Lawsuit: Garland, DOJ Failed To Make Hunter Biden Register As Foreign Agent While On Burisma Board
America First Legal (AFL) filed suit against Attorney General Merrick Garland and the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday for failing to require Hunter Biden to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) while Barack Obama was in the White House from 2009 to 2017.
This past spring, AFL secured emails through a lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) that verified Hunter Biden’s direct representation of Ukrainian energy company Burisma in its interactions with the Obama administration.
Hunter acted as a board member of the company — which fits the definition of a “foreign principal” under 22 U.S.C. § 611(b) — and served as an attorney at the law firm hired to represent it. Therefore, AFL argues, Hunter acted as an agent of a foreign company and is subject to FARA registration as he represented Burisma’s interests.
Courtesy AFL
An “agent of a foreign principal,” per FARA, includes “any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal.”
AFL argues that Garland did not require Hunter to properly register or follow the necessary legal procedures to obtain a FARA waiver.
Courtesy AFL
Further, the National Archives just recently released email correspondence verifying that Hunter was involved in a phone call between his father — the then-vice president — and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Earlier this month, Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, unsealed an indictment against U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Gal Luft for failing to register as a foreign agent. Luft was allegedly engaged in U.S. political activities on behalf of the Chinese energy company CEFC and Chinese nationals.
Courtesy AFL
While Luft was indicted, Hunter Biden has not received similar treatment for maintaining lucrative business relationships with the same parties. His business arrangements with CEFC and its former Chairman Ye Jianming have been well-known for years now.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Senate Committee on Finance released joint investigative reports in 2020 outlining the relationships and financial arrangements between the Biden family and their Chinese business partners.
And in July 2017, the House Ways and Means Committee obtained digital communications in which Hunter wrote to CEFC leadership that he was “sitting here with my father” and threatened them with his “ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction” if the “commitment made” by these Chinese nationals “has not been fulfilled.”
[READ: Hunter Biden Is Above The Law]
The Biden family repeatedly leveraged their name and connections to peddle influence and sell out American interests overseas. The DOJ continues to apply a double standard by allowing Hunter to skirt official legal procedures and avoid accountability.
In a statement, Gene Hamilton, vice president and general counsel at AFL Legal, noted Garland’s dereliction of duty. “As detailed in our complaint, the record is quite clear. Hunter Biden appears to have used his unique access and position to the benefit of multiple foreign principals,” he said. “Any other American would have been criminally prosecuted for failing to register as a foreign agent for this conduct–but not under Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, which continues to go out of its way to help President Biden, his family, and his radical liberal allies.”
Hamilton continued, “The Attorney General has a non-discretionary duty to ensure that Hunter Biden registers as a foreign agent under FARA and provides the American people with transparency into his activities on behalf of foreign principals.”
Recently, the DOJ has come under further scrutiny as federal prosecutors and the FBI appear to have repeatedly interfered with an investigation of Hunter being carried out by the IRS, according to whistleblower statements. FBI headquarters tipped off “people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden” prior to IRS criminal investigators approaching Hunter, further hindering their investigation, whistleblowers testified.
Repeated conduct of this nature has led many to believe it is time to entirely overhaul the FBI and reorient its structure to curb its ideologically biased practices.
Garland continues to deny that he and the DOJ provided Hunter with special treatment.
Read AFL’s filing here:
Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.
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