‘It’s All Very Suspicious!’ CNN’s Jake Tapper and Crew Have ‘So Many Questions’ About Hunter Biden Special Counsel David Weiss

CNN anchor Jake Tapper and other CNN stars expressed suspicion and confusion over the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son.

On Friday afternoon, Attorney General Merrick Garland dropped a big announcement: he named David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who has been overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden — to be special counsel investigating Hunter Biden. The announcement comes weeks after a plea deal on three federal charges — two tax misdemeanors and one gun felony — fell apart, and the same week ex-President Donald Trump faced the first hearing in his federal indictment over January 6.

Shortly after the announcement, Tapper previewed his upcoming edition of CNN’s The Lead by raising questions about the appointment, telling fellow CNN host Alex Marquardt “It’s all very suspicious!”

Minutes later, CNN correspondent Paula Reid and CNN host Laura Coates joined Tapper in raising questions about the appointment:

TAPPER: Laura, are you surprised that there’s now a special counsel five years into this investigation after a plea deal had almost been agreed upon?

LAURA COATES: I mean, that plea deal was within the reach of, of course, Hunter Biden. I’m sure he’s lamenting right now whatever fiasco actually occurred in that courtroom to not have all the I’s dotted, all the T’s crossed to have this all go through.

Remember we heard already from David Weiss about what the process was like. He had said I have the authority to do so, all the talking points are contrary to my experience was. But now, this raised a lot of questions, and whatever happened on Tuesday, as Paula alluding, now does make me feel surprised about why now? What is happening here?

Remember, he’s still the U.S. attorney in Delaware, but now the special counsel allows him to go beyond his jurisdiction. You can look at other areas as well. It’s the reason why you have Jack Smith and go beyond that. You can have things in Florida and have things in Washington, D.C. It does now go beyond that.

But at its core, I wonder what the decision really came down to. The special counsel statute says you can have this if you first look at the crowd. Does a matter actually warrant an investigation? Is it warranted? He had concluded it did if you were Garland.

Was there a conflict of interest at play here? The talking point you see on the right and left suggest talking points around this very notion, that there is a conflict of being able to have the president appoint the attorney general who would oversee an investigation —

TAPPER: Into his own son, yeah.

COATES: — as you said, his son.

But finally, it’s the idea of what are you going to do about it now, and is there a way you can structure an investigation that is in the interest of the public to have the information? Garland says all three criteria are met, and so, whatever took place between the clear agreement, and now is anyone’s guess.

TAPPER: So, Paula, help me out here. David Weiss, the U.S. attorney, now special counsel had previously said in writing that he had all the power he needed. He didn’t need anymore authority. If he wanted today do charges in D.C., he could reach out to the U.S. attorney in D.C. If he wanted to do charges in L.A., he could reach out.

But now he has special counsel powers that give him that authority in writing in between we should note there were whistleblowers saying behind the scenes, David Weiss was complaining I don’t have the authority to charge in this city or that state. And the Justice Department saying, no, no, no these whistleblowers are wrong. It looks as though maybe the whistleblowers are right.

REID: It’s messy, right? It appears as if here they’re trying to insulate at the Justice Department, particularly the attorney general from what appears to be a case headed to a likely trial of the president’s son. And I think they’re hoping that this special counsel designation will also insulate them from potential congressional testimony. There were calls for Weiss to go on the hill, but now they can say, well, the Special Counsel Durham, Special Counsel Mueller, they testified after they submitted their report.

And there’s a lot of emphasis today at the Justice Department on this report and how that will offer some transparency here and that maybe fair in some respects, but that is not going to satisfy Republicans who have a lot of questions about the investigation if that report and special counsel designation are now going to be used to prevent him from going to the Hill.

TAPPER: Yeah, it’s not just Republicans who have questions. I have questions. I’m sure you guys have questions.

REID: I have so many questions. And I’m not getting all my answers.

Watch above via CNN’s The Lead.

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