President Joe Biden announced Tuesday his intention to nominate Hunter Biden’s former colleague, Hampton Dellinger, to serve in the Office of the Special Counsel.
Dellinger, a graduate of Yale Law School like the president’s son, is Hunter Biden’s former law firm colleague at Boies Schiller Flexner, the firm that Hunter Biden requested represent Burisma Holdings. The Ukrainian energy firm paid Hunter Biden $83,000 per month to serve as a board member. An FBI FD-1023 file alleges a Burisma executive bribed Hunter and Joe Biden with $5 million each. IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler corroborated that claim in August.
It is unclear if Dellinger performed legal services for Burisma.
If confirmed to the position, Dellinger would lead the Office of the Special Counsel, which oversees the protections of federal whistleblowers and probes executive branch corruption. Those responsibilities pertain to the Justice Department’s (DOJ) investigation into Hunter Biden and the impeachment inquiry into the president and his son.As special counsel in the Office of the Special Counsel, he would have the authority over the investigations into whether Joe Biden’s DOJ retaliated against two IRS whistleblowers who claim the DOJ politically tainted its probe into Hunter Biden.
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Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) demanded current Special Counsel Henry Kerner investigate the alleged interference in July.
“Two IRS whistleblowers and their investigative team were removed from the Hunter Biden investigation in apparent retaliation for their legally protected communications with Congress,” the lawmakers wrote. “In emails following their disclosures, senior managers failed to properly notify employees of their rights to report wrongdoing to Congress and executive branch authorities.”
Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, threatened the IRS whistleblowers in July, suggesting Joe Biden’s DOJ should prosecute them for disclosing Hunter Biden’s tax information to the House Ways and Means Committee. In September, the president’s son sued the IRS. Hunter Biden alleged the whistleblowers improperly disclosed the information to the congressional investigators.
According to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, IRS employees are “encouraged” to blow the whistle. “As employees, you are the first line of defense to call out issues that raise concerns, and I want it to be clear that we will always encourage a ‘see something, say something’ philosophy,” he wrote.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
