Tangle - The IRS whistleblowers.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

Starting point is 00:01:00 From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the IRS whistleblowers who testified before Congress last week, what we learned from their testimony, and then, of course, some of the reactions to that testimony from the right and the left. Hope you guys had a great weekend, and as always, we'll kick things off with our quick hits. First up, the Justice Department is threatening to sue

Starting point is 00:01:58 Texas over the use of buoy barriers that were placed in the Rio Grande River to deter migrants. barriers that were placed in the Rio Grande River to deter migrants. Number two, the House passed an aviation bill to increase funding for air traffic controlling hires, improving airports and updating airport security. Number three, a tornado in North Carolina damaged a Pfizer plant that makes anesthesia and other common drugs in hospitals, creating concerns over potential shortages. Number four, Israeli parliament passed a contentious law that limits the power of the Supreme Court just hours after tens of thousands of Israelis marched 45 miles in protest of the changes. And number five, at least 18 people have died from heat-related causes in Phoenix during a record-breaking heat wave, with 69 more deaths being investigated.

Starting point is 00:02:58 Breaking news in the Hunter Biden investigation. Bombshell whistleblower testimony just released by the House Ways and Means committee accuses the justice department of giving the president's son preferential treatment the committee says the doj interfered in the investigation and retaliated against whistleblowers who came forward to discuss the case two irs whistleblowers are testifying on capitol hill about the justice department's investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of the president. Both IRS agents are testifying in public now. They worked on the federal investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes, as well as his foreign business dealings. One of them has publicly accused the Department, the Department of Justice, rather, of slow walking the investigation. Tonight, under oath, a pair of career IRS investigators testifying to Congress that they believe their superiors and officials at the Department of Justice work to suppress a probe into the finances of the president's son, Hunter Biden.

Starting point is 00:03:54 And coming forward, I believe I'm risking my career, my reputation. On Wednesday, two whistleblowers from the Internal Revenue Services testified in front of Congress about the investigations into President Biden's son, Hunter. The whistleblowers, IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler and his supervisor, Gary Shapley, alleged that the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, and other prosecutors slow-walked the case and showed preferential treatment for the president's son. Shapley first went public with his allegations in June, but Ziegler was not identified until last week.

Starting point is 00:04:29 In June, Hunter Biden reached an agreement with the Justice Department pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges while avoiding further prosecution on a more serious gun charge. However, critics of the agreement suggested the deal was soft on Biden, an allegation buttressed by Ziegler and Shabley, who said they had noticed irregularities in the case's handling and were then sidelined after voicing their concerns. There should not be a two-track justice system based on who you are and who you're connected to, Shabley, a special agent in the IRS criminal division for

Starting point is 00:05:00 14 years, said. Yet, in this case, there was. During the testimony, Ziegler insisted that Hunter Biden was guilty of felony charges, including falsely claiming business deductions for payments he made to a drug dealer, to a sex club membership, and to Columbia University for his daughter's tuition. Shapley also criticized a Delaware prosecutor named Leslie Wolfe, saying she blocked search warrant requests for President Biden's residence and also halted questioning about the elder Biden during witness interviews, even in cases where the president had been referenced in his son's business communications. In an interview with CBS News, Ziegler added that he felt handcuffed during the investigation

Starting point is 00:05:40 and was blocked from pursuing leads that he thought might implicate Biden. While the testimony included hours of serious lines of questions from Republicans and Democrats, there were several controversial moments and partisan spats during the hearing. Most notably, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican from Georgia, used part of her questioning to display nude photos of Hunter Biden engaging in sex acts while asking whether he committed crimes of human trafficking. Democrats expressed disgust at the move and members of the committee asked whether displaying the photos was appropriate during the hearing. Democrats also alleged that even after

Starting point is 00:06:15 years of investigations, House Republicans have failed to show evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. Despite years of obsession and countless wasted taxpayer dollars on a wild goose chase, the House GOP hasn't offered a single credible piece of evidence of wrongdoing by the president, Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, wrote on Twitter. This waste of time reflects the extraordinary misplaced priorities of House Republicans. Democrats frame Shapley and Ziegler's testimony about investigatory decisions as normal disagreements among investigators. Jamie Raskin, the Democrat from Maryland, called the differing accounts a traditional tug-of-war between prosecutors and investigators, much like the indictment of former President Donald Trump, which focused on mishandling of classified documents despite investigators saying they also found other violations.

