Hunter Bidenâs lawyer on Sunday said a trial is ânot inevitable,â days after the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney investigating the presidentâs son was granted special counsel status to resolve tax and gun charges.
âWe were trying to avoid one all along and so were the prosecutors who came forward to us and weâre the ones to say: âCan there be a resolution short of a prosecution?â So they wanted it and maybe they still do want it,â Abbe Lowell, Bidenâs attorney, told CBSâ âFace the Nation.â
By naming David Weiss as a special counsel, Attorney General Merrick Garland gave him more powers than a typical U.S. attorney and further independence from the Justice Department as he embarks on an unprecedented trial against the son of the sitting president, and as
The probe had appeared to reach its conclusion when a plea deal was announced in June. In a two-pronged agreement, Hunter Biden planned to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and prosecutors would drop a separate felony gun charge in two years if he stayed out of legal trouble and passed drug tests.
But the deal dramatically fell apart in court last month under scrutiny from the federal judge overseeing the case.
Lowell on Sunday defended Hunter Bidenâs defence attorneys, placing the blame on federal prosecutors for the deal falling through. âWhat group of experienced defence lawyers would allow their client to plead guilty to a misdemeanor on a Monday, keeping in mind that they knew that there could be a felony charge on a Wednesday? That wouldnât happen,â he said.
Lowell defended President Joe Biden as ânothing other than a loving father,â and said the evidence to indict the president in his sonâs potential crimes âdoesnât exist.â
But House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and top Republicans on Capitol Hill were swift to criticize Garlandâs decision to grant Weiss special counsel status and vowed to continue
New York Rep. Dan Goldman, a member of the Democratic Oversight Committee, told CNNâs Jake Tapper on âState of the Unionâ Sunday that âif Hunter Biden has committed crimes, he should be charged with them. Iâm a Democrat saying that.â
âYou donât hear any currently elected Republican saying that, if Donald Trump committed crimes, he should be charged with them and held accountable. And thatâs a critical distinction that the public needs to understand,â he added.
âAnd this is just another reflection of the true independence of this Department of Justice. A Trump-appointed U.S. attorney is investigating the presidentâs son. That is pretty remarkable. And you donât hear from the other side a respect for the fact that Joe Biden has stayed out of this investigation,â Goldman said.
Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman, told Tapper in a separate interview on âState of the Unionâ that âthe immediate family of a president should not be allowed to be lobbyists or consultants when their father or their husband is the president of the United States.â