Hunter Biden is suing the Internal Revenue Service, claiming that the agency launched an “assault” on his privacy by releasing information about his taxes to both Congress and members of the press. It’s the latest salvo by the president’s embattled son in what’s emerged as an aggressive legal strategy to sue and denounce his pursuers.

“This assault on Mr. Biden’s rights involved the public disclosure of his confidential tax information during more than 20 nationally televised and non-congressionally sanctioned interviews and numerous public statements,” the lawsuit states. Mr. Biden’s legal team further argues that he “has no fewer or lesser rights than any other American citizen, and no government agency or government agent has free rein to violate his rights simply because of who he is.” 

The lawsuit was first reported by the Washington Post. 

Mr. Biden’s complaint hinges on public disclosures by two IRS whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who detailed the first son’s tax violations in both press interviews and congressional testimony. Some of the embarrassing disclosures included allegations that Mr. Biden claimed tax write-offs for expenditures on prostitutes and for a six-week vacation at a chalet at the South of France where he “learned to cook crack,” as he put it in his addiction memoir.  

In July, the two whistleblowers testified before the House Oversight Committee that the Department of Justice had given “preferential treatment” to Mr. Biden during the years-long criminal investigation into the first son, saying that any other person would be facing significant criminal charges for the violations Mr. Biden committed. 

They alleged that the man leading the investigation, Special Counsel David Weiss, told them in private that he had sought special counsel status from his DOJ superiors, but was rebuffed. Mr. Weiss has since said publicly that he never asked for the special counsel status he was granted recently. 

Messrs. Shapley and Ziegler, during their testimony, detailed the nature, scope, and findings of the investigation into Mr. Biden, which lasted nearly five years before Mr. Weiss’s office and the first son’s legal team drew up their ill-fated plea agreement. 

Mr. Ziegler — who noted in his testimony that he is a registered Democrat who voted for President Biden — detailed the significant tax deductions Mr. Biden took throughout the 2010s. The first son, during his years of struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, falsely claimed multiple personal expenses to be business-related on his tax forms, allowing him to pay lower tax rates. In addition to alleging that Mr. Biden took tax deductions on the prostitutes and crack-cooking French vacation, Mr. Ziegler also alleged that Mr. Biden listed tuition payments for his daughter’s college and membership in “sex clubs” as business expenses. 

Mr. Ziegler also disclosed information about Mr. Biden’s infamous stint as a board member of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. 

Mr. Biden “knowingly” failed to report his income from his time as a board member of Burisma, Mr. Ziegler told the Oversight Committee. Mr. Ziegler claimed that based on these alleged “willful” violations of federal tax law — which occurred in 2014 and 2018 — both prosecutors from Mr. Weiss’s office and investigators at the IRS recommended multiple felony counts. 

Mr. Biden’s lawsuit argues that in their testimony and interviews, Messrs. Shapley and Ziegler released “detailed allegations regarding the specific tax years under investigation, the amounts of deductions, the nature of those deductions, and allegations of liability regarding specific tax years and the amount thereof, that could only be known to them based on a review of the physical tax returns themselves.”

As part of his aggressive legal strategy, Mr. Biden is also suing the proprietor of the computer repair store where he abandoned his now-infamous laptop, John Paul Mac Isaac, for invasion of privacy. Mr. Biden was recently deposed for several hours by Mr. Mac Isacc’s legal team, which was first reported by the New York Post. He is also suing, for invasion of privacy, a former Trump administration staffer, Garrett Ziegler — no relation to Joseph Ziegler — who has published online a vast database of content from the laptop, including highly personal emails and obscene photos.