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Fox News analyst Juan Williams downplayed allegations made against Hunter Biden and the Department of Justice (DOJ), as Republicans put focus on recent whistleblower claims.
Biden, the son of President Joe Biden and the target of considerable GOP ire, accepted a plea deal from the DOJ on Tuesday as part of the ongoing investigation into his tax history. Per the deal, Hunter will plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges stemming from his past failure to pay income taxes. A separate charge of unlawful possession of a firearm is also still in play, but could be dismissed as part of a future arrangement. The investigation into the president's son began in late 2020 and was overseen by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.
Despite Hunter agreeing to accept the charges, the deal prompted a strong backlash from Republicans, who claimed the president's son had gotten a "sweetheart deal" when he should have faced harsher punishments. In the wake of the news, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent involved with the case, Gary Shapley, reportedly began speaking with members of Congress, alleging that the DOJ worked to impede the investigation and remove evidence he claimed was more damning.
During a discussion on Saturday on the conservative network, Williams, a senior political analyst for Fox News, poured cold water on the severity of the recent allegations, and others, saying that Weiss had full authority over the case and that no evidence exists to link the president to his son's alleged misdeeds.
"What we have this week was a decision by a Trump-appointed prosecutor who had full authority over the case, by his own account, to bring two misdemeanor charges basically against Hunter Biden," Williams said. "That was it. All these other things that we're hearing about, an app message? We don't know if the president was involved and he wasn't even president or vice president at the time. This was from 2017."
Williams went on to compare the allegations against Biden to the Steele Dossier, a 2016 report that alleged collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. In making the comparison, he dismissed the Hunter allegations touted by Republicans as "a bunch of rumors and innuendo" with "no hard evidence, no proof, nothing."
Despite having worked with Fox News for over two decades, Williams is a registered Democrat and one of the few liberal voices on the otherwise heavily conservative network.
In response to the recent whistleblower claims, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland reaffirmed that he remained distant from the investigation and that Weiss had full authority in carrying it out.
Newsweek reached out to lawyers for Biden via email for comment.
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more