The Megyn Kelly Show - IRS Whistleblowers on Hunter Biden Investigation Roadblocks, Significance of Laptop, and Accusations of Political Bias

00:00:00.360 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.900 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.240 Today we have an exclusive interview with the two IRS agents who testified yesterday on Capitol Hill

00:00:22.400 about Biden family tax issues and about corruption and unethical conduct within the Department of

00:00:31.800 Justice. They are whistleblowers and this is their first interview together and first interview since

00:00:37.380 yesterday's bizarre hearing. I mean, what the Democrats tried to do to these two guys was

00:00:42.120 absolutely bizarre. We'll get into all of it. Gary Shapley worked for the IRS for 14 years. He's still

00:00:47.720 there. Joseph Ziegler, who until yesterday was known only as Whistleblower X, has worked at the

00:00:53.440 agency for 13 years. Both men in their opening remarks describing in detail why they have serious

00:00:59.100 problems with how the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes was handled by prosecutors

00:01:04.920 and the Department of Justice. These are the two guys who were on the case, running the case,

00:01:09.380 investigating the case, but they're not prosecutors. They needed the prosecutors to actually bring the

00:01:13.960 case to actually file the charges. And at every turn, they allege they were stymied. It was slow

00:01:20.140 rolled and they witnessed misconduct. For the most part, yesterday, the Democrats just stuck their

00:01:26.500 fingers in their ears and yelled, but Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And indeed, Trump was president for

00:01:31.400 the beginning few months of part of these allegations. But the meat of the case, the slow rolling

00:01:39.800 and the behavior by most of these authorities happened after Trump. And for that matter,

00:01:44.860 you know, the people who are in charge seem to have been very pro Biden and anti Trump right from

00:01:51.300 the get go. That's my editorial. Several of these Democrats bizarrely brought race into the discussion.

00:01:57.900 What? What does that have to do with anything? But Shapley and Ziegler did not waver in their

00:02:02.840 allegations, which include that they were told they could not pursue key warrants, search warrants

00:02:07.760 involving Hunter Biden due to, quote, the optics of it, that prosecutors tipped off Hunter Biden's

00:02:13.200 defense counsel about potential searches and about their intent to interview Hunter,

00:02:19.660 that they were blocked from looking into leads involving Hunter Biden's grown children who he was

00:02:25.520 using for some tax deductions. And the men claimed that they were told by prosecutors not to ask questions

00:02:31.800 at all about dad or the big guy. There's a lot to get into. We're going to walk you through what is

00:02:39.960 a complicated story, but we'll present it to you in a way that you can understand. Joining me now,

00:02:44.300 Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler. Guys, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

00:02:49.240 Thank you, Megan, for having us. Yeah, thank you so much for having us.

00:02:52.180 I'm sorry you're going through this. My main reaction watching what happened yesterday was

00:02:57.860 you were treated very disrespectfully and it's wrong. You're not partisan hacks. You're a career

00:03:04.420 service men who have not made a ton of money over at the IRS investigating tax cheats. And when you saw

00:03:13.660 something unethical, you found the courage to speak up about it, which isn't easy to do. So I'll just kick

00:03:20.360 it off there. How did you feel about the way you were treated yesterday and the way you've been

00:03:25.800 treated since you first came forward six weeks or so ago, first anonymously in your case, Joe, and now

00:03:32.700 on the record for both of you, Gary, I'll start with you. Yeah. So, you know, as you know, when we

00:03:38.720 conduct these investigations, it's not about politics and and, you know, there's just nothing

00:03:43.880 political. There's no political activity in my my background. And, you know, so being in this

00:03:51.100 hearing yesterday, you know, I thought that there were there were good questions from both sides.

00:03:56.940 And, you know, there there were unfair questions from from from both sides. And also, you know,

00:04:04.600 that there are there are opportunities where I was asked a question and I just wasn't allowed to finish.

00:04:09.940 And but when it's all said and done, right, like I'm not a part of committee stuff like that. And

00:04:16.700 I've really witnessed never witnessed that before. So, you know, I guess it's just business as usual

00:04:23.620 there. So, you know, I just took it with a grain of salt and focused on the facts. And, you know,

00:04:29.180 they just, you know, at the end of the day, they just couldn't attack the facts because they can't

00:04:34.800 they can't taint the facts. So I know you've both gone to the inspector generals or the relevant

00:04:39.460 agencies involved. But whistleblowing to Congress provides another layer of security that those

00:04:46.240 inspector generals are going to have to actually investigate and that the American public now knows

00:04:50.980 and we're going to be watching. So it's a smart move. But watching this yesterday, all I could

00:04:55.200 think, Joe, is these guys got to be second guessing their decision to look at these nimrods on Capitol

00:04:59.160 Hill as any sort of oversight on all of this. I mean, what does race have? Could you believe

00:05:04.680 some of these questions? I'll just like this isn't the most relevant, but I'll just give the

00:05:09.080 audience a flavor for what you were subjected to. Here's sought eight. It's a Democrat representative

00:05:15.640 Chantel Brown of Ohio. This is where she wanted to go with your allegations about

00:05:19.720 Hunter Biden's tax crimes and why the DOJ didn't charge them more seriously.

00:05:25.020 I know the American people are confused because we're all confused what we're doing here.

00:05:30.300 Do you know the rate at which black taxpayers are audited as compared to taxpayers who are not

00:05:37.300 black? No, I don't know. Well, the answer is black taxpayers are audited at 2.9 to 4.7 times the rate

00:05:44.940 of non-black taxpayers. Another question for you, sir. Yes or no? Will this hearing help alleviate the

00:05:51.840 racial disparity in the rates of the IRS audits? No. That's not the topic.

00:05:58.280 That was Gary saying that's not the topic. What was your experience like yesterday, Joe? What did you

00:06:03.580 make of it? So, yeah, from my perspective, being someone who has liberal beliefs and I am a Democrat,

00:06:14.960 um, but I was kind of disappointed. I was kind of disappointed that the other side of the aisle

00:06:20.680 didn't care about what we came there to say. And I mean, I really want like people to understand that

00:06:28.800 Gary and I essentially, we're just trying to do the right thing for the right reason.

00:06:34.240 And at the end of the day, there were some things that happened as a part of this investigation.

00:06:40.260 We're bringing those facts forward. And I think it's important for the American people

00:06:46.620 to make that decision for Congress to weigh the facts. They're going to investigate this

00:06:52.640 and we'll see where those facts lay out. And I think it's that, that's the thing that struck me

00:06:58.860 the most from yesterday is that it seemed like they, they, that, that there were certain people

00:07:04.720 that really didn't care what we had to present to, to Congress and that, that disappointment.

00:07:10.260 You have, you have this lady talking about racial disparities. You have Marjorie Taylor Greene

00:07:15.720 showing, you know, X-rated photos of Hunter Biden off from the laptop. And you're up there. I mean,

00:07:22.840 Joe, yesterday was the first time we heard from you. You're up there saying this case involves

00:07:28.420 unethical quoting here and inappropriate behavior and abuse of power, the corrosion of ethical standards,

00:07:34.940 misconduct, gross mismanagement, gross waste of funds, and on and on. I mean, this is what you're

00:07:41.960 alleging is rather stunning. And it's on the part of our most trusted federal law enforcement officers

00:07:48.660 inside of the Department of Justice. That's the story. That's the story, what you witnessed there.

00:07:53.580 And then we'll get to the retaliation that you allegedly suffered once you found the courage to come

00:07:59.280 forward. Can you, look, Gary, take us to the, like the zoom out, the, the, the viewers who are at home

00:08:06.680 who haven't been paying attention to this, who are looking at you two guys saying, who are the,

00:08:10.360 I don't like IRS agents. I'm already against them. I don't, I don't, why should I be listening to Gary

00:08:16.720 and Joe? Why do I care about this story? You know, so Hunter Biden didn't perfectly dot the I's and

00:08:21.760 cross the T's on a couple of tax returns. Why is this a national story?

00:08:25.060 Well, I think that the, that what we're doing is we're doing the right thing. And, and the mission

00:08:31.520 of, of IRSCI is to instill confidence in the tax code. So the Americans out there that are looking

00:08:37.720 at us, I mean, we should be, you know, they should be looking at us as like, we're doing the right

00:08:42.620 thing. And that we're making sure that the, uh, at least the, the investigations that come across our

00:08:47.560 desk, that we make sure that, uh, people are being treated, uh, equally and fairly. Um, and that it

00:08:54.140 shouldn't, uh, the 300 million Americans out there that are paying their taxes today, you know, when,

00:08:58.980 when they tune in, you know, Democrats said, you know, I don't know why I'm here. You know,

00:09:02.120 we're confused why we're here. Well, those Americans aren't confused why we're here because,

00:09:06.620 you know, there's two IRS agents, you know, standing up and saying this person got preferential

00:09:11.640 treatment. And, uh, you know, you, if it was a business owner on the corner, um, he wouldn't have

00:09:17.380 gotten, he or she wouldn't have gotten that special treatment and we probably would have been in jail

00:09:21.600 already. So, uh, so that's, that's what I say to America. I mean, we're, we're, we're here,

00:09:27.080 we're the big bad IRS and, uh, we're here fighting for you because it needs to be a fair application

00:09:33.080 of justice. Yeah. Those of us who actually pay our taxes begrudgingly, but we do it cause we know we

00:09:39.280 have to, uh, work, we get screwed by people who don't do it, who don't follow the laws. And in the

00:09:44.480 case of Hunter Biden, as I read your allegations, he flouted the law in 2014 and 2015 and 2016 and

00:09:51.400 2017 and 2018 and 2019. I mean, we could go on. This wasn't a one time mistake. This was a systemic

00:09:56.980 just flouting of the criminal law at to the point where it was multiple felonies that you were all

00:10:05.560 agreeing on. That's an important point here, Joe. I mean, we'll get to why later, but is that not true

00:10:10.960 that it was not just you guys inside the IRS? It was the FBI and it was the prosecutors at the very

00:10:17.460 highest levels of this case who at least earlier before the final moments came had agreed. He

00:10:24.400 committed felonies and needed to be charged with felonies. Unlike the two tax misdemeanors,

00:10:29.320 which he's now agreed to plead guilty to. There is no tax felony that Hunter Biden is about to plead

00:10:34.340 guilty to for the record. Yeah. And I want to, I want to be clear about that. So the meeting you're

00:10:40.920 referencing is August of 2022. We have a phone call with, with the prosecution team. It's all

00:10:47.480 the assigned prosecutors. And they, they tell us that we are recommending for approval, the felony

00:10:53.760 and misdemeanor tax charges related to 2017, 18 and 19. So that essentially means that they are done

00:11:00.020 with their memo. It is now going to the next layer layer of review. And they were actually at that same

00:11:06.320 time getting ready to bring that case, bring those charges in the district, the central district of

00:11:12.520 California. And to go from that point to where we are now, uh, two misdemeanors compared to that

00:11:19.720 felony that was approved, recommended for approval. It's just an inequitable treatment of taxpayers.

