Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, citing a “miscarriage of justice.” That was wrong, the special investigator in charge now criticizes – and accuses the president of undermining the credibility of the judiciary.
The special investigator entrusted with the investigation into the Hunter Biden case has criticized outgoing US President Joe Biden for his handling of the judiciary. Joe Biden's allegations against the authorities are “unnecessary and false,” writes David Weiss in a final report that has now been published. At the same time, he defended the investigations against the president's son. The criminal action against Hunter Biden was “the result of a thorough, impartial investigation and non-partisan considerations,” Weiss said in the report.
Hunter Biden was convicted of weapons offenses and admitted tax crimes. A few weeks before the planned announcement of the sentence, US President Biden broke his promise and comprehensively pardoned his son at the beginning of December.
Biden justified the pardon by saying that the Justice Department had committed a miscarriage of justice in prosecuting his son. In his pardon announcement, the President expressed the view that Hunter Biden was only prosecuted because he is his son and that the process was politically influenced.
“Only on the basis of false Accusations defamed”
Weiss criticized this clearly: “Other presidents have pardoned family members, but none of them have used this as an opportunity to defame Justice Department officials solely on the basis of false accusations,” he wrote in the report. The president's comments “unfairly questioned the integrity not only of Justice Department employees, but also of all public servants who make these difficult decisions in good faith.”
Weiss warned in his report that it undermines public trust in the criminal justice system when politicians attack unpleasant decisions by career prosecutors as politically motivated. The prosecutor from the state of Delaware had led the investigation against the president's son for years before he was appointed special prosecutor by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2023 and thus given additional powers.
