Hunter Biden lawyer Abbe Lowell denied that Joe Biden was sitting with Hunter Biden as stated in a 2017 WhatsApp message to a Chinese business associate and went scorched earth on the IRS whistleblowers in a letter sent on Friday to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) that also attacked the committee’s investigation into the handling of Hunter’s tax and gun charges. The letter comes after the committee released (following a party line vote) transcripts and evidence provided by the whistleblowers last week. The transcripts and evidence contain stunning allegations of criminality by Hunter and Joe Biden as well as accusations of obstruction and sabotage of the investigation by officials with the Justice Department.
Abbe Lowell, file photo by Scott J. Ferrell Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images
The WhatsApp text dated July 30,2017 that was obtained by the IRS from Hunter’s Apple iCloud account reads, “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
Lowell responded: “… The facts, which some media has now reported, are that President Biden and our client were not together that day, the company being referenced was not CEFC but Harvest Financial Group (with a person who also had the initial “Z”), and that no transaction actually occurred…”
Lowell took direct aim at whistleblower Gary Shapley, a senior IRS investigator who has gone public with his allegations against Hunter Biden and the DOJ.
The letter was reported by Axios.
Excerpts from the ten page Lowell letter.
Since taking the majority in 2023, various leaders of the House and its committees have discarded the established protocols of Congress, rules of conduct, and even the law in what can only be called an obsession with attacking the Biden family. Your recent actions and joint statement with Chairmen Comer and Jordan make clear that you have joined this ignoble group, adopting their irresponsible tactics as your own. In fact, yesterday’s press release by the three of you seeking the testimony of a dozen law enforcement personnel based on the unsworn and slanted statements of the IRS agents is now the proverbial card castle—something that looks real but has no foundation.
Releasing the transcripts of and exhibits from interviews of self-styled IRS “whistleblowers” who may be claiming that title in an attempt to evade their own misconduct was an obvious ploy to feed the misinformation campaign to harm our client, Hunter Biden, as a vehicle to attack his father. It is no secret these interviews were orchestrated recitations of mischaracterized and incomplete “facts” by disgruntled agents who believed they knew better than the federal prosecutors who had all the evidence as they conducted their five-year investigation of Mr. Biden.
Let me be specific: (a) your release of material violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the tax laws and federal rules governing investigations; (b) your attempt to protect the IRS agents was a transparent effort to provide cover to those with a bias and an axe to grind so deep and sharp as to have allowed them to avoid answering for their own conduct under oath; and (c) you then choreographed the dissemination of incomplete half-truths, distortions, and totally unnecessary details about Mr. Biden.
…Now that these shortcomings have been noticed, will the Committee follow up now and ask everyone who came or comes forward and claims the title of “whistleblower” to answer those questions? In that regard, it was more than a little odd for Mr. Shapley to start his interview by declaring “[t]here is no reward for me becoming a whistleblower” and to conclude his interview by thanking the Committee and saying: “Just thanks for listening. My life’s on the line here, so do what you can?” Mr. Shapley may be reaping the “reward” from the cover you have given him considering the penalties for agents illegally leaking this type of information. And how could Mr. Shapley’s life “be on the line” (e.g., was he suggesting someone in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware or elsewhere was threatening him physically? If so, wouldn’t intimidation or threats to a federal agent be ripe for inquiry by the Committee?). Perhaps, Mr. Shapley was referring to his status in some investigation of his own conduct, and his plea to have your Committee “do what you can” was to help him in that regard.
In one excerpt that has now gotten a great deal of media attention, Mr. Biden is alleged to have been sitting next to his father on July 30, 2017, when he allegedly sent a WhatsApp message, urging the completion of some business transaction. See Shapley Tr. at 14. The inference is that the referenced message was being sent to an official of CEFC (China Energy) to forward a false narrative about the Bidens’ involvement in that company. The facts, which some media has now reported, are that President Biden and our client were not together that day, the company being referenced was not CEFC but Harvest Financial Group (with a person who also had the initial “Z”), and that no transaction actually occurred. More important, your own actions call into question the authenticity of that communication and your subsequent use of it. The agent only described one message, but you took that purported text and disseminated images of it on June 22 and June 24 in two Twitter postings.
The screen-grab images you posted are not real and contain myriad of issues: both include a photo of Mr. Biden not from 2017 but from the White House Easter Eggroll in April 2022 (long after the purported message was sent); both images portray the message in a blue bubble, when WhatsApp messages are in green; one image super-imposed the Chinese flag for the contact ID, when surely that was not how a text or contact was kept; and one purports to be a screenshot with the “. . .” of someone composing a text (as in Apple’s iMessage) when that does not happen on WhatsApp. In short, the images you circulated online are complete fakes. Many media articles confirm that data purported to have come from Mr. Biden’s devices has been altered or manipulated. You, or someone else, did that again. All of the misstatements about this communication and your use of a false text are good examples of how providing one-sided, untested, and slanted information leads to improper conclusions.
Referenced tweets by Rep. Smith:
JOE WAS IN THE ROOM. pic.twitter.com/2WYAP8YWS6
— Jason Smith (@JasonSmithMO) June 22, 2023
Here is that text: pic.twitter.com/51rbUaur4X
— Rep. Jason Smith (@RepJasonSmith) June 24, 2023
…Furthermore, various statements by the agents demonstrate either a misunderstanding by the agents or, worse, a purposeful attempt to create a false narrative. These include the red-herring issue of appointing the U.S. Attorney in Delaware to be a special counsel when for all intents and purposes the delegation to that U.S. Attorney was as great as that which a special counsel would receive; that prosecutors “let” statutes of limitations expire rather than deciding that a charge was not supported for a year in which a statute of limitations running was irrelevant; implying that the October 7, 2022, meeting in Delaware of prosecutors and agents was somehow the agents’ doing when it is clear from the chronology that it was called the day after a destructive media leak by some agent, likely made with the intent to pressure some inappropriate decision in the investigation; that the agents knew better than the lawyers as to whether an attorney-client privilege review of material was required; or that a Tax Division memorandum recommended some type of charge(s) when the agent admits he never saw it.
Chairman Smith, it is easy when a committee does not operate with fairness and thoroughness and an adherence to rules and procedures to forward a false political narrative. You have done that, and it appears that you (joined now by other Republican chairs who have also been
shown to shoot first—sometimes at their own feet—and aim second) will continue to do that. We can only hope that the specious methods you are using, some of which are laid out in this letter, will inform the public of the right way things should be done.
Sincerely,
Abbe David Lowell
Counsel for Robert Hunter Biden
The post Hunter Biden Lawyer Abbe Lowell Denies Joe Biden Was With Hunter in WhatsApp Text, Attacks IRS Whistleblowers in Letter to Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.