Hunter Biden Should Sue Marjorie T-G for Revenge Porn

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Hunter Biden SHOULD SUE Marjorie Taylor Greene IMMEDIATELY
by Ben Meiselas
MeidasTouch
Jul 21, 2023

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas gives his opinion on why Hunter Biden should sue Marjorie Taylor Greene immediately and why prosecutors should charge her as well and why she won’t have immunity.



Transcript

I'm Ben Meiselas from the Meidas touch
Network Mega Republican Marjorie Taylor
green is a sick individual and Hunter
Biden should absolutely sue her I'll
talk about the causes of action in a
moment also prosecutors in both Georgia
and Washington D.C should pursue
criminal charges against Marjorie Taylor
green immediately for violating revenge
porn statutes it is horrific that I even
have to talk about this regarding a
sitting member of the United States
House of Representatives but Marjorie
Taylor green not only displayed revenge
porn of Hunter Biden during a house
oversight Committee hearing that took
place on Wednesday but then she sent a
newsletter to her constituents in
Georgia that was not age gated that
included the nude images of Hunter Biden
and images of Hunter Biden engaged in
sexual acts that was stolen from a
purported laptop belonging to him first
let me talk about what happened in
Washington DC I already did a video
covering that so I'm sure you've seen
that but Marjorie Taylor green during a
house oversight Committee hearing where
they were just spreading more lies and
just being obsessed with Hunter Biden
who's never worked for the United States
government Marjorie Taylor green did
this during the oversight Committee
hearing play the clip Mr chairman um
we're one minute and 53 seconds over as
long as causer Cortez is going to get
equal time I will let Miss green wrap up
five seconds and then I'll give Mr
mafume additional time thank you
happily you you start an investigation
under Hunter Biden code name Sportsman
which opened in November of 2018. it was
an offshoot of an investigation the IRS
was conducting into a foreign-based
amateur online pornography platform this
this is evidence
of Hunter Biden making sex excuse me
this is my time making pornography
should we be displaying this Mr chairman
the committee of the ladies time is
expired and uh went two and a half
minutes over so as I previously
mentioned this is a violation in my
opinion of Washington D.C code section
22-3054 which states a third party who
comes into possession of the sexual
images and who publishes it shares it
with six or more people can be charged
with second-degree unlawful publication
of a sexual image here are the elements
defendant knowingly published a sexual
image that was obtained through a third
party too the person depicted was either
identified or identifiable three the
person depicted did not consent to the
disclosure or publication of the image
and for the defendant published the
sexual image with conscious disregard
that the sexual image was obtained as a
result of a previous disclosure or
publication of the sexual image made
with an intent to harm the person
depicted
or to receive financial gain so clearly
all four elements are satisfied there
then after that Marjorie Taylor agreed
set the following newsletter to her
constituents in Georgia and it says
breaking congresswoman Marjorie Taylor
green confirms Hunter Biden paid
prostitutes through Law Firm committed
tax fraud by deducting payments to
prostitutes she says and then she goes
on to say today Congressman Marjorie
Taylor green question IRS whistleblowers
on the alleged Crimes of the Biden
family
congresswoman greens questioning
confirmed Hunter Biden paid prostitutes
and it goes on to say that look Hunter
Biden has agreed to plead guilty to tax
related crimes with a republican
prosecutor Who was appointed by Donald
Trump a republican prosecutor the top
prosecutor in the state of Delaware
David Weiss Hunter Biden has admitted
that during a time period in his life he
was on drugs he was an addict and he did
bad things the mega Republicans want to
make false conspiracies about him and
saying that he was involved in things
that there's no evidence to support but
hunter has owned up to the things that
he did and he's agreeing to plead guilty
Marjorie Taylor green
here is transmitting photographs in this
newsletter not age gated so constituents
who are under the age of 18 kids could
be potentially getting this families who
don't want to receive this stuff is
getting it and this is also a crime in
the state of Georgia
let's look at it article one
um hold on let me pull it up right here
I'm going to go into second article one
section uh six Clause one of the United
States Constitution but let me pull up
the Georgia law right now uh and in the
state of Georgia here is here is uh
what's stated revenge porn is a crime in
Georgia
um as of July 2021 uh under Georgia law
it is considered a crime to post
explicit images and videos of someone
online without their consent to harass
them if the offender posts the material
to a website message board or file
sharing site that is promoting itself as
an adult site the crime is considered a
felony
it goes on to say under Georgia law an
individual is guilty if they violate the
following the person violates the code
section if he or she knowing the content
or transmission or post knowingly and
without consent of the depicted person
electronically transmits or post in one
or more Transmissions or posts a
photograph or video which depicts nudity
or sexually explicit conduct of an adult
including falsely creating videographic
or still image when the transmission or
post is harassment or causes Financial
loss to the depicted person serves no
legitimate purpose to the depicted
person and is transmitted or posted to a
website peer-to-peer file sharing
thumbnail gallery movie gallery linked
list live webcam webpage or message
board that advertises or promotes its
services as
showing previewing or Distributing
sexually explicit conduct or via any
other electronic means that do not fall
within subparagraph a also causes the
electronic transmission or posting in
one or more transmission or posts of
Photography or video which depicts
nudity or sexually explicit conduct of
an adult including a falsely created
video videographic or still image when
the transmission or post is harassment
or causes Financial loss and serves no
legitimate purpose so clearly sending
via email electronic transmission would
be a violation of the Georgia statute
right here Georgia law
16-11-90 now Marjorie Taylor green is
going to claim immunity under the speech
or debate clause provision of the United
States Constitution which states the
following and by the way she's going to
lose when she cites it but article 6
um our Article 1 Section 6 Clause one
um uh article one section six Clause 1
States the following the senators and
representatives shall receive a
compensation for their services to be
ascertained by law paid out of the
treasury of the United States they shall
in all cases except treason felony and
breach of the peace be privileged from
arrest during their attendance at the
session of their respective houses and
in going to and returning from the same
and for any speech or debate in either
house they shall not be questioned in
any other place and the portion
thereabout shall not be questioned in
any other place provides that for
legitimate legislative activity
lawmakers in the House of
Representatives and the Senate are
immune from civil lawsuits they're even
immune from even having to potentially
show up as a witness in cases they shall
not be questioned in any other place
other than within the House of
Representatives and in the sen it so
that has been interpreted over the years
to create a fairly broad immunity for
legitimate legislative conduct however
there are exceptions there's a case
gravel versus the United States
involving the Pentagon papers a case
called Brewster as well and basically it
says the exceptions to the speech or
debate clause immunity in the
constitution is things that are not
legitimate legislative activity and
things that have been held not to be
legitimate legislative activity include
things like uh crimes exhorting and
controlling and uh and threatening
people to do things that's not
legitimate legislative activity but the
big one here is also statements made to
the Press things like newsletters
statements that are made on uh
interviews that are being done press
releases that are being sent uh
interviews with magazines you know this
conduct outside of the House of
Representatives involving statements to
the Press especially newsletters is
outside of the broad immunity of article
one section 6 Clause one of the United
States institution so one Marjorie
Taylor greed can be charged with a crime
in my opinion but two she can be sued by
Hunter Biden now what would the causes
of action look like in a hunter Biden
lawsuit against Marjorie Taylor
Greenwell
intentional infliction of emotional
distress
negligent infliction of emotional
distress and I would also make the claim
that there is a civil cause of action in
the state of Georgia and in the state or
in the District of Columbia rather as
well for the transmittal of uh revenge
porn Marjorie Taylor green unfortunately
may have a better argument for speech or
debate clause immunity for what she did
in the Committee hearing it's horrific
to say but I think that that's more ju
more subject to the immunity even though
the conduct is absolutely disgusting and
horrific so if I'm Hunter Biden I sue
for intentional infliction of emotional
distress negligent infliction of
emotional distress I probably also sue
for
conversion and theft regarding these
potential images
um and related statutes but I think that
powerful case I think Hunter Biden can
sue Marjorie Taylor green for frankly
huge sums of money right now and I am
hoping that he does that and I'm hoping
that Georgia prosecutors and D.C
prosecutors take note and just think
about you know just Kevin McCarthy
though and where the mega Republicans
are I mean this is just a new low in
depths of depravity that are already so
shockingly low horrific I'm Ben
Meiselas from the Meidas touch Network
hit subscribe
we're on our way to 1.5 million
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WINSTON & STRAWN

ABBE DAVID LOWELL

July 21, 2023
Partner
(202) 282-5000

VIA E-MAIL

Chairman Paul Vinovich
Co-Chairman Mike Barnes
Office of Congressional Ethics
U.S. House of Representatives
425 3rd Street SW, Suite 1110
Washington, DC 20024

Re: Supplemental Request for Ethics Action Against Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for Her Statements and Conduct Regarding Robert Hunter Biden

Dear Messrs. Vinovich and Barnes:

On April 24, 2023, we wrote the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) seeking review and actions against Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga. 14th C.D.) for her defamatory statements, false allegations, publication of private photos, and bizarre dissemination of conspiracy theories about Mr. Biden and members of his family. Today we write again because, this week, your colleague has lowered herself, and by extension the entire House of Representatives, to a new level of abhorrent behavior that blatantly violates House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct. If the OCE takes its responsibilities seriously, it will promptly and decisively condemn and discipline Ms. Greene for her latest actions.1

During the July 19, 2023 House Oversight and Accountability Committee Hearing with IRS agents concerning the tax investigation of our client, Ms. Greene used her time allotted for questioning witnesses to do something else. She displayed (on printed posters) sexually explicit and nude images of Mr. Biden. While the faces of other individuals in the photographs were blocked with black boxes, Ms. Greene (or her staff) took great care to ensure Mr. Biden’s face was not blurred for the American public. Then, toward the end of her questioning, Ms. Greene held up the graphic poster boards, spouting yet another of her untethered conspiracy theories, suggesting without any evidence that they showed Mr. Biden “making pornography.” None of her actions or statements could possibly be deemed to be part of any legitimate legislative activity, as is clear from both the content of her statements and her conduct and the forums she uses to spew her unhinged rhetoric.

The conduct and statements of Ms. Greene during the proceeding were irresponsible, undignified, and unbecoming of any member of the People’s House and sparked immediate protests from the Ranking Member and other members of the panel.2 Ranking Member Raskin called her out and stated that her displaying such graphic, sexually explicit images during an official proceeding was “completely irrelevant” and in no way advanced the “putative objective” of the IRS whistleblowers’ testimony or the hearing itself. Representative Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y. 14th C.D.) called the images “pornographic,” describing what Ms. Greene, not our client, had done. Rather than evaluate the credibility of the IRS agents’ testimony or review our tax laws, Ms. Greene sought to use the power of her office to generate some clicks online, fundraise, and provide sensationalist clips for Fox News at the expense of harassing and embarrassing Mr. Biden, a private citizen. This political stunt by Ms. Greene will go down as a historic event unbecoming of any member of Congress and beneath the dignity of the House of Representatives.

Were the offense itself not grave enough, in the two days since, Ms. Greene has posted, tweeted, and retweeted her own clips of these sexually explicit images over and over again on various of her social media platforms, including her Twitter and Truth Social accounts (@RepMTG and @battlegroundMTG), with captions such as “Cry more [laughing emoji],” “Look at RAG MAN RASKIN’s face [laughing emoji],” “This will never get old,” “HUNTER FULLY EXPOSED,” and “WOW HUNTER IS A SICK, SICK MAN!” If the conduct of anyone was “sick,” it was not that of a person in the dark days of terrible addiction, but the acts and statements of a person entrusted by the U.S. Constitution with the sacred role of governing. Ms. Greene has forfeited her right to claim that honor.

As if her despicable conduct and statements during the hearing were not sufficient, Ms. Greene proceeded to send out a fundraising email to her constituents in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District with a link to video containing nude images of Mr. Biden—all this using taxpayer-funded resources and without an age screen on her email newsletter. By disseminating links containing nude images of Mr. Biden to her constituents without such a screen, Ms. Green may have violated federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1470 – Transfer of obscene material to minors) if even one minor was included among the email distribution or was exposed to her outrage. Section 1470 prohibits any individual from knowingly transferring or attempting to transfer obscene matter using the U.S. mail or any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce to a minor under 16 years of age.3 Likewise, Ms. Greene may have violated D.C. law (D.C. Code §§ 22-3052–3054) and Georgia law (GA Code § 16-11-90 (2020)), the latter of which prohibits certain depictions of nudity and sexually explicit conduct. In that vein, Ms. Greene should now know, and the House should take note, that her conduct out of the Hearing went way beyond the bounds of the protections that members receive under the Speech or Debate Clause. This transgression will result in more accountability to come.

House Rule XXIII (Code of Official Conduct), Clause 1, specifies that all members of the House must conduct themselves at all times “in a manner that reflects creditably on the House.” 4 This ethics standard is considered the “most comprehensive provision” of the Code.5 Clause 2 likewise requires members to “adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Rules of the House.”6

In adopting this provision, the Select Committee on Standards of Official Conduct of the 90th Congress noted that it was included in the Code to deal with flagrant violations of the law that reflect on Congress as a whole, and that might otherwise go unpunished. 7 The House Ethics Committee has relied on this rule in several prior cases in which the Committee found ethical lapses or misconduct, including when it found that Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) violated Clause 1 by threatening, intimidating, harassing, or otherwise improperly influencing President Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, in connection with Mr. Cohen’s testimony before a congressional committee. 8 The Committee found that Representative Gaetz’s conduct, which included a tweet directed toward Mr. Cohen, did not reflect creditably upon the House of Representatives.9 If what Mr. Gaetz did was the misdemeanor example of an ethics breach, Ms. Greene’s latest transgressions are a felony and provide the OCE with more than enough grounds to initiate a review of Ms. Greene’s conduct here and in the past.

The events and statements of July 19, which are neither legislative in nature nor oversight, nor real congressional business, are just the latest in Ms. Greene’s consistent, dogged verbal and defamatory attacks against Mr. Biden, and members of his family. Since her election to Congress in 2020 (and before), the unmoored verbal abuses and ad hominem attacks against Mr. Biden are just a microcosm of Ms. Greene’s numerous ethical violations and repeated lapses in ethical judgment, all of which warrant a review of her conduct. It may be that House members have “gotten used to” Ms. Greene’s antics or think her stunts “fall on deaf ears,” but even the vociferous Freedom Caucus finally reached the point of ousting Ms. Greene from their midst. If what she did before this week merited that rebuke, the OCE can no longer stand idly by and allow the already-diminished reputation of the House to suffer yet another blow by doing nothing against Ms. Greene now.

Strong precedent exists for the OCE, and ultimately the House Ethics Committee, to undertake a review of this conduct, and we demand this Office initiate this review immediately. Now more than ever, the House has a duty to make loud and clear that it does not endorse, condone, or agree with her outrageous, undignified conduct and brazen violations of the standards of official conduct that do not reflect creditably on the House of Representatives.

Sincerely,

Abbe David Lowell

Counsel for Robert Hunter Biden


_________________

Notes:

1 The OCE is certainly familiar with similar lapses and misconduct by Representative Greene, as reflected in prior or pending ethics complaints made by others. See, e.g., Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Ethics Complaint against Reps. Greene and McCarthy (Sept. 2021) (regarding the January 6 attack on the Capitol); Voters of Tomorrow Ethics Complaint against Rep. Greene (Oct. 2022) (regarding her xenophobic remarks); End Citizens United Ethics Complaint against Rep. Greene (June 2023) (for improperly disclosing her stock trades).


2 Maria Alfaro, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Explicit Visuals at Hunter Biden Hearing Draw Rebuke, WASH.POST (July 19, 2023), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... en-photos/.

3 U.S. Dep’t of Just., Citizen’s Guide to U.S. Federal Law on Obscenity, https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/c ... -obscenity (last accessed July 20, 2023)

4 Rule XXIII, Cl. 1, Rules of the House of Representatives, 118th Cong. (Jan. 10, 2023), available at https://rules.house.gov/sites/republica ... sClerk.pdf (last accessed July 20, 2023).

5 House Comm. on Ethics, House Ethics Manual at 12 (2022).

6 Rule XXIII, Cl. 2, Rules of the House of Representatives, 118th Cong. (Jan. 10, 2023).

7 House Comm. on Standards of Official Conduct, Report Under the Authority of H. Res. 418, H. Rep. No. 1176, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. 17 (1968).

8 Comm. on Ethics, “In the Matter of Allegations Relations to representative Matt Gaetz,” H. Report 116-479, 116th Cong., 2d Sess. 2 (Aug. 21, 2020), https://ethics.house.gov/committee-repo ... matt-gaetz.

9 Id. at 2.

[admin]

SO WHEN IS SOMEONE GOING TO STEAL THE LAPTOPS OF ALL OF TRUMP'S CHILDREN? I'M SURE WE COULD FIND SOMETHING ILLEGAL ON EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM! IT'S ONLY FAIR IF HUNTER BIDEN GOES TO JAIL, THAT TRUMP'S CHILDREN GO TO JAIL AS WELL!

ARE ALL OF OUR LAPTOPS FAIR GAME FOR STEALING NOW, AS WELL AS EXAMINING WITH A FINE TOOTH COMB BY CONGRESS AND OUR ENEMIES?

Lev Parnas REVEALS MORE Trump Crimes HE WITNESSED and his BOMBSHELL Letter to Congress
by Lev Parnas
MeidasTouch
Jul 26, 2023

On today’s episode, Former Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani Associate Lev Parnas reads from his exclusive letter to Rep. James Comer of the House Oversight Committee. His letter outlines Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt on the Biden family as well as their continued efforts to interfere with the highest levels of Ukrainian politics.



Transcript`

Hi everyone. Welcome to Lev Parnas's Diaries from home confinement. For those of you that don't know me, I used to be part of Donald Trump's inner circle, in Trump's cult. Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani sent me to Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden. Now that I'm out of the cult, and finishing up my sentence on home confinement, I want to share some of my diary stories with you.



Last week the oversight committee, led by representative James Comer, held a hearing to spread more conspiracy theories into Joe and Hunter Biden. Representative Jamie Raskin read portions of my letter, and entered it into evidence.

Comer, Republicans' Investigative Chief, Embraces Role of Biden Antagonist: The fourth-term Kentuckian and chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has become an aggressive promoter of sinister-sounding claims about the president and his family.

Democrats accuse GOP of spreading 'racist conspiracy theories' in Biden docs probe
by Rebecca Beitsch and Brett Samuels
05/03/23 12:21 PM ET

The memo also condemns committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), accusing him of misrepresenting Chung's testimony while spreading "false, xenophobic, and racist conspiracy theories."

The memo points to media appearances by Comer, including those in which he suggests Chung, who was born in South Korea, had ties to Hunter Biden and the Chinese Community Party, telling Fox's Maria Bartiromo, "We're looking into that."

Donald Trump becomes the first U.S. president to be impeached twice

All eyes on a Washington grand jury amid signs of possible third Trump indictment
by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 9:22 AM EDT, Thu July 20, 2023

Like most of you, I've been watching the GOP, led by Senator Chuck Grassley, representative James Comer, and their cohorts like Marjorie Greene, continue to spread misinformation, and spread conspiracy theories, related to Joe and Hunter Biden, to confuse the American public.



And most importantly to distract from the real criminal, their leader, twice-impeached, twice-indicted, and with more indictments coming, Donald J Trump.

