President Biden doubled down on his accusation that China is being ruled by a dictatorship.

Biden was asked about his use of the term ‘dictator’ on Thursday during a question period with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Asked whether referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a dictator complicates the U.S. relationship with the People’s Republic of China, Biden said, ‘The answer to your [question] is ‘no.’’

‘When we’re talking to our allies and partners around the world, including India, we let the idea of my choosing and avoiding saying what I think is the facts with regard to the relationship with India, with China, is just not something I’m going to change very much,’ Biden said. 

The president went on to claim that the U.S. and China continue to maintain a good relationship, citing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the country last week.

‘I believe that and I’ve said this for some time, that the hysteria about the relationship with China is collapsing and moving, etc., etc. We had an incident that caused some confusion, you might say,’ Biden said. ‘But Secretary Blinken had a great trip to China. I expect to be meeting with President Xi sometime in the future, in the near term. And I don’t think it’s had any real consequence.’

During a fundraiser in California on Tuesday night, Biden said Xi was embarrassed after the U.S. Air Force shot down the Chinese spy balloon.

‘The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn’t know it was there,’ the president said. ‘That’s a great embarrassment for dictators when they didn’t know what happened.’

China responded Wednesday to Biden’s comments, criticizing the remark as ‘extremely absurd and irresponsible.’

‘The U.S. remarks are extremely absurd and irresponsible. It is a blatant political provocation,’ Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded at a daily briefing on Wednesday. ‘China expresses strong dissatisfaction and opposition.’

Fox News’ Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff’s Republican opponent in his California Senate bid slammed the congressman’s claim that being censured by Congress is a ‘badge of honor.’

‘Every time Schiff opens his mouth, he lies,’ attorney and Republican Senate candidate Eric Early told Fox News Digital on Thursday. ‘At this point, he’s like a cornered animal who is just flailing around and saying one ridiculous thing after another.’

After becoming only the 25th member of Congress in American history to be censured, Schiff told Fox News that he takes it as a ‘badge of honor because this says that I’m effective.’

‘They go after people that they think are effective, I exposed the corruption of a former president,’ Schiff said. ‘I led the first impeachment trial of the former president to the first bipartisan vote to remove a president in U.S. history.’

Censure is the second-most serious form of discipline a representative can face in Congress, topped only by expulsion.

‘Wear your badge of honor well, Schiff, because this is obviously no badge of honor and frankly, once the lights go out, and once Schiff is finally out of our government, he’s going to be forever remembered as one of the worst to ever grace the halls of Congress,’ Early told Fox News Digital.

The censure vote against Schiff, which ultimately passed by a party line vote of 213-209 with six Republicans voting present, was launched by Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. The censure bill said that Schiff’s peddling of the debunked collusion narrative between Russia and former President Donald Trump was unbecoming of a member.

‘As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff launched an all-out political campaign built on baseless distortions against a sitting U.S. president, at the expense of every single citizen in this country and the honor of the House of Representatives,’ Luna said before the vote.

‘With access to sensitive information unavailable to most members of Congress and certainly not accessible to the American people, Schiff abused his privileges, claiming to know the truth while leaving Americans in the dark about his web of lies… lies so severe that they altered the course of the country forever,’ she said.

Early, who a recent Berkeley IGS Poll shows leads a crowded field in the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein with 31% of California voters still undecided, told Fox News Digital that he agrees with Luna that Schiff did tremendous damage to the country.

‘The damage he did is incalculable,’ Early, who unsuccessfully ran against Schiff for his seat in Congress in 2020, said. ‘For years, he went on TV and in the press virtually every day lying to Americans, and what made it so much worse was that he was the head of the House Intelligence Committee, and so he made all Americans believe he had seen classified information that supported all of his lies about Russia collusion of the Trump campaign.’

‘He really was one of the leaders of a soft coup of a president, and he damaged the presidency tremendously,’ Early continued. ‘He divided the nation tremendously, and he continues to do all of that to this very day. He is a national disgrace of the highest magnitude, and yesterday, censure was so well-deserved.’

The Biden administration announced Thursday that it is moving ahead with prohibitions on the type of equipment hunters are allowed to use on federal refuges, a move strongly opposed by sportsmen groups.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) released its 2023-2024 hunting and fishing rule — an annual plan laying out regulations for the upcoming hunting season — banning cost-effective lead ammunition and fishing tackle across eight national wildlife refuges by 2026. Such an action has been supported by eco groups, but opposed by hunters, who argue that it could serve as a backdoor attack on hunting broadly.

