Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that the Trump-appointed US attorney who is investigating Hunter Biden has been given “special counsel” status.
This gives the senior prosecutor, David Weiss, more powers than a typical US attorney and puts the nation in uncharted territory – with three special counsels at the Justice Department currently investigating matters related to the sitting president, his son, and the previous president.
Garland’s order appointing Weiss said he is authorized to “conduct the ongoing investigation … as well as any matters that arose from that investigation or may arise” as the probe continues.
A senior Justice Department official said Weiss will write a report, which the attorney general is expected to publicly release when the probe is over. This has been the common practice of special counsels in recent years, like Robert Mueller and John Durham.
Weiss made a request to be elevated to a special counsel on Tuesday.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A senior Justice Department official said Weiss will write a report, which the attorney general is expected to publicly release when the probe is over.
In a two-pronged agreement, Hunter Biden would plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors, and prosecutors would agree to drop a separate felony gun charge in two years if he stayed out of legal trouble and passed drug test.
But at a stunning three-hour court hearing last month, the deal nearly collapsed under scrutiny from the federal judge overseeing the case.
District Judge Maryellen Noreika said the intertwined deals to resolve the tax and gun charges were “confusing,” “not straightforward,” “atypical” and “unprecedented.” At the end of that hearing, she ordered the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s lawyers to file additional legal briefs defending the constitutionality of the deal.
Calls for a special counsel have intensified in recent months, with leading Republicans claiming Hunter Biden got a “sweetheart deal,” and IRS whistleblowers alleging that the Justice Department gave him preferential treatment in a plea deal earlier this summer.
Federal prosecutors have spent five years investigating Hunter Biden for potential felony tax evasion, illegal foreign lobbying, money laundering, and other possible crimes.
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