IRS whistleblower: There was unanimous agreement to charge Hunter Biden with felonies — and not doing so violated DOJ policy
There was unanimous agreement among the federal prosecutors assigned to the Hunter Biden investigation to recommend felony and misdemeanor tax charges for President Biden’s son that were ultimately not brought — in violation of Justice Department policy, IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler said Thursday.
“So, the four assigned prosecutors of the case agreed with recommending felony and misdemeanor tax charges for Hunter Biden. [Delaware US Attorney] David Weiss also agreed with that, and I know that from a meeting that I had with him in late August, early September,” Ziegler told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday.
Ziegler, who along with fellow IRS agent Gary Shapley came forward to the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this summer alleging a high-level coverup in the government’s five-year-long investigation into Hunter Biden, further explained that it goes against DOJ policy to not charge an individual with the felony when there is evidence of both a felony and misdemeanor being committed as part of a tax crime.
“So, they all agreed to charging the felony and misdemeanor. The DOJ policy on this is that — their tax policy is that — if you have a felony with a misdemeanor, you have to charge the felony, and that’s to prevent inequitable treatment of taxpayers and they didn’t do that,” Ziegler claimed.
Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of failing to pay federal income taxes, according to a letter submitted to federal court by Weiss in June.
According to charging documents, the president’s son failed to pay at least $100,000 in income taxes in both 2017 and 2018.
Ziegler noted that the assigned attorneys, which included DOJ tax attorneys, all agreed to felony tax evasion charges and misdemeanor charges related to Hunter Biden’s 2017, 2018 and 2019 returns.
“I didn’t see that in the charging document that was filed in Delaware,” said Ziegler.
When Tapper questioned if it is possible that attorneys for Hunter Biden reached an agreement with Weiss to drop the felony charges in exchange for a guilty plea, Ziegler suggested that that would be unusual and still a violation of policy.
“There’s a lot of cases around the US right now where people are being charged with both the felony and misdemeanor and not having the felony dropped off,” said Ziegler. “So, I think it’s important that it’s in the tax manual — it is their policy that states that if you have the felony, and you have the evidence there, and there’s also a misdemeanor, you have to charge the felony in order to not have an equitable treatment of taxpayers.”
Ziegler also compared the abnormalities he claims to have seen in the Hunter Biden case to another “even bigger case” he is currently working on.
“I’m actually working on an even bigger case than this — not as sensitive as this but an even bigger case than this — and I can tell you the assigned prosecutors in that case have not acted anywhere near what we were going through, being constantly hamstrung, not following normal process,” Ziegler told Tapper.
“All we’re trying to do is say that if this were anyone else, if this were Joe Taxpayer, he would be getting a much different treatment than what was at place here,” Ziegler said of his motives in coming forward as a whistleblower.
Weiss has maintained that he had ultimate authority in charging Hunter Biden and that he never requested special counsel status, as the whistleblowers allege.
When asked why Weiss — an appointee of former President Donald Trump — would “lie” about this, Zeigler responded, “I have no idea what his motives are, what his beliefs are, all I can do is present the facts to Congress.”
