Federal prosecutors had unanimously agreed to recommend felony and misdemeanor tax charges for Hunter Biden – but the more serious charge was not ultimately filed, IRS special agent Joe Ziegler told CNN.
Ziegler made his comments Thursday to CNN host Jake Tapper.
"So, the four assigned prosecutors in the case agreed with recommending felony and misdemeanor tax charges for Hunter Biden. [U.S. Attorney] David Weiss also agreed with that. I know that from a meeting I had with him in late August, early September," Ziegler said.
"So, they all agreed to charging the felony and misdemeanor. The DOJ policy on this is that — their tax policy is that — if you have a felony with a misdemeanor, you have to charge the felony, and that's to prevent inequitable treatment of taxpayers and, according to the charging document, they only charged two misdemeanors and one of those tax years related to 2018.
The New York Post noted that Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanors.
"There's a lot of cases around the U.S. right now where people are being charged with both the felony and misdemeanor and not having the felony dropped off," Ziegler said. "So, I think it's important that it's in the tax manual — it is their policy that states that if you have the felony, and you have the evidence there, and there's also a misdemeanor, you have to charge the felony in order to not have an equitable treatment of taxpayers.
"I'm actually working on an even bigger case than this — not as sensitive as this but an even bigger case than this — and I can tell you the assigned prosecutors in that case have not acted anywhere near what we were going through, being constantly hamstrung, not following normal process."
Ziegler and another IRS whistleblower, Gary Shapley, alleged in a hearing Wednesday that President Joe Biden's Justice Department effectively obstructed and minimized its criminal investigation into Hunter Biden's tax crimes.
When they recommended felony and misdemeanor charges to Weiss, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, the charges were "slow-walked" by the Biden DOJ, allowing the statute of limitations to expire and ultimately leaving just a "sweetheart" plea deal on a misdemeanor.