PRIVACY FAIL: Hunter Biden goes after IRS whistleblowers with new lawsuit
Hunter Biden, the president’s son, has been trying to correct past mistakes and believes his rights as a citizen have been violated.
Neither Hunter nor his father, President Joe Biden, are denying that the younger man has had his share of troubles, including addiction, but as he works through the uphill battle of recovery, he’s also suffering an onslaught from Republicans who see him as the key to regaining the White House.
Through years of investigations and salacious allegations, Republicans have only been able to produce a charge for Hunter lying about drug use when purchasing a firearm, and a failure to pay taxes on time.
Now the younger Biden has caught up on hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes, and is facing the gun charge — and is now ready to fire back over the political attacks.
Right-wing operatives within the IRS, calling themselves whistleblowers, have spoken to Congress, and to television news programs, to express views that an investigation into Biden’s tax troubles struck them as less-than-sufficiently stringent, in the process spilling details that Republicans would treat as salacious revelations, including his income and private communications.
Biden is suing over the release of information. CNN reports:
“Specifically, Hunter Biden’s attorneys point to details [IRS agent Gary] Shapley shared in an interview with CBS News that aired in late June. During the interview, Shapley alleged that Biden took certain personal expenses as business expenses, including “prostitutes, sex club memberships, hotel rooms for purported drug dealers,” and that Biden owed $2.2 million in unpaid taxes, the lawsuit alleges.”
Biden has been taking a more assertive stance in response to Republican attacks. He’s filed a separate lawsuit against the individuals responsible for accessing, altering, and disseminating contents of a laptop and of his iPhone data.
Republicans have been making appearances on right-wing media to claim that the president has benefitted from illegal business dealings they allege his son was involved in, and have even opened an impeachment inquiry.
But despite these allegations beginning when Donald Trump was still in office (and impeached for trying to pressure a foreign nation into supporting the claims), they’ve still provided no evidence of corruption.
However, with the election drawing near and Trump facing felony charges, they’re amping up the rhetoric, and conflating the tax allegations with the corruption allegations, twisting the whole mess into a congealed soup they hope voters will find unappetizing enough to skip the polls and hand the Republican nominee a de facto win.
You can read the lawsuit Hunter filed against the IRS here.
Steph Bazzle covers politics and theocracy, always aiming for a world free from extremism and authoritarianism. Follow Steph on Twitter @imjustasteph.
