Hunter Biden’s tax probe exposed: How the president’s son ‘always benefitted’

Tristan Levitt attorney for Gary shapley the former IRS supervisor your client Mr shapley he requested whistleblower protection from Congress in April because after three years running the investigation in Hunter Biden's taxes he wanted to come forward and explain how he thought this probe had been handled improperly can you walk me through this initial stage yeah so the technicalities are actually even a bit more nuanced than that so when someone makes a protected disclosure in the United States government employees can disclose various types of information of wrongdoing and those are automatically protected by the law what makes Gary's case unique he's a senior supervisory special agent at the Internal Revenue Service it's our tax collection agency and he wanted to be able to disclose information about this investigation in detail and there are laws that protect the privacy of taxpayers in the United States so he had whistleblower protection if he needed to be able to in more detail make a disclosure he wanted to make that disclosure to Congress so the initial letter went in April we had a period of uh of working with uh the house Ways and Means Committee and also with the Senate finance committee both Republicans and Democrats on those two committees to arrange the terms of first us coming in to provide a proffer to identify the types of information that he wanted to come forward with in order to do that the Committees had to designate both myself and another attorney to receive that confidential taxpayer information so until we got that from the Committees even we didn't know the full extent of the disclosures Gary wanted to make but that interview uh which was about a five to six hour of questions um was you know his opportunity to share what he wanted to come forward with which was that in the investigation of Hunter Biden it was treated differently than any other case he'd seen in his 15 years at the IRS there were there were many many examples of preferential treatment our hunter was you know there were investigative and prosecutorial decisions made that have not been you know made in any other case that he's seen it was always to the benefit of Hunter Gary's chapley was staking whistleblower protection in April and then after they've taken this vote to release the transcript of the testimony were house Democrats on the committee willing to do this or house Democrats in Congress willing to kind of go ahead with this well they were part of the questioning so they had questions for him as well as the Republicans both sides questioned him when it came to making taking the vote on releasing the transcript all the Democrats voted against releasing it there was the transcript of Gary and also of a second IRS whistleblower um the case agent on the hunter Biden case and so for both of these transcripts it was a straight party line vote with Republicans voting to release it and Democrats voting against releasing it but they've had the opportunity to ask him questions and the Senate finance committee is Democrats are in the majority there are more of them on that committee and so again from from the very beginning it was really important to Gary that this be a bipartisan process it's not lost on him that these you know that these allegations impact you know potentially a sitting president and also that they you know they tie into um you know some information that that some Democrats would rather not hear but he wanted to make sure that he did it by the book and they talked to both sides evenly so that everyone could see he doesn't have an accident right he just wanted the truth to be known what has the IRS and the Department of Justice said about their decision to stand down Gary shupley and his entire team of Agents when he did come forward with these allegations and when he was originally seeking whistleblower protection or as they would put it he was retaliated against him what he would say even though they weren't far from making a decision over what to charge Hunter Biden with they basically have not addressed it substantively they have said doj has said that they he was not retaliated against um there there is some ambiguity about what um you know prosecutorial discretion there is for picking who you know for saying we want different agents it's not something that uh anyone the IRS has ever seen before and it's not it's not really a a typical prosecutorial discretion question but they not only took Gary and his team off it appears that they also got a fully clean new set of prosecutors as well which raises some questions they you know may argue that because of allegations of misconduct they felt that it needed to be seen by Clean eyes but it raises the question of what these new prosecutors who'd only been on the case for about a month how they could possibly know all the years worth of evidence and all the information there that you would need in order to in good faith engage and plea deal negotiations that that accurately reflect the government's evidence against Hunter Biden so on that well Hunter bottom will plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges in the deal the plei deal made with the justice department but your client has claimed that this is not the outcome that they were working towards what are the Charges were on the cards for Hunter Biden so there are they were looking at multiple different tax years going back to 2014 and for the 2014 and 2015 tax years that information um was those tax years would have been filed while Hunter