EXCLUSIVE — Hunter Biden has opened his father, President Joe Biden, up to a possible conflict of interest by demanding the Justice Department investigate people who he alleges disseminated the contents on his infamous abandoned laptop, according to government watchdog groups.
The younger Biden’s legal team called on the DOJ on Wednesday to investigate numerous parties, including ex-Trump advisers Rudy Giuliani and Stephen Bannon, for possibly breaking federal and Delaware laws by “accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating” Hunter’s “personal computer data.” This demand could pose a clear conflict of interest, given it was issued to his father’s administration, watchdogs told the Washington Examiner.
HUNTER BIDEN ADMITS INFAMOUS ABANDONED LAPTOP BELONGS TO HIM
“He’s basically asking his dad to use the U.S. government to attack the people who have been critical of him,” said Tom Jones, director of the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative group. Jones added that if one of former President Donald Trump‘s children asked his administration’s DOJ to investigate certain people, Democrats would claim that it could not be “objective.”
Hunter’s investigative requests were detailed in letters that his legal team sent Wednesday to Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings and U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew G. Olsen, who Joe Biden nominated in May 2021 for his role. The legal team also wrote to the Internal Revenue Service and lawyers for Fox News and Tucker Carlson.
Jennings is linked to the Biden family in various ways and, thus, could have to recuse herself from any cases involving Hunter Biden, according to Jones. Prosecutors are not supposed to consider “partisan or other improper political or personal considerations or hostility or personal animus towards a potential subject,” according to the American Bar Association. Jennings endorsed Joe Biden for president in April 2019, writing a lengthy Facebook post detailing how she has “known Joe, Jill, and the Biden family for most of my life.” The attorney general was also a state prosecutor in Delaware under Attorney General Beau Biden, Joe Biden’s deceased son.
In addition to Giuliani and Bannon, the Biden legal team wants the DOJ to investigate ex-computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, who, in late 2019, kept the laptop and hard drive after attempting for months to contact the younger Biden to pick them up. Mac Isaac then contacted the FBI after reviewing the laptop’s contents, including emails related to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and videos of him smoking crack cocaine.
Hunter Biden’s letters about the laptop mark the first time he appears to have acknowledged that it belongs to him, despite his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, telling CBS News that the letters “do not confirm Mac Isaac’s or others’ versions of a so-called laptop.”
Multiple outlets have long confirmed the authenticity of its contents. The Washington Examiner in May 2022 commissioned ex-Secret Service agent Konstantinos “Gus” Dimitrelos, who found the laptop files were indisputably authentic and without file manipulation or hacking.
Protect the Public’s Trust, another watchdog, thinks that Hunter Biden’s attempt to “sic officials” working for his father on people who “wronged him” creates the appearance of a conflict of interest for the president.
“That it is difficult for people to remain objective when it comes to those close to them should go without saying and is precisely why conflicts-of-interest laws are in place,” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Washington Examiner. “While acting at the behest of the president’s son may not be a strict violation of any ethics statutes, it would be hard to convince the average member of the American public of that.”
While the federal government retrieved Hunter Biden’s laptop from the Delaware repair shop in December 2019, Mac Isaac provided a copy of the laptop to Giuliani’s personal attorney, Robert Costello.
The laptop then was circulated to a variety of news outlets, including the New York Post, which published an October 2020 story citing emails showing how Hunter Biden introduced his father to a Ukrainian energy firm executive under one year before Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian government officials to fire a prosecutor investigating the firm.
“With the ongoing conversation about the weaponization of the FBI and the nation’s law enforcement to target political opponents, not to mention the sordid history of the concerted suppression of the Hunter laptop, this development is not positive for ethics and integrity in government,” said Pete McGinnis, a spokesman for the Functional Government Initiative.
“Yet here we are with the president’s son, yet again, seeking to avoid his mounting legal problems by calling for DOJ to step in front of the bus,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Hunter Biden’s investigative demand to the DOJ comes as he faces a long-running federal investigation thought to be primarily centered on possible tax and foreign lobbying violations, as well as an allegedly false statement he made in connection to a gun purchase.
David Weiss, the Delaware prosecutor handling the investigation into Hunter Biden, is reportedly closing in on charging him over late tax filings in 2016 and 2017, as well as allegedly fraudulent business expense deductions.
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The initiation of the investigation coincided with the revelation that banks flagged Hunter Biden’s financial activities as “suspicious” due to their alleged involvement with China and other countries. Republicans have demanded that the Treasury Department hand over the suspicious activity reports, which House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) says tally up to roughly 150.
A lawyer for Hunter Biden did not reply to a request for comment, and the DOJ declined the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
