IRS Employees Say Justice Department Hampered Hunter Biden Tax Probe

WASHINGTON—Two IRS employees described what they said were efforts by the Justice Department to impede the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes in testimony Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee.

“Assigned prosecutors did not appear to follow the normal investigative process throughout the investigation, putting into place unnecessary approvals and roadblocks,” said Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, who said he had played a central role in the tax probe of President Biden’s son.

Ziegler was identified at the hearing for the first time as one of two Internal Revenue Service employees who have been interviewed by the committee behind closed doors in recent months on the Hunter Biden probe.

Republicans have questioned whether David Weiss, the Trump-appointed prosecutor in charge of the investigation, had enough autonomy to pursue charges against Hunter Biden without interference from members of his father’s administration.

Weiss has told lawmakers in writing that he was given broad latitude and had “never been denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction.” Democrats have defended the Bidens and accused Republicans of trying to tarnish the president ahead of his bid to win re-election in 2024.

Republicans have asked Weiss to testify before Congress, and he has said he would be willing to do so “at the appropriate future time.”

On the Hill Wednesday, Ziegler and Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley detailed what they viewed as irregularities, including delayed warrants and instructions to investigators to avoid certain topics. Republicans on the committee used the testimony to paint a picture of what committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) called a “two-tier justice system” that gave preferential treatment to members of the Biden family.

“We have facts, and new evidence continues to be revealed on the first family’s corruption,” Comer said.

Committee Democrats, led by ranking member Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), expressed skepticism of the testimony and noted that some of the described delays occurred in 2019 and 2020, before Biden was elected as president. The investigation was put on pause in the run-up to the 2020 election, they noted, based on guidelines put in place by former President Donald Trump’s attorney general, William Barr.

“We can conclude that this Inspector Clouseau-style quest for something that does not exist turns our committee into a theater of the absurd, an exercise in futility and embarrassment,” Raskin said in prepared opening remarks.

Republicans have accused the Justice Department of giving Hunter Biden lenient treatment by allowing him to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and a chance to avoid prosecution on a separate gun offense. A judge is set to decide whether to sanction that deal, which would likely mean no prison time for Hunter Biden, at a July 26 hearing in Wilmington, Del.

Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, a Trump appointee, began the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden in 2018 and has remained in office under the Biden administration to oversee the probe.

A spokeswoman for Weiss declined to comment on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for Hunter Biden’s legal team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wednesday’s hearing was part of several investigations launched by Republican-controlled House committees into the Biden family more broadly, in which they have sought to tie the president to his son’s business dealings and perceived misconduct by federal agencies.

White House spokesman Ian Sams said Republicans were “wasting time on politically motivated attacks on a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney.”

Republicans have threatened to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland

Garland said during a March congressional hearing that he had given Weiss broad independence to pursue charges against Hunter Biden and that Weiss “has been advised he is not to be denied anything he needs.” Weiss, appointed by Trump, was kept on under the Biden administration to continue overseeing the investigation into the president’s son.

IRS employees have challenged that, telling lawmakers that Justice Department officials stymied and slow-walked attempts to charge Hunter Biden with felonies. Shapley has told the committee in interviews that officials blocked his efforts to bring charges against Hunter Biden in Washington, D.C., and in California and that Weiss was denied special counsel status in the course of the investigation.

Garland has pushed back on those claims, saying Weiss “was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own.”

“The only person with authority to make somebody a special counsel or refuse to make somebody a special counsel is the attorney general,” Garland added. “Mr. Weiss never made that request to me.”

Weiss also informed lawmakers that he was given ultimate authority over the case and that he never requested special counsel status. He said he did approach Justice Department officials about the possibility of requesting status as a special attorney—a similar designation that would have allowed him to bring charges against the younger Biden in jurisdictions outside Delaware without the help of a local U.S. attorney.

In a July 10 letter, he said that the department assured him he would be given that designation if necessary and that he had “never been denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction.”

A Democratic memo circulated before the hearing supported Weiss’s assertions and noted that disagreements among prosecutors is common and that the team of investigators was assigned under the Trump administration and has largely remained the same.

—Sadie Gurman contributed to this article.

Write to Isaac Yu at [email protected]