Hunter Biden reveals he is under federal investigation over ‘tax affairs’

US President-elect Joe Biden’s controversial son Hunter has revealed he is under federal investigation for his “tax affairs”.

Joe Biden’s son Hunter has revealed he is under federal investigation for his “tax affairs”.

“I learned yesterday for the first time that the US Attorney’s Office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs,” the 50-year-old said in a statement released by the Biden-Harris transition on Wednesday.

“I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors.”

The Biden-Harris transition added, “President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.”

Colorado Republican Congressman Ken Buck seized on the announcement to renew his call from earlier this week for Attorney-General William Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden.

This is why AG Barr needs to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Hunter Biden. It would be wildly inappropriate if his dad’s AG was involved in this matter. https://t.co/RUYVAyARE3

— Congressman Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) December 9, 2020

“This is why AG Barr needs to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Hunter Biden,” Mr Buck tweeted. “It would be wildly inappropriate if his dad’s AG was involved in this matter.”

Mr Barr earlier this month revealed he had appointed US Attorney John Durham as special counsel to investigate the origins of the Russia probe, focusing on actions by the FBI and the Mueller investigation.

The Biden family’s foreign business dealings came under renewed scrutiny prior to the election after the New York Post published a series of bombshell articles based off of a trove of emails, images and other documents sourced from an abandoned laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter.

The MacBook Pro had been dropped off at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware in 2019 and never picked up. The owner eventually took legal possession of the computer, and turned it over to authorities after becoming concerned at the contents.

An image of Hunter Biden with a crack pipe, found on an abandoned laptop.

Some of the emails and text messages, which were later corroborated by former Biden family business partner Tony Bobulinski, appeared to link Hunter with questionable business deals in China and Ukraine.

The owner, claiming he was concerned at the lack of action, later provided a copy of the laptop’s hard drive to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House strategist Steve Bannon, who fed the stories to the media in the lead-up to the election.

Documents obtained by Fox News in October showed the FBI had taken possession of the laptop, but neither the agency nor the Delaware US Attorney’s office would comment publicly on the investigation.

During the campaign, the President repeatedly referred to the Biden family as a “criminal enterprise” and often discussed the “laptop from hell” at his rallies. “This guy’s a vacuum cleaner,” Mr Trump told a rally in Carson City, Nevada.

“He follows his father around, takes millions, hundreds of millions and billions out of these countries. That is so dishonest. I call him the human vacuum cleaner.”

Separately, Senate Republicans in September released an 87-page report – dismissed by Democrats as politically motivated – alleging foreign business dealings by Hunter Biden in countries including China, Russia and Ukraine while his father was Vice President constituted a conflict of interest.

The report flagged Hunter Biden’s “business associations” with Chinese nationals linked to the “Communist government and the People’s Liberation Army”, including jailed energy tycoon Ye Jianming.

“Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow,” the report said. “Hunter Biden opened a bank account with (Ye’s associate) Gongwen Dong to fund a $US100,000 global spending spree with (Joe Biden’s brother) James Biden and (his wife) Sara Biden.”