‘This is the latest example of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service creating rules that punish hunters, threaten conservation funding and advance special interests without sound scientific evidence that traditional lead ammunition cause is causing detrimental wildlife population impacts,’ said Lawrence Keane, the senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. 

‘This administration is ignoring its promise to ‘follow the science.’ In fact, it is ignoring the need for scientific evidence in order to advance an anti-gun and anti-hunting agenda,’ he continued.

Under the FWS rule proposed Thursday, sportsmen will be prohibited from using lead ammunition or tackle across eight federally managed refuges — Blackwater in Maryland, Chincoteague in Virginia, Eastern Neck in Maryland, Erie in Pennsylvania, Great Thicket in Massachusetts, Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland, Rachel Carson in Maine and Wallops Island Nation in Virginia — beginning on Sept. 1, 2026. 

In its announcement, the FWS said it had formulated the rule using the ‘best available science,’ which demonstrates negative impacts of lead equipment on human health and wildlife.  

The agency’s 2022-2023 hunting and fishing rule, which was finalized in September 2022, only banned lead ammunition throughout the Patoka National Wildlife Refuge in southern Indiana.

‘Today’s Fish and Wildlife Service proposed rule shows that the Biden administration seeks credit for ‘expanding’ hunting and fishing access on public land while the lead ammunition and tackle bans threaten the exact opposite outcome,’ Benjamin Cassidy, executive vice president for international government and public affairs at Safari Club International and a former senior Interior Department official, told Fox News Digital.

‘Lead ammunition and tackle bans create substantial cost barriers for sportsmen and women across the country, preventing Americans from hunting and fishing on our public lands,’ Cassidy said.

In 2021, the Center for Biological Diversity — an influential environmental group with assets exceeding $40 million that advocates for stringent federal wildlife protections — sued the federal government over a Trump administration rule expanding hunting and fishing on 2.3 million acres across 147 wildlife refuges and national fish hatcheries.

Instead of defending the rule, the Biden administration asked the court to delay proceedings in the case in February 2022, and in November it agreed to a settlement with the group that stipulated the government would take wide-ranging steps to protect wildlife ‘harmed by expanded hunting and fishing’ on national wildlife refuges. 

Under the settlement, the FWS promised to expand lead ammunition prohibitions in its 2023-2024 annual rule, the plan proposed Thursday.

‘While we appreciate USFWS’s focus on expanding fishing access for the nation’s 52 million anglers, it is deeply disappointing to see the continuation of baseless and harmful restrictions on the types of tackle they can use,’ said American Sportfishing Association vice president of government affairs Mike Leonard.

‘As we have stated in our industry position statement, restrictions on lead fishing tackle must be based on sound science documenting that lead tackle has an impact on specific wildlife populations and developed in conjunction with state fish and wildlife agencies,’ Leonard continued. ‘We have repeatedly sought that evidence from USFWS but have yet to receive it.’

Hunting groups also urged Congress to work quickly to pass the Protecting Access for Hunters and Anglers Act, which Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and 22 fellow Republicans introduced in April. The legislation would block the FWS, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management from banning lead ammunition or tackle unless such an action were supported by the best available science.

The Hunter Biden tax investigation — codenamed ‘Sportsman’ — was opened in November 2018 as an ‘offshoot’ of an IRS investigation into a ‘foreign-based amateur online pornography platform,’ a whistleblower told the Houses Ways and Means Committee.

The committee on Thursday released testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who said officials at the Justice Department, FBI and IRS interfered in the investigation into Hunter Biden. The whistleblowers said decisions in the case seemed to be ‘influenced by politics.’

One whistleblower, Gary Shapely Jr., who was the supervisor of the investigation at the IRS, said that decisions ‘at every stage’ of the probe were made that ‘had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation.’

Shapely detailed the origins of the probe in congressional testimony unsealed Thursday.

‘The investigation into Hunter Biden, code name ‘Sportsman,’ was first opened in November 2018 as an offshoot of an investigation the IRS was conducting into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform,’ Shapely testified. Testimony released by the committee didn’t include any further explanation of how the pornography outlet and Biden were linked.

The investigation had previously been believed to have been predicated, in part, by suspicious foreign transactions.

Nearly a year later, in October 2019, Shapely said the ‘FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime.’

