An IRS whistleblower told members of Congress that Hunter Biden threatened a Chinese business associate by saying Joe Biden was sitting next to him, documents released Thursday show.
The text message was found after the investigation into Hunter Biden, called “Sportsman,” began in November 2018 “as an offshoot of an investigation the IRS was conducting into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform,” the whistleblower, Gary Shapley, said in an interview with the House Ways and Means Committee on May 26. As a part of the probe, the investigative team gained access to some of Hunter Biden’s text messages.
Joe Biden has maintained he knew nothing about his son’s foreign business dealings. (RELATED: ANALYSIS: All The Times Joe Biden Appeared In Hunter’s Business Schemes)
One message showed a July 30, 2017, WhatsApp message with Hunter Biden telling his Chinese business associate, “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. 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,” according to Shapley.
The prosectors didn’t want to create a “strategy to look into the messages and denied investigators’ suggestion to obtain location information to see where the texts were sent from,” the whistleblower said.
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 20: President Joe Biden embraces his family after being sworn in during his inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images)
Shapley said he served in the IRS for 14 years. He told the lawmakers he decided to come forward because “the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Justice Tax, and Department of Justice provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest in an important and high-profile investigation of the President’s son, Hunter Biden.”
After Joe Biden became the likely Democratic presidential nominee in April 2020, Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, who Shapley said were leading the Sportsman investigation, allegedly started dragging “their feet.”
Investigators wanted to search the Bidens’ Delaware residence where Hunter Biden had spent some time, Shapley continued, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf allegedly said they should think about the “optics” of doing such an investigation, despite there being a large likelihood of finding a lot of evidence, according to the whistleblower. Shapley also alleged the DOJ would likely not approve a search warrant for some emails from Blue Star Strategies, closing the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) aspect of the investigation.
Shapley said David Weiss, the U.S. attorney leading the investigation into Hunter Biden, congratulated the IRS investigative team for keeping the investigation a “secret” when the team and Weiss met on Dec. 3, 2020. Wolf didn’t want to answer any questions about an email Hunter Biden’s business associate, Rob Walker, wrote saying “Ten held by H for the big guy,” Shapley said.