Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that he has appointed a special counsel to the Hunter Biden probe to deepen the investigation into the president’s son ahead of the 2024 election. Garland said he has appointed David Weiss, the US Attorney in Delaware investigating the financial and business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, as special counsel. It comes as negotiations for a settlement agreement in the Hunter Biden case have reached an impasse.
The Attorney General noted the “extraordinary circumstances” of the matter when making the announcement at the Justice Department. Garland said Weiss asked to be appointed to the position, telling him that “he believes his investigation has reached a stage where he should continue his work as a special counsel.”
“After reviewing his application and the exceptional circumstances surrounding this matter, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint him as Special Counsel,” Garland said.
Hunter Biden’s attorney did not immediately respond to messages asking for comment on Friday.
The announcement of a special counsel is a momentous development from typically cautious Garland and comes amid two wide-ranging Justice Department investigations into former President Donald Trump, who is Joe Biden’s main rival in next year’s election.
It also comes as Republicans in the House of Representatives are launching their own investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Republicans have had a hard time connecting the son’s work to his father, and so far have been unable to provide any evidence of wrongdoing.
Law officials didn’t explain what prompted the sudden move after years of investigation into Hunter Biden, who used drugs and whose personal involvements marred his father’s political career.
Court cases are dramatically shaping the 2024 presidential race in unprecedented ways. Garland has now named special counsel to investigate Trump’s handling of confidential documents and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and Friday’s announcement regarding Biden’s son.
Garland said he expects Weiss to work “expeditiously” and “impartially and with urgency” as a special counsel. He said Weiss will have “any resources he requests” to investigate the matter.
Last month, Hunter Biden’s settlement on tax evasion charges and a gun possession charge fell through after Trump-appointed US District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika raised multiple concerns about the details.
Republicans had dismissed this agreement as a “sweetheart” deal as they pressed ahead with their own investigation.
Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, led the congressional investigation into Hunter Biden’s financial relationships and transactions. The Kentucky attorney has obtained thousands of pages of financial records from various members of the Biden family through subpoenas to the Treasury Department and various financial institutions.
Shortly after Hunter Biden reached an initial settlement with the government, Comer joined forces with two chairmen of powerful committees to launch a broader investigation into claims by two IRS agents who said the Justice Department had unlawfully meddled in the years-long case.
Republicans claimed that Weiss was blocked from becoming a special counsel. It’s an allegation that Weiss and the Justice Department have dismissed.
Since then, Comer has brought in a former Hunter Biden business partner, Devon Archer, who in a closed-door testimony provided new insights into how the Democratic president’s son used his relationship with his father, who was then a vice president, to sue foreign courts court to bring investors.
Archer said Hunter Biden was using the “illusion of access” in Washington. But he provided no tangible evidence that Joe Biden played a role in his son’s work other than saying hello to him on daily family visits.
Appointment as Special Counsel grants Weiss broader powers to conduct broader investigations into multiple areas.
Weiss was nominated by Trump to be the US Attorney in Delaware in 2017 and took over after Biden took office so he could continue to oversee the investigation into Hunter Biden. Prior to that, he had worked as a prosecutor for many years, dealing with both violent crime and white-collar crime, and held private practice between stints with the federal prosecutor’s office.
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