[MUSIC] Hi everybody, Cheryl Akison here. Welcome to another edition of Full Measure After Hours. Today, two IRS whistleblowers describe how the FBI, the Department of Justice, protected Joe Biden from investigation during the 2020 election, despite allegations of bribery and more. They also tell why when the DOJ let the statute of limitations expire on some of Hunter's alleged crimes, it covered a trail leading to Joe. On this week's episode of Full Measure, Sunday, February 18th, I'm going to have a special investigation that examines the case against Hunter Biden currently pending and explains, I hope in the clearest way yet, why the prosecution was originally reaching far beyond Hunter's alleged tax crimes. This is an incredible story of alleged cover-up by the DOJ and FBI, how even under Donald Trump, how his Justice Department and IRS were allegedly conspiring to protect his opponent Joe Biden as they ran for election against each other. So you won't want to miss this week's TV program. But today right here, we're going to hear extended interviews from Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler, the IRS investigators who have quite a story to tell and haven't told it like this before. Joe Ziegler got his undergraduate degree in accounting, also has an MBA from John Carroll University, worked for Ernst and Young for five years, then moved to the IRS. Gary Shapley has an undergraduate accounting and business degree and an MBA with a finance concentration and before he worked for the IRS, he was with the National Security Agency Office of Inspector General. The first voice you'll hear is that of Joe Ziegler. [MUSIC] >> It is a story of two people that saw some inappropriate, wrong doing at the hands of Department of Justice, our agency IRS, and we blew the whistle. It essentially involved preferential treatment of one taxpayer and that taxpayer being honored by. >> What would you say? >> Ultimately, we're just like any other American out here working for the federal government and we had an oath of office that we took serious and we put everything on the line to do what was right because that's what the American people demand of their government and there's preferential treatment. There's politics that affected this case at every step and it got to the point where we were reporting it up for several years and it hit that point where you could see that there was a fatal flaw in the way that they were handling with their unethical conduct. >> And then again, before we get into some of the details, in the big picture, what did you learn in very simple terms if someone says, well, what did Hunter Biden supposedly do wrong? What would you say? >> I actually really appreciate that question because it was essentially access to political families, so the Biden family and the administration. So when he was vice president of the administration and even after he left office, people who were still part of the administration, it was access to those people for people in foreign countries to include Romania, Ukraine and China in exchange for a significant amount of money. And that access was shown through emails, through a multitude of evidence. And the reason why we're involved or IRS is involved is that money that was earned. There were tax returns that weren't filed and that there were taxes not paid on that income. >> So as an accurate to say, there was a violation you saw in how taxes weren't paid. But that implies larger violations of potential crimes beyond that. >> Yeah, so when a normal process when you investigate tax crime would be to look at everything to do with the financials of a subject. And when you look into the financials, this actually huge glimpse into all the conduct that the individuals engaged in. And it was clear to us and clear to the prosecutors, even though they tried not to charge this case or tried to give it away via a pretty light plea that they agreed with us as well. >> Can you tell us Joe, how and when the case started? >> So November, I think it was fall, let's put it fall of 2018. I was reviewing some bank reports related to another case that I was working. And in those bank reports that I identified Hunter Biden as paying individuals involved in another thing that I was investigating. And a part of that bank report indicated that there was some media reports on some tax issues involving Hunter Biden. So I did my due diligence. I looked to see if there were tax filings, there were unfiled tax returns, unpaid taxes that I saw. And so I initiated the investigation, centered up through my leadership, and that's how this all started. >> From the start, did you realize this was a politically touchy subject? Did you anticipate there might be some kind of pushback? >> So I talked to other agents within my group, and they're like, big case is big problems. And I told them, I'm like, we got to treat everyone the same. And like, there is no reason why this person should be any different than investigating this other person. Just because their last name is Biden or just because their last name is something, doesn't mean that we should change the process of how we work that case. So hearing that all on the background, I said I'm going to work this high normally would. And I knew that there could potentially be some things down the road and that could come up. But I thought it was important that we treated him like we would treat anyone else. >> Gary, how did you get involved? >> So I was a supervisor of another group in Baltimore, and then in January 2020, I was promoted into the supervisor of the specialty group. It's the International Tax and Financial Crimes Group. And that's out of the Washington, D.C. field office. But there's 10 agents to sit all around the country that are really the best agents that IRSCI has to offer. And we hand selected all these agents to include especially the Ziegler. And we work a lot of international cases, high profile cases, billion dollar type cases. >> And how did you learn that Hunter Biden was someone under investigation? >> So I learned when I was transitioning over to be the supervisor of the International Tax and Financial Crimes Group that it was a case in the inventory. And just to piggyback off the last line of questioning, from the beginning it was all about doing the normal things and following the normal process. And that's because that's what we do, right? That's how we make sure that each person is treated fairly. And we set it as a mantra and each step as we try to do search warrants in the middle of 2020, as we try to do search warrants after day of action in late 2020, we kept getting pushed back. And we would have in any other case, we would have executed these types of enforcement actions. >> So you never did search warrants on Hunter Biden? >> Not physical search warrants. >> Yeah, not physical