Who is David Weiss, the special counsel overseeing Hunter Biden criminal probe?
Washington (CNN) — David Weiss, the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney who on Friday was named a special counsel leading the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, has decades of experience as a federal prosecutor.
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Weiss, the Delaware US attorney, met in April with Hunter Biden’s attorneys, who had requested a routine status update on the investigation. The long-running probe, which began as early as 2018, at one time concerned multiple financial and business activities in foreign countries dating to when Joe Biden was vice president.
In June, a plea agreement was reached in which Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and struck a deal with federal prosecutors to resolve a felony gun charge. But Weiss said in a court filing Friday that plea talks between his team and Biden broke down in recent weeks after a hearing in Delaware last month where the judge said she wasn’t ready to accept the complex plea deal that was negotiated.
In 2018, the Senate confirmed Weiss to serve as US attorney for the District of Delaware. At the time of his nomination, he was serving as the acting US attorney for the district and was one of nine candidates whom Trump said shared his “vision for ‘Making America Safe Again.’”
The Philadelphia native is a member of the Delaware and Pennsylvania bars.
A Washington University in St. Louis and Widener University School of Law graduate, Weiss began his career in law in 1984 as a clerk to Justice Andrew D. Christie of the Delaware Supreme Court, according to his Justice Department biography.
Following his clerkship, Weiss prosecuted violent crimes and white-collar offenses as an assistant US attorney before joining firm Duane Morris, where he was a commercial litigation associate and eventually became a partner. He later served as chief operating officer and senior vice president at The Siegfried Group, a financial services firm, according to his biography.
He served as the first assistant US attorney starting in 2007.
Weiss’ investigation into Hunter Biden continued into the Biden administration, prompting Attorney General Merrick Garland to stress during a March Senate committee hearing that he would not interfere with the investigation. Weiss, he reiterated at the time, had “full authority” to carry out the investigation and to bring in another jurisdiction if necessary.
Garland said Weiss was “not to be denied anything that he needs.”
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