(CN) — The lead prosecutor investigating federal tax evasion charges against Hunter Biden has been elevated to special counsel as the government says it has reached an impasse in negotiations and must move forward with a trial.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel on Friday shortly before prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss the case against the president’s son in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.
Biden, 53, faces two charges of failing to pay federal income taxes on time in 2017 and 2018. Despite reaching a plea deal to avoid prison time, Biden pleaded not guilty at a hearing in July.
“Since that time, the parties have engaged in further plea negotiations but are at an impasse,” the motion says. “The government now believes that the case will not resolve short of a trial.”
Prosecutors filed the case in Delaware because, as part of the plea deal, Biden had agreed not to contest the venue as the proper jurisdiction. Since the agreement collapsed, the government says the correct venues are in the Central District of California and the District of Columbia.
Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney leading the investigation and prosecution, requested that he be made a special counsel earlier this week because the investigation would continue after the plea deal fell apart.
The new status gives Weiss leeway to delve into Biden’s overseas business deals, which Republicans have trumpeted as smoking guns of corruption while President Joe Biden was vice president in the Obama administration.
Garland said the appointment was necessary because of the “extraordinary circumstances” of the Hunter Biden probe.
“This appointment confirms my commitment to provide Mr. Weiss all the resources he requests,” the attorney general told the press on Friday. “Today’s announcement affords the prosecutors, agents, and analysts working on this matter the ability to proceed with their work expeditiously, and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.”
The president’s son was widely expected to end the yearslong saga by pleading guilty last month under two separate but connected agreements with prosecutors.
Under the first, he would plead guilty to the tax charges. The second agreement involved a separate charge for illegally purchasing a handgun in 2018. Biden was expected to enter no plea on the charge, but would agree to a diversion program.
Working in concert, the deals would have required Biden to live drug-free for two years and never again own a firearm. If he violated those terms, he faced prosecution on the firearms charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The tax charges each carry a maximum sentence of 12 months in prison, but prosecutors planned to recommend a sentence of probation. Court documents say Biden failed to pay more than $100,000 in taxes on over $1.5 million in income in 2017 and 2018. The back taxes have since been paid.
Biden's agreement collapsed because his lawyers wanted it to shield him from future charges on unrelated crimes. Prosecutors, however, said that wasn’t the purpose of the deal.
U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika on Friday ordered Biden’s lawyers to respond to the government’s motion by Monday.
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