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House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is calling on the U.S. attorney who signed off on Hunter Biden's plea deal to appear before House lawmakers to explain his investigation into President Joe Biden's son.
Hunter Biden is set to reach a guilty plea deal on Wednesday after the Department of Justice charged him with failure to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon. The deal would allow the president's son to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses and means he will likely avoid jail time.
Comer, the GOP Kentucky congressman who called the plea deal a "slap on the wrist" and an example of two-tiered integrity within the Department of Justice (DOJ), spoke with CBS News' Catherine Herridge on Tuesday. He plans to call on the U.S. attorney who signed off on Hunter Biden's plea deal to testify before either the House Oversight Committee or the House Judiciary Committee to provide a "transparent" explanation of his investigation.
"He needs to explain whether or not his investigation is concluded or, as he put in that statement when he says the investigation is ongoing, he needs to be transparent with congressional investigators as to what exactly he's investigating moving forward," Comer told CBS News when asked if he will call on the attorney to testify.
The attorney in question, U.S. Attorney David Weiss, is based out of the District of Delaware's office and was appointed by former President Donald Trump to investigate Hunter Biden in 2017. Weiss launched a probe into Hunter Biden's alleged tax offenses the following year, and President Biden has refrained from removing Weiss from the investigation assignment since taking office.
Weiss' office declined comment when contacted via email by Newsweek.
Some House Republicans are angry that Hunter Biden's plea deal is far less severe than the federal charges recently brought against Trump, who pleaded not guilty to 37 counts related to the DOJ's investigation of the former president's handling of classified documents since leaving the White House. Federal prosecutors charge that Trump improperly stored the documents throughout his home in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructed efforts to return the sensitive material to the federal government.
Comer has also been leading the charge into the House GOP's investigation of the Biden family's international business dealings. Republicans have accused the president of entering a bribery scheme with a foreign national while he was serving as vice president under the administration of former President Barack Obama, and Hunter Biden has been at the center of GOP scrutiny for months over his involvement on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
The House Oversight chairman told CBS News on Tuesday that the investigations into Hunter Biden would suggest that the president's son has committed much more severe crimes than what his plea deal entails, including money laundering and racketeering.
"We're very disappointed in the Department of Justice," Comer told the outlet. "We think this is another example of a two-tiered system of justice in America."
About the writer
Kaitlin Lewis is a Newsweek reporter on the Night Team based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her focus is reporting on national ... Read more