The Justice Department special counsel whose six-year case into Hunter Biden was short-circuited by the unconditional pardon President Joe Biden granted to his son, criticized the outgoing president in his final report Monday.
David Weiss, the special counsel, chastised President Biden as part of the 280-page report, saying the president made “gratuitous and wrong” accusations that his long-running investigation was unfair and tainted by politics. The president, when pardoning his son last month, had said Hunter Biden was the victim of a “selective” prosecution that was “unfair” and a “miscarriage of justice.”
Weiss also rebuked President Biden for accusing him and the Department of Justice of being unfair and tainted by politics, saying it was “far from selective, these prosecutions were the embodiment of the equal application of justice – no matter who you are, or what your last name is, you are subject to the same laws as everyone else in the United States.”
Weiss said that “politicians who attack the decisions of career prosecutors as politically motivated when they disagree with the outcome of a case undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system. The President’s statements unfairly impugn the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”
The report also quoted the federal judge who presided over Hunter Biden’s tax case, who rebuked the president on similar grounds, accusing him of “rewriting history.”
In response, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the investigation into Hunter Biden was a “cautious tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power.” Lowell criticized several of Weiss’ key decisions, including his attempt in 2023 to wind down the probe with a negotiated plea agreement that imploded after scrutiny from a federal judge and top Republican lawmakers.
Weiss’ report did not charge Hunter Biden with any additional crimes beyond the 12 tax and gun charges he was originally charged with, which he pleaded guilty to. The report did not include a legal analysis of whether additional charges were warranted beyond those charges, given the pardon his father granted him.
