Just how the Department of Justice came to give Hunter Biden a sweetheart plea deal, ignoring protocol and forgoing jail time, has become a question of keen interest for congressional members.

Now, a new report is adding more intrigue to the saga. According to The Daily Mail, one of the prosecutors who was intimately involved in formulating the controversial deal once worked directly for one of Hunter Biden’s business partners.

A prosecutor who signed off on the documents charging Hunter Biden with tax and gun crimes previously worked with one of the First Son’s business partners, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Delaware US Attorney David Weiss officially filed charges against the president’s son last Tuesday after a near five-year probe into his alleged tax crimes and foreign financial dealings.

Weiss’s deputy, Assistant United States Attorney Derek Hines, signed off on the charging documents alongside his boss and two other assistant US attorneys – indicating he has a central role in Hunter’s criminal prosecution.

According to Hines’s LinkedIn account, he previously worked as Special Counsel to ex-FBI director Louis Freeh at his private company, Freeh Group International Solutions, a lobbying and ‘risk management’ consultancy that teamed up with Hunter on overseas business currently under scrutiny by lawmakers.

United States Attorney for the District of Delaware David Weiss’ top lieutenant is Derek Hines, who serves as the Assistant United States Attorney in the same office. According to the report, Hines signed off on the charging Documents that ended up being such a boon for the president’s son.

That’s where the conflict of interest comes in. Hines once worked directly for Louis Freeh. Who is Freeh? He’s a former FBI director that was in business with Hunter Biden to the tune of a $3 million deal. Hines wasn’t just some random FBI employee either. He served as special counsel to Freeh, meaning that would have had a very close professional relationship.

This story is just astonishing to me. Even if one is to assume that Hines’ connections to Hunter Biden didn’t influence the deal, is there really any excuse for the federal government to be this incestuous? Am I really to believe that the DOJ couldn’t manage to put a full team of prosecutors on such a contentious case without one of them having a connection to Hunter Biden’s business dealings? AG Merrick Garland could have appointed a special counsel years ago to ensure none of this was an issue, and for that matter, so could both of Donald Trump’s attorneys general.

No one did, though, because this is all seen as normal in Washington. Backslaps, winks, and nods are the name of the game. Everyone knows everyone and has worked with everyone, and in some cases, that includes the people they are supposed to be prosecuting. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to just “trust” that nothing untoward is going on as these social circles continually cross paths. Perhaps something should be done about that, regardless of what the aforementioned conflict of interest may or may not have amounted to.