search warrants. There would have been electronic search warrants. So email accounts, Apple iCloud, so stuff like that. But physical search warrants, we did not. >> Were you thinking big cases, big problems? >> Well, I've worked a lot of big cases, billion dollar type settlements. And yeah, there's always that point where people come in and want to be involved or try to make decisions at the oddest times. And yeah, I mean, every time you have a big case, people kind of ignore senior leadership, kind of ignores it until they're about ready to take credit for it. And that's what happened here as well. >> Can you take us to a time when you first found something or needed something from a supervisor and were stopped and thought, I'm going to have some trouble? >> So if you don't mind, I would like to give there were a couple things. So in the inception prior to Gary, I was working with another SSA. And he was sending me media articles of Donald Trump's tweets, different Sixth Amendment privilege type stuff to me and to the team. And essentially saying that we shouldn't be working or we shouldn't, these are going to be potential issues down the road. And so there was a lot of pushback that I felt from my prior manager in pushing this case forward. Again, got to follow the process, got to follow the investigative leads. We'll deal with that stuff down the road. As far as one of the biggest things that happened that I kind of was that I didn't think that we were first acting ethically and that we weren't following the normal process would have been the storage unit search warrant. So after our day of action, we had found out- >> It's been what a day of action is. >> Okay, yeah, so the day of action was essentially when we went from a covert status, so being a secret investigation to an overt status. So we went out and did interviews, we went out and talked to people. So after that day of action, we had found out or we had found out more information regarding a storage unit that related to Hunter Biden that we knew that some business records, that we knew that the storage unit had some business records. So at the advisement of our prosecutors on the team, we drafted a search warrant for that storage unit. I stayed up all night, I sent it forward to them, got a little bit of pushback from them in the beginning, saying that there's a ton of approvals. So we end up getting a phone call from the prosecutor, saying, hey, we've made the decision that we're not going to move forward on the storage unit, and that we should get these records via the document request that we gave to Hunter and his team. And I said, that's not following normal process. Like, we're literally relying on him to turn over all the records to us. And I documented this, I said we're not following normal process. We actually got a pretty heated argument because I brought up different evidence that we might find, all sorts of just different things that the storage unit might uncover. I propose at the end of the call that, hey, let's wait 30 days, we'll wait to get these approvals that we need for this. And if he does not access the storage unit, then we'll move forward with the warrant. She said, or the prosecutor said, we'll think about that. My leadership thought that was a great plan at the same time. They pushed that up through David Weiss, the US attorney, in Delaware. He agreed with my plan, but I come to find out at the same time they're informing Hunter Biden and his defense counsel that, hey, that records request includes the documents in that storage unit. And then completely foiled any plan that I had pushing forward. So. >> Thank you. Got those records ultimately. >> I don't know what could have happened. All I know is what could have been based on what we knew in that storage unit. I brought up that there could be foreign account records, that there could be all these different things that you wouldn't expect to be turned over willingly to us in an investigation. >> And if someone had committed a crime, they would probably go clean out that unit if they thought you were looking at it. >> Yes, that would be what as an investigator, what I would expect someone to potentially do. >> What timeframe was that? >> So this was December of 2020. >> December of 2020? >> Yes. >> Yeah, so, and I had said to, she, the prosecutor had mentioned that they didn't. So this would have been, Assistant US Attorney Les Zouwulf. She had brought up that she didn't want to tarnish the relationship with Defense Council, and she didn't want to feel like it was playing games. I'm sorry, in other cases that I've worked, that is not, we're not, that is something that I have never heard brought up to me before. We're not going to follow the normal process because we don't want this to happen. And I think once that, we continued on. We investigated this case thoroughly, but that was one of the first times where I was like, I don't think everyone's on the same page. [MUSIC] >> What do you have to add to that? The idea of understanding that this case was not going to be handled the way you thought it should be. >> Yeah, I mean, I was reporting up to my leadership in multiple forums, starting in, it was May 2020, when I was telling the senior leadership briefing them, and especially Ziggler was in that meeting as well, where we were talking about some inconsistencies and deviations from the normal process. And no one in IRS leadership disagreed that they were discrepancies, but they just completely avoided their duties to act autonomously for IRS. And they just allowed the Department of Justice to do really whatever they wanted. And that really exacerbated this entire issue. And so then I just continued reporting it up, documenting certain meetings, documenting things that were happening, and reporting them up. And I think it was a pretty good record of all the things that were unethical by the Department of Justice and United States Attorney Weiss. >> In the end, what made you all decide to go public or to seek counsel from members of Congress who might be able to break the law jam? >> So mine was the October 7th meeting where I was a forefront, I was October 7th of 2022. And I was the IRS contact that dealt with US Attorney Weiss. I was, my leadership told me to do it. I have that documented. And so in a meeting where I was in Delaware with the top three folks at the Delaware US Attorney's Office to include US Attorney Weiss, FBI, and one of my bosses from IRS. We had a meeting and there were multiple things in that meeting that were raised that were just red flags for me. And walking from that meeting, I explained all those red flags to my senior executive from IRS that was there. So that he wasn't a deciding person and he immediately says that Department of Justice Tax Division has to approve it first and hasn't approved it yet. If any