Hunter Biden lawyer acknowledges IRS whistleblowers had right to go to Congress with tax concerns

The IRS whistleblowers who alleged the Justice Department’s slow-walking of its inquiry into Hunter Biden have reached a settlement with President Joe Biden’s son, with Hunter Biden’s lawyer admitting the whistle-blowers had the right to go to Congress with their concerns about the handling of the tax investigation.

IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley and IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler had publicly raised concerns about what they considered the federal government’s mishandling and squashing of the investigation into now-former President Biden’s son, and the legal team for the whistle-blowers at Empower Oversight announced on Thursday that the ongoing defamation case was being settled with Hunter Biden’s lead lawyer Abbe Lowell.

“IRS employees Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, together with D.C. attorney Abbe Lowell, have resolved the defamation case that Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler filed against Mr. Lowell in federal district court in Washington, D.C. and that the court dismissed with prejudice,” a joint statement from the two parties stated. “While the Parties continue to have their disagreements about the matters in the lawsuit, they agree it is best to move on from litigation, and to dispense with any appeals, on the basis of the statements below, mutual releases from further litigation, and with no payment or other consideration from Mr. Lowell.”

The IRS whistle-blowers said in congressional transcripts that Justice Department special counsel David Weiss claimed that he was limited in his prosecutorial decision-making despite then-Attorney General Merrick Garland’s claims to the contrary and that a Hunter Biden business associate told the FBI that Joe Biden had stopped by at least one China-related business meeting at Hunter Biden’s apparent request.

They also said “optics” prevented a search warrant at a guest house at the Biden family home in Delaware and that the assistant U.S. attorney in the Delaware federal prosecutor’s office had told investigators “don’t ask about the big guy” – in reference to Joe Biden.

The joint statement on Thursday said that the IRS whistle-blowers and Hunter Biden’s lawyer both “agree that the whistle-blower provisions of 5 U.S.C. § 2302 and 26 U.S.C. § 6103 authorized Messrs. Shapley and Ziegler to make disclosures of otherwise confidential tax information about the investigation of Hunter Biden to the tax committees in Congress and to designated agents of those committees for the purpose of obtaining legal advice.”

The statement from the two parties also said that both “agree that, when speaking to the media, Messrs. Shapley and Ziegler believed they acted in good faith to follow the law and to limit their remarks to information that had already been lawfully disclosed by others, and if so, were not disclosing confidential information.”

The final piece of the joint statement also said that they all “agree that, in his court filings and correspondence, Mr. Lowell believed that he made good faith legal arguments based on the case law and acted at all times appropriately to vigorously defend his client.”

Hunter Biden’s legal team alerted the court in May that their client had agreed to drop his federal lawsuit against the IRS whistleblowers who publicly argued federal investigations against then-President Joe Biden’s son were being mishandled by their agency and by the Justice Department.

“It’s always been clear that the lawsuit was an attempt to intimidate us," Shapley and Ziegler said earlier this year. “However, we were always motivated by doing the right thing, defending our work, and honoring our duty to the American people.” 

Hunter Biden’s attorneys, led by Lowell, filed a lawsuit against the IRS in September 2023, alleging “agents have targeted and sought to embarrass Mr. Biden via public statements to the media in which they and their representatives disclosed confidential information about a private citizen’s tax matters.”

“While Mr. Biden has been the victim of various leaks regarding the IRS investigation previously, most recently, two IRS agents – Mr. Gary Shapley and Mr. Joseph Ziegler – and their attorneys raised the stakes to unprecedented levels with their numerous public appearances," they said.

Lowell also previously sent letters to the Biden DOJ’s National Security Division and the Delaware attorney general in 2023, pressuring them to launch investigations into a number of figures involved in helping disseminate the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop computer. 

Lawyers at Empower Oversight said in May that “Hunter Biden brought this lawsuit against two honorable federal agents in retaliation for blowing the whistle on the preferential treatment he was given by President Biden’s Department of Justice," they said. "Shapley and Ziegler did nothing wrong."

Empower Oversight released findings in February from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, in which the lawyers said the office found ​​”the IRS issued illegal gag orders and improperly removed them from the Hunter Biden investigation as reprisal for their protected disclosures.”

The whistle-blowers previously alleged how their investigation into Hunter Biden’s dealings with CEFC China Energy – a since-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate — was blocked by higher-ups.

Hunter Biden initially reached a plea agreement in 2023 with Weiss on federal charges related to tax crimes and the illegal purchase of a handgun. The deal collapsed under scrutiny by a federal judge the next month, due in part to the revelations made by the IRS whistle-blowers.

After the deal collapsed, Biden was convicted by a Delaware jury on gun charges in June, then pleaded guilty to tax charges in California in September 2024. 

Then-President Biden pardoned his son in December of 2024, despite promising he wouldn’t do so.

The IRS whistle-blowers responded to the pardon by saying that “no amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President's son off the hook for multiple felonies.”

The two IRS whistle-blowers who shed light on what they considered failures to properly investigate Hunter Biden – and who were allegedly retaliated against as a result – received promotions from the Trump Treasury Department in March.

Fifty-one former intelligence officials released an October 2020 letter attempting to discredit New York Post stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop, with the ex-spies arguing that the Russians were involved with its content. 

It was later revealed that former acting CIA Director Michael Morell wrote the laptop letter after being “prompted” by Biden campaign staffer and future Secretary of State Antony Blinken to do so, and that the debunked laptop letter was written to give Joe Biden a “talking point” in his debate with Trump ahead of the November 2020 election.

The IRS whistle-blowers also previously revealed that the FBI verified the authenticity of the laptop by November 2019 – nearly a year before the laptop emerged and the infamous laptop letter was written.

It was also revealed earlier this year that Charles McGonigal, the since-convicted FBI official who led counterintelligence efforts in New York, leaked information to an affiliate of the Chinese government-linked company, CEFC, which was itself tied to Hunter Biden’s business efforts. The DOJ watchdog report concluded the leak tipped the Chinese conglomerate off about the bureau’s criminal investigation.