Hunter Biden attorney asks IG to probe how ex-Trump aide 'illegally' got client's bank records

Hunter Biden's top attorney is asking the Treasury Department's inspector general's office to investigate how a former Trump aide obtained suspicious activity reports on President Biden's son that flag questionable financial activities.

Attorney Abbe Lowell alleges in a letter dated Monday to Deputy Inspector General Richard Delmar that former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler "illegally" obtained the reports from JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A.

He states that Ziegler, who published five SARs, short for Suspicious Activity Reports, on the Marco Polo USA website, has already acknowledged having worked with one or more people inside of a bank to get the reports or information related to them.

"Ziegler's admission of his interaction with a bank employee to obtain protected information runs afoul of Title 31, United States Code, Section 5322(a), which imposes criminal penalties for willful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and its implementing regulation," Lowell alleges in the letter.

Under the 1970 law, financial institutions are required to assist U.S. government agencies in detecting and preventing money laundering, which includes keeping records of cash purchases, filing reports of cash transactions exceeding $10,000 and reporting suspicious activity that might signal criminal activity, including, for example, money laundering and tax evasion.

Ziegler responded Monday by tweeting, "Just another bait & switch attempt by @HunterBiden, all financed by @pkm2679."

The Twitter handle appears to belong to Los Angeles attorney Kevin Morris, a Democrat donor and friend of Hunter Biden's who reportedly loaned the president's son $2 million to help pay off his overdue federal taxes.

Marco Polo describes itself as a "nonprofit research group exposing corruption & blackmail."

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.