IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley just got a stamp of approval from one of his colleagues at the agency. In a new interview, a top official within the agency’s investigations unit, Michael Batdorf, said he was frustrated with the Department of Justice dragging their feet over Hunter Biden’s tax violations, some of which included failure to pay income taxes for two years straight.
These infractions occurred in 2014-15, right around the time Hunter was getting the Burisma gig that paid a handsome salary of $50,000/month, along with the alleged $10 million bribe Burisma executives allegedly funneled to the family in 2015-16. Shapley was described as a bulldog and an excellent agent by Batdorf. He also corroborated the claims Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, another whistleblower, made regarding now-Special Counsel David Weiss telling them in a meeting he didn’t have the authority to charge the president’s son, a point the FBI has tried to push back on but failed (via Fox News):
A director within the IRS’ criminal investigations division told House lawmakers that he was frustrated that the Justice Department did not charge Hunter Biden for failing to pay federal income tax for 2014 and 2015, while defending IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley as a "bulldog" and a "fantastic" agent.
Michael Batdorf participated in a transcribed interview with the House Ways & Means Committee on Sept. 12 as part of the panel’s investigation into the Hunter Biden probe.
As part of the interview, Batdorf was asked about Shapley’s claims that "the most substantive felony charges were left off the table" in their years-long federal probe into Hunter Biden.
Shapley, who led the IRS' portion of the probe, said that Hunter Biden should have been charged with tax evasion for 2014, and for filing false tax returns for 2018 and 2019. With regard to the 2014 tax returns, Shapley said Hunter Biden did not report income from Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings.
Batdorf was asked whether the tax years for 2014 and 2015 were included in a special agent report form from the IRS’ Criminal Investigations division dated February 2022.
"That is correct," he said, confirming that it included a recommendation of "at least one felony count."
Batdorf said it is "correct" that he agreed with the IRS recommendation for charges, but was "surprised" when he learned that prosecutors would not charge for those tax years.
[…]
… Batdorf was asked about Shapley’s claims that David Weiss, who now serves as special counsel but was serving as U.S. attorney for Delaware and led the Hunter Biden investigation since 2018, told investigators that he was "not the deciding" person on charges.
Batdorf, speaking to a broader understanding of DOJ tax approval cases, said that his "understanding would be that DOJ Tax has to authorize it first."
And Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to elaborate on this part of the story during yesterday’s hearing, where he was grilled by House Republicans. Weiss is not a friend of this effort to shed light on the subject. He has his fingerprints all over the Hunter plea deal, which got nuked, thanks to Shapley and Ziegler’s credible testimony in July.
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The man is a two-face until he proves otherwise, especially after we learn he let some of the most egregious tax violations die on the vine. For now, with an impeachment inquiry looming, all Hunter’s lawyers could do is file a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming they didn’t adequately protect their client’s private tax information. The agency, however, isn’t obligated to interfere in whistleblower incidents. This legal action isn’t the first time Hunter’s lawyers tried to deliver a counterpunch. They accused Shapley over the summer of leaking such information to The Washington Post, something Shapley has denied, providing an affidavit to that effect, even permitting the Post to disclose any electronic communications that might have occurred. Nothing has been released because this story never happened. Shapley obtained information in his investigation through a search warrant.
The two men’s credible testimony caused House Democrats to crumble in disarray. They couldn’t refute or debunk the claims.
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