Abbe Lowell is the high-powered Washington lawyer who has undertaken the defense of Hunter Biden by going on offense. Lowell entered the scene with an intimidating volley of criminal referrals and cease-and-desist letters this past February. He has asked federal and state prosecutors to investigate John Paul Mac Isaac and others he accused of disseminating Biden’s personal data. He also threatened former Fox News host Tucker Carlson with a defamation claim for good measure.
ABC News and other outlets reported that Lowell “wrote lengthy letters to the Justice Department and the Delaware attorney general requesting criminal inquiries into allies of former President Donald Trump, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who were involved in spreading data from a laptop Hunter Biden is said to have left at a Delaware repair shop in 2019.” The quote is from Bloomberg’s story.
As the adage has it, the best defense is a good offense. Hunter Biden has added a footnote to the adage. Having friends in high places is even better.
Further executing his “best defense” strategy this week on Hunter Biden’s behalf, Lowell sent a wild 10-page letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith yesterday. The letter is posted online here. Lowell attacks congressional Republicans for their investigation of the Biden family business (that’s not how he puts it). He attacks the IRS whistleblowers whose testimony Smith released last week.
Lowell is all but swinging his arms in windmill fashion. He alleges, for example, that the Smith’s release of the transcripts “violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the tax laws and federal rules governing investigations[.]” So I take it that Smith didn’t violate any law releasing the transcripts.
The whistleblowers aren’t whistleblowers. They don’t understand the merits of the lenient deal Hunter Biden has arranged with prosecutors. They themselves are possibly guilty of illegal misconduct. And so on, and so on.
Abbe is gabby, but do read the whole thing, or at least the highlights featured by Axios in its scoop. It is superficially impressive. It calls for some response.
Gary Shapley is the IRS whistleblower who has emerged to air his charges in public. He is knowledgeable and impressive witness. His attorney is Mark Lytle. Lytle and Tristan Leavitt responded on Shapley’s behalf with this statement that is accessible online here:
Biden family lawyers have resorted to intimidation before—reportedly threatening federal prosecutors with “career suicide” if they charged Hunter Biden—so this attempt to intimidate our client and the oversight authorities scrutinizing the politicization of that case is no surprise. IRS SSA Gary Shapley has scrupulously followed the rules and blew the whistle to Congress about the unequal application of tax laws pursuant to 26 U.S.C. §6103(f)(5) and 5 U.S.C. §2302(b)(8)(C), a process facilitated lawfully by the authority of both Chairs of the tax committees, including Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR)—with whom we are still working cooperatively to arrange follow-up testimony to supplement for the Senate any topics not covered in the transcripts of questioning by Republican and Democrat staff already released by the House Ways and Means Committee.
SSA Shapley referred the October 6, 2022 leak for investigation to the inspectors general (IGs) of his own agency and DOJ. He volunteered to make the referral to his supervisors as is shown in the very same email that reports that U.S. Attorney David Weiss “was not the deciding person on whether charges are filed.” Ex. 10. 5/23/2023 testimony of Gary Shapley. Falsely alleging that he was a leaker is just another baseless attack on him for blowing the whistle.
All the innuendo and bluster that Biden family lawyers can summon will not change the facts. Lawful whistleblowing is the opposite of illegal leaking, and these bogus accusations against SSA Shapley by lawyers for the Biden family echo threatening emails sent by IRS leadership after the case agent also blew the whistle to the IRS Commissioner about favoritism in this case—as well as the chilling report that Biden attorneys have also lobbied the Biden Justice Department directly to target our client with criminal inquiry in further retaliation for blowing the whistle. These threats and intimidation have already been referred earlier this week to the inspectors general for DOJ and the IRS, and to Congress for further investigation as potential obstruction of their lawful inquiries as well as retaliation against our client.
Lytle’s statement includes links to supporting documents and evidence at the bottom of the statement. Josh Christenson and Miranda Devine further undermine Lowell’s letter in the New York Post story “Hunter Biden’s lawyer lashes out at IRS whistleblowers ‘misinformation campaign’ in error-filled letter.”
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