Anti-Trumper calls for a special counsel

One of President Trump’s harshest critics has joined the chorus calling for a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden.

Richard Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, told The New York Times on Friday that the Justice Department probe into President-elect Joe Biden’s son needs to be independent of the incoming administration.

“That should not be investigated by someone appointed by the president any more than if one of his Cabinet members is accused of something or his national security adviser,” Painter said.

Hunter, 50, disclosed on Wednesday that he is under investigation for potential tax fraud in Delaware, where The Post revealed in October that the FBI seized a laptop containing his e-mails and other files from a Wilmington repair shop.

Painter — who has said he quit the Republican Party over its support of the president and wrote a book about Trump titled “American Nero” — told USA Today that the Hunter scandal was “a golden opportunity” for Joe Biden.

“This is a way for Joe Biden to say, ‘I’m not the one who should be making any decisions and neither should anyone, including the attorney general, who reports to me,’ ” Painter told the paper.

Conservative commentator and former Manhattan federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote in the National Review that while special counsels “should be avoided when practical,” the Hunter Biden case called for one.

“Clearly, the concern would be that a Biden Justice Department could bury the probe,” McCarthy wrote.