By Harold Hutchison
Internal Revenue Service whistleblower Gary Shapley said Tuesday that prosecutors in the Hunter Biden case sought a jail term over a far smaller tax debt in a previous case involving a Baltimore city police commissioner.
Shapley and fellow whistleblower Joseph Zeigler testified about interference with the investigation into Biden during a July 19 hearing held by the House Oversight Committee. Biden pled not guilty to all charges after the plea agreement announced June 20, collapsed when United States District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected both the initial plea deal and a more limited revision Wednesday.
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“That’s the entire reason why I came forward. There are 300 million taxpayers out there that demand that they get treated fairly and this is a perfect example of that not occurring,” Shapley told “America’s Newsroom” co-hosts Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer. “Let me give you a case example really quick. There was a Baltimore city police commissioner, Darryl De Sousa, in 2018, 2019, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax charges, the same charges Hunter Biden was charged with. His tax loss was $67,000. Hunter Biden’s tax loss was between $1.2 and $1.5 million, and that’s from court documents, not our calculations.”
“The government attorneys on that case recommended 12 months incarceration, he ended up getting 10 months incarceration,” Shapley continued. “The government attorneys on this case recommended zero months incarceration. Those prosecutors in those two cases are the same prosecutors, Leo Weis and Derek Hines. That’s not treating taxpayers the same.”
Congressional Republicans, candidates for the Republican nomination for president in 2024 and legal experts all criticized the plea agreement announced June 20, with some calling it a “sweetheart deal.”