I'm currently in the process of writing my tell-all book. It's called, "Shadow Diplomacy," detailing everything that transpired in the Trump's Administration pertaining to the Bidens, and much, much more. Since the book is not scheduled to be released for a few more months, as a concerned citizen, and someone that loves our country, I had to do more. I had to act now.



So I decided to take pen to paper and write James Comer a letter, describing what actually transpired in our year and a half long investigation into Hunter and Joe Biden. Now I'm going to read the letter to you, and then we'll go discuss some things afterwards.

"Dear Chairman Comer,

As I have been closely following the developments in Congress's investigations into both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I believe I can place the facts in context for you. I write to you as a concerned American, who wishes only to share the information that I know to be true, so that we can lay to rest the conspiracy theories about Biden's supposed corruption in Ukraine once and for all.

I feel I have a responsibility to remind you, our representatives, and the American people of what actually happened during Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump's efforts to uncover information about the Bidens in Ukraine. From November 2018 to October 2019, I was a key participant in and witness to these efforts; and every event described below, I was either physically present in the room with the people involved, on phone calls with Giuliani and the individuals in question, often interpreting between the Ukrainian and English languages, or communicating directly with Giuliani about the situation. Please consider that the facts I state here have never changed from when I first submitted to Congress everything I knew in November 2019. It has always been my intention to tell the truth, because I love this country with my whole heart, and I want our government to unite for the greater good instead of chasing false stories that divide us.

By reading the information below, you will understand the full extent of the campaign orchestrated by Giuliani and Trump to dig up dirt on the Bidens, and to spread misinformation about them through various networks including government officials, journalists, and FOX News personnel. You will also see clearly that there is no evidence of Joe or Hunter Biden interfering with Ukrainian politics, and there never has been. Statements suggesting otherwise have been debunked again and again. I hope that the breadth of my experiences, which are all backed up by the materials I previously shared with Congress, will provide that no stone has been unturned in this investigation.

Here are the facts as I know them to be true:





In November of 2018, I was approached by Rudy Giuliani, who asked me about my contacts in Ukraine and if I could verify some information he received about Joe Biden.



A video had been recently shared online in which Biden, being interviewed by Council on Foreign Relations, said that in 2016 he had pressured Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko to fire his Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.



Giuliani told me he had discussed with then-President Trump not only Biden's statements in the video, but also his discovery that Biden's son Hunter was on the board of the Ukrainian Energy company called Burisma and that Shokin was supposedly looking into possible corruption in the company. When Giuliani spoke to me, he got very excited and said, "This is the smoking gun [he'd] been looking for" -- meaning he saw it as a way to discredit the Bidens.

Later that month, I attended the Hanukkah celebration at the White House where Giuliani and Trump were both present. Trump approached me briefly to say, "Rudy told me good things. Keep up the good work." Then he gave me a thumbs-up in approval.



I met with Shokin for the first time in Ukraine in December of 2018. Giuliani had instructed me to relay a message to him, which was essentially that if he wanted to be reinstated as Prosecutor General -- a goal he expressed very openly -- that the Trump Administration could help him get his position back, but only if he provided hard evidence of Joe Biden's corruption. Initially Shokin said he had decided not to investigate Burisma further, but when I gave him Giuliani's message, he became shifty in his answers, admitting that his team was "looking into it" without giving further details.

I returned from Ukraine, Giuliani told me to ask Shokin to fly to the States to meet up with Senator Lindsey Graham, and when he was speaking to the visa authorities, he should tell them he was only going to California to see his daughter, not that he would then travel to Washington, D.C. to meet Graham.



However, when Shokin applied for his visa, then-Ambassador Marie Yavanovich denied him.

Communications ensued where Giuliani continued to pressure Shokin into helping him get information on the Bidens, although Shokin was being skeptical because Giuliani could not get him a visa approved, and he didn't understand how the president of the United States and his personal representative could not achieve something like that. Eventually they had a 45-minute Skype call in January 2019, where I served as an interpreter between the two of them, and of which there was a recording that I later submitted to Congress. The recording shows Giuliani aggressively asking Shokin for details on the Bidens. Even though Shokin was trying to push the narrative that he had lost his job because of the pressure Joe Biden had put on President Poroshenko to fire him, when asked directly by Giuliani, he conceded that there was no evidence of either Hunter or Joe Biden doing anything that interfered with Ukrainian law.

Giuliani continued to receive conspiracy theories from different sources, and remained insistent that there must be some data on the Bidens' corruption.



In late January 2019, my business partner Igor Fruman got word that Yuri Lutsenko, Shokin's replacement as Ukraine's Prosecutor General, was in New York and wanted to meet with Giuliani to discuss some legal matters. We set up the meeting in Giuliani's office on Park Avenue. There, Lutsenko explained he'd requested the meeting because he wanted to sit down with Bill Barr and, Attorney General to Attorney General, discuss the overall problem of Ukrainian and American corruption, including the funneling of Ukrainian money into American institutions. Giuliani stopped Lutsenko and said he wasn't interested in that, only in information concerning Joe and Hunter Biden. He then added statements to the effect that if Lutsenko wanted a conversation with Barr, he would need to offer a give and take, and Giuliani was interested in details about the Bidens.

Even though Lutsenko protested that he hadn't come to discuss the Bidens, he agreed to see what he could find for Giuliani. The next day, we all met again in Giuliani's office and Lutsenko brought a folder containing purported wire transfers from Burisma to Hunter Biden, and documents from the Prosecutor General's office outlining the company's hierarchy and organization from its CEO, Mykola Zlochevsky, on down. These documents did show what the Prosecutor General's office was doing in its investigation into Burisma, but again, there was no evidence in any of these materials that pointed to any criminal activity from Hunter Biden.

During the meeting, Giuliani stopped to call President Trump for about 3-5 minutes to update him on how the meeting was going with Lutsenko, and told Lutsenko that Trump was very happy with the help he was giving. He gave Lutsenko the thumbs-up.

Lutsenko then promised that if we went to Ukraine, he would help us meet with President Poroshenko and other officials who were dealing directly with the Burisma investigation. After the first meeting, Lutsenko kept pressuring Giuliani that he needed to meet Bill Barr. However, Giuliani eventually told Lutsenko he hadn't provided enough information, and that the only way he could meet Bill Barr was if he retained Giuliani for $200,000. He then gave Lutsenko a "contract." (It should be noted that Lutsenko refused to pay and to this day has never met Bill Barr.)



A few days later, Giuliani told me that he had decided that it might not be a good look for him to represent Ukrainian officials while representing Donald Trump, and introduced me to attorneys Victoria Toensing and DiGenova, who he said would represent Lutsenko instead. Later on, Giuliani told me that Toensing and DiGenova had agreed to split the $200,000 retainer fee in some part with him. In subsequent calls with Giuliani, Lutsenko was still upset and complaining about the whole situation, arguing that he shouldn't have to pay anything to meet one Attorney General to another, particularly because they had to discuss criminal matters between their respective countries.

In February 2019, Giuliani and I met Lutsenko in Poland, where the Prosecutor General was now more favorable to the idea of helping the Trump team investigate the Bidens.



He said President Poroshenko would meet with us, so Giuliani decided I should go straight from Poland to Ukraine on his behalf. I then had a three-hour meeting with Poroshenko. Giuliani's message to the president, who was running for re-election, was that Trump would support him and help him win if he made an official announcement of an investigation against Joe Biden.

Poroshenko was taken aback and relayed to me that he didn't trust Trump based on the bad deal they had made in 2018. At the time, he and Trump had met in the White House, and after the meeting one of Trump's aides suggested that Poroshenko should buy coal from a Pennsylvania Coal Company. The reason, they explained, was that Trump was about to have a rally in that part of the state and the purchase would be a good look for the relationship between the two countries. Poroshenko bought the coal, which was more expensive than Ukraine had paid for the same product from other sources, and he ended up having issues with the Ukrainian Parliament over the cost. After Trump had the rally, there were no further interactions between the two of them. So according to Poroshenko, he now had no reason to trust Trump, but he did tell me that he would wait to see what happened since the lines of communication had been opened.

Arriving back in the States, I began a series of regular meetings at the Trump International Hotel with Giuliani and what I later called the "BLT Team," because we always met at the BLT Steak restaurant in the hotel.



The BLT Team included Toensing, DiGenova, and John Solomon, an investigative reporter who was then working for The Hill and had many contacts at FOX News and the State Department, as well as having Trump on his speed dial. Solomon gave us information at the meetings that he said various sources had shared with him about the Bidens' dealings in Ukraine. Giuliani tasked me with traveling to Ukraine throughout March, April, and May 2019 to interview different people who had promised to give us information and evidence including records of bribes, bank records, and incriminating tapes.

Yet every time I went on these trips and conducted these interviews, I came up with nothing. Lutsenko kept assuring me that they would announce an investigation into the Bidens, but that never happened either.

Around the same time as the BLT Team began meeting, I was introduced by phone to Congressman Devin Nunes, who was leading his own separate investigation into the Bidens.



His team decided to work with the BLT Team, and I was told to keep in contact with Nunes's staff member Derek Harvey. While I was in Ukraine on these assignments, Nunes and Harvey asked me to help set up interviews that would facilitate their investigation. With my assistance, Harvey conducted numerous interviews with Ukrainian prosecutors and officials via Skype.

During this process, the prosecutors initially expressed an interest in meeting Nunes directly and having him conduct in-person interviews in Ukraine. But Nunes declined, explaining to me again by phone that because Republicans did not have control of the House, they would have to report any travel they were doing. Therefore, he believed it was better to have Derek Harvey conduct the interviews on Skype so the Democrats wouldn't know what was going on. On one occasion I even tried to set up an interview with Viktor Shokin for Harvey, but Shokin told me that there was no need because the two had already spoken.



At one point Victoria Toensing said that Senator Ron Johnson would also work as the BLT Team's "guy in the Senate" to push all the information that we were getting -- which still amounted to the same unverified conspiracy theories.

In March 2019, John Solomon had the idea to set up FOX News interviews with Poroshenko, Lutsenko and Nazar Kholodnytsky, the head prosecutor for the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). Shortly before his interview, Kholodnytsky had gotten caught up in some criminal activities and Marie Yovanovitch called for him to be ousted from his position. During the taping of his interview, instead of talking about the Bidens as planned, Kholodnytsky complained about Yovanovitch's interfering in Ukrainian politics. However, during his taping, he never validated nor confirmed that any illegal activities had been committed by either Hunter or Joe Biden. This statement upset Solomon and Giuliani, so the interview never aired on FOX.

Ten minutes before Poroshenko's interview was to take place, he decided not to participate. There was an intense phone conversation that I translated between Lutsenko and Giuliani, which ended with Giuliani telling Lutsenko that if he couldn't get Poroshenko to do the interview, not to call anymore.

During the argument with Giuliani, Lutsenko sent me an expletive-ridden text. I read the original in Russian, but the translation into English is essentially as follows, accommodating for language and context: "Sorry, but I didn't get a visit. But first, my president didn't get a damn thing. I'm ready to destroy your competitor, but you want more and more. You expect us to do everything, and everything we ask of you is "Later." It's not right. It's not fair."

Finally, Lutsenko then said he would do the interview and give us a big bombshell about the situation in Ukraine, which Giuliani expected to be about the Bidens. But during the interview, instead of talking about the Bidens, Lutsenko spoke about Yovanovitch's newly uncovered "Do Not Prosecute" list of names. It became a big scandal, but not long after that announcement, he retracted his statements. Giuliani was incredibly angry.

Every time Giuliani and Lutsenko had spoken about the Bidens, he would answer that nothing had been found to incriminate them. Neither Joe nor Hunter Biden had done anything against the Ukrainian constitution or local laws; there was no evidence of bribery or extortion that anyone could find. At the same time, Lutsenko was worried he wouldn't be able to stay in office if Poroshenko lost his bid for re-election, so he did what he could to stay on Trump and Giuliani's good side. To appease them, he would sometimes make vague statements to the media about Hunter and Joe Biden, but he never said they had committed any acts of corruption or that an investigation was being opened. There was simply nothing he had to substantiate those claims.

By that point, the BLT Team were watching the Ukrainian presidential elections and realized Volodymyr Zelenskyy was probably going to win.



The conversations shifted from Poroshenko and Lutsenko to getting a promise from Zelenskyy that he would announce an investigation into the Bidens following his win. Giuliani assumed that because Zelenskyy was an actor and comedian, not a politician, he would naturally want to do anything he could to establish a good relationship with the U.S.

I was tasked in April 2019 to go to Ukraine and get in contact with Zelenskyy. Yet my attempts to contact him were consistently blocked by Ihor Kolomoyskyi, a Ukrainian oligarch who was backing Zelenskyy financially.



Eventually I flew to Israel, where Kolomoyskyi was living in exile, and explained Giuliani and Trump's stance on the matter and why we needed Zelenskyy to commence an investigation into the Bidens. Giuliani had also instructed me to tell Kolomoyskyi that he would help with his legal problems in the U.S. if he would help us with Zelenskyy.

As you see, these are flagrant examples of Giuliani interfering in Ukrainian politics. Ironically, the very thing he was desperate to prove that the Bidens were doing in Ukraine -- and for which he could find no evidence at all -- was what he was guilty of.

By the end of April 2019, it was clear Zelenskyy would win in a landslide. We were preparing to set up a meeting between Zelenskyy and Giuliani, who was supposed to come to Ukraine on May 10th with Victoria Toensing. Giuliani had given me a letter which I handed over on May 9th to Arsen Avakov, the Minister of the Interior; the letter was to communicate to Zelenskyy that Giuliani wanted to discuss private matters pertaining to Trump, as he represented Trump in his personal capacity.

However, this meeting never occurred.



On May 11th, Giuliani called me frantically in the middle of the night, saying he'd been approached by Kash Patel, a member of Devin Nunes's team and staffer for Trump's National Security Council. Patel informed him that people in Zelenskyy's inner circle were Trump's enemies and that Giuliani could not meet in Ukraine now because it would be "a set-up."

Instead I was once again assigned to be the man on the ground, to meet with Zelenskyy myself on Giuliani and Trump's behalf and deliver a precise message in very strict words. Unless Zelenskyy announced an investigation into the Bidens the U.S. would not deliver certain promises: 1) Trump would tell Mike Pence not to attend Zelenskyy's inauguration, and 2), the U.S. would not send any aid to Ukraine, military or otherwise.



It would be Zelenskyy's Chief of Staff Sergei Shafer, and not the president himself, who met with me on that trip. After sharing a copy of the letter with Shafer via WhatsApp, I reiterated Giuliani's message for Zelenskyy to Shafer. Though he initially told me that Zelenskyy wanted a good relationship with the U.S. and would cooperate, we never heard from them after that. A few days later, I was told by Avakov, Minister of the Interior, that Zelenskyy was told not to speak to Giuliani or his team and that he should only go through proper channels with people at the U.S. Embassy. When I reiterated that message to Giuliani, he became enraged.

On May 13th, Ukrainian officials got confirmation from the U.S. that Mike Pence would not attend Zelenskyy's inauguration, which caused turmoil inside the Ukrainian government. They didn't want their people to realize that the U.S. were essentially pulling out of its promise to provide aid. When Kolomoyskyi found out, he returned to Ukraine, and was furious about the situation. He went to the media, calling Fruman and me grifters, stating they we were trying to force Zelenskyy to do unethical things, and threatening our lives. On his end, Giuliani then began sending bullying and threatening messages to Zelenskyy on Twitter and disparaging him on FOX News. He would question Zelenskyy's power as president, he would insist that Zelenskyy arrest Kolomoyskyi immediately, and repeat that Zelenskyy's inner circle was comprised of Trump's enemies, among other such statements.

It was then decided that Giuliani and I would fly to Paris to discuss next steps for Ukraine.



While in Paris, Giuliani received a call from Rick Perry, then Secretary of Energy. Perry was calling from Air Force Two, explaining that Trump had assigned him to represent the U.S. at Zelenskyy's inauguration and that he was "supposed to call Rudy" for his exact instructions. The call was on speaker, so I heard every word. Giuliani outlined to Perry that he needed to relay the same message to Zelenskyy after the inauguration ceremony: Announce an investigation into the Bidens, or the U.S. will pull its aid. Right after the inauguration, Perry called Giuliani to say he had delivered the message and Zelenskyy was willing to play ball.

But when Zelenskyy did make an announcement the following day, it was a statement about addressing general corruption in Ukraine, and never mentioned the Bidens. Giuliani was angry, communicating with Trump that the Ukrainians were playing games. We knew that at the same time, Trump was also making several attempts to deliver messages to Zelenskyy through other members of his team outside of Giuliani, and all with the same theme: investigate Joe Biden or else.

Near the end of our trip to Paris, we were introduced to one of Igor Fruman's associates, a friend who happened to be an employee of a Ukrainian oligarch named Dmitry Firtash, who had many political and business connections, including with the head of Burisma, Zlochevsky. When we returned to the U.S., we met with the BLT Team and John Solomon said Firtash's help would be key because of his relationship with Zlochevsky.

The problem was that Firtash would prove nearly impossible to contact.



He was also facing a serious extradition case to the U.S. for a number of bribery, racketeering and other charges since 2014. Solomon and Giuliani put together a package of documents regarding regarding confidential information in Firtash's case, and had me travel to Vienna in June 2019 to meet with Firtash, letting him know that Giuliani and our whole team were serious and that we could help him if he helped us. From June until the time of my arrest in October 2019, we had ongoing communications with Firtash.

In a meeting with the BLT Team, Solomon relayed to Giuliani that he had information that Robert Mueller's lead prosecutor Andrew Weissman offered Firtash a deal to cancel his extradition if he would testify against Trump and Putin. Firtash didn't want to get involved with the Biden versus Trump situation, but was open to helping us with Mueller's investigations into Trump. Thereafter, as I became an interpreter between Firtash's new legal team and Firtash, most of the conversations in which I participated were potentially privileged; however, I believe this information may be made available to the House Oversight Committee through a congressional subpoena.

But the true purpose of dangling this carrot in front of Firtash was to get him to use his contacts to pressure Zlochevsky to cooperate with the BLT Team. Eventually, Giuliani proposed a $1 million contract to represent Firtash. Later, similar to the Lutsenko situation, he took it back and had Firtash sign a contract with Victoria Toensing. Giuliani, however, would continue to oversee everything and remain in charge of matters related to Firtash. Then later Giuliani and Toensing had several phone calls that I was privy to with Bill Barr, leading to an unofficial meeting in the lobby at the Trump International Hotel, and then an official meeting at the Department of Justice.

Giuliani worked aggressively to hire Ms. Dunphy, offering her what seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work as his Director of Business Development with a salary of $1 million per year plus expenses. As an added inducement, Giuliani also offered to provide pro bono legal representation to Ms. Dunphy in connection with an ongoing dispute arising from an abusive ex-partner....

-- Noelle Dunphy, Plaintiff, against Rudolph W. Giuliani, et al, Defendants.

At the same time, the BLT Team was exploring many different angles to get information on the Bidens.



In June, Giuliani asked me to accompany him to a lunch in New York with Vitaly Pruss, a Russian businessman who claimed to have deep connections to Burisma, including with Hunter Biden's business partner Devon Archer, and had recommended powerful people to Zlochevsky that he should put on the company's board. During this meeting, Pruss shared a story with us: He said earlier that year, while doing business related to Burisma, he had taken Hunter Biden to meet Kazakhstan's minister of foreign affairs, and that Biden had gotten substantially intoxicated with drugs and alcohol on this trip. While he was incapacitated, his laptop was compromised and copied by a representative of FSB (Russia's secret police) and members of Zlochevsky's team.