00:11:25.580 That's the whole reason why, um, we, that, that that's written into the, into the DOJ manual. It's,

00:11:32.920 we have to treat everyone the same. The DOJ manual says, if there are felonies, you must charge the

00:11:38.340 felonies and the misdemeanors. Is that correct? So if there are from, from, from what I understand

00:11:44.520 in the tax or in the, in the actual DOJ manual, that if there is a felony present with a misdemeanor

00:11:50.320 that you have to charge the felony. And, and I can tell you that we just had training this last

00:11:56.120 April with department of justice tax division in their slideshow, they actually have this

00:12:02.360 highlighted. If there is a felony with the misdemeanor, you have to charge the miss or

00:12:07.400 you have to charge the phone. And that was not done here. And so by this point, I mean,

00:12:12.920 we'll get to all of this, but by the point you guys saw that they had struck the deal with Hunter,

00:12:17.300 you, you two had been taken off the case, right? Like they, a few months earlier, they were like,

00:12:21.520 we're done with Gary and Joe. We're done with these guys who are jumping up and down about felonies

00:12:26.020 and reminding us of what we said in prior meetings. So you, I guess you were taken by surprise when you saw

00:12:31.800 that. Is that true, Gary? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's correct. And, and it can only go back to

00:12:38.680 the fact that, you know, we were, they, they understood that, that I came forward and was

00:12:44.240 making protected disclosures. And, you know, it was just really a form of retaliation. If you look at

00:12:50.300 the, the dates of which it occurred, May 15th of 2023 is when we were notified that the team was being

00:12:57.720 removed. Um, you know, it, it, it, it's just, it's, it's, it's odd that then this agreement comes

00:13:04.560 out with misdemeanors, uh, with, with agents that are going to attend the, uh, the, the plea hearing

00:13:11.980 in Delaware, uh, next week. And they had no documents. They had really none of the case filed

00:13:18.080 at that point. And, uh, so it's, it's, it's, it's really, uh, befuddling and there's not nothing

00:13:23.560 it can be other than punitive, uh, uh, uh, retaliation against the, uh, uh, special agency

00:13:29.940 earlier. And I, because just, just to be clear, what you're saying is, because I read in Joe's

00:13:33.680 testimony yesterday, he was saying, we started to get edged out of this thing months before the

00:13:39.300 actual charges were announced. You know, you were, you were told repeatedly, Joe, like,

00:13:43.260 you know what, we're going to handle that now. Other people who didn't have the frontline

00:13:47.040 involvement. You, you were the case investigator, Joe, you were frontline. Uh, and so they started

00:13:51.840 to squeeze you out. And then by May, when you realized what was going on, according to

00:13:57.680 you, um, you, you came forward, you reported up the line within the IRS. You didn't just

00:14:03.760 first run to Congress. You went inside the IRS and went to inspectors general. And then

00:14:09.560 you're saying the retaliation started that that's when you officially got pulled from the

00:14:13.460 case. And now the agents at the Hunter Biden hearing next week will not include you, Joe,

00:14:18.680 who were the lead investigation investigator on this whole thing, or you, Gary, who was

00:14:22.800 his supervisor and helped run roughshod all over at the, from the beginning. Is that correct?

00:14:28.400 Yeah. Yeah, that would be correct.

00:14:31.220 It's amazing. So it's like, okay, so what would be the reason for taking the two guys who

00:14:35.040 know the most about the case off the case? Just so happens to be right after you came forward

00:14:39.300 blowing the whistle on the DOJ. Yeah. Well, there's been a, you know, a Hunter Biden's

00:14:46.300 legal team is, is kind of insinuated that it had something to do with a leak on October

00:14:50.680 6th. And, uh, there's, you know, I said, yes. And I had my attorneys send letters to Washington

00:14:58.660 post, which released them from any confidentiality or, or, um, uh, requirements that they would have

00:15:05.020 had if I was indeed their source. And, you know, they know I wasn't their source. I've never leaked

00:15:10.780 illegal information. I've told each inspector general, the same thing. I told houseways and

00:15:15.880 means committee, same thing. I swore under oath yesterday, the same thing. And, uh, so they're,

00:15:21.340 they're really just trying to find an excuse to why they removed us. And that's going to be their

00:15:26.920 excuse. And there were other leaks in this investigation that supposedly came from the

00:15:30.980 department of justice and they didn't remove people. They didn't move any, uh, U S attorneys,

00:15:36.300 uh, United States attorneys around prosecutors around. So it's really just retaliation because

00:15:41.720 they, they didn't want us involved, um, as they move forward, because we simply wouldn't have been

00:15:46.980 okay with them, uh, settling on the charges to which they, uh, they agreed to plead guilty to.

00:15:52.700 All right. So let's go through it because yeah, go ahead, Joe.

00:15:55.980 Can I add something on that? So there was something that even in the midst of the hearing yesterday,

00:16:00.740 um, we got word that information related to me being relate, related to this person by the name

00:16:08.560 of Garrett Ziegler, the same last name that I have. I just want to tell your, like your audience and

00:16:14.860 the American people that, um, six months, or I think it was six months, December of 2022,

00:16:21.580 two, me and my husband's personal information, our social media were leaked on Twitter.

00:16:28.040 And it was, I mean, that I'm leaked as being the case agent for this investigation. And this related

00:16:36.660 to a previous bank report that was released or that chase had that, uh, this individual, um, got his

00:16:45.260 hands on. So even as much as yesterday, I was being accused of somehow being related and handing

00:16:51.620 over information to him, which I have not, that is not something I would do. It's completely

00:16:57.920 preposterous. They slant like on Twitter, I'm being called a clown. My husband is being harassed. I mean,

00:17:04.740 it was just absolutely awful. And yeah, I mean, for, for, for what we went through, through that,

00:17:11.920 and then getting removed from the case, it just, I said this in my email to the commissioner,

00:17:17.280 it's the human impact of what, what is going on here that it felt, it felt for me that our agency,

00:17:26.540 the IRS did not have our back. They had the back of department of justice. And that really,

00:17:32.080 really bothered me. So just to be clear, Garrett Ziegler is connected to Trump in some way. And

00:17:37.880 they were trying to say, you're related to this guy and therefore you're in bed with Trump.

00:17:43.040 And what you're saying is that's all nonsense. None of that is true. And you're both saying that

00:17:48.500 them trying to tar you as like dirty or agenda driven IRS agents, because somebody leaked to

00:17:55.900 the Washington post in the fall of 22 is false. You were not the leakers. You did not leak about this

00:18:01.040 investigation. You did your jobs. Your allegations about what the DOJ did wrong are heartfelt and

00:18:06.700 sincere and aren't driven by politics or any of that, whether it's loyalty to the Dems or the

00:18:12.160 Republicans. Yeah, I can tell you, it's, it seems from, from hearing from people within our,

00:18:20.020 within our agency, that, that, that this was something that was a long time coming, that there,

00:18:26.280 that there is in some instances, an inequitable treatment of taxpayers. And I think it's important

00:18:34.780 with, with this case and this issue that we're, that, that we came forward, all the things that

00:18:41.200 we've done, I mean, is to two things I said, so that we're holding people accountable that, that

00:18:48.780 actually took part in this and that we learned from this. That's the two most important things that

00:18:54.220 we can come from this. Well, Joe, you said that you're a Democrat. Do you, was there ever any

00:19:00.260 hesitation? You know, I mean, I assume you prefer Joe Biden over Donald Trump, but did you, did you

00:19:06.900 ever think, Oh God, it's the president's son or it's Joe Biden's son. What am I doing? This is scary.

00:19:12.440 I don't really want to see this go down. It's going to be bad for Joe Biden.

00:19:16.780 So, so, uh, I grew up in a very conservative family. I actually grew up with conservative beliefs.

00:19:23.260 So I came out when I was 30. So that would have been about eight years ago. Um, and kind of my

00:19:30.860 perspective on life and what my, my decisions in life, I viewed myself, uh, fiscally conservative,

00:19:38.980 socially liberal. So, I mean, those are my, what, what are my personal beliefs, but when it came to

00:19:44.680 this case, like I thought it was super important to not say anything inappropriate. We can't be joking

00:19:51.440 around about this. Um, and I, even in the last presidential election, I voted, but I chose not

00:19:59.700 to vote for who the presidential candidate was. And the reason why I did that was I didn't want to be,

00:20:04.820 if this case were to move to a trial and I'm the summary witness on the stand and they asked me that

00:20:10.800 question, I don't want to have to show potential bias. And I knew that that's how serious the kind of

00:20:16.800 investigation we were, we were involved in and serious and sensitive. And I think that that's

00:20:22.000 important for people to understand about me and, and my beliefs.

00:20:28.940 Gary, I know you're from my neck of the woods, uh, sort of upstate central New York. I grew up in

00:20:34.500 Syracuse and Albany, so you're not far from where I grew up. And my experience of this area of New York

00:20:40.080 state is it breeds reasonable people, not hard partisans. I've heard you say none of this is

00:20:47.060 partisan for you, but do you want to stay for the record what your politics are or how the fact that

00:20:52.720 you were investigating president Biden's or, you know, the then candidate Biden's then that turned

00:20:57.340 into president Biden's son affected you? Look, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to get into personal

00:21:02.700 politics. I mean, I, my statement, the house ways and means committee, uh, you know, clearly I tried to

00:21:09.020 dispel any of this, uh, nonsense that I was some, uh, some Republican hack, um, as you know, they

00:21:15.140 tried to attack me early on, but you know, there, there's no, there's a, you know, I've never donated

00:21:22.040 to campaigns. I've never had a political t-shirt. I've never had a sign in my front yard. I never had

00:21:26.840 a sticker on my car. I mean, look like, you know, if somehow I'm supposed to be, uh, labeled a

00:21:33.840 partisan because I, when I registered to vote, I registered as Republican. Um, I guess, I guess

00:21:40.140 they can have that, but you know, one of the most interesting, uh, uh, interactions I had was after

00:21:46.120 a CBS interview where, uh, uh, they said that I was a registered Republican and, uh, my mother's

00:21:54.340 first text to me was, I didn't know you were a registered Republican. Why would you be a registered

00:22:00.480 Republican? So, you know, I was raised in a very liberal household and, uh, you know, so I, it's

00:22:07.340 just, we, I have, there's cases I've helped on, uh, in the past that are, uh, political in nature

00:22:13.660 and from, that were, uh, targeted toward, uh, you know, Republicans and there, there's, you know,

00:22:19.320 an agent in my group that was the, uh, was the, uh, government witness in the, in the Congressman

00:22:27.500 Fortenberry trial, um, and testified during that trial. So, uh, you know, to, to say that there's

00:22:34.220 some type of, uh, uh, politics involved in our investigative decision-making is just clearly

00:22:40.320 not supported by the facts. That's interesting. You're a, you're a registered Republican who was

00:22:44.460 raised in a liberal household and Joe, you're a registered Democrat who was raised in a more

00:22:48.020 conservative household, but this is how you get whistleblowers. You get honest people who are not

00:22:52.180 ideologues and completely captured by their own politics. Um, so good for you. I mean,

00:22:57.960 it explains some of your courage and I admire it. Um, okay, let's get, let's get into the

00:23:03.060 allegations because I do think there, people can believe you or not believe you, but when

00:23:08.100 you listen to the examples that you guys have provided, it's tough to walk away with anything

00:23:13.620 other than this is alarming. They can't all be false. Even if people don't want to believe

00:23:20.000 you're not, not all of this can be made up. And it does clearly in my view, show a pattern

00:23:24.840 of obfuscation by the department of justice into what was supposed to be, uh, a free flowing

00:23:31.020 independent investigation that would take you wherever the facts led you. Uh, so let's go

00:23:36.480 back cause I think the timeline could be helpful. It was you, Joe, as the case agent were investigating

00:23:43.740 something having to do with bank records and we don't need to get into all the specifics

00:23:47.420 cause it's confusing enough, but it led you to the name Hunter Biden and whether he'd been

00:23:52.320 somehow involved in some prostitution ring and, um, uh, you know, had committed some tax

00:23:58.280 malfeasance on it. That's how this first came to you, right?

