It pays to have friends in high places.
On day one in office, President Joe Biden appointed New York attorney Nicholas McQuaid to lead the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, the same one that is reportedly operating not one, but three investigations into the Biden family. Just one month prior to the appointment, McQuaid worked alongside his partner Chris Clark at the firm Latham & Watkins as Clark took on a high-profile client under federal investigation: Hunter Biden.
“They worked on the same cases right up until McQuaid took the job,” Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said Friday night when he broke the story, though Axios reported Tuesday, “There’s also no indication McQuaid did any work on the Hunter Biden case.”
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s request for comment about the McQuaid appointment and reportedly declined Fox News’ request to say whether McQuaid would recuse himself from the Hunter Biden investigations.
McQuaid’s firm did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
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
News first emerged in October that Hunter Biden was the target of a federal money-laundering investigation, just days before his father was elected president. Hunter Biden later made a statement through his father’s transition team a month later acknowledging the existence of an FBI probe by the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, joining a securities fraud investigation being conducted by the securities fraud unit in the Southern District of New York, as reported by Politico.
According to Axios, federal ethics laws and DOJ regulations prohibit McQuaid from dealing with the Biden investigation without approval from the department’s ethics division.
“DOJ guidelines, as well as an ethics pledge imposed by President Biden within days of taking office, bar federal officials from participating in matters involving former employers unless they receive a waiver of relevant laws and regulations,” Axios reported.
In Pennsylvania, Joe Biden’s brother, James, also remains the target of federal investigators probing a series of hospital deals.
