WASHINGTON — The former FBI supervisory agent in charge of the criminal investigation into first son Hunter Biden confirmed key details Monday of an alleged coverup described by IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley, the House Oversight Committee said.
The panel, led by chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), announced the deposition ahead of a Wednesday hearing at which Shapley and a yet-to-be-identified IRS subordinate will allege special treatment of the younger Biden in the investigation, which concluded last month in a probation-only plea deal.
“Today, our committee staff conducted a transcribed interview with a former FBI supervisory special agent assigned to the FBI’s Wilmington office and the Biden criminal investigation,” the Oversight Committee tweeted.
“The agentconfirmedkey portions of the IRS whistleblowers’ testimony, including that both Secret Service headquarters and the Biden transition team weretipped off about the planned Hunter Biden interview. In fact, on the day of the Hunter Biden interview,federal agents were told to stand by and to not approach Hunter Biden — they had to wait for his call.”
“As a result of the change in plans, IRS and FBI criminal investigators never got to interview Hunter Biden as part of the investigation,” the committee said.
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“The former FBI supervisory special agent told committee investigators he had never been told to wait outside to be contacted by the subject of an investigation. The agent’s testimony is sickening and reveals the lengths to which the DOJ is willing to go to cover up for the Bidens.”
It was not immediately clear if additional details presented by the IRS whistleblowers were corroborated by the recently retired FBI official — who was not named by the Oversight Committee, though his identity appears to be publicly available from Shapley’s deposition to the House Ways and Means Committee.
“Hunter Biden was assigned Secret Service protection on or around our December 3, [2020,] meeting. So we developed a plan for the FBI Los Angeles special agent in charge to reach out at 8 a.m. on December 8th to the Secret Service Los Angeles special agent in charge and tell them that we would be coming to the residence to seek an interview with Hunter Biden and that it was part of an official investigation,” Shapley testified May 26 to the Ways and Means Committee.
“However, the night before, December 7th, 2020, I was informed that FBI headquarters had notified Secret Service headquarters and the transition team about the planned actions the following day. This essentially tipped off a group of people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden and gave this group an opportunity to obstruct the approach on the witnesses.”
“The next morning, when I saw my FBI counterpart, Supervisory Special Agent Joe Gordon, he was clearly dejected about how our plan had been interfered with,” Shapley added.
“FBI SSA Gordon memorialized the new plan in an email the morning of December 8th, 2020, that stated the subject and the Secret Service protectees would be given the phone numbers of the FBI SSA Joe Gordon and I and the subject would call us if he wanted to speak with us.”
“SSA Gordon and I waited in the car outside of Hunter Biden’s California residence waiting for a phone call. It was no surprise that the phone call SSA Gordon received was from his ASAC Alfred Watson, who informed us that Hunter Biden would contact us through his attorneys. We received a telephone call later that morning from Hunter Biden’s attorneys, who said he would accept service for any document requests, but we couldn’t talk to his client. The public news of our investigation hit the press the next day.“
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The White House and attorneys for Hunter Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the office of the top Oversight Committee Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland.
Hunter’s first court date is set for next week and his plea deal on two misdemeanor tax avoidance counts and a gun felony that will be expunged upon completion of probation still must be approved by a judge.
Shapley contacted Congress in April after leading the IRS’s 13-person team focused on Hunter Biden for more than three years. Exactly one week after Shapley stepped forward, Hunter Biden’s attorneys met with Justice Department leaders in Washington in a sign that a charging decision was close.
Shapley’s subordinate, who backed up some of his allegations, worked on the case since it opened in 2018.
The IRS agents say Delaware US Attorney David Weiss was blocked from bringing further charges against Hunter Biden in Southern California and Washington, DC, by President Biden’s appointed US attorneys — contradicting Attorney General Merrick Garland’s assurances of prosecutorial independence. Weiss has issued carefully worded statements that give the impression he denies the charge.
Hunter Biden ran out the clock on some tax-evasion charges due to the interference of Justice Department officials, the IRS whistleblowers said. The first son also managed to avoid charges for money laundering and potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act in what critics called a slap on the wrist.
