Federal prosecutors had agreed to bring felony tax charges against Hunter Biden but higher-ups at some point reduced those to two misdemeanors, an IRS special agent told Congress on Wednesday.
The investigator, now revealed to be Joe Ziegler, said four prosecutors assigned to the case had agreed on both felony and misdemeanor charges relating to Mr. Biden’s tax returns for 2017, 2018 and 2019.
And they planned to bring the cases against President Biden’s son in both Delaware and Los Angeles, Mr. Ziegler said.
Instead, U.S. Attorney David Weiss struck a plea deal with Mr. Biden that will see him admit to two misdemeanors in U.S. district court in Delaware. The agreement calls for no jail time.
“If the Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss followed DOJ policy as he stated in his most recent letter, Hunter Biden should have been charged with a tax felony, and not only the tax misdemeanor charge,” Mr. Ziegler said. “We need to treat each taxpayer the same under the law.”
Mr. Ziegler has come forward as a whistleblower along with his supervisor, Gary Shapley, another IRS agent.
They delivered closed-door testimony earlier this year to the House Ways and Means Committee and on Wednesday came forward to testify publicly to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.
Mr. Shapley, in his prepared remarks, said prosecutors in Delaware, who were in charge of the Hunter Biden investigation, “slow-walked” key investigative steps such as conducting interviews and pursuing search warrants.
Warrants were ready as early as April 2020 but were delayed until after the 2020 presidential election, then never pursued, Mr. Shapley said.
He also said prosecutors blocked the agents from pursuing tantalizing messages that implicated President Biden in business dealings with a Chinese operator.
Mr. Shapley said they obtained WhatsApp messages from Hunter Biden in which he told Chinese energy executives he was discussing their business with his father. When the agents tried to follow up on that information, “prosecutors would not allow it.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.