Kansas Republican Rep. Ron Estes told Newsmax on Friday that the way federal agencies, including the Department of Justice, FBI, and Internal Revenue Service, conducted its investigation into Hunter Biden was “disturbing,” considering whistleblower allegations that investigators were not allowed to pursue leads and information damaging to Hunter Biden.
“It’s disturbing that our IRS, and that our federal government that’s supposed to be nonpolitical and nonpartisan, would be hamstrung by this,” Estes said during “Carl Higbie FRONTLINE.” “Both whistleblowers that came out and [gave] very, very similar testimony in terms of the experiences they saw, was that the Department of Justice and the FBI delayed, and they denied, moving forward on the investigation.”
After an investigation of several years, the DOJ charged Hunter Biden with two federal misdemeanors regarding unpaid taxes and a count of lying about his drug use on a gun application as part of a plea agreement.
Estes, who is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the agencies were investigating tax returns dating back to 2014 and delayed enforcement until the statute of limitations in some of the investigation areas ran out.
“This goes back to tax returns dating for the year 2014, and what the FBI has done as part of that is delayed and delayed,” he said. “Instead of allowing the IRS to do legitimate audits for that process, they’ve now allowed some of the statute of limitations to run out so that [he] can’t be prosecuted.”
Estes called the plea agreement “a sweetheart deal” amounting to just a “slap on the wrist” for Hunter Biden.
“I hope the judge turns it down and moves forward from there,” he said. “The frustrating thing as we look at this is that the U. S. attorney and their assistants actually looked like they were covering up and not treating the Biden family — and particularly Hunter Biden in his tax returns — in the manner that they would anybody else.”
Estes said his committee needs to make sure the different investigating agencies are coordinating and doing the right things for the American people, and to stop any retaliation toward individuals like the whistleblowers in this case.
“We’ve already seen now that the whistleblowers, as well as everybody else [who] was on the Hunter Biden investigation, have been taken off that case in what could not be termed as anything other than retaliation,” he said. “You can’t describe it any other way.
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