Hunter Biden sent a WhatsApp message demanding payment from a Chinese businessman while he was ‘sitting with his father’ Joe, according to bombshell testimony from an IRS whistleblower.
The president’s son was staying at the guest house of Biden’s Delaware home when he wrote to Communist Party official Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017, threatening him to follow his ‘orders’.
The allegations undercut consistent claims from the Biden family and administration that Joe was not involved in his son’s foreign business dealings.
The IRS whistleblower then stated that they were blocked from getting a search warrant, even after the Department of Justice learned about the message.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee released the latest claims as part of testimony from two IRS whistleblowers alleging the president’s son got preferential treatment in criminal investigations.
Members of the committee also heard Hunter failed to pay taxes on $8.3 million in income and the Department of Justice denied attempts to bring charges in other states.
‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.’ Hunter wrote in 2017 according to testimony released by the GOP.
Hunter then said, according to the testimony: ‘Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight.
Hunter Biden sent a WhatsApp message demanding payment from a Chinese businessman while he was ‘sitting with his father’ Joe, according to bombshell testimony from an IRS whistleblower
The president’s son was staying at the guest house of Biden’s Delaware home when he wrote to Communist Party official Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017, threatening him to follow his ‘orders’
‘And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,’ he added.
The unverified testimony came from two IRS whistleblowers as news broke this week that Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax offenses while dispensing with a gun charge against him, likely allowing him to avoid prison time.
The testimony revealed that U.S. Attorney David Weiss – the Trump-era holdover who prosecuted the case against Hunter Biden – allegedly asked for special counsel status and was denied by the Department of Justice.
Weiss also allegedly tried to bring charges against Hunter in Washington D.C. and California in the fall of 2022 and had that request denied in January 2023.
But Weiss said in a letter to lawmakers earlier this month the DOJ granted him ‘ultimate authority’ on when and where to bring charges.
Attorney General Merrick Garland just Wednesday vouched for Weiss, saying he had given him ‘full authority’ to decide how to handle the situation. ‘And that’s what he’s done,’ Garland said.
Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., revealed in a press conference that two IRS employees had claimed that the agency sought felony charges against Hunter Biden for attempting to evade taxes and making false statements.
According to Smith the whistleblowers said Hunter failed to pay $2.2 million in taxes on $8.3 million in income from foreign entities in Ukraine, China, and Romania.
Smith said the testimony also shows the DOJ sought to ‘delay the investigation long enough to reach the statute of limitations’ and ‘divulged sensitive actions by the investigative team to Biden’s attorneys.’
In one example whistleblower testimony claimed that the IRS was going to search a storage unit in Virginia belonging to Hunter Biden but tipped off his lawyers before doing so.
According to Smith, the whistleblowers claimed the DOJ dragged its feet in authenticating the message. They had obtained it in August 2020 after getting the results back from an iCloud search warrant.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee released the latest claims as part of testimony from two IRS whistleblowers alleging the president’s son got preferential treatment in criminal investigations
The unverified testimony came from two IRS whistleblowers as news broke this week that Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax offenses while dispensing with a gun charge against him, likely allowing him to avoid prison time
The testimony revealed that U.S. Attorney David Weiss – the Trump-era holdover who prosecuted the case against Hunter Biden – allegedly asked for special counsel status and was denied by the Department of Justice
‘The messages included material we clearly needed to follow up on,’ whistleblower testimony said.
In the lead-up to the 2020 election, the IRS had ‘prepared for when we could go overt’ by obtaining further leads in the case.
The testimony also revealed that the investigation into Hunter Biden, code name Sportsman, was first opened in November 2018 as an offshoot of an investigation the IRS was conducting into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform.
According to ‘whistleblower 1,’ believed to be former IRS agent Gary Shapley, one point it became clear to the IRS that they needed to search the guest house of Joe Biden where Hunter had been living for a time.
‘Assistant United States Attorney, Lesley Wolf, told us there was more than enough probable cause for the physical search warrant there, but the question was whether the juice was worth the squeeze,’ the whistleblower said.
