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IRS Commissioner: DOJ Responsible for Whistleblower Purge from Hunter Biden Tax Probe
IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel told Congress the Justice Department (DOJ) made the decision to purge an IRS whistleblower from the DOJ’s probe into Hunter Biden, according to a letter sent to House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO).
Werfel’s letter on May 17 responded to Smith’s May 16 inquiry about concerns that a high-ranking IRS agent faced retaliation for raising red flags about alleged political interference in the tax probe of Hunter Biden.
Werfel said the decision to remove a whistleblower from the tax investigation was at the DOJ’s direction, confirming what a second IRS whistleblower alleged Monday.
“The IRS whistleblower you reference alleges that the change in their work assignment came at the direction of the Department of Justice,” reads the letter, obtained by Fox News. “As a general matter and not in reference to any specific case, I believe it is important to emphasize that in any matter involving federal judicial proceedings, the IRS follows the direction of the Justice Department.”
Werfel disavowed any potential role he allegedly had in removing the IRS whistleblowers from the case.
“I want to state unequivocally that I have not intervened – and will not intervene – in any way that would impact the status of any whistleblower,” Werfel said.
But Werfel also claimed he could not provide any additional details about the purge due to “pending proceedings” and absolved himself of further looking into the incident.
“In light of laws and policies designed to protect the integrity of pending proceedings, I am unable to provide details on this matter,” he wrote.
Werfel added:
When an IRS employee raises allegations of this kind, the Commissioner’s office does not run an investigation, seek the identity of the whistleblower, or similarly intervene; instead, the Inspector General serves as a critical guardian of the whistleblower process and conducts relevant inquiries into the matter.
On Monday, a second IRS whistleblower in the DOJ’s probe into Hunter Biden for tax fraud surfaced after the expulsion of the whole IRS team investigating the president’s son, documents sent to Congress revealed.
Breitbart News reported:
The whistleblower, a special agent in the IRS’s international tax and financial crimes group, joins his supervisor, who alleged in April that two Biden administration political appointees within the Justice Department politically interfered in the probe to block charges against Hunter Biden for tax violations against recommendations. The first whistleblower also claimed Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to appoint a special prosecutor in the case to provide a degree of separation between the probe and President Joe Biden.
Both whistleblowers intend to participate in a blockbuster hearing on Friday before the House Ways and Means Committee.
The second IRS whistleblower alerted Congress after the DOJ allegedly ordered his removal from the case, along with his entire team. The new whistleblower had overseen the probe since January 2020 and led 12 colleagues in the investigation.
The new whistleblower claimed leadership excluded his team from the case after it learned of “longstanding concerns” about the handling of the probe. The concerns allegedly angered a redacted “U.S. Attorney for the District…”
David Weiss, U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, a Trump administration appointee, is the lead prosecutor in the case.
The whistleblower also alleged the DOJ and the U.S. Attorney’s office are responsible for his team’s removal from the probe.
In March, Garland told Congress that Weiss has the autonomy to recommend changes. Yet Biden’s attorney general also admitted he has the sole authority to sign off on the charges.
President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland walk into the East Room for a ceremony at the White House on May 16, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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