Just days after Hunter Biden was indicted on three separate gun charges, attorneys for the troubled first son filed suit against the IRS, claiming he was “targeted” by the agency. The suit cites testimony by IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who accused the IRS of mishandling the Biden investigation.
Pundits contend that Mr. Biden is seeking to get ahead of potential charges, especially those that may implicate his father, President Biden. How realistic are these allegations, and what does Biden the younger hope to gain from his legal efforts? We spoke with Liberty Nation’s Legal Affairs Editor, Scott D. Cosenza, to sift fact from fiction.
Mark Angelides: Breaking down the lawsuit into its main components, what are Biden’s attorneys alleging, and what remedy are they requesting?
Scott D. Cosenza: Hunter Biden’s suit alleges two IRS agents intentionally disclosed his tax return information, violating his privacy. It also claims the IRS is liable for wilfully failing to appropriately safeguard the confidential tax return information Biden submitted when he filed. His lawyer, Abe Lowell, wrote, “[T]he lawsuit is about the decision by IRS employees, their representatives, and others to disregard their obligations and repeatedly and intentionally publicly disclose and disseminate Mr. Biden’s protected tax return information outside the exceptions for making disclosures in the law.”
MA: Is this an attempt by Hunter Biden’s legal team to get ahead of any potential charges? And if so, what does having such a suit do for him?
SDC: I think they think it’s likely a win for Hunter and also his father in public opinion. Should Joe Biden ever decide to answer questions from a challenging press, he can now say, “This is the subject of current litigation, as you know, and so I cannot comment.” Beyond that, I think it is a worthy lawsuit in its own right, absent the massive political ramifications at play.
MA: By specifically naming Agents Shapely and Ziegler and accusing them of purposefully taking action to “embarrass” him, will this have any ongoing impact on the testimony they have already made or on testimony they may be asked to provide in the future?
SDC: Future testimony may be different now. We’ll have to wait and see how the IRS and the two agents react to the suit to know for sure. What’s on the record from testimony already given, however, is not going away. Keep in mind Hunter’s central allegations in the suit are that the agents revealed his private information, not that they manufactured lies.
MA: Would the lawsuit be going ahead if the so-called “sweetheart deal” Biden had in place with the DOJ was not scuppered by the overseeing judge for providing an almost blanket immunity?
SDC: To be a fly on the wall in the Biden decision crucible! Hunter Biden is the only one who knows that for sure. The plea terms that were almost entered did not mention other future claims unrelated to those cases. While taxes were involved, this invasion of privacy was not, and so this claim would likely have been made anyway, I suppose.
MA: Am I right in thinking that Shapely and Ziegler are protected personally from liability because of existing whistleblower status rules?
(Photo by Jabin Botsford via Getty Images)
SDC: Well, I don’t know if I would use the word protected. Shapely and Ziegler are not named as plaintiffs in this lawsuit. It’s Robert Hunter Biden vs. IRS. They are not on the hook if Biden wins. Yet, should the case progress, Biden’s attorneys will likely be able to use the pre-trial discovery process to peer into the agents’ texts, emails, and other communications they thought were private. Since their opinions about Mr. Hunter Biden are relevant to the case, and their publicizing the story is at its heart, I expect emails between TV producers and the agents, for instance, will be revealed.
MA: Speaking of the “embarrassment” of having one’s tax information made public, why didn’t former President Donald Trump make a similar claim when his returns were published?
SDC: In Trump’s case, the returns were demanded by the House Committee on Ways and Means, which got them after a battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Then, the committee released the documents. That type of release doesn’t seem to have been contemplated when the privacy rules and laws concerning taxpayer information were drafted. Making public disclosures to media outlets is, however. That’s what Messrs Shapely and Ziegler are accused of doing by Mr. Biden with this suit.
MA: Hunter Biden’s lawyers say they want damages for “each and every” disclosure. Does this mean the legal team will seek damages from media outlets that published or reported on his tax issues?
SDC: This is not about suing media companies who published stories about these disclosures. Biden’s lawyers argue he should be paid $1,000 each time the information that should have been kept private was published. So for each news story on LibertyNation.com, for instance, that included such information, Mr. Biden would be awarded $1,000.00 for each instance. Then another 1K for mention on our signature video production, the C5, for instance, and another for my discussion of this topic on LN radio and the Uprising Podcast. The totals add up pretty quickly, considering the popularity of the story.
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The move by Hunter Biden’s legal team is an unusual yet strategic one. Critics claim he is targeting the whistleblowers who have already provided incriminating testimony. How much it complicates or prolongs the younger Biden’s legal woes remains to be seen.