‘The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID,’ Shapely said. ‘When the FBI took possession of the device in December 2019, they notified the IRS that it likely contained evidence of tax crimes.’

The laptop repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, was subpoenaed to testify before the U.S. District Court in Delaware in December 2019.

The FBI’s property receipt for the laptop, first obtained by Fox News Digital in 2020, had a ‘Case ID’ section, which was filled in with a handwritten number: 272D-BA-3065729.

The number ‘272’ is the FBI’s classification for money laundering, while ‘272D’ refers to ‘Money Laundering, Unknown SUA [Specified Unlawful Activity]—White Collar Crime Program,’ according to FBI documents. One government official described ‘272D’ as ‘transnational or blanket.’

Shapely said the FBI verified the authenticity of the laptop, even though many Biden allies said it was Russian disinformation.

The revelations come just days after the Justice Department announced that Hunter Biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a deal that is expected to keep him out of prison. The president’s son also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement with regard to a separate charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

In response to the whistleblower allegations, the Justice Department said in a statement: ‘As both the Attorney General and U.S. Attorney David Weiss have said, U.S. Attorney Weiss has full authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges as he deems appropriate. He needs no further approval to do so. Questions about his investigation should be directed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Delaware.’

A 10-year veteran of the Seattle Police Department is one of five challengers running to unseat the incumbent in the area’s District 7 city council seat, which includes the beleaguered downtown. 

‘Public safety is the first and foremost thing that I’m concerned about,’ police officer and candidate Aaron Marshall told the Jason Rantz radio show this week. ‘I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I feel like I’m pushing sand into the ocean right now. I have a lot of effect as a police officer, especially as a street-level cop like I am. But I know that real effect has to happen at the very top. So just short of running for mayor, I think the city council is where I’m most needed right now, especially living in District 7 as I have for the last 20 years.’

The area has struggled in recent years with riotous protests – including the deadly Capital Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) – homelessness and rising crime, which reached a 14-year high in 2022. 

Marshall said he doesn’t think any incumbents on the city council deserve another term, including District 7’s Andrew Lewis. 

‘I’m neither Republican nor Democrat, but you and I completely agree on one thing that no incumbent should be reelected to the city council,’ Marshall told the radio show. ‘None of them deserve the job.’

He likened the city council members’ performances to a private business. 

‘Would you ever rehire somebody that has done the job they’ve done for the last four years? Impossible.’ 

‘Would you ever rehire somebody that has done the job they’ve done for the last four years? Impossible.’

But he said he realizes Lewis has raised $93,000 for his reelection, ‘which is significant.’

He called Lewis a ‘political windsock,’ saying Democratic voters shouldn’t vote for him just because of his party affiliation. ‘There is no telling what direction he’s ever going to go. If 20 people show up to the city council and yell at him a little bit, he’s going to change his mind.’

FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS SEATTLE POLICE FROM ENFORCING GRAFFITI BAN 

Marshall had considered running for office before but said was told there’s ‘no way a white police officer is going to be on the city council.’

Marshall, who was also in the Marine Corps, joined the Seattle Police Department in 2013. 

And for 10 years, I’ve done the job, proudly. I’m not worried about anything that I’ve done in the last 10 years. It’s been, like I said, a highlight of my professional career.’

He said that while he loves being a police officer, he’s a ‘citizen of District 7, first and foremost.’ 

He continued, ‘It is so important for me to let the people know that I love being a cop so much, but I love the city of Seattle even more. I’m willing to give up a job that I absolutely feel like it has been my calling to do, because I know that the city is in such dire straits.’

‘We just need somebody in city government, in the city council, that has some common sense and who is an independent voice,’ Marshall added. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Marshall and Lewis’ campaigns for comment. 

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MANCHESTER, N.H. – Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie says he’s inching up in the latest GOP nomination polls because of his very vocal criticism of former President Donald Trump.

But those same surveys also indicate that Christie’s favorable ratings are well underwater among likely Republican primary voters, with respondents in one poll saying the former two-term New Jersey governor is the GOP candidate they’re least likely to support.

Christie, who two weeks ago launched his second White House bid, said in a Fox News Digital interview in New Hampshire on Thursday that his game plan for pumping up his favorable ratings is to ‘come up here, and you campaign.’

‘Remember this,’ Christie said. ‘Eight years ago when I came up here, my unfavorables were upside down 25 points in the first poll. And on primary night, my favorables were up plus 30, so a 55-point swing. You know, look, people get to know me, I usually do pretty well.’

