Special counsel David Weiss will seek an indictment of Hunter Biden by Sept. 29, keeping Biden's problems in the spotlight as President Biden pursues his re-election campaign. The younger Biden's legal team and the government have traded blame over the implosion of two previously negotiated agreements that would have resolved a long-running investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax and business dealings. Biden had expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts—and agree to other conditions to skirt prosecution on a gun charge—and avoid jail time, the Wall Street Journal reports. The deal unraveled at a court hearing in July. Talks to salvage it approached an impasse and Attorney General Merrick Garland named Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as a special counsel to continue the investigation.
Weiss told a federal judge in Delaware that the legal clock set in motion by the initial filing of the case meant that the government was obliged to obtain a grand jury indictment by Sept. 29. The government referred to both the plea deal and the separate agreement related to the gun charge as an “unexecuted draft.” Hunter Biden’s legal team argues that the gun deal—known as a diversion agreement—should stand. His lawyers said the court had received an “executed copy” of the diversion agreement, and that Biden would continue to follow the terms of the deal. On Wednesday, Republican leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees sent a letter to the younger Biden’s lawyers seeking documents and communications between them and Weiss, arguing much of that information had already been made public in news reports. “The information contained in these articles reinforces serious concerns regarding whether the Department has handled a case involving President Biden’s son in an impartial manner that is consistent with other prosecutions," the Republicans said.
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