Biden transition contends with probe of son’s finances
WILMINGTON, Del. — President-elect Joe Biden’s historically challenging transition to power is suddenly becoming even more complicated.
A federal investigation into the finances of Biden’s son Hunter threatens to embolden congressional Republicans, who have already shown little willingness to work with the incoming president or even acknowledge his clear victory in last month’s election.
For sure, it will complicate Senate confirmation hearings for Biden’s yet-tobe-named attorney general, who could ultimately have oversight of the investigation into the new president’s son.
It all raises the prospect of even deeper dysfunction in a capital that is already struggling to address the nation’s most pressing crises, including a surging pandemic whose daily death tolls are beginning to surpass the devastation of the Sept. 11 attacks. Republicans, particularly those eyeing presidential runs in 2024, are making clear they will press Biden on the issue.
“Joe Biden needs to pledge today that he will cooperate with the federal investigation and answer any questions under oath,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Thursday, “and that if he is sworn in as president, no federal investigator or attorney working on the Hunter Biden criminal case will be removed.”
Hunter Biden has long been a source of worry for his father’s campaign and was the subject of repeated unsupported accusations by President Donald Trump and his allies. But news of the probe, which was revealed Wednesday and scrutinizes some of Hunter Biden’s Chinese business dealings and other transactions, caught most of his father’s staffers by surprise.
The investigation threatens to destabilize a transition that has prioritized a methodical rollout of Cabinet selections, White House hires and policy goals — all meant to guarantee momentum when Biden takes office and immediately has to grapple with a surging pandemic and shaky economy.
The president-elect himself is not a subject of the investigation. And Biden aides believe that because other Hunter Biden stories have blown over, this will too. They note that a tax fraud investigation pales in comparison to Trump’s refusal to concede the election or to the pandemic that has killed more than 294,000 Americans.
Trump’s initial public response was surprisingly muted, just a pair of tweets about a Fox News segment on the story Wednesday night.
But privately, he demanded to know why the investigation was not revealed ahead of Election Day, accusing officials of deliberately stalling in order to help Biden’s chances, according to two Republicans familiar with the conversations but not authorized to discuss them publicly.
Some of Trump’s children have also faced some legal questions.
Donald Trump Jr. was scrutinized in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe for the 2016 meeting he had with a Kremlin-connected lawyer. And Ivanka Trump was recently deposed by investigators from the District of Columbia attorney general’s office as part of its lawsuit alleging the misuse of inaugural funds.
Regardless of the facts of the investigation, a new Justice Department will likely feel compelled to assert its independence from the White House following allegations that its actions were overly politicized during the Trump administration. Biden has said he will play no role in department investigative decisions.
The federal investigation, centering on potential tax crimes, had been going on at least a year before Biden announced his 2020 candidacy. Investigators did not reach out in the weeks prior to voting because of a department policy surrounding elections that prohibits overt investigative acts.