From the time Gary Shapley provided Congress obviously flawed summaries of WhatsApp texts, stripped of their identifiers, from an iCloud backup of Hunter Biden’s, I’ve argued their treatment reflects badly on the IRS agents involved.
When Abbe Lowell claimed, before Hunter was charged, that the IRS agents had gotten the identify of Hunter’s interlocutor wrong, I noted that the summaries, lacking identifiers, prevented what should be easy adjudication of this dispute.
INDENT -- The summary matters, a lot. That’s because Lowell claims that Shapley — or whoever did these summaries — misidentified the Hunter Biden interlocutor whose last name begins with Z.
----- from previous "Hunter Biden attorney says WhatsApp message cited by Republicans is fake [...] An attorney for Hunter Biden says purported screenshots of a text message from Hunter Biden to a potential Chinese business partner where he refers to Joe Biden — a message that has been the subject of intense scrutiny following statements made by an IRS whistleblower — are “not real and contain myriad of issues.” P - Abbe Lowell, who is one of Hunter Biden’s attorneys, made the statement in a letter to Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has interviewed the whistleblowers. The letter was obtained by NBC News. P - IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley told the committee under oath that, as an investigator for the IRS, he obtained messages Hunter Biden sent on the WhatsApp platform, including one in 2017 that he read demanding payment from a Chinese businessman named Henry Zhao. P - In the message, Shapley said, Biden appeared to suggest that he was sitting with his father, then the former vice president, saying, “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”" -----
[...]
In Wednesday’s hearing, after such time as they had received discovery on this material, Hunter Biden and Abbe Lowell provided a new explanation .. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24451034-240228-hunter-biden-transcript_redacted#document/p105/a2432017 .. for the discrepancy: That the first text (but only the first text) was accidentally sent to Henry Zhao, and the follow-up texts — which were therefore necessarily unrelated — came from Raymond Zhao.
INDENT Q This is a giant text pack prepared by the IRS investigators, summarizing, and in many cases, quoting WhatsApp message.
Mr. Lowell. Do you have the underlying message?
[Redacted] We have this document. This is what we have.
Mr. Lowell. I want to point out on the record that is all known to you that we have great reservations about the accuracy and completeness of what two IRS agents who have decided to go on television and try to promote what they believe should happen to Mr. Biden as having made a complete record.
And when there have been records, they have not been complete?
And when they make summaries, they are often quoting from texts or communications, which appear to have been altered by those other than themselves.
So with all that, you can certainly ask your questions. But I do not accept the premise that what you’re about to ask him is either an authentic or authenticated or a complete document.
[Redacted]: Okay.
Mr. Lowell. With that in mind, let’s go.
[Redacted] Okay.
BY [Redacted]:
Q Just to set expectations here, I’m going to refer to three. Okay? Then we’ll be done with this document for now.
A Page 3?
Q I’m going to refer to three sort of topics —
A Okay.
Q — within this giant document, not 148. We’re not going to go through every page. I’m sort of managing your expectations here.
A Thank you.
Q I’d like you to turn to page 4, and it’s a message dated July 30th, 2017. It’s about halfway down the page and it begins, “WA message with SM.” And that’s the — that stands for Sportsman, and that’s what they called you, and Zhao. Have you identified the one that I’m referring to?
Mr. Lowell. It’s down the page. It’s the only one for the 30th?
[Redacted]. Correct.
Mr. Lowell. Okay. Yes.
BY [Redacted]:
Q And so the text, according to the IRS, the Federal investigators, say, “Z, please have the director call me, moment James or Tony or Jim. Have him call me tonight. I’m sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.
“I’m very concerned that the chairman has either changed his mind or broken our deal without telling me or that he’s unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept.
“Tell the director I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.
All too often people make mistakes — sorry.
“All too often people mistake kindness for weakness, and all too often I’m standing over the top of them, saying, I warned you.
“From this moment until whenever he reaches me. It’s 9:45 a.m. here and I assume 9:45 p.m. there. So his night is running out.”
Zhao responds, “Copy. I will call you on WhatsApp.”
You respond, “Okay, my friend. I’m sitting here, waiting for the call, with my father. I sure hope whatever it is are you doing is very, very, very important.”
Then Zhao says, “Hi, Hunter. Is it a good time to call now? Hi, Hunter, Director did not answer my call, but he got the message you just mentioned.”
A Yeah.
Q Do you have any recollection of sending these?
A No, but I’ve seen this and —
Mr. Lowell. Is there a question?
[Redacted]. Yes. Does he have a recollection of sending the message?
The Witness. And I do not, but I do know this. I have now seen it, which it’s been presented. I would say two things about this message.
Mr. Nadler. Can you speak up?
The Witness. I would say two things about this message. The first thing is this.
Is that the Zhao that this is sent to is not the Zhao that was connected to CEFC.
BY [Redacted]:
Q Okay.
A Which I think is the best indication of how out of my mind I was at this moment in time.
Again, I don’t — my addiction is not an excuse, but I can tell you this: I am more embarrassed of this text message, if it actually did come from me, than any text message I’ve ever sent.
The fact of the matter is, is that there’s no other text message that you have in which I say anything remotely to this. And I was out of my mind. I can also tell you this: My father was not sitting next to me. My father had no awareness. My father had no awareness of the business that I was doing. My father never benefited from any of the business that I was doing.
And so, I take full responsibility for being an absolute ass and idiot when I sent this message, if I did send this message.
Q Okay.
[Redacted]. When you say it wasn’t Zhao from CEFC, who —
Mr. Nadler. Would you speak up, please?
[Redacted]. Which Zhao are you referring to if it wasn’t from CEFC?
The Witness. The number that I believe it went to was to Henry Zhao. Zhao is a very common — it’s not a surname — surname in China. I mean, obviously, very common surname. And I, like an idiot, directed it towards Henry Zhao who had no involvement, who had no understanding or even remotely knew what the hell I was even Goddamn talking about. Excuse my language
BY [Redacted]:
Q And he seems to —
A No, no, no, no, no, the Zhao — it’s a different — you’re conflating now.
Q Okay.
A And this why this report from the IRS is absolutely wrong. They’re two different messages.
The Zhao that calls me is not related to the message that was sent. I speak to him the next day. They’re two completely different sets of messages. One goes a number because, I made the Goddamn — excuse my language again — because I made like an idiot, and I was drunk and probably high, sent a — this ridiculous message to a Zhao, to a Henry Zhao.
But then the next day, I speak to a Raymond Zhao, who has never received the message that Henry Zhao got. And so that’s why this report is very misleading in many ways.
Mr. Lowell. That’s exactly why I raised the point before you decided to ask questions. The IRS agents —
The Witness. I gave —
Mr. Lowell. — took two different times and two different messages and conflated them. That’s what he’s explaining.
The Witness. And I can — and we can show you that.
And I also could show you that on that message, there was never a Chinese flag and a picture of it, as I think was shown in the Oversight Committee before. [my emphasis]
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