A Romanian business magnate facing corruption charges hired Hunter Biden while attempting to “influence U.S. government agencies” during Joe Biden’s vice presidency, prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday.
Special counsel David Weiss’ team said a business associate of Hunter Biden’s will testify at Hunter’s upcoming federal tax trial about the deal with Gabriel Popoviciu, a tycoon who allegedly hired the now-president’s son for legal work in 2015. At the time, Popoviciu was facing a criminal investigation in Romania over a government land deal.
Prosecutors say they’ll bring evidence showing that Hunter Biden and his business associate “received compensation from a foreign principal who was attempting to influence U.S. policy and public opinion and cause the United States to investigate the Romanian investigation of [Popoviciu] in Romania,” the filing reads.
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Popoviciu is only identified by his initials in the paperwork but the details correspond with information previously disclosed about Hunter’s work in Romania, according to the Associated Press. Popoviciu was convicted of real estate fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison in 2017. He had denied all wrongdoing.
Hunter Biden and his business associate agreed to help Popoviciu fight the charges against him, prosecutors claim. They worried, however, that “lobbying work might cause political ramifications” for Joe Biden, so the arrangement was structured such that it “concealed the true nature of the work he was performing.”
The president’s son and two business partners split more than $3 million from Popoviciu between 2015 and 2017, according to the filing.
For years, Republicans have focused on Hunter’s foreign business dealings as part of investigations into the president’s family. Hunter has consistently denounced the efforts as politically motivated and insisted he never involved his dad in his work.
Hunter Biden’s tax trial is scheduled to begin early next month in California. He faces three felony charges and further misdemeanors for allegedly failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2020. The trial comes after he was separately convicted of three felony charges for lying about his drug use when purchasing a gun in 2018.