It's important to note that certain aspects of Pruss's story are verifiably true. This trip with Hunter Biden did happen, and his computer hard drives were taken and duplicated. But Pruss specified that while the contents of the laptop were personally embarrassing to Hunter Biden -- pictures of him doing drugs and surrounded by girls -- there was no evidence of financial crimes or any data on his laptop that suggested the illegal activities of any other kind, which is the sort of proof that Giuliani desperately needed. Pruss never mentioned anything about the hard drives containing criminal information, only the embarrassing images. It was not until Giuliani began disseminating the story of Hunter Biden's laptop that the idea of proof of financial and political crimes was introduced.

Giuliani continued this simultaneous efforts to reach Zlochevsky through Firtash and Pruss.



I specifically recall that Giuliani told me to tell Pruss to pressure Zlochevsky by saying that he could be "an enemy or a friend of Trump." At a meeting of the BLT Team, Giuliani and Solomon came up with a series of 12-14 questions about the Bidens that we would propose to Zlochevsky. Eventually, we managed to get Zlochevsky's answers back. But his answers gave us nothing -- because there was nothing. On reading Zlochevsky's reply, Giuliani turned red and yelled, "What is this shit? This is bullshit. Make sure nobody sees this. Bury this."

I will remind you that Zlochevsky's answers are in the report that the House Oversight Committee published. In this document, he stated that Hunter Biden was never asked or assigned to speak with anybody in the U.S. on behalf of Burisma, that there were no political lobbying efforts on behalf of Burisma, that nobody from the company had ever spoken to Joe Biden, and that Hunter Biden was essentially innocent of what people had been implying. His letter debunked all the conspiracy theories.



In August 2019, Kurt Volker, Trump's Special Envoy to Ukraine, approached Giuliani. He said that Trump had written Zelenskyy off and wasn't talking to him, but wanted Giuliani to emphasize to Trump that the relationship with Zelenskyy was crucial. He stressed that Zelenskyy needed to get support from the U.S. in Ukraine's ongoing war with Russia. While at a meeting that I was present at with Giuliani and Volker at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, it was agreed that if Giuliani opened the communication channels with Zelenskyy and Trump, as well as invited Zelenskyy to the White House, then Zelenskyy would announce an investigation into the Bidens. A later meeting with Volker, Giuliani, and then U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and Rick Perry took place to discuss the details of the investigation announcement in a phone call with Zelenskyy's chief of staff Andriy Yermark.



I was then tasked with traveling to Spain to attend a meeting with Yermark and Giuliani. In that meeting, Giuliani pressured Yermark to tell Zelenskyy to make the announcement about the Bidens. Giuliani also brought up Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev, who he had met with several times in New York. He informed Yermark that he knew Zelenskyy wanted to fire Klitschko and emphasized that this would be a bad idea, because Klitschko was well liked by Trump and the American people.

Again, this is a blatant example of Giuliani interfering in foreign politics. Zelenskyy's aim was to clear out corruption in the Ukrainian government. Unfortunately, the war has limited Zelenskyy's opportunities to address this. However, there was no possible reason why Giuliani should have been suggesting who should play any role in the Ukrainian government.

In the early part of October 2019, I got a call telling me to go to Vienna with Giuliani, where the former Chief Financial Officer of Burisma, Alexander Gorbunenko, would meet Giuliani and give us Hunter Biden's hard drive and answer any questions we had. My Ukrainian contacts also told me they would have Viktor Shokin in Vienna to give an interview to Sean Hannity of FOX News, because Shokin was supposed to appear in a Viennese court on behalf of Dimitry Firtash, giving sworn testimony in court that would basically be saying what Giuliani wanted him to say -- that he was fired because of Joe Biden. (As mentioned earlier, Biden did make statements that he had helped to get Shokin fired, but Ukrainian investigations into the matter some years later concluded that Shokin had been terminated because of multiple cases of corruption while in office.)

I have text messages confirming all these plans, and all are among the materials I submitted to Congress during the first impeachment inquiry. These include messages from Hannity setting up the interview, and messages coordinating that Giuliani, Toensing, and I would go to Vienna to meet Burisma's ex-CFO Gorbunenko. Just before we were to fly to Austria, there was a meeting at FOX News in Washington, because Solomon was appearing that night on Hannity's show and Giuliani was appearing in Laura Ingraham's. The BLT Team got together in a FOX conference room and discussed how we would blow up the story once we got Hunter Biden's hard drive in Vienna.

The next morning Giuliani met me for breakfast and said that Trump needed him at the White House, he would be unable to go to Vienna. He insisted Fruman and I should go and set up everything and he would join us later. Toensing then contacted me to say that she would not go to Vienna either because her husband had a cold. Shortly afterward, on October 9, 2019, Fruman and I were arrested at Dulles International Airport while trying to make the first leg of our flight to Vienna.

Throughout all these months of work, the extensive campaigns and networking done by Trump allies and Giuliani associates, including the enormously thorough interviews and assignments that I undertook, there has never been any evidence that Hunter or Joe Biden committed any crimes related to Ukrainian politics. Never, during any of my communications with Ukrainian officials or connections to Burisma, did any of them confirm or provide concrete facts linking the Bidens to illegal activities. In fact, they asked me multiple times why our team was so concerned with this idea. The truth is that everyone, from Giuliani and the BLT Team to Devin Nunes and his colleagues, to the people at FOX News, knew that these allegations against the Bidens were false. There has never been any factual evidence, only conspiracy theories spread by people who knew exactly what they were doing.

With all due respect, Chairman Comer, the narrative you are seeking for this investigation has been proven false many times over, by a wide array of respected sources. There is simply no merit to investigating this matter any further. I hope my letter has provided you with additional clarity on this point.

Please know that in my sharing this information with you, I am not looking for any sympathy for myself. I take full responsibility for my own actions in this matter, and I am extremely remorseful for my participation. In explaining the full context to you here, I can only hope that my truth can be used for the greater good. Please abandon this effort to investigate the Bidens, which is nothing more than a wild goose chase, and let our elected officials return to the issue at hand of uniting our great country to be stronger and better than ever before.

I am willing to testify under oath in Congress regarding any of these matters, and answer any questions that you might have, or provide you with any texts or correspondence in these situations I have described in this letter. You may contact me through my attorney Joseph A. Bondy, who can be reached by phone at [DELETE].

Thank you for your consideration.  

Sincerely,

Lev Parnas

So there you have it folks. That was my 10-page letter that I wrote to James Comer. And what did he do? He basically looked the other way, just like they do all time. Because they don't want the truth. They don't want to get to the bottom of it. All they want to do is give you bits and pieces, they want to give you conspiracy theories, they want to confuse the people all for the simple fact: to deflect from the real criminal, like I said, Donald J Trump.

Thank you for watching. You can follow me on Twitter or Threads or Instagram at LevParnas. And please make sure to subscribe to the Meidas touch Network.

[admin]

Hunter Biden STRIKES BACK with MASSIVE Lawsuit Against Trump Aide
by Ben Meiselas
MeidasTouch
Sep 14, 2023

-- Robert Hunter Biden vs. Garrett Ziegler, ICU, LLC, et al: COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES, INJUNCTIVE AND EQUITABLE RELIEF: (1) VIOLATION OF THE COMPUTER FRAUD AND ABUSE ACT, (2) VIOLATION OF THE CALIFORNIA COMPUTER DATA ACCESS AND FRAUD ACT.

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on a new federal lawsuit filed by Hunter Biden in California against former Donald Trump aide for hacking and data manipulation.



Transcript

I'm Ben Meiselas from the Midas touch
Network Hunter Biden is striking back
against MAGA Republicans for their
lies manipulation distortions and
invasion of his privacy as we've
previously reported Hunter Biden hired a
new law firm Winston Strawn which went
on the offense filing lawsuits against
various Maga Republicans and sending
cease and desist letters out to Maga
republicans in Congress as well for
their conduct here Hunter Biden has just
filed a federal lawsuit with the law
firm Winston Strawn against an
individual by the name of Garrett
Ziegler an entity controlled by Ziegler
called ICU LLC doing business as Marco
Polo as well as does one through ten
meaning at a later date Hunter Biden may
substitute in additional people and name
them in this lawsuit in place of doze
one through ten now in this powerful
Federal lawsuit filed by Hunter Biden he
accuses Garrett Ziegler of hacking into
his hard drive which is being
masqueraded as a laptop but hacking in
manipulating and distorting the data I
want to read you some of the key
allegations in this lawsuit that was
just filed by Hunter Biden I also want
to play for you I think two important
audio tapes which deserve more attention
and these are audio tapes of Steve
Bannon who attended an event at one of
the compounds controlled by now indicted
miles guo who was spreading a lot of the
hunter Biden lies and distortion on
right wing media there's a Infamous clip
of Steve Bannon bragging about how
regardless what the results are in the
2020 election Donald Trump was going to
declare victory that one got more
attention there is another clip where
Steve Bannon talks about how some of
these photos that were distributed to
the media by Maga Republicans had very
significant editorial choices that were
made and you listen to what Steve Bannon
says editorial creativity in these
photos which seems to in Steve bannon's
own words confirm the type of
manipulation and Distortion which is in
this lawsuit let's take a look at the
lawsuit first filed by Hunter Biden it
says plaintiff Robert Hunter Biden
for his claims against defendant Garrett
Ziegler Ziegler and defendant ICU LLC
alleges the following one Garrett
Ziegler is a zealot who has waged a
sustained unhinged and obsessed campaign
against Hunter Biden and the entire
Biden family for more than two years
while defendant Ziegler is entitled to
his extremist and counterfactual
opinions he has no right to engage in
illegal activities to advance his
right-wing agenda yet that is precisely
what defendant Ziegler and his so-called
non-profit research group defend an ICU
doing business as Marco Polo have done
and have asserted they will continue to
do in the future
since approximately December 2020
defendant Ziegler defendant ICU and
other team volunteers and independent
contractors have spent countless hours
accessing tampering with manipulating
altering copying and damaging computer
data that they do not own and that they
claim to have obtained from hacking into
plaintiff's iPhone data and from
scouring a copy of the hard drive of
what they claim to be plaintiff's quote
laptop computer in other words there is
no laptop computer what there is are
hard drives that were hacked by Ziegler
by people close to Ziegler and then
laundered through people like Rudy
Giuliani and Steve Bannon so the
allegations here are quite significant
says that plaintiff Hunter Biden has
demanded that defendants cease their
unlawful activities with respect to
plaintiff's data and return any data in
their possession belonging to Hunter
Biden but they have flatly and publicly
refused to do so rather than comply
defendants have doubled down on their
illegal actions and have vowed to
continue violating the law with impunity
thereby necessitating this action and by
the way what do we talk about over and
over again here on the Meidastouch
Network evidence and so the forensic
Integrity of this hard drive is
something that would be very important
yet
as we can see here there is zero zip
zilch in uh forensic Integrity when it
comes to these hard drives not a laptop
that these Maga Republicans like Garrett
Ziegler refused to return and here in
this lawsuit Hunter Biden says that
there is clear evidence of hacking of
tampering of manipulating the underlying
data and by the way you may recall in a
prior report that we did this was
involving a letter that Hunter Biden
sent preceding this lawsuit Hunter Biden
pointed out that there were supposed
WhatsApp messages that have been
circulating by Maga republicans in
Congress yet the format that it's in are
actually not WhatsApp format so you can
see the manipulation just by looking at
that's actually not how WhatsApp
messages look like or that's not how
iPhone messages look like and the photos
that are even being used are photos that
were taken after the the incident took
place so the data has clear signs of
manipulation you go into the factual
allegations defendant Ziegler is a
former Trump White House aide who worked
from February 2019 until January 2021 as
a policy analyst and later as an
associate director of The Office of
trade and Manufacturing policy directly
under
convicted individual by the name of
Peter Navarro so this was a Navarro
Lackey who was doing the dirty bidding
of Donald Trump and mega Republicans and
people like Steve Bannon goes on to say
plaintiff Hunter Biden is informed and
believed in there and alleges that since
having his White House credentials
revoked by Mark Meadows in or around
January 2021 defendant Ziegler has
devoted most of his waking time and
energy to accessing tampering with
manipulating altering copying and
otherwise using data contained on a copy
of a hard drive that defendants claim to
be of plaintiff's laptop computer and
data that defendants admit to have
obtained by hacking into plaintiff's
data specifically an encrypted iPhone
backup so this lawsuit then shows direct
quotes it attributes to Ziegler saying
here is where the hacking took place of
iPhone
backups and specifically here is how
data was manipulated through a hard
drive and there is no actual laptop
there's multiple hard drives it appears
it goes on to say although the precise
manner by which Ziegler obtained
plaintiff's data remains unclear there
is no dispute that defendants have to at
least some extent access tampered with
manipulated altered copied and damaged
plaintiff's data and that their actions
are illegal
unauthorized and without plaintiff's
consent according to published reports
Ziegler's claimed to have obtained one
copy of a hard drive from what he claims
was plaintiff's laptop computer in
December 2020 from Jack Maxey a former
co-host on Steve bannon's War Room
podcast who has described himself
publicly as Hunter's laptop King in or
around early 2021 Ziegler claims to have
obtained another copy of a hard drive
from what he claims to be plaintiff's
laptop and that's in quotes computer
from an associate of Rudy Giuliani the
former New York neighbor who previously
represented Trump plaintiff is informed
and believes in there on alleges that
defendant Ziegler also illegally
accessed and tampered with manipulated
and copied data belonging to Plaintiff
by means of a cloud storage and file
hosting service that was offered by Mega
NZ now you saw Steve bannon's name
mentioned in the complaint
remember I mentioned at the beginning of
this video that there are these audio
recordings of Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon spoke with a group of
people before the November 2020 election
at a compound controlled by miles guo
miles guo one of the people who used and
this is what's a legend the doj
indictment basically the Ponzi scheme
that he was running to fund all of these
uh this right-wing disinformation about
Hunter so here's Steve Bannon right
before the November 2020 election
talking about the editorial creativity
of the hunter Biden photographs that
were released editorial creativity that
doesn't sound like forensic Integrity
right there and also how this was a
major part of Trump's effort to
undermine President Biden then candidate
Biden play this clip then the other
thing is the way we blunted the way we
drove up Biden's negatives the only
thing that stopped the momentum was the
hard drive from hell right and two parts
of that were were looters
and really the CCP involvement that's
what shocked the American people sleepy
Joe he never drove up Biden's negatives
it was only when we got the hard drive
they got it to you that in the post yeah
if you if you look here's what here's
where the Biden's up
from the day the post story came out and
then you started pumping out we got you
the stuff and you started just dumping
it out and then the internet started
picking up and they suppressed it
remember the best thing that happened to
us was Twitter and Facebook suppressing
it because then everybody wants to see
it remember you we aired this guy every
day for 10 days with the worst pictures
in the world drug addicts taking money
from CCP from Chinese five no response
and the negatives just keep going up
because people are sitting there going I
didn't know that about Joe Biden but Joe
Biden nobody not one person came out and
said those pictures are not true right
nobody came out and said anything you're
saying is not true even the wildest
allegations when Trump got coveted
and when Trump had that first debate
within that one week period fighting
Biden could have put him away the
campaign would have been over he
dividing with a one with 500 electoral
votes but they didn't do it and we were
able to stop it so now I'm not saying
Trump's going to win but we have a
fighting chance so I bet you don't
remember that clip right and shout out
to Mother Jones for getting that
exclusive audio recording that's been
out for a while but hasn't really been
reported they're talking about editorial
creativity of the photos you heard what
Bannon was saying that's from the same
meeting at the miles guo compound where
Steve Bannon laid out the plan that no
matter what the results were of the 2020
election Donald Trump was going to claim
he was a king stop our democracy and
create chaos this is Steve Bannon in his
own words folks Mother Jones got the
audio recording here play this clip more
of our people vote
early that count there's voted mail and
so they're going to have a natural
disadvantage and Trump's going to take
advantage of that's our strategy he's
going to clear himself a winner so when
you wake up Wednesday morning
it's going to be a firestorm
we're gonna have a T4 crazy the media
crazy the courts are crazy and Trump's
going to be sitting there mocking
tweeting out you lose
I'm the winner I'm the king
he'll be going where's Hunters Hunter on
a crack pipe I mean no he'll be because
then it doesn't matter remember
here's the thing after that Trump never
has to go to a voter again
he's going to fire raid the FBI
directions and find the signal and say
you how about that because he's
never gonna he's he's done his last
election oh he's gonna be off the chase
he's gonna be crazy
also if Trump is if Trump is losing
by 10 11 o'clock at night it's going to
be even crazier
no because you just sit right there and
said they stole them
I'm directing the Attorney General to
shut down all ballot places in all 50
states it's gonna be enough he's not
going out easy Trump if Biden's winning
Trump is going to do some crazy
yeah that that's how powerful those
clips are certainly evidence that's
going to be used by special counsel Jack
Smith but that's how those clips relate
to Ziegler and this lawsuit now Ziegler
is being sued by Hunter Biden for
violations of the Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act violation of California
computer data access and the business
and professions code Hunter Biden has
requested a demand for a jury trial we
will keep you updated with more
information but I am glad Hunter Biden
is fighting back going on the offense
against this campaign by Mega
Republicans to try to humiliate him and
embarrass him and try to destroy his
lives in order to then tie that to
President Biden it is so unseemly so
despicable and you see here the
allegations are also very illegal the
tactics that were used according to this
lawsuit I'm Ben Meiselas

[admin]

PAUL B. SALVATY (State Bar No. 171507)
PSalvaty@winston.com
WINSTON & STRAWN LLP
333 S. Grand Ave., 38th Fl.
Los Angeles, CA 90071-1543
Telephone: (213) 615-1700
Facsimile: (213) 615-1750

ABBE DAVID LOWELL (pro hac vice forthcoming)
AbbeLowellPublicOutreach@winston.com
WINSTON & STRAWN LLP
1901 L St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20036-3508
Telephone: (202) 282-5000
Facsimile: (202) 282-5100

BRYAN M. SULLIVAN (State Bar No. 209743)
bsullivan@earlysullivan.com
ZACHARY C. HANSEN (State Bar No. 325128)
zhansen@earlysullivan.com
EARLY SULLIVAN WRIGHT GIZER & McRAE LLP
6420 Wilshire Boulevard, 17th Fl.
Los Angeles, California 90048
Telephone: (323) 301-4660
Facsimile: (323) 301-4676

Attorneys for Plaintiff
ROBERT HUNTER BIDEN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

ROBERT HUNTER BIDEN, an individual,

Plaintiff,

vs.

GARRETT ZIEGLER, an individual, ICU, LLC, a Wyoming Limited Liability Company d/b/a Marco Polo, and DOES 1 through 10, inclusive;

Defendants.

