Biden and son Hunter face new scrutiny as push for special counsel grows
Katherine Doyle
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President Joe Biden’s Justice Department faces mounting pressure to appoint a special counsel as it investigates the former vice president’s possible mishandling of classified files while out of office, as Attorney General Merrick Garland did in a case involving documents held by former President Donald Trump.
Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee Trump’s case to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest after the former president announced his 2024 campaign, a bar some suggest should come into play for Biden, a current president who is expected to announce for reelection.
Biden has also come under fire for his family’s business dealings with foreign governments during his time in the Obama administration, factors that Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said should compel Garland to uphold the standard applied to Trump.
“It is far more challenging to come up with an argument against a special counsel than for one,” said Turley. “Garland insisted that he was compelled to appoint [special counsel] Jack Smith because Trump was now a candidate for the presidency. As some of us pointed out at the time, Biden is the president and was facing allegations of influence peddling.”
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“Yet Garland still refused to apply the same rationale to Biden in the appointment of a special counsel,” Turley added. The attorney general appointed prosecutor Jack Smith to investigate Trump’s refusal to return classified files held at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Garland asked U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch, one of two Trump-appointed federal prosecutors kept on by Biden, to handle the president’s case. The only other Trump-appointed prosecutor, David Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, is investigating Biden’s son Hunter.
Garland selected Lausch after the president’s attorneys found the first trove of documents at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in November. The attorney general appointed a special counsel to investigate Trump’s handling of secret documents two weeks later.
Turley said Biden might be poised to escape the same scrutiny of Trump, whose investigation includes other unrelated potential charges. The New York Times reported that Hunter is likely to face narrow tax and gun charges, despite reported criminal scrutiny over possible money laundering and foreign lobbying violations.
“What concerns me is the leak yesterday that the Justice Department is moving toward charges of Hunter Biden without a focus on the influence peddling,” Turley said. “If true, such charges or a plea could be used to justify a narrower scope of investigation. Trump’s other pending allegations related to Jan. 6 were included in the mandate for Jack Smith.”
Republicans have pressed Garland to act.
In a letter to the attorney general on Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) asked outright: “Will you appoint a special counsel to investigate President Biden’s alleged retention of classified records, as you did for President Trump?”
“Garland must appoint a special counsel for Biden — or admit his investigation of Trump was just a political hit job,” Hawley tweeted. “Can’t have it both ways.”
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and former chairman, said the failure to appoint a special counsel in the case “will hurt the country.”
Still, national security lawyer Mark Zaid said the push for a special counsel could wait.
“At this early stage, and especially given the fact a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney is handling the investigation to determine all facts, it appears premature to discuss appointing a special counsel to handle the Biden classified document matter,” Zaid said.
Biden’s attorneys discovered a second trove of secret files after completing a search of the president’s Delaware residences on Wednesday, including “a small number” in his Wilmington garage. The White House has said it is cooperating with federal authorities.