While congressional and federal investigations into the first son’s financial troubles are still proceeding, Hunter Biden’s advisors and Joe Biden’s White House are at odds over the first son’s legal defense plan.
The most recent issue involves Hunter’s plan to establish a legal defense fund to assist in paying the 53-year-old’s expensive attorneys, including longtime Democratic fixer Abbe Lowell.
According to Axios, the fund might make Hunter’s attempts to thwart Republicans on the House Oversight Committee who are looking into the Biden family’s influence-peddling abroad more difficult, especially if contributions come from foreign organizations.
“For this fund to work, it must be extraordinarily transparent and even restrictive by prohibiting foreign citizens and registered lobbyists from contributing,” a former senior adviser to Attorney General Merrick Garland told the outlet.
“Without these type of guardrails, the fund will be a legitimate headache for the White House.”
The leading White House ethics lawyer under former President George W. Bush, Richard Painter, was among those who have already been offered positions at the fund, according to Axios. When questioned by Axios if he had been approached for a post, Painter declined to answer, saying: “I get lots of calls from lots of people.”
Although the seasoned lawyer later met privately with Bob Bauer, the president’s personal attorney; his wife Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to the president; and White House special counsel Dick Sauber, it is reported that Hunter hired Lowell for his legal team in December without consulting top aides to President Biden.
Lowell, who served as the chief House minority counsel during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings in the 1990s, prevented the convictions of Democrats John Edwards and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) on allegations of federal corruption in 2012 and 2017, respectively.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, were additionally clients of Lowell in 2017.
Press representatives for the White House have mainly avoided inquiries about the troublesome first son.
However, a recent IRS whistleblower complaint regarding how the Hunter criminal investigation was handled increased pressure on Biden administration officials.
Hunter made an appearance in court on Monday in Arkansas for a child support case that may provide additional information about his financial situation because he has claimed to be in millions of dollars of debt and unable to pay Lunden Roberts, with whom he had Navy Joan Roberts, his 4-year-old daughter.
The president’s son has already paid Roberts over $750,000 in child support, according to Lowell’s testimony in Batesville, Arkansas.
Although an indictment has not yet been made public, another Hunter attorney, Chris Clark, met with the Delaware US attorney’s investigators last week to discuss their investigation into possible tax and firearms violations by the first son.
