WASHINGTON – Empower Oversight today filed a forceful response to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) attempt to dismiss IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler’s retaliation case before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). The filing accuses DOJ attorneys of perpetuating the very retaliation the case seeks to address—by misrepresenting facts, smearing the whistleblowers with baseless accusations, and misleading the MSPB.
DOJ’s motion to dismiss perpetuates the false suggestion from Hunter Biden’s defense attorneys that Shapley was the source behind an October 6, 2022 Washington Post article, a leak allegation that, if true, would constitute a criminal violation of taxpayer privacy laws. In the summer of 2023, Shapley sent an affidavit to Congress denying leaking and requesting that the Washington Post publicly confirm Shapley was not their source. Further, DOJ’s motion reveals for the first time that Hunter Biden’s defense attorneys initially alleged to DOJ the Washington Post reporter seemed to admit the leak was from FBI agents.
DOJ’s motion falsely attributes the Washington Post’s sourcing to “federal agents” when the article explicitly cited “people familiar with the case”—a description that could just as easily apply to Hunter Biden’s own legal team. Shapley and Ziegler’s attorneys requested in the filing that DOJ be admonished for misleading the MSPB: “Agency counsel either knowingly inserted a false statement into their pleading or were careless in a way that conveniently advanced their inaccurate narrative. Either way, they should be held to account.”
Their latest filing outlines several additional points:
- DOJ’s motion ignores large portions of the whistleblowers’ 80+ page MSPB complaint, cherry-picking facts while sidestepping key allegations.
- Interviews with Congress make clear DOJ worked with the IRS to marginalize and remove the appellants from the case, harm their reputations, and block career advancement.
- The law requires only that the whistleblowers make “non-frivolous allegations” at this stage, not prove their case—a far lower bar than DOJ suggests.
“It’s been nearly three years since DOJ retaliation against these whistleblowers began, more than two years since they were removed from the case, and over two years since they filed with the Office of Special Counsel,” said Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight and counsel to the whistleblowers. “Now that the Hunter Biden criminal case is over and David Weiss has left DOJ, there is no excuse for the Department to continue dragging its feet. It should work with us to provide a remedy instead of compounding the retaliation.”
Relatedly, Shapley and Ziegler’s attorneys have sent deposition notices to David Weiss, the former Special Counsel and U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, and Lesley Wolf, the former Assistant U.S. Attorney for Delaware. Weiss and Wolf were the key players on the Hunter Biden prosecution team who retaliated against the whistleblowers upon learning of their protected disclosures.
In February 2025, Shapley and Ziegler filed an 84-page complaint with the MSPB. The complaint alleges in excruciating detail illegal retaliation by the IRS and DOJ. It argues that Shapley and Ziegler’s disclosures—protected under laws shielding whistleblowers from retaliation—exposed violations of law, abuse of authority, and gross mismanagement. They alleged two specific “personnel actions” by DOJ: marginalizing and removing them from the case, and influencing a blocked promotion, all tied to their whistleblowing.
Although Hunter Biden earlier this year voluntarily dismissed his own lawsuit against the IRS accusing Shapley and Ziegler of violating taxpayer privacy laws, the whistleblowers’ defamation lawsuit against former Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell for making similar claims to the press is still ongoing and awaiting a ruling in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The latest filing can be found here.
The discovery requests in the case to DOJ can be found here.
The discovery requests in the case to David Weiss can be found here.
The discovery requests in the case to Lesley Wolf can be found here.
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