Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday he appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss to serve as special counsel in the investigation into Hunter Biden after Weiss requested that he be given the authority this week.
“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.
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Federal investigators in Delaware opened an inquiry into Biden in 2019, according to Garland, and they subpoenaed his laptop from a repair shop as part of it.
Garland noted that Weiss, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, began leading the investigation at the time based on allegations of “certain criminal conduct by, among others, Robert Hunter Biden.”
“That investigation remains ongoing,” the attorney general added.
In June, the investigation resulted in Weiss’s office and Biden reaching a now-failed plea deal, which involved Biden pleading guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and entering into a pretrial diversion agreement to avoid a felony gun charge.
Republicans widely denounced it as a “sweetheart” plea deal, and U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika made a surprise decision last month to defer the deal out of concerns about what she observed as “unusual” provisions, including concerns that it may preclude Biden from future prosecution.
At the same time as Garland’s announcement, court documents were filed on Friday that revealed federal prosecutors and attorneys for Biden had hit an “impasse” on the deal and that the case was expected to go to trial.
The appointment of Weiss as special counsel comes after criticism from Republicans in Congress that Weiss’s authority in the investigation appeared limited. Their criticisms were based, at least in part, on testimony from two longtime criminal investigators with the IRS who had worked with the Department of Justice on the Biden case.
The pair testified to Congress in May that Weiss had, in fact, been blocked from bringing charges against Biden in California and Washington, D.C., before reaching the plea bargain in Delaware. They also alleged that Weiss had asked for special counsel status but that he was rejected.
Garland reiterated Friday he had told Weiss from the outset that Weiss could “take any investigative steps he wanted and make the decision whether to prosecute in any district.”
In response to a number of questions on Weiss’s status from Republicans in Congress, Weiss said in a letter in June that he had been “granted ultimate authority” on “where, when, and whether to file charges” in the case.
Later that month, Weiss said in a second letter that he wanted to “expand” on that explanation by adding he was “geographically limited” to Delaware but that he could at any time request “special attorney” status from Garland to bring charges in an outside jurisdiction.
In a third letter in July, Weiss wrote that he had never asked to become special counsel but that he had had discussions about his authority in the case with department officials.
Garland said that on Tuesday of this week, Weiss indicated to him that the investigation “had reached the stage at which he should continue his work as special counsel.”
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“This appointment confirms my commitment to provide Mr. Weiss all the resources he requests,” Garland said. “It also reaffirms that Mr. Weiss has the authority he needs to conduct a thorough investigation and to continue to take the steps he deems appropriate independently based only on the facts and the law.”
As special counsel, Weiss will be required to submit a report to Garland detailing any decisions he has made on whether to prosecute Biden.
