Hunter Biden Says U.S. Attorney Is Investigating His Tax Affairs
Hunter Biden #HunterBiden
(Bloomberg) — President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, is facing a federal investigation into his tax affairs after his foreign business dealings became a flash point in the 2020 presidential campaign.
“I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers,” Hunter Biden said in a statement Wednesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware advised Biden’s lawyers of the investigation for the first time on Tuesday. But the probe began in 2018, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss the inquiry.
The president-elect’s transition office issued a statement of support for his son, whose struggles with substance abuse and foreign dealings were repeatedly criticized by President Donald Trump during the campaign.
“President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger,” the transition office said in a statement.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the investigation. The U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The investigation is looking into Hunter Biden’s business dealings involving China, and Joe Biden is not a target, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday night.
Trump’s presidential campaign sought to highlight claims by a man named Tony Bobulinski who said Hunter Biden recruited him to help run an investment firm to be called “Sinohawk Holdings,” backed by a Chinese energy company, and that he personally discussed the plans with the former vice president during an hour-long meeting in 2017, after Biden left public office. But Bobulinski – whom Trump invited to the second and final presidential debate – said the venture was never funded.
But the Senate report indicated that deals with the Chinese energy conglomerate, CEFC China Energy, did separately come to fruition. That included substantial payments from CEFC to a holding company that issued Hunter Biden a credit card and subsequently transferred millions of dollars to his law firm.
In an interview earlier this year with the New Yorker, Hunter Biden acknowledged receiving a 2.8-carat diamond from CEFC founder Ye Jianming, but said he gave the stone to other associates.
The move by the U.S. attorney’s office to disclose the investigation reveals that Hunter Biden is their target and that the probe has progressed to the point that investigators needed to contact his lawyers.
The timeline shows the probe began during the same period that Trump was pressuring Ukraine to open an investigation into Hunter Biden and as Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others worked to dig up dirt on him. This was all before Attorney General William Barr took up his position.
Hunter Biden, 50, has faced tax issues in the past, with NBC News reporting Wednesday that up until March of this year, he and his ex-wife faced an IRS lien of more than $112,000. The lien was placed against them in November of last year.
The announcement of the probe comes after Republican lawmakers in the House requested Barr appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. The younger Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company during his father’s tenure as vice president, and subsequently pursued business deals with other foreign entities.
“This needs to be investigated free from political interference. No matter who is in the White House,” Ken Buck, a Republican congressman from Colorado, tweeted Monday.
And the public reveal of the probe comes after years of pressure from the president. Last month, Trump pressured Barr to appoint a special prosecutor into Hunter Biden before the Election Day during an interview with Fox News.
“We’ve got to get the attorney general to act,” Trump told Fox News. “He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody, this is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election.”
Trump has long seen the former vice president’s son as a potential political liability worthy of attention. Trump was impeached by the House after pressuring Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens in a phone call.
A report released by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security Committee in September was critical of Hunter Biden’s foreign activities, alleging he created a potential conflict of interest for his father. But the report concluded it’s “not clear” whether the younger Biden had any impact on Obama administration policy and did not allege the former vice president or his son broke the law.
But prominent Republicans – including the president – renewed their calls for an investigation after Giuliani released materials to some news outlets purportedly from a laptop Hunter Biden had left at a Wilmington, Delaware, repair shop. The president’s campaign said the materials, the origin of which was not verified by Bloomberg News, undercut Joe Biden’s claims that he and his son never discussed overseas business dealings.
(Updates with inquiry looking into Hunter Biden’s China business dealings, in seventh paragraph.)
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