00:24:02.460 So, yeah, so I was actually in the normal course of my doing my work. Part of our process is you

00:24:09.680 read through bank reports and in this bank report, it mentioned information related to Hunter Biden

00:24:16.040 paying some of these alleged prostitutes. And what I also found, and I don't know if it was in that

00:24:22.980 bank reporter for it was in public, uh, public sources, but that is his ex-wife and her divorce

00:24:29.220 proceeding was making some pretty harsh allegations regarding his tax issues. So I had those two things

00:24:36.720 that kind of was like, okay, let me see if there's anything to this. And then that's when I started

00:24:43.100 really looking into the case. What's a bank report. So I can't get into the, I mean, we're restricted

00:24:52.620 to certain information that we can talk about, but yeah, it, it's a bank report that provides

00:24:59.300 information to us. It's available in the normal course of, uh, uh, uh, case development and, uh,

00:25:05.340 in, uh, uh, data and data review. Okay. So it might be something that would have a red flag on it for you

00:25:12.080 guys as tax experts on how somebody is manipulating the tax code or bank payments. It's something like

00:25:18.360 that. Sure. That's fair. Yeah. Okay. Um, all right. So that you sort of get, uh, he, he comes to your

00:25:27.280 attention. Uh, now you said that as of October, let me go back further because it was what I want to get

00:25:34.780 the actual date, right. That this started for you. What was the date? What was the year that that's,

00:25:39.260 that that happened, Joe? November of 2018. So that's when I first started, um, preparing reports

00:25:47.240 to send up to my supervisor. And I can recall my supervisor at that time, cause we essentially had

00:25:53.400 failure to file returns. We knew that he should have filed returns. So I'm like, let's this,

00:25:58.980 this is a reason to initiate the case. So with a failure to file, um, charge,

00:26:05.660 if the person failed to file returns and they had the requirement to file those returns,

00:26:12.800 the crime is committed essentially when, uh, on April 15th, when the, the tax deadline comes.

00:26:19.980 So that's important to like, understand when it comes to failure to file or failure to pay. So, um,

00:26:25.820 we get, um, we get all that information. I send that information up and not Gary, but my prior

00:26:33.420 supervisor at the time told me, this isn't a normal taxpayer. He's politically, this is a political,

00:26:39.600 basically a political person. We need way more than this to just even get this department of justice.

00:26:45.740 So, I mean, I, I couldn't believe he said that at that time, it's my brand new manager. And I'm like,

00:26:52.500 I couldn't believe it, but I had, it was kind of a first roadblock. So it was like,

00:26:56.800 I kept working through those roadblocks. I kept digging and digging and digging. And after my third

00:27:03.840 essentially report up to him, which included information regarding, uh, the Burisma income,

00:27:10.560 not being reported, that was enough where it's like, okay, you've got enough. And then we sent

00:27:15.340 that up to department of justice tax division, because they're the first line that gets our

00:27:20.880 referral to refer it over to a U S attorney's office. Okay. So now it's going up to the lawyers,

00:27:26.400 basically. It's going from the investigatory agents to the lawyer saying, we think you have a case.

00:27:31.080 Do you think you have a case? And one of the first things you heard was, cause you were saying,

00:27:35.140 well, we think we have a case and we think it should be brought in Washington DC.

00:27:39.160 And they, their response was, okay, but it's going to be brought in Delaware, if anywhere.

00:27:46.240 And you immediately had concerns. Why?

00:27:49.660 Yeah. So, I mean, everything we pointed to in the beginning, our venue analysis was essentially

00:27:56.140 the, he was living in Washington DC during the times, during certain points of, of the tax years.

00:28:04.880 So everything pointed to the fact that DC is venue for the case. Um, but I was informed by my supervisor

00:28:12.880 and he was informed by, uh, people higher than, than people high up in DOJ. And the decision was

00:28:22.000 made to combine the two cases in Delaware. And I can tell you, like, when we started working those

00:28:28.060 cases or I saw a ton of issues with that first off, it's the home state of, um, president Biden.

00:28:36.820 Um, there were issues that I saw in the office where, oh, the, the, the, it was former vice president

00:28:46.020 at that time, but he might be coming into the office for this issue. So there was that, that we

00:28:51.400 were constantly dealing with. Um, there was a magistrate judge who made a comment during the

00:28:58.600 signing of one of the warrants that she had, she had to recuse herself. So those are just a few of

00:29:04.900 the issues that we weren't facing work in that case there in Delaware that I just, I, I, it was

00:29:12.580 roadblock, roadblock, roadblock. It was fraught and you, and you didn't think it belonged in Delaware

00:29:17.200 to begin with. So it was, you know, they're very chummy there. The Bidens are a household name,

00:29:22.040 especially in Delaware at this point. And Biden, I, I saw in your testimony yesterday, he'd actually

00:29:27.180 been in the offices of the U S attorney in Delaware, or he, he was glad handing with them in a

00:29:32.500 way that in a way that was personal and problematic in your view. It wasn't U S attorney's office. So

00:29:39.800 I don't know if in my testimony, I talked which office it would have been, but I do know that

00:29:44.700 there were times to where, um, he might've been coming into where one of our meetings,

00:29:51.640 what was being held. Yeah. So he, uh, having come into the FBI office on an unrelated matter

00:29:58.840 and it was joked. Right. So you're getting, it feels a little hinky to you to bring it there,

00:30:04.840 but this is where they're telling you now, this brings me to the first, you know, the Democrats

00:30:09.500 yesterday, as I said, in the introduction were Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump between

00:30:15.220 2018, when you first took on this case and, you know, January, 2021, this was all a Trump DOJ

00:30:24.080 that we're talking about. So why would a Trump DOJ be anything other than motivated to investigate

00:30:33.700 Hunter Biden? Yes. Yeah. Go for it. Yeah. So ultimately, ultimately, if, if there's some type

00:30:42.860 of wrongdoing that, that occurred during the previous administration or during president Biden's

00:30:47.580 administration, like, you know, that's not for us to determine, right? Like we're just bringing

00:30:51.680 the facts forward because, you know, they're, they're the facts and, and, and no one's been able

00:30:56.160 to attack them or really nobody's really refuted them. So, you know, it's, it's, it's clear. And as

00:31:04.720 I said, my testimony yesterday, that the Delaware use attorney's office in, in 20 and 2020, in like

00:31:14.320 between April and September of 2020, they alluded these, these search warrants to saying that there's

00:31:20.300 no way that they would get those approved and things like, you know, statements like that,

00:31:24.120 the juice worth the squeeze. And, uh, you know, that was during the previous administration,

00:31:28.900 but there's, there's nothing to suggest that they even set them up for approval. I think that it

00:31:33.840 stopped right there that they, uh, that they just use the, you're talking about right now.

00:31:39.460 I'm sorry. Are you talking about assistant U S attorney in Delaware, Leslie Wolf?

00:31:44.300 Yeah, yeah, that's correct. And, uh, you know, there's, you know, that's something that DOJ IG,

00:31:48.940 and we've kind of pointed them in that way. They need to look like, is she just saying that she

00:31:53.000 doesn't think it's going to get approved, but there's probable cause. And we know there's

00:31:56.000 evidence there. And then, so she, but she doesn't raise it up to be approved. And it just shows that

00:32:01.760 U S attorney Weiss did not, he, he had his, his control was so limited in this case. They required

00:32:07.640 approval from so many different levels on absolutely everything. And this is just one example of them

00:32:13.820 holding off, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, necessary investigative steps, um, when the legal requirements

00:32:20.260 were met. Um, and, and just, you know, just withholding it from, from senior leaders who,

00:32:25.640 you know, were supposed to believe that the previous administration would be attacking his

00:32:30.120 political rival, but it just, it just, I don't think it ever got there. You know, she just stopped

00:32:34.540 it right there. The Delaware U S attorney's office stopped it right there at their office.

00:32:38.460 Yeah. And I, can I add something to that? Like even a nuance of us doing a walk-by and I can

00:32:45.840 recall my testimony saying that a walk-by is essentially you want to walk past someone. So

00:32:51.840 you're not in any gear that identifies you at all. You want to walk past someone's residence and to

00:32:57.820 verify that their home or what, whatever it might be. And even that was U S attorney agreed with it,

00:33:04.900 but the leadership at DOJ tax did not agree with it. So again, I go back to, did U S attorney David

00:33:13.240 Weiss really have the authority here or was he being limited by other people in DOJ?

00:33:19.900 And is any of this normal Gary? I mean, that's the real question is, uh, for those of us on the

00:33:25.680 outside, red tape, roadblocks, pain in the ass prosecutors. It doesn't sound that unusual, is it?

00:33:31.740 Yeah. So, you know, I've worked in, in dozens of U S attorney's offices across the country. There

00:33:39.420 are hundreds of prosecution recommendation reports to, to say that, that I haven't had, uh,

00:33:44.720 disagreements with, uh, prosecutors in the past would, would just not be accurate, but, you know,

00:33:49.420 there's always that professional give and take, and I've, I've just never experienced, uh, and I've

00:33:54.460 always been able to maintain relationships with, with, uh, with the assigned prosecutors, where if

00:33:59.480 there's a disagreement that that goes along with a discussion and, and you have a discussion and you

00:34:04.600 explain each side and, uh, you know, sometimes the investigators lose and that's, and that's fine.

00:34:10.360 And that happened, uh, uh, countless times on this case, it wasn't that we, we weren't able to do one

00:34:16.520 thing or two things. It was the pattern that was created and it just, they just cannot deny, um, once the

00:34:23.940 facts come out that, uh, it was just that pattern over and over again that provided that preferential

00:34:28.240 treatment. And there are some sensitivities, um, that, that this is a political figure and that

00:34:33.920 the subject was an attorney, right? But that doesn't mean that because you're a political figure or an

00:34:38.240 attorney that you're allowed to get away with a crime. There are just additional steps that you

00:34:43.840 have to take, uh, to, to get approvals, to do these types of, uh, like, like for a search warrant,

00:34:49.520 for example. And I've been a part of, of countless, uh, search warrants or undercover operations

00:34:55.760 that, that deal with, uh, with, with attorneys or sensitive people. So I think ultimately they're

00:35:01.440 going to blame that it was a sensitive person, but you know, that doesn't give you a free pass to,

00:35:06.620 to engage in criminal conduct, um, and, and then obfuscate the investigation and not allow the

00:35:12.420 investigative steps to take place. This should take place. Megan, can I add one more thing on this?

00:35:17.640 Yeah, please. So, um, I think it's important. I brought up a lot yesterday, special counsel,

00:35:24.100 special counsel, special counsel. And I think it's important for people to understand when you have

00:35:29.300 a special counsel, their primary focus is that. So they can focus all of their time and energy

00:35:36.060 into that one matter. We're working with U S attorneys that are U S assistant U S attorneys that

00:35:42.920 are working 30, 40 tons of cases. So they're already overwhelmed with a lot of their caseload.

00:35:51.740 And then they're having to work some of this stuff on top of it. So from that perspective and that

00:35:58.780 standpoint, the fact that even early on, we didn't have a special counsel in this matter,

00:36:04.000 when we started encountering a lot of the issues that we were having, I mean, that, that is something

00:36:10.080 that needs to, we need to go back and look at how can we have, um, a way that if P that, if a team,

00:36:17.620 an investigative team thinks that there is a need for a special counsel, how do we get that done?

00:36:23.380 Right before, before all the problems crop up, right? Because you, this had problem written all

00:36:27.720 over it. It's the son of the recent vice president. And then soon of the sitting president. And you

00:36:34.740 guys recognize this could pose problems for the record. David Weiss is the U S attorney for Delaware.

00:36:41.340 He was not special counsel. Merrick Garland has made that clear now, but he, even though he was

00:36:48.420 appointed under Trump, they kept him under Joe Biden and Merrick Garland. They would tell us later.

