(Headline USA) The Washington Post’s editorial board admitted this week that the plea deal offered to Hunter Biden by the Justice Department was “fishy” and that President Joe Biden’s hands aren’t “spotless” when it comes to his embattled son’s business dealings.
In an editorial arguing Attorney General Merrick Garland was right to appoint investigator David Weiss as special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation, the Post acknowledged that “critics might have been justified to suspect” that the Hunter Biden “was being given special treatment” by the president’s DOJ.
The editorial also cited the testimony from two IRS whistleblowers who said they were not able to pursue their investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings for political reasons.
That’s why a special counsel appointment is “justified,” the Post argued.
However, the publication tiptoed around acknowledging Joe Biden’s role in the scandal, even raising concerns that a special counsel investigation into Hunter Biden could turn into an investigation of his father.
“Special counsels should not be appointed lightly. They have tended to overspend and overreach. One temptation in the Hunter Biden case might be to investigate the president himself, as many of his critics wish,” the editorial board wrote. “So far, the record suggests President Biden’s behavior was not spotless—but also not criminal.”
Despite the Post’s assertion and that of other media outlets, Joe Biden’s apparent acceptance of a $5 million bribe while vice president in return for pressuring Ukraine to end a corruption investigation into the Burisma energy company is one of several acts of clear-cut criminality for which the House Oversight Committee has thus far uncovered hard evidence.
Others note that the threshold for impeaching the president need not be limited to acts of criminality—and, indeed, that Democrats lowered the threshold in their spurious efforts to impeach former President Donald Trump.
Critics also note that the appointment of Weiss, who brokered the original sweetheart plea deal with Hunter, is likely intended to hinder and obstruct the House Oversight investigation, not to augment it.
The Post seemed inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware, who had earlier complained that he lacked the authority to file charges outside of his jurisdiction without Garland’s approval.
The only thing Weiss should focus on is treating “Hunter Biden, as far as possible, like any other defendant,” the Post said. “Mr. Weiss has all the independence and resources he needs.”
Just a few years ago, the Washington Post was one of several mainstream publications to toss water on revelations from Hunter Biden’s laptop, uncritically publishing claims that the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”
In one article about the laptop, the Post cited “intelligence experts” who claimed it had been part of a “carefully planned information operation designed to affect an American election.”
Headline USA’s Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
