Hunter Biden’s lawyer asserted that the Justice Department was on the cusp of a “non-prosecution resolution” with his client had it not been for the two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers.
IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler had alleged the Justice Department slow-walked the probe of the 46th president’s son. Shortly after going public with their concern, attorney Abbe Lowell said federal prosecutors changed course.
The Daily Signal obtained documents from the Justice Department about the prosecution of Hunter Biden for tax and gun charges through a Freedom of Information Act request. A Delaware jury convicted Hunter, but his father, President Joe Biden, pardoned him shortly before leaving office.
In an Aug. 14, 2023, letter to special counsel David Weiss, Lowell complained that prosecutors made a complete reversal.
“Before the May 2023 leaks, discussions with your Office involved a consensual non-prosecution resolution to all conduct under investigation, where the resolution proposed by both sides did not include any guilty plea,” Lowell wrote.
But he wrote that changed after Shapley was interviewed by CBS News.
“Approximately one day later, the government withdrew its own initial settlement proposal (a diversion agreement as to both the tax and firearm charges), and instead said it would require a misdemeanor guilty plea on the tax charges,” said the letter from Lowell.
After both sides agreed to a misdemeanor guilty plea on June 20 of that year, the deal...
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