Second IRS whistleblower goes public at House Oversight hearing about Hunter Biden probe

The House Oversight Committee is hearing from two IRS whistleblowers whose testimony alleging that the Hunter Biden criminal probe was mishandled has ignited a firestorm among House Republicans.

One of the two whistleblowers is speaking for the first time publicly: Joseph Ziegler, a 13-year IRS Special Agent with the Criminal Investigation Division.

In his statements to the Oversight committee, Ziegler outlined what he described as examples of prosecutors not following the normal investigative process, and echoed fellow whistleblower Gary Shapley's claims that IRS investigators recommended charging Hunter Biden with far more serious crimes than what the president's son has agreed to plead guilty to, and that US attorneys in other districts wouldn't seek an indictment of the President's son.

"It appeared to me, based on what I experienced, that the US Attorney in Delaware in our investigation was constantly hamstrung, limited, and marginalized by DOJ officials as well as other US attorneys," Ziegler said.

The whistleblowers told lawmakers Wednesday that Justice Department officials stopped their investigators from scrutinizing President Joe Biden and his grandchildren, after finding evidence potentially linking them to Hunter Biden's troubled finances. Shapley, told the committee that Joe Biden's name came up in their probe of Hunter Biden's finances, and that his team was essentially blocked from running down those leads. (Some of these references to Joe Biden, including in a much-discussed, alleged WhatsApp message from 2017, occurred when he wasn't president or vice president.)

"When the subject's father is somehow related to the finances of the subject, in the normal course of any Investigation, we would have to get that information, to properly vet the financial flows of money, and determine what we end up charging," Shapley said.

The Justice Department and the White House have previously denied the whistleblowers' claims that there was any political interference in the Hunter Biden criminal probe. These allegations are consistent with their previous closed-door testimony, which was made public last month. Biden has said he wasn't involved in his son's business deals.