00:36:54.780 So as not to sort of suggest that he's going to be a partisan hack and he's going to like the new guy,

00:37:01.460 they didn't want it to look like they got rid of Trump's U S attorney. They replaced him with a Biden

00:37:05.360 U S attorney and the fix is in. And they would rely on this fact many, many times. Merrick Garland

00:37:10.100 has touted it before Congress. You can trust David Weiss because he was a Trump appointee.

00:37:16.080 Ted Cruz has pointed out, there is no way to get, um, the U S attorney appointed without the support

00:37:22.220 of the two sitting state senators who in Delaware are Democrats. And so you cannot put total faith

00:37:28.800 in David Weiss's non-partisanship, but just so that people know he was not a special counsel.

00:37:33.900 And this is one of the issues that you're raising. All right, let me take a quick break. And then we

00:37:37.020 come back. We're going to get into how they not just slow rolled or put up obstacles for you,

00:37:41.800 but actually seems to have thwarted your attempts at investigating by helping the Biden team actively

00:37:47.940 helping them. Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler stay with me for the full show. We'll be right back.

00:37:52.360 So there comes a time at which you say, uh, you call it a day of action. And this is where the

00:38:02.960 investigation quote went overt. Um, it all sounds very kind of cool and clandestine. And then,

00:38:09.900 you know, you go over now the Hunter Biden knows or whoever the target is, knows the IRS is onto them.

00:38:14.920 Um, and so this happened in your case on December 8th, 2020, as I understand it, guys.

00:38:21.760 And you wrote yesterday, Joe, you said that at the direction of this assistant U.S. attorney,

00:38:26.160 Leslie Wolf, she was under David Weiss, who was the U.S. attorney for Delaware.

00:38:29.660 Uh, I prepared an affidavit in support of a search warrant for a storage unit in Northern Virginia,

00:38:36.580 because after Hunter Biden vacated his DC office, some items went to a storage unit in Northern

00:38:42.240 Virginia. And you're looking for everything. You're looking for documents, supporting

00:38:45.440 the returns that were filed. You're looking for documents that might be the returns that

00:38:49.660 weren't filed, you know, drafts and so on. And you happen to know he's got this storage unit in

00:38:54.340 Northern Virginia where he sent a bunch of stuff. So you prepare an affidavit in support of a search

00:38:58.320 warrant for that storage unit. Leslie Wolf tells you could take some time to get approvals. You say

00:39:04.200 that is not normal. And then what happened? What happened? Because that was an important unit,

00:39:09.760 you say to search, and you never got to search it. Explain why.

00:39:15.540 Yeah. So in that situation, we're, when, when we're looking to do a search warrant,

00:39:21.600 uh, you might find foreign records. You might find, so you might find handwritten notes. You might find

00:39:28.660 different things that can aid as evidence in your investigation. And what, so when we, we sent that

00:39:36.560 up, they were like, yes, we'll work to get this approved. And then a few days later, I get a phone

00:39:41.340 call that says, well, we're not going to move forward with a warrant. We are going to go ask

00:39:48.660 his counsel to turn it over pursuant to the records request. And I, and I said to her, and I'm like,

00:39:55.180 we can't do that. We're, we're, that's not normal process. You told us that we were going to do it this

00:40:00.280 way. We're relying on him to turn over the records to us, which just doesn't make any sense.

00:40:06.760 And I said, well, what, what if we waited for 30 days? Let's, let's get this thing approved,

00:40:13.400 however long that's going to take. And if at the end of 30 days, he doesn't comply with the records

00:40:18.600 request, we, we know that he hasn't gone to that storage unit. Let's execute the search warrant.

00:40:24.620 And her response was, we'll think about it. And then my supervisor and our leadership had a phone

00:40:30.580 call with David Weiss telling him about that plan. He agreed on the phone that, yes, that's a great

00:40:37.060 idea. We'll do that. And then we come to find out that they had notified. So they being the assigned

00:40:43.320 prosecutors, uh, let me pause you for one second. So what you're saying is you said, all right,

00:40:49.500 you're not going to let us do a search warrant, which would have been totally appropriate under

00:40:52.260 the circumstances, but you said he's got a documents request. Let's monitor that storage

00:40:56.520 unit for 30 days, which is his deadline to reply to our documents request and see if he goes to it,

00:41:01.980 see if he's fulfilling his duty to respond fully to our documents request and gets those documents

00:41:08.020 out of that storage unit. And if he doesn't, then we'll search warrant him. And David Weiss said that

00:41:12.900 who's her boss, Leslie Wolf, let's do that. I like that plan. Okay. Keep going.

00:41:18.140 And then Gary can speak to that phone call. So, yeah. So I, you know, especially in Ziegler told me

00:41:23.100 about the situation. So I raised that to United States attorney Weiss with a senior executive in

00:41:27.520 a line with me from the IRS and, uh, you know, uh, us attorney Weiss agreed with that, uh, plan.

00:41:33.400 And it, it, it, I think it was the same day, just, uh, just a few hours later that, uh, especially

00:41:39.820 Ziegler called me up and said, you know, you won't believe this, but the, uh, the prosecutors

00:41:44.660 told the defense team about the search warrant. So they're no, well, they told them about just so,

00:41:50.980 you know, the records request we gave you includes the storage location that we, we now know about.

00:41:57.560 And I, and when that happened, I said, we don't have a seat at the table. I said to her, I said

00:42:03.960 to Leslie Wolf that I can't believe that that was done. This is unethical. This is wrong. And her

00:42:10.660 response to me was, well, are we going to have a problem working together from now on? And my,

00:42:15.700 it was almost a point. I can recall talking to Gary about it that I'm like, I'm just,

00:42:19.840 this, this is just one thing after another that we're having to fight for. And it just,

00:42:24.900 at the end of the day, it gets exhausting. And I don't want to sound like,

00:42:28.780 but let me ask you, Joe, why, why isn't that a better way you want what's in the storage unit?

00:42:36.100 She basically went to them and said, give us what's in the storage unit, or we're going to

00:42:40.780 search warrant you like, why is that bad? So that's relying on them to turn over the records

00:42:47.900 to us. They now get to review the records and they, they, and then them being defense counsel

00:42:53.440 would determine what we would get versus us. Since he's an attorney, it has to go through a

00:42:59.240 filter review. So versus us reviewing the records and then the investigative team getting those files.

00:43:05.620 And how would you do it in a normal case? If it were, if you were investigating Megan Kelly,

00:43:09.200 how would you do it? So for, especially for a normal case, it's least intrusive means. That's

00:43:16.440 part of what goes into an analysis of getting a search warrant. And with a storage unit, there's

00:43:21.980 no one living there. That is the least intrusive means of getting records other than a document

00:43:28.460 request. So the fact that we went from, yes, let's do it. I will work to get to the,

00:43:34.240 the approvals to what happened after. And, and David Weiss agreed with us on it. So,

00:43:41.700 you know, and, and the senior leadership at IRS agreed, agreed as well, and even sent emails that,

00:43:49.120 that stated as such, and that they were going to, that, that, that she at the time was going to go to

00:43:53.540 our, our, our senior leadership and express her frustration that they weren't allowing us to do

00:44:00.240 that, that search warrant. Hmm. There, this wasn't the only thing though. I mean, it was the collective

00:44:05.760 because I know one of the other allegations you guys have made is that you were told that you were

00:44:11.080 not to interview Hunter Biden's adult children or members of the Biden family at all. And you guys say

00:44:18.960 that they were actually quite relevant to your investigation. You would have absolutely interviewed

00:44:23.040 them had this been somebody not named Biden. So who told you that? And what do you think that was

00:44:27.440 about? Yeah. So there were, I brought up a, in my transcript, a specific example of Valerie Owens.

00:44:37.280 And we talked about going and interviewing her. There were transactions related to her.

00:44:42.780 And I believe Valerie Owens is related to Joe Biden. I think it might be his sister,

00:44:48.320 but we wanted to go interview her. And I can recall the, the AUSA Leslie Wolf or DOJ tax attorney,

00:44:56.120 Mark Daly telling us, no, we can't do that. So there were multiple interviews that we wanted to go

00:45:02.200 do. And I mean, it can be like at the end of the day, we were trying to expeditiously work this case,

00:45:09.560 but in get it done in a timely manner. And a lot of that was doing all these interviews, flying out to

00:45:16.040 the West coast. And in my testimony, I talk about that. We were planning for a month to go and do these

00:45:23.880 interviews on the West coast of some of the escorts. And those interviews were held up because

00:45:31.800 not U.S. Attorney David Weiss, but DOJ tax senior management hadn't reviewed the records requests

00:45:38.360 to allow me to go out to do those interviews. And it just didn't make sense. Why are they,

00:45:43.120 I've never had in my career to where leadership and DOJ tax was reviewing records requests for

00:45:50.900 escorts, but just didn't make any sense.

00:45:53.880 It's beneath their pay grade. I would imagine they'd be happy to pawn off those specific requests

00:45:58.440 on you and just make sure that they get served so that you get your documents in advance of your

00:46:02.100 interviews. But here again, you were slow rolled, you were slowed down. And then ultimately they told

00:46:07.060 you you couldn't do the interviews at the time you wanted to do them. And back on the subject of

00:46:12.600 Hunter's children, you said that there were expenses paid for the adult kids, as well as potential credit

00:46:18.040 card expenditures and Venmo payments that were deducted on one year of his tax returns. And

00:46:23.860 that Leslie Wolf allegedly said to you in October of 21, that it would get is it will get us in hot

00:46:29.980 water if we interview the president's grandchildren. I mean, there's not these are not toddlers. These

00:46:35.660 are adult children of hunters. So she was worried. What does she mean? It'll get us in hot water.

00:46:42.000 So I mean, so there was the Columbia University tuition payment that was deducted directly on the

00:46:49.840 tax return. So the in any normal course of our investigation, if there are relatives either

00:46:56.680 receiving payments or there are relatives receiving funds from from a taxpayer that might be deducted on

00:47:03.420 a tax return, normal course of action is to go and talk to those people. That is what we would do

00:47:10.160 in our normal job. And the fact that they were, they were saying that you can't go and interview

00:47:16.160 these people will just rely on these other facts. I mean, that that just didn't make any sense. And I

00:47:21.340 understand that there's political sensitivities to they are the grandchildren, they might have

00:47:27.140 Secret Service protection details. So there are certain things that go into that. But to have an

00:47:33.240 outright no, we're, we don't think you should go do that, or we're not going to prove you going to do

00:47:38.560 that that didn't make any sense. And Gary, you've said too, that you were specifically told there's

00:47:44.420 we're not going to be interviewing the big guy, we're not gonna be talking about the dad or the

00:47:49.840 big guy. Was that also Leslie Wolf?

00:47:54.300 In that specific, specific instance? Yes. And it was really a recurring theme. So on December 3,

00:48:03.300 2020, we're preparing for the day of action. And that was where, you know, Assistant United States

00:48:09.400 Attorney Leslie Wolf said, you know, don't ask about the big guy. You know, she also made statements

00:48:14.500 about we're not asking questions about dad, but not asking questions about dad, I had heard and

00:48:19.380 multiple, multiple times from her, you know, throughout the investigation.

00:48:24.220 It's amazing. The other thing now that just stand by one second, hold that thought jokes, I have to

00:48:30.060 squeeze in a break. But yesterday, we heard repeatedly, there's no evidence Joe Biden is

00:48:34.240 involved in any of this. There's no evidence Joe did anything wrong. And of course, now, we know exactly

00:48:39.300 why. You were not allowed to investigate Joe, even though he was mentioned in a lot of the 100

00:48:45.520 transactions and documents and so on. So it is not a defense now to say you have nothing against him,

00:48:51.680 you were not allowed to investigate those leads. That's where we will pick it up right on the

00:48:55.440 opposite side of this break. Joe, hold that thought. I'll get it. You express it two minutes

00:48:58.420 away. Gary and Joe, stay with us. And remember, folks, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on

00:49:02.540 Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east and the full video show and clips by

00:49:07.700 subscribing to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com slash Megan Kelly. Audio podcast of the show

00:49:13.580 available wherever you get your podcasts for free. We'll be right back.

