33 senators call for Hunter Biden special counsel, cite DOJ ‘politicization’

One third of the US Senate has signed a letter asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to give US Attorney David Weiss the powers of a special counsel to investigate first son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

In the Monday letter, the 33 Republicans cited the “politicization” of the Justice Department, a lack of public trust in the authorities, and recent whistleblower allegations of a coverup within the FBI of evidence and testimony damaging to the first son.

“Given the politicization of the DOJ under your watch and the importance of avoiding any appearance of impropriety, the undersigned request that you provide U.S. Attorney Weiss the full protections and authorities of a special counsel,” the letter says.

“This is one important action that you can take that will go a long way in restoring faith in our governmental institutions.”

Weiss, the US attorney for Delaware and a Trump administration holdover, has been leading the investigation of Hunter Biden, who recently paid the IRS about $2 million in back taxes — using either a loan or gift from Hollywood attorney Kevin Morris — in an attempt to avoid prosecution.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) organized the letter, which was signed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a diverse group of others.

“There is no way of  knowing the entire scope of the investigation, but evidence seems to be mounting that Hunter Biden committed numerous federal crimes, including, but not limited to, tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign-lobbying violations,” the letter says.

“Indeed, Senators [Chuck] Grassley and [Ron] Johnson have conducted an investigation for several years that has resulted in the public discourse of facts that support those criminal concerns, including the disclosure of financial records showing the Biden family’s close financial connections to the communist Chinese government and questionable foreign nationals,” the letter continues.

“It is clear that Hunter Biden thrived off a ‘pay to play’ culture of access to his father, then Vice President Joe Biden in exchange for financial compensation.”

The letter was sent just one day after the broadcast by CBS of an interview with President Biden in which he claimed that his son’s foreign dealings — including in China, Russia and Ukraine — didn’t cause conflicts of interest for him.

“There’s not a single thing that I’ve observed at all that would affect me or the United States relative to my son Hunter,” the president said, despite the fact that he’s met with many of his son’s business associates.

Biden hasn’t sanctioned a Russian billionaire with whom his son reportedly did business, despite sanctioning much of Russia’s elite this year over the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. And Hunter Biden still co-owns investment firm BHR Partners with Chinese government entities, according to online records.

The Post reported this month that disgraced former FBI agent Timothy Thibault was the “point man” for former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski and never followed up with him about his bombshell claims that Joe Biden was involved with a business deal with Chinese energy company CEFC.

Thibault recently retired from the FBI following criticism of his anti-Trump social media posts and whistleblower allegations that he buried Hunter Biden material.

Bobulinski alleged one month before the 2020 election that Joe Biden was involved with his son Hunter and brother Jim’s dealings with CEFC, which reportedly paid the Bidens $4.8 million in 2017 and 2018. But Bobulinski heard nothing from Thibault after alleging that he spoke with Joe Biden about the deal.

Bobulinski says Joe Biden was known among Hunter Biden’s business partners as the “big guy” — who a document from Hunter Biden’s laptop said was ‘due a 10% cut in a new corporate entity with CEFC. Another Hunter Biden business associate, James Gilliar, also identified Joe Biden as the “big guy.”

The FBI also allegedly warned agents off investigating the contents of the laptop, which were made public by The Post in October 2020.

In a July letter outlining whistleblower complaints, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote that Thibault and another FBI employee, supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten, allegedly were involved in “a scheme” to “undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.”

Auten “opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters (‘FBI HQ’) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease,” Grassley wrote.

“[V]erified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation,” Grassley wrote.

Thibault, meanwhile, allegedly tried to kill off a valid avenue of investigation of possible Hunter Biden criminality.

“In October 2020, an avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting was ordered closed at the direction of ASAC Thibault… [when] all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants,” Grassley wrote.

“Thibault allegedly ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required by FBI guidelines…. [and] subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future.”

Under questioning from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) last month, FBI Director Chris Wray said alleged bias in the Hunter Biden case was “deeply troubling.” But Wray cut short questions, saying he had to catch a flight. It was later alleged that he skipped out on the oversight hearing for a personal vacation.

The FBI’s Baltimore field office is leading the Hunter Biden case, under the supervision of the US attorney’s office in Delaware.

Bobulinski has not been called before a grand jury investigating Hunter Biden for potential financial crimes, including tax fraud, money laundering and unregistered foreign lobbying.

Special counsels are bad news for presidents because they have wide-ranging investigative powers and their pursuit of potential crimes can drag on for years.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia in the 2020 election ended more than halfway through Trump’s term and produced a steady stream of damaging leaks, but ultimately failed to find evidence of conspiracy.

In the 1990s, independent counsel Ken Starr started off probing President Bill Clinton’s real estate dealings, but ended up looking into the coverup of Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, resulting in Clinton’s impeachment.