A Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee lost it during a heated Wednesday hearing in which two IRS whistleblowers testified the Justice Department politically interfered with an investigation into President Biden’s youngest son, Hunter Biden.
Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., spent the time he was allotted to question the whistleblowers instead railing against the committee’s focus on Hunter Biden, claiming the FBI, DOJ and IRS “keep this democracy in check,” and ripping up his prepared remarks in a show of frustration.
“Now, here’s what galls me. I don’t like these attacks on the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS, as if they are somehow anti-U.S. agencies. Those agencies keep this democracy in check … They provide the checks, and they provide the balances,” Mfume said, referencing Republican members of the committee criticizing the agencies over the alleged interference into the Hunter Biden investigation.
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Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) at a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 08, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“We are doing this all over again for the Hunter Biden show to someone who has pleaded guilty and has taken responsibility for not filing taxes for two years. This is a ludicrous. Beam me up, Scotty. There’s no intelligent life down here. None,” he later added, appearing angry as he shredded the papers in front of him.
Before the outburst, Mfume attempted to redirect attention from the committee’s probe into Hunter Biden to the pending legal hurdles facing former President Donald Trump.
“I want to congratulate my colleagues from across the aisle for gathering us here today, almost distracting us from the biggest investigation that is going on right now in our country and in our nation’s history involving the former president and the front-runner for the Republican nomination, who is currently facing a 37 count indictment,” he said.
Then Vice President-elect, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., left, stands with his son Hunter during a re-enactment of the Senate oath ceremony in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington in January 2008. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
He noted the potential for Trump to face further indictments in other investigations and attempted to downplay Hunter Biden’s legal woes by arguing the latter had “already pleaded guilty to not filing his taxes, having a gun charge, and now I hear also paying for prostitution.”
He accused Trump of seeking “special treatment” in his classified documents case, and called for the committee to hold a hearing on the former president’s “history of tax evasion.”
“Let’s let’s be real when we talk about this. It’s not just Hunter Biden. But as long as we’re saying Hunter Biden, we forget everything else,” Mfume said. “And again, Hunter Biden did step forward and said, I did not file taxes in two years. And yes, this gun charge I will take responsibility for.”
Supervisory IRS Special Agent Gary Shapley (L) and IRS Criminal Investigator Joseph Ziegler are sworn-in as they testify during a House Oversight Committee hearing related to the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden, on Capitol Hill July 19, 2023, in Washington, DC. The committee heard testimony from two whistleblowers from the Internal Revenue Service who allege that the Hunter Biden criminal probe was mishandled by the Department of Justice. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The IRS whistleblowers claim there was a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” into Hunter Biden, which included instructions not to speak with him at his residence, tipping the president’s son and staff off about the ongoing efforts and delaying enforcement actions in the months before the 2020 presidential election.
The two former agents were assigned to the federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax and gun charges. Biden ultimately pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor tax offenses as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors in a lenient deal that prompted criticism from Republican lawmakers. The hearing comes as House Republicans continue to investigate the president and his family after the DOJ failed to find evidence of criminal conduct.
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Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
