House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) released the transcribed interviews of two IRS whistleblowers who worked on the Hunter Biden tax evasion investigation on Thursday.

The testimonies of IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley Jr., who ran the investigation, and an anonymous whistleblower who was part of his team, bolster the widely-held belief that Hunter Biden received a sweetheart deal from the Department of Justice .

Shapley told lawmakers that the IRS had obtained a July 30, 2017, WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, the president and CEO of Harvest Capital Management. Zhao is a Chinese Communist Party official. The message read: "I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father."

You may recall that 12 days after accompanying his father on an official trip to Beijing in 2013, Hunter Biden’s hedge fund received a substantial investment from HCM. He then co-founded Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co., a private equity firm in which he held a 10% stake and a seat on the board.

It’s unclear if this message has been verified. Yet, assuming it can be verified, either Hunter Biden was bloviating or his father, who had left the vice presidency six months earlier, actually was sitting next to him. Both possibilities point to President Joe Biden’s knowledge of or even his involvement in his son’s overseas business adventures. Now that Hunter’s case has been "resolved" by the DOJ, House Republicans should be able to issue a subpoena to the princeling to clear up the confusion.

At any rate, Shapley told lawmakers this message "made it clear we needed to search the guest house at the Bidens' Delaware residence where Hunter Biden stayed for a time." Except that attempts to obtain a search warrant were blocked by Assistant United States Attorney in Delaware Lesley Wolf, he said, who was concerned about "optics." According to Shapley, "She said a lot of evidence in our investigation would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden, but said there is no way we will get that approved."

Wolf also tipped off Hunter Biden’s attorneys ahead of a planned search of a storage unit in Virginia where Hunter Biden had transferred his business records, Shapley said, "ruining our chance to get to evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed." Additionally, Shapley claimed that DOJ officials intentionally slow-walked the investigation, allowing the statutes of limitations on several charges to lapse. As he put it, "Whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation."

He explained, "These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before elections to ensure the investigation did not go over well before policy memorandum mandated the pause. These are just only a few examples."

From the more than 150 suspicious activity reports generated by U.S. banks involving Hunter Biden’s foreign business transactions to the real progress House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has made (and continues to make) in unraveling the millions of dollars that have poured into the accounts of at least nine family members, including a grandchild, the evidence of the Biden family’s foreign influence peddling scheme is mounting.

Sadly, the DOJ just showed us how they plan to deal with the Biden family’s malfeasance. It’s up to Republicans in Congress to keep digging for evidence. If Biden or any other Democrat wins the White House in 2024, all of this goes away.

Many Americans are fine with the Democrats’ pursuit of former President Donald Trump, but they are less sanguine over Hunter Biden’s "slap on the wrist" for crimes ordinary citizens have gone to jail for. Hunter’s plea deal offers up a stark reminder that there really are two systems of justice in America.

Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner, Power Line, the Western Journal, and AFNN and is a past contributor to RedState, Newsmax, and Bongino.com . Her articles have appeared on many sites, including RealClearPolitics, MSN, and the Federalist. Follow Elizabeth on  Twitter  or  LinkedIn