U.S. attorney David Weiss, who offered Hunter Biden a sweetheart plea deal and is now serving as a special counsel in the Biden investigation, worked for years with Biden's late brother Beau, the Washington Post reported on Sunday. That's just another of several connections between Weiss and the Biden family, which led a spokesman for House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) to say that Weiss "can't be trusted."
Beau Biden, President Joe Biden's older son, was serving as Delaware's attorney general when Weiss in 2009 became the state's acting U.S. attorney. Weiss served in the position for two years, during which he and Beau Biden "often worked" together, including on a 2010 case highlighted in the Post's report.
At the time, "it also wouldn't have been strange for Weiss to run into Joe Biden," the Post reported. Then-vice president Biden and Weiss appeared together at a 2010 ceremony for a Delaware judge.
The Post report came one day after the New York Times reported that Weiss earlier this year appeared ready to drop the Justice Department's probe into Hunter Biden without any charges. Weiss's plan changed, according to the Times, after IRS whistleblowers alleged that the Justice Department was sabotaging its own investigation and shielding the Bidens from scrutiny.
Weiss ultimately offered Hunter Biden a plea deal for gun and tax charges that likely would have allowed the first son to avoid jail time. The deal unexpectedly collapsed last month, however, and Judge Maryellen Noreika refused to accept a revised version that would have offered Biden broad immunity. Weiss said this month that the case will likely go to trial.
In addition to the working relationship with Beau Biden, who died in 2015, Weiss worked with a Biden family friend who did business with Hunter Biden, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Derek Hines, who serves as Weiss's special assistant in the Biden probe, was special counsel to Louis Freeh, a former FBI director who worked with Hunter Biden, donated money to a college trust for Joe Biden's grandchildren, and joined the board of the Beau Biden Foundation.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, who initially scoffed at the idea of a special counsel for the Hunter Biden probe, on Aug. 11 named Weiss special counsel in the probe.
Update 4:11 p.m.: This piece has been updated to reflect a Washington Post correction on the 2010 case that David Weiss and Beau Biden worked on. That case involved a lawsuit that ended in a settlement, not a conviction.