The prosecutor who investigated Hunter Biden denounces the president’s criticism

The special prosecutor who led a long-running investigation into Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, criticized the president for making “baseless accusations” about the case and defended his investigation in a final report.

In the report, published Monday, David Weiss called his prosecution of the president’s son on gun and tax crimes “impartial” and “not partisan politics.”

Hunter Biden’s lawyer said the report showed that Mr. Weiss’ investigation “was a cautionary tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power.”

Biden issued an official pardon for his son, who was facing a sentence for two criminal cases, in early December.

While issuing the pardon, the president said his son had been “single” and called his cases “a miscarriage of justice” and “crude politics.”

Weiss called these statements “gratuitous and wrong.”

“I prosecuted both cases against (Hunter) Biden because he broke the law,” he wrote in his report.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges earlier in September, and was found guilty of being an illegal drug user in possession of a gun in June.

His father’s full and unconditional pardon for his son came after the president had repeatedly said he would not grant him clemency.

It wasn’t the first time a US president pardoned a family member.

Bill Clinton pardoned his younger brother, Roger Clinton, for a 1985 cocaine offense in 2001.

In 2020, Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the son-in-law of his daughter, Ivanka, who pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion and illegal campaign donation payments in 2005.

In his report, Mr. Weiss acknowledged that, but added: “No one took this opportunity as an opportunity to disparage the public servants of the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations.”

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to nine counts of federal tax fraud in September, for which he had faced up to 17 years in prison.

He was also convicted of three felonies in connection with a gun purchase in June, for which he had faced up to 25 years in prison.

Inquiries into the president’s son have brought up uncomfortable and embarrassing details about his personal life, including his alleged crack-cocaine addiction. escort payments.

President Biden was mostly silent during the investigations about his son, but he was fierce in his defense in his pardon.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of relentless attacks and selective prosecution,” President Biden said.

“In trying to break Hunter, they tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it’s going to stop there. Enough is enough.”

He added: “I hope the American people will understand why a father and a president came to this decision.”

The pardon covers the period from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024, “including but not limited to” the tax and gun crimes for which he was convicted.

Mr. Weiss said that because of this unconditional pardon, he could not make “additional charging decisions” related to Hunter Biden during that period.

“It would be inappropriate to discuss whether the additional charges are justified,” he said.

Mr. Weiss has already defended his investigation into the president’s son.

In 2023, he told the House Judiciary Committee there had never been political pressure or interference in his work by the justice department.

Mr. Weiss’s investigation into Hunter Biden has been closely scrutinized by both sides of the political spectrum.

Democrats said he was politically charged and felt Hunter Biden had an unfair target on his back.

Republicans believed that the justice department was not pursuing the charges aggressively enough and showing the president’s son unfair favoritism.

Hunter Biden’s guilty convictions came after a plea deal in 2023.

A judge refused to approve the deal — which Republicans called a “sweetheart deal” — that would have required Hunter Biden to plead guilty to tax evasion charges to avoid more serious charges related to weapons

In a statement released Monday, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, criticized Mr. Weiss for the failed deal.

“Mr. Weiss still fails to explain why he reneged on his own deal, a reversal that came at the 11th hour in court as he and his office faced withering attacks from Republicans,” Mr. Lowell said.