Attorney General Merrick Garland promoting Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to a special counsel after the collapse of his criticized plea deal with Hunter Biden means the younger Biden’s legal problems have not been resolved.
But although the White House has distanced President Joe Biden from his son’s case, it is poised to complicate his campaign as House Republicans seek to amplify it before next year’s election.
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Like many Republicans, former Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins disagreed with Garland’s decision last week, particularly because special counsels should be tapped from “outside the government” to avoid the perception of conflicts of interest.
“The notion that appointing David Weiss as special counsel to cure this problem is laughable,” Cummins, nominated by former President George W. Bush, told the Washington Examiner. “But it may be political genius in service to Joe Biden, which is obviously Merrick Garland’s sole strength as attorney general.”
While Weiss must report his findings as special counsel, Republicans, such as Cummins, are adamant his elevation will have ramifications for his congressional testimony next month or in October.
“Weiss can now go to work behind the curtain of an ‘ongoing investigation,'” Cummins said. “He may not be seen or heard from again until after November 2024, or he will come back with a report of ‘no evidence linking Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s business.’”
“If I am selling Mr. Weiss short, it is of no matter to the outcome,” the lawyer and lobbyist added. “He already let Hunter Biden off. Because of time, there is little left to investigate or prosecute regarding Hunter Biden, and Weiss’s mandate does not mention Joe Biden.”
Democrats, at least publicly, have dismissed Garland’s decision despite polling that indicates Joe Biden’s reelection against 2024 Republican primary front-runner former President Donald Trump is uncertain. Biden has an average percentage point lead over his predecessor, according to RealClearPolitics, though Trump has his own troubles, including an indictment in a fourth case this week in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Republicans have been “clamoring” for a special counsel concerning Hunter Biden “for months,” and now that they have one, they are “crying foul for that too,” per former Democratic operative Christopher Hahn.
“The reaction from the Right is all the evidence you need that this is steeped in politics,” Hahn, a former staffer of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and now Aggressive Progressive podcast host, said. “As for its impact on Biden, I don’t believe it will matter much in the big scheme of things.”
Paul Henderson, former prosecution chief for Vice President Kamala Harris when she was San Francisco’s district attorney, similarly downplayed the federal tax and gun crimes with which Weiss charged Hunter Biden after IRS whistleblowers alleged political interference in the younger Biden’s case as House Republicans consider starting an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden this fall for that and other claims.
“Beyond a fishing investigation that Republicans would love to initiate, there is simply no factual evidence of any criminal wrongdoing that has come to light related to the Hunter Biden prosecution,” he said. “I think it’s important that Garland assign a special prosecutor, but I think Republicans will be very disappointed to find that the assignment results in an affirmation of the plea deal and an independent review affirming no basis to open or pursue an investigation into Joe Biden.”
During a rare television interview, Abbe Lowell, one of Hunter Biden’s lawyers, reiterated that it is “not inevitable” that the younger Biden’s case will be tried in California, Delaware, Washington, D.C., or elsewhere or that he will face new offenses, especially for infringing the Foreign Agents Registration Act, amid Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.
“We were trying to avoid one all along and so were the prosecutors,” he told CBS last weekend. “I can assure you that five years concluded that the only two charges that made sense were two misdemeanors for failing to file, like millions of Americans do, and the diverted gun charge. Everything else had been thoroughly looked at.”
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre additionally repeated that Joe Biden “was not in business with his son,” delegating the decision concerning whether Weiss will testify before Congress to the Justice Department.
“If you think about what Republicans in Congress have tried to do for years, right?” she told reporters Monday. “They keep turning up documents and witnesses showing that the president wasn’t involved, never discussed these business dealings, and did nothing wrong. There’s been zero evidence showing otherwise, and so that’s what we’ve seen over the past several months, that’s what we’ve seen over the past several years.”
