The appointment of a special counsel may appear to put a bull’s-eye on Hunter Biden and threaten to make the family’s foreign business deals a lasting issue for the president’s reelection campaign.
Yet some Republicans fear that a special counsel investigation is a device to whitewash President Biden’s purported involvement in pay-to-play schemes.
They point out that Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed as special counsel the prosecutor responsible for Hunter Biden’s botched sweetheart plea deal on tax and gun crimes.
Although the special counsel has the authority to investigate the Biden family’s lucrative foreign business deals and bring more charges against the first son or others, Republican lawmakers fear that giving that power to David Weiss, U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware, is all for show.
“This appointment is camouflage, and it’s a cover-up. I think it’s disgraceful,” Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Mr. Cruz said Mr. Weiss “was either an active participant in covering this criminality and protecting Joe Biden and engaging in obstruction of justice … or he was so weak that he couldn’t stop the partisans at main Justice from turning it in a political effort.”
SEE ALSO: Sen. Marsha Blackburn: House’s Biden impeachment inquiry key to investigating foreign business deals
Others said Mr. Weiss would draw out the investigations past the statute of limitations on potential charges.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, called Mr. Weiss a “collaborator.”
“The American people can see through this. They know what is going on,” she said on “Sunday Morning Futures.” “Merrick Garland — he owes the American people better than to do something like this.”
Hunter Biden also is a central figure in congressional investigations of Mr. Biden’s involvement in his family’s shady foreign deals and alleged influence peddling and bribery. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, California Republican, is considering an impeachment inquiry to investigate the president’s culpability in deals that netted millions of dollars for Hunter Biden, the president’s brother James Biden and several other members of the Biden clan.
Mr. Garland tapped Mr. Wiess for the job just weeks after Hunter Biden’s plea deal crumbled in the courtroom. The agreement would have spared the president’s son felony charges and jail time for failing to pay taxes and lying on a federal background check form to buy a gun.
The attorney general said he elevated Mr. Weiss because “extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter” warranted special counsel powers. Mr. Weiss has been overseeing an investigation of Hunter Biden since 2018.
SEE ALSO: Blame game: Hunter Biden’s attorney cites ‘right-wing media’ for ‘false allegations’
The plea deal also would have shielded Hunter Biden from further prosecution. Under questioning by the judge, prosecutors disclosed that Hunter Biden could face additional criminal charges, including violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, which requires lobbyists for foreign governments to register with the Justice Department.
Hunter Biden might have run afoul of FARA by dealing with foreign entities to lobby his father, a U.S. policymaker.
The judge asked Mr. Weiss’ prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s attorneys to resolve the plea deal dispute and get back to her.
In a court filing Friday, just moments before Mr. Garland’s announcement, prosecutors said the plea negotiations were at a stalemate and they expected the case to go to trial. They also asked that the case be tried in California because it was the most appropriate venue.
Former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said through a spokesman that the request for a California trial raised questions about the newly minted special counsel’s independence.
Mr. Weiss is trying to move the case “to a more Democrat-friendly venue,” said the spokesperson, adding that an independent investigation will quickly conclude that Mr. Biden and his son “should face the required consequences.”
Mr. Weiss is slated to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in the coming weeks about the now-scuttled plea deal.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Hunter Biden, blamed the special counsel investigation on conservative media’s promotion of “false allegations” of corruption.
He said prosecutors already had an opportunity to investigate the president’s son for FARA violations.
“After five years and what we know happened in the grand jury, of course, that had to be part of what the prosecutor has already looked at, as well as every other false allegation made by the right-wing media and others, whether it’s corruption or FARA or money laundering,” Mr. Lowell said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “That was part of what this prosecutor’s office had to have been looking over for five years.”
Calls for a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden intensified after two IRS investigators accused the Biden administration of trying to interfere with the probe.
In congressional testimony, the two agents said Mr. Weiss had recommended felony tax charges against Hunter Biden, even though his deal required him to plead guilty to only two misdemeanors.
A felony tax charge likely would have resulted in prison time. Mr. Weiss’ office offered Hunter Biden a sentence of probation in exchange for the guilty pleas on misdemeanor charges.
One of those agents, Joseph Ziegler, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal last month urging Mr. Garland to appoint a special counsel because what he witnessed in the investigation was “outside the norm.”
Yet Mr. Weiss repeatedly assured lawmakers that there was no interference in the Hunter Biden investigation. In a June letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Weiss said he was “granted ultimate authority over the matter.”
Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Weiss as U.S. attorney in 2017. The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed him in 2018.
The Justice Department order appointing Mr. Weiss as special counsel authorizes him to “conduct the ongoing investigation … as well as any matters that arose from that investigation or may rise.”
As special counsel, Mr. Weiss will have the authority to bring criminal charges in any jurisdiction, not just Delaware. He does not have that power as a U.S. attorney. Mr. Weiss will also have greater autonomy to make decisions.
He must publicly report his finding when the investigation is complete. Other recent special counsels, including Robert Mueller and John Durham, have written lengthy reports detailing their conclusions.
“Mr. Weiss has the authority he needs to conduct a thorough investigation and continue to take steps he deems appropriate independently, based only on the facts and the law,” Mr. Garland said.
Mr. Weiss is the third special counsel Mr. Garland has appointed since he took charge of the Justice Department in 2021.
In November, Mr. Garland named Jack Smith to serve as special counsel to look into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified government documents and his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election. Mr. Smith has filed criminal charges stemming from both investigations.
In January, Mr. Garland named Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate classified documents found in President Biden’s office and residence dating to his time in the Senate and vice presidency.
In an appearance Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat, accused Republicans of hypocrisy for complaining about the special counsel appointment.
“It’s what my Republican colleagues have been demanding and asking for months. And now, they seem to disapprove of it for some reason,” he said.
