Republicans are looking to regroup after losing an informant in one of their many investigations into President Joe Biden and the Biden family.
During a Senate hearing, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., accused the IRS of removing the investigative team overseeing the investigation of the president’s son’s taxes.
“That just smacks of partisanship and erodes the American people’s confidence that the IRS will be fair and impartial,” Johnson said at the hearing.
The top Republican on the Senate Investigations Subcommittee said his suspicions were raised after the attorney of a whistleblower claiming to have information on the mishandling of the probe into Hunter Biden’s taxes sent a letter to the leaders of several Senate committees.
The attorney to the whistleblower claims his client’s removal was an act of retaliation.
“Removing the experienced investigators who have worked this case for years and are now the subject-matter experts is exactly the sort of issue our client intended to blow the whistle on, to begin with,” the attorney wrote in the letter.
“The IRS has awesome power, and they’re going to give them another $80 billion to essentially weaponize the IRS against Americans,” Johnson told Spectrum News. “I’m highly concerned.”
Last year, the Inflation Reduction Act, which the president signed, authorized nearly $80 billion for the IRS over 10 years to improve processes, is what Johnson is referring to.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, the fallout continues after the House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., revealed he lost contact with a top witness in an investigation of the Bidens.
“Unfortunately, we can’t track down the informant,” Rep. Comer told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. “We’re hopeful that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant. The whistleblower is very credible.”
Johnson told Spectrum News he didn’t know many details about the missing witness, calling the update “a real puzzle.”
The White House denies any involvement in these investigations.
“Since he took office and consistent with his campaign promise that he would restore the independence of the Justice Department when it comes to decision-making in criminal investigations, President Biden has made clear that this matter would be handled independently by the Justice Department,” White House Spokesman Ian Sams told Spectrum News in a statement. “He has upheld that commitment.”
Johnson also pushed back on the notion that the GOP probes have yet to produce hard evidence of crimes president Biden and his family committed.
“The hard evidence began with Senator Grassley’s and my report where we laid out the vast web of foreign financial entanglements, the millions of dollars being transferred.”
“The House is adding to our investigatory record. There’s a ton of evidence. It’s just the media. You know, the liberal bias media just refuses to acknowledge it. And just pushes it all aside,” he continued.
Johnson widened one of his parallel probes as he sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May, requesting all correspondence he’s had with the president’s son Hunter since his time as deputy secretary under the Biden administration. He’s accusing Blinken of lying to Congress about his previous interactions.
Ian Sams, the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, tweeted in response to the GOP letter: “For going on five years now, Republicans in Congress have been lobbing unfounded politically-motivated attacks against @POTUS without offering evidence for their claims. Or evidence of decisions influenced by anything other than U.S. interests.” “They prefer trafficking in innuendo.”
