Hunter Biden’s lawyer lashes out at IRS whistleblowers in error-filled letter

An attorney for first son Hunter Biden attacked House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) in a mistake-filled letter Friday, claiming the panel was coordinating with IRS whistleblowers on a “misinformation campaign to harm” his client.

Abbe Lowell, a high-profile Washington, DC, defense attorney who joined Hunter’s legal team late last year, accused Smith, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) of basing House investigations into the first son on “unsworn and slanted statements” by IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley and another anonymous investigator.

Lowell suggested the IRS workers made their disclosures to Congress “in an attempt to evade their own misconduct,” saying both they and Smith had violated federal laws in making public statements about the probe.

The lawyer pointed out that the whistleblowers had not been warned about incriminating themselves and were not sworn in before their closed-door deposition, though that practice is commonly reserved for public hearings.

Lowell also baselessly suggested that Shapley was the source of an Oct. 6, 2022, Washington Post article that revealed prosecutors had “sufficient evidence to charge” Hunter Biden.

Shapley has, under threat of perjury, denied that he was the source of the report and maintains that he has followed rules for protected disclosures to Congress after initially speaking to watchdogs at the Justice and Treasury Departments. Under those rules, Shapley had to receive special permission from either Smith or Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), before describing his allegations to his own attorneys — which he wanted to do before his congressional deposition.

The whistleblower’s lawyers also say his committee testimony was conducted far more carefully than an earlier deposition involving former President Donald Trump’s tax records.

Lowell in his letter denied that Hunter’s laptop — which provided evidence for the federal probe into the now-53-year-old — had been abandoned or its data authenticated, despite Shapley testifying the FBI had verified its contents in November 2019.

Hunter’s attorney also falsely claimed the first son never responded to an email from associate Tony Bobulinski — who according to Lowell coined the phrase “10 held by H for the big guy,” — that dealt compensation from a 2017 joint venture with Chinese energy company CEFC.

Email evidence from the laptop shows the first son had responded: “It will all work Tony just trying to elaborate on certain existing pressures so we are all aware going in.” The “big guy” phrase was used by another Biden business partner, James Gilliar — not Bobulinski — and Hunter responded to that email both by demanding more money to help pay the cost of his divorce from first wife Kathleen Buhle, as well as that his longtime office manager Joan Peugh be brought in as well.

Lowell also took issue with testimony that claimed Hunter used his father as leverage in a text message days before the CEFC deal went through, pointing to places in Shapley’s testimony that named a businessman who did not work for the Chinese energy company.

However, Hunter likely sent the WhatsApp message to CEFC employee and translator Raymond Zhao on July 30, 2017, not Henry Zhao, whose name appears in the House transcript.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter wrote, threatening that he would “make certain … that you will regret not following my direction.”

Over the next 10 days, the first son’s law firm, Owasco P.C., took $100,000 from a CEFC subsidiary. Another $5 million went to a Hudson West III bank account, which made a series of deposits to Owasco, eventually totaling nearly $4.8 million.

Lowell said the WhatsApp messages posted by Smith were “fakes,” without acknowledging the images were based on Shapley’s testimony about communications obtained from Hunter’s iCloud via a search warrant in August 2020, and were not meant to be actual screenshots.

The IRS whistleblowers have alleged the Justice Department interfered in a five-year investigation into Hunter Biden’s potential tax crimes, allowing the first son to plead guilty to misdemeanors and evade $2.2 million in missed payments.

“It’s little surprise that Hunter Biden’s attorneys are attempting to chill our investigation and discredit the whistleblowers who say they have already faced retaliation from the IRS and the Department of Justice despite statutory protections established by law,” Smith said in a statement. “These whistleblowers bravely came forward with allegations about misconduct and preferential treatment for Hunter Biden – and now face attacks even from an army of lawyers he hired.

“Worse, this letter misleads the public about the lawful actions taken by the Ways and Means Committee, which took the appropriate legal steps to share this information with rest of Congress,” the chairman went on. “It doesn’t even address concerns that counsel for Mr. Biden was regularly tipped off about potential warrants and raids in pursuit of evidence that implicated him, as well as his father. We will continue to go where the facts take us—and we will not abandon our investigation just because Mr. Biden’s lawyers don’t like it.”

“The White House is terrified,” the House Judiciary Committee said on Twitter in response to Lowell’s letter. “Full panic mode.”