Starting point is 00:07:05 White investigators saying they also found other violations. On Thursday, Republicans released a copy of an unverified tip recorded on an FD-1023 form, which FBI agents used to record source data that tied President Biden to payments from a Ukrainian energy firm named Burisma during his tenure as vice president. The form, filled out by a confidential FBI source, detailed secondhand allegations that Burisma's CEO and founder thought having Hunter on its board would insulate the company from investigation and that he sent millions of dollars to Hunter and then Vice President Joe Biden. Today, we're going to break down some commentary about these allegations and the testimony from the right and the left, and then my take. Today's podcast is sponsored by Arnold Ventures, a philanthropy dedicated to improving the lives of Americans through evidence-based policy solutions. As part of their efforts, they also

Starting point is 00:08:04 support journalism throughout the United States, including outlets like the Texas Tribune, ProPublica, and the Institute for Nonprofit News, among others. To learn more about their work, go to ArnoldVentures.org. That's ArnoldVentures.org. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. Many on the right say the testimony was stunning and the reliability of the investigation into Hunter is now in doubt. Some argue that Attorney General Merrick Garland is protecting President Biden. Others say the FBI is covering up shocking corruption. National Review's editors said the jaw-dropping testimony has established three things. First, the investigation into Biden corruption, millions of dollars pouring into the

Starting point is 00:08:51 family coffers from apparatchiks of corrupt and anti-American regimes seeking to buy Joe Biden's political influence, is real and has been thwarted by the Biden Justice Department, the editor said. Second, the president's son Hunter Biden Biden, received preferential treatment, and next week, a federal judge should reject the sweetheart plea deal he was given by the Justice Department. Third, Attorney General Merrick Garland owes the country an explanation for why the Biden investigation has been sabotaged from within, even as he maintains publicly that it was conducted with independence and integrity. Shapley and Ziegler recounted being blocked at every turn by Justice Department prosecutors as they tried to go about the routine steps investigators would take in any case.

Starting point is 00:09:34 The day before they planned to conduct interviews of Hunter Biden and other investigative subjects, the FBI alerted the Secret Service, which tipped off the Biden transition team. Hunter and most other subjects then refused to speak to the IRS. Leslie Wolfe, the head prosecutor from David Weiss's office, forbade them from pursuing investigative leaks that could potentially connect the president to the Biden family business, instructing them not to ask questions about Hunter's dad or about the big guy. As we now know, several investigative subjects referred to the now president. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said it's getting harder to believe

Starting point is 00:10:10 Attorney General Merrick Garland's claim that there was no interference in the Hunter Biden case. The IRS agents say the Justice Department interfered by tipping off Hunter's legal team to a planned search and preventing questions related to Joe Biden. They also said the IRS team didn't have access to Hunter's laptop or the FD-1023 document, in which an FBI informant alleged that Joe and Hunter each accepted a $5 million bribe from Ukrainian energy giant Burisma. Some Democrats tried to dismiss this all as normal disagreements between investigators and prosecutors, but Mr. Shapley testified that the justices' handling of the Hunter Biden tax investigation was very different from any other case in my 14 years at

Starting point is 00:10:50 the IRS. They were backed up by a new FBI whistleblower, a former supervisory special agent assigned to the Biden investigation. Shapley testified that Weiss admitted to six IRS and FBI agents that he wasn't the deciding authority, and he had applied and was turned down for special counsel status. In Fox News, Andrew McCarthy said the whistleblowers reveal who's really to blame for the shocking Biden corruption. When committee Democrats tried to poke holes in the testimony, they ended up on the receiving end of what they hadn't bargained for, fusillades of fact, damning data about the millions raked in by the president's son and family members from the apparatchiks of

