Hunter Biden’s Specter Looms Larger Over Presidential Campaign

WASHINGTON—When President Biden nominated Merrick Garland to be attorney general, he said he wanted an independent chief law-enforcement officer who would follow the facts, unencumbered by politics. 

He got one, and now Garland is presenting the president’s re-election campaign with the prospect that the travails of Biden’s son Hunter will be at least a sideshow to the 2024 presidential race, one that bears the risk of affecting voters’ view of the president.

The Justice Department had the chance to end Hunter Biden’s years of legal travails over tax violations and a gun offense with a plea agreement that was tentatively outlined with defense attorneys in June. 

But the judge overseeing the case queried the plea deal’s terms, and Friday brought the official whiplash: Garland agreed to make David Weiss, the U.S. attorney leading the long-running investigation of Hunter Biden, into a special counsel. The blockbuster announcement came as prosecutors in the case said plea negotiations were at an impasse and they expected to move to trial.

The decision caught Democrats by surprise. White House allies went into the summer thinking Hunter Biden’s legal woes would be put in a box, leaving them to contend only with attacks from Republican lawmakers with a record of overstating their findings. Instead, Democrats now must contemplate a lengthy legal process that will be harder for them to dismiss as a political stunt.

But Democratic discomfort over Weiss’s appointment doesn’t mean Republicans are happy. While many GOP lawmakers have sought the naming of a special prosecutor, they have soured on Weiss, who was appointed and launched his investigation into Hunter Biden during the Trump administration before being kept on by Garland. Weiss’s five-year probe yielded two misdemeanor tax charges and the prospect of a gun offense, a result many GOP lawmakers found meager. And Weiss’s prosecutors negotiated the now-shelved plea agreement that would have likely allowed the president’s son to avoid any prison time.

“It’s clear Mr. Weiss isn’t the right person for the job,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), blaming the U.S. attorney for what he called an “underhanded plea deal.” Grassley obtained and released a trove of documents as part of Republican lawmakers’ extensive efforts to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings and seek to tie them to President Biden.

Beyond Weiss’s track record, GOP lawmakers have expressed broader concerns about the effect a special counsel might have on their titanic tussle with the Justice Department and FBI over access to records, both regarding Hunter Biden and more generally. Congress has no role in the management of criminal prosecutions, and Justice Department officials almost never provide details to lawmakers of open investigations.

House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer

That inquiry centers on allegations of two criminal agents from the Internal Revenue Service who worked on the investigation of Hunter Biden’s taxes. The two have told the Oversight Committee that political considerations appeared to infect investigative decisions at various stages in the probe, and that Biden appeared to receive preferential treatment not afforded other investigative targets. Democrats have said the inquiry has uncovered scant new information and no evidence of crime.

In Garland’s account, the special-counsel appointment came about because Weiss requested it. With Republicans already investigating allegations that the Biden administration was seeking to hinder or play down the probe, the attorney general had little choice but to grant it, his supporters said, given the damaging optics of turning him down. Biden allies said they didn’t immediately focus their frustration on Garland.

Special-counsel status formalizes Weiss’s autonomy, gives him leeway to pursue charges outside Delaware and ensures that the president’s son will remain under scrutiny by the Justice Department. It also raises the likelihood of a politically explosive trial during the same campaign season in which the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, faces three and possibly four prosecutions himself. 

Garland gave no warning of his action to the White House or Hunter Biden’s legal team, a person familiar with the matter said, in keeping with department policy and Garland’s stated commitment not to involve the president or any other politician in his decision-making. 

Garland’s decision means Weiss will have to write a report that the attorney general could make public, revealing more of what conduct the investigation uncovered.

The White House remained silent about the decision, referring questions to the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s legal team.

Garland said earlier this year that he hadn’t discussed the investigation with the president, who promised when he nominated Garland to stay out of Justice Department affairs. Biden took that stance after years in which Trump pressured his attorneys general to prosecute political rivals, show leniency to associates and discredit the 2020 presidential-election results. 

Biden formally nominated Garland the day after Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “Your loyalty is not to me, it’s to the law,” Biden said on that occasion, addressing Garland and other Justice Department nominees.

Garland has never been particularly close to the Biden family, a fact administration officials considered an asset in nominating him, given that he would have to weigh in on whether to charge the president’s son. Garland and the president don’t meet or speak regularly, people who know them said. 

The two are even more distant, a person familiar with their relationship said, in the current unprecedented scenario: three different special counsels investigating the Democratic sitting president, his son, and his predecessor and likely chief rival for re-election, Trump. 

Alberto Gonzales, White House counsel and later attorney general under President George W. Bush, said Biden deserves credit for choosing a top prosecutor with a long commitment to the Justice Department’s independence. 

“If you had to choose between that independence and having a close relationship with the president, for the good of the public and the department, you’d choose independence,” Gonzales said, noting that he was sometimes criticized for being too close to Bush.

Some Democrats close to the White House worried that the continued prominence of the Hunter Biden case would further fuel voters’ already palpable displeasure with either leading candidate. Neither Biden nor Trump can claim that a majority of Americans has ever approved of his job performance in office, so the potential rematch is shaping up to be a battle of who is less unpopular.

In a Reuters/Ipsos poll in June, about half of people agreed with the statement that Hunter Biden is receiving favorable treatment because of his status as the president’s son, compared with about 30% who disagreed.

The continuing legal saga for Hunter Biden will keep his troubles a live issue as the presidential campaign picks up steam, a fact that will likely bedevil the Democrats more than Republicans.

“This is something that the White House is going to have to deal with for the months to come,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former Senate aide. “There’s no getting around the fact that Republicans are going to keep pounding the drum here, special counsel or no special counsel.” 

Write to Sadie Gurman at [email protected] and Annie Linskey at [email protected]