The special counsel who indicted United States President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has accused the outgoing president of undermining the justice system by claiming the prosecution was selective and unfair.
In his final report on the case released on Monday, Special Counsel David Weiss said the president’s claim that his son had been singled out for prosecution was “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 said in the 280-page report.
Weiss, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the younger Biden, said the decisions to prosecute the president’s son were the result of impartial investigations and calling them into question undermined 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 said.
Weiss said that the prosecutions, far from being selective, were the “embodiment of 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”.
Under Justice Department regulations, special counsels submit a final report at the end of their probe.
The elder Biden issued a pardon for his son for firearms and tax convictions last month after previously pledging not to use his presidential authority to intervene.
The president said that any reasonable person looking at the facts of the cases would conclude that his son had been “selectively, and unfairly” prosecuted due to his family name.
“There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” Biden said at the time.
Hunter Biden was in June found guilty of gun charges related to lying about his drug use on a background check form. In September, Biden pleaded guilty to evading $1.4m in taxes in a separate case.
He had been awaiting sentencing in the two cases when his father announced the pardon.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer criticised Weiss’s report, saying the special counsel had failed to explain why prosecutors “pursued wild — and debunked – conspiracies” about the president’s son.
“What is clear from this report is that the investigation into Hunter Biden is a cautionary tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power,” Abbe Lowell said in a statement.
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