Biden Transition Team Was Tipped Off the Night Before Planned FBI Interview with Hunter, Whistleblower Testifies

A former FBI supervisory special agent confirmed key aspects of two IRS whistleblowers’ previous testimony about the DOJ, FBI and IRS’s alleged interference in the Hunter Biden tax probe, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer said Monday night.

The special agent, who worked in the FBI’s Wilmington field office, told committee staff in a transcribed interview on Monday that the Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team were tipped off the night before the planned interview of Hunter Biden. 

“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 committee said. 

IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley, who has previously came forward as a whistleblower, and the former FBI supervisory special agent were assigned to interview the younger Biden.

The agent and Shapley were told on December 8, 2020, the day of the interview, that they could not approach Hunter Biden’s house and would have to wait near his residence until the younger Biden contacted them, the FBI agent told House Oversight staff. The former FBI supervisory special agent said he had never been told to handle an interview this way before.

“As a result of these actions, Shapley and the former FBI supervisory special agent never interviewed Hunter Biden,” the committee said. 

“The Justice Department’s efforts to cover up for the Bidens reveals a two-tiered system of justice that sickens the American people,” Comer said in a statement. “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.”

The two IRS whistleblowers are set to testify at a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday about the DOJ, FBI and IRS’s alleged interference in the Hunter Biden tax probe.

Shapley and a second unnamed whistleblower previously offered closed-door testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee. Now, the pair will share “critical information” related to the investigation into the younger Biden, the committee said.

The DOJ announced last month that Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors related to his failure to pay his taxes in 2017 and 2018. He will also enter a probation agreement that will allow him to avoid jail time for possessing a handgun while intoxicated in 2018.

The gun charge centered on the younger Biden’s acknowledgment in his recent autobiography that he was using crack nearly every 15 minutes around the time he purchased a handgun in 2018 despite claiming on a federal background check that he was not using illicit drugs.

The two IRS agents told the committee they pushed for felony charges against the president’s son in the tax probe and that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss wanted to bring charges against Biden in the District of Columbia and Southern California last year but was denied by DOJ officials both times.

Weiss disputed this claim in a letter to Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying he had “never been denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction.”

Shapley claimed investigators sought to search the Bidens’ Delaware residence in connection with the Hunter Biden tax probe because the younger Biden had spent significant time there. But assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf allegedly warned investigators to consider the optics of performing such an investigation, Shapley said, though investigators believed there was a significant chance they would find a lot of evidence in the home.

Shapley said Wolf also let the younger Biden’s lawyers know that investigators had probable cause to search his North Virginia storage unit, a tip-off that would give him an opportunity to remove evidence ahead of the search.