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A November 29, 2024 photo shows President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden stepping out of a bookstore while shopping in Nantucket, Mass. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
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Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
The Department of Justice on Monday released special counsel David Weiss' final report after his investigation of criminal allegations against President Biden's son Hunter Biden.
Biden last month signed a full and unconditional pardon for his son, after earlier promising not to do so, after saying "raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice."
Weiss in the report called such accusations "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," he wrote.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June of federal gun charges for lying about his addiction to crack cocaine when he purchased a gun. Three months later, he entered a guilty plea to tax offenses for failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes. Sentencing was expected in December in both cases.
Both of the prosecutions were brought by Weiss. The cases were rooted in a period of time when Hunter Biden was wrestling with the death of his brother, Beau Biden, and struggling with his own addiction to crack cocaine.
Weiss, a Delaware U.S. Attorney appointed by Trump, was retained during the Biden administration, and began investigating Hunter Biden in 2019. He was appointed special counsel in August 2023.
In the report, Weiss said he brought the charges independent of any politics, and purely because Hunter Biden broke federal laws.
"These prosecutions were the culmination of thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics," he wrote in the report. "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."
He said the charges against Hunter Biden embody "the equal application of 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."
Weiss' report is an obligatory part of a special counsel's work, and the DOJ made it public consistent with the law and its policy.
The department is separately fighting a court battle to release special counsel Jack Smith's final report on criminal investigations into Donald Trump. Trump has argued the special counsel was appointed unlawfully and that any public report would be legally invalid and hurt his transition into the White House.
