Two IRS whistleblowers who testified before Congress last year about the Justice Department’s alleged interference in a tax investigation case against Hunter Biden said the president’s sweeping pardon for his son was not surprising.
IRS Special Supervisory Agent Gary Shapley and Joseph Zieglera special agent in the IRS’s criminal investigation division, spoke exclusively with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on Monday about “The Story” in their first interview since President Biden granted a full and unconditional pardon to his son.
“I wasn’t surprised at all. This was something that was expected,” Shapley said of the pardon. “You can see from the defense’s maneuvering that this was on the horizon. And you know, what’s surprising is that the president of the United States lied to the American people about what he planned to do.”
Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, leaves the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building in Wilmington, Delaware on June 3, 2024. Biden is on trial for a gun crime. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Biden repeatedly denied that he would pardon his sonwho pleaded guilty in September to the nine charges against him in a federal tax case, including three tax felonies and six tax misdemeanors.
The first son was also found guilty in June of three crimes related to the illegal purchase of a firearm.
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Biden announced Sunday that he was pardoning his only surviving son, who he said was “selective.” “unjustly” prosecuted. The pardon covers a period of ten years for all crimes that the younger Biden committed or may have committed between 2014 and 2024.
President Joe Biden (left) and his son Hunter Biden (right). (Fox News)
“No reasonable person looking at the facts of Hunter’s cases could come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was singled out solely because he is my son – and that is wrong. attempt to break Hunter — who has remained sober for five and a half years, even in the face of persistent attacks and selective prosecution,” Biden said in a White House statement. “In their attempt to break Hunter, they tried to break me – and there’s no reason to think it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
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Special Agent Ziegler told MacCallum that Biden’s claims that his son was “chosen” are “completely ridiculous.”
“I am a Democrat, and I am a person who believes in the rule of law. If you look at what he has been charged with, tax evasion and what he has pleaded guilty to, there are thousands of taxpayers who file their taxes honestly, they pay their taxes on time, and I think they should be disappointed by this because they are being held to a standard that is different than that of the political elite,” Ziegler said.
Supervisory IRS Special Agent Gary Shapley (L) and IRS Criminal Investigator Joseph Ziegler are sworn in while testifying during a House Oversight Committee hearing regarding the Justice Department’s investigation into Hunter Biden, on Capitol Hill on July 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
He added that he is ultimately disappointed that Hunter Biden got a “free pass.”
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, wrote on Xpreviously tweeted that he was “disappointed” in Biden’s decision to pardon his son because the commander in chief made the decision to put his family “first for the country.”
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“This is a bad precedent that could be abused by subsequent presidents and will unfortunately tarnish his reputation,” Polis wrote. “Hunter has taken the legal troubles he faced on himself, and one can sympathize with his struggle while also recognizing that no one is above the lawnot a president and not the son of a president.”
