Are you ready for the Hunter Biden probe to get more wild? It may be right before the 4th of July, but news keeps coming that makes this whole situation look more shady by the moment. Last month, it was reported that Hunter Biden received a plea deal for tax and gun charges, allowing him to avoid jail time. One of the attorneys signing off on the charges, Assistant United States Attorney Derek Hines, reportedly has close ties to a business partner of the First Son, according to the Daily Mail.
Citing Hines' LinkedIn profile, the report notes that the U.S. Attorney worked as Special Counsel to ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh at Freeh Group International Solutions, which the Daily Mail describes as "a lobbying and 'risk management' consultancy that teamed up with Hunter on overseas business currently under scrutiny by lawmakers." The report also mentions that "Freeh worked with Hunter on a $3million job consulting for a Romanian criminal, a deal that is allegedly now part of his federal criminal investigation and is being investigated by Congress."
As the report went on to mention, the House Oversight Committee is also investigating another one of Freeh's connections involving the Biden family's corruption, which certainly looks to run far and wide.
Various damning connections have been picked up on by members of Congress as well, including Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who told the Daily Mail that the connection and the "DOJ's apparent unwillingness to remove any doubt about conflicts in the Hunter Biden case calls into question the integrity of their entire investigation." It's not like there haven't been concerns before such a reveal, though. "These types of connections to the Biden family pose significant conflicts that must not be ignored," the senator also said.
The Biden family was especially close when Freeh and Hines worked together, as well as when President Joe Biden was vice president and considering a 2016 presidential run:
It wasn't until 2016 that Hunter started working with Freeh consulting for [Romanian real estate tycoon Gabriel Popoviciu] Popoviciu.
But emails on his laptop show the Biden family had a close relationship with Freeh – – who headed the FBI from 1993-2001 – dating back to when Hines worked for him.
In a 2014 press release, Freeh described Joe Biden and his son Beau as 'dear friends', and in a May 2010 email to a colleague Hunter said Freeh was 'a close friend.'
In December 2014, Freeh was described with others as a 'strong contact for possible referral/collaboration' with Hunter and his brother Beau in an email laying out their plans for a 'Biden Law Group', written by Beau's former Delaware Attorney General deputy Ian McConnel.
After Beau's death in May 2015, Freeh became a board member of the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children.
In August that year a charity executive thanked Freeh for donating to Joe Biden's potential 2016 presidential run.
It's not merely that the connection is unseemly. Conflicts of interests could definitely be at hand, with the Daily Mail citing Title 28, § 45.2 of the Code of Federal Regulations. In a section aptly titled "Disqualification arising from personal or political relationship," it reads in part that "no employee shall participate in a criminal investigation if he has a personal or political relationship with... [a]ny person or organization substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation."
Still another official within the Department of Justice (DOJ) may have ties as well. Sens. Johnson and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have written to the DOJ for over two years now asking that Criminal Division Chief Nicholas McQuaid recuse himself due to his connections with Hunter Biden. That connection entails McQuaid previously working directly with the First Son's criminal defense attorney Chris Clark, at Lathan and Watkins.
"Since Feb. 2021, Sen. Grassley and I sent multiple letters to DOJ demanding assurances that Nicholas McQuaid, the former head of DOJ's criminal division, who had a Hunter Biden connection, had recused himself from the Hunter Biden investigation," Johnson told the Daily Mail. "The DOJ refused to provide a clear answer."
That the DOJ would be ignoring the senators' requests is sadly not so shocking, especially given this administration's track record of sending delayed responses or outright ignoring requests on various matters.
This news comes after last Friday's news dump with regards to a letter from U.S. Attorney David Weiss--who had charged Hunter Biden--to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) with regards to whether or not he had full authority to bring charges against the First Son.