Christie placed all his chips in New Hampshire as he ran for the 2016 Republican nomination. But his campaign crashed and burned after a disappointing and distant sixth-place finish in New Hampshire, far behind Trump, who crushed the competition in the primary on his way to secure the GOP nomination and eventually the White House.

Christie became the first among the other GOP 2016 contenders to endorse Trump, and for years he was a top outside adviser to the then-president, even chairing Trump’s high-profile commission on opioids. However, the two had a falling out after Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to now-President Joe Biden. For the past two years, Christie has become one of the most vocal Trump critics in the GOP.

The former governor, who was making his first trip back to New Hampshire after launching his 2024 campaign in the state earlier this month, pointed to his vocal critiques of Trump and argued that ‘I’m saying what’s on a lot of people’s minds, that none of the other candidates are saying. And it needs to be said.’

‘I am going to be the alternative to Donald Trump,’ Christie vowed. ‘I’m going to be the person that people look at and say he’s the only one drawing a distinction between himself and Donald Trump. I am going to be the alternative to Donald Trump, and when I am, I’m going to beat him.’

Christie, who’s concentrating his firepower in New Hampshire, reiterated that Trump ‘will lead us to defeat again, and that’s the case you have to make to voters across the spectrum.’

‘By the way, I don’t buy this Trump voters stuff. He doesn’t own them. They voted for him, and they’ve said they’re leading towards voting for him this time,’ he emphasized. ‘A lot of water to go over that dam between now and then, and we’re going to make the case to every voter here in New Hampshire.’

Christie isn’t the only Republican presidential candidate who’s been vocal in their criticism of the former president, who enjoys a commanding lead in the GOP polls over his rivals as he makes his third straight run for the White House.

Former two-term Arkansas governor and former congressman Asa Hutchinson, who launched a campaign earlier this year, has long been an outspoken Republican Trump critic. 

Another is one-time CIA spy turned former GOP Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, who declared his candidacy on Thursday, as the field of contenders grew to over a dozen.

Christie, who spoke with Fox News during a stop at Manchester’s iconic Red Arrow Diner, said, ‘I wish Will and Asa luck. Not too much luck, but some.’ 

He argued that ‘the attention I’m getting because of the way I’m saying things is different than Asa, who’s been in the race for three months and hasn’t got that kind of attention from the voters or from the media and quite frankly not quite the kind of attention that I think Will will probably get as well.’

Hutchinson, who stopped by the Red Arrow Diner about an hour after Christie departed, disagreed, telling Fox News, ‘We’ll see. Every voice is important in this race.’

But Hutchinson acknowledged that he, Christie and Hurd would ‘probably’ divide the anti-Trump vote.

He said that when he declared his candidacy, ‘I didn’t expect to have 12 candidates in the race.’

‘We’ve got to go through this period of self-evaluation that if our message doesn’t resonate, and we’re stepping on each other’s toes, then we need to say who can be the leader, and we need to make sure that we reduce those numbers as we get closer to 2024.’

But he added, ‘I don’t think people need to be dropping out before we actually have votes cast,’ as he pointed to start of the nominating calendar early next year.

Christie argued that what makes him different from the other anti-Trump candidates is his history with Trump.

‘I think my message is different, too, because I’ve known Donald Trump for 22 years. I chaired his transition. I played Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in debate prep for him. I’m not a never Trumper,’ he stressed.

And he suggested that ‘Trump voters who’ve voted for him in the past can look at me and know that I was somebody who was willing to give him a chance and worked as hard as I could to make him as good a president as he could be. But he failed. He failed our party and failed our country. And we don’t need that kind of failure as our candidate again in 2024.’

Christie also remained confident that he’ll have enough donor support to run an effective campaign.

‘We feel very good about the people we have supporting us, and you’ll see when our report comes out in mid-July that after only being a candidate for three weeks, we will have raised a good amount of money,’ he predicted.

FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are seeking to formally expunge the impeachments of former President Donald Trump, Fox News Digital has learned.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., introduced resolutions Thursday to expunge Trump’s first impeachment from December 2019 and his second from January 2021. Those resolutions would expunge what the lawmakers are calling ‘unconstitutional’ impeachments and make it legally as if the articles ‘had never passed the full House of Representatives.’

‘The American people know Democrats weaponized the power of impeachment against President Donald Trump to advance their own extreme political agenda,’ Stefanik told Fox News Digital.

