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SALT LAKE CITY — Rep. Blake Moore of Utah attended a closed-door hearing as a member of the Ways and Means Committee on Thursday where he voted to release testimony given by an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower on Hunter Biden, which Moore said he found credible.
A week and a half ago, the committee was briefed on a high-profile case and was allowed to review the testimony, but did not have permission to talk publicly about it, the Republican representative told the Deseret News.
In the testimony, Gary Shapley, an IRS criminal supervisory special agent, alleged "that (the Department of Justice) provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, (and) did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts" when investigating Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's son.
Moore said that he found the material in the testimony "highly disturbing." He said he almost dropped his phone when he found out that Hunter Biden had entered a plea deal for two misdemeanor tax charges and a felony related to possession of a firearm — two days before the whistleblower's testimony became public.
"I have many concerns with how the timing of this played out," Moore said.
.@waysandmeansgop released whistleblower testimony of 2 IRS employees who recommended that Hunter Biden be prosecuted for tax crimes. Their testimonies contain accusations of multiple issues but make 1 thing clear: the IRS & DOJ treated Hunter Biden's case w. political partiality pic.twitter.com/vA1neOlNgn
— Congressman Blake Moore (@RepBlakeMoore) June 23, 2023
The Ways and Means Committee found that Hunter Biden earned $8.3 million, allegedly with the help of foreign entities, and didn't pay roughly $2.2 million in taxes.
But the plea deal he entered charged him with not paying $100,000 in annual taxes for two years.
"So, there's a discrepancy between what the whistleblowers are saying and what the charges are," Moore said.
Jason Smith, R-Mo., the chairman of the committee, said in a statement that if the federal government is not treating all taxpayers equally, or if it is changing the rules to engineer a preferred outcome, Congress has a duty to ask why and to hold agencies accountable and consider appropriate legislative action, Smith said.
"The scales of justice must not be skewed in favor of the wealthy and the politically connected," he said.
Moore noted that the testimony included dates from as far back as 2014 when President Biden was serving as the vice president.
Meanwhile, Moore said, "his son is getting enormous amounts of money, diamonds, horses, sports cars, from foreign entities, whether it be Romania, China and Ukraine."
The testimony includes WhatsApp messages between Hunter Biden and Chinese businessman Henry Zhao, where Biden makes note of his father, being present with him.
"I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled," Hunter Biden's message to Zhao from 2017 read. "Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight."
Moore said the president's involvement is "still unknown," but the testimony presents new information about his son's business dealings as well as the federal investigations that ensued.
"I believe there's time still to take the (whistleblower testimony) into consideration," Moore said. "I assess it as credible."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer questions about the investigation at a press briefing Friday.
"The Justice Department makes decisions in its criminal investigations independently, and in this case, the White House has not been involved," said Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, per CNN.
The testimony alleges that federal investigators tipped off Hunter Biden's attorneys, and that U.S. Attorney of Delaware David Weiss, who launched the investigation in 2018, struggled to bring the charges forward while being denied special counsel status last year.
"I really want to investigate ... and get to the bottom of what has been Weiss' role," Moore said.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland held a press conference on Friday and denied allegations of interference with Weiss' investigation.
Garland said that since Weiss was appointed as the U.S. attorney in Delaware under the Trump administration, he "would be permitted to continue his investigation and to make a decision to prosecute any way in which he wanted," per Fox News.
Additionally, with the authority confirmed by the House Judiciary Committee, Garland said he didn't know "how it would be possible for anybody to block him from bringing a prosecution."
Democratic representatives argued that the case isn't ready and that all witnesses named in the testimony have not been interviewed.
"There's really much smoke here and not much fire," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, of the investigation.
Meanwhile, Moore encouraged the public to comb through the testimony and find out the truth for themselves.
"There are double standards all over this town," he said. "That needs to be addressed."
