Hunter Biden files lawsuit against IRS, alleging privacy rights violated

WASHINGTON (TND) — At the center of a brand new lawsuit filed by Hunter Biden’s legal team is the testimony and subsequent TV interviews of two IRS Agents-turned-whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.

“Statements Hunter Biden made in his book completely contradicted what he was deducting for business deductions on his 2018 return," Ziegler, an IRS special agent, said during his testimony to the House Oversight Committee on July 19.

Both men worked on the IRS team investigating Biden's business deals and alleged the first son was given special treatment, like claiming his security team was tipped off the night before agents planned to interview him.

Their testimony is believed to have played a role in prosecutor David Weiss being made special counsel, and raised many more questions about the first son’s past business deals.

In a July interview with Sinclair, Peter Schweizer, president of The Government Accountability Institute said, “What you’re always looking for with the flow of money is, how is that flow of money handled? Is it done in a way that’s trying to obscure the source of that money?

The lawsuit names the whistleblowers directly, though not as defendants, calling their disclosures “an assault on Mr. Biden’s rights. ... For the decision by IRS employees, and others to disregard their obligations and repeatedly and intentionally publicly disclose and disseminate Mr. Biden’s protected tax return information.”

Biden's attorney also pushed back against Weiss' indictment of the first son on three firearms charges related to him allegedly lying on an application to purchase a gun back in 2018.

In an interview with CNN Thursday, Abbe Lowell, one of Biden's attorney said, “It is the folks like Chairman Comer and theRepublican MAGA crazies who have been pressuring this U.S. Attorney to do something to vindicate their political position and guess what? They succeeded.” Another attorney has called the indictment 'unconstitutional' and 'politically motivated'.

One of the two IRS whistleblowers have have also responded to the suit.

In a statement, Shapley’s lawyers described the suit as “just another frivolous smear by Biden family attorneys trying to turn people’s attention away from Hunter Biden’s own legal problems and intimidate any current and future whistle-blowers.”

Neither Shapley “nor his attorneys have ever released any confidential taxpayer information except through whistle-blower disclosures authorized by statute,” the statement continued. “Once Congress released that testimony, like every American citizen, he has a right to discuss that public information.”