by Misty Severi
The two IRS agents who blew the whistle on the Hunter Biden tax investigation and significantly altered the course of the case, on Friday night sued the first son’s lawyer Abbe Lowell for defamation.
The two whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, are suing for libel because of the alleged damage done to their careers, and are requesting a jury trial in Washington, D.C.
The whistleblowers originally brought concerns to the House Ways and Means Committee that the Justice Department had provided preferential treatment to Biden during a probe into his alleged tax violations.
Shapley and Ziegler alleged in Friday’s legal complaint that Lowell acted with malice by sending letters to several different Congressional committees, where the lawyer “falsely accused the Plaintiffs of violating grand jury secrecy rules … and the taxpayer confidentiality statute.”
“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,” the lawsuit, obtained by Just The News, reads. “Lowell’s stature and credibility in the legal community have amplified the harm caused by his defamatory statements.”
They also accused Lowell of intentionally leaking “malicious and false allegations, including accusations that Shapley and Ziegler ‘committed felonies’ and ‘violated the law,'” to third parties, including the press, that have harmed the pair’s reputations.
The whistleblowers are represented by one of the country’s most premier defamation lawyers, Mitchell Landsberg, from the law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber, and Schreck, who has represented clients such as billionaire Steve Wynn.
“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 claimed. “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.”
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, because Lowell is a resident of D.C. and the two plaintiffs are from different states. The duo also noted that the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.
Just the News has reached out to Lowell for comment.
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Misty Severi is a reporter for Just the News.