was living in Washington DC and so U.S attorney wise had to go to the U.S attorney for the District of Columbia to try and seek their approval those charges included uh foreign income in 2014 where Hunter had filed a tax return that left off his income from barisma the Ukrainian Energy company and so he received guidance from his own advisor saying you need to file an amended return because what you filed is false information so that's a potent that's a felony charge and so that 2014 and 2015 were significant years that would have been a significant significant leverage for the government in any plea deal because of the unwillingness of the DC us attorney to charge it these charges were allowed to expire they had a statute of limitations and so they expired in November of 2022 and so we're no longer available for the government to charge any longer but that's what part part of what would have been a bigger case the other one that really stands out is for the 2018 year so for each of these years the IRS recommended again felony charges for 2014 and for 2018 and then misdemeanor charges for the other years um on failure to file and or failure to pay but for 2018 again submitting in false information on return Hunter charged uh or Hunter marked as business expenses a number of charges for things like prostitutes a membership to a sex club even a hotel room for what what is allegedly his drug dealer and as Gary outlined in his interview with Congress Hunter's own accountants came back and said we can't charge these as business expenses and Hunter insisted that that's what needed to be done and so again you have a slam dunk felony case there for false information on the returns and all of that just washes away with this plea deal just for a couple of misdemeanors and his team of Agents had their way if they got the charges in motion would Hunter Biden be facing jail time uh I think very likely yes I do think it's important to you know to identify that the way the system works uh you know investigators simply gather the evidence so you know I don't know that Gary has a way I don't know he has an outcome that he thinks should have happened other than that in the investigation they should have been able to look into all of the investigative leads that came up they were turned down at many Avenues and then once you gather that information you hand it over to the prosecutors and you know there are there are prosecutorial decisions that happen at those points but this was treated differently than other cases that anyone there had seen before and so that's the key thing Gary shapley doesn't have some sort of Acts to grind against Hunter Biden but he believes that Americans should be treated uh equally here in the United States on their taxes well on that note what would you say what will it say about the justice system if the judge does sign off on this plea deal well that's a that's a question about my pay grade to some extent right end of the day the judge is going to have to look at the information that the government is providing the government will need to provide obviously um you know the plea deal will have details in there of what Hunter is agreeing to so some key questions are does you know is this absolve him of all past charges or even future tax charges um what information is Hunter admitting to does he in the statement of facts acknowledge the false statements in 2018 does he touch on the earlier years at all um you know these these charges are just for the 2018 and 2019 years but does are the other years encompassed in the statement of facts so any judge is going to have to look at those and there's also been talk in Congress of of also potentially weighing in to identify their equities and the equities of the American people to say that the people you know both deserve to have all the facts and then that you know the full scope of the investigation deserves to be reflected in the prosecution so what a judge does with that is your guess as much as mine in an interview with MSN they say the other day Hunter Biden's lawyer Chris Clark said a fair outcome would be for the judge to let his client be able to get on with his life what do you make of that comment at the end of the day every American wants to be able to get off get on when they're with their life and not be you know hounded by the government but when you break laws there are consequences and you know that's why the government was investigating Hunter Biden to begin with so yeah he's not ultimately you know Equal justice under the law is that when you break the law of there are consequences your client has alleged that this investigation is unlike anything he's ever witnessed as you said before and that I had examples of preferential treatment conflicts of interest that investigators were basically left out of reviewing important evidence who does Gary shapley believe was at the center of this decision if you read the transcript you see that it's it's it's not a centrally you know masterminded conspiracy in some way certainly a central figure is assistant U.S attorney Leslie wolf she worked in the Delaware U.S attorney's office and she was the primary one shutting down many of the investigative Avenues her claim uh to the investigators was we won't get that approved or we're not going to be able to get buy-in on that so you know whether she would argue that she would simply parroting what she was hearing from higher ups Gary doesn't know he only knows you know the interactions that he had but again it's clear that decision after decision benefited Hunter Biden his leadership