Hunter Biden Affair: Accountability, Whistleblowing & State Power
Former US President Joe Biden makes his first post-Presidency speech (Image credit X.com)
A comparative analysis of political accountability through international parallels in China, Peru, Rwanda, and India — examining how state enforcement and whistleblowing shape public morality.
By P SESH KUMAR
New Delhi, October 21, 2025 — The settlement between two IRS Criminal Investigation whistle-blowers and the US Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Treasury over the Hunter Biden investigation has revived age-old questions about how justice operates when political power and family privilege collide. The episode—combining claims of retaliation, selective leniency, and institutional fragility—illuminates a broader global pattern in which investigations become weapons or shields depending on who wields authority.
When Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, senior IRS Criminal Investigation agents, alleged that their superiors softened scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s tax case because he was the President’s son, they punctured the myth of bureaucratic neutrality in Washington. Their retaliation claim, later settled with compensation and mandatory DOJ training on whistle-blower protection, exposes how even advanced democracies wrestle with power’s gravitational pull inside institutions meant to resist it.
Hunter Biden’s 2023 plea arrangement over tax and gun charges collapsed under judicial questioning. A year later he was convicted for lying on a firearms form and admitted to failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes. Then, just before leaving office, his father issued a pardon—transforming a courtroom story into a political parable.
The whistle-blowers insist the fix was in long before the pardon. They cite red-lined evidence trails, forbidden interview requests, and supervisors nervous about proximity to “the First Family.” Whether those claims are fully provable or not, the settlement signifies an implicit acknowledgment that retaliation occurred. It also dramatizes a perennial truth: the perception of unequal justice can damage faith in law as deeply as corruption itself.
Whistle-Blowing and Institutional Fragility
Modern bureaucracies celebrate internal dissent in theory and punish it in practice. The Shapley-Ziegler settlement, which obliges the DOJ to educate prosecutors on retaliation risk, is both symbolic and corrective. It mirrors a pattern visible in every democracy-agencies priding themselves on transparency but shunning those who test it. The American whistle-blower, like his Indian or European counterpart, stands on the uneasy line between heroism and heresy.
Selective Justice and the “Witch-Hunt” Syndrome
Whenever political families or ruling elites face prosecution, the accusation of “witch-hunt” surfaces. In the Hunter Biden affair, as in the Trump investigations that preceded it, law-enforcement became a battlefield of narratives: is the target a criminal or a casualty of politics? History reminds us that the label “witch-hunt” emerged not from superstition alone but from moments when legal systems acted as instruments of ideology.
Global Parallels of Political Prosecution
China: The Bo Xilai Affair
Bo Xilai’s downfall in 2012—amid Xi Jinping’s rise—was styled as an anti-corruption triumph but functioned as a factional purge. His wife was convicted of murder, his son scrutinized for privilege, and Bo himself sentenced to life imprisonment. The moral of the story: where politics determines who falls, legality is choreography.
Peru: The Fujimori Reckoning
Former president Alberto Fujimori’s 2009 conviction for corruption and human-rights abuses followed a regime collapse. His later pardon, engineered through political bargaining involving his son Kenji, blurred repentance and expedience. Justice arrived—but only after power had safely changed hands.
Rwanda: The Rwigara Persecution
Diane Rwigara’s arrest on tax-evasion and forgery charges days after announcing her presidential bid in 2017 revealed how swiftly law can turn partisan. Her acquittal came only after international outcry. When families challenge entrenched authority, prosecutions often become tools of containment.
India: The Politics of Prosecution and Protection
India’s democracy, too, is grappling with a widening credibility crisis over its enforcement architecture. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and the Income Tax Department have all faced accusations of being weaponized against opposition politicians, journalists, and civic critics. The number of ED cases against political figures reportedly tripled after 2014, with the overwhelming majority involving leaders of rival parties.
The pattern has become disturbingly familiar: opposition chief ministers and party treasurers are raided, interrogated, and jailed under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) or disproportionate-assets laws-often during election seasons. Yet the moment some of these figures switch allegiance to the ruling coalition, investigations appear to evaporate or charges are quietly put on hold.
Critics argue that this “raid-and-rehabilitate” culture turns criminal law into a loyalty test. Supporters of the government counter that the agencies are merely reclaiming the rule of law after decades of impunity. The Supreme Court’s 2022 upholding of expanded PMLA powers (though under review) further tilted the balance in favor of enforcement, while opposition parties warn of a creeping “investigative federalism” where fiscal and criminal instruments serve electoral ends.
India before 2014: The UPA Years of Enforcement Excess
Criticism of selective justice did not begin with the current regime. During the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) era (2004-2014), the CBI and ED were similarly accused of targeting political opponents under pressure from the ruling Congress-led coalition. High-profile examples included probes against Chief Ministers from the BJP and regional parties such as the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party over disproportionate-assets and mining cases.
In 2013, the Supreme Court famously described the CBI as a “caged parrot” that “speaks in its master’s voice”. Opposition leaders alleged that central agencies were unleashed to keep coalition partners compliant and adversaries cowed, while allies implicated in the 2G Spectrum or Commonwealth Games scandals enjoyed negotiated impunity. The same charge-sheet, in other words, merely changed political address after 2014.
This continuity of coercion underscores a systemic flaw: Indian enforcement agencies lack structural independence. They are constitutionally subordinate to the executive of the day, their leadership tenure insecure, and their investigative discretion vulnerable to ministerial approval. As a result, each regime inherits the tools of its predecessor and uses them with renewed finesse.
In effect, India mirrors the global paradox seen in the Biden case and elsewhere: institutions designed to ensure accountability are themselves perceived as partisan. As with the IRS and DOJ in the US, the real damage lies not only in who is prosecuted but in who is spared. The erosion of uniform enforcement corrodes the moral legitimacy of both the state and the law.
The American Variant Revisited
In the US, the checks of independent judiciary, congressional oversight, and free press still offer ballast. Yet the Hunter Biden affair shows that even these guardrails can wobble when family and power intersect. The settlement with the IRS whistle-blowers is less about money than about institutional conscience: it concedes that political gravity bends even the most technocratic agencies.
From Chongqing to Kigali, Lima to New Delhi and Washington, justice repeatedly wrestles with its oldest nemesis—power. The Hunter Biden episode, the ED’s raids in India, Bo Xilai’s purge in China, and Fujimori’s trial in Peru all spring from the same soil: regimes using law to signal virtue while settling scores.
The true test of democracy is not how loudly it proclaims equality before law, but how quietly it applies it when allies falter and opponents rise. Whistle-blowers, investigative journalists, and honest officers remain its fragile guardians. Without them, every republic risks becoming a court of convenience-where justice bends, truth is punished, and the law becomes the latest weapon in politics’ endless war.
(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)
Low Conviction Rates of ED and CBI Raise Credibility Concerns
Follow The Raisina Hills on WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn
About The Author
