President Trump is pursuing the possibility of appointing a special counsel to investigate issues surrounding Hunter Biden and allegations of fraud in the 2020 elections.
The president directed his staff to look into who could serve in such a role, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. Justice Department regulations specify that the appointment of such a special counsel would have to be made by Attorney General William Barr.
The news came amid the president’s increasing frustration with the attorney general and persistent losses in the Trump team’s legal challenges to the outcome of the November election.
The attorney general has known about a set of investigations into Hunter Biden’s business and financial dealings since at least the spring but worked to keep it from going public during the lead-up to the election, according to a source familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The investigations reportedly do not implicate President-elect Joe Biden.
The existence of the investigations became public knowledge this week after Hunter Biden admitted investigators were looking into his “tax affairs.”
Multiple outlets reported Biden was being investigated in connection to his taxes and shady overseas business dealings in an inquiry opened as far back as 2018. These reports said investigators had recently begun to take “overt” steps after being “covert” in the lead-up to the election, in an apparent effort to avoid influencing the November vote.
Concerns about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings have been percolating for years, including his lucrative position on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma, which played a key role in the Trump impeachment fight, and his connections to Chinese Communist Party-linked businessmen.
Trump expressed his frustration with Barr on Saturday morning, responding to a tweet from radio host Todd Starnes that read, “If the Wall Street Journal story is true and Attorney General Barr knew in the spring about the Biden investigation and kept it quiet — he should be fired by the end of business today.”
“A big disappointment!” Trump wrote.
In another tweet, the president said, “IF Biden gets in, nothing will happen to Hunter or Joe. Barr will do nothing, and the new group of partisan killers coming in will quickly kill it all. Same thing with Durham. We caught them cold, spying, treason & more (the hard part), but “Justice” took too long. Will be DOA!”
IF Biden gets in, nothing will happen to Hunter or Joe. Barr will do nothing, and the new group of partisan killers coming in will quickly kill it all. Same thing with Durham. We caught them cold, spying, treason & more (the hard part), but “Justice” took too long. Will be DOA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 12, 2020
“Why didn’t Bill Barr reveal the truth to the public, before the Election, about Hunter Biden[?]” he asked. “Joe was lying on the debate stage that nothing was wrong, or going on — Press confirmed. Big disadvantage for Republicans at the polls!”
Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson and Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley released a report in September detailing possible corruption concerns related to Biden’s foreign dealings.
In October, the New York Post reported on the contents of a laptop that had belonged to Hunter Biden, and Tony Bobulinksi, a former business partner of Hunter and Joe Biden’s brother, James, produced a trove of documents and messages related to the foreign dealings and said Joe Biden had been aware of the efforts by Hunter and James to do business with China.
Joe Biden repeatedly said Hunter had done nothing wrong, and Democrats and many in the media were quick to dismiss many of the stories, alleging they were part of a Russian disinformation campaign, without evidence. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe and federal law enforcement and intelligence officials said there is no evidence the laptop was a Kremlin disinformation operation.
Perhaps explaining Barr’s unwillingness to go public with the existence of the Hunter Biden inquiries is the Justice Department’s guidance on “election year sensitivities,” though it is not clear that investigating Hunter Biden definitely would have violated the policy.
This year, Democratic critics warned of the political implications of U.S. Attorney John Durham releasing a report on his criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation before the 2020 election. Such a report hasn’t materialized, but Barr quietly named Durham a special counsel in October.
Three prior attorneys general (George W. Bush’s attorney general, Michael Mukasey, and Barack Obama’s attorneys general Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch) released memos on investigations and elections while in office.
“Simply put, politics must play no role in the decisions of federal investigators or prosecutors regarding any investigations or criminal charges,” they stated. “Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
Barr released his own memo in February.
“The Department has long recognized that it must exercise particular care regarding sensitive investigations and prosecutions that relate to political candidates, campaigns, and other politically sensitive individuals and organizations — especially in an election year,” Barr said. “The Department remains committed to ensuring that this fall’s elections are conducted in a fair manner that is free from inappropriate influences.”
Relatedly, Trump cited a letter written by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when firing FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, and Rosenstein’s letter slammed Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation, saying in part that “concerning his letter to the Congress on October 28, 2016, the Director cast his decision as a choice between whether he would ‘speak’ about the FBI’s decision to investigate the newly-discovered email messages or ‘conceal’ it,” but “when federal agents and prosecutors quietly open a criminal investigation, we are not concealing anything; we are simply following the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information.”
Why didn’t Bill Barr reveal the truth to the public, before the Election, about Hunter Biden. Joe was lying on the debate stage that nothing was wrong, or going on – Press confirmed. Big disadvantage for Republicans at the polls!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
December 12, 2020
Also frustrating the president, Barr told the Associated Press at the start of December that “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
Despite this, the president and his associates have continued to pursue legal battles to get thrown out what they see as unlawful votes.
On Friday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a lawsuit from Texas against Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia aimed at throwing out the millions of votes from those states. One hundred twenty-six members of the House of Representatives, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, signed on to an amicus brief in support of the failed suit.
A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment on Trump’s tweets regarding Barr.
