We have breaking news right now.
Hunter Biden has been assigned a special counsel by the Department of Justice.
That is a bombshell.
The Department of Justice has assigned a special counsel to the Hunter Biden probe. That special council is going to be David Weiss. So that was Merrick Garland you just heard giving the announcement there, but not sticking around for any Q and A. It's interesting, simone, they now have a special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump and have brought in a new special counsel, David Weiss, who's going
to be investigating the current president's son, Hunter Biden. But of course essentially the GOP wants to through Hunter get to President Biden with this.
Clearly, it's interesting here as well that David Weiss, he is the guy that had been handling the probe as a US attorney in Delaware. Garland saying he was the one who requested this appointment. You know, that investigation, that probe had been dragging on for many, many years. So it's interesting to see what we believed. I think that it was wrapping up to a degree, and then there was that failure to enter that plea agreement in court recently.
A shocking failure there as well. And the question is was the investigation dragging on or were they dragging the investigation as a one I guess whistleblower had testified. Let's get to Ryan Tague Beck with right now on the phone, political reporter at Bloomberg News. Ryan, this is definitely a shocking headline to see come across. How expected was this in Washington?
Now?
This is totally unexpected. I mean, I think, you know, obviously there had been sort of persistent questions about unter Biden that Republicans have been trying to sort of forefront. But I think that their hope among Democrats had been that Hunter Biden could kind of sort out his legal problems and put that to an end. When that plea bargain fell apart, that really kind of put things up in the air. And I was a little bit uncertain
why it had fallen apart. But this just sort of creates a whole new world of hassle for Hunter Biden and concerned for Democrats that you don't know where a special Council investigation can lead.
What's changed here? I mean, I thought these these investigators have been looking into Hunter Biden for years. Is this simply a political move or is this maybe maybe to maintain this image of separation between the administration or is this ye? Do we think that they found something new that they just haven't investigated?
I mean, I still don't think that there has been a nun ugh material there from all of the investigations that have happened to really prove that something untoward or extremely bad happened.
Right, But there's prove is going a long way?
Is yes?
I mean, all we need is the appearance of impropriety.
Yes, there's enough to raise the question, and the question has been raised repeatedly, and there've been investigations. I think what the special council is a move that you make when there's just been too much question about how you are investigating it for you to credibly continue to say, no, we did this all above board, and it's sort of a way of insulating yourself from that an investigation. Then
you hand it over to a special council. That person goes and takes it and runs with it wherever they're
going to go. And you may not like where they go, but at least it's no longer your decision, and so I'm I'm a little surprised that they took this move, especially now, But I think that with the whistleblowers and with just sort of the clear sense that this was going to continue to be a political goal, saying no matter where the cases went, that this was sort of the best approach to show the public that like, Okay, this is we're not you know, sacking the deck here,
this is being fairly investigated.
So what do we know that they'll be investigating. I mean, he had planned as far as I know, on pleading guilty to a tax evasion charge. I don't know if that phrase is too heavy, but not paying taxes for a while and or not paying enough, and to claiming to be sober when he bought a gun in twenty eighteen when he in fact wasn't sober.
Is that the only thing? Or is there more?
Well? I mean keep in mind that, like you know, Bill Clinton was impeached over an affair like as the end result of a special counsel that was looking into a real estate deal. So you know, the special counsel can go wherever they think the evidence leads them. And as we s you know, as we said, like there's a lot of stuff out there that we've heard about. That case, you know, kind of shady like, doesn't look great, maybe doesn't rise to the level of criminality, but who
knows where they will go, you know. So the last thing you want ever is a special council on your trail, because they can turn over any stone they want and there's really not any There's not any way to rein them in. That's the whole point. So so this investigation could go anywhere, or it could be that they go, they look through all the stuff they had, they spend a little bit more time investigating, and they could wrap
it all up. And that has happened before. There was a Cabinet secretary who was had a special council and that at the very end of it, they basically said, yeah, there was nothing here. There was never anything here. We just you know, we turned it all over, we looked at all of it and there was nothing. So that can also happen.
Ryan, I want you to stick with us. Ryan Teague beck with there from Bloomberg News in Washington. I want to bring in June Grosso. He's a legal analyst from Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio here with us in the Interactive Broker Studio June. This is no doubt a surprising twist of events and just I think a couple of weeks ago.
We expected this all to wrap up with a plea agreement.
What happened to that, Well, Hunter Biden walked into a Delaware courtroom expecting to walk out with a plea agreement and the judge questioned the deal. It was very strange, first of all, because the prosecutors in defense appeared and they didn't have the details of the deal nailed down, and they there was confusion about whether he was getting full immunity from any charges or not. And the judge noticed that and said, go back and come back when you have a deal hammered out, and when you know
what the immunity is that he's getting. Because Hunter Biden said, well, if I'm not getting immunity, she asked him, would you agree to this deal if you're not getting immunity for other offenses? And he said no. It was a very odd proceeding from the start.
