“Gratuitous And Wrong” – Hunter Biden Probe Special Counsel Defends Findings, Slams Pardon

The special counsel assigned to investigate Hunter Biden defended his work and criticized President Joe Biden’s pardon for his son in a final report made public days before the president is slated to leave office.

David C. Weiss rejected the president’s claims that politics had compromised the probe.

As Nathan Worcester reports for The Epoch Times, Weiss said the cases he brought against Hunter Biden resulted from “thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics,” noting that multiple judges’ findings aligned with that assessment.

Weiss wrote that the accusations “unfairly impugn the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”

“These baseless accusations have no merit and repeating them threatens the integrity of the justice system as a whole,” Weiss wrote.

In his 27-page final report, Weiss defended what he said was the integrity of his investigations, and he also said Joe Biden’s statements were “gratuitous and wrong.”

“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.

Weiss said that the inquiries were “thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics.”

“Eight judges across numerous courts have rejected claims that they were the result of selective or vindictive motives,” Weiss wrote.

“Calling those rulings into question and injecting partisanship into the independent administration of the law undermines the very foundation of what makes America’s justice system fair and equitable. It erodes public confidence in an institution that [is] essential to preserving the rule of law.”

Weiss was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2023 after a plea deal with the younger Biden broke down.

Weiss, a Republican, was named U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware by President-elect Donald Trump in 2017. His initial investigation into Hunter Biden overlapped with the 2020 presidential election. Weiss did not disclose the investigation during the election. In December 2020, the younger Biden revealed he was under investigation.

Amid mass firings of Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys, Weiss—his probe by then public—was retained by Biden.

Weiss’s criticism in the report, which was released on Jan. 13, focused on claims made by the outgoing president in the full, unconditional pardon he issued his son for felony tax and firearm convictions on Dec. 1, 2024. That pardon extended to crimes that the younger Biden committed, or allegedly committed, as far back as Jan. 1, 2014.

At the time he was pardoned, the president’s son was on pace to be sentenced.

Special counsel David Weiss walks out of the closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in Washington on Nov. 7, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Here are the five key conclusions from the final report reviewed by Just the News: 

• Hunter Biden broke the law

  Weiss confirms unequivocally in his report that Hunter Biden broke the law, contradicting claims from President Joe Biden and some media outlets that said for years that there was no evidence the first son had done anything wrong.

• Biden traded on his family name to secure lucrative business deals

  Weiss concluded Hunter Biden’s money came from “using his last name and connections to secure lucrative business opportunities” in exchange for doing “limited work,” confirming one of the key findings of the House Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden that wrapped up last year.

• Evidence shows Biden cheated on taxes specifically related to Burisma income

  The court documents show that Hunter Biden failed to report income from Burisma Holdings, the controversial Ukrainian energy firm, on his taxes, again contradicting President Biden’s claims that his son did nothing wrong: “The Defendant did not report his income from Burisma on his 2014 Form 1040,” the court documents read in one instance.

• President Biden accused of undermining the justice system

  Weiss says that President Biden’s claims that the prosecutions of his son were politically motivated “undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system” and “unfairly impugn[s] the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”

• President Biden accused of using a pardon to try to rewrite history

  Weiss said that President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, was an attempt to rewrite history: “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.” 

Weiss’s criticism in the report, which was released on Jan. 13, focused on claims made by the outgoing president in the full, unconditional pardon he issued his son for felony tax and firearm convictions on Dec. 1, 2024. That pardon extended to crimes that the younger Biden committed, or allegedly committed, as far back as Jan. 1, 2014.

“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son—and that is wrong,” Biden’s pardon states.

“In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me—and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough,” Biden continued, later stating that “raw politics” led to an unjust outcome.

After months of claiming he would not do so, President Biden pardons his son Hunter. @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/uZ1dBCmj3t

— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) December 2, 2024

Weiss’s report notes that the president had previously vowed not to pardon his son.

“Only after Mr. Biden’s guilt had been fully and fairly adjudicated did the President claim that this prosecution was the result of ‘raw politics,’” the report states.

“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.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.