Empower Oversight has appealed the Department of Justice’s ruling denying Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seeking additional information about the agency’s retaliation against various FBI employees. Empower Oversight submitted a FOIA request on Sept. 9, 2024. The Justice Department denied the request on Nov. 26, 2024, asserting …
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit yesterday denied Hunter Biden’s “Motion for Summary Affirmance”—which would have ended IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler’s effort to intervene in Biden’s suit against the IRS. The case falsely accuses the whistleblowers of violating tax secrecy laws. Now the whistleblowers can proceed to …
WASHINGTON, DC – The IRS whistleblowers who reported on the preferential treatment given to former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and the political interference by the president’s political appointees are filing an 84-page complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board. The complaint filed this morning by their attorneys with Empower Oversight alleges in excruciating …
Empower Oversight provided the following quotes from its clients to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Chairman Chuck Grassley read them into the record of today’s meeting on the nomination of Kash Patel to be the Director of the FBI. The quotes name officials responsible for targeting and purging FBI employees with disfavored views. Many of …
WASHINGTON, DC – Empower Oversight today said that after 20 months of investigating, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has confirmed that the IRS could not support its decision to remove agents from the Hunter Biden tax probe in retaliation for their protected whistleblower disclosures. Career nonpartisan staff at OSC, the agency that investigates …
WASHINGTON, DC – More than a year after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claimed its internal watchdog was “in the final stages of completing” a report on ethical conflicts and the agency’s selective enforcement decisions, Empower Oversight has filed a lawsuit against the agency to obtain the final report. The lawsuit, filed today, seeks …
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, as the U.S. Senate considered the nomination of Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Empower Oversight filed a lawsuit against the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for their refusal to comply with five Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to the case of vindicated …
WASHINGTON, D.C.– Empower Oversight has filed a complaint against the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General (VA OIG) for its failure to preserve critical investigative exhibits as required by federal law in a contentious conflicts of interest case that languished for nearly four years. This failure has undermined ongoing efforts to ensure accountability …
IRS Whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler released the following statement in response to the Justice Department’s release of the report by Special Counsel David Weiss. “The Weiss report leaves too many important questions unanswered, and the American people deserve answers. DOJ, FBI, and IRS leadership should have done the right thing from the beginning. …
Washington, D.C. – Late last night, IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joe Ziegler, filed a response opposing a motion to dismiss their defamation lawsuit against Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell, alleging that Lowell’s defamatory statements were made in retaliation for their protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress. The whistleblowers’ action in response …