IRS whistleblowers say investigation of Joe Biden as part of Hunter probe but weren't 'allowed' to

On Tuesday, IRS whistleblowers testified in a closed session before the House Ways and Means Committee, revealing that they wanted to investigate Joe Biden as part of the investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances, but were prevented from doing so.

During the hearing, Rep Brian Fitzpatrick asked Special Agent Gary Shapley, "did your gut tell you that Joe Biden was benefiting in any way from any of Hunter’s criminal proceeds?"

Shapley responded that "we were interested in following leads that went to Joe Biden" not because he was vice president at the time, but because "in any normal investigation, if you see financial transactions between son and father, and email correspondence going back and forth, text messages, and WhatsApp messages, in every investigation we have ever worked on, we would follow those leads to the father."

Shapley later added that they’ll never know where those leads would have led to, "because we weren’t allowed to investigate."

"For example, we wanted to go and say, 'location data — we want to look into that.' And you know, it just wasn’t supported, and things just fell off the priority list."

Fitzpatrick asked if Shapley and the investigative team was "stopped because of who it was," additionally asking, "could you even offer a hunch about what you would have found?"

"When you see 10 held by H for the big guy and we have other correspondence where they are saying, don’t call dad – you know, call dad something else, call him – because we are trying to confuse or conceal who it is, that is issue for concern," Shapley responded. "And was there 10 percent that went to the big guy? We will never know because we weren’t allowed to investigate that."

Later in the hearing, Fitzpatrick said to Special Agent Joe Ziegler, "What were the red flags that – as an agent, you saw a red flag. You wanted to go down that path. You were prevented from doing so. We are not prevented from doing so. We have tools at our disposal that we can see if that evidence exists or doesn’t."

Ziegler responded that in 2020, 2021, and 2022, Hunter Biden "received approximately $4.9 million in payments for personal expenses."

"Again, in the form of a loan or gift from Democratic donor, Kevin Morris. We have a reason to believe that Kevin Morris was on phone calls with the presidential campaign prior to Joe Biden securing the presidency. So you have the email. 'Personally and politically.' Hunter Biden wasn’t running for office, so who is, who is impacted politically by Hunter Biden’s tax returns not being filed? Look at when did he meet Kevin Morris and when were the tax payments made? It’s about two months prior to meeting him."

The email referenced by Ziegler was sent on February 7, 2020 from Democrat donor Kevin Morris to accountant Troy Schmidt, with a Hunter B included in those CCd on the email, in which Morris wrote "we are under considerable risk personally and politically to get the returns in."

On Thursday, Hunter Biden was indicted by a federal grand jury on 9 counts, including felony charges, related to his tax returns.

Biden is accused of evading taxes on $8.3 million in income earned between 2014 and 2019. This period coincided with his tenure on the boards of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings and the Chinese private equity fund BHR Partners.