Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy criticized U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss’ appointment as special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation on Saturday, dismissing it as a “total fig leaf.”
“On the face of it, it would make sense and it’s a good thing to have a special counsel appointed,” Ramaswamy said on Fox News during a campaign stop in Iowa. “The problem is that this is a total fig leaf. It is a distraction.”
The GOP hopeful noted that Weiss, who has been overseeing the investigation into the president’s son since 2018, negotiated the plea deal with the president’s son earlier this year that was widely criticized by Republicans as a “sweetheart” deal.
The deal appears to have since collapsed, after a judge raised questions at a July hearing about the scope of Hunter Biden’s immunity from potential future charges.
“This is the same individual, the same person, who actually negotiated that plea deal that the judge rejected handily,” Ramaswamy said. “This is also just a designation of a title for an administration that, in the case of Hunter Biden, has been repeatedly creating one deflection after another.”
“I think the timing in comparison to the Donald Trump indictments are not an accident, for how long that investigation had been ongoing,” he continued. “And so, unfortunately, I just do see this as another maneuver to distract the public from the fact that we have two standards of justice.”
The controversy surrounding the president’s son has unfolded as former President Trump faced charges in three separate cases in the last six months over a 2016 hush money payment, his handling of classified documents and his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.
While many Republicans previously called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation, his decision to elevate Weiss to the position on Friday drew widespread condemnation from GOP lawmakers.
Like Ramaswamy, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) questioned whether Weiss could be “trusted” after reaching the plea deal with Biden, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) claimed that the appointment was “part of the Justice Department’s efforts to attempt a Biden family coverup.”
