In Washington, the worst-kept secrets are often the most dangerous ones. And in the case of Hunter Biden, the attempt to keep those secrets buried has created a scandal less about personal misconduct and more about how deeply politicized our justice system has become. The more we learn, the more it becomes clear: the cover-up is still very much underway — and it reaches the highest levels of American power.
This month, Hunter Biden reemerged on the national stage not to answer questions, but to posture as a victim — blaming Republicans, the media, and even some Democrats for his legal troubles. But far more revealing than his public statements was the quiet release of explosive congressional testimony from special counsel David Weiss, the man who has overseen the increasingly murky, five-year federal investigation into Hunter’s business dealings.
Weiss told the House Judiciary Committee that investigators lacked the evidence to charge Hunter under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a claim that flies in the face of years of frustration expressed by IRS agents on the case. Those agents — Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler — risked their careers and reputations to blow the whistle on what they saw as a systemic campaign of obstruction by senior DOJ officials, particularly when leads brought them close to Joe Biden.
According to their forthcoming book The Whistleblowers vs. the Big Guy, the IRS team had compelling evidence that Hunter Biden’s business model revolved around foreign lobbying while his father was Vice President — including for Burisma, the corrupt Ukrainian energy giant that paid him up to $1 million a year; Chinese government-linked firms like BHR and CEFC; and clients in Romania and Kazakhstan. All roads, they say, led to “Political Figure 1” — DOJ’s euphemism for then–Vice President Joe Biden.
In fact, the very first email revealed from Hunter’s now-infamous laptop was from a Burisma executive thanking him for arranging a meeting with his father the previous night. That wasn’t just a casual hello. Hunter had reportedly invited his dad to a private dinner at Café Milano in 2015, attended by businessmen from Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan, as confirmed by his former associate Devon Archer in congressional testimony.
Emails showed that Hunter’s lobbying firm, Blue Star Strategies, was retained to influence U.S. officials — a textbook FARA violation. When IRS agents tried to include references to Joe Biden in search warrant requests, they were explicitly told to remove them. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf reportedly wrote in August 2020, “There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here.”
Why? Optics.
Wolf also blocked a warrant for a guesthouse on Joe Biden’s Delaware property where Hunter had been living. Even after agents found a July 30, 2017 WhatsApp message in which Hunter demanded $10 million from a Chinese executive — while claiming his father was physically present with him — they weren’t allowed to confirm Joe’s location at the time using geolocation data.
“I am sitting here with my father,” Hunter wrote. “We would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled… I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows… you will regret not following my direction.”
To most, this message was not only a glaring contradiction of Joe Biden’s repeated claim that he “never discussed business” with his son, but also strong circumstantial evidence of his involvement in influence-peddling. Yet investigators were denied the ability to pursue it.
“The message was clear,” wrote Shapley and Ziegler. “Although we were investigating Joe Biden’s son — who, it seemed, had often involved his father in his shady overseas business dealings — none of our materials were supposed to mention Joe Biden.”
When warrants were denied, when lines of inquiry were shut down, when Hunter’s attorneys were tipped off — it wasn’t incompetence. It was protection. And it was political.
Compare this with how the FBI handled investigations of Donald Trump. The bureau treated the unverified Steele dossier — funded by the Clinton campaign — as legitimate evidence, using it to launch a full-blown surveillance operation. They raided Trump’s home in Florida over classified documents. They indicted his associates for FARA violations, including Paul Manafort. And when whistleblower Gal Luft provided DOJ officials with early evidence implicating Hunter and Jim Biden in Chinese influence schemes, not only was his information buried, but Luft himself was later charged with FARA violations and now sits jailed in Cyprus.
The selective enforcement is staggering. It seems FARA is used as a sword against political enemies — but becomes invisible when it implicates the sitting President’s son.
Even when Weiss finally brought felony tax and gun charges against Hunter, it was only after the sweetheart plea deal unraveled under scrutiny. That original deal would have immunized Hunter from further prosecution — even over future FARA violations. Weiss stripped Shapley and Ziegler from the investigation after suspecting whistleblowing activity. The Office of Special Counsel has since found that the IRS illegally retaliated against them for protected disclosures to Congress.
Meanwhile, the mainstream press has continued to downplay or ignore the core allegations: that Hunter Biden monetized his father’s position — and that Joe Biden, despite repeated denials, may have known, enabled, or directly participated in the scheme.
In the closing days of his presidency, Joe Biden reportedly considered — and may still pursue — a broad, retroactive pardon for his son that could sweep away lingering legal risks, including those stemming from the CEFC deal, Romanian payments, and other offshore transactions dating back over a decade.
At every stage — from laptop censorship, to law enforcement interference, to media disinterest — the effort to protect the Bidens has been unmistakable. And the result is not just the slow death of this investigation. It’s a chilling message to every future whistleblower and investigator: some people, and some families, are simply untouchable.
The Hunter Biden saga is no longer just about one man’s poor choices. It’s about the institutional corruption that has metastasized around him — a rot so deep that even the truth struggles to survive.
Until that changes, the cover-up continues.
