Longtime IRS agents who emerged as whistleblowers, claiming that tax probes of Hunter Biden were slow-walked and stymied, have lost a defamation lawsuit against Biden's high-profile attorney Abbe Lowell, as a federal judge concluded it would be "futile" to let them amend their complaint.

Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon , a George W. Bush appointee, said Thursday that Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler failed to show that Lowell made defamatory statements or acted with actual malice when he wrote "aggressive" letters to Congress pointedly accusing them of committing crimes by leaking grand jury and tax information.

"These statements are not isolated accusations of wrongdoing, as presented in the Complaint, but rather reasoned—albeit aggressive—positions that Biden's attorneys took in

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