Hunter Biden Prosecutor Rails Against President’s Criticism
David Weiss defends tax and gun charges against Biden’s son in a report submitted to the attorney general
Updated Jan. 13, 2025 The Wall Street Journal
The special counsel who prosecuted Hunter Biden delivered a stern rebuke of President Biden’s claims that his son was unfairly targeted, in a report released Monday that denounced the sitting president for making what he called baseless accusations.
“The President’s characterizations are incorrect based on the facts in this case, and, on a more fundamental level, they are wrong,” wrote the special counsel, David Weiss, in a report submitted to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The report formally capped a yearslong criminal inquiry that resulted in Hunter Biden’s conviction on a raft of tax and gun charges. In early December, President Biden pardoned his son ahead of scheduled sentencing hearings in Los Angeles and Delaware, ending the cases and heading off court proceedings where Hunter Biden faced the potential of lengthy prison terms.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden repeatedly pledged that he wouldn’t pardon his son. But in a statement accompanying the broad pardon, President Biden said his son had been “treated differently” by the Justice Department and “singled out only because he is my son—and that is wrong.”
Weiss used the report as a rebuttal attesting to the righteousness of the charges against Hunter Biden. The report, which Weiss was required to submit under the Justice Department’s special counsel regulations, also decried President Biden’s portrayal of the prosecution as undermining the justice system.
“Other presidents have pardoned family members, but in doing so, none have taken the occasion as an opportunity to malign the public servants at the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations,” Weiss wrote.
“Politicians who attack the decisions of career prosecutors as politically motivated when they disagree with the outcome of a case undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system,” he added.
“The President’s statements unfairly impugn the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”
Weiss was appointed special counsel in 2023 after having already spent years investigating Hunter Biden as the U.S. attorney in Delaware appointed by President Donald Trump.
Earlier that year, the younger Biden was set to plead guilty to a pair of misdemeanor tax charges and avoid prosecution related to a 2018 gun purchase. But the deal disintegrated in stunning fashion when his defense lawyers and prosecutors disagreed during a court hearing about the extent of immunity Biden would receive from potential future charges.
Weiss received special counsel status following that hearing and later brought tax and gun charges against Hunter Biden in federal courts on opposite sides of the country.
A jury found the younger Biden guilty last year of lying about his drug use on a federal form he completed as part of a 2018 gun purchase. Three months later, just as a second trial was set to begin in Los Angeles, he pleaded guilty to a slate of felony and misdemeanor tax charges.
Hunter Biden’s defense lawyer Abbe Lowell said, “What is clear from this report is that the investigation into Hunter Biden is a cautionary tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power.”
With the pardon, President Biden went beyond wiping away his son’s convictions on the tax and gun charges. The president also pardoned him for any potential offenses dating back to the beginning of 2014—a more than 10-year period that covered Hunter Biden’s time on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that has figured prominently in investigations of his past business dealings.
The pardon was widely criticized by Democrats, with many saying that President Biden undercut his larger efforts to restore norms and the rule of law.
In another case brought by Weiss, former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty to lying to authorities by fabricating claims of a bribery scheme involving Hunter Biden and his father. House Republicans had trumpeted the alleged bribery scheme in their investigation of the president and his family. Smirnov, who also pleaded guilty to tax evasion, was sentenced last week to six years in prison.
Garland shared the report Monday with congressional leaders.
The release came as President-elect Trump and his allies pushed to prevent public distribution of a report by another special counsel, Jack Smith, who brought two cases against Trump only to drop them following Trump’s electoral victory last year. Smith resigned as special counsel last week after submitting his report, according to a court filing.
Annie Linskey contributed to this article.
Write to C. Ryan Barber at ryan.barber@wsj.com
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Appeared in the January 14, 2025, print edition as 'Hunter Biden Prosecutor Rails Against President'.