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President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, said Wednesday that the US attorney’s office in Delaware had opened an investigation into his “tax affairs.”
Hunter Biden, who has long been a target of Donald Trump and his allies, said he learned of the federal investigation Tuesday from his attorney, who was briefed on the matter by the U.S. attorney’s office that same day. .
“I take this matter very seriously, but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers,” Hunter Biden said in a statement issued. by the transition office of the president-elect.
Trump and his allies have tried to tarnish political opponent Joe Biden with unsubstantiated corruption charges involving his son. Trump’s early pursuit of these unsubstantiated allegations resulted in his impeachment, after he pressured Ukraine’s newly-elected president to investigate Hunter Biden’s work in the country while his father was vice president.
Yet the president remained obsessed with Hunter Biden throughout the campaign season, aided by his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and his Republican supporters on Capitol Hill. A Senate investigation into the allegations led by Trump allies found no evidence of improper influence or wrongdoing by the former vice president, and only concluded that Hunter Biden had used his last name to secure lucrative deals.
In the final weeks of the campaign, Giuliani claimed that a laptop recovered from a repair shop in Delaware and that it belonged to Hunter Biden documented his foreign business. With Giuliani as a conduit, the accusations were published by the New York Post to support the baseless claim that Biden shaped US foreign policy in Ukraine to benefit his son. The Biden campaign categorically denied the story, and many of the key details were disputed.
On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that, according to a person familiar with the matter, the tax investigation into Hunter Biden concerned some of his Chinese businesses, among other financial transactions, and “has nothing to do with the laptop”; The Guardian has not confirmed this.
The revelation about the investigation comes as Joe Biden is assembling his cabinet ahead of his inauguration, which will take place on January 20 despite Trump’s refusal to grant the election. Biden has yet to announce his election for attorney general, a position that could have oversight of his son’s tax investigation.
The US attorney’s office in Delaware is headed by David Weiss, who was appointed by Trump and took office in February 2018. A spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Delaware declined to comment, citing the ongoing nature of the investigation.
Although Hunter Biden’s business dealings and his years-long struggle with addiction provided ample political ammunition for Trump, Joe Biden continued to defend him publicly. Hunter Biden is the president-elect’s only living child, following the death of his eldest son, Beau Biden, from brain cancer in 2015.
The Biden-Harris transition team said in a separate statement: “President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including vicious personal attacks of the past few months, only to emerge stronger. “.
