Until IRS criminal investigators Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler came forward to blow the whistle on the preferential treatment Hunter Biden was receiving from the DOJ and IRS, it looked like the president's son would never face any type of accountability for his numerous criminal acts, many of which were documented on his "Laptop from Hell." Nearly a year and a half later, and Hunter Biden has entered an open guilty plea to nine criminal tax evasion charges and will be sentenced in early December.

While the whistleblower duo faced professional retaliation even before coming forward to Congress, and have faced public scorn and additional retaliation since, they received a perfunctory congratulatory email from their supervisor after Biden's guilty plea, thanking them for their "commitment to the mission, which culminated in a great conviction." Puzzling, but likely only done in an attempt to whitewash the retaliation that's been heaped upon Shapley and Ziegler.

RELATED: Turnabout Is Fair Play: IRS Whistleblowers Sue Hunter Biden's Lawyer for Defamation

That's just one of the nuggets of new information revealed in a new interview of the whistleblowers by Catherine Herridge. The information isn't surprising, and most of us assumed it was the case, but having named sources on the record confirming the information is always a good thing.

Here's an image of that full email Shapley and Ziegler received after Hunter Biden's guilty plea:

EXCLUSIVE: Internal IRS email shows supervisor celebrating Hunter Biden conviction after whistleblowers allege IRS retaliated against them for exposing double standards and preferential treatment throughout investigation.

“Those are words that are not supported by the actions of… pic.twitter.com/wgrxGCQ3Uv

— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) October 29, 2024

The full email reads:

"I just wanted to take a moment and thank you all for your efforts in the investigation and conviction on the Sportsman investigation. I know this was multi-year, requiring significant sacrifices and dedication on behalf of you all. Thank you for your commitment to the mission, which culminated in a great conviction."

The whistleblowers told Herridge that while they felt vindicated by Biden's guilty plea, their supervisor's words rang hollow.

“Those are words that are not supported by the actions of the agency.

“This, to me, was someone who knows that [an] IRS watchdog right now is looking into the way that they've handled this, and they see the writing on the wall, and this really is an example of just covering their backside like a true bureaucracy.”

Sensitive Investigations

As we've all seen while following this story, there is an absolute double standard in how the IRS conducts criminal investigations. All taxpayers are not equal in their eyes - and Shapley and Ziegler revealed that some of the preferential treatment is baked in the IRS manual.

Ziegler told Herridge:

I recently had an internal attorney for IRS come to me and say that the way that the process is set up it almost creates this preferential treatment for these elite and large companies because, you know, when it was Hunter Biden it required additional approvals for every single thing that we did. Meanwhile, the local businessman, I don't need any special permissions. I just go and do the investigation.

The technical term is "sensitive investigations," and Shapley described who's protected:

"There's a list in the Internal Revenue manual that says what a sensitive person is, and it's exactly that - politicians, CEO's of companies, high net worth individuals, and then it requires countless additional approvals to work that investigation."

In addition to the special permissions, the two faced timeline requirements around the 2020 presidential election. The documents Special Counsel Jack Smith recently released about Donald Trump never would have been released this close to an election if Trump's last name would have been Biden, Ziegler said:

"Compared to what happened in our investigation there were a lot of overt investigative steps that we were not allowed to take because we had an upcoming election. And it related to the [now] president's son, so not even the candidate, and we weren't allowed to do certain investigative steps."

Shapley added:

"Based on what we saw in the Hunter Biden case, that document would have never been released four weeks before an election.

. . . 

"The Department of Justice created a precedent as it relates to ongoing investigations and elections in the Hunter Biden case. And if they don't follow that precedent and they do something much more aggressive, then it's clear to me that there is some type of double standard.

Knew Laptop Was Real in 2019

Shapley and Ziegler affirmed that they knew the laptop was real, that the DOJ knew the laptop was real, and that the FBI knew that the laptop was real. When did they know this, Herridge asked? Ziegler replied:

"It was many months before October 2020. We were confirming certain aspects of it, that it was real and legitimate, as far back as late 2019."

Yet, an entire operation was organized to convince American news outlets that any news regarding the laptop or its contents was Russian disinformation.

Blinken and Disinformation

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was a longtime aide to Joe Biden at the time the laptop story came out, orchestrated the "51 former intelligence agents" letter asserting that the story was Russian disinformation. Blinken had a major conflict of interest in addition to his relationship with Joe Biden, Ziegler said:

There was various reporting of people saying that it's potentially Russian disinformation and one of those people is the current Secretary of State. His name was in a lot of the emails that were turned over to the House Ways and Means Committee that were on Hunter Biden's laptop. There's definitely a conflict of interest there.