Case No. 2:23-cv-07593

COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES, INJUNCTIVE AND EQUITABLE RELIEF:

1. VIOLATION OF THE COMPUTER FRAUD AND ABUSE ACT (18 U.S.C. § 1030)

2. VIOLATION OF THE CALIFORNIA COMPUTER DATA ACCESS AND FRAUD ACT (CAL. PENAL CODE § 502)

3. BUS. & PROF. CODE SECTIONS 17200 et seq.

DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL

Plaintiff Robert Hunter Biden (“Plaintiff”), for his claims against Defendant Garrett Ziegler (“Ziegler”) and Defendant ICU LLC (“ICU”) (collectively, “Defendants”) alleges upon knowledge with respect to his own acts and upon information and belief as to all other matters, as follows:

INTRODUCTION

1. Garrett Ziegler is a zealot who has waged a sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign against Plaintiff and the entire Biden family for more than two years. While Defendant Ziegler is entitled to his extremist and counterfactual opinions, he has no right to engage in illegal activities to advance his right-wing agenda. Yet that is precisely what Defendant Ziegler and his so-called “nonprofit research group,” Defendant ICU, d/b/a/ Marco Polo, have done and have asserted they will continue to do in the future.

2. Since approximately December 2020, Defendant Ziegler, Defendant ICU and their “team” of volunteers and independent contractors have spent countless hours accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and damaging computer data that they do not own and that they claim to have obtained from hacking into Plaintiff’s iPhone data and from scouring a copy of the hard drive of what they claim to be Plaintiff’s “laptop” computer.

3. Defendants’ actions are unlawful under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030), California’s Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (Cal. Penal Code § 502) and California’s Unfair Competition Law (Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17200 et seq.).

4. Plaintiff has demanded Defendants cease their unlawful activities with respect to Plaintiff’s data and return any data in their possession belonging to Plaintiff, but they have flatly and publicly refused to do so. Rather than comply, Defendants have doubled down on their illegal actions and have vowed to continue violating the law with impunity, thereby necessitating this action.

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

5. This Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1332. This Court also has supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

6. The dispute arises as a federal question because it involves the violation of a federal statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030.

7. The parties are of diverse citizenship. Plaintiff is a citizen of the State of California and resides in Los Angeles, California. Defendant Ziegler is a citizen of and is residing in the State of Illinois. Defendant ICU is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Wyoming. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that the members of Defendant ICU are not citizens of California.

8. The amount in controversy exceeds $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs. Damages that Plaintiff has suffered and will continue to suffer as a result of the violations of the federal statute referenced above and the other claims asserted herein exceed $75,000.

9. Venue is proper in this judicial district pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2) and (b)(3), as it is where a substantial part of the events giving rise to the claim alleged in this complaint occurred and because Defendants are subject to the court’s personal jurisdiction with respect to this action.

PARTIES

10. Plaintiff is a citizen of the State of California and resides in Los Angeles, California.

11. Plaintiff is informed and believes that Defendant Ziegler is a citizen of and is residing in Illinois. Further, Plaintiff is informed and believes that Defendant Ziegler intentionally directed illegal conduct to occur in California and has therefore subjected himself to jurisdiction in California.

12. Plaintiff is informed and believes that Defendant ICU is an LLC whose members include Defendant Ziegler, with its principal place of business located at 30 N. Gould Street, Ste 12323, Sheridan, WY 82801. Plaintiff is further informed and believes that Defendant Ziegler serves as an officer, manager or director of Defendant ICU and is primarily responsible for the management of Defendant ICU. Plaintiff is further informed and believes that Defendant ICU engages in regular activities in California and the County of Los Angeles, including, among other actions, operating a website which includes specific disclosures incorporating California consumer protection and privacy laws and purporting to exercise rights under those laws, demonstrating that Defendants directed their actions to California and purposely availed themselves of California law.

13. Defendants sued herein as Does 1 through 10, inclusive, are sued in their fictitious names and capacities as their identities have not yet been determined. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that each of such Defendants is responsible in some way for the acts alleged herein. Plaintiff will seek leave to amend this complaint to allege such Defendants’ true names and capacities when they have been ascertained.

14. Upon information and belief, at all times herein mentioned, each Defendant acted individually and/or as the agent, co-conspirator, aider, abettor, joint venturer, alter ego, third-party beneficiary, employee, officer, director or representative of the other Defendants and, in doing the things hereinafter averred, acted within the course and scope of such agency, employment or conspiracy and with the consent, permission and authorization of each of the remaining Defendants. Upon information and belief, all actions of each Defendant as averred in the claims for relief stated herein were ratified and approved by every other Defendant or their officers, directors or managing agents.

FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

15. Defendant Ziegler is a former Trump White House aide who worked, from February 2019 until January 2021, as a Policy Analyst and, later, as an Associate Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy under the supervision of Dr. Peter Navarro.

16. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that, since having his White House credentials revoked by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in or around January 2021, Defendant Ziegler has devoted most of his waking time and energy to accessing, tampering with, manipulating, altering, copying and otherwise using data contained on a copy of a hard drive that Defendants claim to be of Plaintiff’s “laptop” computer and data that Defendants admit to have obtained by hacking into Plaintiff’s data, specifically an encrypted iPhone backup.

17. Although the precise manner by which Defendant Ziegler obtained Plaintiff’s data remains unclear, there is no dispute that Defendants have, to at least some extent, accessed, tampered with, manipulated, altered, copied and damaged Plaintiff’s data, and that their actions are illegal, unauthorized, and without Plaintiff’s consent.

18. According to published reports, Defendant Ziegler claims to have obtained one copy of a hard drive from what he claims was Plaintiff’s “laptop” computer in December 2020 from Jack Maxey, a former co-host on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast who has described himself publicly as “Hunter’s Laptop King.” In or around early 2021, Defendant Ziegler claims to have obtained another copy of a hard drive from what he claims to be Plaintiff’s “laptop” computer from an associate of Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who previously represented former President Trump. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Defendant Ziegler also illegally accessed, tampered with, manipulated and copied data belonging to Plaintiff by means of a “cloud” storage and file hosting service offered by MEGA NZ.

19. Plaintiff’s data appears to have been tampered with, manipulated, altered and damaged both before Defendants received it and after it was obtained by Defendants and they began illegally accessing and tampering with it themselves. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Defendants intentionally altered at least some of Plaintiff’s data and that they severely damaged Plaintiff’s data through sloppy and inept handling of the data, by disregarding forensically sound methods for data preservation and analysis, and by engaging generally in reckless, incompetent and malicious activities with respect to the data that have impaired the ability of Plaintiff and others to verify all of the data’s authenticity and to determine the precise extent of tampering, alteration and damage.

20. On or about July 8, 2021, Defendant Ziegler organized Defendant ICU and caused Defendant ICU to begin doing business under the name Marco Polo. According to Defendant Ziegler’s own public statements, a chief focus of Defendant ICU has been accessing and analyzing Plaintiff’s data. In addition to illegally accessing and analyzing the data, Defendants also have tampered with, manipulated and copied the data so that others could unlawfully access, tamper with and manipulate Plaintiff’s data as well.

21. Plaintiff is unaware of the precise dates on which Defendants have accessed, altered, tampered with, manipulated, damaged and/or copied Plaintiff’s data. According to Defendant Ziegler himself, Defendants spent at least 13 months – from September 2021 through October 2022 – “analyzing the voluminous material from the Biden Laptop.” On information and belief, Defendants’ unlawful access, tampering with, manipulation, damage and copying of Plaintiff’s data has continued beyond October 2022 and is ongoing to this day.

22. Defendant Ziegler has stated publicly that Defendants used Plaintiff’s data from what he calls Plaintiff’s “laptop” computer to create a voluminous report entitled Report on the Biden Laptop, which Defendants first published on or about October 19, 2022. In addition, in or around May 2022, Defendants used Plaintiff’s data from the claimed Plaintiff’s “laptop” computer to create what Defendant Ziegler has described as “an online searchable database of 128,000 emails found on the Biden Laptop.” Plaintiff has never authorized or consented to any access of his data by any Defendant (or anyone working with any Defendant) at any time or for any purpose. To the contrary, Plaintiff has notified Defendants that Defendants are not authorized to access any of his data, that they should cease doing so, and that they should return any of Plaintiff’s data in their possession to Plaintiff immediately.

23. Defendants not only admit to accessing, tampering with, manipulating and copying Plaintiff’s data from their claimed Plaintiff’s “laptop” computer without Plaintiff’s authorization or consent, they regularly brag about their illegal activities in interviews with members of the media, on social media, and on right-wing podcasts.

24. For example, in December 2022, Defendant Ziegler described the activities of his team, which he said includes “digital forensics folks,” as follows: “[i ]t took us a year to go through [the data] . . . Usually, when you have this much data to go through, it’s as if it’s after a presidential library has been opened, right?” In another interview published in or around June 2023, Defendant Ziegler discussed his and his team’s efforts to create a website to house “almost 10,000 photos” that he claims to have extracted from Plaintiff’s data.

25. According to Defendant Ziegler, Defendants spent “a couple of months” going through photos stored in Plaintiff’s data, organizing and modifying the photos (through what he characterizes as “redactions”), and subjecting the data to a “photo viewing app” to allow Defendants and others to “view the metadata in the photos.” Defendant Ziegler claims that Defendants’ activities are designed to allow members of the public who log onto Defendants’ website and access Defendants’ servers “to be able to see where the photo was taken, what time it was taken, if it has latitude and longitude coordinates attached to it. . . They’re going to be able to see if it has metadata like aperture, lighting.”

26. Defendant Ziegler further has stated that Defendants’ efforts to upload videos from Plaintiff’s data to Defendants’ website required more time and effort than uploading photos from Plaintiff’s data because Defendants needed “to use AI tools” on the data as part of their purported efforts to “censor” portions of videos that Defendants consider to be “pornographic.”

27. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that the data Defendants have accessed, tampered with, manipulated, damaged and copied includes tens of thousands of emails, thousands of photos, and dozens of videos and recordings. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that the data Defendants have accessed, tampered with, manipulated and copied also includes Plaintiff’s credit card details, Plaintiff’s financial and bank records, and information of the type contained in a file of a consumer reporting agency.

28. Plaintiff further is informed and believes and thereon alleges that at least some of the data that Defendants have accessed, tampered with, manipulated, damaged and copied without Plaintiff’s authorization or consent originally was stored on Plaintiff’s iPhone and backed-up to Plaintiff’s iCloud storage. On information and belief, Defendants gained their unlawful access to Plaintiff’s iPhone data by circumventing technical or code-based barriers that were specifically designed and intended to prevent such access.

29. In an interview that occurred in or around December 2022, Defendant Ziegler bragged that Defendants had hacked their way into data purportedly stored on or originating from Plaintiff’s iPhone: “And we actually got into [Plaintiff’s] iPhone backup, we were the first group to do it in June of 2022, we cracked the encrypted code that was stored on his laptop.” After “cracking the encrypted code that was stored on [Plaintiff’s] laptop,” Defendants illegally accessed the data from the iPhone backup, and then uploaded Plaintiff’s encrypted iPhone data to their website, where it remains accessible to this day. It appears that data that Defendants have uploaded to their website from Plaintiff’s encrypted “iPhone backup,” like data that Defendants have uploaded from their copy of the hard drive of the “Biden laptop,” has been manipulated, tampered with, altered and/or damaged by Defendants. The precise nature and extent of Defendants’ manipulation, tampering, alteration, damage and copying of Plaintiff’s data, either from their copy of the hard drive of the claimed “Biden laptop” or from Plaintiff’s encrypted “iPhone backup” (or from some other source), is unknown to Plaintiff due to Defendants’ continuing refusal to return the data to Plaintiff so that it can be analyzed or inspected.

30. Plaintiff has demanded that Defendants cease and desist from their unlawful accessing of Plaintiff’s data and that they return any data in their possession that was sent to them or that they obtained from any account, device/hard drive, back up files, “cloud” files or copies of the same belonging to Plaintiff. Rather than comply, Defendants have derided Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s counsel for making the demands, and they have vowed to continue violating the law with impunity.

31. Within the last two weeks, Defendant Ziegler went so far as to declare on social media that efforts by Plaintiff to serve him with legal process in the future would [be] met with violence: “If the US pResident’s son sends a proxy [i.e., a process server] to illegally trespass on my property I will blow their f---ing brains out.”

32. In light of the foregoing illegal activities by Defendants, their repeated refusals to cease and desist in their unlawful behavior, and their stated intention to continue violating the law in the future, Plaintiff has no alternative but to commence this lawsuit and to seek all available and appropriate legal and equitable relief.

FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF
(Violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act)
(18 U.S.C. § 1030)
(Against all Defendants)

33. Plaintiff incorporates herein by this reference the allegations in paragraphs 1 through 32 above.

34. Upon information and belief Plaintiff alleges that Defendants have violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (“CFAA”), specifically section 1030(a)(2)(A) of the CFAA, by intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, and thereby obtaining information contained in financial records of one or more financial institutions or of one or more card issuers as defined in section 1602(n) of title 15, or contained in one or more files of a consumer reporting agency on a consumer, as such terms are defined in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681, et seq.).

35. Upon information and belief, Plaintiff further alleges that Defendants have violated the CFAA, specifically section 1030(a)(2)(C) of the CFAA, by intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, and thereby obtaining information from any protected computer which, pursuant to the CFAA, is a computer used in or affecting interstate commerce or communication.

36. Upon information and belief, Plaintiff further alleges that Defendants have violated the CFAA, specifically section 1030(a)(4) of the CFAA, by knowingly and with intent to defraud, accessing a protected computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, and by means of such conduct furthering the intended fraud and obtaining one or more things of value.

37. Plaintiff has suffered damages or losses as a result of Defendants’ violations of the CFAA far in excess of $5,000. These damages and losses to Plaintiff include but are not limited to direct costs, incurred during any one-year period, of investigating and responding to Defendants’ violations of the CFAA in excess of $5,000 in value.

SECOND CLAIM FOR RELIEF
(Violation of the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act)
(Cal. Penal Code § 520)
(Against all Defendants)

38. Plaintiff incorporates herein by this reference the allegations in paragraphs 1 through 32 above.

39. Plaintiff owns data that is stored on a copy of a hard drive or other device(s) that Defendants own and operate and claim to have obtained of Plaintiff’s computer and that Defendants claim to have obtained by hacking into Plaintiff’s encrypted iPhone backup.

40. Defendants have violated California Penal Code § 502(c)(1) by knowingly accessing and without permission taking and using data from Plaintiff’s devices or “cloud” storage, including but not limited to, Plaintiff’s encrypted iPhone backup to devise or execute a scheme to defraud or deceive, or to wrongfully obtain money, property, or data.

41. Defendants also have violated California Penal Code § 502(c)(2) by knowingly and without permission accessing, taking, copying, and making use of programs, data, and files from Plaintiff’s devices or “cloud” storage, including but not limited to, Plaintiff’s encrypted iPhone backup.

42. Defendants also have violated California Penal Code § 502(c)(3) by knowingly and without permission using or causing to be used computer services as that term is defined in the statute.

43. Defendants also have violated California Penal Code§ 502(c)(7) by knowingly and without permission accessing, or causing to be accessed, data and files from Plaintiff’s devices or “cloud” storage, including but not limited to, Plaintiff’s encrypted iPhone backup.

44. As a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ unlawful conduct within the meaning of California Penal Code § 502, Defendants have caused damage to Plaintiff in an amount to be proven at trial.

45. The aforementioned acts of Defendants were willful and malicious in that they were done with the deliberate intent to injure Plaintiff. Plaintiff is therefore entitled to punitive damages in an amount to be proven at trial.

46. Plaintiff has also suffered irreparable injury from these acts, and due to the continuing threat of such injury, has no adequate remedy at law, entitling Plaintiff to injunctive and other equitable relief.

47. Plaintiff is also entitled to recover his reasonable attorneys’ fees pursuant to California Penal Code § 502(e).

COMPLAINT AND DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
THIRD CLAIM FOR RELIEF
(Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17200 et seq.)
(Against All Defendants)

48. Plaintiff incorporates herein by this reference the allegations in paragraphs 1 through 32 above.

49. California Business & Professions Code sections 17200 et seq. state that no business may engage in unfair competition. According to section 17200, “unfair shall mean and include any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice and unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising.”

50. By engaging in the conduct alleged herein, Defendants have engaged in unfair and unlawful activities in violation of the CFAA and California Penal Code section 502

51. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that the Defendants will continue to do these acts unless the Court orders Defendants to cease and desist, and, therefore, Plaintiff requests injunctive relief pursuant to California Business and Professions Code section 17203.

52. Based on the above allegations, including the alleged violations of the CFAA and California Penal Code section 502, Plaintiff is entitled to injunctive and equitable relief to stop Defendants from continuing to engage in their unlawful and unfair conduct with respect to Plaintiff and as necessary to restore to Plaintiff any money or property which Defendants have acquired by means of such unlawful and unfair conduct; restitution in an amount to be determined at trial; attorneys’ fees and costs as may be permitted by law; and any other relief as may be proper.

JURY TRIAL DEMAND

Plaintiff hereby respectfully demands a jury trial in this action for all causes of action for which a jury trial is available.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff prays for relief as follows:

A. For general damages to be proven at trial;

B. For punitive damages to be proven at trial for Defendants’ willful and deliberate actions including their unauthorized access, tampering with, manipulation and copying of, and damage to Plaintiff’s data;

C. For disgorgement of all money obtained by Defendants as a result of their unlawful and otherwise wrongful conduct;

D. For prejudgment interest;

E. For an order awarding Plaintiff his reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs;

F. For a preliminary and permanent injunction restraining Defendants, their officers, agents, employees, and attorneys, and those in active concert or participation with any of them, from:

(1) Accessing, tampering with, manipulating or copying Plaintiff’s data; and

(2) Restoring to Plaintiff any money or property which Defendants have acquired by means of such unlawful and unfair conduct including but not limited to any data in their possession that was sent to them or that they obtained from any account, device/hard drive, back up files, “cloud” files or copies of the same belonging to Plaintiff;

G. For such other and further relief as this Court may deem to be just and proper.

Dated: September 13, 2023

Respectfully submitted,
WINSTON & STRAWN LLP
By: Paul B. Salvaty
Abbe David Lowell
Attorneys for Plaintiff

[admin]

Part 1 of 2

Robert Hunter Biden v. United States Internal Revenue Service
Case 1:23-cv-02711
by Abbe David Lowell, WINSTON & STRAWN LLP
9/18/23

Hunter Biden PUNCHES BACK with POWERFUL Lawsuit
by Michael Popok
MeidasTouch
Sep 19, 2023

Hunter Biden is no longer anyone’s doormat or punching bag, as he punches back with the 2nd of 2 new lawsuits filed in the last 3 days against his tormentors. Michael Popok of Legal AF reports on Hunter’s new suit against the IRS filed in federal court alleging that 2 of ifs agents and their attorneys have violated federal privacy law in revealing confidential and private information about his tax problems and returns on network television more than 20 times.



