Whistleblower Gary Shapley Should Be Appointed Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service

[P.S.: Jason Foster tells me that Gary Shapley *does* meet the GS-15 pay requirement, and is eligible to be Acting Commissioner.]

Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler are longtime IRS civil service employees who were assigned to the Hunter Biden tax evasion case. The Justice Department slow-walked the case, gave warning to the Bidens before doing searches, and then tried to give Hunter a plea deal on a minor gun charge that would immunize him from the tax evasion charges (as well as bribery, foreign agent registration, and any other crimes he might have committed. The judge wouldn’t accept the plea deal, and it came to public attention. Shapley and Ziegler testified before Congress, and were retaliated against by the IRS. Hunter Biden was reprosecuted, his father choosing the same corrupt prosecutor to do it, but this time as a “Special Prosecutor”, and given a deal not quite as sweet, and then pardoned altogether.

I suggest that President Trump appoint Shapley (or Ziegler) as Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. Shapley would only be in the position for a month or so, until the permanent Commissioner is confirmed by the Senate, but this would be a well-deserved honor for Mr. Shapley and a well-deserved slap in the face for civil service top leadership of the IRS, all of whom would love to have this on their resumes.

President Trump has nominate Billy Long to be the new IRS Commissioner. He needs to be confirmed by the Senate, first. Biden’s Commissioner has resigned, so there has to be an Acting Commissioner for the short period of time till the new Commissioner is confirmed. Deputy IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell is now Acting Commissioner. That is routine: the law says that if the Commissioner steps down or dies, the Deputy Commissioner replaces him. This is necessary because if the vacancy is by sudden death, or is a temporary vacancy because of illness, someone has to fill the position immediately.

But Doug O’Donnell is an evil man.

So President Trump should act. Even now, O’Donnell is no doubt fortifying the Internal Revenue Service against control by the New Commissioner, hiring Democrats as civil servants and removing evidence that the top administrators are loyal Biden people who cooperated in blocking the investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax evasion.

5 US Code 3345, the Vacancies Act, says who President Trump can appoint as Acting Commissioner.

Shapley and Ziegler have served with the IRS during the preceding 365 days. Were they paid enough to qualify? I haven’t been able to find out.¹ It doesn’t matter, though. Appoint Shapley anyway. Somebody can complain, and somebody can sue. The suit will take much longer than the term of the Acting Commissioner. The argument there will be that Shapley *should* have been given salary raises to bring him up to the GS-15 level, but he wasn’t. It would be Democrats who sue. They come with “unclean hands”, and should not get the benefit of their villainy. The same argument can be made to meet media attacks. Public opinion will see that it is unjust and ungenerous to stop President Trump from honoring a whistleblower who was denied promotion on a technicality— and here the technicality would be that he was denied promotion!

I hope someone brings to this to the attention of Billy Long or President Trump. I think both of them would like the idea, and action must be taken quickly.

Footnotes

1. The 2024 pay of a GS-15 starts at $163,964. But steps 7, 8, 9, and 10 of GS-14 jobs pay more than that, so a senior GS-14 would qualify. And the IRS has its own complex IR-01 pay system.