特别检察官魏红星办公室的检察官指控亨特·拜登在他父亲乔·拜登担任副总统期间，他接受了一名试图“影响美国政府机构”的罗马尼亚商人的贿赂。
如果属实，这一指控将标志着检察官将乔·拜登总统与其儿子的海外商业活动联系起来，这是国会共和党人花了多年时间调查的一个问题。
这位特别顾问的声明是在周三提交给小拜登的法庭文件中提出的联邦税务案件，源于亨特·拜登为罗马尼亚富人Gabriel Popoviciu做的工作，检察官称他在2015年末雇佣了总统的儿子从事法律工作。
波波维奇当时在他的祖国面临腐败指控。
在亨特·拜登即将到来的税务审判中，“政府将提出证据...检察官在周三的文件中写道:“(亨特·拜登)和商业伙伴1从一名外国负责人那里获得了报酬，该负责人试图影响美国的政策和公众舆论，并促使美国调查罗马尼亚对(波波维奇)在罗马尼亚的调查。”。
根据检察官的说法，亨特·拜登和他的商业伙伴“担心游说工作可能会给被告的父亲带来政治后果”，所以这笔交易的结构“掩盖了他所从事工作的真实性质”
特别检察官办公室在12月的起诉书中顺便提到了亨特·拜登与波波维奇乌的合作。然而，周三的文件首次表明，亨特·拜登以游说身份获得了报酬。
检察官表示，亨特·拜登和两名商业伙伴在2015年11月至2017年期间从Popoviciu那里分走了超过300万美元的付款。
根据周日提交的法庭文件，亨特·拜登的律师批评韦斯的说法“无关紧要，带有政治色彩”。
亨特·拜登的律师写道，该指控是“在公开文件中对证词的煽动性和不完整的描述，因此具有误导性，当然知道这会成为新闻”。
“特别顾问不必要的策略变化只是呼应了毫无根据和虚假的外国不法行为指控，众议院共和党人一直宣扬利用拜登在罗马尼亚和其他地方的正当商业活动来攻击他和他的父亲，”亨特·拜登的律师继续说。
亨特·拜登的法律团队正试图在审判中排除对他所谓的游说工作的提及，认为此事与指控无关，并有可能“迷惑”陪审团。检察官表示，与这位罗马尼亚大亨的商业安排是必要的，以展示亨特·拜登在未纳税期间的“精神状态”。
“但是，拜登先生是否可能参与了游说活动，或者他为获得补偿做了多少工作，与他被指控的税务犯罪无关，接受这些证据有可能向陪审团暗示，拜登先生没有做足够的工作来证实他收到的收入——他没有受到指控，”亨特·拜登的律师周日在填充材料中写道。
亨特·拜登因涉嫌在2016年至2020年期间未缴纳140万美元的税款，面临三项重罪税务指控和其他轻罪指控。欠税和罚款之前由第三方全额支付，ABC新闻确认为亨特·拜登的律师和密友凯文·莫瑞斯。
在加州进行的试验计划于九月初开始。
Romanian oligarch hired Hunter Biden to influence US policy, special counsel says
Prosecutors in special counsel David Weiss' office are accusingHunter Bidenof accepting payments from a Romanian businessman who was attempting to "influence U.S. government agencies," while his father Joe Biden was vice president.
If true, the allegation would mark the closest prosecutors have come to tying President Joe Biden to his son's overseas business endeavors -- a matter congressional Republicans have spent years scrutinizing.
The special counsel's claim, in a court filing Wednesday in the younger Biden'sfederal tax case, stems from Hunter Biden's work on behalf of Gabriel Popoviciu, a wealthy Romanian who prosecutors say hired the president's son for legal work in late 2015.
Popoviciu was at the time facing corruption charges in his home country.
At Hunter Biden's upcoming tax trial, "the government will introduce the evidence ... that [Hunter Biden] and Business Associate 1 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," prosecutors wrote in Wednesday's filing.
According to prosecutors, Hunter Biden and his business associate "were concerned that lobbying work might cause political ramifications for the defendant's father," so the deal was structured in a way that "concealed the true nature of the work he was performing."
The special counsel's office made a passing reference to Hunter Biden's work with Popoviciu in their December indictment. However, Wednesday's filing was the first to suggest that Hunter Biden was compensated in a lobbying capacity.
Prosecutors said Hunter Biden and two business partners split more than $3 million in payments from Popoviciu between November 2015 and 2017.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden criticized Weiss' assertion as "irrelevant and politically charged," according to court filings filed on Sunday.
The claim was an "inflammatory and incomplete, and therefore misleading, characterization of that testimony in a public filing, surely knowing it would make news," Hunter Biden's attorneys wrote.
"The Special Counsel's unnecessary change of tactic merely echoes the baseless and false allegations of foreign wrongdoing which have been touted by House Republicans to use Mr. Biden's proper business activities in Romania and elsewhere to attack him and his father," attorneys for Hunter Biden continued.
Hunter Biden's legal team is seeking to exclude references to his alleged lobbying work at trial, framing the matter as irrelevant to the charges and that it risks "confusing" the jury. Prosecutors suggested the business arrangement with the Romanian tycoon was necessary to demonstrate Hunter Biden's "state of mind" during the time that he failed to pay his taxes.
"But whether Mr. Biden may have engaged in lobbying activities or how much work he did for what compensation he received are irrelevant to the tax offenses he is charged with, and the admission of such evidence risks suggesting to the jury that Mr. Biden did not perform enough work to substantiate the income he received -- something he is not charged with," Hunter Biden's attorneys wrote in the fillings Sunday.
Hunter Biden faces three felony tax charges and additional misdemeanors for allegedly failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes from 2016 to 2020. The back taxes and penalties were previously paid in full by a third party, identified by ABC News as Hunter Biden's attorney and confidant, Kevin Morris.
The trial, in California, is scheduled to begin in early September.