was never there to back him up when there were hard decisions to be made they basically washed their hands of it they made him the point person which is not something you would typically have an assistant special agent in charge um or a supervisor special agent which are the two roles he had throughout the investigation making these key decisions a supervisor special agent normally isn't interfacing directly with the US attorney normally it's a higher level official within the agency but as they say big cases mean big trouble and others within the agency at the IRS just refuse to engage on them when he raised problems and said were being stymied these prosecutors are blocking the investigation the IRS basically just left him to to you know drift in the wind and figure it out on his own how often was his investigation interfered with was he ever allowed to conduct the search warrants that he requested as saying in his testimony and did he ever have access to Hunter Biden's laptop so it's a complicated answer um for example on the laptop he he did not ever get direct access to it or nor was he ever given something till this is the full image he got information that he understands came from it but there was never anything definitive saying yes this is all of the evidence you know this is everything that's out there um similarly with the investigation there were search warrants that were not ever able to be executed but there was some you know there was part of the idea right if the if Hunter's attorneys are asked for material and they provide some material then he'll never know if that's all of the material if there's more there there was a storage unit in Northern Virginia which is just south of Washington DC and uh when uh agents went to interview Hunter Biden himself and a number of his other associates on December 8th I believe of 2020 which was a significant thing because it had been put off again and again and again until the 2020 election and thereafter so they're finally able to go overt with their investigation and when that happened they learned that there was this storage unit in Northern Virginia that had a lot of the business papers the hunter had moved when his uh he closed down shop in Washington DC investigators wanted to issue a search warrant to go and look in that and were stopped from doing so but again to this day they don't know if ultimately basically they were relying on the voluntary production of documents from Hunter and his attorneys to to have any information so they just don't know what the true Universe was and that's not how investigations usually work investigators go and gather the materials they go and get the questions answered and and then that puts them in a position to negotiate with defense counsel here defense counsel was able to run the show so Gary Shepley was alleging that David Weiss obviously the man leading this investigation out of Delaware was seeking special counsel status to be able to prosecute in different jurisdictions outside of Delaware and California and they say but that was denied David West's letter on Friday night basically admitted to doing that what does this say about the investigation and how much of Merit Garland's testimony about not interfering in the probe was contradicted well Weiss's letter was nuanced and certainly for Weiss to acknowledge that he had to receive you know permission to partner with other U.S attorneys uh we believe strongly supports Gary shapley's testimony and and again contradicts what Merrick Garland has said but Weiss didn't touch on is whether he had already requested special counsel Authority he says he's been assured in the future he will be able to get it and so that's the million dollar question did David Weiss as he told investigators from multiple agencies on October 7th 2022 previously asked for special counsel or special attorney Authority and if so was it denied and who did he ask it of those are all questions Weiss needs to answer so far he's avoided answering that question you know Weiss's letter was kind of a master class and obfuscation and admitting more than has been admitted until now which was significant but still not getting to the Crux of whether Weiss was stopped from bringing charges in the past which is what um not only Gary and other Witnesses have been told but what the evidence points to why else would the Delaware us attorney's office have allowed the 2014 and 2015 charges to expire other than the reason that they gave to Gary in October which is that there was there was no there's no point in keeping them keeping the negotiations going on extending the statute of limitations with Hunter's defense team when there was no venue to prosecute in so again the fact that they allowed those to expire strongly supports uh I think the the allegations that in fact Weiss couldn't do anything with those unless he could get buy-in from DC us attorney Matt Graves who allegedly uh refused to bring the charges there there is some interplay of Dynamics between again investigators and prosecutors that you see and then prosecutors of different districts but not usually with a case this significant and with charges that are this straightforward and this with this much evidence did Gary Shepley and his team ever come across that FD 1023 document that allegedly details a bribery scheme between Joe Biden and Ukrainian oligarch Gary submitted an a an additional affidavit to the house Ways and Means Committee uh identifying that he has not ever seen the fd-1023 he was not aware of the 1023 or of the substance of its allegations and that if he had been