Starting point is 00:11:29 corrupt and anti-American regimes, McCarthy said. Ziegler and Shapley have combined decades of experience in tax law and financial bookkeeping and have been involved in some of the most significant tax investigations in the U.S. As Shapley explained, the case agents and line prosecutors agreed that felony charges were appropriate. It was higher-ups in the Justice Department who slammed the brakes on the case. The agents also stressed that they were being ordered by prosecutors not to follow leads that could have garnered evidence against Joe Biden. There could be no more profound conflict than the Biden Justice Department's being in the position of investigating President Biden's son and other family members in an international corruption probe in which

Starting point is 00:12:09 the president himself is deeply implicated. The culprit here is not David Weiss. It's Attorney General Merrick Garland. All right, that is it for the rightist saying, which brings us to the left's take. Many on the left mock the right's obsession with Hunter Biden and say many Republican claims continue to fall short of the facts. Some argue that the central issue here seems to be a misunderstanding or disagreement between prosecutors and agents. Others say the IRS agents undermined the GOP before the hearing even began. In the Washington Post, Dana Milbank mocked Republicans for denying they were obsessed with Hunter Biden. Last month, the president's troubled son reached a deal with federal prosecutors in which he will plead guilty to two minor tax crimes

Starting point is 00:13:02 and admit to a gun charge. Chairman James Comer declared it a sweetheart deal and said he had two whistleblowers who could prove that Hunter Biden got favorable treatment because of his father. With great fanfare, he brought them before the committee Wednesday. Two IRS agents, one dramatically advertised as Whistleblower X. The pair did testify that they believe prosecutors had gone easy on Biden for political reasons, but once again, Comer's witnesses didn't have the goods. Their complaints about how prosecutors were handling the Biden case began in 2019 and continued in 2020 during the Trump administration. That's when the whistleblowers alleged junior varsity prosecutors in the Justice

Starting point is 00:13:42 Department were engaged in election meddling to benefit the elder Biden. So, Trump's DOJ tried to throw the 2020 election to Biden by giving his son kid glove treatment makes total sense. There was also the inconvenient matter of the prosecutor who struck the deal with Hunter Biden being a Trump appointee, and that Trump appointed prosecutors' contradiction of the whistleblower's claims. Shapley even admitted that government lawyers have disagreed with his prosecution recommendations 90% of the time. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police

Starting point is 00:14:22 procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province.

Starting point is 00:15:03 Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. In MSNBC, Barbara McQuaid said this all feels more like confusion than conspiracy. Weiss explained one reason for the possible disconnect between what Shapley said he heard, a misunderstanding between two different types of prosecutors, a special counsel, which is an attorney appointed under one set of regulations, and a special attorney, which is an attorney appointed under a different set of regulations. According to Weiss, he never asked to be appointed a special counsel, which would have given the Attorney General the power to overrule charging decisions. It seems to me entirely possible that Weiss and Shapley were just talking past each other, that Weiss was telling Shapley

Starting point is 00:15:49 correctly that he would not be appointed a special counsel, and that the agent interpreted that statement incorrectly to mean Weiss could not bring charges outside Delaware. I've also been in rooms where agents wanted to proceed in cases far more aggressively than prosecutors, who must decide not only whether the evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction, but also whether charges are an appropriate exercise of discretion in light of the Justice Department's principles of federal prosecution, a series of considerations with which agents are unfamiliar, McQuaid wrote. Some Republicans have called Hunter's plea a sweetheart deal, but his charges strike me as harsh, not lenient. In my experience, prosecutors seldom use scarce resources to charge misdemeanor tax offenses, and the charging of possessing a gun while using

Starting point is 00:16:35 illegal drugs was one we prosecuted only rarely in my former office. In the New Republic, Tori Otten said the whistleblowers have undermined the GOP's case. Ranking member Jamie Raskin, the Democrat from Maryland, already debunked Republican star whistleblowers' testimony in a memo before the hearing even began. Both witnesses acknowledged it is very common for Asian supervisors and prosecutors to disagree about investigative steps and charging decisions, Raskin said. In addition, Shapley previously testified that such disagreements happen with 90 plus percent of his work. Meanwhile, Ziegler said that even his direct supervisors disagreed with his conclusion about the strength of the case

