The Department of Justice just got hit with a lawsuit from Stephen Miller’s America First Legal over its refusal to enforce the law vis-à-vis Hunter Biden, who failed to register as a foreign agent but has not been held accountable by the DOJ for that failure.
As background, Hunter worked and lobbied on behalf of both Ukrainian and Chinese companies without registering as a foreign agent. The Chinese company was CEFC China Energy Co., a CCP-linked company that paid Hunter both $1 million as a legal retainer and $3.8 million in consulting fees, but Hunter didn’t register as a foreign agent. Nor did he register as a foreign agent when making $83,000 a month while sitting on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, even though he appears to have been involved in a phone call between then-VP Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Well, America First Legal caught wind of that and noticed that the DOJ has not yet investigated Hunter Biden nor has it held him accountable for not registering as a foreign agent. The group alleged such in a recently filed lawsuit, saying, “Attorney General Garland failed to require proper registration or otherwise follow legal procedures concerning a FARA waiver for Hunter.”
Continuing, AFL argued in the suit that “Federal law makes clear that no person shall act as an agent of a foreign principal unless he has filed with the Attorney General a true and complete registration statement and files applicable supplements – none of which occurred during the Obama administration.”
In a press release, AFL explained the basis for its lawsuit, saying, “In March, AFL obtained emails from litigation against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) confirming that Hunter directly represented Burisma in its dealings with the Obama White House. Hunter was both a board member of Burisma, a “foreign principal” under 22 U.S.C. § 611(b), and an attorney at the law firm representing it. Hunter Biden was arguably Burisma’s agent and subject to FARA registration because he was an officer of Burisma and appears to have represented Burisma’s interests to the Office of the Vice President.”
AFL adds that an “agent of a foreign principal” under the FARA statute 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.”
Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Vice President and General Counsel, said, “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. 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. 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.“
Hunter image By Center for Strategic & International Studies – Panel 3: Our Shared Opportunity: A Vision for Global Prosperity, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93062660
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