time with tax charges are actually charged by the Department of Justice, the Department of Justice Tax Division has to approve them first. A US Attorney's Office can't unilaterally decide to charge Title 26 without DOJ tax approval. So that was one of the first things. And I documented all of these items that right after that meeting when I got home that evening from Delaware and I sent them to the IRS person who was there and to his boss. And he had responded to that email saying, "You covered it all." And that included that David Weiss wasn't the deciding person that DOJ tax had to approve it first. That he had to go to DC US Attorney's Office and that they had declined to bring charges there. That he had requested special counsel authority and was denied that authority. And then he would have to go to the California US Attorney's Office to get approval to charge in that district. It was around that time when he was going there. So all of these things that these roadblocks were put in place and all along when DOJ Attorney General Merrick Garland, US Attorney Weiss, they're all saying that he has full authority. He can charge whenever, wherever, whatever. It just simply wasn't the truth. And they continually said the Trump appointed US Attorney, sometimes they didn't even give the respect to call him David Weiss. They just said the Trump appointed US Attorney and that was going to absolve them from all obligation or all potential bias or conflicts. And when it came down to how this approval process went, he had no authority and he couldn't charge in DC. He had to go to the President Biden appointed US Attorney. It was DOJ themselves that made it clear how important it was that a Trump appointed US Attorney was in charge of this decision. But in reality, it was going to a President Biden appointed US Attorney. So they themselves showed how that conflict of interest was of great importance. So who did you reach out to? Or did someone reach out to you from Capitol Hill? No, I saw a counsel after the October 7th, 2022 meeting and I followed their guidance. Because you were afraid what? So I knew it was a complicated process to blow the whistle when it includes tax information, which is called 6C103 information. And I knew that I had to get counsel to help me do it right. And that's why I went to them, right? And ultimately, it was a long process because I want to say at the very beginning of November is when I had counsel, sought counsel, had counsel. And they went through the process to notifying IRS, IRS Inspector General's office called TIGDA, Department of Justice, Office Inspector General, and then the various committees in Congress. I wasn't even really a part of that. My attorney was doing that for me. And so that's how it really started. What about you? So I don't know if you-- I think it's important that we take a step back and understand like kind of what happened. That ultimately why, in addition to what he said, why I ended up coming forward and blowing the whistle. So October of 2021, we're pretty much nearing the end of the investigative process of the tax case. So we have a meeting, a U.S. Attorney's office. We're all meeting to decide which tax charges we're going to push forward. So that included felony and misdemeanor tax charges for multiple years. So we agree that-- and a part of that is I have to write a report citing evidence, basically giving this summary of the case and present that to my leadership, which is then referred to Department of Justice. So that report's drafted. I drafted it. We ended up recommending the felony and misdemeanor tax charges in February of 2022. February of 2022, it now goes from IRS to DOJ as a recommended prosecution. DOJ tax division. Yes, correct. So to DOJ tax division. So they now have that. And what ended up happening at that point is-- and we know this from various people's testimonies that David Weiss then went to the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office to bring the earlier taxures, the 2014 and 2015 felony and misdemeanor tax charges, because that's where venue for those charges lie. So I came to find out that the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office not only said no to partnering or no to bringing or helping us in bringing the charges, but they had also said that we don't think you have a case to bring it here in D.C. So I was frustrated. I know that at that point we looked back at the taxures and we actually reinvestigated it again. We tried to figure out where our flaws were at. And it was at that point that I think we realized that, hey, maybe we do need a special counsel on this case. Maybe we do need someone with independent authority to come forward, because I can recall on that phone call from the person who told me it was DOJ tax attorney Mark Daly. When he called me to tell me that D.C. said no, he made it come-- I think it was a little bit too forward, but he said that after it went to the U.S. Attorney or after this went to the U.S. Attorney, they were all willing to help us. And then the U.S. Attorney got it and they're not willing to move or they're not willing to help us anymore. So hearing that and coupled with all the different issues that we had on the case, Gary and I, our leadership, we had talked about this with FBI. How do we bring on a special counsel who has independent charging authority in this case? I can remember telling Gary multiple times, hey, David Weiss in the end of the day is going to do the right thing, so we just have to follow this process. So keep moving forward. August of 2022, all four prosecutors assigned to the case, all four of them agreed to recommend for approval felony and misdemeanor tax charges. So misdemeanor tax charges for 2017, 2018 and 2019, and a felony tax charge for 2018. Okay? They all agreed. So we're all in this concurrence that we're going to bring this case forward. We actually, though the venue for those charges lie in the Central District of California. So we now know that we now need to go out to Central District, California. So we, everything is pushing towards that way. And October 6 is a pivotal date because there is an article that came out and that there was a belief that there was a leak, an internal leak on the investigation. So October 6 happened, October 7th, the meeting that Gary just talked about happened and moved forward a little bit from that. We had found out from our leadership that now California had also said no to bringing charges in their district. So now we have DC saying no, California saying no. What power or authority does David now have to bring the case forward? So can you written up a lot of reports recommending prosecution or charges in your career? Yes, I have. How many times have you been told no? Prior to this, there was another situation or another case to where the ultimate decision