Washington, D.C. – Late last night, IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joe Ziegler, filed a response opposing a motion to dismiss their defamation lawsuit against Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell, alleging that Lowell’s defamatory statements were made in retaliation for their protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.
The whistleblowers’ action in response to Lowell’s attempt to have the case thrown out, after the agents sued Lowell for trying to destroy their professional reputations and to discredit them just to cover up the felonies that Hunter Biden has now admitted to. The agents are arguing that the lawsuit should proceed to the next phase.
The response to the court reads:
“His [Lowell’s] willingness to sacrifice the reputations of two law-abiding whistleblowers to protect a client who ultimately pled guilty is as indefensible as it is destructive… Most importantly, Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joseph Ziegler bring this action for the benefit of those government servants who come after them…
“If the powerful can defame whistleblowers with impunity, who will feel safe coming forward? Allowing such egregiously false attacks to go unchecked will send a chilling message to those who might one day be called to serve the public interest. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that whistleblowers can fulfill their role without fear of unjust retribution.”
Shapley and Ziegler, career investigators with the IRS, followed the law when they made protected disclosures to Congress about the preferential treatment in the Hunter Biden investigation. All public comments they made discussed information Congress had already lawfully released to the public. The whistleblowers lawsuit alleges that Lowell knew that. Yet, he falsely accused the whistleblowers of committing “clear-cut crimes” and leaking confidential information anyway. Lowell blamed the whistleblowers’ for killing the backdoor pardon Mr. Biden almost received from his father’s Justice Department in an aborted plea deal just after the House Oversight Committee’s release of Shapley and Ziegler’s testimony.
“Mr. Lowell’s statements went beyond merely trying to shield his client, the President’s son, from the consequences of the crimes for which he later admitted guilt and then accepted a sweeping pardon from his father,” said Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt. “As alleged in the complaint, in addition to Mr. Biden’s legal team lying about the whistleblowers to government officials, Mr. Lowell also republished his defamatory attacks to the public in retaliation for their protected disclosures to Congress.”
“Defamatory attacks on reputation have become the political weapon of choice for powerful and influential people who hope to discredit those who dare to expose wrongdoing and hypocrisy in government. By definition, government whistleblowers are civil servants who usually do not have the financial means to fight back when those with power try to destroy them,” said Mitchell Langberg, of Brownstein Hyatt, the defamation attorney for Shapley and Zeigler. “Gary and Joe are very fortunate that Empower Oversight and its supporters have stood behind them.”
The agents’ legal response argues that Lowell’s accusations are demonstrably false and have severely damaged the agents’ professional reputations. The whistleblowers are asking the court to reject Lowell’s motion and allow their case to move forward so they can restore their reputations and ensure that Lowell is held accountable for his defamatory statements.
Key arguments in the whistleblowers’ response include:
- Lowell’s motion to dismiss ignores that the agents’ claims are based on two distinct defamatory messages: 1) That the Whistleblowers violated the law by disseminating nonpublic information, and 2) that the Whistleblowers disseminated nonpublic information, which would make them unfit for their profession as IRS agents.
- The agents maintain they did not disclose any information that was not already public, through the lawful release of their congressional testimony.
- Lowell presented his accusations as false statements of fact or, at a minimum, “mixed opinions” based on undisclosed facts, not simply non-actionable opinions; however, Lowell, as a highly regarded criminal defense attorney, knew or should have known that his accusations were false.
- Lowell’s actions were driven by malice, ill will, and a preconceived narrative to discredit the whistleblowers and protect his client in retaliation for the whistleblowers’ protected disclosures to Congress.
- The whistleblowers are not suing Lowell for what he told Congress, but for his public statements to the media where he amplified his false allegations to cause the maximum reputational damage, which was not protected by any privilege.
For the original complaint, click here.
For the Lowell’s dismissal request, click here.
For the complete response filings, click here.
Empower Oversight launched a GiveSendGo crowdfunding campaign for this and other whistleblower defamation lawsuits at www.DefendWhistleblowers.com.