#Democrats question Hunter Biden whistleblower’s claim of nonpartisanship

Foster and Leavitt say they are not political activists, but supporters of anyone who blows the whistle on government misconduct. 

Leavitt notes that he was appointed by President Biden to a seat on the Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates federal workplace disputes. Both men say they have spent a career working with nonpartisan good government groups, and they have received praise in that community.

Foster and Leavitt point out that other Washington groups that support whistleblowers include former Democratic legislative staff.

“There is nothing wrong with working for Republicans or Democrats on the Hill and then working in the nonprofit, nonpartisan sector,” they said. “There are any number of people from both sides of the aisle who do it.”

Leavitt, a former staffer for the Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee from 2015 to 2017, also worked for Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa on the Judiciary Committee from 2011 to 2015, and for Bill Sali, a far-right Republican lawmaker from Idaho from 2007 to 2008.

Foster spent two decades working for congressional Republicans, rising to chief counsel under Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

As ProPublica reported, he once published an anonymous blog under the handle “extremist” that equated homosexuality to incest and questioned whether waterboarding really amounted to torture. (He later apologized for the posts.) 

In response to a question about the blog, Foster said ProPublica’s descriptions were “not accurate, fair, or representative summaries of the posts.”

“And the handle was an ironic, tongue-in-cheek reaction to hysterical labeling of mainstream right-of-center figures (particularly Chief Justice Roberts in the instance that led to using the handle for a time) as extremists when they clearly were not,” he added.

More recently, Foster has suggested that Hunter Biden should be prosecuted for his work as a high-paid board member of a Ukrainian energy firm.

Both Leavitt and Foster have forged careers often investigating Democrats. 

In his Empower Oversight bio, Foster cites his work on the “Fast and Furious” gun scandal in the Obama administration and on exposing flaws in the Trump-Russia probe. On his LinkedIn page, Leavitt says he that investigated “Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while Secretary of State and the FBI’s failure to recommend charges,” and “led investigation into conflicts of interest caused by Hillary Clinton fundraising for the political campaign of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s wife.”

In supporting the FBI whistleblowers, Leavitt and Foster have found an ally in former Trump aide Kash Patel, who according to congressional testimony has donated to at least one of the FBI agents and to Kyle Serafin, another former FBI agent-turned-critic who posted on Twitter pictures of checks for $255,000 made out to two of the men. Serafin raised the money through a campaign on GiveSendGo, a conservative version of GoFundMe. One of the agents, suspended but still employed by the FBI, has said he is consulting lawyers about whether he can accept the money.

One of the FBI whistleblowers, Stephen Friend, has taken a job with the Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank founded by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows. 

According to federal 990 tax forms, it shares a registration address, and has received $500,000 from, the Conservative Partnership Institute, a right-wing advocacy group led by Meadows and former Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina. The institute also employs Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who has supported Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. 

In February, the institute hosted a “Congressional Oversight Boot Camp” for Republican Hill staffers. Leavitt, while still a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, spoke at a panel entitled “Working With Outside Investigative Organizations,” according to records filed with the House clerk.

Two weeks later, Leavitt left the board to become president of Empower Oversight.

Dent says questions about the extent to which Hunter Biden profited from sweetheart deals — NBC News has reported that he was paid $11 million over five years by a Ukrainian energy firm and a Chinese businessman — are legitimate.  

But, he said, “the more ideological zealous members of the (GOP) caucus tend to overreach. They will always grab more than they can chew, and I suspect that’s what may be happening here, too.”