The US Department of Justice (DOJ) would ask US attorneys who were appointed by former president Donald Trump to resign from their posts, as US President Joe Biden’s administration moves to transition to its own nominees, a senior department official said on Monday.
However, the US attorney overseeing the federal tax probe involving Biden’s son, Hunter, is to remain in place.
Acting US Attorney General Monty Wilkinson called US Attorney David Weiss, who runs the federal prosecutor’s office in Delaware, and asked him to remain on the job, the official said.
Photo: AP
The department has been investigating the finances of Hunter Biden, including scrutinizing some of his Chinese business dealings and other transactions.
The tax investigation was launched in 2018, the year before the elder Biden announced his candidacy for president. Hunter Biden confirmed the existence of the investigation in December after a round of subpoenas was issued in the case.
The Associated Press (AP) has reported that the subpoena seeking documents from Hunter Biden in December asked for information related to more than two dozen entities, including Ukraine gas company Burisma.
Separately, US Attorney John Durham, who was appointed in October by then-attorney general William Barr as a special counsel to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, is to remain in that capacity, the senior department official said, but is expected to resign from his other position as the US attorney in Connecticut.
The official could not publicly discuss the internal deliberations and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The transition process, which happens routinely between administrations, is expected to take weeks and would apply to a few dozen US attorneys who were appointed by Trump and confirmed by the Senate.
Many of the federal prosecutors who were nominated by Trump have already left their positions, some in recent weeks.
It is fairly customary for the US attorneys to leave their positions after a new president is in office, but the departures are not automatic and do not necessarily happen all at once.
In 2017, then-US attorney general Jeff Sessions asked for the resignations of 46 US attorneys who were holdovers from former US president Barack Obama’s administration.
The US attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and are generally nominated with a recommendation from a home-state senator. The 93 US attorneys are responsible for overseeing offices of federal prosecutors and charged with prosecuting federal crimes in their jurisdictions.
The US Senate has yet to schedule a confirmation hearing for Biden’s attorney general nominee, Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge who in 2016 was snubbed by Republicans for a seat on the Supreme Court.
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