Hunter Biden moved on Wednesday to dismiss a lawsuit he brought in 2023 against the IRS as part of his broader decision to abandon the legal fights he waged while his father was president.
In a brief one-page dismissal notice, former President Joe Biden’s son alerted the federal court in Washington, D.C., that he was dropping all his allegations against the IRS. No reason was given.
Hunter Biden sued the agency in September 2023, alleging that two of its employees, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, improperly disclosed his confidential tax information and that the IRS failed to install safeguards to protect that information.
The lawsuit came as Hunter Biden was under a yearslong federal investigation for failing to pay his taxes and scrutiny from House Republicans for his business dealings abroad. He was later convicted of nine tax charges and three firearm possession charges, but Joe Biden pardoned him before he received his sentences.
During his father’s campaign and presidency, Hunter Biden, a recovering drug addict, became the subject of near-daily national headlines about his foreign business endeavors and his personal life, driven both by the government’s inquiries and by operatives gaining access to his computer data.
Hunter Biden was largely avoidant of speaking publicly until 2023, when he launched a legal counteroffensive. He sent warning letters to his adversaries and filed a string of lawsuits, including against the IRS, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and Marco Polo and its founder, Garrett Ziegler, who was perhaps the most prolific disseminator of his laptop data.
However, Hunter Biden has since retreated from those fights, partly because they have become too expensive for him. When he dropped his lawsuit against Marco Polo last month, Hunter Biden revealed that he ended the case because he had millions of dollars of debt and was no longer seeing artwork sales or book royalties.
An avid painter, Hunter Biden told the court he thought he would garner income from public appearances after earning an average of $54,000 each on 27 pieces of artwork while his father was president. However, Hunter Biden said he has since only sold one piece of artwork, for just $36,000, and book sales for his memoir Beautiful Things have dropped.
“Given the positive feedback and reviews of my artwork and memoir, I was expecting to obtain paid speaking engagements and paid appearances, but that has not happened,” he said in a court filing.
“While I was aware that my financial position had significantly deteriorated over time, it was not until the past month that I realized I had to take drastic actions to alleviate this situation,” Hunter Biden said.
Hunter Biden dropped his case against Giuliani last year. Last month, instead of fighting to keep his bar license, he consented to being disbarred in Washington over his felony convictions.
Shapley and Ziegler, for their part, unsuccessfully attempted to intervene as a third party in the IRS lawsuit and lamented that it would not move forward. They have maintained that they followed proper protocols in raising complaints about the IRS and the Department of Justice’s investigation into Hunter Biden.
“It’s always been clear that the lawsuit was an attempt to intimidate us. … We truly wanted our day in court to provide the complete story, but it appears Mr. Biden was afraid to actually fight this case in a court of law after all,” they said in a statement. “His voluntary dismissal of the case tells you everything you need to know about who was right and who was wrong.”
HUNTER BIDEN’S ARTWORK — YOU CAN’T GIVE IT AWAY
The pair have reaped rewards for their disclosures, which were a boon to House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.
Shapley was promoted this year to deputy chief of IRS Criminal Investigations, and Ziegler has stayed on as an IRS special agent. Both were also elevated to roles as senior advisers to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
