AG Merrick Garland Appoints David Weiss as Special Counsel in Hunter Biden Probe

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed U.S. prosecutor David Weiss as a special counsel in the ongoing investigation of Hunter Biden to apparently provide a degree of separation between the probe and President Joe Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Friday.

The DOJ said Weiss will be responsible for the “ongoing investigation” into Hunter Biden, “as well as for any other matters that arose or may arise from that investigation.”

Weiss was overseeing the Hunter Biden probe and was not granted special counsel status, according to IRS whistleblowers.

On Tuesday, Weiss reportedly asked to be appointed as a special counsel and Garland agreed it was “in the public interest” to do so, the attorney general said.

“David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption,” Russell Dye, a spokesperson for House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), told Breitbart News in a statement.

“Weiss has already signed off on a sweetheart plea deal that was so awful and unfair that a federal judge rejected it,” he added. “We will continue to pursue facts brought to light by brave whistleblowers as well as Weiss’s inconsistent statements to Congress.”

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) also was skeptical of the appointment of a special counsel.

“This move by AG Garland is part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of @GOPoversight‘s mounting evidence of President Biden’s role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals,” he said in a statement:

The appointment of a special counsel comes on the same day that news broke that Weiss’ prosecutors acknowledged that the gun and tax charges against Hunter will likely have to be resolved at a trial in California or Washington, DC, NBC News reported:

Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges related to his failure to pay income taxes earlier this year. But while standing in court last month waiting to enter the plea, the agreement fell apart over confusion about a separate gun charge.

The judge asked the parties to hammer out the agreement and return later, leaving Hunter Biden to enter a not-guilty plea while it’s litigated.

Lawyers for Hunter Biden had also indicated they believed that the plea agreement would settle all matters facing the president’s son, but prosecutors said that other investigations continued.