00:49:17.240 Joe, you were going to make a point in our discussion about not questioning anyone about

00:49:25.240 the big guy or dad, as he was known. Yeah, so there was definitely a situation. And this is

00:49:31.420 even after the presidential campaign was done, that there were interviews we were doing. And it was

00:49:38.820 kind of a very harsh environment that you were afraid to ask any questions that might touch the

00:49:45.860 campaign. And it was always a sense of that's going to take too much approval or that's going to take

00:49:52.160 approvals. We don't have those approvals. So, again, I go back to are we limited to what DOJ is telling us

00:49:59.260 or is David Weiss really in charge of this? The person that Merrick Garland was saying was in charge of

00:50:05.140 this case. OK, because Merrick Garland had come had come out repeatedly and suggested that David Weiss

00:50:14.500 was in charge. Here is Merrick Garland testifying before Congress April 2022, April 2022, appearing before

00:50:24.800 Congress, assuring them about why they did not need to worry about any DOJ interference or about this

00:50:32.680 investigation being conducted in an independent manner. SOT-13. Have you been briefed on Hunter

00:50:38.520 Biden investigation matter yourself, General Garland? So the Hunter Biden investigation, as I said,

00:50:44.580 even in my own nomination confirmation hearing, is being run by and supervised by the United States

00:50:51.140 Attorney for the District of Delaware. I'm aware of that, but he reports to you. He is supervising the

00:50:57.700 investigation. And I'm, you know, I'm not at liberty to talk about internal Justice Department

00:51:02.800 deliberations, but he is in charge of that investigation. There will not be interference

00:51:08.120 of any political or improper kind. How can the American people be confident

00:51:13.700 that his administration is conducting a serious investigation? Because we put the investigation

00:51:19.420 in the hands of a Trump appointee from the previous administration.

00:51:26.440 So we're supposed to trust David Weiss, the guy running this, because he's a Trump guy. He was a

00:51:31.380 Trump appointee and they relied on that many times. Was that true in your view? Was he trustworthy

00:51:37.240 because he was a Trump appointee and was, as Merrick Garland said, quote, in charge of the investigation?

00:51:42.760 Yeah, look, it's clear that every DOJ employee that's going to answer any questions on this topic

00:51:50.880 is going to immediately invoke this fact that it was a Trump appointed U.S. attorney. But Megan,

00:51:57.700 when they put these witnesses in front of Congress, they're going to have to admit that they went to

00:52:04.060 the President Biden appointed U.S. attorney to look to charge in D.C. in March of 2022,

00:52:11.260 which was one month before Attorney General Garland made those particular statements.

00:52:18.140 And Gary, let me just jump in and make that clear for our audience. Stand by, stand by. Because what

00:52:22.000 you're saying is, yes, OK, David Weiss, he was running hurt on this, but you needed to bring the

00:52:26.480 charges you guys thought and the team agreed in D.C. and the Central District of California.

00:52:34.100 And that meant asking other U.S. attorneys outside of Delaware to cooperate in the investigation.

00:52:40.240 Those were Biden appointees. Those are Biden appointed U.S. attorneys. And you were turned

00:52:45.600 down in both instances, which is something that they've been obfuscating on since you guys came

00:52:50.580 forward. Continue.

00:52:52.960 Yeah, that's correct. And they're going to have to admit they went to D.C., right, as I said before,

00:52:57.500 and they're going to have to admit that they went to Central District of California to request

00:53:02.220 approval there. So as U.S. Attorney Weiss's stories have changed in his ongoing letters,

00:53:10.120 you know, he's going to say, well, I asked him to partner. But when the key point from DOJ is how

00:53:17.820 you can trust the American people to trust this investigation is that it's being run by a Trump

00:53:22.820 appointed U.S. attorney. And you go to a President Biden appointed U.S. attorney once, not once, but

00:53:29.820 twice. I mean, it's just on his face. It's just a clear misrepresentation of the level of authority

00:53:36.640 that he has.

00:53:38.240 And I want to be clear with that, like the reason why they did 2014 and 15 first, almost immediately

00:53:45.440 once they got my prosecution report, is the statute of limitations for those years were set to expire

00:53:52.080 later on that year. So it was important that we went to that U.S. attorney's office and started to

00:53:57.920 get this rolling because we were running up against that deadline.

00:54:02.540 Right. Exactly. Because we're looking at taxes, tax charges for 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, as I said,

00:54:08.360 and you're you're running up against it on the 14 ones, which were serious, which were very serious.

00:54:13.440 Yes. So and I want to get to everything that Merrick Garland is saying now and what David Weiss,

00:54:17.900 how he's trying to defend himself. But let's just finish with a couple of the items on how you feel

00:54:23.400 that they interfered. You say that you you went to them, that everybody agreed, OK, we're going to

00:54:31.360 charge. We're going to charge in D.C. and everyone wants to do this. And that you then went to this

00:54:37.920 U.S. attorney, Matthew Graves. He was the attorney by this point for D.C. And he not only said

00:54:43.420 no, I don't want to partner with you. He also said, and you shouldn't do it either.

00:54:48.940 And basically, this is the president's man trying to kill your case in D.C.

00:54:52.560 And that, Joe, right after that, you stop talking about D.C. It wasn't like David Weiss said,

00:54:58.060 oh, no, no, no. I've got this special attorney designation and Matthew Graves cannot shut us

00:55:02.920 down. I've been assured by Merrick Garland I am in charge. We will be bringing these charges in D.C.

00:55:08.620 because they are the most serious, the ones from 14 and 15. And I'm sorry he doesn't want to partner

00:55:13.460 with us, but he's not making the decisions. That did not happen.

00:55:18.620 Yeah. So at that point, it kind of went back to, well, this is in David's hands now. That's how it

00:55:25.900 was communicated to us. And now we essentially had to reinvestigate the 2014 and 15 tax years. And then

00:55:34.940 through our reinvestigation, we found the mechanism for the 2014 allegations that we present in our

00:55:47.300 transcript of essentially what happened. So one thing that I want to add on the D.C. U.S. Attorney's

00:55:53.100 Office is that Gary and I requested multiple times to present on the evidence and the facts in my

00:55:59.480 prosecution report to that U.S. Attorney's Office. And we were denied. And that is not. And in cases

00:56:06.080 I've worked, you want the people who know the evidence the best to present to the prosecutors.

00:56:11.940 He didn't want to hear it. This is Biden's guy who understands very well. It's not very good for

00:56:16.280 his career. He indicts Biden's son. Can we pause here and can you explain to us what the hell was

00:56:22.540 Hunter Biden doing? What were you finding? What like what were you finding about Burisma,

00:56:26.980 the Ukrainian company, the Chinese? Like what it kind of more from he's paying for hookers and trying

00:56:33.640 to claim that his business write offs to something far more disturbing?

00:56:39.920 You want to talk about 2014, 2015?

00:56:45.080 Well, you know what what he was doing to make this money. Right. We really didn't get into in a

00:56:52.800 transcripts. But I can say that for 2014, for, you know, for all the prosecutors and investigators

00:57:00.480 to agree to to with those felony charges, at least for 14. And, you know, then David, U.S. Attorney Weiss

00:57:10.360 is asking the U.S. Attorney to partner with him on that. I mean, I wouldn't think that U.S. Attorney

00:57:16.100 Weiss would ask him to partner on something that he himself didn't agree with. But, you know,

00:57:21.280 with 14 going away, what that does to the public record in this case is that it completely removes

00:57:29.540 the Burisma Ukraine conduct. And, you know, without that in there, really, you know, this most

00:57:37.540 substantive conduct related to his evasion, at least in the early years, would have gone, you know,

00:57:44.720 not outside of the public view. And he just simply didn't pay. He's never paid the taxes on,

00:57:51.600 you know, the Burisma income from that year.

00:57:55.360 Hmm. And this, by the way, may or may not relate. But, you know, we were told that the FBI had a

00:58:02.460 report from a confidential informant. It's been referenced in this Form 1023 that Congress recently

00:58:08.360 got its hands on alleging bribery of Joe Biden when he was the sitting vice president

00:58:13.840 from a foreign national. And we're told that this relates allegedly to Ukraine.

00:58:23.220 Law enforcement telling NBC, not by name, anonymously, oh, it was not substantiated.

00:58:28.720 We could not substantiate it. But did anybody in the context of your investigation, which now is

00:58:33.340 taking over Ukraine and Hunter Biden and who knows, potentially dad in 2014? Did anybody say to you,

00:58:39.700 because you're working with the FBI every day on this intimately, hey, you should know about this

00:58:44.560 Form 1023. Yeah. And I mean, I think I produced a supplement that I never saw that 1023. And I'm the

00:58:54.580 lead case agent from the IRS. And the fact that I didn't have that information that could have

00:59:00.900 corroborated other evidence that we we had in our possession. I mean, that's that's where it's

00:59:06.620 for me when when I when I heard that and I saw that it was frustrating. Yeah, it was definitely

00:59:11.200 frustrating. Wow. I mean, because the Ukraine dealings are obviously big. I did hear you say

00:59:16.600 yesterday what we're talking about, 30 million dollars of income for Hunter Biden over these

00:59:20.220 years from these from the Chinese, from the Ukrainians, from the Romanians.

00:59:23.960 So so I think the number I said was 17.3 million paid to all of the associated entities or associates

00:59:35.380 of Hunter Biden. Wow. Wow. And there's a real question about how they were documented and whether

00:59:43.460 he paid everything he needs to pay on it and whether anybody in the Biden family did. OK, so just to go

00:59:49.960 back to the timeline there, you guys are. You get stymied by the district by the U.S. attorney in

00:59:54.760 D.C., which is where 14 and 15 would have to be tried. So that case is either dying or David Weiss,

01:00:02.020 the guy in Delaware who says he's the all powerful guy, is going to have to revive them somehow.

01:00:07.380 And he could do that potentially by going to Merrick Garland. This is the story they're both now

01:00:11.740 claiming. Right now, David Weiss and Merrick Garland are both saying he was what we call a special

01:00:16.220 attorney, not special counsel who can do whatever he wants without Merrick Garland, but special

01:00:21.200 attorney, which allows him to just go to Merrick Garland and say, hey, can I do it on my own? The D.C.

01:00:26.060 guy won't cooperate. And totally he could have done it. But that's not what happened here. We know that

01:00:31.620 for a fact he did not try to go over anybody's head. He did not bring the charges. At least we know

01:00:36.460 that for a fact, Gary. So this whole new thing that he's now claiming that, oh, I was a special

01:00:42.520 attorney and I did have the ability, just had to get the check from Merrick Garland. As far as we

01:00:46.880 know, that's not what he even attempted to do when he got rejected by D.C.

01:00:52.080 So, yeah, even even in DOJ's letters and statements about this, they contradict each other. And if you

01:01:00.520 look at an early letter from U.S. Attorney Weiss on June 7th, 2023, you know, he's saying he has

01:01:07.520 ultimate authority. And, you know, that could be easily proven. If he has ultimate authority,

01:01:13.600 where's the document? You know, where's the DOJ document giving him that ultimate authority?

