Leading House Republicans investigating President Joe Biden and his family greeted Attorney General Merrick Garland appointing U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel in the Hunter Biden matter with skepticism.
Garland said on Friday that he had appointed Weiss, who has been overseeing the investigation out of Delaware since 2019, as special counsel after the U.S. attorney requested such authority this week. The attorney general defended the move as “in the public interest” given the “extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter.”
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Republicans in the lower chamber were not satisfied with the move, noting their standing concerns about Weiss’s credibility.
"This action by Biden’s DOJ cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations or whitewash the Biden family corruption," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "If Weiss negotiated the sweetheart deal that couldn’t get approved, how can he be trusted as a Special Counsel? House Republicans will continue to pursue the facts for the American people."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) questioned the rationale for the appointment in a post on X.
“First, David Weiss said he didn’t have the power he needed and wanted special counsel status. Then, he said he had all the power he needs,” Jordan wrote Friday. “Now, he gets special counsel status because he didn’t really have the power he needs? Something’s not right.”
Jordan spokesman Russell Dye said in a statement that: “We expect the Department to fully cooperate with our investigation, including not interfering with the 11 transcribed interviews we have requested and David Weiss upholding his commitment to testify, and we have not heard anything from the Department indicating it is no longer willing to do so.”
House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) accused the attorney general of agreeing to the appointment as part of a larger effort to “stonewall” the GOP investigations into the president’s family in a statement Friday.
“This move by Attorney General Garland is part of the Justice Department's efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup in light of the House Oversight Committee's mounting evidence of President Joe Biden's role in his family’s schemes selling ‘the brand’ for millions of dollars to foreign nationals,” Comer said.
“Let’s be clear what today’s move is really about,” he added. “The Biden Justice Department is trying to stonewall congressional oversight as we have presented evidence to the American people about the Biden family’s corruption.”
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) told Fox News in an interview Friday afternoon that he thought Weiss’s appointment as special counsel “should be concerning to all Americans. This is an attempt to whitewash the Biden family corruption. I mean, Mr. Weiss is the single architect over that sweetheart clean agreement bill that the judge in Delaware threw out just a few weeks ago.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said in an appearance on the network shortly after Smith’s that he believed the Justice Department was “trying to make it harder” for House Republicans to conduct their investigations into the president’s family.
“This was a political decision, not a legal decision,” the South Carolina senator said. “They were trying to put out a fire and they just poured gasoline on it. Nobody in their right mind believes that making him a special counsel, Mr. Weiss, cleans up the mess that's been created.”
Citing the "sweetheart plea deal" that he says "tells us that the Weiss team has been suppressed during the entire investigation," Graham said that he doesn't trust the Weiss team to get the bottom of what Hunter Biden and Joe Biden may have done." The president's son had a plea agreement with the Justice Department related to tax and gun charges that many on the Right lambasted as a sweetheart deal.
That deal unexpectedly fell apart in court late last month.
Asked about the Weiss news while speaking to reporters at the Iowa State Fair on Friday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) pointed to his repeated calls for a special counsel in the Hunter Biden matter.
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“The short answer to your question is, it's about time. On the other hand, I have some questions about Weiss,” Grassley said, going on to note materials relating to the younger Biden that he and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) sent to Weiss. Grassley added that Weiss “never did anything with the [FD] 1023 document that I got released. So I just wonder how thorough” he is being.
“You have this plea agreement that fell through and there's speculation now that the Justice Department can't work out another plea agreement, so they're going to have to go to trial,” the Iowa senator mused. “So was a special counsel set up to interfere with going to a trial right away? Or is there some other reason for doing it?”