Amid growing outrage over the lenient plea deal struck by Hunter Biden to settle an ongoing probe of his tax affairs and allegations of a separate gun offense, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley has stepped forward to make additional allegations of Justice Department interference in the investigative process, as USA Today reports.

Having already made claims to Congress about significant flaws in the investigation of the first son, Shapley sat for an interview with CBS News last week in which he expanded on what he knew.

Investigation impeded

According to Shapley, during the time he was working as the supervisory agent in charge of the Hunter Biden probe, his team of investigators was prevented from taking steps that should have put the first son in jail and “could have led us to President [Joe] Biden.”

Shapley also noted that his investigators unearthed evidence about numerous unlawful business expenses claimed by Hunter Biden, including some related to “prostitutes, sex club memberships, hotel rooms for purported drug dealers” and the like, as the New York Post noted.

“If this was any other person,” Shapley opined, “they likely would have already served their sentence,” and the probe would never have dragged on as long as it did without any charges being filed.

According to the whistleblower, there are also substantial inconsistencies between what Attorney General Merrick Garland has said regarding the supposedly full authority U.S. Attorney David Weiss was given to bring charges against Hunter Biden in any jurisdiction he wished something Shapley says runs counter to his own personal – and documented – observations.

House probe heats up

Shapley is just one of two IRS whistleblowers who have provided testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee on alleged Justice Department interference in the Biden probe, and it does not appear that the panel has any intention of backing off further examination of what occurred.

Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) issued a statement informing the public that the IRS whistleblowers “describe how the Biden Justice Department intervened and overstepped in a campaign to protect the son of Joe Biden by delaying, divulging, and denying an ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden's alleged tax crimes.”

Vowing to continue the committee's work in this regard, Smith stated, “If the federal government is not treating all taxpayers equally, or if it is changing the rules to engineer a preferred outcome, Congress has a duty to ask why and to hold agencies accountable and consider appropriate legislative action.”

“The scales of justice must not be skewed in favor of the wealthy and the politically connected, “Smith added.

Rejection of plea deal urged

As Fox News confirmed, the plea agreement reportedly reached with Hunter Biden will see him plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and also enter a pretrial diversion agreement on a charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance, a scenario which will spare him any time behind bars.

Hunter Biden is set to appear before U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika on July 26 to finalize the deal, but at least one former DOJ official is urging her to reject the agreement outright, as Fox News further noted.

Eileen O'Connor, former head of the Justice Department's tax division penned an op-ed last week suggesting that Hunter's deal go straight into the “trash,” citing the whistleblower's claims as the reason why.

“The Justice Department's alleged foot-dragging and refusal to permit IRS special agents to follow the evidence” render the plea agreement a mistake, in O'Connor's estimation, and that is a conclusion with which former Director of National Intelligence and U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe agreed, citing Shapley's claims, WhatsApp messages that appear to implicate Hunter and Joe Biden in the shakedown of a Chinese businessman, and the fact that the first son's gun charge is a felony that can – and often does – bring a decade in prison for those not named Biden.