01:01:18.160 Because ultimate authority isn't just a verbal, verbal thing. If he gets special counsel,

01:01:22.280 special attorney authority, you know, there would definitely be a record of that. But, you know,

01:01:27.600 now you also, now after we testify and in front of House Ways and Means Committee and DOJ learns

01:01:35.600 of the evidence that we provided in that hearing, now their story starts to change. And they start

01:01:43.140 providing very lawyered words in the June 30th letter that says, well, no, I agree with what I

01:01:50.180 said on June 7th. But now he changes his story as he's saying that he's trying to explain more.

01:01:57.180 So am I getting, is the cart in front of the horse, Megan? Do you want me to go into that?

01:02:01.420 A little bit, a little bit. I want to get to the Weiss and Garland and what a hot mess they've

01:02:05.780 been in trying to respond to you guys coming forward. It's actually kind of fun to watch

01:02:09.300 them dance. You guys have not changed at all. You have your straightforward story. You have

01:02:13.700 documents backing it up. This guy Weiss has been dancing on the head of a pen since we first learned

01:02:19.300 your names. OK, so just just to go back, because I think if you see what they did, it's to me, it's

01:02:24.980 it's shocking. So you get rejected in D.C. David Weiss notably does not come forward and

01:02:30.120 say, I'm the decider and I'm going to bring the charges anyway in D.C. That is not what

01:02:35.920 happened. And then the next thing you know, you're all focused on California. All right.

01:02:41.000 14 and 15 aren't happening, I guess. Although you say, Joe, you were given the chance to make

01:02:45.140 one more appeal to David Weiss. Like, please don't abandon 1450. And I won't let me be heard

01:02:49.800 one more time. But you're focused on Central District of California and the later years,

01:02:53.720 17, 18, 19. And then you say in August of 2022, the federal prosecutors, not you,

01:03:00.600 the federal prosecutors recommending approving, recommended approving felony and misdemeanor

01:03:05.640 charges for years 2017, 18 and 19 in the Central District of California. So you got the prosecutors

01:03:12.100 on board August of 2022. It's going to be felonies. It's going to be Central District of California.

01:03:17.680 California. Everyone's agreed. And what happens with the Central District of California?

01:03:25.760 Yeah. So from so at that point when we've heard about what so I guess let's step back a little

01:03:33.280 bit. We know that the information went to the Central District of California in mid-September of

01:03:40.760 2022. That was the first week that Mr. Estrada, so the U.S. attorney in Central District,

01:03:48.920 was essentially appointed to that U.S. attorney by President Biden. So the first thing he gets on

01:03:55.400 his desk is this case. And we had communication that we were getting ready to work this in that

01:04:04.980 district. And in that early September meeting with David Weiss, he said to us, hopefully by the end of

01:04:12.660 this month, we're going to get ready to charge the case. And to go from there to hearing in early 2023

01:04:20.640 from both people I've talked with in the FBI and my leadership in the IRS that the California U.S.

01:04:30.500 attorney's office said no. Well, and so you didn't know that. So here you are in August, September

01:04:36.300 2022. And David Weiss is saying, yes, California, this is we're going to California. We're going to

01:04:41.580 bring felony charges against Hunter Biden in California. And then comes the October 2022

01:04:48.020 meeting. And this is a very important meeting in this whole story. This is the one that Gary

01:04:53.020 documented right after it happened because he realized he was playing with plutonium in what was

01:04:58.920 being told to him at this meeting by David Weiss. You're waiting for charges. Central District

01:05:03.140 California. Let's do it. Felony. And so you meet you guys. You, Gary, from IRS, you say IRS CI criminal

01:05:12.640 investigation, FBI leadership and David Weiss, the guy who's representing that he's the decider. He's in

01:05:18.400 charge. But the message changed at this meeting. So tell us about the October meeting of 2022.

01:05:25.020 Sure. Yeah. And I can't understand, understate enough. One side seems to, to, to completely

01:05:33.460 leave out the part that this was a contemporaneous document. I took handwritten notes during it. I

01:05:42.240 went home and later at 6.09 PM, I put this in an email on October 7th to two senior executives above me,

01:05:50.880 one of which was at that meeting. And I, and you can clearly read the document and it says, I'm

01:05:56.460 asking for, Hey, is this how you understand it? Is there anything that this, that you understand

01:06:00.740 differently? And what once I, it just is completely kind of missed the point that, that, that the senior

01:06:07.640 exec, the other senior executive there corroborated it saying, thanks, Gary, you covered it all. So now

01:06:13.500 we have two. So there's seven people there, three from Delaware, us attorney's office, four from, uh,

01:06:20.960 two from FBI, two from IRS and two of those, uh, and, and, uh, investigative agencies, uh, who were

01:06:27.520 there, two people, they corroborate that document corroborates exactly what happened during that

01:06:32.840 meeting. And I can't understand, uh, understate that enough. So he says, we're not, I'm not deciding

01:06:38.660 official on whether charges are, are, are, are brought or not. Um, he says that DC US attorney's

01:06:44.680 office declined to allow him to bring charges. That's when he says that he requested special

01:06:49.560 counsel authority and, uh, he was denied that special counsel authority. Um, then he also opines

01:06:55.680 that, you know, is at California, um, it with Martin Estrada, the president Biden appointed us attorney.

01:07:02.220 And if he says, no, then I'm going to have to request that, that, uh, a special counsel authority

01:07:07.140 again. Um, so it's just clearly, uh, was, was a huge moment for me. And there are facts that I learned

01:07:13.900 during that meeting, um, that's been corroborated by two, uh, of the, of the seven people there of

01:07:20.980 what happened contemporaneously. So this is the first year realizing Gary, he is, he is not in charge

01:07:28.120 that what we heard from Merrick Garland repeatedly is not true. And in particular, I should play the

01:07:34.140 soundbite now, um, of Merrick Garland saying that, uh, this is, well, actually I'll, I'll pause in

01:07:41.540 that, but in particular Merrick Garland's assertions that David Weiss had full authority and that we

01:07:46.400 could trust him because he had full authority and that the DOJ would not be interfering was not true.

01:07:51.900 According to David Weiss. Yeah. Yeah. Megan. And let, let it's a small distinction there, but this

01:07:57.440 is the, uh, this is not the point that I learned that he wasn't in charge because it's clear malt.

01:08:05.140 There's a pattern of steps previously that indicate that he was not the deciding person that they were

01:08:10.200 using the process to slow this down. Um, and it had to go to someone else other than David Weiss

01:08:16.340 for approval. Many investigative steps. This was the point in time that David Weiss admitted that he

01:08:21.840 was not in charge. Hmm. Right. Which again, now he's denying. Now he's back to, I was in charge,

01:08:29.700 Merrick Garland saying he was in charge, but this is the moment at which he admits to you and six

01:08:33.820 others. I'm not really in charge. And actually I went to Merrick Garland to ask for special scouts

01:08:39.380 counsel status. And it was denied. Your memo says, um, he, Weiss stated that he is not the deciding

01:08:47.120 person on whether charges are filed. Um, you said he, he requested special counsel authority,

01:08:54.220 uh, when it was sent to DC and main justice denied his request. Again, you don't yet know at this

01:09:01.920 meeting that he's been denied in California too, but you, you know, he's been denied in DC and you say,

01:09:07.500 he, he says he went, he went for special counsel authority, uh, when it was sent to DC and main

01:09:12.540 justice denied his request. Um, you know, it just, it's, it's fascinating to me because,

01:09:20.000 um, you know, I don't, none of this is consistent with what he's now saying now. Um, he's saying he

01:09:28.420 had this special status of not special counsel, but special attorney, which would have allowed him

01:09:33.580 to prosecute anywhere just as long as he had the blessing of Merrick Garland. But why would he tell

01:09:38.080 you that he requested special counsel authority if he already had special attorney status? And if

01:09:44.260 what he really meant to say was, I have special attorney status and I just need to, you know,

01:09:49.660 get this approved by Merrick Garland, then why didn't he? Do I have the questions right here?

01:09:55.840 Yeah. There's also a distinction there, right? Because attorney general Garland saying that he has that

01:10:01.340 authority, that he has special authority, that he has some superpower, special authority,

01:10:06.340 even greater than special counsel authority. Um, and, and, and David Weiss's June 7th letter

01:10:12.360 alludes to that, like, Oh yeah, that, that what attorney general Garland said was correct.

01:10:17.300 Now it was June 30th letter. He clearly says that he doesn't have that authority that he's assured

01:10:23.240 that he would get that authority. So no, he didn't have that authority. And, and even in those

01:10:28.840 letters, his words match what I said, he said, Oh, well, I, I, I talked to somebody at Maine DOJ

01:10:36.940 about this special authority, which I, and my, my contemporaneous memo says that he was denied by

01:10:44.100 Maine DOJ. Um, so it's just, so let me zoom out here. Let me zoom out for people who are getting

01:10:49.880 confused. What's really going on here, Gary, try to bottom line, like what's happening that,

01:10:55.060 that Merrick Garland wants us to believe David Weiss is empowered when in fact, he's not Merrick

01:11:00.460 Garland and his Biden appointed us attorneys are making the decisions that David Weiss now admits

01:11:08.740 this to you in this meeting that you realize this is being controlled and decided by political people,

01:11:15.920 not by this sort of Trump appointee independent guy that we thought, is that what's happening here?

01:11:22.700 So look, look, look, I don't want to apply motives or conspiracy theory or whatever you want to call

01:11:30.560 it to the overarching issue that's happening here. I'm a criminal investigator and it's all about

01:11:35.380 facts. We follow the facts and the facts don't match what they're saying. So I'm not going to say

01:11:41.900 why if attorney general Garland knew that he provided false information at the time, or if he just wasn't

01:11:48.740 informed, you know, that's for, that's for the IGs and for Congress to investigate. Um, but I do know

01:11:55.220 that the facts clearly do not support, um, what they're saying. If David Weiss is in charge, you

01:12:01.720 don't need to go ask another Biden appointed U S attorney for anything. And that happened twice.

01:12:06.980 And, uh, you know, it's just, it's the facts don't support their story.

01:12:11.240 Mm-hmm. And just so the audience knows, here's Merrick Garland. Again, it wasn't just at that

01:12:16.460 April, 2022 hearing where he said, you can trust him because he's a Trump appointee and he

01:12:20.580 is in charge. I'm quoting. That's what he said. He is in charge. Here he is, uh, in March of 2023,

01:12:27.280 just a couple of months ago, before you guys came forward, doubling down on that message. So 14.

01:12:32.120 I have pledged not to interfere, uh, with that investigation and I, uh, have carried through on

01:12:39.040 my pledge. The U S attorney in Delaware has been, uh, advised that he has full authority, uh, to make

01:12:46.080 those kinds of, uh, referrals that you're talking about, or to bring cases in other jurisdictions,

01:12:50.480 if he feels it's necessary. And I will assure that if he does, uh, he will be able to do that.

01:12:56.880 He has full authority to bring charges in different jurisdictions.

01:13:00.340 That is not what David Weiss told you in October, 2022.