Transcript

Hunter Biden is getting off the canvas
he's not going to be anybody's doormat
anymore and in the a second time in
three days has filed another lawsuit
against his tormentors and people that
try to reveal Hunter Biden's private
confidential information covered by
federal statutes that shouldn't be
revealed and shouldn't be part of the
public discussion we know why it's being
done it's being done so it could be used
against Joe Biden and his election
efforts by the GOP we know that Hunter
Biden is merely being his his ethics his
Integrity his values his uh personal
privacy rights are being sacrificed on
the altar of political expediency and
political ambition by Donald Trump it's
obvious now
um Hunter Biden is fighting back last
week we reported on legal AF that he
filed a lawsuit against Garrett Ziegler
in federal court in California about the
photos and other emails which obviously
resulted in somebody cracking and
hacking uh Hunter Biden's personal
laptop cell phone and other materials
and Garrett Ziegler who worked for the
Trump Administration and the Trump
campaign was part of that process and
now he along with nine others have been
sued but that's not the latest the
latest is today the Internal Revenue
Service itself because of the actions of
two of its if it's investigators Gary
shapley and Joe Ziegler have been sued
in the District of Columbia federal
court by uh Hunter Biden all of this
newfound
muscularity in the defense of Hunter
Biden is really because he hired a new
lawyer he hired Abby Lowell a long time
successful lawyer for a lot of
democratic causes who who was I guess
has decided enough is enough you know
that it's one thing for Hunter Biden to
admit that he didn't pay his taxes on
time and get them paid and he's not
being prosecuted for that or admit that
he had a drug problem very publicly in
Memoirs or admit that he sent you know
he had a he had a bender for three years
and did really bad bad things that make
him embarrassed and embarrassing to his
family but but that doesn't mean you
know his his junk photos should be
spread through Congress or that the
internal revenue agents that were
responsible for the investigation should
go on national TV or if they don't do it
their lawyers go on national TV more
than 20 times to drag Hunter Biden
through the mud using private
information that should be used again
against no American citizen not just one
that happens to be the son of the
president no one would be safe if this
was the law and it shouldn't be and
Hunter Biden's right to seek Justice yes
it keeps him in the news yes it makes
him have to admit certain things like
those were the pictures of his junk and
you know what picks that were sent
around and yes he had a drug problem yes
he bought a gun and yes he didn't buy
you know he didn't pay his taxes on time
has nothing to do with with Joe Biden
and Joe Biden gave birth to the kid
after that you know the guy's like you
know 54 years old he's on his own it's
as to what he does I didn't vote for
Hunter Biden I wouldn't vote for Hunter
Biden and that's not the issue here the
issue is try to hold the father
responsible for the sins of his son and
that's what's being done here and being
fought back against the new lawsuit I
think is fascinating and I'm going to
show you a clip to give you an example
of what Gary shapley the senior
investigator has done that's so wrong he
admits in one in one breath of the clip
to CBS News several months ago that
he can't reveal the name of the target
of his investigation
but then sits there and basically
reveals through the reporting that it's
Hunter Biden and then Reveals All the
Things he's not supposed to say that not
only that he was cautioned by the
investigators of congress not to reveal
the information he was providing to them
secret and confidential he even says in
the same breath on this interview this
clip you're going to say Joe shapley
says I can't reveal that it's against
secrecy laws he knows there's secrecy
laws he's been an investigator for 14
years yet he thinks it's fine to drag
Hunter Biden through the mud okay maybe
the mud of his own making but that's why
we have privacy laws that's why the IRS
can't like put up on a billboard in
Times Square your tax return information
or information about how they're going
to use an enforcement mechanism against
you I mean they can do a lot of things
but they're not supposed to do that
let me show you the clip that's gotten
the lawyers for Hunter Biden up in arms
let's play the clip we turn now to a CBS
News exclusive for more than three years
the Department of Justice has been
investigating the president's son Hunter
Biden for possible tax crimes last fall
FBI sources told us they had sufficient
evidence to bring charges cbs's Jim
Axelrod spoke to the IRS agent who is
blowing the whistle on what he says was
preferential treatment in his first
public interview
when I took control of this particular
investigation
I immediately saw it you know it was way
outside the norm of what what I've
experienced in the past Gary shapley is
his supervisory special agent for the
IRS where he's worked for 14 years in
January 2020 he was assigned to what he
calls a high-profile investigation who's
the subject of the investigation I can't
confirm or deny the subject to this
investigation why not because you know
part of the tax secrecy laws don't allow
it shapley can't say it but CBS News has
learned the investigation was the probe
of Hunter Biden by the Trump appointed
U.S attorney in Delaware senior Biden
Administration officials have vowed to
let it run its course without
interference it's not restricted in his
investigation in any way but CBS News
has obtained this letter shapley's
lawyers sent to Congress Monday alleging
irregularities in doj's handling of the
investigation shapley is seeking legal
protections from Congress so he can
share specifics of his alligator
patients there was multiple steps that
were were slow walked at the direction
of the Department of Justice had you
ever encountered that before I have not
no these deviations from normal process
that and and each and every time it
seemed to to always benefit the subject
shapley says he decided to blow the
whistle after a heated meeting last
October with Federal prosecutors it was
my red line meeting it just got to that
point where that switch was uh was
turned on and I just couldn't silence my
conscience anymore did you let
prosecutors know you were unhappy I
don't think I can answer that Hunter
Biden has denied any wrongdoing like
civil servants the IRS agent told us he
is a registered Republican his
whistleblowing is being assisted by an
advocacy group with past ties to the GOP
but shapley says this is not about
politics why do you want to navigate
these Waters I don't want to do any of
this I took an oath of office and when I
saw the egregiousness of some of these
things
it no longer became a choice for me it's
not something that I want to do with
something that I feel like I have to do
the IRS told us it can't comment on
specific cases but is committed to
supporting whistleblowers in general
both the doj and the U.S attorney's
Office in Delaware declined to comment
Nora Jim Axelrod thank you all right
that's one of 20.
I'll tell you who's really trying to use
this to his advantage
and get the publicity in order to win a
Republican party West Virginia senate
seat is the lawyer for Joe shapley
Tristan Lovett he's decided he's going
to be a big time celebrity by going on
and talking about The Whistleblower
information that his client is going to
testify or has testified to to the house
Maga in doing so he himself reveals and
violates the Privacy Act and all the
things that govern how the IRS is
supposed to keep secret and confidential
the information of taxpayers and not
just use it because it's politically
expedient or because it makes for good
fodder for Fox News That's not supposed
to happen and so it's time and I agree
with Hunter Biden in fighting back I
know it keeps them in the news and it
makes it a part of the news story cycle
for Joe Biden but that doesn't mean that
Hunter Biden should lay down and not
protect his rights I mean as the
lawsuit says and I think artfully and
you can tell this is the work of Abby
Lowell
um you know first paragraph first
sentence Mr Biden is the son of the
president of the United States let's get
that out in the open he has all the same
responsibilities as any other American
citizen and the IRS can and should take
certain uh steps that he abide by those
responsibilities in other words he's got
to pay his taxes like everybody else
but similarly Mr Biden has no fewer or
lesser rights than any other American
citizen and no government agency our
government agent has free reign to
violate his rights simply because of who
he is yet the IRS and its agents have
conducted themselves under a presumption
that the rights that apply to every
other American citizen do not apply to
Mr Biden okay this has to do with the
investigation for five years the fact
that Joe Biden cooperated fully with the
IRS investigation but he expected that
the IRS would be committed to complying
with their legal obligations under the
Privacy Act which is at five U.S code
section
552-a instead the lawsuit says in
paragraph three that the IRS agents have
targeted and sought to embarrass Mr
Biden via public statements to the media
in which they and their representatives
that's the lawyers like Tristan Levitt
have disclosed confidential information
about a private citizens Tax Matters
that's not supposed to happen in America
while Mr Biden has been the victim of
various leaks regarding the IRS
investigation previously most recently
and here's the the nub here's the
gravaman of the suit
two IRS agents Mr Gary shapley we showed
you the video and Mr Joseph Ziegler and
their attorneys raised the stakes to
unprecedented levels with their numerous
public appearances and statements in
violation of the Internal Revenue code
to publicly smear Mr Biden that's the
problem
they're not allowed as the complaint
goes on to say to go on at least 20
interviews
and during that time reveal confidential
information about the interaction
between the IRS and the Department of
Justice about Hunter Biden
there's a reason we don't know as
American people the nitty-gritty about
the IRS prosecutions of people it's
because there's a privacy act that that
protects them
as paragraph eight of the complaint says
that despite these straightforward
directions and explicit reminders by
Congress of the repercussions that will
result from violations these IRS agents
and the chairman of the committee on
Ways and Means Congressman Jason Smith
all proceeded in their public campaign
to selectively disclose certain
confidential tax information to
embarrass and inflict harm on Mr Biden
and this includes going on Fox News CBS
the Megyn Kelly show John Solomon
reports and interviews of Mr Ziegler
that aired on CNN the Megyn Kelly show
and John Solomon reports in which they
in an unsubstantiated and selective way
chose allegations of potentially
criminal behavior and publicize them
all right so you know what do we have
here
in terms of the case that's now been
filed as an example a good example of
Hunter Biden that he's telling the world
and telegraphing to everybody he's not
going to be the punching bag any longer
for those that want to get to his father
you know as we've said on legal AF and
on the Midas touch network if there's a
case against Joe Biden that shows he was
corrupt that he took bribes that he
influence petaled that he that he used
his position as vice president or
otherwise to line his pockets or those
of his family he should be indicted
but I've yet to see that evidence not
one attorney general or or
um or a U.S attorney is investigating
that as far as We Know
and the Maga Republicans have brought
witness after witness in front of their
oversight and Judiciary Committee to
have them all blow up in their face
it should come as no shock that family
members of elected officials often write
benefit financially from being in the
family
they do they get put on boards that the
rest of us are not entitled to be on or
not asked to be on they get paid money
as part of the boards
um it they people just believe
especially in foreign countries that if
your last name is the same as some
president or vice president it's good
it's helpful there's a halo effect about
that you know whether you go the next
step and you influence petal and you
make it a pay to play situation that's a
different story but where has that been
proven or where is the evidence of that
and continuing you know
you know I have a bit of sympathy for
Hunter Biden because if his name wasn't
if his if his last name was Hunter
Goldberg
right they're under shorts or 100
Napolitano I don't think we'd be talking
about this
because you know it would be a lot less
interesting to the Republicans Maga and
their efforts to take down Joe Biden
it's just make weight by the Republicans
in order to balance in their view the
scale because of the weight of other
evidence that their candidate of choice
is a criminal
nothing says I'm likely guilty like 94
felony counts and four indictments
across three states New York Georgia
four Washington and Florida and seven
trials in nine months
um innocent people don't usually have
this big a set of legal problems
but why should the family whether it's
the daughter of Joe Biden who had her
Diaries her deepest darkest personal
thoughts and battles with addiction and
battles and battles with self-worth and
self and self-loathing and all the
things that we would never want anyone
in our life or ourselves to have their
Diaries revealed think about that to to
any other person
why is that okay because her last name
is Biden why is it okay that private tax
information and investigative materials
that should never see the light a day
there's a statute on it a criminal
statute on it Privacy Act statue on it
why is it okay because the last name is
Biden we're not talking about a two-tier
justice system here there's a one-tier
justice system it's well at least for
white privileged people
will put aside that that really is a
two-tier justice system concerning black
and brown and minority Americans and
people that are are
um in the lgbtq plus Community put that
aside it's not the purpose of this
particular hot cake hot take but let's
keep it in our mind but for white
privileged people
and people of power
if you do the crime you're going to do
the time and get indicted
Donald Trump is indicted because of his
own bad acts before he was president
while he was president and after he's
been president
and if Joe Biden has
if there's evidence against Joe Biden
committing crimes bring it
bring it let the American people
evaluate it
I'll be the first one to run Joe Biden
out on a rail out of the democratic
party if he shocks the world and after
50 years of being in the public eye and
being
transparently evaluated as the youngest
Senator ever elected in the history of
America and the oldest president ever
elected in the history of America to say
he doesn't have a body of work with all
the warts included that we can evaluate
before he took office before we voted
for him for president
is asinine
if you want to show me that that guy
that that Joe Biden lined his own
pockets in a power play while he was in
office
like I said I'll vote against him
but similarly then I demand the same
thing from my fellow Americans who
support
Maga
your guy gets convicted your guy goes to
jail or whatever I would expect that you
don't put a criminal in the White House
not knowingly
I mean it's one thing to think well
I mean hold my nose Donald Trump's a
weird
self-aggrandizing money laundering
business person who went bankrupt four
times but let's see what he can do in
the White House that'll be fun but now
you know now you know what he did in the
White House can't bury your head in the
sand anymore and talk about I like I
like my president's like strong men like
fascist dictators in various countries
you know where they all end up
right
and so in if your guy gets convicted I
would expect that you would not check
the box to send him back to the White
House but that's me and that's the
Democratic Party
I sit at the corner of politics and law
to report things like Hunter Biden
fighting back and stop being a punching
bag it doesn't have to be a pinata for
everybody to pick up a stick and hit in
violation of the laws that we have on
our books to protect everyone rich and
poor powerful and weak
named Biden or not
and what's good for the goose is good
for the gander and that's what this hot
take is about I do it exclusively for
the Midas touch Network I do hot takes
like this about every day sometimes more
depending upon developments I sit on
that valuable real estate of the corner
of U.S law and politics so you don't
have to and I can bring you that
analysis join me on legal AF our podcast
also on the Midas Touch YouTube channel
and audio platform we do it every
Wednesday and Saturday it's about an
hour long if you don't like the
hour-long podcast concept come for the
hot takes go over to my my YouTube
channel well it's the legal AF YouTube
channel and Midas Touch YouTube channel
playlist you can find Michael popock
there
and give me a thumbs up here it helps
with the ratings until the next hot take
until the next legal AF this is Michael
popck

***************************

[admin]

Part 2 of 2

Robert Hunter Biden v. United States Internal Revenue Service
Case 1:23-cv-02711
by Abbe David Lowell, WINSTON & STRAWN LLP
9/18/23

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

ROBERT HUNTER BIDEN,

Plaintiff,

v.

UNITED STATES INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE,

Defendant.

Civil Action No. Case 1:23-cv-02711

COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY RELIEF AND DAMAGES

COMPLAINT

Plaintiff Robert Hunter Biden (“Mr. Biden” or “Plaintiff”), by and through his undersigned counsel, brings this action against the United States Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS” or “Defendant”), to seek redress for the (1) unlawful disclosure of Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 6103 and 28 U.S.C. § 7431, and (2) willful and intentional failure to establish appropriate administrative, technical, and/or physical safeguards over the IRS’s records system to insure the security and confidentiality of Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information in violation of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a.

1. Mr. Biden is the son of the President of the United States. He has all the same responsibilities as any other American citizen, and the IRS can and should make certain that he abides by those responsibilities. Similarly, Mr. Biden has no fewer or lesser rights than any other American citizen, and no government agency or government agent has free reign to violate his rights simply because of who he is. Yet the IRS and its agents have conducted themselves under a presumption that the rights that apply to every other American citizen do not apply to Mr. Biden. This lawsuit is not about the legitimacy of the IRS investigation of Mr. Biden over the past five years or any decision to penalize Mr. Biden for any failure to comply with his obligations under the tax laws. This lawsuit is not about the proper workings of the whistleblower statute and process, nor an official using those procedures properly to make disclosures to authorized government officials. Rather, the lawsuit is about the decision by IRS employees, their representatives, and others to disregard their obligations and repeatedly and intentionally publicly disclose and disseminate Mr. Biden’s protected tax return information outside the exceptions for making disclosures in the law.

2. Mr. Biden has cooperated fully with the IRS investigation. He did so with the expectation and understanding that the IRS was committed to compliance with its legal obligations to safeguard and protect his personal information from unauthorized disclosure under Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code as well as the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a. Mr. Biden has learned to his detriment that this is not the case.

3. Rather, IRS agents have targeted and sought to embarrass Mr. Biden via public statements to the media in which they and their representatives disclosed confidential information about a private citizen’s tax matters. While Mr. Biden has been the victim of various leaks regarding the IRS investigation previously, most recently, two IRS agents—Mr. Gary Shapley and Mr. Joseph Ziegler—and their attorneys raised the stakes to unprecedented levels with their numerous public appearances and statements that blatantly violated Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code by engaging in a campaign to publicly smear Mr. Biden.

4. This assault on Mr. Biden’s rights involved the public disclosure of his confidential tax information during more than 20 nationally televised and non-congressionally sanctioned interviews and numerous public statements by Mr. Shapley, Mr. Ziegler, and their counsel in these public appearances. No doubt, with over 27 years of experience in the IRS between them and after hearing admonitions from Congress, Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler knew that making any person aware of any individual’s tax information in any manner constitutes a violation of federal tax law. See 26 U.S.C. § 6103(b)(8). Yet, these IRS agents and their attorneys willfully disregarded federal tax law, undermining Americans’ faith in the IRS and the purported confidentiality of its investigations. These agents’ putative “whistleblower” status cannot and does not shield them from their wrongful conduct in making unauthorized public disclosures that are not permitted by the whistleblower process. In fact, a “whistleblower” is supposed to uncover government misconduct, not the details of that employee’s opinion about the alleged wrongdoing of a private person.

5. Beginning in April 2023, Mr. Shapley’s attorney acting on Mr. Shapley’s behalf made the rounds on various news outlets, including CBS and Fox News, to publicly disclose Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. Mr. Shapley’s counsel went beyond disclosing the mere existence of an IRS inquiry or investigation. In fact, he alleged that Mr. Biden’s IRS investigation was an example of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decision-making and asserted that Mr. Shapley had identified supposed anomalies in the investigative process.  

6. Then, in the days leading up to Mr. Shapley’s closed-door testimony before the United States House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, Mr. Shapley himself agreed to an interview with CBS News. Similar to his attorney, Mr. Shapley disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including details regarding the IRS’s investigation into Mr. Biden, the purported “deviations in the investigative process,” and the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) involvement in that investigation—all information that is squarely prohibited form disclosure pursuant to 26 U.S.C § 6103(2)(A).

7. In late May and early June 2023, respectively, IRS agents Shapley and Ziegler testified in closed-door sessions before the Committee on Ways and Means. Whatever basis the agents had for invoking their ability to speak to Congress, the transcripts from their testimony are clear: the Committee on Ways and Means “consider[ed] th[e] entire interview and the resulting transcript as protected confidential information under Section 6103…. Given the statutory protection for this type of information, we ask that you not speak about what we discuss in this interview to individuals not designated to receive such information.” The Committee on Ways and Means even “remind[ed] the witness and everyone in the room that 26 U.S.C. Section 7213 makes it unlawful to make any disclosure of returns or return information not authorized by Section 6103. Unauthorized disclosure of such information can be a felony punishable by fine or imprisonment.” The Committee on Ways and Means further instructed that Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler “not speak about what we discuss in this interview to individuals not designated to receive such information.” A campaign of numerous public news appearances is “information not authorized by Section 6103.”

8. Despite these straightforward directions and explicit reminders of the repercussions that would result from violations, these IRS agents and the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, Congressman Jason Smith, proceeded in their public campaign to selectively disclose certain confidential tax return information to embarrass and inflict harm on Mr. Biden. The public disclosure of Mr. Biden’s confidential tax information in the face of these unambiguous admonitions included multiple interviews of Mr. Shapley that aired, and continue to air, on Fox News, CBS, The Megyn Kelly Show, and John Solomon Reports, and interviews of Mr. Ziegler that aired on CNN, The Megyn Kelly Show, and John Solomon Reports. During these interviews, Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler provided unsubstantiated and selectively chosen allegations of nefarious and potentially criminal behavior. These disclosures went beyond confirming the existence of an investigation or audit; rather, interviewers provided detailed allegations regarding the specific tax years under investigation, the amounts of deductions, the nature of those deductions, and allegations of liability regarding specific tax years and the amount thereof, that could only be known to them based on a review of the physical tax returns themselves. As if disclosing these unsubstantiated allegations were not enough, counsel for Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler rejoined the media circus as their clients’ spokespeople, making false accusations, repeating unsubstantiated claims, and blatantly violating the federal law protecting confidential tax information in the process.