And that's why you take a plea agreement for well, not the only reason, but typically a lot of defendants take a plea agreement because they want it to be over and done with and they want to wipe their hands and walk away. How does this work logistically from an invest you're moving the investigation from Delaware to a special counsel. Are there any ways that the investigation would change?
You know, I'm not sure. This is so surprising because you know, it's been said time and again that this didn't need to be a special counsel, that he had all the powers that he needed. So in this case, he'll have and you know, he'll have much more resources, he can get more people on board, and it'll be totally separate from the Delaware office, which I think it
was anyway. But so Andy, he'll have jurisdiction, wider jurisdiction, and so he can go And as Ryan was saying, you know, think about the proceeding that's been going on forever that started under Donald Trump, the special Council there, the Durham, which has been going on for years and has resulted in losses at trial and just one plea agreement. So the problem with a special council is they have rope and a lot of them take it and run with it, and it goes on and on and on.
When it should have been wrapped up. But this way he'll do a report at the end. He you know, allegedly he doesn't have to answer to the Attorney general, but from all that was said, he wasn't answering anyway. So I think this is just being done for political purposes, really to have the appearance of independence. And you know that so that the Republicans in Congress, well, i'd say, can't but are less likely to attack some of the
decisions that are made here. But as far as you know what's gone on, it's just been a little bit strange, i'd say, And this makes it even more.
And I mean, you know, where there's smoke, there's fire in many cases. And even if there's no fire here yet we can agree that there's a lot of smoke, right, I mean.
There is a lot of smoke.
Is clearly has clearly.
Attempted to leverage his the powerful position his father is in has for years to make money and for that's money and I know that's not illegal, and many president's family members have done it in the past, right, But no, I don't want to make this what about other people? The question is, did have the Republicans moved the ball any further and attempting to prove that there was actually some kickbacks for the Big Gun.
No they haven't, that's what they want to prove, but they have it. And the problem is all the smoke around Hunter Biden. So this deal that they gave him, based on those charges from the attorneys that I've spoken to, who are you know, expert in this area, that deal wasn't necessarily a sweetheart deal. It wasn't. In fact, some people who were in that position might not have even been prosecuted, so they would have made it, you know, a plea agreement and just not gone to jail like that.
The tax charges where he paid the tax ahead of time, and the gun charges, a lot of people don't even get prosecuted on those. So it wasn't a sweetheart deal. But all the smoke around it, and all the Republican inquiries and also the whistleblowers who testified that you know, there was something wrong with the investigation, that all has created a lot of smoke, and now it has to be you know, has to be solved. And you know, most of the smoke is about his leveraging his father's name.
But there hasn't been any proof that Biden was part of that. And also, you know, talk about Washington, how much.
It seemed to come into conference calls and meetings quite a lot.
I don't talk about, though, how much leveraging like nepotism in this country. The country runs by nepotism. I mean it's like, how many people do you know whose fathers were you know, CEOs of organizations that they're in actors, actresses. I mean, it's ever news business, it's everywhere and then and then.
I mean, you know you think Trump administration, there were there were daughters and son in laws who are very close to the business. I don't want to go I don't want to go nowhere.
I don't want to go to the what about?
But I wonder how many special councils we truly need?
Right again, this administration was supposed to not be doing things the Trump administration was doing.
That was kind of the idea, Well.
That Trump How many special councils did the Trump administration have?
So we're going to come back to question. This is I think all of a sudden made your day a lot busier. I want to get back to the breaking news that we have Hunter Biden, the hunter Biden probe over the DOJ has been assigned a special council. So we saw briefly Merrick Garland come out and make a statement appointing this special council to oversee the government's ongoing criminal investigation into President Biden's son over his taxes, as
well as a number of other issues. Certainly the Republicans hope there will be another number of other issues there. We have Nick Ackerman on the phone right now. He's a former assistant special Watergate prosecutor, and Nick, you know, typically we would talk to you about all things Trump. Increasingly these conversations are about the Biden family, certainly about Hunter Biden. We thought it was all going to be over a couple of weeks ago with the plea agreement, and now it's come to this.
Are you surprised?
Not completely. I was surprised that the plea didn't go down on the day it was supposed to, but since then this is not at all surprising. I think it was pretty clear at that point that debtly would not have taken care of all the other matters that might be under investigation, and I think that Merrick Garland did the right thing. Appointed Weiss had made it official that he's really a special prosecutor in this thing and that he has complete independence as he had before. And I
think it just solidifies that. Don't forget he was appointed initially as the US attorney in Delaware, Yeah, by Donald Trump. So I think this just you know, provides more a distance between the Department of Justice and the prosecutor.
