A whistleblower scandal is brewing inside the Hunter Biden investigation.
A WHISTLEBLOWER SCANDAL IS BREWING INSIDE THE HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATION.
Just last month, this newsletter covered the emergence of a whistleblower in the joint Justice Department-IRS investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The whistleblower was a career IRS criminal supervisory special agent who, according to his lawyer, could reveal “clear conflicts of interest” in the Biden investigation as well as “examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.”
At this point
there is no public hint of exactly what that means that is what the Justice Department actually did or what the IRS actually did to put a thumb on the scale in the Hunter investigation. As a preliminary step the whistleblower was seeking protection from reprisals by the Biden administration before going public with his story. The law protects whistleblowers from retaliation by higher-ups. But after the whistleblower came forward, he was removed from the Hunter Biden case — and then the whole team he supervised was removed, too.
Now, there is a second whistleblower.
This one apparently has had hands on, close involvement, running the Hunter investigation for more than five years.The IRS whistleblower voiced concerns about how the Hunter case was being handled, and on May 18 he sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and other key IRS officials outlining his experiences since then.
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Whistleblower 2 began the letter by saying it was unusual for him to go straight to the top of the IRS, bypassing the chain of command. He did so, he explained, “because I don’t think my concerns and/or words are being relayed to your respective offices.” In other words, he accused midlevel IRS managers of bottling up complaints of problems with the investigation. Whether those midlevel managers were doing that with or without knowledge of the top is not clear.
This is what Whistleblower 2 wrote:
As I am sure you were aware, I was removed this week from a highly sensitive case out of the [an unnamed U.S. Attorney’s Office] after nearly 5 years of work. I was not afforded the opportunity of a phone call directly from my SAC or ASAC [special agent in charge or assistant special agent in charge], even though this has been my investigation from the start. I can’t continue to explain how disappointed I am by the actions taken on behalf of our agency. … My leadership above my direct manager — who was also removed — didn’t even give me the common courtesy of a phone call, did not afford me the opportunity of understanding why this decision was made, and did not afford me an opportunity to explain my case.
So why did the IRS sack the agent handling the case and the whole team working with him?
Because the IRS investigators on the case began pointing out what they thought were inappropriate actions by the Justice Department, the IRS’s partner in the Hunter Biden investigation.
I never thought in my career that I would have to write an email like this Whistleblower 2 said in closing. But here I am.
So how did IRS higher-ups respond?
Did they thank Whistleblower 2 for bringing problems to their attention? Did they promise to look into the concerns about how the Justice Department was handling its part of the case? Did they seek more information from Whistleblower 2?
None of the above. Instead of taking the concerns seriously, the IRS bureaucracy told Whistleblower 2 to shut up and keep his concerns inside his chain of command. You have been told several times that you need to follow your chain of command an IRS official wrote to Whistleblower 2. Then the official told Whistleblower 2 that he might even have violated the law by including “potential grand jury material” in the subject line of his email. He was told to “follow previously stated directives and this written directive that no information should be sent to the [director of field operations], Deputy Chief, Chief, or any other executive,” without going through lower-downs in the chain of command.
Whistleblower 2 took the grand jury remark,
which appears to be entirely baseless, as a shot across the bow. The IRS official who wrote it was clearly suggesting Whistleblower 2 might actually face criminal exposure for taking his concerns to the head of the IRS.
Remember back in the mists of time, in the first Trump impeachment, when Democrats told us that whistleblowers were sacred and must, must, must be protected? That’s when a whistleblower was targeting then-President Donald Trump. Now, when a whistleblower is concerned about the Hunter Biden investigation, he is told to stay in his lane. And then he, along with several colleagues, is removed from the case. Something is going on here.
So what now?
Whistleblowers 1 and 2 are striving to communicate their concerns to Congress. Democrats not being interested in hearing them out won’t come as a surprise to you.
But Republicans control one chamber of Congress now, so it is likely those concerns will eventually become public. The story’s true purpose will then become clear. nevertheless for the time being, we’re seeing what the Biden administration does to career government employees who look too closely into the shady business dealings of the president’s son.
