Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell is asserting that two Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblowers are part of a Republican smear campaign to damage President Joe Biden, but appeared himself to have spread multiple falsehoods in his letter to the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
A high-powered lawyer who has represented numerous Democratic political figures, Lowell wrote Friday in a letter to Republican Missouri Rep. Jason Smith that IRS Supervisory Agent Gary Shapley and an unnamed agent offered “unsworn and slanted statements” in a bid to “evade their own misconduct.”
Lowell asserted that Shapley and the other whistleblower were not asked appropriate questions and lied to investigators, but Lowell makes multiple claims in the letter that appear to be false. (RELATED: Top Democrat Releases Biden Bribery Document With At Least One Falsehood)
Lowell claimed in the letter that, in departing from common practice, the two whistleblowers were not informed by the committee that “providing false testimony could lead to criminal charges. However, both interview transcripts explicitly show Republican attorneys warning Shapley and the other whistleblower that they are “required to answer questions from Congress truthfully” and “could be subject to criminal prosecution for perjury or for making false statements” if they lied.
NEW w/ @StefWKight: Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell has sent a blistering letter to House Ways and Means chairman Jason smith over the IRS Transcripts, accusing him of “feed the misinformation campaign to harm our client…as a vehicle to attack his father.”https://t.co/iat8DBcIFC pic.twitter.com/rkqQJtwkm9
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) June 30, 2023
In another instance, Lowell stated that Joe and Hunter Biden were not together the day that Hunter allegedly sent a WhatsApp message in which he threatened a Chinese businessman. However, Hunter Biden took a picture of himself posing with two women in Joe Biden’s Corvette at the Biden home in Delaware the same day he sent the message, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Biden’s lawyer insisted that the alleged text message revealed by Shapley is a “false text” based on graphics House Republicans created with Biden’s text in them. Lowell does not claim that the words are fabricated and does not acknowledge Shapley’s testimony about the search warrant obtained in August 2020 to search Biden’s iCloud data.
“For example, in August 2020, we got the results back from an iCloud search warrant. Unlike the laptop, these came to the investigative team from a third-party record keeper and included a set of messages,” Shapley testified. (RELATED: Oversight Republicans Demand Suspicious Activity Reports For Biden Bribery Investigation)
Lowell also implied that data from Hunter Biden’s laptop “including communications the agent was relying on,” was not “authentic.” The authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop data has been confirmed by numerous media organizations, including The New York Times, Washington Post, CBS News and the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Biden’s attorneys appeared to concede the data was real in February when they demanded the Department of Justice investigate Delaware computer repairman John Paul Mac Isaac for illegally accessing it, something Lowell does not address in the letter.
“Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to gaining access to our client’s personal computer data without Mr. Biden’s consent. Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to copying that data without Mr. Biden’s consent, and Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to distributing copies of that data to the political enemies of Mr. Biden’s father, without Mr. Biden’s consent. These unlawful actions caused the widespread publication, manipulation, and exploitation of Mr. Biden’s most personal information,” Lowell wrote at the time.
Mac Isaac has said he alerted authorities about Biden’s laptop in 2019 and provided paperwork showing Biden left his laptop at the repair shop, according to the New York Post. He was deposed for 7 hours in early June as part of Biden’s countersuit against him after Mac Isaac sued the president’s son and others for defamation.
In addition, Lowell said that Biden did not respond to an email sent in 2017 by former business associate Tony Bobulinski about a venture with Chinese energy firm CEFC. Biden’s laptop archives show he emailed Bobulinski back about the energy deal, the New York Post reported.
“It will all work Tony just trying to elaborate on certain existing pressures so we are all aware going in,” Biden wrote. Lowell also accused Bobulinski of coining the “big guy” term in reference to Joe Biden, even though it was used by business associate James Gilliar, not Bobulinski, Biden’s email archive demonstrates.
“The White House is terrified,” the House Judiciary Committee tweeted in response to the letter. “Full panic mode.”