was no one moving forward. But it was something that we followed all the investigative leads. It was something to where it could have set precedence and it was their decision over our decision. And I fought hard for it, but it was something that at the end of the day, they didn't feel comfortable with charging that case. And I brought that up in my testimony. It's relatively unusual to be told no once you bring a case and write a report for charges. Correct. It's very unusual when you have all four of the attorneys assigned to the case who are saying, yes, let's move forward with bringing these charges to ultimately and then decline to prosecute. So we find out that California says no and then May 15th, 2023 happens and I, both Gary and I are removed from the investigation. Were removed from the investigation, I wrote a heartfelt email up to the commissioner of the IRS through my leadership chain. And in that email, I laid out all the problems that we edit. I said I wanted to meet with them. I'm like, we need to meet to talk about this as a huge risk for the IRS. And it was met with one of my leaders in my field office saying that I may have broken the law and that I should cease and desist from sending any communication outside the management chain. That was 23, spring of 23. Yeah, that was May, May of 2023. So when that happened, that's when I knew I had to come forward because they were essentially trying to silence me. They didn't care what happened in this case. They just were trying to silence me. Who told you guys you were off the case? The Special Agent in Charge of the Washington D.C. Field Office told us. Did he explain why? I drafted that memo and I provided that to Congress. There's really no explanation. There's unclear whether he understood. It's unclear if DOJ actually explained to him what the issues are rationale were. It's just really unclear. His understanding the entire situation. So is it accurate to say something that starts as an IRS tax case can become an even more serious case outside of tax problems? In other words, if there was improper payments from foreign governments to, for political reasons here in the United States, and you feel that you are on that trail? So there were investigative leads that we were unable to follow that could have led to various people that they were shot down. The press and many people actually in both political parties say things such as there's no evidence tying Joe Biden to 100 Biden's businesses or any improper activities. When you hear that, what do you think? I think it's blatantly false. I would wholeheartedly disagree with it. I would point them to there are so many different instances to where we see not only Joe Biden but the administration being involved in various things that are helping Hunter and Hunter's foreign associates who are paying him money. So the best example that I can give is so there is an August 2nd, 2017 email from Hunter Biden to individuals with CEFC. So that's the Chinese energy company. In this email, it says basically for introductions alone, so Hunter, introductions alone to these Chinese individuals at a rate of $10 million per year for a total of $30 million. He actually says in this email that this is very lucrative to me and my family is what he says in the email. You back up a few days prior to that, there's the WhatsApp message that has been out there that talks about, "I'm sitting here with my father and we're ready to make a deal." That's with CEFC individuals involved with CEFC. So then you back up two more months prior to that and there is an email exchange to where related to the sign-of-hoc deal, which is what fell through with CEFC that says 10% held by H for the big guy. We know based on various witnesses that the big guy was Joe Biden. So right there shows an equity involvement in the CEFC deal from Joe Biden. So we're financial investigators. We not only investigate tax crimes, we investigate financial crimes, wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, international money laundering. There's all sorts of things that we have in our tool belt to investigate cases. So in this case, we had leads. So there was the email from Vadim Pizarski to Hunter Biden in 2015 that says, "Thank you for giving me," and Vadim Pizarski is a part of the Burisma Board of Directors, a Ukrainian gas company that hunters on that board. Vadim says, "Thank you for allowing me to meet with your father and spend some time with him." So there is black and white. So the question I'd have as an investigator to Joe Biden, what did you guys talk about? What were the discussions in that meeting? You're in charge of Ukraine policy. Why are you meeting with someone that's involved in your son's a part of this board of directors? Why are you meeting with him? So we were never allowed to follow those leads that could lead to potential evidence that could move the ball down the hill. Was that incident you're talking about before or after Joe Biden says he got Ukrainian prosecutor fired that was investigating his son's company? That would have been before. And then you have White House call notes. You have call notes that discuss what the vice president, so this is December of 2015, what the vice president is going to talk about when he goes and flies to Ukraine. So you have those things that are included in the evidence for the case that clearly show that there is some involvement from the White House in this. There's, like I said, it's not only Joe Biden, but it's the administration. There was a person by the name of John Sandweg. Former head of ICE was pulling immigration files or having employees pull immigration information from databases and giving that to Vadim people with barisma related to the CEO of barisma to find out if he's on a no fly list. How did we get from there's not going to be a prosecution? If you can explain where we are today, you guys are still off the case. That's correct, yes. So then how did you learn and how did the new charges get filed finally? And what is you charged with? So I wanted to, actually, if you don't mind, there was information that has come out from various testimony in front of Congress, depositions that happened. We have come to find out that Gary and I were actually removed or essentially recommended removal from the investigation in December of 2022. It's almost seven months prior to us being officially removed. And what's so interesting about that is that David Weiss had, the US Attorney in Delaware, had requested emails and documents related to Gary Schappley to, and Gary had said this before, that he was relaying information about what was going on in the case up to our senior leadership. We believe that David Weiss sees that information and then says that he wants to remove us from the case. That doesn't happen for seven months later. We come to