Reflecting on the ‘sham’ process, Stefanik said she ‘stood up against Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff’s blatant attempt to shred the Constitution as House Democrats ignored the Constitution and failed to follow the legislative process.’

‘President Donald Trump was rightfully acquitted, and it is past time to expunge Democrats’ sham smear against not only President Trump’s name, but against millions of patriots across the country,’ she said.

Stefanik’s resolution focuses on Trump’s January 2021 impeachment, and says that the ‘facts and circumstances’ of that action did not meet the burden of proving Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors, and did not establish that Trump engaged in ‘insurrection of rebellion against the United States.’

Stefanik also highlighted the ‘various issues surrounding the impeachment processes’ related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, including ‘the omission of discussion of circumstances and unusual voting patterns leading up to the 2021 Presidential election, the lack of consideration for the vote numbers and breakdowns, the whimsical changing of the legislative process for impeachment, and much more.’

The House of Representatives drafted articles of impeachment against Trump and ultimately voted to impeach him on a charge of inciting an insurrection for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The Senate voted to acquit Trump both times he was impeached. Had Trump been convicted, the Senate would have moved to bar the 45th president from holding federal office ever again, preventing a 2024 White House run.

Greene’s resolution would expunge Trump’s first impeachment in December 2019.

In 2019, Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch investigations into the Biden family’s actions and business dealings in Ukraine —specifically Hunter Biden’s ventures with Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings and Joe Biden’s successful effort to have Ukraininan prosecutor Viktor Shokin ousted while serving as vice president.

Greene says the impeachment against Trump was a ‘sham’ because information revealed in an FD-1023 FBI document indicates that the Bidens were trying to influence policy in Ukraine.

‘The first impeachment of President Trump was a politically motivated sham,’ Greene said. ‘The Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, weaponized a perfect phone call with Ukraine to interfere with the 2020 election.’

Trump’s request was regarded by Democrats as a quid pro quo for millions in U.S. military aid to Ukraine that had been frozen. Democrats also claimed Trump was meddling in the 2020 presidential election by asking a foreign leader to look into a Democratic political opponent.

Trump was later impeached by the House of Representatives for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, all stemming from the phone call and the question about the Bidens’ dealings. The Senate voted for acquittal in February 2020.

But Greene on Thursday pointed to the FBI’s ‘credible evidence of Joe and Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings, confirming their involvement in a foreign bribery pay-to-play scheme and receipt of over $5 million each. All of this information was revealed to Congress by the FD-1023 form from the FBI’s most credible informant.’

Greene was referring to the FBI-generated FD-1023 form. The form, dated June 30, 2020, reflects the FBI’s interview with a ‘highly credible’ confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings over the course of several years, starting in 2015.

The document shows the Burisma executive explained to the confidential source that Burisma had to ‘pay the Bidens’ because Shokin was investigating Burisma, and explained how difficult it would be to enter the U.S. market in the midst of that investigation.

Sources familiar told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source believes that the $5 million payment to Joe Biden and the $5 million payment to Hunter Biden occurred, based on his or her conversations with the Burisma executive.

‘The form vindicates President Trump and exposes the crimes of the Biden family,’ Greene said. ‘It’s clear that President Trump’s impeachment was a nothing more than a witch hunt that needs to be expunged from our history.’

She added, ‘I’m proud to work with Chairwoman Elise Stefanik on our joint resolutions to correct the record and clear President Trump’s good name.’

The latest progress report on our nation’s schools shows that charter schools are outperforming when compared with their public school counterparts.

The non-partisan, a-political study from the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University has compared standardized state math and reading test results between the two types of schools since 2009. That first study found that public district schools outperformed charter schools, four years later they tied but now, academically, charter school students do better.

‘Students who are enrolled in charter schools get more learning in a year’s time in both reading and mathematics than they would have gotten had they gone to their local district schools,’ says Dr. Macke Raymond, an author of the report. ‘To have so many thousands of schools each getting a little bit better to create this trend line was really quite a revelation.’

Measured in time, those test scores suggest charter school students outperform public school students by 16 added days of learning in reading and 6 more days in math.

‘That is a huge move that translates to more than two extra weeks of school,’ says Raymond. ‘Imagine having your child go to school two extra weeks every year, year in, year out. That accumulates.’

Network charter schools – also known as charter management organizations that typically manage multiple schools – did even better, with their students gaining 27 extra days of reading and 23 days in math. Their gains improve over time.

