The prosecutor who led a lengthy investigation into U.S. President Joe Biden’s son defended his efforts in a report Monday, saying the criminal charges against Hunter Biden were the culmination of “thorough, impartial” work and “non-partisan politics.”
The report by special counsel David Weiss also criticized the senior Biden for denigrating the Justice Department when he pardoned his son in December. In a statement, the president said he believed his son was treated “differently” because of his last name.
“Other presidents have pardoned family members, but none have used the opportunity to denigrate Justice Department officials based solely on false accusations,” Weiss’ report said Monday.
“These baseless allegations are baseless and their repetition jeopardizes the integrity of the justice system as a whole,” the prosecutor continued.
“The president’s characterizations are wrong based on the facts in this case, and they are wrong on a more fundamental level.”
The document provides a summary of the investigation’s findings, as is typical for reports from special counsel to the Justice Department. Most notable, however, is the president’s steadfast defense of the team’s work and open criticism of the written statement he issued last month to mark Hunter Biden’s pardon.
Biden had repeatedly promised not to pardon his son, but reversed course on Dec. 1, saying such an action was justified because of what he called a “miscarriage of justice” and selective prosecution. He said he believes his son was treated “differently” because of his last name and that “crude politics” influenced the Justice Department’s decision-making.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can come to any conclusion other than that Hunter was singled out simply because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Biden said.
“The President’s Characterizations Are Wrong”
Weiss served as U.S. attorney for Delaware during the Trump administration and was retained in the position by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland before being appointed special counsel in 2023.
He took exception to Biden’s comments and noted that the justices had also rejected that assessment.
“The President’s characterizations in this case are wrong based on the facts, and they are wrong at a more fundamental level,” Weiss wrote. He also noted, “These prosecutions were the result of thorough, impartial investigations and non-partisan politics.”
US President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, shielding him from prison on federal convictions for gun and tax crimes, despite previously promising not to use presidential powers to benefit the family.
The investigation, which Hunter Biden himself revealed in 2020 when he disclosed that prosecutors were auditing his taxes, took an arduous path to resolution between Justice Department leaders from both political parties.
He was supposed to enter a federal gun possession charge in 2023, but the deal collapsed in spectacular fashion after a last-minute disagreement between his lawyers and federal prosecutors.
Last year, he went on trial in Delaware and was convicted of three federal felonies in which he was accused of lying on a mandatory gun purchase form by saying he had not used drugs illegally or had a drug addiction.
Weiss described the younger Biden as a “Yale-educated lawyer and businessman” and said he understood that he had lied in 2018 when he filled out the federal form to purchase his gun and noted that he was not a drug user.
“But he did it anyway because he wanted to own a gun, even though he was actively using crack cocaine,” Weiss wrote.
Hunter Biden then unexpectedly pleaded guilty to federal tax charges last September, avoiding a trial that might have presented lurid evidence in addition to the salacious and unflattering details about his personal life that were revealed during his earlier trial in Delaware.
The president’s claims that Hunter Biden was mistreated by the criminal justice system in some ways mirrored arguments made by the younger Biden’s legal team, which had claimed that prosecutors had bowed to political pressure to charge Hunter after the collapse of what Trump and others had done Republicans called a “sweetheart” “plea for a deal.
Not like that, said Weiss.
“Far from being selective, these prosecutions embodied 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.
