Hunter Biden has agreed to drop his federal lawsuit against IRS whistle-blowers who publicly argued federal investigations against then-President Joe Biden’s son were being mishandled by their agency and by the Justice Department.

"Intimidation and retaliation were never going to work,” IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley and IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler, who publicly raised concerns about what they considered the federal government’s slow-walking of the investigation, they said following the announcement Wednesday evening that the suit had been dismissed.

The lawyers for Hunter Biden filed a joint notice with the IRS telling the federal judge that they “hereby give notice of the dismissal with prejudice of all claims asserted in the Amended Complaint” that had been filed by their client. 

The dismissal being made “with prejudice” essentially means that the lawsuit cannot be brought again.

“It’s always been clear that the lawsuit was an attempt to intimidate us," Shapley and Ziegler said. “However, we were always motivated by doing the right thing, defending our work, and honoring our duty to the American people.” 

Biden attorneys filed a lawsuit against the IRS in September 2023, alleging “agents have targeted and sought to embarrass Mr. Biden via public statements to the media in which they and their representatives disclosed confidential information about a private citizen’s tax matters.”

“While Mr. Biden has been the victim of various leaks regarding the IRS investigation previously, most recently, two IRS agents – Mr. Gary Shapley and Mr. Joseph Ziegler – and their attorneys raised the stakes to unprecedented levels with their numerous public appearances," they said.

The lawyers doubled down on these claims in a February 2024 amended complaint to the federal court.

The legal team for the IRS whistle-blowers, at Empower Oversight, on Wednesday said: “Hunter Biden brought this lawsuit against two honorable federal agents in retaliation for blowing the whistle on the preferential treatment he was given by President Biden’s Department of Justice," they said. "Shapley and Ziegler did nothing wrong."

Empower Oversight released findings in February from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, in which the lawyers said OSC found ​​”the IRS issued illegal gag orders and improperly removed them from the Hunter Biden investigation as reprisal for their protected disclosures.”

The IRS whistle-blowers said in congressional transcripts that Justice Department special counsel David Weiss claimed that he was limited in his prosecutorial decision-making despite then-Attorney General Merrick Garland’s claims to the contrary and that a Hunter Biden business associate told the FBI that Joe Biden had stopped by at least one China-related business meeting at Hunter Biden’s apparent request.

They also said “optics” prevented a search warrant at a guest house at the Biden family home in Delaware and that the assistant U.S. attorney in the Delaware federal prosecutor’s office had told investigators “don’t ask about the big guy” – in reference to Joe Biden.

Hunter Biden initially reached a plea agreement in 2023 with Weiss on federal charges related to tax crimes and the illegal purchase of a handgun. The deal collapsed under scrutiny by a federal judge the next month, due in part to the revelations made by the IRS whistle-blowers.

After the deal collapsed, Biden was convicted by a Delaware jury on gun charges in June, then pleaded guilty to tax charges in California in September 2024. 

Then-President Biden pardoned his son in December of 2024, despite promising he wouldn’t do so.

The two IRS whistle-blowers who shed light on what they considered failures to properly investigate Hunter Biden – and who were allegedly retaliated against as a result – received promotions from the Trump administration in March. Shapley and Ziegler are now serving as senior advisers to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.