By their fourth year in their charter school, the report claims their students show ’45 days stronger growth in reading than their (public school) peers and 39 additional days of learning per year in math’. Gains are especially strong for low income, black and Hispanic students who ‘advance more than their TPS(traditional public school) peers by large margins’. The CREEDO report calls those ‘gap busting’ schools because they largely eliminate the learning disparity between white and minority students. It says:

‘Perhaps the most revealing finding of our study is that more than 1,000 schools have eliminated learning disparities for their students and moved their achievement ahead of their respective state’s average performance. We refer to these schools as ‘gap-busting’ charter schools.’

The report provides fuel for parents fighting for school choice against teacher unions – which claim charters damage public schools. The report found however, charters – contrary to union claims — do not skim higher achieving white students – but in fact enroll more students of color than neighboring public schools.

Raymond says parents should try non-profits like ‘Great Schools’ which rates the best performing schools in a given neighborhood.

Justice Department investigators were ‘trying to limit’ questioning related to President Biden as part of the investigation into Hunter Biden, despite objections from FBI and IRS officials, a whistleblower alleged.

The House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday released testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who said officials at the Justice Department, FBI and IRS interfered with the investigation of the tax evasion case against Hunter Biden. The whistleblowers said decisions in the case seemed to be ‘influenced by politics.’

One whistleblower, Gary Shapley Jr., who was the supervisor of the investigation at the IRS, said that ‘at every stage’ of the probe, decisions were made that ‘had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation.’ He cited several examples involving apparent references to Hunter Biden’s father.

Shapley pointed to text messages and emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski, which Fox News Digital first reported before the 2020 presidential election and before it was known that Hunter was under federal investigation.

In December 2020, Shapley said investigators were preparing to interview Biden business associate Rob Walker.

‘Among other things, we wanted to question Walker about an email that said: ‘Ten held by H for the big guy,’’ Shapley said. ‘We had obvious questions like who was H, who the big guy was, and why this percentage was to be held separately with the association hidden.’

But Shapley said Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf ‘interjected and said she did not want to ask about the big guy and stated she did not want to ask questions about ‘dad.’’

It has been reported that Joe Biden is referred to as ‘the big guy.’

‘When multiple people in the room spoke up and objected that we had to ask, she responded, there’s no specific criminality to that line of questioning,’ Shapley said. ‘This upset the FBI, too.’

Shapley said that ‘basically everyone in the room except for the prosecutors had a big problem with’ not asking questions about President Biden.

The ‘Ten held by H for the big guy’ message is an email from May 13, 2017, which included a discussion of ‘remuneration packages’ for six people in a business deal with a Chinese energy firm. The email appeared to identify Biden as ‘Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC,’ in an apparent reference to now-bankrupt CEFC China Energy Co.

The email includes a note that ‘Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate.’ A proposed equity split references ’20’ for ‘H’ and ’10 held by H for the big guy?’ with no further details.

Shapley said that on Oct. 22, 2020, the team and Wolf stated that U.S. Attorney David Weiss had ‘reviewed the affidavit for search warrant of Hunter Biden’s residence and agreed that probable cause had been achieved.’

‘Even though the legal requirements were met, and the investigative team knew evidence would be in these locations, AUSA Wolf stated that they would not allow a physical search warrant on Hunter Biden,’ Shapley said.

Shapley said IRS and FBI agents conducting the Walker interview ‘tried to skirt AUSA Wolf’s direction’ to avoid questions on ‘dad’ and ‘the big guy.’

‘And they were like, ‘How can we not ask?’ Like, that was wrong. We got to ask. We got to ask,’ Shapley said. ‘And so they basically decided that they would ask the question without saying the words ‘big guy,’ and that then they would somehow be doing what they were asked to do.’

Shapley repeatedly testified that there were ‘multiple times where Lesley Wolf said that she didn’t want to ask questions about dad.’

‘And dad was kind of how we referred to him,’ Shapley said. ‘We referred to Hunter Biden’s father, you know, as dad.’

Shapley said Joe Biden was referred to in that way ‘so that we could speak more openly without yelling, ‘President Biden.’’

He also discussed an instance in December 2020 when Hunter Biden vacated the Washington, D.C., office of his Owasco firm and put all of his documents into a storage unit in northern Virginia.

‘The IRS prepared an affidavit in support of a search warrant for the unit, but AUSA Wolf once again objected,’ Shapley said.

