One of Hunter Biden’s lawyers reportedly sent a scathing letter on Friday to US Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), the chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means, accusing him of feeding a "misinformation campaign" against the Biden son.
US media reported the letter claimed Smith was trying to undermine the law and feed “the misinformation campaign to harm our client, Hunter Biden, as a vehicle to attack his father.”
In the letter, Biden's lawyer Abbe Lowell references transcripts of interviews between the committee and IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, who earlier told the panel he had copies of WhatsApp messages in which Hunter Biden allegedly attempted to use his father's position as then-vice president to influence his business dealings.
"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,” reads the message, from 2017, which was allegedly sent from Hunter Biden to a Chinese businessman.
Last week, Smith released transcripts of the interviews while the White House and Justice Department dismissed the IRS whistleblowers’ claims. Smith also tweeted screenshots of the message, according to a report, which Lowell says are “complete fakes.”
“Both include a photo of Mr. Biden not from 2017 but from the White House Easter Egg roll 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,” Lowell wrote in his letter, in reference to Smith’s tweeted images.
“In short, the images you circulated online are complete fakes,” he concludes.
In reference to the IRS whistleblowers, who Lowell says are “claiming that title in an attempt to evade their own misconduct,” Lowell added that the 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.”
“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,” concluded Lowell in his letter.