IRS whistleblowers reveal that the agency recommended felony charges in Hunter Biden tax probe, dropped to misdemeanor in sweetheart deal

Documents released Thursday by the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith revealed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) originally recommended charging Hunter Biden with Felony Tax Evasion for his 2014 and 2018 tax returns, but they were turned into misdemeanors by the Department of Justice. 

The transcripts from one of two IRS whistleblowers said, "At the time we decided what charges we were going to push forward in the prosecution report." The employee continued, "We all made the decision on that we were going to move forward with 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. And it would be felony counts related to 2014 and felony counts related to 2018." 

When asked to "describe the conclusions and recommendations made" in the report, the second agent said, "This recommended felony tax evasion charges, that's 7201, is tax evasion, and 7206(1) is a false tax return, also a felony for the tax years 2014, 2018, and 2019."

"For Title 26 7203, which is a failure to file or pay, that is a misdemeanor charge for '15, '16, '17, '18, and '19," they concluded. 

As previously reported, the documents showed evidence from the two whistleblowers that the Justice Department interfered with the probe into Hunter Biden. Smith said in a press conference, "Whistleblowers claim the Biden Department of Justice is intervening and overstepping when it comes to the investigation of the president’s son."

"Despite what whistleblowers described as a clear-cut case for tax liability on these payments, IRS investigators say they found themselves hamstrung, internally," he continued. "The testimony we have just released details a lack of US attorney independence, recurring unjustified delays, unusual actions outside the normal course of any investigation, a lack of transparency across the investigation and prosecution teams, and bullying and threats from the defense counsel."

Smith said this was a "campaign of delay, divulge, and deny." 

A supervisory special agent with the IRS Criminal Investigation Gary Shapley told the committee in May that "Since October 2022, IRS CI has taken every opportunity to retaliate against me and my team."

"Even after IRS CI senior leadership has been made aware on a recurring basis that the Delaware US Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice was acting improperly, they acquiesced to a DOJ request to remove the entire team from the Hunter Biden investigation, a team that had been investigating it for over 5 years." He said. 

He told the committee that everything was running smoothly in the investigation until Biden became the "presumptive Democratic nominee for President in early April 2020."

Hunter Biden is expected to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor accounts of failing to pay taxes and have a gun possession charge dismissed. This action be violating the Department of Justice's own rules via the Ashcroft Memo. 

"It is the policy of the Department of Justice that, in all federal criminal cases, federal prosecutors must charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense or offenses that are supported by the facts of the case, except in limited circumstances authorized by the Assistant Attorney General, United States Attorney, or designated supervisory attorney," the Ashcroft Memo states.

According to the House Ways and Means findings, "In 2014, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida announced that a man was sentenced to 13 months in prison to be followed by a year of supervised release for failing to file an income tax return, the same misdemeanor tax offense that Hunter Biden was charged with."