Special Counsel David Weiss defended his handling of the Hunter Biden investigation in a final report capping his multi-year investigation into the president’s son.
Weiss pushed back against President Biden’s decision to pardon his son as he was facing both tax and gun charges in two different states.
“I prosecuted the two cases against Mr. Biden because he broke the law. 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,” Weiss wrote at the top of the 280-page report.
But he swiftly criticized Biden’s handling of Hunter Biden’s November pardon, noting that the president had called the cases “selective,” “unfair,” infected by “raw politics” and a “miscarriage of justice.”
“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.
Weiss said he did not take into account anything other than the elements needed to secure a criminal conviction.
“I also never considered whether my decisions would be viewed favorably or unfavorably by any politicians. And when politicians expressed opinions about my conduct, I ignored them because they were irrelevant. Simply put, my decisions were based on the facts and the law and nothing else,” he wrote.
DEVELOPING
Alex Gangitano contributed.
