A lawsuit was filed Tuesday against Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in regard to allegations that the agency failed to enforce having Hunter Biden register as a foreign agent.
Mr. Biden had served as a board member of Burisma starting in April 2014 when his father was vice president under President Barack Obama. Email that America First said it had obtained in March from the National Archives and Records Administration suggest that the younger Biden told the Office of the Vice President that he was a legal adviser to the Ukrainian company and was also an attorney with a law firm that was representing it.
The complaint said that because the FBI had obtained Mr. Biden’s laptop in 2019, “the Department of Justice had actual knowledge that Hunter Biden has been a statutorily defined foreign agent of (at a minimum) Ukrainian and Chinese principals and therefore was legally obligated to register as such. However, the Department has neither required Mr. Biden to register nor undertaken a waiver rulemaking.” But the DOJ failed to do so, the suit said.
Mr. Biden “was legally obligated to register as such. However, the Department has neither required Mr. Biden to register nor undertaken a waiver rulemaking,” the lawsuit said.
Gene Hamilton, AFL vice president and general counsel, said in a news release that evidence the group has gathered reveals Mr. Biden “appears to have used his unique access and position to the benefit of multiple foreign principles.
“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,” Mr. Hamilton said. “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.”
In March, America First Legal submitted a complaint asking the DOJ and Mr. Garland to comply with FARA by mandating that Mr. Biden register as a foreign agent.
“If the Department of Justice becomes aware that a certain individual is required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, but that such registration has not occurred, then the Department has a nondiscretionary duty either to require it or to undertake a waiver rulemaking. Nevertheless, to date, the defendants have refused to do either of these things,” the lawsuit also said.
The Epoch Times has contacted the DOJ for comment Tuesday. Mr. Biden’s lawyers have not issued a public comment on the matter.
It also comes as a lawyer for Mr. Biden sent a letter to former President Donald Trump to stop criticizing his client and threatened more legal action. In a cease-and-desist letter, his attorney wrote that he should stop “making public statements about my client which are both defamatory and likely to incite Mr. Trump’s followers to take actions against Mr. Biden and which could lead to his or his family’s injury.”
The lawyer cited a July post on Mr. Trump’s Truth Social social media platform in which the 45th president wrote that David Weiss, the prosecutor investigating Mr. Biden, didn’t have “the courage” to prosecute Mr. Biden. Instead, he doled out “a traffic ticket instead of a death sentence,” referring to Mr. Weiss’s announcement that his office made a plea agreement with the president’s son, who is expected to plead guilty on two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes.
Republicans and Mr. Trump have said that the plea agreement is essentially a slap on the wrist and shows there’s a dual standard of justice for Republicans and Democrats.
