WASHINGTON — Special counsel David Weiss, who successfully prosecuted first son Hunter Biden on tax fraud and gun charges, slammed President Biden’s criticism of his investigation as “gratuitous and wrong” in a report on the years-long investigation released Monday.
“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 in his 27-page report.
“I prosecuted the two cases against Mr. Biden because he broke the law,” wrote Weiss, who also serves as Delaware US Attorney and who attached to his report hundreds of pages of court filings.
“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.”
Joe Biden, 82, signed a sweeping pardon for his only surviving son on Dec. 1, arguing the cases against him had been motivated by “raw politics” and constituted a “miscarriage of justice.”
“I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” the president claimed in his pardon announcement as Hunter, 54, was awaiting sentencing in the pair of federal cases.
The first son was convicted of three gun felonies in June and pleaded guilty in September to dodging $1.4 million in taxes on income from foreign dealings in China and Ukraine — in which he involved his powerful father.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” the retiring president claimed, despite many similar cases being brought and resulting in imprisonment for those convicted.
“Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” the elder Biden claimed.
Weiss directly contradicted the president.
“These prosecutions were the culmination of thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics. Eight judges across numerous courts have rejected claims that they were the result of selective or vindictive motives,” Weiss wrote.
“Calling those rulings into question and injecting partisanship into the independent administration of the law undermines the very foundation of what makes America’s justice system fair and equitable. It erodes public confidence in an institution that is essential to preserving the rule of law.”
Weiss’ brief report doesn’t address many controversial aspects of his years-long investigation, including claims by IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that Justice Department officials engaged in a wide-ranging effort to slow-walk the investigation, spoiling attempts to acquire evidence and barring the pursuit of leads that implicated Joe Biden in foreign business dealings.
The report also doesn’t explain why Weiss brought charges only after the whistleblower allegations became public in early 2023, or why he initially recommended only probation for Hunter after the first son agreed to plead guilty months later, only to walk away from the bargain in July 2023.
Weiss also doesn’t address why he allowed the statute of limitations to expire on alleged tax fraud committed by Hunter before 2016 or include analysis of why he didn’t pursue Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) charges against the first son, despite federal prosecutors pursuing charges against others similarly situated.
“In making my decisions, I remained impervious to political influence at all times,” Weiss wrote.
“However, Mr. Biden and his counsel have continuously accused me of vindictively and selectively prosecuting him. And in the press release accompanying his son’s pardon, President Biden echoed these claims, stating that he believed [Hunter] Biden was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.’ These baseless accusations have no merit and repeating them threatens the integrity of the justice system as a whole.”
Weiss also defended the particular charges he did bring, and brushed aside the first son’s prior abuse of alcohol and drugs as a reason to overlook the tax crimes.
“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,” the prosecutor wrote.
“These are not ‘inconsequential’ or ‘technical’ tax code violations,” he wrote.
“Nor can Mr. Biden’s conduct be explained away by his drug use — most glaringly, Mr. Biden filed his false 2018 return, in which he deliberately underreported his income to lower his tax liability, in February 2020, approximately eight months after he had regained his sobriety. Therefore, the prosecution of Mr. Biden was warranted given the nature and seriousness of his tax crimes.”