find out that there, and if you want to go through this, what happened on May 15th with the DPA? Yeah, so other other witnesses, IRS witnesses that testified also said that they decided to remove us in December of, well, one of the witnesses said they decided to remove us in December of 2022, on December 22nd, actually, and that he wasn't going to tell us, and he wasn't going to tell us until he was sure the case was moving forward, which is really any IRS criminal investigator, special agent, knows that's really a nonsense position to take. But he wasn't going to tell us unless the case was moving forward. The date they tell us is on May 15th of 2023. Is the exact day that we learned that, assisting the United States Attorney Leslie Wolf, had offered a defer prosecution agreement to Hunter Biden, which would have removed all charges, no charges whatsoever. So we'll remove the day that the case ends, it looks like it's going to end when IRS senior leadership's story was, is that they weren't going to remove us until it was going to move forward. And then the other person, IRS senior executive, who was supposedly on that December 22nd call, makes no mention of that call in any of his testimony, and his stead says that he recommended that I be removed and therefore Joe be removed from the case in February, March of 2023. And basically he says, because we were making protected disclosures, or I was making protected disclosures, and he knew at that time that I was blowing the whistle on this case. So how do we get to where we're at right now? So essentially what happened was, is the deferred process, then there was the sweetheart plea deal. So there was the plea deal that came forward, and in that it provided Hunter Biden with immunity over everything that was written in the statement of facts. So in this statement of facts that encompasses information from 2014 through 2019, or it might have even gone into 2020, he was being provided a blanket immunity over all those facts. And it included two misdemeanor tax charges, not felonies, and it included deferred, a pre-trial diversion for gun charge for the gun charge. So that ends up going in front of George, Judge Noriika in Delaware. She starts digging through it really essentially blows the plea deal up. And August of 2023, David Weiss asked for a special counsel. He's granted it. He charges the felony gun charges in Delaware, then charges the felony and misdemeanor tax counts for 2016, '17, '18, and '19 in California. Either one of you, or both of you, may be very cursed. We heard that Judge was not going to take the plea deal. Sweetheart deal, as people call it. Where were you when someone told you, and how did you find out, what did you think? Yeah, I mean, I was just working on other cases. I have a bunch of agents and a bunch of cases out there that are large and need attention. And I usually don't watch the news too much, but everyone was giving me updates. And I did have the news on the background that day, and I heard that it was falling apart. And to be honest, the resolution of the case was like, it's not really in my court. It was all about treating people fairly, treating people the same as any other taxpayer who pays their taxes or doesn't pay their taxes. But I mean, from the aspect of here, you were learning maybe he wasn't going to get the unfair treatment after all. That must have said to you something that maybe what you had done in bringing information forward had paid off in terms of that. Well, I hope the risk that we took coming forward paid off some way, shape or form. I mean, ultimately, you see that these charges that were brought in Central District, California, were the exact charges that Special Agent Ziegler wrote in the report and that he signed and I signed that report through the exact charges. These are the same charges that the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorney Weiss were looking in January to not charge at all, January 2023 to not charge in May to give a deferred prosecution agreement, then to the two misdemeanor counts with a pretrial diversion for the gun. And now all of a sudden, the evidence is there to charge them. We knew that all along. That's why we came forward. So everything that DOJ has done has proven the exact reason why we came forward. For example, the October 7th meeting where it says he requested Special Counsel Authority and was denied and was told to follow the process. That's what's exactly in my notes. That's in my email to my seniors. That's in my handwritten notes. I provided it over to Congress. So there was a sum going back and forth about, well, he didn't request Special Counsel Authority or some other Special Charging Authority. The bottom line was that he didn't have any Special Authority to charge. He knew that even though Attorney General Merrill Garland continually told people he did and then United States Attorney Weiss had to agree with Attorney General Merrill Garland to say that he did. It was clear he didn't. Now in US Attorney Weiss' testimony, he admitted that he went to Maine DOJ to ask for some Special Charging Authority in March when the DC United States Attorney told him no he wouldn't partner with him. And he was told to follow the process. These are his words. Guess were those words match exactly? My notes of the October 7th meeting. He was told to follow the process. He didn't have the authority to charge when it went to DC. If he didn't partner, he asked for that Special Charging Authority. He wants to say that he wasn't declined it. But when you ask for it and you're not given it, I'm not really sure how they're going to lawyer that response. You've kind of seen it a little bit. But he couldn't charge in DC. And then they allowed the statute of limitations to expire on 2014 and 2015, which is incredibly material because those are the years where the barisma income was not reported and still not reported. And so there's still a tax to an awning for those years. And that would have brought up a bunch of ancillary evidence that would have likely proven either President Joe Biden's involvement or other potential crimes. I don't have the table now. 2014 and 2015 session limitations have expired. How much money was the income? I mean, it's been reported, but do you remember how much income there was from the Ukrainian gas company, Barisma? So for what wasn't reported in 2014, especially in Zeaglers, like he's got this down, right? But it was, and correct me if I was around $400,000, it wasn't reported, which resulted in around $120,000 in tax doing awning that still hasn't been reported. And nobody on his behalf has paid that. Hasn't been reported to the IRS. And it will never be reported. Did he report some of it? Just not the right amount. So he was earning it was a million dollar a year contract for sitting on the board of directors. And