Hunter Biden’s lawyer sent Donald Trump’s legal team a cease-and-desist letter on Thursday, accusing the former president of repeatedly defaming President Joe Biden’s son on social media.
“I am sending you this letter to ask your client, former President Donald Trump, to cease and desist from making public statements about my client that are both defamatory and likely to incite supporters of Mr. Trump to take action against Mr. Biden and which may result in injury to him or his family,” Father Lowell, Biden’s attorney, wrote in the letter.
The letter was first reported by ABC News. A lawyer for Trump did not immediately respond to NBC News’ requests for comment. Lowell’s office declined to comment.
The letter, addressed to four of Trump’s attorneys, accuses the former president of invoking Biden’s name on social media to “harass and incite his supporters almost daily since Trump himself was indicted.”
Lowell said Trump’s messages amounted to “thinly veiled calls to action to his supporters that are easy to trigger.”
He cited a July post on Trump’s Truth Social platform in which the former president wrote that David Weiss, the prosecutor investigating Hunter Biden, “never had the guts” to prosecute Biden, and said that he had handed out “a ticket instead of a death sentence”. .”
“We have seen that what might pass for such a sentence when spoken by rational people is heard by too many people in this country as a terrible injustice for which they must take physical and violent action,” he said. he writes, citing high-profile political events. violence, including the attack on former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, in October.
This attack, along with other high-profile instances of political violence, illustrates the real-world implications of Trump’s rhetoric, Lowell said.
“We are just one such social media post away from another incident, and you should make it clear to Mr. Trump – if you haven’t already – that Mr. Trump’s words have wronged in the past and threaten to do it again if it doesn’t stop,” he wrote.
In June, Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for Delaware, announced a plea deal with Hunter Biden, who is expected to plead guilty to two counts of federal misdemeanor for failure to pay his taxes. Biden also faces a separate firearms possession charge that will likely be dismissed if he meets certain conditions, according to court documents filed last month.
Under a provision of the agreement, the U.S. attorney agreed to recommend Biden’s probation for his tax violations, two sources familiar with the matter previously told NBC News. Legal experts have told NBC News that the tax and gun charges are unlikely to result in a prison sentence for President Biden’s son.
Trump and an executive of his Republican allies have repeatedly tried to juxtapose Biden’s case with the former president’s legal headwinds. They claim that a plea deal resulting in misdemeanors and no jail time looks like preferential treatment for a powerful family.
Legal experts say the cases are fundamentally different. Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor and NBC News legal analyst, told MSNBC last month that Hunter Biden’s deal was a decent outcome for the president’s son, but not the “love deal” that Trump and his allies concluded. be.
Lowell, in his letter, said he was “a little surprised to have to send this letter because it would appear that Mr. Trump is facing enough legal trouble right now.”
“I am writing to demand that this be stopped,” he wrote. “I hope you speak with Mr. Trump privately and explain to him how his incitement can hurt people more and get him in even more legal trouble.”
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com