Hunter Biden's private business dealings are still being investigated by The New York Times.
According to a new report by Politico, the paper is suing the State Department in order to obtain emails from officials at the Romanian embassy in the U.S. that mention a number of international business people, appearing to have the goal of finding out whether any of the officials did favors on behalf of private businesses, including Hunter Biden, "that would raise questions about possible conflicts of interest and corruption."
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"The newspaper sued the State Department to obtain emails from Romanian embassy officials sent between 2015 and 2019 mentioning a number of international business people, including the president’s son and his former business associate Tony Bobulinski, who briefly became a political celebrity at the end of the 2020 election because of his Biden connections," Politico wrote.
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Bobulinski became a well-known figure in 2020 when, amid the ongoing U.S. presidential race, he told Fox News' Tucker Carlson that then-candidate Joe Biden had previously lied about not knowing anything about his son's foreign business dealings.
"One of the Times’ goals in the suit appears to be finding out whether embassy officials did any favors on behalf of private businesses (including, presumably, that of the president’s son) that would raise questions about possible conflicts of interest and corruption," it added, noting that the paper was also accusing the department of "dragging its feet" on fulfilling the FOIA requests sent last year and that its given fulfillment date on the requests was not until 2023.
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Politico wrote that the FOIA requests were a sign The Times was still investigating the business relationships cultivated by Hunter Biden, and that although Senate Republicans searched for evidence on whether President Biden manipulated Ukraine policies to benefit his son, no wrongdoing by the latter was ever proven.
"As a routine part of their reporting, New York Times journalists regularly seek potentially newsworthy information from a variety of sources, including from the U.S. government through FOIA requests," a spokesperson for The Times told Politico. "We're hopeful the government will promptly release any relevant documents, and as always we are prepared to pursue our request through a lawsuit if necessary. Just as we do on any line of reporting, we will assess the newsworthiness of the material once we receive it."
Politico also highlighted the back-and-forth between the Biden campaign and the Times throughout the 2020 election cycle, and predicted continued reporting on Biden's business dealings would re-open a feud between the Biden team and the newspaper. Biden has only granted one interview to the Times since taking office.