Hunter Biden’s legal team is asking the Treasury Department to investigate a former Trump aide for circulating federal banking records linked to the president’s son and asking Congress to take action against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her statements about Biden.
Letters sent Monday morning to the House Ethics Committee and the Treasury Department’s Office of Inspector General and obtained by NBC News are among the latest efforts in an increasingly public and aggressive strategy from Hunter Biden’s legal team, led by attorney Abbe Lowell.
Lowell declined to comment.
The Treasury letter notes that former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler obtained and published on his website five Suspicious Activity Reports, or SARs, from JPMorgan Chase that involve or are related to Hunter Biden.
Financial institutions must file SARs with the Treasury Department whenever there are transactions that could indicate illegal activity. Unauthorized disclosures of SARs, which are confidential, can be prosecuted criminally.
The letter notes that Ziegler has stated previously that he worked with an insider at JPMorgan Chase to obtain the SARs and asks that Ziegler be investigated for possibly violating federal banking laws.
“Ziegler has used Mr. Biden’s SARs and other financial records to craft a false narrative that Mr. Biden is associated with a human trafficking ring. In his persistent and continued broadcast of this fictitious tale, Ziegler has called upon House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer to disseminate Mr. Biden’s private information to an even wider audience.”
The letter notes that the Republican-led House Oversight Committee published excerpts of two of the SARs in a recent report titled “A President Compromised: The Biden Family Investigation” and that at a news conference Comer, R-Ky., “falsely declared that one SAR ‘connects Hunter Biden and his business associates to international human trafficking, among other illegal activities.’”
Ziegler, who worked in the Trump White House as an aide to economic adviser Peter Navarro, has recently become a focus for Biden’s legal team for his alleged role in obtaining and disseminating Biden’s personal data, sources said. He was among 11 people who were sent evidence preservation letters in February in anticipation of future litigation, as NBC News previously reported.
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The letter to the Treasury Department also notes that Ziegler has sought to involve himself in Biden’s ongoing child custody case in Arkansas as an “expert witness,” which may have contributed to his access to Biden’s confidential financial information. “Surely not a coincidence, once Ziegler became involved with that case about child support, he immediately started bragging in public that he has access to Mr. Biden’s tax returns.”
Ziegler, the Treasury Department and Comer’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In their letter to the House Ethics Committee, Biden’s lawyers request action be taken against Greene, R-Ga., for her statements and conduct regarding Biden, alleging violations of the House Ethics Code and standards of official conduct. “Representative Greene’s unethical conduct arises from her continuous verbal attacks, defamatory statements, publication of personal photos and data, and promotion of conspiracy theories about and against Robert Hunter Biden. None of these could possibly be deemed to be part of any legitimate legislative activity,” the letter says.
The letter notes that Greene has alleged on Twitter that the Biden family engaged in a human trafficking ring and that in January she posted on her Truth Social account photos of Hunter Biden and his niece and another family member, suggesting that they were prostitutes.
Greene did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
