Lawyers representing Hunter Biden have reportedly set up a meeting with US Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to discuss the status of a criminal investigation into President Joe Biden’s son.
The meeting will take place next week and include a senior DOJ official, as well as US Attorney David Weiss, the Delaware prosecutor who has led the probe on Hunter Biden since 2018, CNN reported on Friday, citing unidentified sources familiar with the matter. Fox News, which confirmed the report, said Biden’s lawyers requested the meeting weeks ago, and it’s unrelated to allegations made this week about the investigation by an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblower.
CNN said prosecutors have narrowed the scope of the probe to include possible charges for failure to file taxes, felony tax evasion and falsely stating on a federal form for a gun purchase that he had not used illegal drugs. Weiss is reportedly also considering related charges involving money laundering and unregistered foreign lobbying.
The tax case relates at least partly to Biden’s income from ventures in Ukraine and China. The IRS whistleblower, who has not been identified and has sought permission to give testimony to Congress, supervised the agency’s investigation into the younger Biden’s alleged tax violations. The whistleblower reportedly claims that the probe has been undermined by “political considerations” and that Attorney General Merrick Garland misled Congress about how the case is being handled.
There is no indication that the scheduling of next week’s DOJ meeting with Biden’s lawyer suggests that prosecutors are prepared to make a decision soon on whether to file charges, Fox said, citing a source. There is “growing frustration” in the FBI because the bulk of the investigative work concerning the Biden allegations was completed last year, NBC News reported on Thursday. The IRS finished its part of the investigation more than a year ago, the report adds.
A bombshell New York Post report on alleged foreign influence-peddling by the Biden family surfaced in October 2020, just three weeks before the presidential election. The report was based on correspondence contained on a laptop computer that Hunter Biden had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop.
Former CIA Director Mike Morell recently admitted in congressional testimony that Joe Biden’s presidential campaign played a role in the creation of an open letter – signed by 51 former intelligence officials – claiming that the Hunter Biden allegations had “the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Morell, who acknowledged that he wanted to help Joe Biden get elected, said the letter was prompted by Biden campaign staffer Antony Blinken, now US secretary of state. Media outlets and the Biden campaign used the letter to discredit the Post report, which was censored by Facebook based on an FBI misinformation warning.