‘About Time’: 2024 Republican Field Reacts to Special Counsel Appointment in Hunter Biden Probe

After attorney general Merrick Garland announced he would appoint U.S. attorney David Weiss as a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, Republican presidential candidates reacted to the news with a mix of satisfaction and skepticism.

Former vice president Mike Pence said at the Iowa State Fair on Friday that it’s “about time that we saw the appointment of a special counsel to get to the bottom of not only what Hunter Biden was doing, but what the Biden family was doing.”

“The American people deserve answers, and I welcome the appointment,” he said.

The former vice president added: “To be honest with you, I can’t relate to what his son was doing when he was vice president. When I was vice president, my son was flying an F 35 in the Marine Corps.”

Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said during an appearance on Fox News that she doesn’t “trust” the appointment.

“I don’t think the American people trust it,” she added. “I don’t think the American people trust the Department of Justice. I think this was meant to be a distraction, it’s not a distraction. I think the Bidens are on a sinking ship and I think this is our opportunity to make sure we not only get a new president in the White House, but that we clean house in the Department of Justice while we’re at it.”

“I think this is in response to the pressure that the Biden family is feeling,” she said. “This is in response to the pressure the Department of Justice is feeling. What I would say is the House needs to keep their foot on the gas, keep this investigation going.”

Garland’s announcement allows Weiss to continue his investigation into the president’s son free from the conventional DOJ oversight. The attorney general said Weiss requested special counsel authority on Tuesday.

Garland said he chose to grant the request “after consideration” and that Weiss will continue to oversee the “ongoing investigation” of Hunter as well as “any other matters that arose or may arise from that investigation.”

The appointment “reinforces for the American people the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” Garland said.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis reacted to the news during a campaign stop in Audubon, Iowa. “It just seems to me that they’re going to find a way to give him some type of soft-glove treatment,” he said.

Vivek Ramaswamy reshared a post he wrote in June, in which he called for a special counsel to “investigate and publish all findings relating to Hunter Biden and Biden-family business dealings.”

“I am deeply skeptical of special counsels,” he wrote two months ago. “We should dispense with the charade that a ‘special’ counsel is somehow unbiased or immune from the Administrative State’s corruption. It’s a lose-lose proposition: either the special counsel still reports to the attorney general and is bound by DOJ rules and policies in which case it’s a farce, or else the special counsel is entirely unaccountable which creates an Inspector Javert dilemma.”

But though he suggested neither situation is good, “there cannot be a two-tiered justice system in this country.”

“If there’s a Trump-focused special counsel, there *must* be a Biden-focused special counsel too – to investigate mounting evidence of Biden’s potential criminal violations,” he said.

On Friday, he responded to the post and wrote: “It happened. Good. Now let’s see if it’s more than a fig leaf.”

Meanwhile, the Trump campaign reacted to the special counsel appointment in a statement on Friday: “Crooked Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and the entire Biden Crime Family have been protected by the Justice Department for decades even though there is overwhelming evidence and credible testimony detailing their wrongdoing of lying to the American people and selling out the country to foreign enemies for the Biden Cartel’s own financial gain.”

“If this special counsel is truly independent — even though he failed to bring proper charges after a four year investigation and he appears to be trying to move the case to a more Democrat-friendly venue — he will quickly conclude that Joe Biden, his troubled son Hunter, and their enablers, including the media, which colluded with the 51 intelligence officials who knowingly misled the public about Hunter’s laptop, should face the required consequences,” a Trump spokesperson added.

Weiss insisted last month that he had “ultimate authority” over the Hunter Biden probe, despite IRS whistleblower allegations that the IRS, DOJ, and FBI interfered with the investigation.

The two IRS whistleblowers told the House Ways and Means Committee they pushed for felony charges against Hunter Biden in the tax probe and that Weiss wanted to bring charges against the younger Biden in the District of Columbia and Southern California last year but was denied by DOJ officials both times.

Weiss also asked to be appointed special counsel in the case on several occasions, including in Spring 2022, but those requests were also rebuffed by the DOJ, according to the whistleblowers’ testimony.

The appointment comes weeks after Hunter Biden’s “sweetheart plea deal” fell through. Under the deal, Hunter would have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax charges and submit to a diversion agreement related to a felony gun charge in exchange for broad immunity from future charges related to foreign influence peddling. But Judge Maryellen Noreika challenged the terms of the deal, calling such a broad immunity deal unprecedented.

Just before Garland made his statement on Friday, prosecutors said in a court filing that the revised deal had fallen through and that they expect the case to go to trial.