Two Internal Revenue Service investigators who blew the whistle on Hunter Biden’s tax crimes are suing the presidential son’s lawyer for defamation and are seeking $20 million in damages.
In the lawsuit filed on Friday in a Washington, D.C. court, Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler accuse attorney Abbe Lowell of acting with “clear malice” in making statements to the media to retaliate against their whistleblowing, a cause of great embarrassment to President Joe Biden and serious legal trouble for his ex-crackhead son.
Shapley and Ziegler claim that their careers suffered “incredible and malicious harm” as a result of Lowell’s statements.
“As whistleblowers, Shapley and Ziegler acted with honor and integrity in exposing conflicts of interest, preferential treatment, and political motivations that they reasonably believed were interfering with the criminal tax investigation of Hunter Biden,” reads the D.C. District Court filing.
The two say that they exercised caution and professionalism in blowing the whistle in their disclosures to Congress and that Lowell “falsely and maliciously accused Shapley and Ziegler of committing crimes — namely, the illegal disclosure of grand jury materials and taxpayer return information — despite the fact that they never publicly discussed return information that was not already public.”
“It is particularly ironic and damaging that a well-known attorney like Lowell—in his words, ‘one of the country’s foremost white collar defense and trial lawyers’ that is ‘widely viewed as counsel of choice for individuals facing government investigations and potential indictments’—has chosen to falsely accuse these special agents of criminal behavior,” according to the lawsuit. “Lowell’s stature and credibility in the legal community have amplified the harm caused by his defamatory statements.”
“Shapley and Ziegler, both experienced and dedicated special agents of IRS Criminal Investigation, bring this action to vindicate their reputations for the incredible and malicious harm they have suffered at the hands of Abbe Lowell,” the lawsuit states. “As whistleblowers, Shapley and Ziegler acted with honor and integrity in exposing conflicts of interest, preferential treatment, and political motivations that they reasonably believed were interfering with the criminal tax investigation of Hunter Biden.”
Last summer, a “sweetheart deal” between Biden and United States attorney David Weiss failed to come to fruition after Shapley and Ziegler went public.
The convicted felon unexpectedly pleaded guilty to multiple charges in the federal tax case against him last week, a surprise move that avoided the spectacle of a public trial and, as some have speculated, will give his father a chance to pardon him before he leaves office.
“After watching prosecutors who exploit his family’s grief during the Delaware trial and realizing they were planning to do it again in California, Hunter decided to enter his plea to protect those he loves from unnecessary hurt and cruel humiliation,” Lowell said after his client’s plea, CNN reported. “This plea prevents that kind of show trial that would have not provided all the facts or served any real point in justice.”
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