Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Daniel Werfel denied retaliating against whistleblowers who recently contacted Congress to allege a cover-up in the Hunter Biden tax fraud investigation.
“I want to state unequivocally that I have not intervened – and will not intervene – in any way that would impact the status of any whistleblower,” Werfel said in a May 17 letter to the House Ways and Means Committee obtained by Fox News.
Werfel contends that the purge of the IRS’s Biden investigatory team on May 15 was allegedly done on the orders of the Justice Department, which aligns with what one of the whistleblower’s attorneys told congressional leaders.
“The IRS whistleblower you reference alleges that the change in their work assignment came at the direction of the Department of Justice. As a general matter and not in reference to any specific case, I believe it is important to emphasize that in any matter involving federal judicial proceedings, the IRS follows the direction of the Justice Department,” Werfel wrote in the letter.
The IRS commissioner added that he has contacted the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in response to the retaliation allegations.
“When I first learned of the allegations of retaliation referenced in your letter and in media reports on May 16, 2023, I contacted the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). In light of laws and policies designed to protect the integrity of pending proceedings, I am unable to provide details on this matter,” Werfel wrote in the letter to Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and ranking member Richard Neal (D-Mass.).
“TIGTA confirmed that my role as Commissioner in any whistleblower proceeding is not an investigative one. When an IRS employee raises allegations of this kind, the Commissioner’s office does not run an investigation, seek the identity of the whistleblower, or similarly intervene; instead, the Inspector General serves as a critical guardian of the whistleblower process and conducts relevant inquiries into the matter,” he added.
Lawyers for one IRS whistleblower – an IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent – told Congress last week that the agent “was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice.”
The whistleblower informed Congress last month that he wants to come forward to reveal a cover-up in the tax evasion investigation focused on first son Hunter Biden.
A lawyer for the whistleblower told a group of congressional committee leaders last month that he wants to expose “preferential treatment” and false testimony to Congress by a “senior political appointee,” whom The Post has learned is Attorney General Merrick Garland.
On Monday, a second IRS whistleblower, who has reportedly worked on the Biden investigation since it opened in 2018, emerged.
The agent joins his supervisor, who plans to testify behind closed doors before the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday, in publicly registering concerns about how the Justice Department has handled the investigation.
