Hunter Biden’s attorney is claiming that the alleged screenshots of a text message purportedly sent by Hunter Biden to a potential Chinese business partner, which references Joe Biden, are not authentic and contain numerous inaccuracies.
Abbe Lowell, one of Hunter Biden’s attorneys, conveyed this information in a letter addressed to Rep. Jason Smith, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has interviewed the IRS whistleblowers involved in the case. NBC News obtained a copy of the letter.
Lowell wrote that the screenshots of the message as tweeted by Smith, “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.”
“In short, the images you circulated online are complete fakes,” he adds.
However, those social media images were for illustrative purposes only. J.P. Freire, the director of communications for the committee, clarified in an email dated June 23, 2023, that the message attributed to Biden in Smith’s tweet is a “graphical representation” and not an actual copy or screenshot from WhatsApp. According to the transcript (page 191) featuring Shapley’s testimony, it is explained that the original information was obtained through “an electronic search warrant for iCloud backup.”
In the case of the Ways and Means Committee, the information was presented in the form of a “graphic representation” of a WhatsApp message that bore little resemblance to an actual WhatsApp message. Consequently, this depiction led some individuals to cast doubt on the message’s authenticity and to dismiss it with allegations of being “Fake. Phony. Photoshopped. Unbelievable.”
Rep. Jason Smith had announced the WhatsApp message’s contents on June 22.
As mentioned at the press conference, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley said in his testimony related to President Joe Biden that he saw a WhatsApp message sent by Hunter Biden to a Chinese businessman in 2017. It was a July 30th, 2017 WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, where Hunter Biden wrote, “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.”
During Shapley’s testimony before the committee, the former lead investigator in the Hunter Biden case said under oath that, as part of his investigation, he obtained WhatsApp messages sent by Hunter Biden, including one from 2017 in which Hunter Biden allegedly demanded payment from a Chinese businessman named Henry Zhao.
Lowell’s letter also takes issue with “self-styled IRS ‘whistleblowers’” who he says are “claiming that title in an attempt to evade their own misconduct” and to “feed the misinformation campaign to harm our client, Hunter Biden, as a vehicle to attack his father.”
Attorneys representing Shapley released a statement in response to the letter, noting that the Biden family’s lawyers have allegedly employed intimidation tactics in the past and purportedly threatened federal prosecutors with reprisals like “career suicide” if charges were to be filed against Hunter Biden.
“All the inuendo and bluster that Biden family lawyers can summon will not change the facts,” the statement said. “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 IRS, and to Congress for further investigation as potential obstruction of their lawful inquiries as well as retaliation against our client,” the statement added.