9. Then Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler went a step further and disclosed new allegations that had not previously been released by the Committee on Ways and Means. For example, in a July 20, 2023, interview with Jake Tapper of CNN, Mr. Ziegler alleged for the first time publicly that he had recommended felony and misdemeanor charges for Mr. Biden for tax year 2017. Under oath, Mr. Ziegler had previously stated that he only recommended misdemeanor charges for Mr. Biden for tax year 2017. Similarly, in an August 1, 2023, interview that aired on Fox News, Mr. Shapley alleged for the first time publicly that Jason Jones, FBI General Counsel, could substantiate Mr. Shapley’s allegations regarding Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information but had not done so because he received a letter from the Department of Justice “basically telling him not to talk.” These public statements fall well outside the bounds of the whistleblower protections found in Section 6103(f) of the Internal Revenue Code.  

10. Mr. Biden disputes many of the allegations made by Mr. Shapley, Mr. Zeigler, Mr. Smith, and their representatives. Nonetheless, the harm he has suffered—reputationally and emotionally—from their wrongful conduct has been staggering. This action seeks to force compliance with federal tax and privacy laws and forestall the continued propagation of unsubstantiated allegations concerning and unlawful disclosure of Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information.

JURISDICTION AND VENUE

11. This Court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1340, 1346, 26 U.S.C. § 7431(a), and 5 U.S.C. § 552a(g)(1)(D).

12. Venue is proper in this judicial district pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2) and (e)(1) because the defendant resides in this judicial district and a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred here.

THE PARTIES

13. Plaintiff Robert Hunter Biden is a private citizen of the United States and a resident of Los Angeles, California.

14. Defendant Internal Revenue Service is a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury and is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Internal Revenue Code.

15. Non-party Jason Smith is a member of the United States House of Representatives for Missouri’s 8th congressional district and the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means.

16. Non-party Gary Shapley has been a supervisory special agent with the IRS Criminal Investigation for over 14 years and a registered Republican.

17. Non-party Joseph Ziegler has been a special agent with the IRS Criminal Investigation for over 13 years.

18. Non-party Attorney A is an attorney who represents Mr. Shapley in connection with his IRS whistleblower testimony and public statements related to Mr. Biden’s confidential tax information. Attorney A previously worked as Associate Counsel for the Office of the White House Counsel under former President Donald J. Trump. At all relevant times, Attorney A acted as an authorized agent of Mr. Shapley and, therefore, had apparent and actual authority to act on Mr. Shapley’s behalf, including with the improper release of tax return information.

19. Non-party Attorney B is an attorney who is President of Empower Oversight and represents Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler in connection with their IRS whistleblower testimony and their public statements related to Mr. Biden’s confidential tax information. Attorney B recently announced he is running as a GOP candidate for West Virginia state House, and previously worked for the United States Office of Special Counsel under former President Donald J. Trump. At all relevant times, Attorney B acted as an authorized agent of Mr. Shapley and, therefore, had apparent and actual authority to act on Mr. Shapley’s behalf, including with the improper release of tax return information.

FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

20. Mr. Biden has been subjected to extraordinary scrutiny by the media and court of public opinion during the course of the IRS investigation. In the past year, however, that scrutiny has escalated due to unprecedented leaks by people involved in his investigation and by the improper disclosures from IRS employees who are required by statute to protect Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. These public statements disclosing confidential tax information began, at the latest, in April 2023, when IRS agents working on Mr. Biden’s case began giving public interviews and prior to any congressional testimony regarding Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. Despite clear warnings from Congress that they were prohibited from disclosing the contents of their testimony to the public in another forum, Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler’s testimony only emboldened their media campaign against Mr. Biden. And finally, since their public testimony before the House of Representatives on July 19, 2023, the agents have become regular guests on national media outlets and have made new allegations and public statements regarding Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information that were not previously included in their transcripts before the Committee on Ways and Means.

I. IRS Personnel Willfully Disclosed Mr. Biden’s Confidential Tax Information Prior To Any Public Disclosure by the Committee on Ways and Means.

21. On or around April 19, 2023, Attorney A, on behalf of Mr. Shapley, sent a letter to various members of Congress, including Mr. Smith, in which he stated that his client, then unnamed but now understood to be Mr. Shapley, “has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020….” The letter requested that Mr. Shapley be given the opportunity to testify before certain congressional oversight committees and promised that his client’s testimony would “(1) contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee, (2) involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case, and (3) detail examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.” Various media outlets, including NBC News, CBS News, and the Wall Street Journal, immediately reported that the letter was referring to the investigation of Mr. Biden. These public statements in the April 19, 2023, letter disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden.

22. On or around April 19, 2023, John Solomon of the Spotify podcast John Solomon Reports interviewed Attorney A. During the John Solomon Reports interview, Attorney A, on behalf of Mr. Shapley, publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information.

23. At the outset of the interview, Mr. Solomon described “a new whistleblower raising concerns about political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation” and introduced Attorney A as the “lawyer for that whistleblower.” Attorney A thanked Mr. Solomon for having him on John Solomon Reports and proceeded with the interview, giving any reasonable listener under the impression that Attorney A was discussing the IRS’s investigation into Mr. Biden and his confidential tax return information. Attorney A stated that his client, then unnamed but now understood to be Mr. Shapley, “has been working diligently on a high-profile case… and that’s for others to put that together… and he would attend meetings in this investigation and he was concerned about some statements by a senior political appointee from the Department of Justice that contradicted what he knew to be the facts of the case.” Attorney A explained that Mr. Shapley attended meetings “with both agents and prosecutors” regarding Mr. Biden’s tax return information. These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

24. On or around April 19, 2023, Attorney A appeared in an interview with Jim Axelrod of CBS News on behalf of Mr. Shapley and discussed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. Attorney A stated that his client, then unnamed but understood to be Mr. Shapley, alleged that “typical steps that a law enforcement investigator would take were compromised because of political considerations.” Attorney A also stated that “the things [Mr. Shapley’s] been through are very well documented in emails and other communications with the Department of Justice.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

25. On or around April 20, 2023, Attorney A appeared in an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News on behalf of Mr. Shapley and discussed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. During that interview, Mr. Baier stated that “we have sources telling us that this has to do with the Hunter Biden investigation.” Attorney A did not object or otherwise address this characterization and, instead, proceeded with the interview, giving any reasonable listener the impression that Attorney A was discussing the IRS’s investigation into Mr. Biden and his confidential tax return information. In other portions of the interview, Attorney A stated that his client “has spotted and observed things that are done differently in this particular matter… and he wants to talk about them.” Mr. Baier also noted that there has been reporting that the “senior political appointee” referenced in Attorney A’s April 19, 2023, letter “may be the attorney general.” Mr. Baier then played a video clip of the White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, responding to a question as to whether the United States Attorney General has upheld his ethical obligations when addressing Mr. Biden’s IRS investigation. Mr. Baier then asked, “does your client think that this, what he’s coming forward with, is explosive, is jarring?” Attorney A responded that his client, “a career law enforcement officer[,] who knows the right way to do an investigation, when he hears a senior politically appointed official at the Department of Justice, under sworn testimony, say something, and, in his mind, it’s directly contradictory to what he knows is going on with the investigation… [w]hat he can prove with documents. He wants to come forward.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

26. On or around May 24, 2023, Mr. Shapley himself appeared on a CBS News interview with Jim Axelrod. During the CBS News interview, Mr. Shapley shared and discussed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. For example, Mr. Shapley stated that he became involved in the investigation in January 2020 and asserted that “for a couple years, we’d been noticing these deviations in the investigative process. And I just couldn’t, you know, fathom that DOJ might be acting unethically on this.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing—namely, investigation by the DOJ. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure. On information and belief, the IRS did not even instruct Mr. Shapley or his representatives to refrain from publicly and unlawfully disclosing Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, much less take reasonable steps to prevent its personnel from unlawfully disclosing Mr. Biden’s tax return information.

27. On May 26, 2023, Mr. Shapley testified before the Committee on Ways and Means regarding Mr. Biden’s confidential tax information. It was clear to everyone involved that Mr. Shapley’s testimony was “confidential.” The Committee on Ways and Means noted that it “consider[ed] this entire interview and the resulting transcript as protected confidential information under Section 6103[,]” and “remind[ed] the witness and everyone in the room that 26 U.S.C. Section 7213 makes it unlawful to make any disclosure of returns or return information not authorized by Section 6103. Unauthorized disclosure of such information can be a felony punishable by fine or imprisonment.” The Committee on Ways and Means could not have made the instructions clearer: “[g]iven the statutory protection for this type of information, we ask that you not speak about what we discuss in this interview to individuals not designated to receive such information.” The numerous media outlets on which the agents appeared and spoke are “not designated to receive such information.”

28. Mr. Shapley proceeded to selectively disclose certain potentially inflammatory aspects of Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. For example, Mr. Shapley disclosed a description of the timeline of Mr. Shapley’s involvement in Mr. Biden’s case, Mr. Shapley’s purported communications with members of DOJ, information obtained from stolen data belonging to Mr. Biden and accessed in violation of Delaware state and federal law, and Mr. Shapley’s biased lay opinions and conclusions regarding Mr. Biden’s potential tax liability.

29. On June 1, 2023, Mr. Ziegler testified before the Committee on Ways and Means regarding Mr. Biden’s confidential tax information. As with Mr. Shapley’s testimony the week before, it was clear to everyone involved that Mr. Shapley’s testimony was “confidential.” The Committee on Ways and Means noted that it “consider[ed] this entire interview and the resulting transcript as protected confidential information under Section 6103[,]” and “remind[ed] the witness and everyone in the room that 26 U.S.C. Section 7213 makes it unlawful to make any disclosure of returns or return information not authorized by Section 6103. Unauthorized disclosure of such information can be a felony punishable by fine or imprisonment.” Once again, the Committee on Ways and Means explained that “[g]iven the statutory protection for this type of information, we ask that you not speak about what we discuss in this interview to individuals not designated to receive such information.” Again, the numerous media outlets on which the agents appeared and spoke are “not designated to receive such information.”

30. Mr. Ziegler proceeded to selectively and publicly disclose certain potentially inflammatory aspects of Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. For example, Mr. Ziegler disclosed a timeline of Mr. Ziegler’s involvement in Mr. Biden’s case and his purported communications with members of the Department of Justice. In addition, Mr. Ziegler publicly disclosed information obtained from what he described as a some laptop but which, wherever the data was from, was accessed in violation of Delaware state and federal law, as well as Mr. Ziegler’s lay opinions and conclusions regarding Mr. Biden’s potential tax liability.

II. IRS Personnel Continued to Discuss Mr. Biden’s Confidential Tax Information Publicly Despite Clear Instructions During Their Testimony Before the Committee on Ways and Means.

31. On June 22, 2023, the Committee on Ways and Means submitted to the House of Representatives documents protected under IRS Section 6103 pursuant to a 25-18 vote (the “June 22 Vote”). The statement announcing the June 22 Vote read, in its entirety, “[t]he motion to submit to the House of Representatives documents protected under Internal Revenue Code Section 6103 was ordered favorably reported to the House of Representatives by a roll call vote of 25 yeas to 18 nays (with a quorum being present). The vote was as follows [vote omitted].”

32. The June 22 Vote only released the transcript and exhibits thereto to Mr. Ziegler’s May 26, 2023 testimony and Mr. Shapley’s June 1, 2023 testimony. The June 22 Vote did not and could not release Mr. Ziegler, Mr. Shapley, their attorneys or any other individual who attended the Committee on Ways and Means testimony of Mr. Ziegler or Mr. Shapley from their obligations not to otherwise disclose Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. Following the June 22 Vote, the Committee on Ways and Means posted the full transcripts of Mr. Shapley’s May 26, 2023 testimony and Mr. Ziegler’s June 1, 2023 testimony publicly on its website.1 The only information that it redacted from the resultant transcript protected Mr. Ziegler’s identity and the identity of questioning majority and minority counsel.  

33. On or around June 28, 2023, Mr. Shapley appeared in an interview with Bret Baier of Fox News and discussed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. Mr. Shapley discussed WhatsApp messages purportedly sent and received by Mr. Biden. Mr. Shapley stated that “when we received the attorney-client filter-reviewed copy of information from the search warrant to Apple which produced that document, we went back to the prosecutors and we requested to take various investigative steps, and they were not supported.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and data received by, recorded by, prepared by, furnished to, or collected by the Secretary of the Treasury with respect to Mr. Biden’s tax return. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.  

34. Later in the same interview, Mr. Shapley asserted that prosecutors in Mr. Biden’s investigation “stated that probable cause had been achieved.” Mr. Shapley opined that critical steps in the federal investigation into Mr. Biden were “put on the back burner” as the presidential election approached and that “the most substantive felony charges were left off the table.” Mr. Shapley went on to state that he sought to obtain and execute warrants to search Mr. Biden’s property between April and June 2020. These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

35. Finally, Mr. Shapley asserted that Mr. Biden should have been charged with tax evasion for 2014, false tax returns for 2018 and 2019, and that Mr. Biden did not report income from certain foreign entities. These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, the purported source of Mr. Biden’s income, and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.  

36. Also, on or around June 28, 2023, an interview of Mr. Shapley aired—this time on CBS News with Jim Axelrod—in which Mr. Shapley disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. In that interview, Mr. Shapley asserted that punishment for Mr. Biden’s conduct was warranted: “if this was any other person, they likely would have already served their sentence.” Mr. Shapley cited to alleged “[p]ersonal expenses that were taken as business expenses—prostitutes, sex club memberships, hotel rooms for purported drug dealers” and claimed that “from 2014 to 2019 [Mr. Biden owed] $2.2 million [in unpaid taxes].” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including the purported nature and source of Mr. Biden’s income, payments, deductions, exemptions and tax payments, and the determination of the possible existence of liability (and the amount thereof) of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.  

37. On or around June 29, 2023, John Solomon of the Spotify podcast John Solomon Reports interviewed Mr. Shapley and his counsel. During that interview, Mr. Shapley disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. For example, Mr. Shapley stated that “the evidence that we collected that, that were, mashed up with the elements of the criminal violations… those elements were met and then some. If these facts were from the local businessman or the neighbor next door, they would have been charged and they would have already had their entire sentence.” Mr. Shapley also asserted that Mr. Biden had not paid sufficient taxes from 2014 through 2019. These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and the determination of the possible existence of liability (and the amount thereof) of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

III. IRS Personnel Completely Disregarded Their Confidentiality Obligations After Testifying Before the House of Representatives.

38. On July 19, 2023, Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler testified before the United States House of Representatives, Oversight and Accountability Committee (“Oversight Committee”). During their six hours of interviews, Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler answered questions from House Democrats and Republicans regarding their testimony before the Committee on Ways and Means. Although Section 6103(f) allows certain Committees of Congress to review an individual’s tax return or return information “sitting in closed executive session” to avoid public disclosure, the Oversight Committee is not among them.  

39. On or around July 20, 2023, Mr. Ziegler appeared in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN. During the CNN interview, Mr. Ziegler disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. For example, Mr. Ziegler stated that “the four assigned prosecutors to [Mr. Biden’s] case agreed with recommending felony and misdemeanor charges for Hunter Biden.” Mr. Ziegler also stated that he recommended that Mr. Biden should be charged with “felony and misdemeanor tax charges related to 2017, 2018 and 2019” for evasion of income tax. Mr. Ziegler did not disclose that he proposed felony tax charges for 2017 in his statements to the Committee on Ways and Means or the Oversight Committee and, in fact, these statements contradict his sworn testimony. Mr. Ziegler stated in his testimony under oath before the Committee on Ways and Means that he only recommended charges for “Section 7203, failure to timely file and pay tax” (a misdemeanor charge) in 2017. These statements by Mr. Ziegler during the July 20 CNN interview publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and the determination of the possible existence of liability (or the amount thereof) of Mr. Biden for any tax, penalty, interest, fine, forfeiture, or other imposition or offense. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

40. On or around July 20, 2023, Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler appeared in an interview with Megyn Kelly on the Megyn Kelly Show. During the Megyn Kelly interview, Mr. Shapley disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. For example, Mr. Shapley stated that Mr. Biden “got preferential treatment and if it was a business owner on the corner, he or she wouldn’t have gotten that special treatment and he probably would have been in jail already.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.  

41. On or around July 21, 2023, Attorney B, counsel for Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler, appeared on the Spotify podcast John Solomon Reports on behalf of Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler. During that interview, Attorney B disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. For example, Attorney B asserted that Mr. Ziegler intended to disclose “a lot” of additional documents regarding Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information that allegedly corroborated Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler’s testimony. Such disclosures are likely to increase the public statements made by Mr. Ziegler and Mr. Shapley in violation of federal tax laws.

42. On or around July 24, 2023, Mr. Ziegler appeared on the John Solomon Reports podcast. During that interview, Mr. Ziegler disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. Mr. Ziegler asserted that there were “deduction[s] that [were] taken on [Mr. Biden’s] tax return” that contradicted statements made in his book of business and alleged that Mr. Biden incorrectly described certain payments as loans, which constituted “clear cut tax evasion.” Mr. Ziegler stated that Mr. Biden had “delinquent taxes” going back to the early 2000s and opined that Mr. Biden’s activities demonstrated “a willful intent to either deceive or make it so that income is not reported.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

43. On or around July 26, 2023, Attorney A appeared in an interview with Martha MacCallum of Fox News on behalf of Mr. Shapley. During that interview, Attorney A publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. Specifically, Attorney A stated that Mr. Shapley “wanted the proper authorities to see what happened that was different from all of his fourteen years in, ya know, working as an IRS agent.” Attorney A continued later in the interview: “[t]here really needs to be a Special Counsel, this has really been too messed up. There needs to be a Special Counsel who not only can decide what to do with the Bidens, the Biden Family, the President, in terms of charges, but also write a report about what happened behind the scenes here, so it never happens again because clearly a lot of wrong things were done. And we’re hoping that Congress will be able to get to the bottom of it and flush out what caused the preferential treatment, the wrong decisions on investigative steps.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

44. On or around July 31, 2023, Attorney A once again appeared on Fox News after Mr. Biden’s purported business associate testified and discussed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information on behalf of Mr. Shapley. Specifically, Attorney A opined that “there needs to be a Special Counsel to step in and not only figure out what to do with Hunter Biden and the Biden family and President Biden, but also to write a report about, about what happened internally with this investigation and how did all of these investigative steps get declined in a context where, ya know, agents who are veterans, who are just trained to follow the money and they are told not to do things. So, I absolutely do think that would make sense in this case.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

45. On or around August 1, 2023, Mr. Shapley also appeared on Fox News and discussed Mr. Biden, stating: “They can go talk to the individuals involved and they can get to the bottom of it because every time that we needed to ask questions about President Biden's involvement in relation to the business dealings, we just weren’t allowed to do that.” Mr. Shapley alleged that FBI General Counsel, Jason Jones “was given a letter the Sunday before [his July 17 deposition before the House Oversight Committee] from DOJ basically telling him not to talk. I know that he could have confirmed additional material facts on this investigation. And he did confirm the FBI headquarters notifying the transition team and Secret Service.” Mr. Shapley did not disclose this confidential tax return information in his testimony to the Committee on Ways and Means or the Oversight Committee. In fact, Mr. Shapley did not even mention Mr. Jones in his testimony to the Committee on Ways and Means. Unsurprisingly, these alleged revelations grabbed the headlines.2 These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

46. On August 11, 2023, Mr. Shapley again went on CNN’s “The Source” with Kaitlan Collins and repeated many of his prior comments, stating again that Mr. Biden was “provided preferential treatment” and that “[the United States Attorney’s Office] stymied investigative steps.” These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, and the determination of the possible existence of liability of Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden did not request or otherwise consent to this disclosure.

