A long-running Justice Department investigation that has included Hunter Biden as its focus continues even though the son of President Joe...
A long-running Justice Department investigation that has included Hunter Biden as its focus continues even though the son of President Joe Biden has finally paid his taxes, according to a new report.
The report Tuesday in The New York Times, which is largely based upon sources it didn’t name, said Hunter Biden told a colleague his tax bill, for which he took out a loan, topped $1 million.
Although Hunter Biden rocketed to public attention during the grueling 2020 presidential campaign amid scandalous revelations from a laptop he abandoned at a Delaware repair shop, the Justice Department had begun looking at his finances during the Obama administration — when his father was vice president — as a tax issue.
Since then, the investigation has explored multiple webs of international dealings woven by Biden, often in partnership with Devon Archer, who was sentenced last month in an unrelated securities fraud case in New York City.
Investigators are looking for what the Times described as possible “criminal violations of tax laws, as well as foreign lobbying and money laundering rules.”
One issue is whether Hunter Biden knowingly broke the Foreign Agents Registration Act requiring anyone performing lobbying or public relations assistance for a foreign client to register with the Department of Justice.
Hunter Biden has not been charged with a crime.
The Times’ report confirmed earlier reporting on the laptop by the New York Post and others that was censored by Big Tech and ignored by liberal media outlets in the weeks leading up to the November 2020 presidential election.
The Times report also raised the question, which it did not answer, of whether Hunter Biden is among many people being scrutinized who have connections to the Washington consulting firm Blue Star Strategies.
That company worked for the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, which paid Hunter Biden as much as $50,000 a month to serve on its board, according to a Senate committee’s report. A subpoena recently was issued for financial records regarding money the president’s son received from Burisma.
David C. Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, is overseeing the case, which touches on not only Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma but also his links with businesses in Kazakhstan and a Chinese energy conglomerate.
As part of the investigation, prosecutors subpoenaed records from a lawsuit against Hunter Biden from Lunden Alexis Roberts, with whom he fathered a child. Last year, she was asked about his finances, and this year she testified before a grand jury in Delaware.
Officials have also traced emails from Hunter Biden in which he appeared to want to avoid having to register with the Justice Department for his work with foreign clients.
The Times report quoted an April 2014 email from Hunter Biden to Archer concerning a trip by Joe Biden — then vice president — to Ukraine.
In the email, Hunter Biden referred to his father as “my guy” but did not use his name.
He said the trip should “be characterized as part of our advice and thinking — but what he will say and do is out of our hands.”
The announcement “could be a really good thing or it could end up creating too great an expectation. We need to temper expectations regarding that visit,” Hunter Biden wrote.
The report said that Hunter Biden’s actions appeared to demonstrate a determination not to register as required under FARA, but the evidence was not clear if there was an intent to violate it.
The Times noted that prosecutors might focus on FARA violations as a civil matter, which means Hunter Biden would need to register but not face any criminal charges.
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