Starting point is 00:17:16 against Hunter Biden. Both agents even previously acknowledged that the evidence wasn't strong enough in certain cases to merit charges, but they have continued to cry foul over the investigation en route. Raskin also noted that many of the investigative decisions that the two IRS agents took most issue with actually happened under former President Donald Trump. Shapley and Ziegler disagreed with decisions made from September to December 2020 when Bill Barr was still Attorney General. Weiss has already debunked several of Shapley's claims, including that Weiss did not have final say on charging Hunter Biden and that the Justice Department blocked him from pursuing charges in D.C. and refused to grant him special counsel status. All right, that is it for the right and the left are saying, which brings us to my take.

Starting point is 00:18:15 On the charges brought against Hunter, my general opinion remains the same. I think they were fine. For the tax crimes he pled guilty to and the gun crime he settled on, the punishment didn't seem that out of ordinary or like a mere slap on the wrist. You can go back and listen to my full opinion on that in a previous podcast edition if you're interested. But in that discussion, I also said there was a major caveat. Gary Shapley, the 14-year IRS veteran, had complained under whistleblower protections that he witnessed deviations from the normal process while investigating Hunter. So, was the investigation stymied? The settlement could be totally normal while the investigation itself was still prevented from uncovering other, more serious charges. And to that end,

Starting point is 00:18:56 the answer we've gotten from Shapley and Ziegler is not encouraging. Even if you accept the left's argument that much of this is merely a matter of prosecutor-investigator disagreement, which very well may be true, that doesn't address everything else they claimed. The whistleblowers said they never even got access to the FD-1023 form implicating President Biden that Republicans released last week. They were not allowed access to Hunter's laptop. Wolf agreed with the agents they had probable cause to search Hunter's home, but denied the request due to optics. When the agents convinced had probable cause to search Hunter's home, but denied the request due to optics. When the agents convinced Weiss to get a warrant for a commercial storage

Starting point is 00:19:30 unit that Hunter had moved his documents into, Wolf ultimately kept them from being able to access whatever was inside by alerting Hunter's lawyers about the unit. These kinds of things seem to have happened again and again, always keeping Hunter just out of reach of investigators. And Ziegler and Chapley appear about as legitimate as they come. Not that it should matter, but Ziegler is a self-described Democrat, and together the two are about the most qualified duo of IRS investigators you can find, which is why they were put on this case in the first place. In his Washington Post piece under what the left is saying, Dana Milbank criticized Marjorie Taylor Greene's decision to show nude photos of Hunter Biden, listed all the ways Shapley and Ziegler said they disagreed with prosecutors, and then asked snarkily, what does all this have to do with the bribery, money laundering, and influence peddling

Starting point is 00:20:19 that James Comer accuses President Biden of? Not much. It's the worst kind of argument. Nobank is linking Greene's contemptible actions with the testimony from two very credible whistleblowers and then dismissing them both. The entire message from Shapley and Ziegler was simple. They believed they were stopped from conducting a full and complete investigation of Hunter Biden. They did not say that such a total investigation would have led to incriminating evidence of President Biden, nor did they disagree with the idea that they might have genuine good faith disagreements with prosecutors. But they did say they were stopped from taking steps they considered normal and rational, and they made it clear they believed it was due to

Starting point is 00:21:00 political concerns. And while this investigation did start under Trump's administration, Ziegler and Shapley are saying that it wasn't until after Biden was elected their attempts at finding new evidence were really undermined. All of the claims from Democrats and Republicans can actually coexist, and when they do, it looks far worse for the Justice Department than anyone else. Now it's up to Merrick Garland. If he and Weiss want to add context to these claims, refute them, or undermine them entirely, they should do what Shapley and Ziegler just did and testify under oath. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Ned in Henderson, Nevada. Ned said,

