Fox News analyst Juan Williams played down the allegations against Hunter Biden and the Department of Justice (DOJ) as Republicans focused on recent whistleblower complaints.
Biden, the son of President Joe Biden and the subject of considerable Republican ire, accepted a plea deal from the Justice Department on Tuesday as part of the ongoing investigation into his tax record. Under the agreement, Hunter will plead guilty to two misdemeanors stemming from his past failure to pay income taxes. A separate charge of illegal possession of a firearm is also at stake, but could be dropped as part of a future settlement. The investigation into the president’s son began in late 2020 and was overseen by United States Attorney David Weiss, appointed by former President Donald Trump.
Despite Hunter agreeing to accept the charges, the deal drew a strong backlash from Republicans, who claimed the president’s son had received “sexy treatment” when he should have faced harsher punishments. In the wake of the news, an IRS agent involved in the case, Gary Shapley, reportedly began speaking with members of Congress, alleging that the DOJ worked to impede the investigation and suppress evidence that he claimed it was more damning.
During a discussion Saturday on the conservative network, Williams, a senior political analyst for Fox News, poured cold water on the seriousness of the recent allegations and others, saying Weiss had full authority over the case and that no evidence exists to link the case. president to the alleged misdeeds of his son.
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“What we have this week was the decision by a Trump-appointed prosecutor who had full authority over the case, by his own account, to file two misdemeanor charges basically against Hunter Biden,” Williams said. “That was it. All this other stuff we’re hearing about, an enforcement 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 compared the allegations against Biden to the Steele Dossier, a 2016 report alleging collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia. Making the comparison, she dismissed the Republican-touted allegations of Hunter as “a bunch of rumors and innuendo” with “no hard evidence, no proof, nothing.”
Despite having worked with Fox News for more than two decades, Williams is a registered Democrat and one of the few liberal voices on the otherwise very conservative network.
In response to recent whistleblower claims, US Attorney General Merrick Garland reaffirmed that he remained distant from the investigation and that Weiss had full authority to conduct it.
news week reached out to Biden’s lawyers by email for comment.