Lawyers fighting hard to protect the interests of their IRS whistleblower client, as well as defending lady liberty herself, went head to head with the pricey team of consiglieres representing the Biden family. News from our nation’s capitol has been a little more exciting lately than usual.
IRS agent offended
Lawyers representing IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley “tore into” Hunter Biden’s team of high-priced lawyers, demanding they knock off the “false and defamatory statements” right now. The supervisory agent’s legal team also sent their couriers scurrying off with a pair of cease and desist letters to reporters at the Washington Post.
Tristan Leavitt and Jason Foster of nonprofit public accountability group Empower Oversight teamed up with whistleblower attorney Mark Lytle to put the demands in writing.
As spelled out clearly in matching letters to Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, Shapley most definitely was not their “source” when they wrote an article in October of 2022 claiming that federal IRS investigators “believed they had the goods on Hunter.” Since they already know that, they need to confirm it to their readers as well.
NEW: IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley gets specific, says Hunter Biden was paid $8.3M from Ukraine, China and Romania.
"It was around $8.3 million [Hunter] received,” Shapley said during an interview on Fox News.
“From who?”
"They came from China, from CEFC, came from Ukraine… pic.twitter.com/kpY5yxYI3V
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 29, 2023
“Biden family attorneys have falsely accused SSA Shapley of illegally leaking to you. Shapley was not a source for you on that story, or any other story for that matter.” They don’t care if the reporters name a source, just confirm it’s not their client.
Their story published October 6, 2022 “detailed how federal investigators felt they had garnered sufficient evidence to charge Hunter Biden for tax crimes and for lying on a federal firearm purchase form.” Maybe the IRS did, maybe they didn’t. The important thing is that they did not hear that from Shapely.
He meticulously followed all the whistleblower rules. He even had to get special permission from Congress before he could fill in his own lawyers on what he had to talk about. If Shapely was going to leak, he had things to leak about a whole lot better than that.
False and defamatory statements
It may have been Hunter’s lawyers who leaked that information. That makes it real easy to use against the annoying IRS informants later. They already knew those charges were coming and that Hunter would get probation for the misdemeanors. The sneaky legal strategy seems to have backfired in their faces, this time.
“Mr. Biden’s lawyers,” the letter states, “are not entitled to make false and defamatory statements about SSA Shapley.” They thought they could preemptively solve one of their biggest problems. “It is a felony for an IRS agent to improperly disclose information about an ongoing tax investigation.”
Not only does he deny it, “Shapley vehemently denied insinuations that he leaked information about the Hunter Biden probe to the Washington Post.” Lawyers for the IRS whistleblower aren’t real happy with the reporters for printing it in the first place.
U.S. Attorney Weiss’s letter confirms exactly what Gary Shapley told Congress: Weiss did not have “full authority” to bring charges, but had to “partner” with relevant U.S. Attorney. Says he’s “been assured” he could get Special Attorney status in future—but hasn’t had it yet. pic.twitter.com/TeYoJd6ylX
— Tristan Leavitt (@tristanleavitt) July 1, 2023
“Nor is it appropriate for them to release statements full of careful insinuations and speculation that keep them just a hair’s breadth from a defamation lawsuit, relying on the news media to spread a false narrative without correcting the public record.” They aren’t being sued yet but will be if they don’t fess up.
Just so the reporters can’t get cute and claim some sort of non-existent agreement, “Shapley’s lawyers added that Barrett and Stein were being formally released from any ‘pledge of confidentiality’ they may have had with Shapley to corroborate his claims.”
The IRS investigator gives full permission to talk about anything he told them, because he never told them anything. “You are now free to correct Mr. Biden’s attorneys and clear SSA Shapley’s good name of these false and retaliatory charges.” We’ll see what happens.
