Investigation goes from here. Hi, david. Hi, gillian and sandra. Safe bet this investigation is now prolonged for at least the next several months now that david weiss is Special Counsel. All that talk about whether or not david weiss requested Special Counsel Status from Attorney General garland, talk about the plea deal in delaware, throw all of that out the window now that he is Special Counsel. And saying david weiss asked for the status, the trumpappointed u. S. Attorney investigating the president s son for several years will continue. Attorney general Merrick Garland decided to give him special County Status after Plea Deal Negotiations fell through. In a new Court Filing Shows during the july 26, 2023, hearing, the defendant pled not guilty. Since that time they have engaged in further negotiations but are at impasse. The government believes it will not resolve short of a trial. I am committed to making as much of his report public as possible, consistent with legal requirements and department policy. Todays announcement affords the prosecutors, agents and analysts, working on this matter, the ability to proceed with their work expeditiously and to make decisions guided only by the facts and the law. Ok, this means weiss will have an expanded staff. Expect this to hurt the congressional investigation into hunter biden. Originally Doj Made Weiss available for testimony. House republicans never picked a firm date. That appears to be delayed. I have a new statement, though, that im just getting from a spokesperson for House Judiciary chairman jim jordan who expects doj to honor the pledge, we expect to fully cooperate with the investigation including not interfering with the 11 transcribed interviews we had requested and david weiss upholding his commitment to testify. And we have not heard anything from the department indicating it is no longer willing to do so. Sandra and gillian, this presents an interesting as you could call it issue, david weiss was prepared to enter into a plea deal, republicans called it a Sweetheart Deal, and now it will likely take him to trial and behind bars potentially. Gillian, sandra. Gillian thank you, david. Sandra. Sandra thank you, gillian. Empower oversight. Org, the Group RepresentingWhistleblower Gary Shapley joins us now. I want to get this in here, the first tweet i have seen from the potus account, yep, okay. So, they are still just referencing Kamala Harris. Three years since they announced Kamala Harris as his running mate. Awaiting white house reaction. First jump into the breaking news on david weiss named the Special Counsel under the Hunter Biden Probe and the timing we are zeroing in on. What can you add to this . Well, according to the Attorney General, the u. S. Attorney in delaware, mr. Weiss, asked for special Counsel Authority just this tuesday. And was granted it. Which is odd, because both mr. Weiss and mr. Garland have been saying for a long time he didnt need special Counsel Authority. So its kinds of an odd choice to pick this person who was leading the office during a time when the irs whistleblowers brought forward all kinds of concerns about the way that the probe was handled and the lack of independence and the special preferential treatment given to the president s son to choose that very same person to go ahead and elevate them to Special Counsel Status when he has been claiming to congress he didnt need it is an odd choice and i dont know what is driving the timing other than perhaps they were not able to come to any kind of renegotiated plea deal with the subject. Sandra because obviously thats a big part of what we are learning now. Garrett ventry says they waited over two years to appoint a Special Counsel, conveniently after the Statute Of Limitations passed on some of hunters crimes. Career irs whistleblowers have alleged bidens doj have stifled and slowed down investigations into hunter biden, complete b. S. Your reaction to that. Well, it would have made a lot more sense if they had chose somebody from outside government who would have, you know, the full confidence of the public across the political spectrum that they were going to take a true independent look at this and not allow any Political Considerations or input from Political Appointees. Mr. Weiss, one of the key allegations is mr. Weiss allowed Political Appointees in california and d. C. To weigh in on whether or not charges would be brought at the same time the Attorney General was telling the public and telling congress there would be no political role, there would be no role for Political Appointees and everyone could trust mr. Weiss. So given that history its an odd choice to go forward and do this in a way thats going to have any Public Confidence. Sandra very interesting, Public Confidence is really important. This was a different moment, and the past hour as the news was breaking. Chuck grassley was speaking live at the Iowa State Fair reacting to the news as it was happening. Listen. We sent a letter, i was one of those that sent a letter saying we should have a Special Counsel so the short answer to your question is its about time. On the other hand, i have some question about weiss doing it. They never did anything with the 1023 do you want that i got released. So you just wonder how thorough weiss is doing it. Since this administration has exemplified political bias there is reason to raise questions. You cant do one thing for a democrat and another for a republican because the constitution requires equal justice. Sandra jason, that seemed to speak to the point you just made. Also your reaction to this, peter doocy, and he was snapped at by the president for asking what President Biden called a Lousy Question for hunter biden and his former Business Partner, devon archer. Listen. Theres this testimony now where one of your sons former Business Associates is claiming that you were on Speaker Phone a lot with them talking business. I never talked business with them. I know you would have a Lousy Question. Why is that a Lousy Question . Because its not true. Perfectly fine question and the president answered with that. What did you think when you heard that . I imagine just thinking about the testimony of our client, gary shapley, and all the situations during the investigation in which they were not allowed to probe into anything that would go to that might go to the president , or joe biden. You know, they were they had roadblocks left and right and so, you know, if we if we wanted to find out what the truth was, you know, we would not we would not put roadblocks in the way of career criminal investigators trying to do their job. Sandra when you look at the timing of all of this, and full speed into the president ial election, the first debate is coming up, theres a lot of talk over the implications of political implications for the president and his reelection bid. All of this is coming together pretty quickly here and the doj was asked whether this involves the president , whether hes under investigation, they declined to comment, jason. Well, i mean, this is where you need an independent counsel who has some actual confidence from the public they can do the job independently, and i dont think given mr. Weisss role in leading the investigation during the time that you