CNN
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A 14-year veteran of the Internal Revenue Service went public for the first time Wednesday as a whistleblower claiming to have information about alleged mishandling and political interference in an ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.
Gary Shapley, who was recently removed from the Justice Department investigation, spoke to CBS Evening News ahead of a scheduled meeting with the House Media and Media Committee on Friday.
“There were several steps that were taken slowly, just not taken completely, under the direction of the Justice Department,” Shapley told CBS News Chief Investigative Correspondent Jim Axelrod in an interview Tuesday. “When I took control of this particular investigation, I immediately saw deviations from the normal process. It was far beyond the norm of what I have experienced in the past.”
“For a couple of years, we had noticed these deviations in the investigative process. And I couldn’t, you know, understand that the DOJ could be acting unethically in this,” he added.
Shapley told CBS News he was troubled by how federal prosecutors handled a “high-profile and controversial” investigation. Multiple sources previously confirmed to CNN that the person at the center of this investigation is Hunter Biden.
In a letter to a federal watchdog agency this month, Shapley’s lawyers said he first raised concerns about “irregularities” in how the Justice Department was handling the case in the summer of 2020 Trump administration. Shapley said he continued to raise concerns about the case in subsequent years under the Biden administration.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, which is overseeing the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden, declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the Justice Department. The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shapley insisted he wasn’t blowing the whistle for political reasons, telling CBS he’s “not involved with any of that stuff,” adding, “It’s not what I want to do. I’m just not a political person. This is a job, and my oath is to treat everyone we investigate fairly.”
A tense meeting in October 2022, Shapley told CBS, was his “red line meeting,” saying he “just got to the point where the switch went on and I couldn’t silence the my conscience.”
Federal prosecutors, spanning three attorneys general, have spent years investigating Hunter Biden and have weighed filing charges against the president’s son for alleged tax crimes and a false statement, as CNN has previously reported. So far, no charges have been filed and Hunter Biden has denied wrongdoing.
Shapley’s attorneys had hoped their client would be able to sit for a joint interview with the House and Senate committees, and recently expressed frustration that a bicameral interview did not come up. On Wednesday, a Senate Finance Committee aide said the whistleblower’s team pulled out of the meeting with the group.
“Committee staff on both sides agreed with counsel to meet directly with the complainant next week, but the complainant has withdrawn from that agreement and declined an attempt to reschedule,” he said Ryan Carey, a spokesman for Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. “If the whistleblower wishes to meet with the Senate Finance Committee, Speaker Wyden’s staff is willing to arrange a meeting under conditions that comply with laws that protect taxpayer data and ensure a fair and rigorous investigation.”