47. On information and belief, the IRS has never instructed Mr. Shapley, Mr. Ziegler, or their representatives to refrain from publicly and unlawfully disclosing Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, much less taken reasonable steps to prevent its personnel from unlawfully accessing and disclosing Mr. Biden’s tax return information.

COUNT I

Violation of 26 U.S.C. § 6103 – Willful or Grossly Negligent Unauthorized Disclosure

48. Mr. Biden realleges and incorporates by reference paragraphs 1 to 47 as if fully set forth herein.

49. Title 26, U.S.C. § 6103 provides that tax “[r]eturns and return information shall be confidential” and prohibits disclosure and inspection by United States employees and other defined persons, except as specifically authorized in the provision. The IRS publicizes this right of confidentiality as part of its “The Taxpayer Bill of Rights.”3 As the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has explained: “This general ban on disclosure provides essential protection for the taxpayer; it guarantees that the sometimes sensitive or otherwise personal information in a return will be guarded from persons not directly engaged in processing or inspecting the return for tax administration purposes. The assurance of privacy secured by § 6103 is fundamental to a tax system that relies upon self-reporting.” Gardner v. United States, 213 F.3d 735, 738 (D.C. Cir. 2000).

50. Title 26, U.S.C. § 7431 provides taxpayers a private right of action for damages against the United States for the knowing or negligent unauthorized inspection or disclosure of tax return information in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 6103.

51. “Return” is defined as “any tax or information return, declaration of estimated tax, or claim for refund required by, or provided for or permitted under, the provisions of this title which is filed with the Secretary by, on behalf of, or with respect to any person, and any amendment or supplement thereto, including supporting schedules, attachments, or lists which are supplemental to, or part of, the return so filed.” 26 U.S.C. § 6103(b)(1).

52. “Return information” includes “a taxpayer’s identity, the nature, source, or amount of his income, payments, receipts, deductions, exemptions, credits, assets, liabilities, net worth, tax liability, tax withheld, deficiencies, overassessments, or tax payments, whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, or any other data, received by, recorded by, prepared by, furnished to, or collected by the Secretary with respect to a return or with respect to the determination of the existence, or possible existence, of liability (or the amount thereof) of any person under this title for any tax, penalty, interest, fine, forfeiture, or other imposition, or offense.” 26 U.S.C. § 6103(b)(2)(A).

53. “[D]isclosure” means “the making known to any person in any manner whatever a return or return information.” 26 U.S.C. § 6103(b)(8).

54. As described above, the IRS violated 26 U.S.C. § 6103 by publicly disclosing Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information via:

• Attorney A’s public statements in a letter to the Committee on Ways and Means on April 19, 2023.

• Attorney A’s public statements to Mr. Solomon of John Solomon Reports on April 19, 2023.

• Attorney A’s public statements to Mr. Axelrod of CBS News on April 19, 2023.

• Attorney A’s public statements to Mr. Baier of Fox News on April 20, 2023.

• Mr. Shapley’s public statements to Mr. Axelrod of CBS News on May 24, 2023.

• Mr. Shapley’s public statements to Mr. Baier of Fox News on June 28, 2023.

• Mr. Shapley’s public statements to Mr. Axelrod of CBS News on June 28, 2023.

• Mr. Shapley’s public statements to Mr. Solomon of John Solomon Reports on June 29, 2023.

• Mr. Ziegler’s public statements to Jake Tapper of CNN on July 20, 2023.

• Mr. Shapley and Mr. Ziegler’s public statements to Megyn Kelly of the Megyn Kelly Show on July 20, 2023.

• Attorney B’s public statements to Mr. Solomon of John Solomon Reports on July 21, 2023.

• Mr. Ziegler’s public statements to John Solomon of John Solomon Reports on July 24, 2023.

• Attorney A’s public statements to Martha MacCallum of Fox News on July 26, 2023.

• Attorney A’s public statements on Fox News on July 31, 2023.

• Mr. Shapley’s public statements to Kaitlan Collins of CNN on August 11, 2023.

55. These statements publicly disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, including whether the taxpayer’s return was, is being, or will be examined or subject to other investigation or processing, the purported amount of Mr. Biden’s income, payments, deductions, exemptions and tax payments, and the determination of the possible existence of tax liability (and the amount thereof) of Mr. Biden.

56. The repeated disclosures and the media appearances in which they were made make clear that the IRS’s public disclosures of Mr. Biden’s tax return information did not result from a “good faith, but erroneous interpretation of section 6103,” but rather from a knowing violation, gross negligence, or negligence. The IRS’s knowledge, or at least negligence, is evident because in his April 19, 2023 interview on John Solomon Reports, Attorney A stated that IRS agents are “trained in . . . Title 26 U.S.C. Section 6103.” Further, “Majority Counsel 1” of the Committee on Ways and Means stated that the Committee “considers this entire interview and the resulting transcript as protected confidential information under Section 6103.” “Majority Counsel 1” further stated that “26 U.S.C. Section 7213 makes it unlawful to make any disclosure of returns or return information not authorized by Section 6103. Moreover, IRS agents are trained in complying with the confidentiality requirements of Section 6103.4 Unauthorized disclosures of such information can be a felony punishable by fine or imprisonment.”

57. The IRS, via its agents and their representatives, chose to publicly disclose the confidential return information during interviews with national media outlets, including Fox News, CNN, CBS News, John Solomon Reports, and the Megyn Kelly Show, with the intent that these national media outlets would widely publish the information through its nationally and internationally televised news network, website and other means.

58. The IRS’s public disclosure of Mr. Biden’s tax return information was not “requested by the taxpayer,” Mr. Biden, pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7431(b)(2).

59. The IRS’s public disclosure of Mr. Biden’s tax return information therefore violated 26 U.S.C. § 6103.

60. Pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7431, Mr. Biden is entitled to statutory damages in the amount of $1,000 per each act of unauthorized disclosure.

61. Mr. Biden is also entitled to punitive damages pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7431(c)(1)(B)(ii) because the IRS’s unlawful public disclosure of his confidential tax return information was either willful or a result of gross negligence.

COUNT II

Violation of 5 U.S.C. § 552a(e)(10) – The Privacy Act

62. Mr. Biden realleges and incorporates by reference paragraphs 1 to 61 as if fully set forth herein.

63. The IRS is an agency within the meaning of the Privacy Act.

64. The IRS maintained the records of Mr. Biden, including his confidential tax return information, in a system of records as those terms are defined in the Privacy Act.

65. The IRS has long been aware of serious deficiencies in its safeguards.5 As explained above, Mr. Shapley, Mr. Ziegler, and their representatives made statements to the general public. Even though the IRS was aware of these statements, on information and belief, it did nothing to prevent its agents from continuing to disclose Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information. Although federal law prohibits such disclosures of confidential tax return information, the IRS disregarded the violations of its agents.

66. In violation of the Privacy Act, the IRS willfully and intentionally failed to establish appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to insure the security and confidentiality of records, including Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information, and failed to protect against any anticipated threats or hazards to those records’ security or integrity, including those that could result in substantial harm, embarrassment, inconvenience, or unfairness to any individual on whom information is maintained.

67. As a direct and proximate result of its violations of the Privacy Act, the IRS unlawfully disclosed, or failed to take reasonable steps to prevent its personnel from unlawfully disclosing, Mr. Biden’s records—his confidential tax return information—without his prior written consent and for no statutorily permitted purpose, in violation of 5 U.S.C. § 552a(b).

68. Mr. Biden has and will continue to sustain damages directly traceable to the IRS’s violations set forth above. Mr. Biden is therefore entitled to damages under 5 U.S.C. §§ 552a(g)(1)(D) and (g)(4).  

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff Robert Hunter Biden respectfully requests that the Court enter judgment in his favor and against Defendants as follows:

A. Declaring that the IRS willfully, knowingly, and/or by gross negligence, unlawfully disclosed Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 6103.

B. Awarding Mr. Biden $1,000 damages for each and every unauthorized disclosure of his tax return information, including subsequent disclosure, pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7431(c)(1) and damages under 5 U.S.C. §§ 552a(g)(1)(D) and (g)(4);

C. Awarding Mr. Biden reasonable costs and attorney’s fees pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7431(c)(2)-(3) and as may otherwise be permitted by law;

D. Ordering Defendant to produce to Mr. Biden all documents in its possession, custody, or control regarding the inspection, transmittal, and/or disclosure of Mr. Biden’s confidential tax return information;  

E. Ordering the IRS to formulate, adopt, and implement a data security plan that satisfies the requirements of the Privacy Act;  

F. Awarding pre-and post-judgment interest as allowed by law; and  

G. Any such other relief as the Court deems just and proper.

JURY DEMAND

Pursuant to Rule 38(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff demands a trial by jury of all claims asserted in this Complaint so triable.

Dated: September 18, 2023

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Abbe David Lowell
Abbe David Lowell, Bar No. 358651DC
Christopher D. Man, Bar No. 453553DC
WINSTON & STRAWN LLP
1901 L Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
AbbeLowellPublicOutreach@winston.com
202-282-5000 (ph)
202-282-5100 (fax)

Counsel for Robert Hunter Biden

_______________

Notes:

1 United States House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, Smith: Testimony of IRS Employees Reveals Biden IRS, DOJ Interfered in Tax Investigation of Hunter Biden, Revealing Preferential Treatment for Wealthy and Politically Connected, June 22, 2023, available at https://waysandmeans.house.gov/smith-te ... connected/.

2 See Steven Nelson, Hunter Biden whistleblower Gary Shapley claims FBI spooked corroborating witness, NEW YORK POST (Aug. 1, 2023), available at https://nypost.com/2023/08/01/hunter-bi ... d-witness/.

3 See https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1.pdf.

4 The IRS maintains a training video for its agents on its website, along with tax information security guidelines. See https://www.irsvideos.gov/Governments/S ... formation; https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1075.pdf.

A GAO Report has documented these deficiencies. See https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105872.

[admin]

Hunter Biden: I fought to get sober. Political weaponization of my addiction hurts more than me. My struggles and my mistakes have been fodder for a vile and sustained disinformation campaign against my father, President Joe Biden, and an all-out annihilation of my reputation.
by Hunter Biden
Opinion contributor
USA Today

Over four years ago, I chose life over the slow strangle-death grip of addiction, which in my case consisted each day of a bottle of vodka and as many hits on a crack pipe as possible. I am prouder of that choice and of my recovery than anything I’ve ever done.

My experience is not a unique one. At least 20 million Americans today suffer from substance abuse disorder. I don’t know a family that hasn’t been impacted in some way by addiction. What is distinct about my situation is that I’m the son of the president of the United States.

My struggles and my mistakes have been fodder for a vile and sustained disinformation campaign against him, and an all-out annihilation of my reputation through high-pitched but fruitless congressional investigations and, more recently, criminal charges for possessing an unloaded gun for 11 days five years ago – charges that appear to be the first-ever of their kind brought in the history of Delaware.

I accept that the choices and mistakes are mine

I am not a victim. By any standard, I grew up with privilege and opportunity, and fully accept that the choices and mistakes I made are mine, and I am accountable for them and will continue to be.

That is what recovery is about.

What troubles me is the demonization of addiction, of human frailty, using me as its avatar and the devastating consequences it has for the millions struggling with addiction, desperate for a way out and being bombarded by the denigrating and near-constant coverage of me and my addiction on Fox News (more airtime than GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis) and in The New York Post (an average of two stories a dayover the past year).

Conspiracy theories:GOP's Hunter Biden hysteria makes even less sense after plea deal gets put on hold

The science of addiction and recovery has made great strides in just the past decade. However, far too few will ever experience the miracle of recovery unless we change the stigma around addiction.

For those of us who live in recovery and for those who love someone in recovery, we know how hard fought our newfound lives are in letting go of the shame and making amends.

'Getting clean is easy, all you have to do is change everything'

Someone once told me, “Getting clean is easy, all you have to do is change everything.” That is one of the most profound truths I know today.

The weaponization of my addiction by partisan and craven factions represents a real threat to those desperate to get sober but are afraid of what may await them if they do.

Mental health care:My mom's suicide wasn't a personal failure. When she needed community, the system let her down.

It is not hard to see why: My recent haircut turned into a wild conspiracy to evade drug tests, tabloids steadily splash nude pictures of me on their covers, and even a member of Congress displayed revenge porn of me on national television.

My addiction doesn’t justify Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui posting altered nude photos of me with “editorial creativity over the pictures.” My addiction shouldn’t permit the likes of Rudy Giuliani or a former Peter Navarro aide to debase and dehumanize me for their own gains.

It is already a near-impossible decision for addicts to get sober, and the avalanche of negativity and assault of my personal privacy may only make it harder for those considering it.

I am blessed with a family that gave me the support and space to seek sincere redemption – and they too endure this shaming and humiliation of their father, son, brother and uncle. After what I have gone through since my brother died in 2015, and the perpetual public humiliation of me, I am now certain I can survive anything (except a drink or a drug).

And I am certain that part of my living amends is to not only survive this, but to also use my experience to be a living example of the promises we are told await us in sobriety.

The effort of recovery is something that should be celebrated, and I hope that despite my role as the punchline and punching bag for some, others will also make the effort I have made, one day at a time, and get honest with themselves and the people who love and rely upon them.

The effort is worth it. You are worth it. I am living proof of that.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or addiction, you can call theSubstance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration National Helpline at 800-662-HELP (4357) any time of day or night.

Hunter Biden is the son of President Joe Biden.

[admin]

Hunter Biden CATCHES Prosecution FABRICATING EVIDENCE Against Him
by Ben Meiselas
MeidasTouch
Feb 20, 2024

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Hunter Biden’s latest filing in the criminal case against him where his lawyers make a shocking finding about the prosecution’s egregious behavior.



Transcript

Hunter Biden's lawyers just found the
special counsel making egregious false
accusations against Hunter it's
unbelievable and the special counsil
claimed that Hunter was sending
photographs to his doctor of lines of
cocaine when in fact it was a photo sent
from Hunter Biden's doctor to Hunter
involving sawdust from another client
who was a construction worker struggling
with substance abuse who chose his work
as a construction worker over being a
drug addict so Hunter Biden's uh doctor
sent this to Hunter to try to encourage
him and the special counsel the
prosecutors going after Hunter made the
representation that this was Hunter
sending photographs to his doctor of
cocaine and if you go well why is this
relevant in general what does this have
to do with anything this case that was
filed against Hunter the indictment that
was unsealed in September of
2023 alleges that Hunter Biden purchased
a gun and on the form that Hunter Biden
used to purchase the gun he
misrepresented that he was not addicted
to drugs at the time when the
prosecution alleges that he was and they
utilize that photograph as one of the
examples of photographs Hunter Biden was
sending showing his drug use I mean when
you talk about egregious prosecutorial
misconduct like could you imagine a
moment if special counsel Jack Smith
said look this is a classified document
this is a classified piece of
information but it turned out that it
actually wasn't a piece of classified
information it was a magazine it was Los
Angeles magazine and not a classified
document and you brought charges on that
basis like let's dig into Hunter Biden's
filing Hunter Biden and filed this
motion to compel this information
showing these egregious errors this
egregious farce by the prosecutors is
contained in this motion to compel let's
take a look right here it says the
prosecutions this is from Hunter Biden's
lawyer the prosecution's latest filing
amplifies why Mr Biden and the court
cannot take the prosecution's assertions
concerning its Discovery production of
what the discovery reveals at face value
exhibit one to the prosecution's
opposition States this is what the
prosecutors are arguing why they don't
want to turn over more documents to
Hunter Biden that Hunter Biden says they
need to turn over the prosecutor so
David Weiss remember who initially was
going to enter into a plea agreement
then the Maga Republicans in the House
of Representatives threatened the judge
and threatened David Weiss and said
David Weiss was a democratic plant even
though he was appointed by Donald Trump
well this is what David Weiss and his
team States right here during the
November and December 2018 during
November and December 2018 the defendant
took multiple photographs of videos
apparent cocaine crack cocaine and drug
paraphernalia and right below it it
includes a photo of three white powdery
lines from iTunes backup iPhone
production one then Hunter Biden's
lawyers say the prosecution is flat out
wrong both that Mr Biden took this
Photograph and in claiming that it
depict cocaine multiple sources have
pointed out and a review of Discovery
confirms this is actually a photo of
sawdust from an expert Carpenter and it
was sent to Mr Biden not vice versa more
specifically the discovery identifies
this as a photo taken in the office of
Mr Biden's then psychiatrist Dr Keith
ablo which Dr ablo initially received
from a master Carpenter and later texted
to Mr Biden stating quote this one in my
office is of lines of sawdust sent to me
by a master Carpenter who was a Coke
addict the message accompanying that
photo was meant to convey that Mr Biden
2 could overcome any addiction the
prosecution does not provide a date for
the photo but the message from Dr Ablow
is dated November 20th
2018 there it is right there
and you see that these are lines of
sawdust and the carpenter sent it to the
doctor who he shared with Hunter Biden
this Carpenter doesn't even know who
Hunter Biden is to convey that the
carpenter was going to do the Carpenters
work and has overcome addiction and will
not do lines of cocaine and this is what
the prosecution is using and as as part
of their prosecution of Hunter Biden
regarding a hunter Biden purchase of a
gun in like 2018 like what Hunter
Biden's lawyer said the prosecution was
reckless in making such a hyperbolic and
Sensational Claim by the way I think
that's an understatement there by Hunter
Biden's lawyers the prosecution was
reckless in making such a hyperbolic and
Sensational claim in a public filing
which it surely realized would Prejudice
Mr Biden in the public eye mistaking
sawdust for cocaine sounds more like a
storyline from one of the 1980s Police
Academy comedies than what should be
expected in a high-profile prosecution
by the US Department of Justice Hunter
Biden's lawyers aren't done another
development just last week further
informs Mr Biden's request for and now
motion to compel discovery on February
15 2024 special counsel David Weiss
unsealed the remarkable indictment of
former FBI informant Alexander smaroff
the special council's indictment notes
that Mr smaroff expressed his bias
against President Biden and was telling
a farsal tale that barisma a Ukrainian
company enlisted Mr Biden as an
unregistered foreign agent and paid
bribes to him and then Vice President
Biden that proved to be so Outland
outlandish and
unsubstantiated that the FBI field team
recommended its investigation be closed
and then FBI deputy director and then
principal associate Deputy attorney
general Richard donu agreed in August
2020 nevertheless nevertheless with
prodding from extreme Republican members
of Congress who initiated an impeachment
inquiry of President Biden based on the
same baseless allegation and the
right-wing media the prosecution team
that was already pursuing Mr Biden
resuscitated the baseless investigation
of Mr smirnov's ridiculous claims
against Mr Biden 34 months later it now
seems clear that these smaroff
allegations infected this case and why
on July 26 2023 the special counsel
answered as it did to the Court's
question about whether the diversion
agreements immunity provision would bar
charges under the foreign agents
registration act lo and behold some
seven months later the special counsel
finally figured out that Mr smaroff was
lying which would have been obvious to
everyone certainly by August 2020 when
the Department of Justice closed the
investigation the special Council charge
Mr smirnov with lying in obstruction but
the more interesting part of the story
is not that Mr smirnov lied it is more
remarkable that beginning July 2023 the
special council's team would follow Mr
smaroff down his Rabbit Hole of Lies as
long as it did disclosure about why the
special counsel abandoned its June July
2023 agreements with Hunter Biden and
the role played by the smaroff
allegations May reveal flaws work than
mistaking sawdust for cocaine despite
the prosecution's strong words in its
opposition to this motion the actions
demonstrate that the prosecution has
gotten much wrong and provides good
cause for Mr Biden to question whether
it has gotten its Discovery obligations
right one of the other points as well in
this uh in this motion is the
prosecution's heavy Reliance on a brown
leather pouch that it claims belongs to
m Mr Biden and contain cocaine residue
Mr Biden noted in his motion to compel
that law enforcement obtained a pouch in
October 2018th from a garbage scavenger
who pulled it from a public trash can
the prosecution treats this evidence and
to be clear the garbage scavenger
picking up a pouch from a trash can as
The prosecution's Smoking Gun but if
that were so to despite the pouch's
questionable Providence it is
dumbfounding that the prosecution waited
for 5 years before testing it for
Narcotics residue and never chose to
retrieve fingerprints from it the
prosecution offers no explanation for
that either and what I always say folks
here on the midest touch network is just
show me the evidence show me the data
ultimately you know how I feel if Hunter
Biden committed crimes he should be held
accountable nobody is above the law if a
jury ultimately convicts Hunter Biden
that is our system of justice period
full stop I'm not going to be an
apologist here for anybody at all but I
am going to follow the data when you say
that sawdust is cocaine and that Hunter
Biden is sending these these photos to
his psychiatrist and it's actually a
carpenter who sent it to the psych
iatrist who sent it to Hunter to
encourage Hunter how you could get over
drug addiction or how you can focus on
other aspects of your life you become a
liar to me when you start to rely on
people like Alexander smirnov who is
someone who is connected with Putin who
was intentionally lying on forms and the
doj knew this person was a liar back in
2020 which is why they rejected this
crap when juliani was trying to filter
this stuff to them you lose credibility
with me in the Providence of your case
of the legitimacy of your case and your
claims and one of the other things here
that Hunter Biden points out as well is
that back in July on Late July of 2023
when the prosecution was there and
Hunter was there and the court said to
the prosecution the special council's
office have you provided all of the
Brady material all of the potential
exculpatory information to Hunter
Biden's legal team and the prosecution
responded lawyer for them Mr wise is his
name said yes your honor okay well you
make that representation well then you
bring the indictment in September of
2023 after there was no after the plea
deal was scuttled by the judge and also
by the prosecutions inconsistent
representations at the hearing but then
after making that July 2023
representation the prosecution makes a
production in October 2023 followed by
subsequent Productions in November 23
and January
2024 that includes Brady material
exculpatory information for Hunter Biden
that was never turned over in July 2023
when special Council David Weiss and his
team told the federal judge in Delaware
that it was turned over so Hunter Biden
saying why would you lie to the judge
why' you lie to the judge why' you lie
to us just confirm right now that all of
this braady material is indeed turnover
and we have serious reason to doubt the
propriety of what you are doing when
you're calling sawdust cocaine when
you're saying hunter sent pictures and
it was not pictures sent by Hunter when
you're relying on Alexander smaroff when
you're relying on a garbage scavenger 5
years ago finding leather pouches in
garbage can like what the heck is that
about by the way this is why when we've
seen Maga Republican initiated special
councils actually weaponize the
Department of Justice like we did before
in many other instances you've seen not
guilty verdicts you've seen them fail
there's such a big difference between
the quality of lawyering from special
counsil Jack Smith and this mess by the
special counsel David Weiss here who was
you know you saw him urged by Maga
Republicans you know to to do this so
judge for yourself but that's why we go
through these fil Lings together I'm Ben
my celis this is the midest touch
Network

