Special Counsel David Weiss defended his handling of the Hunter Biden investigation in a final report capping his multi-year probe into the president’s son.
Weiss pushed back against President Biden’s decision to pardon his son as he was facing both tax and gun charges in two different states.
“I prosecuted the two cases against Mr. Biden because he broke the law. A unanimous jury-who found Mr. Biden guilty of gun charges-and Mr. Biden himself-who pleaded guilty to tax offenses-agreed. As I have done for twenty years, I applied the Principles of Federal Prosecution and determined that prosecution was warranted,” Weiss wrote at the top of the 280-page report.
But he swiftly criticized Biden’s handling of Hunter Biden’s November pardon, noting that the president had called the cases “selective,” “unfair,” infected by “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 wrote.
Weiss said he did not take into account anything other than the elements needed to secure a criminal conviction.
“I also never considered whether my decisions would be viewed favorably or unfavorably by any politicians. And when politicians expressed opinions about my conduct, I ignored them because they were irrelevant. Simply put, my decisions were based on the facts and the law and nothing else,” he wrote.
It’s an unusually sharp ending to a special counsel report, but one that comes in a year of several unprecedented prosecutions.
Weiss began his probe into Hunter Biden not as a special counsel but as a U.S. Attorney for Delaware, elevated to the new role amid complaints from Republicans in Congress that he had slow-walked the investigation over political concerns and had been hindered in bringing more aggressive charges.
Weiss was prepared to sign a plea deal with Hunter Biden on gun charges, but a judge rejected that proposal amid questions over the scope of the deal.
The special counsel would later bring gun charges related to Hunter Biden’s failure to acknowledge drug use when purchasing a weapon. It’s a rarely brought charge, but one that a jury nonetheless found convincing. Biden was convicted on all counts in September.
Weiss also brought a series of charges related to Hunter Biden’s failure to pay taxes on $7 million in income over four years, dodging $1.4 million in taxes.
It was a revealing indictment, one that did not shy away from discussing Hunter Biden’s payments to escorts, drugs and sports cars.
“The evidence demonstrated that as Mr. Biden held high-paying positions earning him millions of dollars, he chose to keep funding his extravagant lifestyle instead of paying his taxes. He then chose to lie to his accountants in claiming false business deductions when, in fact, he knew they were personal expenses,” Weiss wrote.
Updated at 6:11 p.m.
Alex Gangitano contributed.
