#How a great AG could set Barr higher — target Hunter Biden: Goodwin

President Trump could not have chosen a better ­Attorney General than Bill Barr. Had Trump picked Barr at the start of his presidency instead of the hapless Jeff Sessions, the first two years would not have been consumed by the false Russia, Russia, Russia charges and the partisan Robert Mueller­investigation.

Barr would not have recused himself, as Sessions did, and Democrats and the media could not have browbeaten Barr into appointing Mueller. Nor would Barr have tolerated the sabotage of the administration carried out by corrupt Justice Department officials, FBI agents and others.

The rearview-mirror moment is prompted by the announcement that Barr is leaving next week instead of waiting until Joe Biden’s inauguration. No doubt he is tired of the merciless attacks from the left and the president’s criticisms over his refusal to agree there was vast election fraud, though Trump praised him by saying, “Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!”

In his resignation letter, Barr praised the president’s record of achievement while noting that Trump faced a “relentless, implacable resistance . . . in which no tactic, no matter how abusive and deceitful, was out of bounds.”

Yet as Barr prepares to ride off into the sunset, he should finish one more piece of crucial business. He should appoint a special counsel to complete the probe into Hunter Biden.

The probe is uniquely important, and not just because Hunter is the next president’s son. Barr should act because it’s increasingly obvious that a thorough probe of the son will almost certainly implicate the father.

Already we know “The Big Guy” was not just an adoring parent or an innocent bystander. Joe Biden’s claims about having never discussed his son’s business and insistence that Hunter never made a dime from China are blatantly false. So why did he say those things if he wasn’t trying to hide something?

And thanks to The Post’s stories about e-mails on Hunter’s abandoned laptop, we know that Joe Biden, as vice president, met with an adviser to Burisma, the corrupt Ukrainian energy company that hired Hunter for up to $83,000 a month. That fact casts even more suspicion on the video of Joe Biden bragging that he tied American aid to the demand that Ukraine fire a certain prosecutor — who just ­happened to be investigating Burisma.

There’s more. Other e-mails and witness statements by Tony Bobulinski remove any doubt that Joe Biden was in line to get a secret 10 percent stake in a joint venture with a Chinese ­oligarch tied to the Communist Party, a deal that took shape while he was still vice president and the nation’s point man on China. Bobulinski, who was going to be CEO of the joint venture, says he also met with Joe Biden, who was knowledgeable about the family business.

To judge from yet another e-mail, this one focused on Hunter’s failure to report $400,000 from Bur­isma on his 2014 taxes, the list of large payments he received over several years show he earned all or nearly all of his money from foreign sources. The significance is that his livelihood apparently ­depended entirely on selling access to his father.

Then there’s the recently surfaced 2017 e-mail where Hunter asks the manager of the building where he had an office to make keys for Joe Biden and a Chinese man close to the nation’s Communist leadership.

If Joe Biden were still a private citizen, these issues would be important but would not rise to the level of requiring a special counsel. But as the incoming president who will set American policy toward China, Ukraine and the other countries that hired Hunter Biden and Jim Biden, Joe’s brother, the possibility that our next president has been compromised by our ­adversaries cannot be ignored, no matter how hard Big Media and Big Tech try.

As I wrote Sunday, what does China know about Joe Biden that Americans don’t? Most crucial, did he just allow Hunter and Jim to profit from his official positions, or was Joe getting a secret cut all along?

Barr made the special-counsel designation for John Durham, who is conducting a criminal probe into the FBI’s spying of the 2016 Trump campaign and after the president took office. In making the designation, Barr said he did so to protect Durham from political interference in a new administration.

The same logic clearly applies to the Hunter Biden investigation. A new president usually fires all or nearly all top federal prosecutors scattered around the nation, and that would spell the end of the Biden probe, which is being run out of Delaware. A new attorney general could easily insist that it be allowed to die a quiet death.

A special-counsel designation would make that scenario nearly impossible. Joe Biden or his new AG would have to justify the firing, and it’s likely the political fallout would make the price too high.

If Barr fails to act, his replacement, Jeff Rosen, could legally make the appointment anytime ­until Jan. 20. But the implication would be that Barr refused and that would diminish the appointment and make it more politically vulnerable.

Of course, there is another path to the same outcome, albeit a very unlikely one.

Because Joe Biden is preaching national unity, he could lead by example. Biden himself could ask Barr to appoint a special counsel.

Yes, yes, I know, fat chance. But if Biden has any hopes of moving the nation even a few steps toward unity, he must do something dramatic to give the 74.2 million Americans who voted for Trump a reason to trust him.

Showing that he and his family have nothing to hide by backing a special counsel would certainly be dramatic. And if no evidence of corruption emerged, Biden’s presidency would get a huge boost.

C’mon Joe, what do you say?

Blas’ tardy ‘show’ of concern

From The Post, after Mayor de Blasio agreed with a reporter’s suggestion that he ride mass transit to quell fears: “Hizzoner, who has not eaten indoors at a restaurant or taken a ride on the subway since the city first shut down in March, has said he plans to publicly receive the vaccine ‘to show it’s safe.’ ” Given de Blasio’s demonstrated lack of concern about the safety of New Yorkers for seven years, that would be something new.

School fools

The dumb get dumber: San Francisco is going to rename Lincoln High School because the president who freed the slaves didn’t show that “black lives mattered to him.”

Eric in a ‘honey’ jam

Reader Joseph Alloy spots a politician’s dilemma, writing: “Rep. Eric Swalwell’s decision to neither confirm nor deny that he had sexual relations with that Chinese Honey Pot is quite telling. If he denies it, there is a good chance the Chinese have photos. If he confirms it, he denies himself a shot at higher office.”