In a final report that wrapped up his multi-year investigation into the president’s son, Special Counsel David Weiss defended his handling of the Hunter Biden case.
Weiss also criticized President Biden’s decision to pardon his son, who was facing tax and gun charges in two separate states.
“I brought two cases against Mr. Biden because he violated the law. A unanimous jury found Mr. Biden guilty of gun charges, and Mr. Biden, who pleaded guilty to tax offenses, agreed.
“As I have done for the past twenty years, I applied the Principles of Federal Prosecution to determine that prosecution was warranted,” Weiss wrote at the top of the 280-page report.
However, he quickly criticized Biden’s handling of Hunter Biden’s November pardon, noting that the president had described the cases as “selective,” “unfair,” infected with “raw politics,” and a “miscarriage of justice.”
“This statement is gratuitous and wrong,” Weiss wrote.
“Other presidents have pardoned family members, but in doing so, none have taken the occasion as an opportunity to malign the public servants at the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations,” Weiss said.
Weiss stated that he considered only the elements required for a criminal conviction.
“I never considered whether my decisions would be viewed positively or negatively by any politicians. And when politicians expressed concerns about my actions, I ignored them because they were irrelevant. Simply put, I made decisions based solely on facts and the law,” he wrote.
It is an unusually sharp conclusion to a special counsel report, but it comes after a year of several unprecedented prosecutions.
Weiss began his investigation into Hunter Biden as a U.S. Attorney for Delaware, a position he was elevated to amid complaints from Republicans in Congress that he had slowed the investigation due to political concerns and had been hampered from bringing more aggressive charges.
Weiss was ready to sign a plea deal with Hunter Biden on gun charges, but a judge rejected the proposal due to concerns about the deal’s scope.
The special counsel later filed gun charges in Delaware based on Hunter Biden’s failure to disclose drug use when purchasing a weapon. It’s a rare charge, but one that a jury found convincing. Biden was convicted of all charges in September.
Weiss also filed charges in California regarding Hunter Biden’s failure to pay taxes on $7 million in income over four years, resulting in a $1.4 million tax avoidance.
It was a revealing indictment that did not hold back from discussing Hunter Biden’s payments to escorts, drugs, and sports cars.
“The evidence showed that while Mr. Biden held high-paying positions earning millions of dollars, he chose to continue funding his extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his taxes.
“He then chose to deceive his accountants by claiming false business deductions when he knew they were personal expenses,” Weiss wrote.
Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to the tax charges, but his father intervened.
On December 1, as he prepared to depart for Africa, the president announced that his son would be granted a full and unconditional pardon. In doing so, he broke months of promises not to become involved in his son’s legal affairs or to grant him a pardon before leaving office.
In a statement, Biden argued that his son was singled out because of his name and that Republicans had repeatedly attempted to “break” the Biden family.
“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice — and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further,” said Senator Biden. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
Throughout the case, Weiss battled complaints from Hunter Biden that he was facing a “vindictive and selective” prosecution, claiming he had been unfairly targeted and that those in similar situations would not be charged. Weiss notes that two district court judges rejected those arguments.
While Weiss denied that his approach was political, the investigation was closely scrutinized by Congress.
Before Hunter Biden’s tax indictment, two IRS whistleblowers accused the Justice Department of failing to pursue the most serious tax charges against the president’s son.
And the matter became the focus of a GOP impeachment investigation into President Biden, which was based on a tip to the FBI from years ago that both Biden men had accepted a bribe from a Ukrainian oligarch.
There is no evidence that Biden shifted policy to benefit his son or anyone else during his tenure as vice president.
Weiss later filed charges against Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant who pleaded guilty to lying to the bureau about President Biden and his son.
Smirnov was sentenced last week to six years in prison.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, referred to Smirnow while describing Weiss’ role as “unimpeded by political interference.”
“Much to my Republican colleagues’ dismay, this report—the result of a 6-year investigation led by a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney who was hand-picked by Attorney General Barr for the job—is just more proof that their effort to impeach President Biden was totally outlandish, baseless and partisan,” according to a statement from him.