I don't, I think it's important that we don't get too much into the details on it because it is tax cases are sometimes complex. But essentially the situation was is that here and money from a foreign country paid it to someone else's corporation and tried to, tried to represent that the money paid back to him was in the form of loans, non-taxable income. And essentially that was the money that was not reported and taxes paid to the IRS. Was there really, were there really deductions claimed for hookers and things like that? So yeah, if you look at the most recent indictment there, it clearly lays out a lot of the deductions taken to include some of the information that we brought forward. And that being one of them was a $10,000 payment for a sex club. Yeah, deductible. So yeah, so anything that is related to your business that you are earning income off of, yeah, I mean, I don't want to get into the details of that. I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't feel comfortable. Generally personal expenditures, personal nature are not deductible on a business tax return nor personal tax return. So I wanted to add something into what we had talked about before. The biggest part about this is people at home should be confident that the IRS is going to try to treat everyone the same. And here's the reason being is if you charge the mom and pop shop on the corner with felony and misdemeanor tax charges, you should assume that for the same conduct that this person who may be wealthy has political favor is going to be charged with the same thing. It's actually in DOJ taxes policy that if there is felony tax charges that are prevalent, that there's evidence for along with the misdemeanors that you have or that you should charge the felony tax charges as to avoid an equitable treatment of taxpayers. And that at the end of the day is so important because we have to work tax crimes, criminal tax cases, white collar tax cases, regardless of your political affiliation, regardless of what your last name is, regardless of how much money you make. And I think that is what Gary and I have been trying to get out as a part of us coming forward as whistleblowers. In the big picture, what have you suffered and what have you learned? No, I mean, I've learned that there are teams in this world. There's the red and there's the blue and if it helps one team, the other team just is going to come up with any story they can to try to discredit it. For example, debunked the whole Ukraine bragging on TV about getting the prosecutor fired. The talking point is that that's been debunked. That's absolutely incorrect. And if people look at the actual evidence, they'll see that that's not debunked. That's valid. That's why he was paid $1 million a year to be on the board of Burisma. And that's why that as soon as his father was out of office, his salary went down to $500,000. It was purely for access. So what have we suffered? So I think that we've helped IRS. I think that we've helped the mission of IRS criminal investigation is to increase the confidence in the tax code and compliance with the law. And I think that the people that are watching the show, they're going to be like, "There are people out there. There are agents out there that are making sure that everyone, no matter what your name is, no matter what your political affiliation is, they're going after each and every person the same as they should the other person." And from IRS's perspective, the individuals, the senior leaders, IRS criminal investigation, they're looking at this and they're trying to defend their actions. They're not going to be able to in the end of the day. Because we're more focused on the mission of IRS on our oath of office than these individuals that will be harmed by this information coming out. And our career, I was assistant special agent in charge of the New York field office, the Chicago field office with outstanding, the highest you can get, performance evaluations. I apply for a job that's even lower than that and I wasn't given that job. It was a job that I've went to office special counsel about. It's a primitive personnel practice. It's ongoing. We hear lots of support from lots of people all over the IRS. Some people that even contact us using encrypted email services because they're so scared that if they provide us information that the IRS is going to retaliate against us, against them. So we get a good feeling of what's happening all over IRS at the headquarters level and they're coming after us. We did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. I put my life and career in the line to do what was right with competent legal counsel through Congress following the laws in Title 26, 6103, to a T. And IRS will use every resource they have to deny me any of the things that my performance would have warranted. And the Department of Justice is going to do the same. So the mental part of this, I think, just goes unstated. I mean the fear of retaliation, the fear of losing my job, losing my income, the fear of what could happen because you essentially fought with a hornet's nest. And it's a big government that has a lot of assets. And it goes unsaid. I don't think people realize the mental impact of the depression that you go through, the feeling not valued at work, the impact of my career. I mean, I'm a 14-year special agent who has worked some phenomenal cases. And I almost feel like my career is over. And the hard part for me is that there's looking back on things, there really isn't a support system within our agency to help whistleblowers. You don't have to necessarily support what I'm saying. Support me as a human being. Be there for me as a person who is your employee, that you should value, that has done phenomenal work for you, that is trying to do the right thing. And I think that's getting lost in a lot of this because you have two agencies that I think are afraid of what might come out from this and the damage that it could cost their reputation. Yeah, and you look at what the IRS senior executives said during their testimony where you know, fantastic agents, the go-to people, the bulldogs, you know, that's how Special Agent Ziegler and I are described. And you know, we were telling this senior executive for multiple years and giving them specific details each and every time something was unethical or something was out of the ordinary with this investigation. And then I'm speaking directly with them, emailing them, you know, about what's going on in the case and then to find out in December that he speaks with United States Attorney Weiss and he's upset that I've been reporting this up the entire time. Of course he doesn't want, he doesn't want to work with me yet because I've been telling my senior leadership for years what you've been doing that's not right. So what does my