President Joe Biden’s administration appointed a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s criminal defense attorney to serve as acting chief of the Justice Department’s criminal division, which is reportedly investigating the younger Biden over allegations of money laundering.
The Justice Department official, Nicholas McQuaid, was a close associate with Chris Clark, a partner at the law firm Latham & Watkins who is assisting Hunter Biden with the federal criminal investigation into his foreign business dealings. McQuaid worked closely with Clark at the law firm up until Jan. 20 when he was appointed to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division.
The two lawyers were jointly representing at least one non-Hunter Biden Latham & Watkins client when McQuaid left the firm to join the Justice Department on Jan. 20, according to Axios.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson first reported McQuaid’s appointment to the Justice Department on Monday.
“On Jan. 21 of this year, the same day Nicholas McQuaid was featured in the Justice Department press release, Latham & Watkins filed a motion in court to withdraw McQuaid as an attorney he was working on with Christopher Clark,” Carlson said. “So that means Joe Biden put at the head of the criminal division the partner of the guy his son had hired to defend him against the criminal division.”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson reported a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s criminal defense attorney has been picked as a top Justice Department official in President Biden’s new administration. pic.twitter.com/pVmUui0QwZ
— Daniel Chaitin (@danielchaitin7) January 30, 2021
It’s unclear how long McQuaid will serve as the head of the Justice Department criminal division. Joe Biden has not yet announced a permanent nominee for the post.
A Justice Department spokesperson told Axios that “all department employees are governed by the department’s ethics rules, including rules concerning recusal,” but the spokesperson did not address McQuaid’s connections with Hunter Biden’s attorney.
Hunter Biden revealed in December that he was notified that federal prosecutors were investigating his “tax affairs.” Multiple news outlets have reported that investigators are looking into whether Hunter Biden violated money laundering laws in regards to his foreign business dealings in China and elsewhere.
Joe Biden had pledged on multiple occasions during his presidential campaign that no member of his immediate family would engage in foreign business if he was elected president.
However, Hunter Biden continues to own a 10% stake in the Chinese private equity firm BHR Partners through his Washington D.C. LLC, according to Chinese business records, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
BHR manages the equivalent of $2.1 billion in assets and is co-owned by the Chinese state-controlled Bank of China. (RELATED: Hunter Biden Continues To Hold Stake In Chinese Private Equity Firm, Records Show, Despite Reports That He Was Planning To Divest)
Emails found on Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop show that he was told by his former business partner Eric Schwerin on multiple occasions in late 2018 that he should expect BHR Partners to generate income for him over the next couple of years.
“BHR is due to have a significant distribution in 2019 because of the CATL exit,” Schwerin wrote in a November 2018 email to Hunter Biden.
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