According to House Republicans, a former FBI agent has reinforced claims made by an IRS whistleblower that investigators into Hunter Biden’s tax case encountered unprecedented obstacles.
“Today, a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation confirmed key portions of the IRS whistleblower’s testimony,” House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer said Monday in a statement on the panel’s website.
“The night before the interview of Hunter Biden, both Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were tipped off about the planned interview,” the Kentucky Republican said.
🚨BREAKING🚨
Today, our committee staff conducted a transcribed interview with a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation.
The agent CONFIRMED key portions of the IRS whistleblowers’ testimony, including…
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 17, 2023
“On the day of the Hunter Biden interview, federal agents were told to stand by and could not approach Hunter Biden — they had to wait for his call. As a result of the change in plans, IRS and FBI criminal investigators never got to interview Hunter Biden as part of the investigation,” he continued.
“The Justice Department’s efforts to cover up for the Bidens reveals a two-tiered system of justice that sickens the American people. The Oversight Committee, along with the Judiciary Committee and Ways and Means Committee, will continue to seek the answers, transparency, and accountability that the American people demand and deserve,” Comer said.
In an interview with the committee, the former FBI agent disclosed in the statement that he and IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley intended to interview multiple witnesses on December 8, 2020.
However, he claimed that this information was disclosed to the Secret Service and Joe Biden’s transition team.
“This was not the original plan by the career agents, which frustrated their investigative efforts because people found out who didn’t need to know,” the statement said the former agent told the committee.
Instead of interviewing Hunter Biden, investigators “were notified they would not be allowed to approach Hunter Biden’s house and instead would have to wait near his residence until Hunter Biden contacted them,” the statement said that the former agent told the committee.
This was a shocking precedent, according to the former FBI agent, who had never been instructed to wait for the subject of an investigation to contact him.
The statement noted that Hunter Biden was never interviewed due to the obstacles placed in their path.
Let me get this straight:
Biden's DOJ targets Trump again the same week he's up in the polls & an IRS whistleblower is testifying that Biden's DOJ obstructed an IRS investigation into Hunter.
Another clear case of the weaponization of the DOJ against Biden's political opponent. pic.twitter.com/bfRo2LW9ey
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) July 18, 2023
During prior testimony, Shapley indicated that plans to examine witnesses on December 8, 2020, had been derailed.
“I get a phone call from my Assistant Special Agent in Charge, George Murphy, who tells me that FBI headquarters notified Secret Service headquarters and the transition team that the day of action was occurring the next day,” he said.
He said the notice involved safety and “tampering with witnesses, right? Now you’re telling the witnesses that agents might be knocking on your door tomorrow, don’t say anything.”
Shapley also said that during the investigation “Some of the decisions seem to be influenced by politics. But whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation.”
“These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before elections to ensure the investigation did not go overt [over] well before policy memorandum mandated the pause. These are just only a few examples,” he said.