A prosecutor appointed by President Joe Biden, who was accused of retaliating against a colleague for working on the Hunter Biden case, previously donated to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, public records show.
Philadelphia U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero, who allegedly retaliated against Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Hines, donated multiple times to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign ahead of the 2020 election despite her employment by the Department of Justice (DOJ), Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.
Romero donated to then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden twice in November 2020 and three times the month before, FEC records indicate. Over the course of the year, she donated $270 to the Biden campaign, with some of the donations being sent through the Biden Victory Fund, the Biden campaign’s joint fundraising committee. The DOJ is listed as her employer on all of the donations to Joe Biden.
Romero’s most recent donation came in November 2022 to Democratic Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock’s successful reelection campaign. Warnock, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto are among the Democratic candidates she has donated to in recent years.
RACINE, WISCONSIN – NOVEMBER 01: A campaign sign supporting Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) sits in the front yard of a home on November 01, 2020 in Racine, Wisconsin. Today is the final day for early voting in Wisconsin, a state which President Donald Trump won with less than 1 percent of the vote in 2016. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
In 2012, she donated repeatedly to former President Obama’s reelection campaign that he ran alongside then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Much of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings with Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese, Romanian and Kazakh individuals and entities took place during Joe Biden’s vice presidency, House Republicans said in a September memo. Bank records and Hunter Biden’s federal tax indictment confirm the significant overlap between Joe Biden’s vice presidency and his son’s foreign business dealings.
President Biden nominated Romero in April 2022, and she was quickly confirmed by the Senate. Her tenure as Philadelphia U.S. Attorney began in June 2022, before she stopped donating to Democratic politicians.
Romero, a longtime line prosecutor in the Philadelphia U.S. Attorney’s Office before her appointment, is being accused of punishing Hines for joining special counsel David Weiss’ probe into Hunter Biden’s finances.
While she did allow Hines to join Weiss’ staff, three sources told the New York Post the Philadelphia U.S. Attorney’s office removed Hines’ access to the downtown office building afterwards.
A spokesperson for Romero’s office denied the allegations of retaliation in a statement Tuesday morning to the Daily Caller.
“Members of this office had relationships with Beau Biden, as colleagues, friends, and supervisors, when he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney here. USA Romero does not have a relationship with the Biden family and didn’t express any view on the merits of the Hunter Biden investigation,” the spokesperson told the Caller, referring to President Biden’s deceased son.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Nelson Thayer, Romero’s deputy, was accused by one Post source of telling colleagues Hines was “banned” from the office building. The allegation against Thayer was also denied by the spokesperson for Romero’s office.
“AUSA Thayer did not communicate to colleagues that AUSA Hines was “banned” from the office, and AUSA Hines’ office was not taken away. It sits untouched, awaiting his return. When his detail is concluded, the office looks forward to him resuming his duties here as an Assistant U.S. Attorney,” the spokesperson said.
The Caller reached out to Romero’s office for additional comment on her donations to Democrats and how they influence the credibility of the retaliation allegations. Her office declined to comment further.
Thayer appears to have donated $325 to Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign over multiple donations, FEC records demonstrate. The donations came from a town in southern New Jersey, outside of the Philadelphia area, and the DOJ is listed as his employer.
Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, added Hines and Baltimore Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise to his team of prosecutors in June around the time two IRS whistleblowers accused Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf of covering for Joe and Hunter Biden.
Weiss’ office agreed to a guilty plea deal with Hunter Biden for two tax misdemeanor charges that ultimately fell apart in July over a dispute surrounding a pretrial diversion agreement for a single felony gun charge tied to the guilty plea. U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned an immunity provision inside the diversion agreement, causing the plea deal to fall apart.
Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, leaves the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building in Wilmington, Delaware, on July 26, 2023. Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to minor tax offenses on July 26, as a deal with federal prosecutors fell apart in a Delaware court. The surprise reversal of Biden’s agreement last month to settle the charges came after Judge Maryellen Noreika raised questions about the complicated deal that would also settle a separate gun charge against the president’s son, US media reported. (Photo by RYAN COLLERD / AFP) (Photo by RYAN COLLERD/AFP via Getty Images)
Wolf played a significant role in negotiating the lax plea deal, Biden’s former attorney Christopher Clark confirmed in a December court filing. She subsequently left the DOJ in the wake of the IRS whistleblower allegations and joined a corporate law firm. In December, Wolf testified and refused to discuss specific allegations and exhibits brought forward by the whistleblowers, according to a transcript reviewed by the Caller.
House Republicans have made the DOJ’s handling of the Hunter Biden investigation an aspect of the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Witness testimony from Weiss and additional DOJ, FBI and IRS officials confirmed central aspects of the whistleblower allegations, House Republicans said in a Dec. 5. report.
Biden-appointed U.S. Attorneys Matthew Graves of D.C. and E. Martin Estrada of the Central District of California both confirmed that they declined to partner with Weiss on the Hunter Biden case, according to transcripts of their testimony reviewed by the Caller.
Graves previously conducted unpaid policy work for the Biden campaign and donated money when he was in the private sector. Estrada donated to now-Vice President Kamala Harris’ California Senate campaign in 2015, records show.
Weiss similarly confirmed Graves and Estrada’s conduct when he testified. The IRS whistleblowers first revealed the decisions by Graves and Estrada not to prosecute alleged tax offenses Biden committed in their respective jurisdictions.
Hunter Biden is staring down three federal gun charges in Delaware and nine federal tax charges in California. He has plead not guilty to all the offenses and seeks to have the gun charges dismissed.
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