- President Donald Trump is considering personally appointing a special counsel in the waning weeks of his presidency to investigate Hunter Biden, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
- Trump consulted the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows; the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone; and others on the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the son of President-elect Joe Biden.
- The report comes on the heels of Trump announcing Monday that Attorney General Bill Barr would be leaving the Justice Department before Christmas.
- Trump was unhappy with Barr for not publicly announcing a federal investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes and, later, for saying the Justice Department and the FBI found no evidence of widespread voter fraud, contradicting baseless conspiracy theories from the president and his allies.
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President Donald Trump asked his legal team whether he could personally appoint a special counsel in the waning weeks of his presidency to investigate Hunter Biden, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Trump brought up the matter of appointing a special counsel to investigate the son of President-elect Joe Biden to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows; the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone; and others, Trump officials and Republicans close to the White House told the AP.
The sources also told the AP that Trump was considering appointing a special counsel to investigate his unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
Representatives from the White House did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider.
The report comes on the heels of Trump's announcement Monday that Attorney General Bill Barr would be leaving the Justice Department before Christmas. Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen will serve as acting attorney general in Barr's absence.
Trump was unhappy with Barr for not publicly announcing a federal investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes. The president was also displeased with Barr's public comments that the Justice Department and the FBI didn't find evidence of widespread voter fraud, contradicting Trump's election-related conspiracy theories.
Rosen said he was "honored" to fulfill the role as the nation's top cop and said he "will continue to focus on the implementation of the department's key priorities."
The question remains whether the acting attorney general would succumb to any pressure from Trump to carry out investigations into political opponents in the president's final few weeks in office. The AP reported that Trump had asked his legal team, including Rudy Giuliani, to see whether Trump could appoint a special counsel if Rosen were to refuse.
If such an investigation were to be taken up, it would most likely be "a more prolonged and complicated investigation" than the current investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes, the AP reported.
The investigation could extend past Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20, which would then place the onus upon the incoming administration to keep Rosen or appoint another attorney general. The attorney general reserves the power to terminate special-counsel investigations – but only "for specific reasons such as misconduct, dereliction of duty, or conflict of interest," according to the AP.
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