Exclusive | Scott Bessent’s sudden visit to IRS office — with whistleblowers –

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made an impromptu visit to the IRS Thursday, six days after commissioner Billy Long was ousted by the president for unexplained reasons, the sixth tax chief to bite the dust this year.

As acting commissioner, Bessent spent 45 minutes in the building to reassure the troops that he is hands-on and taking charge of the organization after a period of uncertainty.

But the two visitors he brought with him sent an even stronger message: IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler, who testified to Congress last year about the corrupted investigation into Hunter Biden, strode into the building side by side with Bessent. 

They are now advisers to the Secretary, focused on integrity and reform to ensure all taxpayers are treated the same.

“By visiting the building with Shapley and Ziegler, Secretary Bessent is sending a message to IRS Personnel that he is hands-on acting chief, focused on implementation of OBBB [tax cuts in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act] and long overdue modernization,” said a Treasury spokesperson.  

“He has stated his goals are collections, customer service and privacy.”

For Shapley and Ziegler, it was a sweet return to the organization that they felt had retaliated against them after they blew the whistle. Bessent introduced them to the senior leaders in the commissioner’s office recently vacated by Long.

It was due to the pair’s protected whistleblower disclosures that Hunter’s sweetheart deal with the DOJ blew up.

It was their investigatory work that was ultimately used in the criminal charges against Hunter, who was found guilty of gun felonies by a jury in Delaware and pleaded guilty to tax fraud in California, but was granted a presidential pardon by his father, Joe Biden, before he was sentenced.