2023-08-11 19:15:29
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden’s son. Garland announced the move against Hunter Biden in Washington on Friday. Prosecutor David Weiss informed Garland Tuesday that “he believes the investigation has reached a stage where he should continue his work as a special counsel,” Garland said.
“I have come to the conclusion that it is in the public interest to appoint him as a special counsel,” he added. Weiss had previously investigated Hunter Biden for business practices. The appointment as a special prosecutor now gives him further powers.
Investigations against Hunter Biden have been ongoing for several years, including with a view to possible tax offenses. In June, the responsible public prosecutor’s office in Delaware finally published formal allegations against him: According to prosecutors, Hunter Biden’s taxable income in 2017 and 2018 was more than 1.5 million US dollars (1.36 million euros). However, he failed to pay federal income taxes of more than $100,000 on time in both years.
The prosecutor also charged him with illegally possessing a firearm in 2018. When buying the gun, he concealed his drug addiction. As a drug user, he shouldn’t have bought a gun. Hunter Biden himself published his long-standing drug addiction in a book in 2021.
Parallel to the publication of the allegations against Hunter Biden, the Delaware public prosecutor’s office had also made public a possible agreement between the two sides: Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to the tax offenses and to an agreement with certain conditions to the weapons offense to enter in order to avert a process, it was said at the time. A court should have approved any deal of this kind. However, at a hearing at the end of July, a judge objected to the agreement and did not approve it for the time being. The case did not come to an end – and is now expanding with the use of a special investigator.
For the son of an incumbent US President to be prosecuted for multiple federal misdemeanors is in itself highly unusual – if not unprecedented. And it’s politically sensitive. This is all the more true in these times: in the middle of his father’s campaign for a second term and shortly after several historic indictments were brought against former President Donald Trump.
Garland had previously used special investigators for sensitive investigations – for example to outsource the investigations into Trump. The minister also hired a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as vice president. Garland was proposed as Attorney General by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate.
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