leadership do, IRS, CI, and this is what every criminal investigator, IRS, CI needs to understand is that they didn't tell us their big, their big decision, their big leadership moment was to not tell us anything about what was going on. We continued to brief them. Like so December, they've decided they're going to remove us if it moves forward. I'm brief, we're briefing the new Special Agent in Charge in March about this case, but we've been removed. They didn't support us at all even though they knew that the 2014 and 2015 satchel limitations expired. They themselves said during their testimony that they thought it should be charged. They thought the evidence was there and they were frustrated it wasn't charged. They have all the things that I've been saying for years at their disposal and what did they do, whatever David Weiss told them to do because DOJ told them to get rid of us and that's what happened. Are you, are your jobs at risk? So the reality is that they shouldn't be. We did everything right. We had counsel from the very beginning. We did exactly what they told us to do, experts in this area. You know, Mark Lydell is a former prosecutor from the Eastern District of Virginia. He's fully aware of all six-year grand jury secrecy information. He was a prosecutor at the Department Justice Tax Division. You know, it was everything about 6103. We followed his guidance to a T. Then from a power oversight, to attorneys Jason Foster and Tristan Levitt who worked with Senator Grassley's office who, you know, he's a patron saint of whistleblowers. They've been dealing with whistleblowers for years. They know exactly how to deal with whistleblowers of bringing that information to kind of the Congress. So, no, our jobs shouldn't be in jeopardy. I'm asking, do you feel they are? Do you feel you may lose your job over this somehow? I've received information that they're plotting and planning behind us and we're prepared for that when it happens. Yeah, I mean, it is definitely a fear of mine. You go through different weeks to where I'm happy as can be and then there's weeks where I go into a depression. It's isolating. I don't know if they do it on purpose but you're almost completely isolated and no one is asking, "Hey, how are you doing? How's your family doing? How is all these different things in your life going on?" And that's probably one of the most disheartening parts of this. I mean, I saw a leader a month ago. Wouldn't even come up and shake my hand. Like, things like that happen and it's frustrating. I mean, we've had three people, three senior leaders at IRS criminal investigation that we have brought information off to Special Counsel about the retaliation they've engaged in. All three of those people have been promoted since this all happened. There's one point I wanted to go back to is kind of, if you look at this chronologically how this all happened, right, in this case, you have in 2020 and May, June 2020, you have search warrants for physical or affidavit for physical search warrants drafted being somewhat supported by the prosecutors. And then everything halted because of the upcoming election in November of 2020. You know, Attorney General Merrick Garland signed an election year sensitivities memorandum on May 25, 2022 and it's a very similar memo that each Attorney General signs. And in there, it says that either prosecutors or agents, criminal investigators can't decide when to take investigative actions or decisions based on an upcoming election. Yet, in this case, in numerous elections, the US Attorney's Office, whole goal and Department Justice, whole goal was to hide it from the public. And when after the election in 2020, we had a meeting in Delaware where we were planning for the day of action on December 8, 2020. We weren't allowed to do the day of action or interview anybody until after that election occurred. During that meeting, United States Attorney David Weiss is, "Oh, you know, congratulatory. Oh, you know, congratulations for keeping a secret." And I remember amongst the FBI and IRS investigators, our whole position was, "I thought we were investigating the case here and not. I didn't think the purpose of what we were doing was to keep it secret." Right? So you move forward to the midterms in 2022. We received information from the Department of Justice that there's nobody on the ticket. There's nobody on the ballot for the Bidens. You guys can just continue and they made the decision and were not taking any actions for months before those midterms. So a political interference, there's no political interference. You have people coming forward saying that, "I don't think there was political interference. Tell me another investigation where you weren't allowed to take investigative actions because of an upcoming election. And now you tell me that there wasn't political interference." So one other thing, and this is a little bit choppy, but I wanted to bring it up, is that as this all went along, as we've learned things that have happened in hindsight, that we didn't know at the time. I mean, the Department of Justice is continually trying to cover up what's going on. They're trying to cover up their malfeasance in relation to how they handle Hunter Biden. I mean, you see a June 30th, 2023 letter from the United States Attorney Weiss to Congress. And the first paragraph says, "I have full authority, ultimate authority." And then the next paragraph, it says, "I don't have authority outside of Delaware." Well, those are two contradictory statements. So the next sentence says that if venue is outside of Delaware, I'd have to partner with a local U.S. attorney. And if they don't want to partner, I'd have to request special charging authority, special attorney authority. And as I said in my October 7th notes from that meeting, he said he requests a special counsel authority, was denied that authority and was told to follow the process. And he's trying to parse words saying, "Well, I didn't request special counsel authority. I requested special attorney authority." Well, at the end of the day, he got special counsel authority, not special attorney authority. So you have Attorney General Merrow Garland coming out speaking about, "Well, I don't know what authority David Weiss doesn't have. He actually has more authority than the special counsel would have." This was before he was granted special counsel authority. So I always kind of quip, but it's like, he didn't have that authority. He testified that he needed to ask for that authority for main DOJ, and he was told to follow the process. And then ultimately, when he gets that special charging authority, special counsel authority, not special attorney authority, and so did Attorney General Merrow Garland reduce his amount of authority? He said he had more authority before than a special counsel. So each