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Special counsel David Weiss says the president's claims that his son was selectively persecuted undermine the rule of law.
The special prosecutor who indicted United States President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has accused the outgoing president of undermining the justice system, saying the prosecution was selective and unfair.
In his final report on the case, released Monday, special counsel David Weiss said the president's claim that his son was singled out for prosecution was “gratuitous and wrong.”
“Other presidents have pardoned family members, but none like this used the case as an opportunity to smear public officials at the Justice Department based solely on false accusations,” Weiss said in the 280-page report.
Weiss, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the younger Biden, said decisions to prosecute the president's son were the result of impartial investigations and to call them into question undermines “the very foundation of what the American justice system does fair and just'. .
“This undermines public confidence in an institution that is essential to upholding the rule of law,” Weiss said.
Weiss said the prosecutions, far from being selective, are “the epitome of equal justice — no matter who you are or what your last name is, you are subject to the same laws as everyone else in the United States.”
Under Justice Department regulations, special prosecutors submit a final report at the end of their investigation.
The elder Biden granted his son a pardon for firearms and tax convictions last month after previously promising not to use his presidential powers to intervene.
The president said any reasonable person looking at the facts of the cases would conclude that his son was “selectively and unfairly” persecuted because of his family name.
“There was an effort to break Hunter — who had been five and a half years sober, even in the face of relentless attacks and selective persecution,” Biden said at the time.
In June, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to gun charges related to lying about his drug use on a background check form. In September, Biden pleaded guilty to evading $1.4 million in taxes in a separate case.
He was awaiting sentencing in both cases when his father announced the pardon.
Hunter Biden's lawyer criticized Weiss' report, saying the special counsel failed to explain why prosecutors “pursued wild — and debunked — conspiracies” about the president's son.
“What this report makes clear is that the Hunter Biden investigation is a cautionary tale about the abuse of prosecutorial power,” Abe Lowell said in a statement.