According to Shapley, Weiss was leading the investigation into Hunter Biden and agreed that if the storage unit wasn’t accessed for 30 days, ‘we could execute a search warrant on it.’

‘No sooner had we gotten off the call then we heard AUSA Wolf had simply reached out to Hunter Biden’s defense counsel and told him about the storage unit, once again ruining our chances to get evidence before being destroyed, manipulated, or concealed,’ Shapley said.

He also said a message in which Hunter Biden refers to his father in a message to Chinese energy company CEFC executive Henry Zhao made it clear a search of the guesthouse at the Bidens’ Delaware home was needed. But he said Wolf said that the ‘optics were a driving factor in the decision on whether to execute a search warrant.’

These revelations come just days after the Justice Department announced that Hunter Biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a deal that is expected to keep him out of prison. The president’s son also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement with regard to a separate charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

In response to the whistleblower allegations, the Justice Department said in a statement: ‘As both the Attorney General and U.S. Attorney David Weiss have said, U.S. Attorney Weiss has full authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges as he deems appropriate. He needs no further approval to do so. Questions about his investigation should be directed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Delaware.’

The White House has repeatedly said President Biden has never been involved in his son’s business dealings. They also maintain the president never discussed them with him.

An IRS whistleblower says the FBI’s FD-1023 document that alleges a bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden, his son, Hunter, and a foreign national was never delivered to investigators, even though it was sent to the Delaware U.S. attorney for further investigation.

On Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee released of portion of whistleblower testimony related to the IRS and Justice Department probe into Hunter Biden’s ‘tax affairs.’ The federal probe began in 2018, amid the discovery of suspicious activity reports regarding funds from ‘China and other foreign nations.’

That investigation originated out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware under U.S. Attorney David Weiss.

One whistleblower who spoke to House Republicans, Gary Shapley Jr., testified that decisions in the case seemed to be ‘influenced by politics.’

A second whistleblower was unnamed but said he ‘initiated the criminal tax investigation’ into Hunter Biden as a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation who worked under Shapley.

He also said, in a supplemental letter submitted to the committee from his lawyer, that he was never informed of or received the FD-1023 document that was reportedly sent to the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office for investigation, and which may have been useful as Hunter Biden was being investigated.

Fox News Digital reported this month that the contents of the FD-1023 allege that Joe Biden was paid $5 million by an executive of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. Biden’s son, Hunter, sat on the board of that company as part of an alleged bribery scheme that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions, according to sources familiar with the document.

‘In news articles, former AG William Barr is cited in saying that this Form 1023 was reviewed by the Western District of Pennsylvania and was ultimately shared with David Weiss, U.S. Attorney overseeing the subject Investigation,’ the letter said.

‘As Mr. X has testified, he was the IRS-CI Case Agent over the subject investigation at the time – and Mr. X has stated to me that he has never seen this FBI Form 1023 and that he does not recall ever hearing about this information being turned over in any meetings with the prosecution team in Delaware,’ it said.

‘Further, Mr. X informed me that this information could have been relevant to Mr. X’s investigation at the time of the subject as it related to a claim of $5 million being paid to the subject which directly ties to email correspondence reviewed between subject and a business partner of subject sent in May of 2014, which is believed to reference the $5 million…,’ the letter said.

Barr previously told Fox News that during his tenure the FD-1023 document was reviewed by U.S. Attorney Scott Brady and his team in Pittsburgh as part of a screening process to determine the veracity or relevance of information.

Barr said there was ‘no sign’ that the FD-1023 contained disinformation and was therefore routed to Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Weiss in Delaware – who was and is still working a probe focusing on Hunter Biden.

The whistleblower, or ‘Mr. X’ as he’s referred to in the letter, testified that he considers himself to be a Democrat,’ identifies as a ‘career government employee.’

‘I’ve tried to stay so nonpolitical that in the last presidential election I voted but had decided to not vote for the presidential candidate because I didn’t want to be asked that question in a court proceeding in the future, and I didn’t want to show any potential bias,’ he testified.

Last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who has been working in tandem with House Republicans in urging the release of the FD-1023, said from the Senate floor, ‘So, as I’ve repeatedly asked since going public with the existence of the 1023, what, if anything, has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?’

‘The Justice Department and FBI must show their work,’ he said.

Barr also told Fox News Digital that current Attorney General Merrick Garland should release the FD-1023 form to Congress, providing necessary steps are taken to protect the life and safety of the confidential human source in the document.