This article originally appeared on WND.com
Guest post by Bob Unruh
Compensation being paid, and DOJ using ‘this example’ to train federal prosecutors.
Two former FBI officials who were punished under the Biden administration for their efforts to expose a protection scheme for first son Hunter Biden now have reached settlements in their lawsuits.
Hunter Biden, of course, faced both gun and tax charge convictions, cases that could have left him behind bars for years.
Then his daddy gave him a get-out-of-jail free card through a presidential pardon that Joe Biden actually signed, unlike many of his pardons that were issued through autopen signatures.
The settlements were reach for former Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joe Ziegler who had charged illegal retaliation against them.
The settlements with the IRS and Justice Department (DOJ) “included significant compensation for damages and a requirement for new training for federal prosecutors to deter future whistleblower retaliation.”
They two issued a statement:
“We have been in the public eye because we did our duties as loyal public servants. We legally blew the whistle when Hunter Biden almost escaped prosecution for his crimes because he was the President’s son. We had to file a lawsuit against Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, because he falsely accused us of committing serious felonies in retaliation. Since then, Biden pled guilty to his crimes and has been pardoned. He also dropped his lawsuit against the IRS targeting us for our protected disclosures.
“We have recently concluded settlement agreements of our claims that the DOJ and IRS illegally retaliated against us for blowing the whistle on the improper politicization of that case.
“In addition to substantial compensation for the harm we suffered, the DOJ has agreed to use this example to train all federal prosecutors for years to come, so other brave civil servants are not victimized the way we were.
“Today, a federal judge announced that when Abbe Lowell published that we had committed a ‘clear-cut crime unprotected by any whistleblower statute’ and other similar allegations, he was merely speaking his opinion. Although the judge dismissed our defamation case, we disagree that Lowell’s attack was just his opinion and will consider whether to appeal.
“We think the record speaks for itself about what we did, who Biden is, and the value of Lowell’s so-called opinion.”
They had exposed, through protected disclosures, the “preferential treatment” given to the young Biden.
What followed was a “well-funded campaign to smear” them, they said.
The settlement was announced by Empower Oversight, a nonpartisan group that works to improve oversight of government wrongdoing.
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