Source: Drew Angerer / Getty
A pair of IRS whistleblowers testified before the House Oversight Committee about alleged meddling in the Department of Justice investigation of Hunter Biden.
The hearing before the GOP-led panel featured testimony from Gary Shapley, an agent in the IRS’s criminal investigation division, and Joseph Ziegler, who works in the agency’s international tax and financial crimes section. Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said the two witnesses had “critical information” to share about the panel’s investigation into what he alleged is “the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes.”
The whistleblowers claimed there was a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” into the president’s son before the 2020 presidential election and efforts to tip off Hunter before investigative actions.
In one case, Shapely recalled that an assistant U.S. attorney told Hunter Biden’s lawyers the IRS was readying to execute a search warrant on a storage unit used by the president’s son.
The tip destroyed “our chance to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated or concealed,” Shapely said.
House Republicans have confidence that the whistleblowers are credible.
“I think they’re very credible,” Republican Rep. Russell Fry said. “Their testimony has been corroborated by the FBI, who just was in here this week.”
Ziegler, a Democrat, “doesn’t fit the mold of a partisan hack,” Fry said.
Lawmakers noted the personal risks taken by the whistleblowers to come forward.
