Meet Abbe Lowell, the Hunter Biden lawyer who formerly represented Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
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Meet Abbe Lowell, the Hunter Biden lawyer who formerly represented Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
March 6, 2023, 10:25 am CST
Winston & Strawn partner Abbe Lowell arrives for the funeral of the late Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona at the Washington National Cathedral in September 2018. Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via the Associated Press.
Winston & Strawn partner Abbe Lowell is representing President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden in congressional investigations after building ties to the Trump White House and representing former President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, the New York Times reports.
“Even by the flexible standards of Washington’s hired legal guns, Abbe Lowell’s most recent move was striking,” the New York Times said. “His reemergence in Democratic circles after a turn in Mr. Trump’s orbit highlights how Washington’s scandal-industrial complex can blur the lines between legal representation, access to power and self-promotion.”
Lowell, 70, is a graduate of Columbia Law School who worked for the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton administration. He went on to serve as chief investigative counsel for Democrats in the House of Representatives defending against the impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton. Later, he represented prominent Democrats before representing Trump’s daughter and son-in-law in a move that “shocked Washington insiders,” the New York Times says.
James A. Wolfe, left, then the director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, walks with Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and Abbe Lowell, a criminal defense attorney, in July 2017. Photo by J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press.
Lowell began representing Biden in December, according to a February story by Politico.
A source who spoke with Fox News saw the addition of Lowell to Biden’s team as a signal of an aggressive stance.
“Abbe is not cheap, and you don’t bring in Abbe unless you want to go to war or prevent one,” the source said.
Lowell quickly went on the offensive.
He sent letters to the DOJ and the Delaware attorney general seeking investigations into people said to have handled Biden’s laptop and the information that it contained.
And he sent a “fusillade of letters” to people allegedly involved in dissemination of laptop files, including lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Politico says. The letters ask the recipients to preserve evidence for possible litigation.
Lowell also turned down congressional requests for information for likely hearings related to the laptop and foreign business deals.
Information from the laptop surfaced when the New York Post obtained emails from the device, said to have been abandoned at a Delaware repair shop. Some of the emails dealt with Biden’s work for a Ukrainian energy company and his deal with a Chinese energy conglomerate, the Washington Post previously reports.
The New York Times notes two previous DOJ investigations of Lowell that ended with no charges. The DOJ looked into allegations of a “bribery-for-pardon scheme” and failure to register as a foreign lobbyist. Both investigations were dropped.
The pardon probe reviewed allegations that a client would make a substantial political donation to an unnamed person in exchange for a pardon from Trump. Lowell wasn’t representing Kushner, who helped recommend pardons, at the time of the alleged incident. The DOJ concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue a grand jury investigation.
Lowell declined to comment when contacted by the New York Times.