****************************

Hunter Biden attorneys say ‘reckless’ prosecutors mistook ‘lines of sawdust’ for cocaine in evidence dump
by Josh Christenson
New York Post
Published Feb. 20, 2024, 4:42 p.m. ET
https://nypost.com/2024/02/20/us-news/h ... ence-dump/

Hunter Biden’s attorneys say federal prosecutors have been “gun-shy” about sharing evidence ahead of the first son’s weapons trial — and embarrassingly released a photo of purported cocaine that is actually sawdust in a carpenter’s shop.

Attorneys Abbe Lowell and Bartholomew Dalton accused special counsel David Weiss of not providing their client with “all the information that he is due so that he can prepare for and receive a fair trial,” according to the Tuesday filing in Delaware federal court.

“The prosecution’s latest filing amplifies why Mr. Biden and the Court cannot take the prosecution’s assertions … at face value,” they added, calling a Feb. 13 submission from Weiss’ office “flat-out wrong” for alleging Hunter “took multiple photographs” of “apparent cocaine, crack cocaine, and drug paraphernalia.”

[x]
Hunter’s former psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow, had taken the photo to show his patient “lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was a coke addict” in an effort “to convey that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction,” the attorneys added.

[x]
Hunter Biden’s attorneys say federal prosecutors embarrassingly released a photo of purported cocaine abuse that is merely showing sawdust in a carpenter’s shop, in a Tuesday court filing. AP

“Multiple sources have pointed out, and a review of discovery confirms, this is actually a photo of sawdust from an expert carpenter and it was sent to Mr. Biden, not vice versa,” Lowell and Dalton wrote.

According to the attorneys, Hunter’s former psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow, had taken the photo to show his patient “lines of sawdust sent to me by a master carpenter who was a coke addict” in an effort “to convey that Mr. Biden, too, could overcome any addiction.”

The photo in question was one of four included in the earlier filing by Weiss that featured cocaine and drug paraphernalia. Hunter’s attorneys did not mention the other images in the Tuesday filing.

“The prosecution was reckless in making such a hyperbolic and sensational claim in a public filing, which it surely realized would prejudice Mr. Biden in the public eye,” Lowell and Dalton wrote.

“Mistaking sawdust for cocaine sounds more like a storyline from one of the 1980s Police Academy comedies than what should be expected in a high-profile prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

The attorneys also took issue with prosecutors disclosing evidence of cocaine residue on a gun holster belonging to Hunter Biden and citing analysis conducted last year by an FBI chemist.

[x]
The photo was one of four included in the earlier filing by Weiss that featured cocaine and drug paraphernalia, though Hunter’s attorneys did not mention the others.

“The prosecution treats this evidence as its smoking gun but, if that were so (despite the pouch’s questionable provenance), it is dumbfounding that the prosecution waited five years before testing it for narcotics residue and never chose to retrieve fingerprints from it,” they said.

In an earlier filing, Weiss said his office had shared more than 1 million pages of documents across two federal indictments of Hunter Biden, 54, for making false statements on a federal gun-purchasing form and evading $1.4 million in tax payments.

The special counsel also accused Hunter’s defense team of having “misrepresented” or not fully reviewed the evidence it has already received.

Lowell and Dalton admitted in Tuesday’s filing that “mixed media data in this tech age is difficult to navigate” and “text messages and photos cited by the prosecution in its motions, for example, are difficult to locate.”

A January filing from Weiss stated that “investigators literally found drugs on the pouch where the defendant had kept his gun” and the first son’s own 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things” had “made countless incriminating statements about his years-long drug usage.”

Hunter lied about his cocaine dependency when purchasing the Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver from a Delaware gun shop in October 2018, according to the initial indictment, but his sister-in-law-turned-lover Hallie Biden tossed it 11 days later into a trash can behind a grocery store.

[x]
Hunter lied about his cocaine abuse when purchasing the Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver from a Delaware gun shop, according to the initial indictment.

FBI agents eventually recovered the firearm from a Delaware state police vault and took photos of it in 2023, when they discovered the white powder on its leather pouch holster.

Lowell and Dalton said in their filing that “who handled the pouch, where it was found, and the chain of custody in the days leading up to” its disposal on Oct. 12, 2018 “will all be critical issues at any trial and require advance preparation.”

Last July, the first son stated in a Wilmington, Del., federal courtroom that he had been clean since June 2019, but his defense team rejected a plea agreement on the gun charges over concerns that it would not provide their client broad immunity from other charges.

[x]
In his February filing, special counsel David Weiss said his office had shared more than 1 million pages of documents across his two federal indictments of Hunter Biden for making false statements on a federal gun-purchasing form and evading $1.4 million in tax payments. AP

Those may have included potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which Lowell and Dalton allege in their Tuesday filing were premised on the testimony of a confidential FBI informant who has since been indicted for allegedly lying to the bureau about the president and his son.

“[T]he role played by the [informant’s] allegations may reveal flaws worse than mistaking sawdust for cocaine,” they wrote, adding that Weiss’ office had “gotten much wrong” about the case, which “provides good cause for Mr. Biden to question whether it has gotten its discovery obligations right.”

The attorneys have also asked whether grand jury proceedings may have been flawed or biased and demanded further information from the Department of Justice about Trump administration officials who opened the case into Hunter.

[admin]

Judge’s Ruling is SURPRISING TWIST in GOP Witness’s Arrest
MeidasTouch
Feb 21, 2024

In a strange turn of events, the confidential informant, Alexander Smirnov - indicted for falsely claiming President Biden took a $5 million dollar bribe to help a Ukrainian oil company - was just released on bond by a Nevada federal judge pending trial. All despite admitting to being a Russian Foreign Intelligence asset with ties to groups involved with U.S. election interference. Michael Popok of Legal AF tries to make sense of his release and why it may speed up Smirnov’s extradition to stand trial in California instead.



Transcript

I'm Michael Popok LegalAF. We had a had a strange turn of
events today in federal court in Nevada
when a Magistrate Judge decided to
release, pending his trial, the informant
for the FBI, Alexander Smirnov, who's
indicted for having lied to the FBI in
the Department of Justice about bribes
paid to Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. Joe
Biden and Hunter Biden aren't going to
jail, but it looks like Alexander Smirnov
could, and a Magistrate Judge in
Nevada decided, despite overwhelming
evidence presented by the Department
of Justice, that Alexander Smirnov is
still cooperating and collaborating with
Russian foreign intelligence agents,
including those who have expressed to
him, and have been picked up on wiretaps
and in emails, that they are interested
in trying to influence the outcome of
the 2024 election. This Magistrate Judge
thought it was a good idea to put Mr.
Smirnov back on the street. It's shocking,
based on the information that was
provided by the Department of
Justice to the Magistrate Judge. And just
a quick primer in federal court, related
to crimes, there's a district court judge,
who's the main judge for a case, but
things like the arraignment issues
related to bond conditions of release,
pre-trial issues, generally go to a
magistrate -- just search warrants,
subpoenas, that type of thing. So we have
a Magistrate Judge who decided that
despite the fact that it appears that Mr.
Smirnov, based on the information
supplied by the Department of Justice,
lied about the amount of money and
resources he had at his disposal. He told
the pre-trial detention division that
he only had about $2,500. Looks like he's
got about 8 million between himself and
his girlfriend to access. You know, that's
a big miss in terms of your resources.
And they're also afraid that because
of his close contacts with at least
three different Russian intelligent
intelligence agents, who are hellbent on
trying to improperly influence the
outcome of our election, he has the means,
the motive, the method, and the
resources, to try to avoid showing up
in court again. And they also said this
particular guy -- in the Department of
Justice filing against pre-trial release --
that he also travels on two
passports, and it would be very easy for
him to walk into, let's say the Israeli
consulate, and walk out with a new
passport, and be untraceable.

Well the Magistrate didn't hear all that. The
magistrate decided that an ankle
bracelet would be sufficient to ensure
that this guy was going to attend.

But let me read you some of the most
critical elements. Now remember, Smirnov
is at the heart of the house
oversight committee, led by MAGA
Republicans like James Comer, the heart of
their Biden impeachment proceeding. He
was their star witness, just as
one time he was the FBI star witness.
Because he was going to testify -- if only
it were true -- that
he paid, or that there were two
payments, made of 5 million a piece, Joe
Biden, Hunter Biden, by Burisma, the oil
company that Hunter Biden was on the
board of, in order to get them to help
influence, for Burisma to help them go public
in the United States in terms of going
to Capital markets, as a public
company, and also to take the heat off of
Burisma because of a prosecutor problem
they were having in their own country.
And they were going to use Joe Biden for
that. The only problem with that is it was a
complete and total madeup falsehood, fake
and the like. And so instead of Hunter
Biden and Joe Biden being prosecuted, the
confidential human Source, the CHS, or the
confidential informant Alexander Smirnov,
has now been indicted.

But listen to what the Department of Justice put in its
filing that was submitted to
the Magistrate Judge on this particular
issue. They talk of course about the
charges against him, which are lying to
the federal government. So they're
basically telling the judge, "Why would
you expect them to tell the truth to the
probation Department, the pre-trial
Services Department, if he lied?" And
that's the basis of his lawsuit. They
basically say, they say upfront in the
introduction, "No condition, or combination
of conditions, will reasonably assure the
appearance of the defendant Alexander
Smirnov as required in court." They can't
even think of
one. They say, first he claims
to have contacts with multiple foreign
intelligence agencies, and had plans to
leave the United States 2 days after he
was arrested, for a month-long
multi-country foreign trip -- presumably on
the foreign intelligence agency's dime.
Second, he has access to over, I think I
said 8 million. Here it says 6 million in
liquid funds. Having told the pre-trial
Services Department, which is responsible
for preparing the memos to give to the
Magistrate Judge about what should
happen here, he didn't say 6 million, he
said he had $6,500. That's a big swing. And the
fact that he misrepresented his assets,
the Department of Justice told him that
alone is enough. A
And the fact that he's
been charged with lying to the
government is enough, to keep him
under wraps, and in jail, until trial.

Now I'll tell you, pre-trial detention is
usually reserved for violent
criminals, or ones where the judge does
not believe that he can accurately secure
his proper compliance, the defendant's,
proper compliance with the criminal
justice system's requirements.
But this judge went a different
direction. But let me just read you the
most interesting parts about the
confidential informant, and the
relationship with the Russians, the
Russian intelligence agencies.
This is on page 16 of the filing by the
Department of Justice. "While Smirnov has no
ties to the community in Las Vegas, what
he does have is extensive foreign
ties, including most troubling, and by his
own account, contact with foreign
intelligence services, including Russian
intelligence agencies, and he had contacts like that
recently. Of particular note," the paper
goes on, "Smirnov has reportedly numerous
contacts with Russian Official 1, not
named, who has been described by Smirnov
in a number of ways, including as the son
of a former high-ranking Russian
government official, someone who
purportedly controls two groups of
individuals tasked with carrying out
assassination efforts in a third-party
country, a Russian representative to
another country, and as someone with ties
to a particular Russian intelligence
service during the trip that he recently
took. Smirnov apparently attended a
separate meeting with Russian official
Number 1, the official who controls
groups that are engaged in overseas
assassination efforts. This a lovely
meeting. During this meeting with Russian
Official 1, he claimed that another
individual, Russian Official 4, the head
of a particular unit of Russian
intelligence, ran an intelligence
operation at a club located at a
particular hotel." Listen to this one. "The
Russian intelligence service intercepted
several calls according to Smirnov,
placed by prominent U.S. persons the
Russian government may use as Kompromat in
the 2024 election, depending on who the
candidates would be." Meaning, they'll use
them as unwitting assets to compromise
the election, and try to throw it to the
person that they want to win. This is the
guy the Magistrate Judge decided to let
out with an ankle bracelet!

I don't know
what you have to do in this country.
Apparently, ties with Russian
intelligence services, including ones
that are responsible for
assassinations in other countries, and
are trying to influence our election
isn't enough!

Now, his lawyers, taking a
page out of Donald Trump's playbook,
argue that the only way for their
client to get a fair deal, and due
process, is for him to be out on bail to
be able to cooperate with the lawyers, in
order to fight back against
the government that's out of control. There's no
evidence of that, and David
Weiss -- by the way, the special prosecutor was
originally appointed by Donald Trump,
just to show you where he's at -- now the
Magistrate Judge Daniel Alricks is
reasonably well respected in Nevada
circles. I don't know what happened here in
terms of the hearing itself, but instead
of siding with the government, and making
this guy go in for lying about his
assets, having foreign intelligence
relationships, including with people who
are responsible for pushing buttons, and
committing assassinations in other
countries, with ready access to cash that
he lied about, I don't really get
it, but he said he's allowing Smirnov to be
released from custody on an electronic
monitoring anklet while he awaits trial.
He has to stay in Clark County Nevada,
where he's not from -- he's from Israel --
and he is prohibited from applying for a
new passport. Remember, he was picked
up, and arrested, and indicted, for lying
to the FBI. Good luck pre-trial services
with getting this guy to comply now. One
false move and he will end up in jail.

I just want to show you, by contrast Sam Bankman
Fried, who headed FTX, the failed House
of Cards cryptocurrency company, he
was out originally on bail until he did
some bad bad things, including trying to
influence witnesses. And then he
was put in jail by judge Lewis Kaplan in
New York. Now they do things slightly
different in Nevada, including how they
pronounce the name of the state --
it's not Nevada, it's
Nevada -- but I practice law in Nevada as
well -- not regularly, but I do it for
pro hac special admission purposes -- I've
got an office located there, my Law
Firm, so I kind of know the players -- and
I don't know what the Magistrate judge is thinking. I think
if anybody was ripe to be put away
pre-trial, and let him meet with his
lawyers wearing an orange jumpsuit, it
would be Alexander Smirnov. But you know
we live in trying times right now -- no pun
intended -- and there's a lot of politics
in Nevada, and there's a lot of
Republicans in Nevada, so maybe tossing
this guy a bone, and letting him stay out
with an ankle bracelet, was their idea of
trying to balance the playing field,
level the playing field. I don't know but
we're going to have to continue to
follow this. Remember,
Smirnov's self immolation,
self-destruction, self-sabotage, in which
he was outed as being a liar, and has
been indicted by the FBI for being a
unreliable witness against Hunter Biden
and Joe Biden, and that of course has now
tanked the impeachment proceedings
against Joe Biden, and the attempt to
get information out of Hunter Biden, I
mean smeared off, for all intents was
going to be like the star witness
testifying in front of the government if
special counsel David Weiss hadn't
figured out that he'd been had by a
lying informant.

But we'll have to
continue to follow what goes on he.
We got to get him out of Nevada. If I
were the special prosecutor, I would move
to extradite him to the central
district of California, where the case is
pending, and get him out of Nevada, whose
only connection to the defendant Smirnov
is that the guy came off a plane on his
way to Vegas. I mean, I don't think
there's a lot of compelling interests
here.

So if I were to guess about what
happens next, the Department of Justice
special counsel makes a motion that
would go directly to the district court
judge, who's above the Magistrate Judge,
and ask that he be extradited, Smirnov
be extradited to California. And at
that time they could revisit the issue
of pre-trial detention in front of a
more reasonable judge, magistrate, in the
central district of California.

But we'll continue to follow what happens on the
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next legal AF, this is Michael Popock
reporting.