know you had whistleblowers come out and say that it was five years worth of preferential treatment for the president s son, thats not the person that i would have chosen, obviously. Because if your goal is to reassure people its being handled independently and fairly and without Political Considerations, thats not the person you would choose. Ive heard some people saying this is somehow elevating him to Special Counsel now, even though they previously said he didnt need to be is a way to insulate them from congressional inquiry and i would just, you know, note for people that there is no there is no immunity for Special Counsel from congressional subpoenas. And so folks on capitol hill shouldnt be taking that, and maybe something to say in the p. R. Battle but in terms of, you know, legally preventing him from being able to testify before congress, his Special Counsel Status does not do that. Its not a force field against congressional oversight. If i were on capitol hill, i would say august 11th, everything after that fine. We wont look at whats ongoing Going Forward but all the controversies before that, when he and the Attorney General were not on the same page about what authorities he had and the evidence from the whistleblowers and the do you want they have contradicts what authority he had, all of that should be fair game for congressional oversight. Speaking of reaction and building up to 2024, here is nikki haley, she joined us last hour and said this. Listen. I dont hear anything about, you know, the Hunter Biden Cases or the trump cases. I do hear a lot about the distrust in federal government, the distrust in our intelligence agencies, distrust in the department of justice and the fact that the federal governments just way too big. Sandra she went on to say the American People say it and says something, knows something smells bad about everything that we are seeing and hearing and obviously, jason, you have a very unique perspective through your clients, the whistleblowers themselves. What do you say to the American People who are feeling and thinking that right now . I think you are perfectly justified to think and feel that. I mean, based on what we know from the public record, you have a fiveyear Meandering Investigation that almost ended in what most people criticized as a sweetheart plea deal, which the judge said, you know, ultimately had this Immunity Provision in something she didnt have control over so was not willing to sign off on it and the whole thing fell apart. So, the basic facts just dont give you a lot of room to, you know, to trust that everything is handle above board and by the book. Sandra and some other reaction we got in the last few minutes here, senator Lindsey Graham on democrats making a mess of this Hunter Biden Case, he says this. This was a political decision, not a legal decision. Theyre trying to put out a fire and they just poured gasoline on it. Nobody in their right mind believes that making him a Special Counsel, mr. Weiss, cleans up the mess thats been created. Sandra your final reaction to that, jason. Well, i mean, absolutely. I agree. I mean, thats why you needed to have once the whistleblowers testimony came forward and was released to the public, at that point i dont see any way that mr. Weiss could continue to oversee this investigation in a way that would give anybody confidence in the outcome. So you know, but thats what we have. I think its up to congress now to make sure that theres as much transparency and light of day on the process as possible Going Forward. Sandra surely they want to know what the whistleblowers had to say, the Special Counsel and this investigation, right . Absolutely. They have their testimony, and theyre willing, they stand ready and willing to provide more testimony and more documents if needed. Sandra to be clear, no communication thus far, right . Im sorry, with whom . Sandra with the Special Counsel. No, no, gary and the case agent are both off the case. They were taken off the case last may and they have not had insight into whats going on currently and i would be surprised if they were to be brought back at this point. Sandra got it. Great to have you on. Thanks so much. Gillian. Gillian thank you, sandra. The white house is far not commenting after of the Justice Department has named Special Counsel in the investigation into hunter biden. So far referring all questions to the doj today. Peter doocy has an inside look at the White House Team from the north lawn. Hi, peter. Officials that ive spoken to said we are going to need to get any information about this from either the Justice Department or from Hunter Bidens representatives. But i do want to flag something thats a couple years old. I asked President Biden, he was then the President Elect about this generally right around the time his Transition Team announced with the statement that the irs and the u. S. Attorney were looking into allegations of tax issues, tax affairs with hunter biden. And i asked President Biden, from December 16th of 2020 in wilmington, are you confident your son hunter did nothing wrong. And he said i am confident. Worth revisiting because now a Special Counsel not so sure. We played part of it a little while ago but going on almost four years has told me several times he never talked business with his son or with anybody. And Something Else that he has been saying since he was a candidate on the debate stage and then as President Elect and then president , i promise my Justice Department will be totally on its own making judgments about how they should be proceeding. So he is hands off with this, and i did ask in the Briefing Room a little while ago as there were initial talks on capitol hill about a Special Counsel for hunter biden. What the president s Point Of View was on that, and we have the clip. A lot of stories about hunter biden surfacing this week. To ensure the independence of the investigation, would the president support the appointment of a Special Counsel . The president has never had a conversation with the department of justice about any investigations into any member of his family. He said that during the campaign and he will continue to abide by that. So i point to the department of justice for additional steps they would take. They would make those decisions independently. That holds a year and a half later. We know the president has a lot on his plate today, got back from a west coast trip tonight, fires in hawaii, a deal with iran for hostages, new money for weapons going to ukraine. We dont know how much of his day is being consumed with this right now. We dont expect to see him until he walks out of the house towards marine one for a weekend at the beach. And thats going to be about three hours from now, gillian. Gillian certainly not what the white house coms team was hoping to be focusing on today. Thank you, peter. Sandra thank you. A lot more ahead on the breaking news. Shannon bream has been reporting on the Justice System for years, shes here with her reaction, including the impact on the race for 2024 and political strategist gary ventry has some insight on the timing of this appointment. You wont want to miss it. Veter, Credit Card Debt piling up . Great news. 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