Ninety-five House Republicans are demanding that Attorney General Merrick Garland appoint a special counsel to investigate President Biden’s son Hunter Biden for financial impropriety overseas.
Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Carol Miller of West Virginia, sent a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday urging Mr. Garland to ensure that current probes of Hunter Biden’s business dealings are free of conflicts of interest.
“We believe that in the case of Hunter Biden a Special Counsel must be appointed to preserve the integrity of this investigation and any subsequent prosecution,” the lawmakers wrote. “A Special Counsel would also ensure there is no bias in the investigation or undue influence from the White House.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office currently has an open investigation of Hunter Biden. While few details are clear, the investigation appears to extend into tax evasion and whether the younger Mr. Biden failed to properly disclose foreign business interests to the government.
Since Mr. Garland was appointed and directly responsible to the president, it is improper for him to have an official say over any investigation into the Biden family, the lawmakers said.
“We are concerned that in the case of Hunter Biden the Department has an actual conflict of interest and certainly has the appearance of a conflict of interest that could prevent a fair and impartial investigation of his activities,” they wrote. “You were nominated to your position by Hunter Biden’s father and ultimately work for him.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, FBI investigators obtained a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden as part of a probe into money laundering. The laptop was abandoned at a Delaware repair shop and later turned over to news outlets and law enforcement officials. It exposed details of Hunter Biden’s wheeling and dealing in foreign countries such as China and Ukraine where his father’s political influence was prominent.
While the laptop provided fresh details, many of Hunter Biden’s massively lucrative business arrangements had been raising eyebrows in Washington for years.
A top example is Hunter Biden’s landing of a high-paying job in April 2014 on the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas conglomerate. At the time, Hunter Biden had little experience in either the energy industry or Eastern Europe and was paid as much as $50,000 per month for his service.
Shortly before the appointment, then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden was named as the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine.
“It appears that Hunter Biden used his position as [the] son of then-Vice President Biden to gain wealth and influence in foreign countries, using questionably sourced money to pay tax liabilities, and lobbying on behalf of foreign entities without proceeding through the proper channels,” wrote the GOP lawmakers.
Adding to the appearance of impropriety, Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board at the same that its founder was courting Western leaders after having assets in Britain seized on suspicion of money laundering.
Reuters reported that a Ukrainian official with knowledge of Burisma’s internal operations said in 2019 that Hunter Biden was only appointed to the company’s board to protect against foreign scrutiny.
• Haris Alic can be reached at halic@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.