aware that would have been very significant and relevant to his investigation which was all about how the money from barisma was moved where it was going who was receiving it so this was news to him and it was very very big news to him that such a document existed in Obsession of the FBI would it be the normal process that the FBI would hand it over to Gary and his team to investigate as part of their probe into the 2014 barisma taxes again there are some ways that this is this is unusual so there's you know there's not a standard uh in some ways for for much of this but typically yes if you know the IRS and FBI investigators were were working side by side throughout the investigation they shared information with each other they shared evidence with each other they questioned Witnesses together so in a typical investigation it was all being run out of one office that's absolutely something they would have seen um you know the part of the unusual nature of this is what former uh attorney general Bill Barr has identified that there there was a lot of information cropping up around the country with allegations about the bidens he felt that it needed to be vetted or at least um in one place needed to be checked for signs of disinformation and that these allegations you know did not show signs of disinformation and so it should have made its way to Delaware it should have been in the hands of the IRS and the FBI investigators it's absolutely something that Gary should have seen yeah well on that note Gary testified in his testimony to Congress that the FBI had verified the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop in November 2019 which is obviously one year before the 2020 presidential election and they didn't seem to intercept the narrative that it was an example of Russian disinformation what is your client alleging about the role of the FBI from what he's saying well the FBI had possession of the laptop but it was it was really the decision of the prosecutors to decide who received what but the laptop itself not being accessible to the IRS was a significant problem the FBI only obtained it because of an IRS um uh a warrant or IRS authorization to review the contents of the laptop because the possible charges were tax charges and so that's what gave them the access to investigate under the U.S legal system where you have to have some predicate you have to have a reason to look through and search the contents if they had it in their possession but they didn't have any potential charges and that's what the IRS provided and so again in any other investigation it would have gone to the investigators and Gary would have been able to see a full readout of what was on the laptop you know similar in to other investigations where the evidence is all provided to the investigators Tristan has the White House contacted you at all no uh his attorneys no they put out a statement last week which uh really walks the line in the U.S defamation law by insinuating several things about our client um and suggesting you know not only that he had improper motives but that he broke the law or that he was the subject you know that he was an individual to leak information to the press and so you know we are addressing that and responding to that information but we haven't had any first-hand contact I don't anticipate that we will um but you know those who have had contact for instance Chris Clark told the prosecutors last summer that if they were to charge his client it was a career pillar and so I I can't imagine that any contact with them would be a positive nature no just finally Tristan based off what you you and your client have examined how possible is it that Joy Barton is lying when he says that he's never spoken to his son about his overseas business deals based on what Gary knows there's just not enough information to say one way or the other obviously there are allegations there are investigative leads that need to be followed up on but none of the leads that Gary has been allowed to pursue thus far and give the answer to that question um there there is certainly public reporting out there of things like phone calls between President Biden um or you know then as VP or after he was out of office um discussing some elements with Hunter and and so again that comes from public reporting um and you know that raises further questions about the denials that President Biden has issued But ultimately it's just clear there are a lot of other elements that need to be investigated because you know these these significant leads really raise a lot of questions about the role of Joe Biden in the whole Biden family Enterprise you know whether what again what the judge does or what anyone else does in this this instance say there's a whole two-tiered system is is a you know is a I think a fair accusation to make but at the end of the day what Gary wants is simply for the public to understand what happened and for Congress to be able to ensure that in the future nothing like this ever happens again that that investigations like this have the the Independence that they need and that you know when you have such a high profile individual such a politically connected individual that that's treated the same as everyone else that's Gary's chief goal and that's the system that he is is striving to ensure that we have in the United States Tristan Levitt thank you so much for your time thanks so much Maddie

Channel: Sky News Australia

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Length: 22min 6sec (1326 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023