The US attorney general has declared that a special counsel with expanded authority will now be looking into Joe Biden‘s son Hunter.
David Weiss, the federal prosecutor who has already brought charges in the case, now has more respect due to Merrick Garland.
The president’s son’s plea agreement on tax and gun charges was rejected earlier this month.
The investigation of Hunter Biden‘s financial transactions is being pushed for by Republicans.
Mr. Garland indicated that he was making the decision in response to a request made by Mr. Weiss earlier this week in a shocking revelation at the Department of Justice on Friday.
The new classification will provide the prosecutor additional tools to carry out the investigation and perhaps file charges outside of Delaware.
When the special counsel’s job is complete, Mr. Garland said a report will be produced, and the justice department will make as much of it public as is practical.
“The appointment of Mr. Weiss reinforces for the American people the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” Mr. Garland said at a news conference.
Chris Clark, Hunter Biden’s attorney, responded in a statement, saying, “We are confident that when all of these manoeuvres are over, my client will have resolution and will be successfully moving on with his life.”
The probe has already been ongoing for five years, Mr. Clark noted.
In 2018, former President Donald Trump chose Mr. Weiss to fill the position of US attorney in Delaware. Soon after, in 2019, he began an investigation into claims that Hunter Biden had engaged in criminal activity.
According to the US Attorney’s Office in Delaware, Hunter Biden has since been charged with two misdemeanour tax offences for allegedly failing to pay income taxes in 2017 and 2018, years in which he made more than $1.5 million (£1.1 million).
He is also accused of taking illegal narcotics and having a gun in his possession, which is a felony.
Hunter Biden earlier made a deal with the prosecution to accept guilt to the firearms violation and to the tax charges in order to avoid going to jail.
Judge Maryellen Noreika of the US District Court rejected the agreement due to its “non standard terms” and the “unusual” character of the suggested resolution for the gun accusation.
Hunter Biden has since attempted to reach a plea agreement with the prosecution, but to no avail. In a court document filed on Friday, Mr. Weiss’s legal team stated that they now anticipate that the matter will go to trial and that they may bring additional, more serious accusations in California or Washington, DC.
Republicans want the president and the younger Mr. Biden to both face additional criminal charges. They assert that Mr. Biden benefited financially from his son’s business ventures in China and the Ukraine.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy stated that regardless of the special counsel’s appointment, the Republican-led body would still be looking into the president and his son.
He shared the worry of several Republicans who felt that Mr. Weiss’s investigation had not been aggressive enough.
Other Republicans have questioned whether the push to relocate the trial from Delaware, where it had been overseen by Ms Noreika, a Trump appointee, was an effort to find a legal setting more accommodating to the Bidens.
The White House dismissed the charges as “insane conspiracy theories” and denied Mr. Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings.
Mr. Weiss has been looking at this issue for years. He has not yet discovered any proof that Hunter Biden’s business interests have profited from his father’s position as president.
The special counsel’s appointment, together with the potential for further charges that might result in a jury trial, almost guarantees that the investigation into Hunter Biden will continue well into the 2024 presidential election cycle, if not past the actual election day. White House officials will continue to be distracted by it even if they had hoped for a resolution not long ago.
However, the decision on Friday might help dispel some of the conservative arguments that the US has two sets of justice—one for Republicans and one for the Bidens.