IRS whistleblower turns tables on Hunter Biden lawyers over leak allegation
Agent Gary Shapley directly denies he leaked tax information to Washington Post or anyone else, suggests allegations are part of retaliation campaign.
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The IRS whistleblower at the center of the Hunter Biden scandal on Wednesday turned the tables on the presidential son’s defense lawyers, filing an official statement to Congress denying claims he leaked protected tax information and suggesting the defense team’s allegations were “another attack in retaliation” for his decision to blow the whistle.
IRS Supervisory Criminal Investigative Agent Gary Shapley sent the statement to House and Senate committees, saying he was so confident he hadn’t leaked that he would release the Washington Post and reporters Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein to make public any evidence it has to back up Democrat and defense team claims he may have been the source of an October 2022 story about agents’ concerns about conduct in the case.
“I was not the source for the October 6, 2022 Washington Post article, nor have I ever had any contact with Barrett or Stein,” Shapley’s statement said. “Because I am so confident of this fact, I hereby authorize the Washington Post and/or journalists Devlin Barrett, Perry Stein, or any other Washington Post reporter to release any communications directly or indirectly to or from me.
“In this regard , I am willing to waive any purported journalistic privilege and/confidentiality that would have arisen had I been a source for the Washington Post. I have never leaked confidential taxpayer information,” his statement added.
You can read that letter here.
The unsolicited letter came just days after Hunter Biden lawyer Abbe Lowell accused Shapley and another whistleblower of being “disgruntled” and making “false allegations” in their interviews with Congress and insinuated the whistleblowers could be behind the October 2022 Washington Post article.
“It is a tried-and-true tactic of aggrieved agents, who believe they know better than experienced prosecutors and disagree with those prosecutors timing or conclusions, to seek to influence an outcome of an investigation and pressure prosecutors to charge by leaking to the media. Happens all the time,” Lowell wrote.
You can read that letter here:
The back and forth came as prominent GOP senators and House committee chairmen joined forces Wednesday to demand an investigation by the Office of Special Counsel, the government’s main whistleblower protection office, into what they said was clear reprisals against Shapley.
Shapley told Just the News in an interview last week that he was passed over for a promotion, kicked off the Hunter Biden case and had a major tax-recovery project canceled since he blew the whistle.
“The importance of protecting whistleblowers from unlawful retaliation and informing whistleblowers about their rights under the law cannot be understated. After all, it is the law,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley wrote the Office of Special Counsel.
“Accordingly, we request that you immediately investigate all allegations of retaliation against these IRS whistleblowers and all violations related to the IRS’s failure to include the anti-gag provision as required by law,” they added. “ In addition, we request that you immediately seek the appropriate disciplinary actions against all who engaged in unlawful conduct against these whistleblowers. “
You can read that letter here:
File
2023-07-05 CEG Johnson Comer Jordan Smith to OSC (Whistleblower Retaliation) (003).pdf
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(TLB) published this article with permission of John Solomon at Just the News. Click Here to read about the staff at Just the News
Header featured image (edited) credit: Shapley/Hunter & Joe Biden/composit from FOX News screen shots
Emphasis and pictorial content added by (TLB)
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