House

Hunter Biden’s attorney files ethics complaint against Marjorie Taylor Greene for showing sexual images

by Mychael Schnell - 07/21/23 1:56 PM ET

Hunter Biden’s lawyer filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) Friday, requesting that an ethics watchdog “immediately” initiate a review of Greene’s conduct after she showed sexually explicit photos of Biden at a congressional hearing this week.

In a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), Biden attorney Abbe David Lowell slammed Greene’s actions as “abhorrent behavior that blatantly violates House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct.”

“This week, your colleague has lowered herself, and by extension the entire House of Representatives, to a new level of abhorrent behavior that blatantly violates House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct. If the OCE takes its responsibilities seriously, it will promptly and decisively condemn and discipline Ms. Greene for her latest actions,” Lowell wrote.

“Now more than ever, the House has a duty to make loud and clear that it does not endorse, condone, or agree with her outrageous, undignified conduct and brazen violations of the standards of official conduct that do not reflect creditably on the House of Representatives,” he added.

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The OCE is a nonpartisan, independent entity previously established by the House that reviews allegations of misconduct involving lawmakers, officers and House staffers and, if warranted, refers matters to the Ethics Committee.

Greene and the OCE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The episode in question took place Wednesday during a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing that featured testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who allege that prosecutors slow-walked the investigation into Hunter Biden. Republicans throughout this Congress have argued that federal law enforcement agencies are politicized against the GOP.

During her time to question the witnesses, Greene held up posters that showed graphic sexual photos from the laptop hard drive that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden. The faces of other individuals involved in the sex acts were censored with black boxes, but Biden’s face was visible in the photos — which Lowell pointed out in his letter.

“Before we begin, I would like to let the committee and everyone watching at home know that parental discretion is advised,” Greene said before her first question.

The presentation sparked criticism from Democrats, with Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the panel, asking Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), “Should we be displaying this?”

Greene claimed that Biden improperly utilized his company to write off payments made to prostitutes, but one of the whistleblowers — IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler — would not confirm. He did, however, say deductions were made that were believed to be for escorts, and noted that a payment that was said to be for a golf membership was for a “sex club.”

The Georgia Republican also asked questions related to the Mann Act, which criminalizes the transportation of women across state lines for prostitution.

“Rather than evaluate the credibility of the IRS agents’ testimony or review our tax laws, Ms. Greene sought to use the power of her office to generate some clicks online, fundraise, and provide sensationalist clips for Fox News at the expense of harassing and embarrassing Mr. Biden, a private citizen,” Lowell wrote Friday.

“This political stunt by Ms. Greene will go down as a historic event unbecoming of any member of Congress and beneath the dignity of the House of Representatives,” he added.

Lowell noted that Greene “proceeded to send out a fundraising email to her constituents” that included a link to a video that had the nude images of Biden in it. In doing that, he said the congresswoman may have violated a federal law that pertains to transferring obscene material to minors “even if one minor was included among the email distribution or was exposed to her outrage.”

He also cited the House rule that calls on members to conduct themselves “in a manner that reflects creditably on the House floor,” and referenced a previous case involving Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

In August 2020, the House Ethics Committee formally admonished Gaetz for a tweet he posted in February 2019 that was seen as an attempt to intimidate Michael Cohen, former President Trump’s ex-lawyer, ahead of his testimony before a congressional committee.

The Ethics panel said the tweet “did not reflect creditably upon the House of Representatives” and “did not meet the standards by which Members of the House should govern themselves.” It determined, however, that Gaetz did not violate witness tampering or obstruction of Congress laws.

Lowell juxtaposed the Gaetz case to Greene’s display this week.

“If what Mr. Gaetz did was the misdemeanor example of an ethics breach, Ms. Greene’s latest transgressions are a felony and provide the OCE with more than enough grounds to initiate a review of Ms. Greene’s conduct here and in the past,” he wrote.

Raskin also argued Thursday that Greene had violated House rules.

“Yesterday they took us to a new low when Marjorie Taylor Greene decided for completely gratuitous reasons to show purported pornographic scenes of Hunter Biden. I mean, if that is not a violation of the rules of decorum of the House, then we don’t have rules of decorum in the House,” he said. “And I’ve been telling Republicans, if those images were in a book, they’d be voting to ban them. Instead, they decided to display them to the whole country in the House of Representatives.”

Lowell’s request for an OCE review comes after he sent a letter to the watchdog in April asking that it look into Greene, pointing to her previous statements involving Biden.

“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,” he wrote at the time.

On Friday, Lowell said Greene’s actions during the Oversight hearing “are just the latest in Ms. Greene’s consistent, dogged verbal and defamatory attacks against Mr. Biden, and members of his family.”

He went on to reference her recent ouster from the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which Greene herself has not confirmed but other members have spoken about, arguing that that rebuke underscores the need for an OCE review.

“It may be that House members have ‘gotten used to’ Ms. Greene’s antics or think her stunts ‘fall on deaf ears,’ but even the vociferous Freedom Caucus finally reached the point of ousting Ms. Greene from their midst,” Lowell said.

“If what she did before this week merited that rebuke, the OCE can no longer stand idly by and allow the already-diminished reputation of the House to suffer yet another blow by doing nothing against Ms. Greene now,” he added.

Emily Brooks and Mike Lillis contributed.

This story was updated at 3:51 p.m.