Former President Donald Trump hit out on Tuesday at Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, and Delaware United States Attorney David C. Weiss. Writing on Truth Social, the former president slammed Weiss – who oversaw the prosecution of Hunter Biden over his failure to pay millions of dollars in owed taxes – as a “COWARD.”
What Did Donald Trump Say?
The former president also caused controversy by suggesting that Biden should have received the death sentence for his crimes.
“Weiss is a COWARD, a smaller version of Bill Barr, who never had the courage to do what everyone knows should have been done. He gave out a traffic ticket instead of a death sentence,” Trump wrote.
“Because of the two Democrat Senators in Delaware, they got to choose and/or approve him. Maybe the judge presiding will have the courage and intellect to break up this cesspool of crime. The collusion and corruption is beyond description. TWO TIERS OF JUSTICE!”
Taken literally, the comment is hard to defend. The former president has already floated the idea of implementing the death penalty for drug dealers, but Hunter Biden’s well-documented substance abuse problems – as far as we know – have not extended into the realm of dealing or trafficking.
It’s also possible that the former president was speaking metaphorically, though Trump’s office has yet to offer clarification on the statement.
Some Context
Federal prosecutor David C. Weiss, who led the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, this week rebutted testimony to Congress from Internal Revenue Service whistleblower Gary Shapley.
Shapely was one of two IRS agents who came forward to House Republicans over how the federal agency handled an internal investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax affairs, claiming that their political interference prevented agents from properly conducting their investigation. Shapley told Congress that during an October 2022 meeting, Weiss said that he had requested he be appointed special counsel on the matter, but was denied by the Biden Justice Department.
On Monday, however, Weiss said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he did not ask Justice Department officials to give him special counsel status to pursue the Hunter Biden tax evasion case. Weiss suggested that Shapley may have misunderstood what he said during the meeting.
“To clarify an apparent misperception and to avoid future confusion, I wish to make one point clear: In this case, I have not requested special counsel designation,” Weiss said in a letter to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Attorney General Merrick Garland and Justice Department officials also deny the claims. As it stands, the matter of whether or not the federal government intervened to prevent or delay an investigation into Hunter Biden has become a game of “he said, she said.”
Jack Buckby is 19FortyFive’s Breaking News Editor. He is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
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