WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is considering pushing for the appointment of special counsel to advance a federal tax investigation into President-elect Joe Biden’s son and set up a potential showdown with incoming acting attorney- General Jeffrey Rosen.
Trump – angered that outgoing Attorney General William Barr has not publicly announced the ongoing two-year investigation into Hunter Biden – has consulted on the matter with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and external allies.
So say several Trump administration officials and Republicans close to the White House who spoke with The Associated Press to discuss private matters on condition of anonymity.
In addition to appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the younger Biden, the sources said Trump is interested in having another special counsel to investigate his own baseless claims of electoral fraud. But if he expects his newly appointed acting attorney general to go beyond Barr in either case, he could quickly become disappointed.
Barr announced on Monday evening that he will step down as of next week, who revealed his plans about a week after Hunter Biden publicly announced that an investigation was being conducted on him in connection with his finances. In general, it is the Department of Justice’s policy not to disclose ongoing investigations, although the subjects of those investigations may.
Rosen, the deputy attorney general, will take the top position of the Justice Department in an acting role. He has been a lawyer for many years and has been Barr’s top deputy since May 2019, but he largely shuns the limelight. He said in a statement on Tuesday that he was “honored” to serve and “will continue to focus on the implementation of the department’s key priorities.”
Trump is still considering his options and is considering pressuring Rosen to make the special council appointment or, if necessary, replace the acting attorney general with someone more likely to carry out his wishes. He has even asked his team of attorneys, including personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, to investigate whether the president has the power to appoint a special counsel himself.
An important question will be whether Rosen can withstand presidential pressure – and potentially devastating attacks – in the waning weeks of the Trump administration. If not, Rosen could be pushed aside in favor of others more willing to obey Trump’s orders.
Believing that a special investigation by counsel could injure a Biden administration before it even begins, Trump aides have urged the president to push for one, preventing the investigation from being easily stopped by the incoming president. No final decision has been made.
Trump announced that Barr would step down on December 23, amid ongoing tension between the president and attorney general over the Hunter Biden investigation. Trump was upset for days after learning that Barr was aware of Hunter Biden’s tax investigation before the election, but did not make it public.
He was also unhappy that Barr said in an extensive interview with the AP that the Department of Justice had not detected any widespread electoral fraud that would have affected the results of the election.
For much of his tenure, Barr was seen as one of the president’s most loyal cabinet members, especially after framing the results of Robert Mueller’s Russia inquiry in a manner favorable to Trump, although the special counsel told the president of the impediment. of the judicial process. . It was Barr who first hired a US attorney to review the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn and then tried to dismiss the charges against Flynn, who was twice found guilty of lying to the FBI.
As Barr departs, the biggest hanging by far above the Trump Justice Department is the Hunter Biden investigation, which involves multiple US law firms and FBI field offices. Appointing special counsel can prove complicated, requiring several angles of investigation to be consolidated and someone new recruited to run the probe and get up to speed.
Under federal regulations, a special counsel can be fired only by the attorney general and for specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty, or conflicts of interest – reasons that must be set out in writing. Appointing special counsel for the Hunter Biden probe would also indicate a longer and more complicated investigation than the current investigation, which has so far focused largely on his taxes. A subpoena for documents of the younger Biden asked for information related to more than two dozen entities, including the Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
Either way, the probe hampers Joe Biden’s choice of attorney general, on whose shoulders this probe would land. Any candidate for attorney general will likely face a mountain of questions at a confirmation hearing about how they would oversee the investigation.
Rosen may remain in the position for a few weeks after Biden was sworn in on January 20. If Trump doesn’t fire him, that is.
Rosen has been the face of some of the Justice Department’s biggest actions, including the antitrust case against Google and the criminal case against opioid producer Purdue Pharma. Prior to joining Justice, he worked in the Department of Transportation as a general counsel and then assistant secretary.
During Rosen’s 2019 confirmation hearing, he suggested that he was willing to reject political pressure from the White House if necessary. He told lawmakers that criminal investigations “must be based on the facts and the law” and that prosecution must “be free from undue political influence.”
“If the correct answer is say no to someone, then I will say no,” he said at the time.