Allegations of impropriety in the federal probe of Hunter Biden are piling higher now that a second Internal Revenue Service whistleblower has come forward alleging the investigation was riddled with misconduct.
In April, attorney Mark Lytle approached congressional leaders to arrange for closed-door testimony from an IRS whistleblower who wanted to tell Congress about preferential treatment being given in the investigation due to the influence of a political appointee in the Biden administration.
Last week, the IRS took all of its current staff investigating Hunter Biden’s taxes off of the investigation, according to the New York Post.
And now, a second whistleblower has come forward, saying he has been punished for claiming Hunter Biden was getting special treatment, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.
A letter from attorneys Lytle and Tristan Leavitt said that the first whistleblower “has become aware that the case agent on the case, which our client supervises, also sent a protected disclosure directly to IRS Commissioner Werfel this week.”
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The second whistleblower told IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, that he was punished for doing the “right thing,” including telling others in the department that the Justice Department was “acting inappropriately,” according to the Post.
“The lack of IRS-[Criminal Investigation] senior leadership involvement in this investigation is deeply troubling and unacceptable. Rather than recognizing the need to ensure close engagement and full support of the investigatory team in this extraordinarily sensitive case, the response too often had been that we were isolated (even when I said on multiple occasions that I wasn’t being heard and that I thought I wasn’t able to perform my job adequately because of the actions of the USAO and DOJ, my concerns were ignored by senior leadership),” the second whistleblower’s message to Werfel said.
“For the last couple years, my [supervisor] and I have tried to gain the attention of our senior leadership about certain issues prevalent regarding the investigation. I have asked for countless … meetings with our chief and deputy chief, often to be left out on an island and not heard from,” the agent wrote.
“The ultimate decision to remove the investigatory team from [redacted] without actually talking with that investigatory team, in my opinion was a decision made not to side with the investigators but to side with the U.S. Attorney’s office and Department of Justice who we have been saying for some time has been acting inappropriately.”
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In the letter to Congress, the lawyers explained what happened to the second whistleblower, according to the Daily Mail.
“The IRS responded by raising the baseless and absurd prospect that his email to the Commissioner may have violated Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) restrictions on disclosing grand jury proceedings. It did not. The email simply raised reasonable, good faith concerns to his chain of command, including Commissioner Werfel, about the removal of an entire investigative team from the case — which some of them have worked diligently for almost five years — before it has been resolved,” the letter said.
Lytle and Leavitt also wrote a letter to Werfel saying that “the IRS has inexplicably decided to initiate additional reprisals against these special agents, apparently for a protected disclosure directly to you. This is unacceptable and contrary to the law, which clearly prohibits it.’
“It was our understanding that although the IRS executed the reprisal, it did so on behalf of DOJ officials who had the motive to retaliate because it was the propriety of their own actions that had been called into question by the protected disclosures,” the letter said.
Lytle and Leavitt said Werfel’s office responded “with accusations of criminal conduct and warnings to other agents in an apparent attempt to intimidate into silence anyone who might raise similar concerns.”
Another document sent to Congress alleged IRS investigators were kicked to the curb last year, according to the Post.
“In a charged meeting on October 7, 2022, U.S. Attorney for the District of [redacted] became aware that both the IRS and the FBI had longstanding concerns about the handling of the case … After [redacted] continued to communicate concerns to the [redacted] USAO in a prosecutorial team call on October 17, 2022, he and his IRS team were no longer invited to any further prosecutorial team calls and meetings on the case, effectively excluding them from the case,” a document sent to Congress said.
A Monday letter posted on the website of the Washington Examiner from Lytle and Leavitt chided Congress for not moving faster on the initial whistleblower’s claim.
“It is your constitutional duty to act as a check on Executive Branch abuse,” the letter said.
“The longer it takes for Congress to begin oversight of this issue in earnest, the more it emboldens those who would retaliate against our client. For more than a month since first writing to you on April 19th, we have been attempting to schedule a transcribed interview — under appropriate protections in light of tax secrecy laws — with the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance,” the letter continued.
“Throughout the last month we have repeatedly requested that our client be allowed to testify voluntarily on a bipartisan, bicameral basis. In addition to the risks he is already taking with his career and livelihood to offer you information, he should not have to take the additional risks associated with being forced to testify twice, in two different settings, with two different transcripts in the control of two different committees, led by two different chairmen with opposing partisan interests.”
“In short, our client is unwilling to be a political football, and is disappointed that the committees have been unwilling to negotiate one voluntary interview at which all could participate fully,” the letter said, noting that testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee will take place Friday.