01:13:07.180 No, no, no, that does time. And it doesn't match what David Weiss said later on in a letter that

01:13:12.420 he's been assured that, uh, they need it and he'd get it. And they assured him that he'd get it if

01:13:17.940 he thinks it's necessary. Well, if you ask a U S attorney to partner with you and they say, no,

01:13:24.140 I mean, I think it's logical to assume that it would then be necessary to, to, to invoke

01:13:29.860 this special authority that you've been given. Well, in the, here's where the audience needs

01:13:36.100 to know they're getting very slippery on their language. Weiss and Garland. Weiss is now saying

01:13:40.400 after you guys came forward, well, yeah, I have, I have this ability to go to Garland and get this

01:13:48.600 blessing. And, and if I need it, I will use it. But he has not yet said I tried. I did. I already

01:13:57.000 did it. I went after I got denied by DC. I went after I got denied by California. And here's what

01:14:03.300 Merrick Garland told me that he has not said that he was not specifically asked that either, which was

01:14:08.120 a failing by the questioners. But why isn't he just telling us there is no reason for him not to

01:14:13.720 just come out and say, if he has the special authority today, did he have it back in October

01:14:18.680 of 2022? Why didn't he use it when he got the stiff arm in not one, but two jurisdictions where he

01:14:25.000 wanted to bring felonies, right? He's not, those are questions we do not yet have answered. Am I right,

01:14:31.540 Gary? Yeah. Yeah. And that's what Congress needs to ensure happens is that there's documents,

01:14:37.660 like I said earlier, special authority, special counsel, it's all, they're just different words

01:14:43.680 for requiring some special authority to charge. So if that happened, it's, it's, there's documents.

01:14:52.340 There's me, you know, if I was going to investigate this, you know, I would ask those questions,

01:14:56.840 where are the documents, where's the memos that DOJ produced, the 99 page memo that's taking him to

01:15:05.660 the, to the U S attorney's office in DC and California, what are the different versions of

01:15:10.260 that? Let's see that. So there are going to be documents. And one day I just, I'm, I'm, I'm

01:15:16.680 assuring the American people that, that when they stop hiding behind this deliberative process or

01:15:23.640 ongoing investigation, they are not going to be able to hide the fact that they went to two President

01:15:29.460 Biden appointed U S attorneys and that no charges were brought in either of those districts tells the

01:15:35.320 American people exactly what happened. Yes, because you guys have the documents showing

01:15:42.300 these very attorneys, David Weiss and, and the FBI and so on, you would all agree to bring felonies.

01:15:49.980 That's what you wanted done. Felonies against Hunter Biden. At first you wanted DC, then you got

01:15:55.480 rejected, then central district of California. That was the plan. He said, we're going to bring him by

01:16:00.640 the end of September, 2022. And then suddenly in October of 2022, he says to you, I'm not the

01:16:07.140 deciding person. I'm not the deciding person on whether charges are filed. Whoa, what, what do you

01:16:13.100 mean? You're not the deciding person on whether charges are filed. And now they're trying to split

01:16:17.140 hairs on well, special counsel or special attorney. Maybe you were confused Gary in what you wrote.

01:16:22.820 None of that matters. What you wrote in this memo is why stated he is not the deciding person on whether

01:16:28.740 charges are filed. No one cares about his title. He's not the deciding person. We were told by

01:16:35.000 Merrick Garland that he was. So which is it? Merrick Garland continues to try to tell us that he was the

01:16:40.860 deciding person. You stand by your story that he told you he wasn't. You've got six witnesses who can

01:16:46.120 back you up on this. It matters because we're talking about whether there really are two systems

01:16:51.940 of justice here, one for the regular guys and one for the guys whose last name is Biden. And frankly,

01:16:58.700 that two tiered system has Trump has charges against Donald Trump right now that people think are born

01:17:04.220 out of similar political motivations. That's a story for another day. So the thing that happens next after

01:17:09.840 that October 22 meeting, as I understand it, is a whole lot of nothing. They stop communicating.

01:17:16.260 They kind of go quiet, Joe. And then the next thing you find out is May of 2023.

01:17:22.900 You're being removed. You're off. You're off the case. And then we get the announcement the very

01:17:28.460 next month. Oh, there's been a plea deal to misdemeanors. There's a there's some felony charge

01:17:34.300 on the gun application, which is just basically not getting punished for. But the only tax charges

01:17:40.620 are misdemeanors, which violates DOJ policy, which goes against the agreement you got from the

01:17:45.940 prosecutors, which isn't consistent with anything that you investigated or talked with the authorities

01:17:50.360 on the case about from the beginning to the point you were removed a couple of months earlier.

01:17:57.460 Yeah, I mean, that's correct. And I mean, that what what was presented that that charging document,

01:18:05.580 I mean, at the end of the day, that was David's decision to do that. But what I've asked yesterday is

01:18:11.320 the DOJ needs to to make a decision. Was that charging document appropriate for what what what

01:18:20.740 happened throughout this investigation? And if it's a special counsel that comes in there and looks at

01:18:26.320 it, if whatever it might be, I think that that a little bit of that would restore our faith in our

01:18:33.160 justice system. Hmm. The news hit June that they had struck this deal with Hunter. And again, you guys

01:18:42.800 had been removed from the case. What was your reaction when you saw that it was after all that

01:18:47.580 to basically slap on the wrist misdemeanors? Yeah, I mean, I when I saw the the charging document,

01:18:59.600 I really didn't I really didn't have much feeling one way or the other. This isn't about Hunter Biden.

01:19:06.640 This is bigger than Hunter Biden. And I want to make that clear to everyone. This is

01:19:14.400 issues, unethical behavior, not following normal process. This was something that was wrong in the

01:19:22.640 way we investigated this case. And my fear is and I've said this in my testimony that there's others,

01:19:29.600 ancillary spinoff investigations that the same thing might happen where David Weiss has to go to

01:19:36.700 another U.S. attorney to get charging or charging authority to charge in that district. And the same

01:19:44.260 thing is going to happen again and again until we fix the problem. What is the problem? I mean,

01:19:51.260 how would you define it? So, yeah, I don't know. The problem, the problem that I would

01:20:01.820 is the fact that you need to have a neutral party in there, someone who is going to follow the facts,

01:20:10.380 who is not going to be hamstrung by DOJ officials. They're going to follow the evidence and then charge

01:20:17.460 the appropriate charges in the appropriate venues. That's that's essentially what the the appropriate

01:20:24.820 procedure would have been. Mm hmm. What's crazy is we've talked about the fact that nobody told you

01:20:31.140 about that FBI confidential informant form that had serious allegations of bribery against the Biden's.

01:20:37.460 No one told you. Is it is it correct? Nobody. Did they tell you about the laptop? Because,

01:20:45.780 you know, we we understood that the FBI had found the Hunter Biden laptop. It had been given to them

01:20:52.080 by the the repair shop owner who had it. And that by November of 19, November of 2019,

01:21:00.780 they had verified that it was Hunter's. Your investigation opened in November of 18.

01:21:06.700 So did they come to you and say, you should look at what's on this laptop? There's a lot of stuff on

01:21:12.140 here. Yeah. So, you know, in fact, they did take possession of that laptop. And because it was a tax

01:21:24.600 investigation and especially Ziegler was was in charge of that tax investigation, the way that the

01:21:31.480 the contents of that laptop were even retrieved and were available to the investigators was through an

01:21:39.320 IRS criminal investigation affiant search warrant. So it were the it was the tax information that got

01:21:46.360 the information from the laptop. And then, you know, we we documented contemporaneously and provided

01:21:53.640 to the House Ways and Means Committee a memo that that of a meeting that discussed that laptop where

01:21:58.920 it comes to light to Special Agent Ziegler and I that there's certain portions from that laptop

01:22:05.160 prosecutors chose not to share with Special Agent Ziegler. And, you know, that's just that usually after,

01:22:11.720 say, like a filter review for any privilege information comes out of the electronic device,

01:22:17.480 that that's that's the investigator's job. The rest of the evidence goes to the investigator.

01:22:22.200 And that's what the investigators are doing. And they're putting that together and they're bringing

01:22:26.200 it to the to the prosecutors to tell the prosecutors what's there. And in this case, the prosecutors

01:22:32.280 completely remove some of the some of the information from the investigators purview, as Leslie Wolfe

01:22:40.520 stated during that meeting. And I believe it was October of 20. So you get to see some of it, but you

01:22:48.200 didn't get to see all of it. And you guys are the ones putting the case together. Why wouldn't they be

01:22:52.600 sharing all of it with you? Yeah. So so the laptop had to go through what's called since he's an

01:23:01.080 attorney and had to go through a filter review first. And then from the filter review team, it would be

01:23:06.200 filtered down to us. But the problem was, is that there were additional things that would have been

01:23:11.720 found outside of filter that weren't being shared with us. It was admitted in that meeting that it

01:23:18.280 wasn't being shared with us. And the problem is, is you need to tell us what you're holding back from

01:23:24.120 us, not that you held back information from us, but what is it? So there's that that final step that

01:23:30.360 that wasn't provided to us. And that that that I think is a problem.

01:23:34.920 And if it's consistent with the rest of the the investigative steps that we weren't allowed to take,

01:23:40.920 where we're not allowed to ask about that and we're not allowed to follow certain investigative leads,

01:23:46.840 you know, it's entirely possible that there's information on there that they could have been about that

01:23:51.400 that they kept from the investigators.

01:23:53.400 The just for just FYI, this is the first I had actually heard it described how the FBI verified

01:24:00.680 that it was hunters from you, Gary. They verified its authenticity by matching the device number

01:24:07.160 against Hunter Biden's Apple iCloud ID. They knew they knew it was his. I mean, it's just relevant to

01:24:15.000 the other stories about how they went to all the social media companies and said, beware Russian

01:24:19.880 disinformation about Hunter may be about to drop. And they knew that wasn't true. They absolutely

01:24:27.160 understood that the laptop was Hunter's and yet still ran around telling the social media companies

01:24:33.240 that. I mean, I did not realize that they knew it from it matched his actual Apple Cloud ID.

01:24:38.840 In any event, back to you guys. So one of the other things that you testified about was that now

01:24:44.760 infamous WhatsApp message. Joe, can you tell the audience as the lead agent on this case,

01:24:51.960 how did you get your hands on the WhatsApp message? Because Abby Lowell, who represent represents Hunter,

01:24:57.400 is out there trying to make us believe it's all fake, that there is no WhatsApp message,

01:25:03.800 that it's all made up. But you know differently.

01:25:06.760 So yeah, we did an IRS CI Affiant search warrant of Hunter's Apple iCloud account. And we obtained records

01:25:18.440 via that. And what was turned over from that was one of the things was a backup from a device.

01:25:26.600 And essentially, information within that backup was summarized in a schedule that was presented

01:25:35.480 in Gary's testimony, which you have now seen. So that's why there's writing in there that is quotes

01:25:41.880 and reference to individuals. So this is the one that kind of bearded up and explained it.

01:25:50.440 That's July 2017 WhatsApp message sent by Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, a Chinese Communist Party

01:25:55.880 official. That's that's what we understand. Abby Lowell now is questioning some of this.

01:26:00.760 He writes, I'm sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment

01:26:04.600 made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director I would like to resolve this now before it gets

01:26:08.280 out of hand. And now means tonight. And Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this

01:26:12.920 other than you, Zhang or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me

01:26:17.480 and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret

01:26:21.880 not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.

01:26:28.280 This is something I would imagine that you would like to follow through on to see what

01:26:32.520 what if any role did the father have? What exactly are they talking about?

01:26:36.360 Abby Lowell comes out and says, oh, this is fake, that the text message that was sort of mocked up,

01:26:44.680 the WhatsApp message that we've seen online is fake. He notably doesn't say that the actual

01:26:50.040 exchange did not happen. So what's your understanding? Did the actual exchange happen via WhatsApp?

01:26:55.400 Yep. So that's also a distinction in Abby Willow's letter. It's really a way to obfuscate the issues.

01:27:04.200 He's not saying that the content isn't accurate. He's saying that the way it was displayed

01:27:09.640 was inaccurate. And it's a fake representation. And there's a lot of, you know, legal,

01:27:14.760 uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, posturing and words there. I mean, he, he never denied that the contents

01:27:21.800 of that are accurate. He's just saying that the way that it was shown, uh, what was somehow indicate

01:27:27.960 that is also a fake. It's really just insinuation. Um, so we believe you saw the WhatsApp message,

01:27:36.280 Joe. I mean, you're, you got your hands on this via a search warrant from the cloud.