"It was clear that it was a campaign to discredit that information before an election, ultimately, I guess you can conclude that it was for the purpose of affecting that election."

Why would these former intelligence agents assert the laptop story bore the classic hallmarks of Russian disinformation, Herridge asked? Ziegler replied:

"As a Special Agent, as a criminal investigator, and what I know and what I do, I don't know how they could have come to that conclusion regarding this laptop."

Shapley chimed in:

It was misinformation to try to make something else look like misinformation. 

And, as Herridge points out, the investigators who knew the laptop was real wouldn't speak out publicly because it could have been a violation of the tax code. And, judging by the reaction of Hunter Biden's lawyers and Democrat apologists in the press after Shapley and Ziegler came forward, if they had spoken out publicly, without whistleblower protections, they likely would have been prosecuted.

Joe Biden Is 'The Big Guy'

Although legacy media talking heads and Democrat pundits continue to say nobody knows for sure who "The Big Guy" referred to in the emails on Hunter Biden's laptop is, Shapley said they know exactly who The Big Guy is:

We corroborated that The Big Guy was Joe Biden, yes.

What about their supervisors? Did they believe that Joe Biden was The Big Guy? Shapley said:

There was no question ever that "The Big Guy" was referring to Joe Biden.

It wasn't just IRS employes who knew that Joe Biden was The Big Guy. According to Ziegler, FBI agents and the Delaware U.S. Attorney's office knew/believed that, too:

That's why when we were doing the interviews that the prosecutors in Delaware specifically told us that they didn't want to ask about The Big Guy, because they knew it was Joe Biden.

And if they asked about The Big Guy in an interview and obtained information showing that Joe Biden did receive bribes/cash from foreign agents, the U.S. Attorney would be forced to follow up. By not asking about The Big Guy, they were attempting to have plausible deniability.

However, the investigation did reveal that Joe Biden did receive money from foreign actors and entities through his family, they said:

This whole thing, at the end of the day, was about enriching a family, enriching the Biden family through access to an administration. Through all of these different financial transactions, you see various members of the Biden family, to include James Biden, receiving money through a lot of these deals that were set up. How do these foreign officials pay U.S. politicians? By paying their families. 

Retaliation

Both Shapley and Ziegler say that there are other IRS employees who would like to be whistleblowers, but who are keeping quiet and watching how everything plays out for Shapley and Ziegler. The personal and professional costs they've paid are intense, which might have a chilling effect on the willingness of potential whistleblowers to come forward.

Shapley said:

They immediately isolated us. Immediately started making our jobs more difficult. Immediately taking away promotion potentials. 

IRS just has a smothering blanket on me hoping that I quit, that they find some way to terminate me, or they probably hope that I commit suicide or something. My career is over, the way IRS is treating me, the way DOJ is treating me.

But he'd do it again, Ziegler said:

I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was the right thing to do. But I've lost personal relationships. The toll of the depression has been pretty debilitating. I'm not a wealthy person. I'm just like anyone out there. I live paycheck to paycheck. I'm surviving the best that I can, and I'm up against a machine that has millions of dollars, that has the ability to fight me and to really wear you down.

Why Does It Matter?

Even though Joe Biden isn't running for re-election and Hunter Biden has been convicted, the issues these whistleblowers brought forward and addressing the retaliation they've faced is still extremely important because, as Shapley said, it's not about the election:

"It's not about the election. It's about confidence in this government, the United States government, and people have to have confidence that justice is going to be administered fairly, regardless of who you are."

Sure, we avoided a second Joe Biden term and Hunter Biden will face some accountability for his crimes (there are probably dozens of additional felonies he could have been charged with, based on the evidence on his laptop), but without these whistleblowers Hunter Biden would still be a completely free man and the Laptop From Hell would still be considered Russian disinformation. Dozens of federal investigators would have known about the bribery and foreign influence and looked the other way. This victory is only partial at this point, and is only the very tip of the iceberg. It's extremely important to support these whistleblowers from the lawfare they find themselves fighting from both the IRS and Hunter Biden.

The complete interview can be viewed below.

BREAKING: IRS Whistleblowers Involved in Hunter Biden Tax Case Reveal IRS, DOJ, and FBI Knew Laptop “Was Real” Immediately; Claim Prosecutors Demanded They Not Ask Questions About Joe Biden Ahead of 2020 Election

“There were a lot of overt investigative steps that we were not… pic.twitter.com/WKyS8Pi5pj

— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) October 29, 2024

Additional coverage about Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler can be found here.