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By Miriam Raftery
August 13, 2023 (Washington D.C.)—Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that he has appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss to serve as a special prosecutor to oversee the probe into Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden. Weiss was already overseeing the Justice Department’s investigation of Hunter Biden, but a special prosecutor has more independence to launch a potentially broader probe and report directly to Garland.
Weiss was nominated by then-President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. Despite this, some Republican leaders have criticized his appointment as special prosecutor, because Weiss oversaw a plea deal that has since fallen apart.
Under that deal, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor tax fraud count and the government agreed to drop a second charge of illegally owning a handgun at a time when he was addicted to drugs. But after a judge sought more details from both sides and voiced concern over whether the deal might have protected Hunter Biden from other tax crimes, the deal collapsed and Hunter Biden entered a not-guilty plea.
“If Weiss negotiated the sweetheart deal that couldn’t get approved, how can he be trusted as a Special Counsel?” asked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
The special prosecutor’s probe could, potentially, cast a wider net to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings, which Republicans have sought to tie to alleged corruption they claim could ensnare the President.
Hunter Biden has worked as a lawyer, lobbyist and investor and on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings. His business dealings with Ukraine and China appear at times to have capitalized on his father’s name when Joe Biden was Vice President. While Hunter Biden at times phoned his father with clients in his office, testimony thus far has indicated that those conversations did not include any business dealings. While Hunter Biden’s actions have been ethically questionable, Time Magazine reports,”there isn’t evidence that Hunter Biden’s business transactions have influenced decisions that Joe Biden made as Vice President or as Persident.”
Though some Republicans have raised bribery allegations, Time reports, “There is also no clear evidence that money from Hunter Biden’s business dealings ever made their way to Joe Biden’s accounts.” Biden, prior to becoming President, led a relatively frugal lifestyle, commuting by train, with no indications of sudden enrichment following his son’s lavish salary working for a Ukrainian company or his son’s freewheeling business dealings, however Congressional Republicans are seeking documents through subpoenas to continue their own investigation.
Democrats investigate Trump family members
Meanwhile Democrats are calling for a probe into the dubious business dealings of Donald Trump’s children and son-in-law. House Oversight Committee member Jamie Raskin says he’s asked Chair James Comer, a Republican, to conduct hearings into potential legal violations by Trump’s family members as well as Hunter Biden, but that Comer has taken a partisan stance and refused to do so.
So Raskin has announced that the committee’s Democrats will issue a report detailing millions of dollars that Trump and his family have pocketed from foreign governments and other foreign entities.
What are the potential allegations involving Trump’s family members? While the contents of the report have not yet been released, the following items have previously been widely reported.
Jared Kushner, husband of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, served as a senior advisor during the Trump administration. Yet his company continued doing business overseas, raking in millions from entities in the Middle East, raising conflict of interest concerns. Immediately after Trump left office, a fund headed by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince invested $2 billion in Kushner’s private equity firm, while funds in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also made huge investments. The deals have raised questions over whether the lavish sums may have been payoffs for actions Kushner took while working for the Trump administration.
Ivanka Trump also served as an advisor to Trump and had an office in the West Wing during his presidency, yet she continued to run her branded clothing company for the first year and a half, manufacturing in China and other countries. She raised eyebrows when she received trademarks for businesses in China at the same time her father said he was trying to protect jobs in China.
Trump’s two sons, Eric and Donald Jr., ran the Trump Organization after their father became President. Eric Trump lied when he stated the company “got out of all international business” after Donald Trump became president; in fact the company continued its foreign operations, such as expanding a golf resort in Scotland.
Donald Trump Jr. participated in a meeting with a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower duringTrump’s campaign. Trump has admitted this meeting was set up to help the campaign get dirt on his opponent, Hilary Clinton. It is a violation of federal law for campaigns to take help from a foreign government or from foreign individuals.
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