Hunter Biden has unexpectedly decided to withdraw the lawsuit he filed against two IRS whistleblowers who had accused the Justice Department of obstructing the federal probe into his tax affairs.
The 2023 lawsuit, filed by Biden, claimed the whistleblowers “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.”
Biden’s decision to pull back the case didn’t include any explanation, but the 55-year-old, who has faced intense legal and political scrutiny, officially moved to drop the litigation against Gary Shapley, who served as a supervisory special agent, and Joe Ziegler, another IRS investigator.
“It’s always been clear that the lawsuit was an attempt to intimidate us,” the two men said in a joint statement. “Intimidation and retaliation were never going to work. We truly wanted our day in court to provide the complete story, but it appears Mr. Biden was afraid to actually fight this case in a court of law after all.”
“His voluntary dismissal of the case tells you everything you need to know about who was right and who was wrong.”
The legal withdrawal came just weeks after the attorneys representing Biden in the case—Abbe David Lowell, Christopher Man, David Kolansky, and Isabella Oishi—filed papers seeking to exit as his legal counsel.
Both Shapley and Ziegler had earlier raised internal objections about how the Biden tax case was handled. Eventually, their concerns were shared with the Office of Special Counsel and with Republican members of Congress.
Shapley publicly aired his allegations in a May 2023 CBS interview, where he accused Justice Department officials of dragging their feet on the case.
After Biden’s plea deal with federal prosecutors collapsed later that year, the DOJ formally charged him with multiple tax-related offenses. The indictment included nine charges linked to a failure to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019. Biden eventually settled the outstanding amount.
Biden admitted guilt on all charges last year, and following that, his father, President Joe Biden, issued him a “full and unconditional” pardon.
Attorneys for Shapley and Ziegler pointed out that Biden dropped the lawsuit “with prejudice—meaning he can never bring it again” and received “nothing at all” in return.
“Hunter Biden brought this lawsuit against two honorable federal agents in retaliation for blowing the whistle on the preferential treatment he was given,” the lawyers said in a statement.
“Shapley and Ziegler did nothing wrong, never had to seek a pardon, and their actions have now been entirely vindicated once again.”
Earlier in the month, President Trump briefly appointed Shapley as acting IRS commissioner before naming Michael Faulkender to the position.
{Matzav.com}