Special counsel David Weiss, the federal attorney overseeing the probe into Hunter Biden, is set to appear before the House Judiciary Committee in a closed-door session on November 7.
Weiss is meeting voluntarily with the panel to answer questions related to the testimony of two IRS whistleblowers who claim that the Biden Justice Department stifled the probe into the president’s son, including by refusing to allow Weiss to bring charges against Hunter in the jurisdiction and at the time of his choosing. Weiss has publicly maintained that he was never blocked from pursuing the investigation as he saw fit.
The closed-door meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News.
The Department of Justice agreed in July that Weiss would be permitted to testify on Capitol Hill. Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), the House Judiciary chairman, negotiated with the DOJ to have Weiss, alongside other federal attorneys investigating Hunter Biden, to appear in early October. However, Weiss’s appointment as special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland in August postponed his appearance.
The DOJ has maintained that Weiss will appear before the committee only “for a single appearance,” Carlos Felipe Uriarte, the Assistant Attorney General for legislative affairs, wrote in a public letter to the House Judiciary in September. “There is a likelihood that Mr. Weiss, like previous special counsels, will be asked for public testimony at the conclusion of his investigation,” Uriarte continued. “Even a single appearance before that time, while the matter is ongoing, will impact the investigation’s resources given the time necessary for an appearance before Congress.”
In mid September, Weiss indicted President Joe Biden’s son, alleging Hunter lied about his drug use on a federal background check form while purchasing a gun five years ago. The four-page indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, argued that Hunter “knowingly made a false and fictitious written statement, intended and likely to deceive” a dealer in his effort to acquire a Colt Cobra revolver in October 2018.
The indictment outlined that Hunter certified on a federal Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms form that “he was not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious.” Biden openly acknowledged his struggles with addiction in his recent memoir, writing that he was smoking crack nearly every 15 minutes around the time he purchased the gun.
The indictment represented an about-face for Weiss, who previously brokered a plea deal with Biden in late July that would have permitted the president’s son to avoid jail time if he passed periodic drug tests and stayed out of legal trouble. The agreement ultimately fell apart after District Court judge Maryellen Noreika objected to the broad immunity Hunter would receive from any future charges, including potential charges related to the foreign influence-peddling schemes House Republicans are currently investigating.
Noreika pressed Weiss at the time whether such a deal had “any precedent for agreeing not to prosecute crimes that have nothing to do with the case or the charges being diverted.” “I am not aware of any,” Weiss replied.
In early October, the president’s son pleaded not guilty to three firearms charges during his appearance in a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware. If found guilty, Biden could face a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison alongside nearly $1 million in fines.