(AFP) – The special counsel who prosecuted Hunter Biden accused US President Joe Biden on Monday of undermining public confidence in the justice system with his criticism of the investigation into his son. Hunter Biden, 54, was convicted of gun and tax crimes in cases brought by special counsel David Weiss but was pardoned by his father in December.
Weiss, in his final report on the case released Monday, noted that the president, in announcing the pardon, had criticized the prosecution of his son, calling it “selective,” “unfair,” “infected” by “raw politics,” and a “miscarriage of justice.” “This statement is gratuitous and wrong,” Weiss said. “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.”
The special counsel said the prosecutions of Hunter Biden were “the culmination of thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics.” He added, “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.”
Biden pardoned his son prior to his sentencing in the two criminal cases. “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,” the president said at the time.
The release of Weiss’s report comes shortly before the expected release this week of another special counsel report — that of Jack Smith, who brought two criminal cases against former and now future president Donald Trump. Smith accused Trump of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Biden and mishandling top secret documents after leaving the White House. Neither case came to trial and Smith, in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president, dropped the charges after Trump won the November presidential election.
Smith’s report on the election interference case is likely to be released this week, but his report on the documents case may be withheld because charges are pending against two of Trump’s former co-defendants. Hunter Biden was convicted last year of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun — a felony — and he pleaded guilty in a separate tax evasion case. His father had repeatedly said he would not pardon Hunter but decided to do so after he “watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.”
US presidents have previously used pardons to help family members and other political allies. Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother for old cocaine charges, and Trump pardoned the father of his son-in-law for tax evasion, though in both cases those men had already served their prison terms. Trump has vowed to pardon supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a bid to reverse his 2020 election loss.
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