EGN NEWS DESK
David C. Weiss, the particular counsel who spent years investigating Hunter Biden, criticized President Biden for making “baseless accusations” about his inquiry that threatened “the integrity of the justice system as an entire” in a closing report made public on Monday.
“The president’s characterizations are incorrect primarily based on the info on this case, and on a extra basic stage, they’re unsuitable,” Mr. Weiss wrote.
His inquiry had been a topic of fierce debate till the president issued a broad pardon that ended the case in opposition to his son, saying that the prosecution was the results of “uncooked politics.”
A jury in Wilmington, Del., discovered Hunter Biden responsible of three felony counts final June for mendacity on a federal firearms software. He additionally pleaded responsible to 9 federal tax fees in Los Angeles in September for falsifying information and failing to file returns. The time span of his tax crimes included each a interval when he was hooked on crack cocaine and after he turned sober.
In his report, Mr. Weiss pushed again in opposition to criticism, largely from Democrats, that the case in opposition to Mr. Biden was unwarranted or tainted by political motives.
The report acted as a pointed rejoinder to the president. Mr. Weiss, citing judicial rulings that discovered that the case had been pretty introduced, used his closing phrases on the long-running investigation to defend his work and denounce the president’s characterizations.
“Politicians who assault the selections of profession prosecutors as politically motivated once they disagree with the result of a case undermine the general public’s confidence in our felony justice system,” Mr. Weiss’s report mentioned. “The president’s statements unfairly impugn the integrity not solely of Department of Justice personnel, however the entire public servants making these troublesome selections in good religion.”
Past particular counsels have issued thick experiences working a whole bunch of pages. Technically, Mr. Weiss’s closing doc is greater than 200 pages, however the overwhelming majority of that’s appendices containing beforehand public court docket paperwork. The precise findings of Mr. Weiss’s report are contained in a quick 27 pages.
The White House didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. A lawyer for Hunter Biden criticized the particular counsel’s investigation.
“Like all his court docket filings, David Weiss’s 27-page report continues to disregard a number of the main mysteries of his seven-year investigation,” mentioned the lawyer, Abbe Lowell, including that “what is evident from this report is that the investigation into Hunter Biden is a cautionary story of the abuse of prosecutorial energy.”
The launch comes amid a way more contentious Eleventh-hour authorized battle over the publication of a report by Jack Smith, the particular counsel who filed two indictments in opposition to Donald J. Trump, just for each to break down partly due to Mr. Trump’s 2024 election victory.
Mr. Weiss’s time as particular counsel started after he had already investigated Hunter Biden for a number of years on tax, finance and overseas lobbying points. The two sides briefly struck a plea deal, however the uncommon nature of the settlement — along with the federal government’s unwillingness to vow that the investigation would finish with the deal — resulted in its collapse in July 2023.
The failed plea led Mr. Weiss to hunt and obtain an appointment as particular counsel, permitting him to file indictments in opposition to the president’s son in two jurisdictions — associated to mendacity on a gun buy kind in Delaware, and the tax fees in Los Angeles.
Mr. Biden pardoned his son in December whereas he was awaiting sentencing in each instances. The president not solely absolved him of the convictions, but in addition gave him a sweeping pardon for any potential crimes masking a interval of greater than 10 years.
In doing so, the president mentioned his son’s case had been contaminated with politics, a declare that angered Mr. Weiss and the Justice Department, significantly as a result of the president had for years asserted that the case had been dealt with independently.
Because the presidential pardon had successfully dominated out any such evaluation, the report mentioned, Mr. Weiss reached no conclusions concerning the risk that Hunter Biden had dedicated different crimes.
The youthful Mr. Biden’s authorized workforce had lengthy argued that felony fees had been unwarranted, partly as a result of for a number of the interval at situation, he was within the throes of drug habit. They additionally argued that related conduct by different individuals had not typically led to federal fees, and that Hunter Biden turned a goal of alternative for Republicans who strong-armed the Justice Department into pursuing felony instances.
Mr. Weiss mentioned his prosecutions had been warranted primarily based on the info and the regulation.
“I thought of his struggles with habit and his option to file false returns after he turned sober,” the particular counsel wrote. “And though Mr. Biden could have entered right into a mortgage settlement with the private pal who paid his taxes, there was no proof that Mr. Biden repaid any of these funds.”
Mr. Weiss additionally indicted and received a responsible plea from one other man, Alexander Smirnov, for mendacity to the F.B.I. through the 2020 election interval by falsely claiming data of corrupt funds to the daddy and son. Mr. Smirnov, a longtime F.B.I. informant, had claimed that executives from the Ukrainian power firm Burisma had paid Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Hunter Biden $5 million every round 2015 — an accusation that was trumpeted by congressional Republicans.
