Hunter Biden allies talking about creating legal defense fund: report

​Allies of Hunter Biden ​have held initial discussions about starting a legal defense fund to aid the first son as Republicans ramp up congressional investigations into his business relationships and the federal probe into his taxes continues, according to a report on Tuesday. 

A collection of attorneys have been representing Hunter, 52, in recent years and new ones are being added as his team pursues fresh legal strategies — but the Biden scion has struggled to pay them all due to dwindling financial resources, the Washington Post reported. 

It’s unclear exactly how much the first son owes in legal fees because some of the work has been treated as pro bono.

But others close to the situation say Hunter’s debt could reach into the millions of dollars — and that amount is expected to go up as the House GOP launches probes.

President Biden’s son has no steady source of income, the report said, and the once-lucrative payouts from his foreign business relationships have dried up under continued public scrutiny. 

The Post revealed Hunter Biden’s shady connections to Ukraine and China in a series of reports in October 2020.

While the first son is currently trying a career as an artist, reportedly selling one painting for $500,000, other pieces of his artwork have not fetched nearly as much, the report said.

At the same time, some potential buyers have reneged on their purchases because of the congressional investigations and other potential blowback. 

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter last week to the Soho gallery owner who exhibited Hunter Biden’s paintings, seeking information about who purchased the art as part of his investigation into alleged influence peddling. 

The gallery owner, Georges Berges, told The Post that the request for sales information should go through his lawyers, but took the time to gush about Hunter Biden’s artwork. 

“His is a story of perseverance; Hunter’s story reflects what I believe is the beauty of humanity, judged not by the fall, but by having the strength to rise up, by having the character required to change and the courage to do i​t,” Berges told The Post about the recovering ​crack addict. 

Other prominent figures, including former President Bill Clinton and longtime political operative Roger Stone, have created legal defense funds as they confronted mounting legal bills in the face of investigations. 

But the disclosure process governing the funds is often vague, raising ethical questions about who’s donating and whether they are trying to influence the White House. 

The Washington Post report also noted there are few rules governing legal defense funds for private citizens.

While the Office of Government Ethics, the agency monitoring conflicts of interest in the executive branch, has started to come up with rules for executive branch officials, that process is ongoing. 

Still, the office is not considering rules for the children of elected officials, despite concerns over donors trying to buy influence.​

“The Federal Election Commission does not consider legal defense funds to be a part of the campaign finance system,” ​Craig ​Holman​, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, told the outlet.

The discussions around Hunter Biden’s defense fund are in the early stages, and questions about who would run the fund and issues of confidentiality have not been decided.

In the case of Clinton’s defense fund, established in his second term amid the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, the Whitewater investigation and impeachment proceedings, donations ​were limited ​to $10,000 a year and the names of the donors were disclosed. 

Donations from lobbyists, government employees and noncitizens were barred.

The American Conservative Union created a First Amendment Fund, a tax-deductible nonprofit organization, to assist former Trump administration officials caught up in a House committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. 

Stone, who was interviewed by that committee, also created a legal defense fund, the report said, although the donations were not tax-deductible and were “considered gifts to Roger Stone.”

Those close to Hunter Biden have criticized the Republican investigations as political posturing intended to damage the president and argue that the probes into the first son are uncalled for because he is a private citizen. 

But Comer said the investigation into Hunter Biden is part of a broader examination into influence peddling by the Biden family. 

“We have evidence that … we’ll continue to be transparent with as we start our hearings next week, where this family is taking in millions of dollars from our adversaries,” ​Comer said Monday at the National Press Club. “And I think we need to determine what was that money for [and] who supplied that money?”