Hunter Biden’s lead counsel, Abbe Lowell, likely violated legal ethics rules this week by throwing Jared Kushner, a former client, under the bus.
In a letter to House lawmakers Wednesday, Lowell rescinded his previous demands that Republicans allow President Joe Biden’s son to testify publicly after a recent closed-door deposition.
“Your blatant planned-for-media event is not a proper proceeding but an obvious attempt to throw a Hail Mary pass after the game has ended,” Lowell wrote, calling the Republican impeachment inquiry into the Biden family business ventures a “circus act.”
Lowell had, at first, insisted on a public hearing if Hunter Biden were to comply with Republican subpoenas issued in November. Hunter Biden defied the subpoena until January, when Lowell agreed to schedule a deposition for the president’s son and re-upped demands for a public proceeding. But on Wednesday, Lowell reneged on calls that his client appear publicly and, in the process, accused a former client of potential crimes.
In the final page of Lowell’s letter to the House Oversight Committee, he highlighted an excerpt from the transcript of Hunter Biden’s Feb. 28 interview with lawmakers. “Let me remind you of the exchange that occurred,” Lowell wrote, adding quotes from Hunter Biden, who accused lawmakers of a double standard in how they treated him versus Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
“If you are serious about this oversight purpose in a legitimate and bipartisan fashion,” Lowell added, “you would hold a hearing with relatives of former President Trump about whom you indicated you ‘would ask.'”
If House Republicans held a public hearing with Kushner, Lowell wrote, “Mr. Biden would consider an invitation for that event.”
Lowell’s legal team was apparently even more explicit in its communication with ABC News, which reported: “A source with Hunter Biden’s legal team said that if lawmakers invited Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law who was a senior White House adviser to Trump, Hunter Biden would oblige.”
Lowell previously represented Kushner and Ivanka Trump during the Trump administration. Lowell did not respond to The Federalist’s repeated inquiries about whether he consulted Kushner before using a prominent former client as a foil to protect Hunter Biden. A source close to Kushner said Trump’s son-in-law would never in a million years have consented to this.
Jason Foster, the founder and chair of the whistleblower protection group Empower Oversight, told The Federalist that Lowell’s decision to undermine a former client raises ethical concerns.
“Attorneys have a duty of loyalty to former clients, but Abbe Lowell offered to sacrifice Mr. Kushner’s interests against being dragged into this controversy merely to help his current client, Hunter Biden, make a cheap PR point,” Foster said. “One wonders what Mr. Kushner thinks of Mr. Lowell offering him up, and what would really happen if the committee called his bluff and invited Mr. Kushner to testify. It’s unlikely that would actually change Hunter Biden’s position though, because this is just more silly theatrics — a bad habit to which Mr. Lowell seems to have developed a serious addiction.”
Hunter Biden appeared before lawmakers in February only after making a surprise appearance on Capitol Hill to capture B-roll for an upcoming Netflix documentary as lawmakers debated whether to hold him in contempt.
[READ: Hunter Biden Flipped Congress The Bird To Get B-Roll For His Damage-Control Documentary]
House investigators interviewed Hunter Biden as part of their presidential impeachment inquiry following the discovery of more than 20 shell companies established by the Biden family to funnel tens of millions of dollars from foreign oligarchs. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, which interviewed the younger Biden with the Oversight Committee, told The Federalist that Hunter Biden used his prior drug addiction as an excuse to “deflect difficult questions.”
“When we tried to get into details,” Hageman said in a post-deposition interview, Biden would say, “‘Well, I don’t have a memory of that.'”
Now Hunter Biden is refusing to join a panel of former business associates, including Devon Archer, Tony Bobulinski, and Jason Galanis, on March 20 for a public hearing. Each associate has given lawmakers key details about the Biden family’s influence-peddling schemes, including that the Bidens used the family “brand” to enrich themselves while in the upper echelons of government.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who chairs the Oversight Committee, said in a statement, “Next week’s hearing is moving forward and we fully expect Hunter to participate.”
