An IRS supervisor has told lawmakers he has information suggesting the Biden administration may be mishandling the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
In a letter to lawmakers obtained by ABC News, the IRS whistleblower’s attorney says his client is an IRS criminal oversight special agent “who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile controversy since early 2020 and would like to make whistleblower-protected disclosures to Congress.”
The letter does not specifically name Hunter Biden, but lawmakers have been aware that it is the “high-profile and controversial” issue the lawyer is referring to. Also, while the letter refers to the preferential treatment Hunter Biden has allegedly received, there are no specific examples to support the allegations.
The letter says that “The protected disclosures: (1) contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee, (2) involve a failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the final disposition of the case, and (3) detail examples of preferences. treatment and policy by unduly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the issue were not politically connected.”
A lawyer for the complainant did not immediately respond to ABC’s request for comment. A DOJ spokesman declined to comment.
The Wall Street Journal first reported news of the letter.
“It is deeply troubling that the Biden Administration may be obstructing justice by blocking efforts to impeach Hunter Biden for tax violations,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a communicated
Hunter Biden is pictured at Carlingford Castle, Co Louth, during his trip to Ireland on April 12, 2023.
Press Association via AP
“The House Oversight and Accountability Committee has been following Biden’s tangled web of complex corporate and financial records,” said Comer, who was one of the recipients of the letter. “We’ve been wondering all along where the hell the DOJ and IRS have been. Now it looks like the Biden administration may have been working overtime to prevent the Bidens from facing any consequences.”
In a statement issued Thursday in response to the letter, Chris Clark, Hunter Biden’s attorney, said, “It appears that this IRS agent has committed a crime” by disclosing information about his client.
“It is a crime for an IRS agent to disclose incorrect information about an ongoing tax investigation,” Clark said in the statement. “The IRS has incredible power, and abusing that power by targeting, embarrassing, or disclosing information about a private citizen’s tax matters undermines Americans’ faith in the federal government.”
“Unfortunately, that’s what has happened and is happening here in an attempt to hurt my client,” Clark said. “This IRS agent appears to have committed a crime and denied my client the protections they are entitled to.”
White House officials would not comment on the whistleblowers’ claims and instead referred questions to the Justice Department and the IRS.
Federal authorities with the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-era appointee, have been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018, ABC News previously reported.
ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman and Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