and every time DOJ is trying to cover up their tracks and how they're covering up this investigation and what they did wrong during it, and they're causing new problems. Right? So the pretrial diversion on the gun charge and that the two misdemeanor plea deal, the government just files a motion in response to the defense request to dismiss and says that there's overwhelming evidence to support the gun charge. Well, the Department of Justice in June of 2023 was going to throw that charge away. You know, the same with the tax to misdemeanor charges. Now you have questions from certain members on the Hill saying, "Oh, well they think we're doing the right thing. Joe and I," but they just don't understand the prosecution. Right? They don't understand what's going on, the decision that has to be made to prosecute a case. You know, they just indicted on all the charges the Special Agent's Eagle recommended. I wouldn't allow a report to go forward that the prosecutors didn't agree with what was being recommended. It even says in Special Agent report that the two top prosecutors agreed with the recommended charges. So everything that DOJ is doing is contradicting what they've done in the past and as more information comes out, I think you're going to find it being even more egregious. If you don't mind, like, how do we move forward? Like what, how do we move forward in this environment? And I think that that is super important. If you don't mind, let's look at a couple of things. David Weiss is now Special Counsel over this investigation. So he is going to potentially investigate his own investigation. And I don't know if people understand how much of a conflict of interest that that that is, but he is going to look at his own conduct. And that is just completely inappropriate. You have Department of Justice, OIG, who we hope is going to look into, is there an equitable treatment of taxpayers? Did they do the wrong things on this? We don't know what's potentially going to come out from that. But what I think needs to happen is there needs to be a process of if agents on a highly sensitive political case feels that there needs to be a special counsel, there needs to be a procedure for us to request that. There needs to be policy and procedures of if there is something going wrong on a case, we're going to be heard by this person. We're going to be heard by the commissioner's office. This shouldn't have to be to where Gary and I have to risk our careers, risk our livelihood, in going to Congress in order to get something done. And I think that at the end of the day, if we can shed some light on that and that good comes out of this, I'll sleep better at night knowing that. Well, DOJ, Attorney General Merrick Garland, giving special counsel authority at David Weiss, did several things that provided them the ability to continue to cover up what was ongoing. And that's that, you know, another uninvolved objective individual isn't able to come in and investigate what's going on. If he thought it was important enough to assign a special counsel, it should have been someone that's going to look in the entire thing. The investigation, not just what Hunter Biden is going to be charged with. And then also the Department of Justice, the Department of Justice, the Inspector General's office, is kind of put on hold as what my understanding from speaking with them, because he gave special counsel authority at David Weiss. So now they're in limbo with what they can investigate and what they can investigate. And then it gives David Weiss this whole report that he's going to author. I mean, this is going to be incredibly self-serving. And we're going to read every single line and we're going to provide information that refutes all of the inaccurate information in there because it's going to be self-serving. People and certainly supporters of the Biden's would probably say or suggest that you are Trump people or conservative Republicans out to grind an axe. What would you say to that? I'm a Democrat. I am socially liberal, fiscally conservative. I'm a gay man. That is where my principles lie. And at the end of the day, it wasn't about my political beliefs. It was about doing the right thing, holding people accountable if they committed crimes and doing the investigation like we would normally do. And to say that Gary and I are politically motivated in this, what are we to gain from this? If anything, it's potentially destroying our lives more than we are gaining from it. And to put a point on the political side of this, there were so many points in the investigation where politics were at play. The day of action, waiting until after the election, the midterms, waiting until after the midterms. There were going to a US attorney who is a president Biden US attorney going out in California, waiting until it's confirmed that Martin Asrata is the US attorney in California and lo and behold that week is when we present the tax case out in California. Like it couldn't be more that politics were involved in this case. And the evidence I think is clear of it. I mean, ultimately, Republican or Democrat for us is not about that. It's about treating each taxpayer the same. And it was about the facts and the evidence. And as you as you know, hopefully some of your viewers have seen, your readers have seen that during our testimony, there is very, very few questions that attacked the facts that we were bringing forward or the evidence we were bringing forward. And ultimately, the Department of Justice proved that us coming forward was not politically motivated because they charged him with the exact crimes that we came forward to blow the whistle on that wasn't happening until we came forward. There's a lot more to this and I will wrap it all up and add to what they said in my special investigation Sunday, February 18 on full measure to find out how to watch on a station near you go to Cherylaxan.com and click the full measure tab for a list of stations and times. You can also watch online at fullmeasure.news Sundays about 9.30, 9.31 a.m. Eastern Time. And if you miss that time, no worries because we post the whole program and all the segments at fullmeasure.news around noon Eastern Time, if not before, on Sundays and they remain there. So you can catch up anytime you like. It's never been more important to support independent journalism and you can do that by visiting the Cheryl Atkinson store. You do that by going to Cherylaxan.com and clicking the store tab for some unique products for independent thinkers with proceeds going to independent reporting causes. If you enjoyed today's podcast, which I hope you did, I hope you will leave a great review, subscribe and share it with your friends and check out my other podcast, the Cheryl Atkinson podcast. Do your own research, make up your own mind, think for yourself.
