clearly is) because of his disclosures to Congress.”
“Any attempt by any government official to prevent a federal employee from furnishing information to Congress is also a direct violation of longstanding appropriations restrictions,” they added. “Furthermore, [federal law] makes it a crime to obstruct an investigation of Congress.”
The May 15 letter was also sent to Werfel, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Russell George, and special counsel at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel Henry Kerner.
