Two IRS whistleblowers who testified before Congress last year about the Justice Department’s alleged interference in a tax investigation case into Hunter Biden said the president’s sweeping pardon of his son wasn’t surprising.
IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, a special agent with the IRS’ criminal investigation division, spoke exclusively with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum Monday on “The Story” in their first interview since President Biden issued a full and unconditional pardon for his son.
“I wasn’t surprised at all. This was something that was expected,” Shapley said of the pardon. “You can tell by the maneuvering of defense counsel that this was on the horizon. And, you know, the thing that’s surprising is that the President of the United States lied to the American people about what he was going to do.”
Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden departs the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building on June 03, 2024 in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden is standing trial for felony gun charges. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Biden repeatedly denied he would pardon his son, who pleaded guilty in September to the nine charges against him in a federal tax case, including three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses.
The first son was also found guilty in June of three felonies related to the illegal purchase of a firearm.
HUNTER BIDEN SAYS HIS MISTAKES WERE ‘EXPLOITED’ FOR POLITICAL SPORT, HE WILL NEVER TAKE PARDON FOR GRANTED
Biden on Sunday announced he was pardoning his only surviving son, who he says was “selectively” and “unfairly” prosecuted. The pardon covers a 10-year period for any offenses the younger Biden committed or may have committed from 2014-2024.
President Joe Biden (left) and his son Hunter Biden (right). (Fox News)
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
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Special agent Ziegler told MacCallum that Biden’s claims his son was “singled out” are “completely ludicrous.”
“I’m a Democrat, and I’m a person that believes in the rule of law. When you look at what he was charged with, criminal tax evasion, and what he pled guilty to, there are thousands of taxpayers who honestly file their taxes, they pay their taxes on time, and I think they should be disappointed by this because they’re held up to a standard that’s different than the political elite,” said Ziegler.
Supervisory IRS Special Agent Gary Shapley (L) and IRS Criminal Investigator Joseph Ziegler are sworn-in as they testify during a House Oversight Committee hearing related to the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden, on Capitol Hill July 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
He added that at the end of the day, he’s disappointed Hunter Biden got a “free pass.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he was “disappointed” in Biden’s decision to pardon his son because the commander-in-chief made the decision to put his family “ahead of the country.”
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“This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation,” Polis wrote. “Hunter brought the legal trouble he faced on himself, and one can sympathize with his struggles while also acknowledging that no one is above the law, not a President and not a President’s son.”
