WASHINGTON
Hunter Biden,
the son of President-elect
Joe Biden,
said in a statement Wednesday that the U.S. attorneys office in Delaware is investigating my tax affairs, putting his financial dealings in the spotlight, as his father builds his administration.Hunter Biden said he takes the matter very seriously and is confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.The Justice Department declined to comment on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman at the U.S. attorneys office in Delaware declined to comment, citing DOJ policy regarding ongoing investigations.
The criminal investigation that included tax issues began in 2018, according to a person familiar with the matter. It is limited to Hunter Biden and his business dealings and doesnt implicate other members of his family or the president-elect, two other people said. The investigation was sparked in part by reports of suspicious activity filed by a bank that handled foreign transactions related to Hunter Biden, one person said.
The younger Mr. Biden, 50 years old, is an attorney and businessman who has engaged in extensive dealings with foreign companies. Those include serving on the board of a Ukrainian natural-gas company, Burisma, from May 2014 to April 2019, where he was paid roughly $50,000 a month for his work. He also was a director of a private-equity firm in China and had business dealings with a Chinese oil company.
The IRS in 2018 issued a lien against Hunter Biden and his ex-wife for $112,805 in unpaid taxes, public documents show. The pair paid the taxes, and the lien was released in March 2020, according to the documents.
The younger Mr. Biden said in the statement that he learned about the investigation for the first time Tuesday through his legal counsel, who he said was advised of it by the U.S. attorneys office on the same day. The Biden transition declined to say when the president-elect learned of the investigation.
The statement, which was circulated by Joe Bidens transition team, said the president-elect is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.
The announcement of the investigation comes more than a month before the presidential inauguration, and as the president-elect is weighing his attorney-general pick, who could oversee the investigation if it extends into the new administration. A person familiar with Mr. Bidens transition said a decision is expected next week.
The person said the leading contenders are former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, former deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates,
outgoing
Sen. Doug Jones
(D., Ala.) and federal judge
Merrick Garland.
The transitions statement didnt give any more detail about the investigation. A person familiar with the younger Mr. Biden said it wasnt related to President Trumps criticism of him during the presidential campaign, when Mr. Trump suggested Joe Biden and his family members had benefited financially from his time as vice president.
Mr. Trumps efforts to persuade the Ukrainian government to investigate Mr. Biden and his son also were at the center of his impeachment a year ago by the Democratic-led House. Throughout the election, Joe Biden denied any wrongdoing and said he had no involvement in his sons foreign contracts.
A Republican Senate investigation earlier this year looked into Hunter Bidens finances, examining a series of payments it alleged he received from entities linked to Chinese oil company CEFC China Energy Co, among others. The GOP findings, based on documents obtained from the Treasury Department, showed that Hunter Bidens law firm, Owasco PC, received nearly $5 million from CEFC.
Hunter Biden told the New Yorker in 2019 that he had been given a diamond by Ye Jianming, who then headed CEFC China, which he said was worth close to $10,000. He told the magazine he gave the diamond to his associates and didnt know what they did with it.
Hunter Biden also was a partner in the 2017 formation of a Delaware registered company called SinoHawk Holdings LLC. Hunter Biden and a group of Western businessmen set up the company as a joint venture with CEFC, which was eager to invest in the U.S. SinoHawk was never funded as planned and did no deals, people involved and business records show. CEFC operated in this venture through its own Delaware entity. The FBI invited one of the partners in the venture for an interview earlier this year after he made a series of public allegations about it.
Hunter Biden has owned 10% of a Shanghai private-equity firm, known as BHR Partners, since 2017 through a corporation registered in Delaware and was formerly a director there.
—Aruna Viswanatha, Sadie Gurman, James T. Areddy and Andrew Duehren contributed to this article.
Write to Ken Thomas at ken.thomas@wsj.com and Sabrina Siddiqui at Sabrina.Siddiqui@wsj.com
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President-elect’s son believes review ‘will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately’
