A pair of IRS whistleblowers testified to Congress that the Justice Department slow-walked its investigation into Hunter Biden and ignored recommendations to file felony tax charges, instead striking a plea deal that will allow the president's son to avoid prison time.

Why it matters: With former President Trump on the verge of being indicted for the third time, Republicans' strategy for defending the GOP front-runner depends largely on convincing the public that President Biden has politicized the DOJ.

• House Republicans have invested major time and resources into the Hunter Biden investigation, bringing together three separate committees Wednesday for a blockbuster hearing focused on the IRS allegations.
• The GOP-led hearing gave Republicans a welcome distraction from news that Trump soon could be charged for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But it fell short of producing any evidence of wrongdoing by Biden himself.

Driving the news: IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler alleged that U.S. Attorney David Weiss, the Trump-appointed prosecutor leading the Hunter Biden probe, was prevented from bringing charges in jurisdictions outside Delaware.

• Ziegler, a self-described gay Democrat whose identity was kept anonymous until Wednesday, testified that prosecutors from DOJ's tax division drafted a 99-page memo in August 2022 recommending both felony and misdemeanor tax charges against Hunter Biden.
• Those recommendations ultimately were not adopted — one of...

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