Is the US government hanging brave whistle blowers out to dry. A new court filing suggests that shamefully, indeed, federal authorities are working to crush those who expose the hyper politicization of our national security and law enforcement apparatus. In the case of IRS whistleblowers, Gary shapely and Joseph Ziegler recall that the IRS agents came forward to expose how law enforcement agencies slow walked, sabotaged and subverted the investigation and prosecution of Hunter Biden and other family members, pertaining to the international influence peddling scheme under which they monetized Joe Biden’s offices to the tune of 10s of millions of dollars, thereby protecting the president, the agents claim they face reprisals internally for coming forward through appropriate channels and ultimately Congress with their lawful disclosures, they’ve also faced multifaceted attacks from Hunter Biden, including in court. One leg of the legal attack comes in a suit Biden filed last fall against the US government, represented by the Justice Department and the IRS in which team Biden claims the whistleblowers and their attorneys made unlawful disclosures of Hunter’s confidential tax information, arguably defaming them perversely. Since Biden is suing the government rather than its employees, the case puts the DOJ and IRS in the position of defending the agents who expose those agencies alleged malfeasance, and who those agencies supposedly punished for it, the IRS pulling Shapley and Ziegler off the case after Biden’s legal team lobbied the DOJ to target them, the agents allege. The US government disputes that the agents wrongfully disclosed confidential information the basis of one of the two counts in the suit consistent with the factual record of the case, suggesting how frivolous this effort targeting the whistleblowers is, but the feds can find that admission to a footnote, instead of arguing to fully dismiss the wrongful disclosure count on those grounds, the government instead has only motioned to partially dismiss The Count, quote, unquote, to the extent Hunter Biden’s team brings the claim based on the alleged wrongful disclosures by the IRS employees as personal attorneys and vowed to answer remaining allegations and raise all available defenses only after the court rules on the partial dismissal because of the obvious conflicts of interest in the case and the absurd and passive posture the government has taken in leaving the whistleblowers twisting in the win. Instead of telling Hunter Biden’s lawyers to go pound sand, Agent Shapley and Ziegler understandably motioned to intervene in the case to defend themselves back in May yet, not only Hunter Biden’s team, but the government opposed that intervention, the government argued that only it, quote, has the right to decide its litigation strategy, which includes the right to decide what arguments to make and when to make them, and argued Shapley and Ziegler lacked standing a new filing in response to both Biden’s and the government’s opposition to that intervention shows the chilling nature of what is at play here in that filing, the agents assert that the IRS opposes intervention in a case where Shapley and Ziegler seek, at the outset, to secure an appropriate and complete dismissal of the lawsuit against the IRS. But instead of taking the position any litigant on the defense side of a civil lawsuit would take, the IRS opposes dismissal and purportedly wants to, quote, wait for a fully developed factual record to present its defenses. In other words, the IRS wants the parties to engage in written discovery and depositions, even if unnecessary to resolve this case in its favor, oddly inviting needless discovery that defendants would normally seek to avoid. Shapley and Zeigler also assert in the filing the inane reality that they made protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress and the very parties against whom these two career federal agents blew the whistle, Hunter Biden the IRS and the Department of Justice’s Tax Division are collectively asking this court to prevent them from defending the clear legality of their actions by intervening as parties in this litigation, as they made clear in their motion to intervene, the case at hand could lead the agents to face any number of professional and reputational harms, should the government not vigorously and successfully defend them part of a compelling argument for standing. Just imagine having an allegedly frivolous case impugning your character and threatening your livelihood brought against you, and that perhaps your worst enemies outside of those who brought the charges are the ones left to defend you. Remember, the government agencies here have been exposed to be corrupt multiple times through the alleged misconduct the agents exposed through rushing to concoct a sham sweetheart plea deal that fell apart to try and make it seem like they weren’t given completely preferential treatment to the Brennan’s family, and then through being forced to prosecute cases against Hunter Biden while the house made their misconduct central to its impeachment inquiry, as Shapley and Ziegler conclude in their latest filing, unless the IRS litigation strategy is not to prevail in this case, it begs.
The question of why the IRS opposes enabling the two people whose conduct is at issue to have a seat at the table that the agents seem to be getting hung out to dry for having come forward at maximum personal and professional risk to blow the whistle represents yet another shameful chapter in this era of weaponized and hyper politicized government, one that will likely deter other whistleblowers from defending the Constitution and the Republic in the future, the.
