WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman has urged Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings and a damaging laptop hard drive that belonged to the president-elect’s son.
“This investigation is critical to defending the integrity of our republic and ensuring a potential Biden administration will not be the subject of undue foreign interference,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Col.) wrote to Barr, as first reported by Fox News.
“Americans have the right to know whether Mr. Biden’s reported ties to foreign governments will make him the subject of blackmail attempts or other nefarious efforts to undermine U.S. national security or otherwise improperly influence American foreign policy,” he added.
Special counsels are able to operate without threat of dismissal from the White House because they are protected by federal regulation.
Biden has repeatedly denied any acknowledge of his son’s business dealings while he was vice president but emails obtained by The Post, which were sent by Hunter BIden, offered access to his father to help land lucrative deals in China and the Ukraine.
One email sent from a Ukrainian executive in April 2015 also thanked the scandal-scarred son for the “opportunity to meet your father,” less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.
The Biden campaign and Hunter Biden have not disputed the authenticity of the emails.
Hunter Biden has not faced any criminal investigations over the allegations but Republicans in Congress have been probing his work in the Ukraine which included his $83,000 monthly salary on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which he landed while his father led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
The younger Biden also established a $1.5 billion private equity firm in 2013 with the help of state-owned Bank of China just days after flying aboard Air Force Two to China with then-veep father on an official visit.
In an interview on CNN last week, President-elect Biden said his son would not accept any jobs that would conflict with his presidency.
“My son, my family will not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict with where there’s appropriate distance from the presidency and government,” Biden told CNN host Jake Tapper.
Lawmaker calls for special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden (nypost.com)