Starting point is 00:21:45 with regards to Friday's newsletter about the media, I wonder if there is another solution to add to your list. Does journalism need to be treated more like a science, whether it be in journalism school at university or in practice? Both journalism and science are about the discovery of truth in a complex world. Both disciplines require or should require a rigid process to discover truth and report these observations to the public. Would treating journalism more like a science make a difference? So, Ned, I think you're onto something about journalism and science both being similar in their principles because they both teach people how to discover truth. But I disagree with your suggestion about what that means. I don't think we should

Starting point is 00:22:25 teach journalism more like we do science. I think we should just teach more journalism. Frankly, I don't see how treating journalism like a science would help journalists uncover their biases, and to be honest, I don't even know what treating journalism like science would actually mean. But I do know what teaching media literacy means, and I think it's exactly what we need to do at the high school and college level. Teaching media literacy will help us learn how to separate facts from opinion, good arguments from bad, and real news from fake. When we published a piece last year about the ethics of having kids because of climate change, I remember a reader writing in to say that any discussion of what individuals could do to fight climate change was a distraction from the fact that corporations deserved all of the culpability.

Starting point is 00:23:09 That argument really frustrates me for two reasons. One, it robs individuals from having agency and leads to a defeatist attitude that doesn't accomplish anything. Two, it ignores the role we have in corporate actions. Corporations are organizations of people and people do what makes sense to them. If no one were buying, they wouldn't be selling. Journalists absolutely can and should be better about the kinds of partisan news they produce. I've been very critical of media organizations feeding into their own biases and stocking partisan divisions. I wrote about this on Friday, and frankly too many other times to count. But media bias is not just a media problem. It's an us problem. If no one was buying the biased and rage-inducing media, they wouldn't be selling.

Starting point is 00:23:57 All right, that is it for your questions answered. As always, if you want to ask a question to get answered in the podcast, you can email me, Isaac,ac, I-S-A-A-C, at reedtangle.com. All right, next up is our under the radar section. Efforts to begin industrial scale seabed mining to extract car battery metals in the Pacific Ocean have been delayed after the International Seabed Authority concluded that it needs more time to finalize mining rules. The decision is expected to most directly impact the Metals Company, a Canada-based mining startup that pursued the first license for industrial-scale Pacific mining. Metals Company teamed up with the island nation Nauru in hopes of beginning its mining next year.

Starting point is 00:24:37 Some environmentalists want to stop mining entirely, while supporters hope the endeavor will be underway by 2025. The New York Times has the story. There's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The size of the alleged bribe for then-Vice President Biden and his son Hunter from Mikola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma, was $10 million. The amount of money Hunter Biden made per month when he was first added to the board of Burisma was $80,000. The percentage of Americans who approve of Joe Biden's presidency, according to the latest Reuters poll, is 40%. The percentage of all respondents who cited the economy as their top concern was 21%.

Starting point is 00:25:22 The percentage of all respondents who cited crime or corruption as their top concern was 21%. The percentage of all respondents who cited crime or corruption as their top concern was 15%. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day section. The city of Portsmouth, England, is having a go at maintaining its city spaces by turning an abandoned shopping plaza into a community skate park. The Pitt Street Skate Park is located in the center city and is seen as a way to help unlock long-term regeneration opportunities. The park's founder, Jacob Skinner, saw the vacated shopping center as an opportunity

Starting point is 00:25:55 to give back, saying, as a child, skateboarding was my outlet and I want to give others the opportunity to use it in a positive way. Local counselor Stephen Pitt, no relation, sees the park as a community asset. We know this area has huge potential to help transform the city center, and using empty spaces like this is a great way to start to unlock new community facilities and business opportunities while we develop long-term regeneration plans, he said. Good News Network has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, please go to readtangle.com slash membership. Also, don't forget, we have an event in Philadelphia on August 3rd. We are less than two weeks away.

Starting point is 00:26:50 You can go to readtango.com forward slash live to get your tickets. And as always, you want to make sure you check out our YouTube channel, Tango News on YouTube. We'll be right back here at same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Long. Peace. For more on Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime,

Starting point is 00:27:55 Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada,

Starting point is 00:28:11 which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine

Starting point is 00:28:24 authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.

Tangle - The IRS whistleblowers.

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