US Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday appointed a special counsel in a probe of Hunter Biden, a surprise move that intensifies the investigation into the president’s son ahead of next year’s presidential election.
Garland spoke of the “extraordinary circumstances” of the matter as he named Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who had already been probing Hunter Biden’s financial dealings, as special counsel after plea deal talks in the case broke down.
The sudden turn of events raises fresh questions about the case against Hunter Biden on tax evasion and a gun charge, deepening an investigation that was close to resolution just weeks ago. Weiss had asked to be named special counsel, gaining broad authority to investigate and report out his findings.
Photo: Reuters
It comes as the US Department of Justice has taken the unprecedented step of indicting former US president Donald Trump, who is US President Joe Biden’s chief rival in next year’s election, in two separate cases. It also puts questions about Biden’s family at the forefront of the election.
Speaking at the justice department, Garland said that he expects the special counsel to work expeditiously in an “even-handed and urgent” manner.
Garland said that Weiss, who had been appointed by Trump as US attorney, told him this week that the investigation had reached a stage in which he should continue as special counsel.
“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.
The announcement of a special counsel is a significant development from the typically cautious Garland, and provides Weiss with independence, authority and budget to pursue the investigation.
It is not fully clear why the attorney general took the step in appointing a special counsel for the Hunter Biden case, but prosecutors in Delaware also on Friday announced that plea deal talks Weiss was pursuing in the tax evasion case had hit an impasse.
In a court filing on Friday, Weiss’ team said that charges would be better filed in California or Washington.
The announcement ensures that the justice department’s probes of Trump, and now of Biden’s youngest son, who has used drugs and whose personal entanglements have trailed his father’s political career, would carry into election season.
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
DEFENSE: The US would assist Taiwan in developing a new command and control system, and it would be based on the US-made Link-22, a senior official said The Ministry of National Defense is to propose a special budget to replace the military’s currently fielded command and control system, bolster defensive resilience and acquire more attack drones, a senior defense official said yesterday. The budget would be presented to the legislature in August, the source said on condition of anonymity. Taiwan’s decade-old Syun An (迅安, “Swift Security”) command and control system is a derivative of Lockheed Martin’s Link-16 developed under Washington’s auspices, they said. The Syun An system is difficult to operate, increasingly obsolete and has unresolved problems related to integrating disparate tactical data across the three branches of the military,
RSS