Attorney general appoints Hunter Biden special counsel

The Trump-appointed US attorney who is investigating Hunter Biden has been given special counsel status after plea talks between the Justice Department and the president’s son fell apart.

The prosecutor, David Weiss, asked Attorney General Merrick Garland for the new authority after plea talks to resolve tax and gun charges reached an impasse, with a trial now likely.

Garland’s decision, which he announced Friday, gives 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 the sitting president, his son and the previous president.

Here's what you need to know about today's appointment — and what may happen next:

How we got here: Federal prosecutors have spent five years investigating Hunter Biden for potential felony tax evasion, illegal foreign lobbying, money laundering and other possible crimes.

The probe appeared to reach its conclusion when a plea deal was announced in June. In a two-pronged agreement, Hunter Biden planned to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and prosecutors would drop a separate felony gun charge in two years if he stayed out of legal trouble and passed a drug test. Federal prosecutors also agreed to recommend probation, and no jail time, for Hunter Biden. The GOP had criticized the plea deal, accusing Weiss of giving Hunter Biden preferential treatment.

But at a stunning three-hour court hearing last month, the deal nearly collapsed under scrutiny from the federal judge overseeing the case. At the end of that hearing, the judge ordered the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s lawyers to file additional legal briefs defending the constitutionality of the agreement. On Friday, Weiss said talks had failed.

Why the appointment is significant: By naming Weiss as a special counsel, Garland gave him further independence from the Justice Department as he embarks on an unprecedented trial against the son of the sitting president, and as Republicans claim the department is politicized.

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.

Garland said that Weiss will continue to serve as the US attorney for the District of Delaware as he takes on this new post. And he noted that in the special counsel position, Weiss will “not be subject to the day-to-day supervision of any official of the department.”

Trials could occur in DC or California: Weiss and prosecutors Friday asked a judge to dismiss the tax charges filed in Delaware federal court as part of the plea deal in anticipation of possibly bringing future tax charges in California or Washington, DC.

The parties previously agreed that the plea agreement would be handled in Delaware federal court. But now that the plea deal is off, prosecutors say that venue is no longer appropriate.

Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said in a statement shortly after the filing was made that “whether in Delaware, Washington, D.C. or anywhere else, we expect a fair resolution on behalf of our client.”

GOP criticism of the investigation: 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 Weiss and the Justice Department gave him preferential treatment in the plea deal. Two career IRS agents who worked on the Hunter Biden probe went public as whistleblowers, claiming there was political meddling in the probe.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, had asked for Weiss to testify before his committee about the Hunter Biden probe, and Weiss had offered to appear before the panel in the fall.

Senate Republicans blasted Attorney General Merrick Garland for appointing US Attorney David Weiss as special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe, arguing that Weiss can’t be trusted to investigate the case impartially after Hunter Biden’s plea deal fell apart.

“Given the underhanded plea deal negotiated by the US Attorney from President Biden’s home state, it’s clear Mr. Weiss isn’t the right person for the job,” said Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement. 

In an interview on Fox News, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “I don't trust the Weiss team to get to the bottom of what Hunter Biden, Joe Biden may have done. Again, he tried to put out a political fire, you actually pour gasoline on it.”

Indiana Sen. Mike Braun agreed. “Merrick Garland finally appoints a special prosecutor as evidence of the Biden family corruption mounts, but he's the one person at the DOJ with less credibility than Garland on the Biden family: David Weiss, who already tried to let Hunter off the hook with a sweetheart plea deal that was rejected by a judge,” he said in a tweet.

Senator Tom Cotton added, “Remember, when Biden's DOJ and Hunter's lawyers meet, they're not negotiating. They're conspiring.”

Several of the Senate Republicans blasting the Weiss appointment – Graham, Grassley, Cotton – sent a letter to Garland on September 16, 2022, asking for Weiss to be given special counsel authority in the Hunter Biden probe. 

However, this was long before Hunter Biden’s original plea deal was announced, which many GOP senators criticized as a “sweetheart deal” – and which many of them are citing as their reason for not trusting Weiss.

US Attorney David Weiss requested special counsel status on Tuesday, according to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Court filings indicate that Weiss’ team reached out to Hunter Biden’s lawyers on Wednesday, telling them that they would ask to drop the charges in Delaware so they could pursue charges in a different jurisdiction. 

Prosecutors asked Hunter Biden’s lawyers to privately respond to them by Friday, according to court filings. Hunter Biden’s team asked for an extension until Monday, but prosecutors held firm on their deadline.

On Friday, Garland announced Weiss’ appointment as a special counsel, around the same very moment Weiss filed the court papers revealing that the plea negotiations had broken down and that the case was now likely heading to trial. 

"As of the time of this filing, the Defendant has not yet provided his position," Weiss said in the court papers.

Federal judge Maryellen Noreika ordered Hunter Biden’s lawyers to respond by noon on Monday to the Justice Department’s request to drop the misdemeanor charges in Delaware so they can bring charges elsewhere.

David Weiss, the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney who on Friday was named a special counsel leading the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, has decades of experience as a federal prosecutor.

Weiss, the Delaware US attorney, met in April with Hunter Biden’s attorneys, who had requested a routine status update on the investigation. The long-running probe, which began as early as 2018, at one time concerned multiple financial and business activities in foreign countries dating to when Joe Biden was vice president.

