Biden ‘will not be discussing an investigation of his son with any attorney general candidates,’ press secretary says
President-elect Joe Biden will not discuss a federal investigation of his son Hunter with any potential attorneys general, according to the incoming White House press secretary.
Fox’s Chris Wallace asked Jen Psaki on Sunday whether Biden would vow to allow the U.S. attorney for Delaware to continue an investigation into the younger Biden’s taxes.
“He will not be discussing an investigation of his son with any attorney general candidates… he will not be discussing it with anyone he is considering for the role and he will not be discussing it with a future attorney general,” Psaki said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“It will be up to the purview of an attorney general in his administration to determine how to handle any investigation,” Psaki added. “As you know, U.S. attorneys, that’s a personnel decision, we’re far from there at this point in the process.”
She went on to name several open positions in the incoming administration, including the secretaries of Labor and Education.
“We have a few more to go but we’re going to allow the process to work how it should, which is for a Justice Department to be run independently by the attorney general at the top,” she said.
U.S. attorneys are typically replaced with a new administration. Before Attorney General Bill Barr’s resignation, President Trump reportedly pressured him to appoint a special counsel, who can only be fired directly by the attorney general, to the Hunter Biden case. Ahead of Barr’s departure, Trump openly criticized the attorney general over reports that he was aware of investigations into Hunter Biden before the election and did not make them public.
The president-elect has repeatedly said he will respect the independence of the Justice Department.
“Our Justice Department is going to operate independently on those issues, how to respond to any of that. I am not going to be telling them what they have to do and don’t have to do,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this month.
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