Disgraced eldest son Hunter Biden’s legal team filed a lawsuit Monday against two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers, saying they violated his privacy rights and tried to “embarrass” him when they released his tax information.
The lawsuit against IRS supervisory special agent Greg Shapley, and a second agent, Joe Ziegler, comes just four days after Hunter, 53, was indicted on federal firearms charges for allegedly lying about his drug use to buy a gun in 2018, a case that could go to trial. as his father President Biden’s bid for re-election heats up.
The suit seeks to “enforce compliance with federal tax and privacy laws” and stop the dissemination of Hunter’s “baseless allegations” and “unlawful disclosure” of tax information.
Hunter Biden has filed a lawsuit against the IRS alleging that agents “targeted and sought to embarrass” him.AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File
Shapley and Ziegler were not named in the lawsuit, but the filing focused on statements and congressional testimony made by agents, as they sounded the alarm about what they called a widespread cover-up in the Justice Department’s tax fraud investigation of the first son. .
The agent disclosed private tax information in nearly two dozen interviews and statements, according to Abbe Lowell, an attorney for the first child.
“IRS agents have targeted and sought to embarrass Mr. Biden through public statements to the media in which they and their representatives disclosed confidential information about private citizen tax matters,” Lowell wrote.
Biden’s suit seeks $1,000 for each unauthorized tax disclosure and attorney’s fees, and all related documents.
Biden’s claim cites IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler as examples. Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock
Agents told the House Oversight Committee in July that political appointees interfered in the case and shielded investigators from probing Hunter’s finances linked to his father.
They also claim federal prosecutors also blocked an investigation into the president’s possible role in multimillion-dollar payments from a Chinese government-linked energy conglomerate made to Hunter, and from looking into emails found on his abandoned laptop that allege he split the proceeds from business interests abroad with his father.
“Anytime we have the potential to go on the street to ask a question related to the president, it’s, ‘That would take too much approval, we can’t ask that question,'” Ziegler said in an interview with CBS News.
Monday’s lawsuit, filed in DC federal court, alleges that the sharing of Biden’s personal tax information is not permitted under whistleblower protections.
The lawsuit comes almost exactly three months after Hunter struck a plea deal with the feds to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay more than $100,000 in taxes in 2017 and 2018. The deal will also see him face criminal charges. possession of a firearm while addicted to crack cocaine dismissed.
But the probation-only deal, which followed a five-year investigation and was dubbed a “sweetheart deal” by Republicans, was thrown out at a July 26 hearing after Hunter’s attorney learned that prosecutors were maintaining additional charges in connection with the ongoing trial. investigation into its overseas business deals and financial records, and the judge expressed concern about its structure.
After Biden pleaded not guilty, US Attorney David Weiss withdrew the charges in Delaware and was granted special counsel status by Attorney General Merrick Garland on August 11.
“This lawsuit against the IRS is just another frivolous slander by the Biden family’s lawyers trying to distract the public from Hunter Biden’s own legal problems and scare off any current and future whistleblowers,” Shapley’s legal team said in a statement. Monday.
“A federal judge in Delaware overseeing a voided plea deal dismissed a similar claim against whistleblowers after they revealed secret backroom deals between Hunter Biden and the Justice Department.
“Neither IRS SSA Gary Shapley nor his attorneys have ever released any confidential taxpayer information except through whistleblower disclosures permitted by statute. Once Congress releases that testimony, like every American citizen, he has a right to discuss that public information.”
President Biden has denied any impropriety or involvement in his son’s international lobbying activities, which The Post first detailed in a bombshell 2020 exposé.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
