Karine Jean-Pierre gives short answer when asked about IRS whistleblower

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had a short reponse on Thursday when she was asked about a report that an IRS whistleblower had come forward to claim politics was affecting the investigation into Hunter Biden‘s taxes.

‘I want to be very clear here. The president respects the rule of law and the independence of the Department of Justice,’ Jean-Pierre said when asked about the investigation in President Joe Biden‘s son. 

‘We believe that it should be independent. I’m not going to go beyond that.’ 

Her comments claim as a man working on the criminal tax probe into Hunter Biden sought whistleblower protections and claimed politics was ‘improperly infecting decisions’ in the investigation. And top Republicans argued that Biden’s administration is interfering in the probe. 

A lawyer representing the unidentified whistleblower wrote senators as well as inspectors general for the Justice Departments and the Treasury Department on Wednesday.

People familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal the probe related to the president’s son, who just returned from a trip to Ireland where he accompanied the president on a family reunion. 

The protected disclosures ‘contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee’ and ‘involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case,’ according to attorney Mark Lytle of Nixon Peabody.

They also ‘detail preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected,’ Lytle wrote, in a letter obtained by DailyMail.com.

He said his client is a career IRS Criminal Supervisor Special Agent who has been overseeing the ‘sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject’ since 2020. 

He has already shared information with the Treasury’s IG for Tax Administration, and the DOJ’s IG, and wants to provide further information to Congress, where House and Republican-led committees and GOP senators have already been probing the president’s son.

The lawyer wants legal protections to share the information with Congress. Tax information is generally protected.

The letter didn’t identify Hunter Biden or the senior political appointee who gave testimony, although Attorney General Merrick Garland vouched for the independence of U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump holdover who is overseeing the Hunter Biden probe.

‘He has been advised he is not to be denied anything he needs,’ Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee. ‘I have not heard anything from that office to suggest that they are not able to do everything the U.S. attorney wants to do.’ 

A 2020 subpoena sought years’ worth of financial information on Hunter Biden, who held a lucrative board position on the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. 

Lytle did not immediately return a call seeking comment. 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who is already probing the Bidens, pounced on the news.

‘It’s deeply concerning that the Biden Administration may be obstructing justice by blocking efforts to charge Hunter Biden for tax violations,’ he said. He said his panel was following the ‘Biden’s tangled web of complex corporate and financial records.’

‘It’s clear from our investigation that Hunter and other members of the Biden family engaged in deceptive, shady business schemes to avoid scrutiny as they made millions from foreign adversaries like China. We’ve been wondering all along where the heck the DOJ and the IRS have been. Now it appears the Biden Administration may have been working overtime to prevent the Bidens from facing any consequences.’

Neither Biden has not been charged with a crime.