Republicans Are Apoplectic Over the Hunter Biden Special Counsel (Who They Demanded Get the Job)

One of the biggest things that has united the Republican Party over the last several years is its insistence that Hunter Biden is a criminal mastermind, the likes of which this country has never seen. At the same time, they say, Joe Biden has weaponized the Justice Department such that his son will never actually be held accountable for any of his many alleged crimes, including ones that supposedly involve the president (which they’ll have evidence proving any day now). One thing throwing a bit of a wrench in this theory? The fact that Biden’s Justice Department is apparently attempting to blow up the plea deal his son struck in June.

In a court documents filed on Sunday night, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Christopher Clark, told a federal judge that the Justice Department is trying to “renege on the previously agreed-upon plea agreement.” (The DOJ, as a reminder, is part of the executive branch of the federal government, which is currently run by one Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.) Specifically, Clark said, prosecutors are trying to pull out of the part of the deal that stipulates that Hunter Biden will avoid prosecution by enrolling in a diversion program for gun offenders, never owning a firearm again, and remaining drug free for two years. (The other part of the deal required him to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges stemming from paying his taxes late in 2017 and 2018.)

The Sunday filing by Clark came in response to a Friday filing by government attorneys who claimed, per The New York Times, that “they and Mr. Biden were at an impasse over plea negotiations and that no agreement had been reached.” In its three-page response, Biden’s team said that wasn’t true, that Biden had signed the agreement last month, and that newly appointed special counsel David Weiss was trying to back out of a deal both parties had officially agreed to. As Clark noted, not only did Hunter Biden sign the deal in court last month, but prosecutors had as well, making it “binding” and still “in effect.”

Federal judge Maryellen Noreika, who was nominated by Donald Trump in 2017, gave Weiss until Tuesday at noon to respond. At a hearing last month, Noreika refused to sign off on the plea deal Biden and prosecutors had reached, demanding more information from both sides and saying, “I’m not in a position to accept or reject it. I need to defer.”

Now, it appears as though Hunter Biden will be headed for a criminal trial that would likely take place before the 2024 election. (Trump, who claimed last month that the first son should’ve gotten the death penalty, is already scheduled for two criminal trials prior to the election; a third could take place in January, and a potential fourth is in the offing.) And if you thought the idea of the president’s son in a courtroom in the midst of the general election would’ve been enough to keep Republicans happy for, like, at least a week, you thought wrong!

Presently, they’re extremely upset about last week’s appointment of Weiss—who has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018—to special counsel, despite the fact that they demanded Weiss be given that exact job. Speaking to Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Ted Cruz—who literally wrote a letter to Merrick Garland asking for Weiss to be given “special counsel protections and authorities to conduct the Hunter Biden investigation”—called Weiss a “wildly inappropriate” choice, boldly alleging he “either was an active participant in covering up this criminality and protecting Joe Biden in engaging in an obstruction of justice—that is option one—or option two, he wasn’t the driver, he was just complicit.” (Again, Cruz is on the record asking for Weiss to be given the very job he was handed last week.) Naturally, Cruz is not the only member of the GOP raging about Weiss.