Trump picks a Hunter Biden whistleblower to temporarily lead the IRS

Gary Shapley, an IRS agent who participated in an investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances, gives testimony before a House Ways and Means committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Dec. 5, 2023. President Trump has picked Shapley, an Internal Revenue Service agent who has said the investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes was not aggressive enough, to temporarily lead the tax collector. (Al Drago/The New York Times)

By Andrew Duehren

President Donald Trump has picked Gary Shapley, an Internal Revenue Service agent who has said the investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes was not aggressive enough, to temporarily lead the tax collector.

Shapley’s claims that the Justice Department slow-walked the tax investigation into Hunter Biden were central to House Republicans’ attempted impeachment of his father, President Joe Biden. As acting commissioner, Shapley will succeed Melanie Krause, who decided to step down after the Trump administration pushed the IRS to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

Shapley, whom the Treasury Department named a senior adviser last month, will take over the IRS at a moment of extraordinary turmoil. Roughly a third of its 100,000-person workforce is already on its way out the door, with many of the agency’s senior leaders quitting or being forced out in recent weeks. Shapley will be the fourth person to lead the IRS this year.

The possibility of Shapley leading the IRS has in recent days unnerved some IRS employees, who worry about the historically neutral tax collector’s enlistment in political projects such as immigration enforcement. Trump said Tuesday that Harvard University should lose its tax-exempt status after rejecting his administration’s demands to change its hiring, admissions practices and curriculum.

In an interview on Fox Business last month about his earlier promotion to the Treasury Department, Shapley said he would seek to overhaul the agency. Joseph Ziegler, another IRS whistleblower in the Hunter Biden case, was also promoted to senior adviser at Treasury.

“We know the IRS inside and out and we can be very surgical,” Shapley said. “And we can make sure that we attack that bureaucracy from the inside and make sure it gets all the way to the culture of IRS and has positive change there.”

Shapley and Ziegler have said they faced retaliation from the IRS for raising their concerns about the Hunter Biden tax case, including being taken off the investigation. Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges last year. The president pardoned his son before leaving office.

“Gary has proven his honesty and devotion to enforcing the law without fear or favor, even at great cost to his own career,” a Treasury spokesperson said. “He’ll be a great asset to the IRS as we rethink and reform this crucial organization.”

It is unclear how long Shapley, who started at the IRS in 2009 in its criminal investigations unit, will lead the service. Trump has nominated Billy Long, a former Republican member of Congress who pushed a tax credit that was a magnet for fraud, to lead the agency, but the Senate has yet to confirm him.