01:27:39.880 That is correct. Right. And again, Abby Lowell, while he tries to mislead us,

01:27:48.120 does not actually deny that the content of it. He just tries to say, oh, well,

01:27:51.960 the, what you've seen online is fake and that's not real. Just shows he's being dishonest. He's

01:27:55.800 also really trying to attack the two of you. Um, he's yeah. So in my, in my testimony, I actually

01:28:03.720 talk about the location data related to the WhatsApp messages. So I refer to the WhatsApp messages

01:28:09.720 in my testimony. And I said, relevant to those messages, we went to the prosecutors and we're

01:28:15.240 like, we need to get the location data to confirm that the information in this, um, in this, um,

01:28:22.600 WhatsApp message is accurate. And her response was, well, how do we know that? And then it was,

01:28:27.800 uh, well, I'll think about it. And I think it's important to note that three or four months prior to

01:28:34.040 this, there was the email that was found that said, tell 10 held by H for the big guy. And that

01:28:40.360 reference Sino Hawk. So that's one of the Chinese deals that never went through. And then now three

01:28:45.720 months later, you have this communication where he's representing that his father is sitting there with.

01:28:50.840 Mm hmm. There was a question about this yesterday. Dan Goldman tried to suggest there's

01:28:57.880 nothing in any of these documents showing any sort of potential business that involved Joe Biden,

01:29:03.800 uh, that I don't think this particularly went well for Dan Goldman, but we have a bit of it. It's

01:29:09.080 sought 12. Hunter told his dad, according to Rob Walker, quote, I may be trying to start a company

01:29:16.440 or try to do something with these guys. Now, let me ask you something that doesn't sound much like

01:29:23.160 Joe Biden was involved in whatever Hunter Biden was doing with the CEFC. If Hunter Biden is telling

01:29:30.600 him that he's trying to do business with them, does it? No, but it does show that he said he told

01:29:37.480 his father he was trying to do business. Can you expand on that, Gary?

01:29:45.320 Look, you know, we've tried to stick to the facts and we show the facts and we let other people come up

01:29:52.200 with conclusions, but the congressman from New York, uh, uh, was trying to manipulate the facts there

01:29:58.680 that kind of fit his narrative. And, uh, you can see that, that, that definitely, uh, didn't go his

01:30:04.600 way there because, you know, I just went back to the fact it clearly shows that, um, this witness said

01:30:12.360 that Hunter Biden is talking to his father president, but at the time, um, um, he was the, uh, former vice

01:30:19.720 president, but it's talking to him about his businesses. So as clearly, uh, uh, not, not what

01:30:26.360 president Biden has said over and over and over again. And moreover, he says to you, can you show

01:30:32.120 me where in the text message it says anything about discussing business with Joe Biden? He asked you

01:30:36.760 that. Well, the one we just read, the other WhatsApp message says specifically, I'm sitting here with my

01:30:42.360 father and we would like to understand why the commitment has not been fulfilled.

01:30:48.040 That on its face is discussing business involving Joe Biden. Um, Dan Goldman fell on his face

01:30:54.040 yesterday and trying to exonerate Joe Biden from having anything to do with any of these business

01:30:58.520 dealings. It remains a question. We don't know the answer because again, you weren't allowed to pursue

01:31:05.080 it. Quick break more with what's happened to these two guys after they came forward. Uh,

01:31:10.840 in a minute, they're still at the IRS. Can you imagine? We'll ask how that's going. Don't go away.

01:31:18.280 Just to put a point on it, the defense yesterday by a lot of the Democrats was you guys are just the

01:31:23.560 investigatory agents. You're not the prosecutors. Lots of times there are disagreements between the

01:31:29.800 agents investigating and the prosecutors. They always want you to charge more than you ultimately do as

01:31:35.000 a, as a prosecutor. You know, this is sort of like, get over it. You know, you're not,

01:31:38.760 you're not the guys in charge. As I understand it, your point is, this isn't that the prosecutors

01:31:43.560 agreed with us. They, we have the memos we have repeatedly. They wanted the same felonies we wanted.

01:31:50.120 Then something changed. We got stiff armed in the two jurisdictions. We get pulled off the case. And the

01:31:55.720 next thing we know, it's a couple of misdemeanors. And that's when you came forward. That's what you came

01:32:00.600 and said, this is absolute nonsense. You know what they're doing. So you're both still at the IRS.

01:32:07.160 That's awkward. Um, Joe, what's happened to you since you came forward?

01:32:14.680 Yeah. So, um, I, uh, a few days after, uh, we were removed from the team, the Hunter Biden

01:32:23.000 investigation team, I drafted an email up to my commissioner of the IRS. So it's through my

01:32:28.600 leadership chain all the way up to the top. And I wanted to put, I wanted to explain to him that no

01:32:36.360 one ever took the time to talk to us in leadership about what happened in this case. And it's essentially,

01:32:42.920 I poured my heart out and provided the facts of what happened. And I did not receive a response from

01:32:51.960 the IRS commissioner. Uh, two days later, I received a response from my, uh, the manager

01:32:58.280 above Gary that responded with, you have been told multiple times to stay within your management chain,

01:33:05.800 which was not true. Never been told that. And that I may have violated essentially the law by

01:33:13.880 releasing 60 information, which was completely unfounded and untrue. Um, and to cease and desist from

01:33:20.600 doing this further. So once I got that email, it was a chilling effect to me. I, I honestly couldn't

01:33:27.000 believe that it was sent to me and it definitely changed my perspective on that. They're not on

01:33:34.360 my, they, at that time they weren't on my side and it really, really, really bothered me. And that's

01:33:40.280 when I already had my attorney Dean Zerbe. And, uh, we, we, we got approached from the house,

01:33:47.800 ways and means to come forward. And then that's where I I've, I've essentially come forward.

01:33:53.560 Gary, I know you've said, um, you don't have a lot of money. You don't have powerful connections.

01:33:59.560 You don't have the president of the United States looking out for you. Are you worried

01:34:06.040 about what's going to happen here? Yeah, I did the right thing. And I think that all the,

01:34:15.000 the majority of Americans are going to say, you know, he did the right thing. And, and ultimately,

01:34:20.040 when I, when I look in the mirror at night, when I go home and, and, uh, you know, kiss my kids and

01:34:25.000 kiss my wife good night and go to sleep, you know, that that's, that's, I have to, I have to live with

01:34:31.320 who I am. And, uh, you know, if, if they obviously can't attack us or they would have yesterday on our,

01:34:37.560 on our credibility or, or, or our beliefs. Um, so, uh, you know, I, I think that, um,

01:34:44.280 I think we did the right thing. I think I did the right thing and it's going to be painful. Um,

01:34:49.400 it has been painful and look, you know, I'm just, I'm just a little guy who's sticking up for,

01:34:55.320 for, for everybody like me. Um, and, and that makes me feel okay.

01:34:59.800 Joe, they say, Abby Lowell, Hunter's lawyer, you're disgruntled and, uh, have tried to smear

01:35:07.320 you as having some sort of an agenda though. He doesn't get more specific than that. What's that

01:35:13.080 like? Yeah. When you have a, a powerful attorney and in a law firm, and they're essentially saying

01:35:23.240 that information against someone who's trying to do the right thing for the right reason,

01:35:27.240 I, uh, it, it's sad to me and I don't know what's behind that, but at the end of the day,

01:35:35.800 I came forward. I'm doing this for the right reason. I'm doing this to prevent my colleagues,

01:35:41.720 work colleagues so that they don't have to go through this again. If I need to go through some

01:35:46.200 pain right now so that they don't have to go through this in the future, I'm actually okay with

01:35:51.800 that. Um, and I think that that's, that's the important message here.

01:35:55.880 They're not allowed to retaliate against you. The law forbids it, but there's a question about

01:36:01.880 whether they'll do it anyway, whether they'll do it quietly, whether your performance reviews will

01:36:06.360 suddenly get a little bit worse and they'll find some reason to say that Gary. I mean,

01:36:11.080 you need this job. Nobody goes to work at the IRS to get rich. So are you worried about that?

01:36:16.040 Gary. Look, I made protective disclosures and, uh, there, there are laws that, that prohibit them

01:36:23.880 from, from retaliating. And we've, we've, uh, uh, presented, uh, these, this retaliation to the

01:36:30.920 office of special counsel, um, and to, uh, to our inspector general. And I'm, I'm, I'm confident that

01:36:38.040 they're going to find that, that the agency unfortunately has chosen to, uh, to follow

01:36:44.280 DOJ's lead and to retaliate against me in multiple ways. And, um, there's the quiet, uh, there's the

01:36:50.280 quiet retaliation, uh, uh, like specific, like not figuratively, right? Like June 1st of 2023 was the last

01:37:00.920 time my, anyone and above me has spoken to me. I have agents doing undercover operations. I have,

01:37:08.840 I have agents, uh, uh, traveling in foreign countries to do interviews, uh, you know,

01:37:13.640 really important, uh, sensitive, uh, safety type issues. And my leadership literally hasn't spoken

01:37:21.160 to me and, you know, 50 days. It's incredible. Wow. Wow. The, um,

01:37:31.320 the GOP is it now asking for a special counsel to be appointed to investigate these allegations of

01:37:36.920 retaliation, which are, would clearly be criminal if they did it. Um, next week,

01:37:42.200 Hunter Biden goes into a federal court and will is expected to plead guilty to these two misdemeanors

01:37:47.880 in connection with this plea deal. There's been pressure since you guys came forward for

01:37:52.040 the judge not to approve this. What do you want to see happen next week, Joe?

01:37:55.640 Yeah. So again, I just presented the facts. The judge in that situation has to, she's going to

01:38:05.800 have all the facts in front of her, hopefully, and she's going to have to make a decision whether the,

01:38:10.200 the facts meet what's in the plea agreement and the facts meet what's in, what's in being charged.

01:38:16.840 I can't speak for her. I don't know what decision that she's going to make. All I can do is I provided

01:38:23.320 the information. I provided the facts as I know them. And last question, Gary, what,

01:38:29.000 what, if anything, can we do at this point to get to the bottom of what the real story is on Hunter

01:38:35.000 Biden and on Joe Biden and the other Biden family members when it comes to these international dealings

01:38:40.360 and incomes? So, I mean, there's this huge burden on Congress, right? Like Congress has to act

01:38:48.680 appropriately. They have to act bipartisan and they have to move forward with investigating the

01:38:53.800 allegations and the evidence that we brought forward. And, you know, you know, we're just one

01:39:00.360 little piece of this. Um, and, and I think it, I think it's a really important that, that, uh, we

01:39:06.680 came forward, um, because it's just the equal application of justice cannot be understated. And,

01:39:12.840 um, um, so as long as Congress, these IGs continue to move forward, continue to follow the evidence,

01:39:18.600 and, uh, they're not stifled by department of justice. Um, that's, I think that's the path forward.

01:39:26.040 I admire your courage, your honesty, your commitment to the rest of us,

01:39:30.360 uh, to civics and just to fundamental fairness, guys. Thank you. Thank you so much for speaking

01:39:35.400 out and for coming on here together for your honor. Thank you so much. Have a great day.

01:39:42.920 You too. We're going to stay on this story. Uh, you can count on that and programming note tomorrow

01:39:48.360 should tell you for the very first time here on the Megan Kelly show, Donald Trump Jr. See you then.

01:39:54.360 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 20, 2023

IRS Whistleblowers on Hunter Biden Investigation Roadblocks, Significance of Laptop, and Accusations of Political Bias ｜ Ep. 591

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