Attacks from Hunter Biden legal team are 'character assassination,’ whistleblower attorney Mark Lytle says
Mark Lytle, attorney for whistleblower Gary Shapley, unpacks the latest developments in the Hunter Biden probe.
The attorney for IRS investigator-turned-whistleblower Gary Shapley responded Thursday to criticisms from Hunter Biden's counsel after he appeared to call Shapley a "disgruntled agent" and one of many Biden critics with an "obsession" for attacking the first family.
Mark Lytle faulted the Washington Post's coverage of Abbe Lowell's recent letter to Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., that laid out his criticisms – and denounced the first son's attorney himself.
Lowell, whom the Post once called a "defender of Democrats in trouble," has represented high-profile clients for decades, including Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif., following the disappearance of Chandra Levy, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., during his bribery case -- as well as some Republicans like Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner during the Mueller probe.
On "The Story," anchor Trace Gallagher told Lytle that Lowell characterized the timing on the part of his client and Smith's committee as suspicious, and alleged that the committee is acting in bad faith.
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Gary Shapley (inset) Hunter Biden, and President Biden (Fox News/AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
"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," Lowell wrote in his letter to Smith.
"These interviews were orchestrated recitations of mischaracterized and incomplete facts by disgruntled agents who believe they knew better than the federal prosecutors."
Lytle dismissed the characterizations, saying he and Shapley had to take time to navigate taxpayer secrecy laws, review legal opinions and other concerns and called Lowell's timing "really suspect."
"These attacks are meritless, baseless, and we're watching to defend our client and we wish the press wouldn't cover these attacks when they're baseless, and they know they're baseless," he said.
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Lytle claimed Lowell's letter engaged in "character assassination" and said Shapley is a serious individual who testified under penalty of perjury and sat for hours with lawmakers after he came forward as a whistleblower.
In his letter to Smith, Lowell claimed the decision to publish text of testimony from Shapley and IRS Agent "Mr. X," the other whistleblower, was "an obvious ploy to feed the misinformation campaign to harm our client, Hunter Biden, as a vehicle to attack his father."
Lytle also criticized the Post's coverage of the situation, telling Fox News he sent a letter to two reporters demanding they clarify statements made by Hunter's legal team he claimed were false accusations against Shapley.
"Shapley was not a source for you on that story, or any other story for that matter. It would be nice if you would publicly affirm that truth…" the letter read in-part.
A Washington Post representative separately told Fox News Digital on Wednesday they "don't comment on [their] sourcing."
In his letter to Smith, Lowell said his committee's interviews with Shapley and X 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. [Hunter] Biden."
In response, Smith said in a statement published by Axios that Biden's legal team is "attempting to chill our investigation and discredit the whistleblowers who say they have already faced retaliation from the IRS and the Department of Justice despite statutory protections established by law."
Fox News' Jessica Chasmar contributed to this report.
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