Two IRS employees who blew the whistle on political interference in Hunter Biden's tax evasion crimes filed a $20 million defamation lawsuit late Friday against the president's son's lawyer, accusing him of acting with “evident malice.”
IRS investigators Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler have accused attorney Abe Lowell of retaliating against them for their efforts to expose preferential treatment Hunter Biden received for unpaid taxes.
The lawsuit, filed in a Washington DC court, says the couple filed the lawsuit “to defend their reputations following the incredible and malicious harm they have suffered.”
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IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, left, and IRS Criminal Investigation Division Agent Joseph Ziegler sit during an IRS whistleblower hearing before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee in Washington on July 19, 2023. The two are suing Hunter Biden's lawyer, Abe Lowell, for defamation. (Associated Press)
The lawsuit alleges that as whistleblowers, Shapley and Ziegler “acted with honor and integrity in exposing conflicts of interest, preferential treatment and political motivations that they reasonably believed were obstructing the criminal tax investigation of Hunter Biden.”
They claim they acted within the law and accused Lowell of “falsely and maliciously” committing the crime of illegally disclosing grand jury materials and tax return information, even though they never publicly discussed the returns.[ing] This information had not yet been made public.”
“Lowell's malicious and false accusations, including accusations that Shapley and Ziegler 'committed felonies' and 'violated the law,' were publicly released to third parties, including the media, and caused severe damage to their professional and personal reputations,” the lawsuit states.
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, (L), arrives with attorney Abe Lowell (R) for a closed-door deposition in the Republican-led investigation into the Biden family, at the O'Neill House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Among the instances cited in the lawsuit is a Sept. 14, 2023, letter Lowell sent to several congressional committees in which the two allege that Lowell falsely accused them of violating grand jury secrecy rules and the Taxpayer Confidentiality Act.
“This was an act designed to harm Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler by republishing all of their previous defamatory falsehoods in a larger forum,” the complaint states.
The whistleblowers also accuse Lowell of releasing Biden's legal team communications to the press that day, including an April 21, 2023 letter from another Biden lawyer to the Department of Justice's Office of the Deputy Attorney General accusing one or both of the whistleblowers of leaking information to the press that an investigation was underway, in apparent violation of federal law.
Last week, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine tax-related charges as part of an “open plea agreement” without any negotiation with prosecutors. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Hunter Biden had already disclosed in December 2020 that he was the subject of a criminal tax investigation, according to the complaint.
Additionally, the whistleblower accuses Lowell of releasing a letter to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz that “falsely stated that Shapley and Ziegler leaked grand jury and taxpayer information through multiple nationally broadcast, on-camera interviews.” [Shapley]The company called it a “clear and obvious crime not protected by whistleblower or other federal laws.”
They are each suing Lowell for at least $10 million.
Fox News Digital reached out to Lowell through his law firm, Winston & Strawn LLP, for comment but did not receive a response.
Shapley, who led the IRS investigation into Biden Ziegler, who served as a special agent in the IRS's criminal investigation division for 13 years, alleged political influence over prosecutorial decisions throughout the Biden investigation, which began in 2018.
IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley (L) and IRS Criminal Agent Joseph Ziegler (R) testify under oath during a House Oversight Committee hearing on the Department of Justice's investigation of Hunter Biden on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, July 19, 2023. (Drew Ungerer/Getty Images)
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Hunter Biden previously had a special agreement with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, but the deal fell apart last year after Shapley and Ziegler went public with their concerns.
Mr Shapley said decisions “at every stage” of the investigation “had the effect of benefiting the subjects of the investigation”.
Additionally, Ziegler said Biden “should have been charged with felony tax evasion, not just a misdemeanor,” and noted that communications and text messages examined by investigators “may contradict President Biden's statements that he was not involved in Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings.”
Ziegler also alleged that federal investigators “did not follow normal procedures, delayed their investigation, and created unnecessary approvals and obstacles that prevented them from investigating the case effectively and efficiently,” including by blocking prosecutors from questioning and interviewing certain of Biden's adult children.
Last week, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine tax-related charges as part of an “open plea” without negotiating with prosecutors, in which a defendant pleads guilty to all charges and leaves the sentencing decision to a judge without any consensus recommendation from prosecutors.
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden embrace onstage at the end of the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center on August 19, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois.
Weiss charged President Biden's son with three felony counts and six misdemeanor counts over $1.4 million in back taxes that had already been paid. Weiss alleged that Hunter had a pattern of not paying federal income taxes and filing false tax returns.
In the indictment, Weiss alleged that Hunter “from approximately January 2017 to about October 15, 2020, engaged in a four-year scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes due for tax years 2016 through 2019, and in or about February 2020, filed a false tax return to evade paying tax for 2018.”
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Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison. He is free on bail until his sentencing on December 16.
Fox News' Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
