House Oversight Chairman James Comer ripped Special Counsel David Weiss’ final report on his years-long investigation into Hunter Biden as “incomplete” due to President Biden’s sweeping pardon of his son.
“Special Counsel David Weiss just released an incomplete 27-page report because President Joe Biden issued his son an unprecedented pardon. This sweeping pardon prevents the Special Counsel from holding Hunter Biden accountable for the international influence peddling racket only made possible by Joe Biden,” Rep. Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement Monday evening following the release of Weiss’ final report.
“Let’s be clear: the Biden DOJ was never going to prosecute the Biden Crime Family. The House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the Bidens’ influence peddling schemes revealed how Joe Biden knew about, participated in, and benefited from his family cashing in on the Biden name,” Comer continued.
The Department of Justice released Weiss’ report to Congress on Monday evening, which detailed his roughly six-year investigation into first son Hunter Biden’s taxes and purchase of a firearm in 2018 while he was addicted to controlled substances – namely, crack cocaine.
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Hunter Biden was convicted in both cases last year, with a jury of his peers finding him guilty of three felony firearm offenses and entering a surprise guilty plea regarding the failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes across four years.
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Amid the legal saga, President Biden repeatedly vowed he would not pardon his son but reversed course last month when he announced he would grant his son a blanket pardon that applies to any offenses against the U.S. that Hunter Biden “has committed or may have committed” from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024.
President Biden hugs son Hunter Biden after addressing the nation from the Oval Office of the White House on July 24, 2024. (Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images)
Comer continued in his blistering response to the report by citing two IRS whistleblowers who sounded the alarm on Hunter Biden’s tax issues and said they were handcuffed from “following evidence that could have led to Joe Biden.”
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“Two brave whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, blew the whistle on DOJ’s misconduct and politicization in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation and revealed they were prevented from following evidence that could have led to Joe Biden. Joe Biden will be remembered for using his last few weeks in office to shield his son from the law and protect himself. The president’s legacy is the same as his family’s business dealings: corrupt,” Comer continued.
President Biden and Hunter Biden stepping out of a bookstore in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Nov. 29, 2024. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
The two whistleblowers, who previously slammed Biden for pardoning his son last month, also took issue with the Weiss report and again blasted Biden for the pardon.
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“The Weiss report leaves too many questions unanswered, and the American people deserve answers. DOJ, FBI, and IRS leadership should have done the right thing from the beginning. We should not have had to risk our careers to end the preferential treatment being given to the President’s son. Years later, we are still facing whistleblower retaliation,” Shapley and Ziegler wrote in a message shared by Empower Oversight, the legal group representing the whistleblowers.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer speaks during a news conference. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Why are we the only ones suffering any consequences? It’s time for a serious investigation and it’s time for accountability,” they concluded.
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Weiss’ report also took issue with the president’s pardoning of Hunter Biden, specifically with how President Biden characterized prosecutions of Hunter Biden as “selective” and “unfair.”
“This statement is gratuitous and wrong,” Weiss wrote in his report. “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.”
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“Politicians who attack the decisions of career prosecutors as politically motivated when they disagree with the outcome of a case undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system,” Weiss wrote in another section of the report. “The President’s statements unfairly impugn the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”
Weiss’ report also determined that the first son’s previous and well-documented addiction to substances such as crack cocaine could not explain why he failed to pay taxes on millions of dollars of income earned off of his “last name and connections.”
U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware David C. Weiss (Fox News screenshot)
“As a well-educated lawyer and businessman, Mr. Biden consciously and willfully chose not to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over a four-year period. From 2016 to 2020, Mr. Biden received more than $7 million in total gross income, including approximately $1.5 million in 2016, $2.3 million in 2017, $2.1 million in 2018, $1 million in 2019 and $188,000 from January through October 15, 2020,” Weiss wrote in his final report, which was released Monday.
“Mr. Biden made this money by using his last name and connections to secure lucrative business opportunities, such as a board seat at a Ukrainian industrial conglomerate, Burisma Holdings Limited, and a joint venture with individuals associated with a Chinese energy conglomerate. He negotiated and executed contracts and agreements that paid him millions of dollars for limited work,” Weiss continued.
Hunter Biden, joined by his his wife Melissa Cohen Biden, depart from the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building on June 4,, 2024, in Wilmington, Delaware. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Weiss continued in his report that Hunter Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” and that he “willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes.”
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“These are not ‘inconsequential’ or ‘technical’ tax code violations,” Weiss wrote. “Nor can Mr. Biden’s conduct be explained away by his drug use – most glaringly, Mr. Biden filed his false 2018 return, in which he deliberately underreported his income to lower his tax liability, in February 2020, approximately eight months after he had regained his sobriety. Therefore, the prosecution of Mr. Biden was warranted given the nature and seriousness of his tax crimes.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on the report and Comer’s response, but did not immediately receive a response.
Hunter Biden arrives with attorney Abbe Lowell for a closed-door deposition in a Republican-led investigation into the Biden family, on Capitol Hill, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, released a statement Monday evening following the report, “David Weiss’ 27-page report continues to ignore some of the major mysteries of his 7-year investigation.”
“Mr. Weiss conveniently omits his proposal to resolve this investigation in 2023 with a pair of misdemeanors and a diverted gun charge recommended by career prosecutors. Mr. Weiss also fails to explain why he reneged on his own agreement. This reversal came at the 11th hour in court as he and his office faced blistering attacks from Republicans and his then filing unprecedented charges for someone with no aggravating gun factors who had paid his taxes in full years before the charges were filed,” Lowell said in the statement.
“Finally, and most curious, Mr. Weiss fails to clarify why he and his prosecutors pursued wild – and debunked – conspiracies about Mr. Biden by a Russian agent that prolonged this investigation and ultimately cost taxpayers millions of dollars. What is clear from this report is that the investigation into Hunter Biden is a cautionary tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power.”