But does it give him any extra tools. I just you know, it seems like an investigation had had been happening for a long time. All the members of the Biden administration had had said, you know, Mary Gurland's given him a bunch of tools whatever he wants. But now you know the escalation here. June Grassa was just with us, she's a legal analyst at Bloomberg Law, and was saying, you know, this looks like political move plain and simple.
Well, I think it's it's part of what Merrick Garland has done all around. I mean, he has tried on these types of cases that affects the administration and particularly Joe Biden, to put make sure that the person who's doing the investigation, whether it's Jack Smith or whether it's wise,
that they are completely independent. I mean, I think what Garland is trying to do is basically used the model of Archibald Cox, who has made the first Watergate Special prosecutor, where he really had total independence, wasn't answerable to the Department of Justice. And I think that's what Mark Garland is trying to set up, so that there is complete
buffer between the Department of Justice and Joe Biden. I mean, I think that's really the whole purpose of this is to have somebody in there who is truly independent, and I think this was a way to make it more formalized,
particularly if there are other areas to be investigated. Now, having said that a question, you know, what is left to investigate, mainly because you've got a statute of limitations that goes for five years and most of these matters, and if you take the two tack crimes, they were at a period of time. Now that's getting beyond a normal statute of limitations for anything, probably other than tax crimes.
So I just, you know, I think it's in some sense it is political to the extent that it's set up so that there is no question of politics not being involved. I mean, I think, you know, to the extent you're saying it's political. I'm having complete independence from the Department of Justice and from Merrick Garland just adds to the fact that the person has the independent ability
to do what he's doing. And even though under this crazy special prosecutor regulation it's supposedly the special prosecutor ultimately answers to the Attorney General. I think that Merrick Garland has been and made it clear that he's been totally hands off on all of these matters, whether it's Jack Smith or now it's going to be wise.
I mean, frankly, nidn't they have been a lot better off if they've done this from the get go because the concerns are on the Republican side, not just the tax crimes or the gun issue, but the the sort of foot dragging, you know, the idea that if the president's son is a tax evader, he can get away with it, or he'll be given a lighter sentence, Like wouldn't President Biden or the administration of Ben smarter to get this out of the way at the at the beginning?
Oh, I totally agree with you, But I think from Merrick Doland's standpoint, appointing somebody who to investigate this, who was a Trump appointee as US attorney in Delaware had the same effect, but in some ways it didn't, And I think what he's trying to do is emphasize that now. It also sends a signal that there are other matters to be investigated. He wouldn't be doing this unless there was something more to invent the gate beyond the tax crimes.
So I think this probably also signals the fact that there's not going to be a plea anytime soon. That I think that there are other matters that they're looking at, and I don't think they're in a position yet to say they're going to put this all behind Hunter Biden. Yeah.
I mean, so there was this closed door testimony of Hunter Biden's X business partner, Devin Archer, and I think the takeaway from some of the press was that this didn't really back up the Republicans accusing President Biden, you know, of crime and corruption. But there were some bits and pieces in there. Was there anything there for you that you thought, you know, this might be potentially the subject of the a probe that could be continued under David Wise, Yeah.
Not really. I mean, it sounded like Hunter Biden had his dad call in a couple of times, five times over a long period of time, basically trading off his name but trading off his connection. You know, a lot of other presidents in the past have had the same problem, and Richard Nixon did, Jimmy Carter did. Even Hillary Clinton
had this problem with her brother that relatives. You know, if you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your relatives, basically, and it's always been something that's be deviled presidents and people in high public office. So I don't think it really reflected that there was any there there. But look, the public has to be assured that everything is being done by the book, that everything that's out there is being investigated, and at the end of the day,
I think this will give that assurance. You know, one he's a special made the special counsel on this, and two he was a former try up a point. I'm a Republican who was the Delaware US attorney who's been kept on and he's the one investigating it. So I really don't see how you can have anybody with any better credentials to do this than Weiss. And I think this provides exactly what needs to be done.
Did we find out who the big guy was, Nick, I mean if in the emails that the Post got out of the laptop, in the quote on the CFC China Energy venture when they said ten held by h for the big guy, did we ever figure out who that was?
Well, so far they haven't found any there there, But it doesn't mean that they shouldn't investigate it and assure the public that they've looked at everything before they close out the case. I think that is what they've got to do, all right, and that's what Weiss's job is.
Yep.
Nick, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate you jumping in on this breaking news. Nick Ackerman, former special Watergate Watergate prosecutor, talking to us about the breaking news that the Department of Justice will appoint a special prosecutor in the Hunter Biden probe and that prosecutor is David Weiss. For Simone Foxman, I'm Matt Miller. This is Bloomberg