In June, a plea agreement was reached in which Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and struck a deal with federal prosecutors to resolve a felony gun charge. But Weiss said in a court filing Friday that plea talks between his team and Biden broke down in recent weeks after a hearing in Delaware last month where the judge said she wasn’t ready to accept the complex plea deal that was negotiated.

In 2018, the Senate confirmed Weiss to serve as US attorney for the District of Delaware. At the time of his nomination, he was serving as the acting US attorney for the district and was one of nine candidates whom Trump said shared his “vision for ‘Making America Safe Again.’”

The Philadelphia native is a member of the Delaware and Pennsylvania bars.

A Washington University in St. Louis and Widener University School of Law graduate, Weiss began his career in law in 1984 as a clerk to Justice Andrew D. Christie of the Delaware Supreme Court, according to his Justice Department biography.

Following his clerkship, Weiss prosecuted violent crimes and white-collar offenses as an assistant US attorney before joining firm Duane Morris, where he was a commercial litigation associate and eventually became a partner. He later served as chief operating officer and senior vice president at The Siegfried Group, a financial services firm, according to his biography.

He served as the first assistant US attorney starting in 2007.

Weiss’ investigation into Hunter Biden continued into the Biden administration, prompting Attorney General Merrick Garland to stress during a March Senate committee hearing that he would not interfere with the investigation. Weiss, he reiterated at the time, had “full authority” to carry out the investigation and to bring in another jurisdiction if necessary.

Read more about Weiss here.

##Catch Up#

Despite his appointment to be special counsel, House Republicans still say they want to hear from David Weiss. As CNN has reported previously, talks were ongoing between the House Judiciary Committee and Weiss before this announcement on when he might testify. 

Democrats have said that the appointment could complicate this testimony, but Republicans are making it clear they still are pushing for it. 

Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise tweeted that the House GOP will continue to investigate Hunter Biden.

“Let’s be clear: The House Republican Majority will continue using our full constitutional authority and subpoena power to investigate Hunter Biden’s corruption and any ties to Joe Biden himself,” he said.

CNN's Morgan Rimmer contributed reporting to this post.

GOP presidential candidates on Friday are reacting to the appointment of David Weiss as special counsel in the investigation into Hunter Biden. 

Former Vice President Mike Pence said it’s “about time” that a special counsel was appointed in the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. 

“The American people deserve answers and I welcome the appointment,” he told reporters at the Iowa State Fair.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also briefly commented on the special counsel appointment.

“If he were a Republican, he’d be in jail by now,” DeSantis said at the American Legion in Harlan, Iowa. "We know that."

The Justice Department letter sent to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees announcing the appointment of David Weiss as special counsel came “minutes” before the announcement, a source says. 

More about the appointment: Weiss asked Attorney General Merrick Garland for the new authority after plea talks to resolve tax and gun charges fell apart, with a trial now likely.

Garland’s decision, which he announced Friday, gives 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 the sitting president, his son and the previous president.

Garland’s decision, which he announced Friday, gives 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 the sitting president, his son and the previous president.

CNN's Marshall Cohen, Hannah Rabinowitz and Devan Cole contributed reporting to this post. 

Conservatives on Capitol Hill were swift to attack the announcement that Davis Weiss has been given special counsel status in the investigation into Hunter Biden, even as one of them took credit for the move. 

But Rep. Byron Donalds, a conservative from Florida, wrote in a tweet that “House Republicans are holding the corrupt Biden Fam & administration accountable & putting relentless pressure on them, resulting in this long overdue announcement. I hope Weiss will not continue slow—walking the investigations into the president's son. We need accountability.”

The announcement Friday came as House Republicans are teetering on the edge of opening an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. But while Democrats point out that a special counsel should make Republicans more confident in the independence of the DOJ’s investigation, GOP members aren’t seeing it that way. 

“Merrick Garland just announced that he will appoint US Attorney Weiss as Special Counsel to look into Hunter Biden's matters. This is the same US Attorney who just tried to give Hunter a sweetheart deal. Given how Hunter has been treated this far, pardon me if I'm not extremely excited that anything will actually come of this,” Rep. Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado, said. 

The office of Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio who serves as House Judiciary chairman, slammed Weiss in a statement. “David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption,” said Russell Dye, Jordan’s spokesperson. “Weiss has already signed off on a sweetheart plea deal that was so awful and unfair that a federal judge rejected it."

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Fox that the appointment of US Attorney David Weiss as the special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe “was a political decision, not a legal one,” and called it “dumber than dirt.”

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung criticized the Justice Department's handling of its investigation into Hunter Biden on Friday, following news that Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed US attorney David Weiss as a special counsel in the investigation into President Joe Biden's son.

"If this special counsel is truly independent - even though he failed to bring proper charges after a four year investigation and he appears to be trying to moving the case to a more Democrat-friendly venue - he will quickly conclude that Joe Biden, his troubled son Hunter, and their enablers, including the media, which colluded with the 51 intelligence officials who knowingly mislead the public about Hunter’s laptop, should face the required consequences," the statement added.

Trump, as part of his defense against his own legal troubles, has long criticized the Justice Department for operating under what he claims is a two-tiered system of justice, and not doing enough to investigate the Biden family.