The IRS improperly silenced and retaliated against two agents who came forward to testify in 2023 about misconduct in the Hunter Biden tax case, a federal watchdog concluded after a lengthy investigation.
IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler faced illegal gag orders and workplace retaliation for testifying before Congress multiple times, leveling serious allegations of misconduct against the officials tasked with handling the Hunter Biden case, the Office of Special Counsel concluded in December.
“At long last, the career nonpartisan staff at OSC responsible for investigating whistleblower retaliation has finally reached some conclusions. OSC confirmed in a December 30, 2024 email to counsel for the whistleblowers that it found the IRS issued illegal gag orders and improperly removed them from the Hunter Biden investigation as reprisal for their protected disclosures,” Shapley’s attorney Tristan Leavitt wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa).
The OSC is an independent federal agency primarily responsible for handling whistleblower complaints and other prohibited personnel practices. Leavitt said it will not be providing the whistleblowers a copy of its final report, which was completed in January.
National Review has reached out to the OSC and IRS for comment.
The non-partisan investigation backs up Shapley and Ziegler’s public allegations that their IRS superiors mistreated them for testifying about how IRS and DOJ officials slow-walked and obstructed investigative steps during the lengthy probe into Hunter Biden’s overdue taxes.
Leavitt further alleged that Shapley and Ziegler continue to be victims of retaliation, with Shapley being passed over for promotions and receiving an undue amount of scrutiny for routine job functions.
“Meanwhile, SSA Shapley and SA Zeigler still endure ongoing retaliation every day. Since SSA Shapley became a whistleblower, the IRS has also bypassed him for numerous promotions even though he demonstrated the leadership, knowledge, and competence required for the jobs,” Leavitt wrote.
“As recently as January 2025, IRS management secretly backdated a request from SSA Shapley related to an ongoing law enforcement operation, apparently to hide management’s unusual delays and create the false impression that SSA Shapley’s request was last-minute rather than having been submitted a month earlier.”
In October, the IRS presented Shapley with an ultimatum, demanding that he either accept a demotion or resign from the agency altogether, an act Leavitt considered flagrant retaliation. Not long after, the IRS backed off from its decision following scrutiny from congressional Republicans.
Shapley and Ziegler presented the detailed allegations along with a trove of documents backing up their claims to the House Ways and Means Committee. The agents first came forward in spring 2023 and their testimony ultimately made up a substantial portion of the House GOP’s impeachment inquiry into then-President Joe Biden.
House Republicans found that foreign sources paid $27 million to Hunter Biden and his business associates during and after his father’s vice presidency. Joe Biden repeatedly interacted with his son’s business partners and committed “impeachable conduct” in furthering his son’s business enterprise, House Republicans concluded.
Special counsel David Weiss prosecuted Hunter Biden on federal tax and gun charges last year as the impeachment inquiry progressed. Weiss’s office won a conviction against Hunter Biden last June in the gun case and Biden pled guilty to the tax charges in September, rather than standing trial. The tax charges largely mirrored what the IRS whistleblowers recommended and Weiss only pursued them after their bombshell testimony.
During Weiss’s prosecution, Hunter Biden’s legal team unsuccessfully argued in court filings that the whistleblowers’s conduct warranted dismissal of the case. Separately, Biden sued the IRS for alleged illegal disclosures by the whistleblowers in a dispute that is ongoing. Shapley and Ziegler’s attorneys have attempted to get themselves put onto the case to ensure their clients are being fairly represented.
Joe Biden pardoned his son in December weeks before his presidency ended, a move that received bipartisan condemnation and contradicted his repeated promises not to do so. As a result, Hunter Biden did not face sentencing for either the tax or gun convictions.
The pardon covers Hunter’s action from the beginning of 2014 to December 1, 2024, spanning the entire range of his foreign business dealings and the offenses he was prosecuted for. On his last day in office, Joe Biden pardoned his brother Jim, a business partner of Hunter’s, and other close family members to protect them from potential prosecution.