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.
Let’s see if I’m prescient. The special council report will conclude that Hunter did some stuff, but he’s already been prosecuted for it and it had no connection to the office of the president outside of Hunter falsely claiming he could arrange meetings with Joe. Republicans will probably try to spin the report as evidence of something nebulous without a single shred of evidence. Their base will of course eat this up. They’ll rumble about impeaching Joe, Democrats will push back and ask on what grounds, and Republicans will vaguely gesture in the direction of the report as if that means something. Nothing will ultimately come of it except it will be the latest version of “but her emails” that Fox will pull out when they need a distraction from whatever damning thing Republicans have done this week.