Jake Tapper Grills House Democrat on Whether Biden Showed a ‘Major Lapse of Judgment’: Does He ‘Need to Stop’ Saying Hunter ‘Did Nothing Wrong?’

CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) over the special counsel investigation into Hunter Biden, and how President Joe Biden has handled the scrutiny surrounding his son.

The House Oversight Committee member joined Tapper on Sunday for State of the Union, where he was asked for his thoughts about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to elevate David Weiss — the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who has been overseeing the Hunter Biden investigation — to the role of special counsel. While Republicans have taken issue with Weiss’ appointment to the job, Goldman argued that it goes against the notion that the Department of Justice is under Biden’s thumb.

That is pretty remarkable. And you don’t hear from the other side a respect for the fact that Joe Biden has stayed out of this investigation.

And so I defer to Merrick Garland and David Weiss. If Hunter Biden has committed crimes, he should be charged with them. I’m a Democrat saying that. You don’t hear any currently-elected Republican saying that if Donald Trump committed crimes, he should be charged with them and held accountable. That’s a critical distinction that the public needs to understand.

Goldman went on to scoff at Republicans who have complained about Weiss for facilitating the plea deal between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors that wound up falling apart. From there, Tapper focused on how the president has repeatedly taken the public position that his son “has done nothing wrong.”

“I understand this is a dad talking about his son,” Tapper said, “but it’s also the President of the United States talking about a potential defendant in a case that his Justice Department is prosecuting. Also, he was about to plead guilty to some of the things he did wrong. Does the president need to stop publicly saying his son did nothing wrong?”

Goldman’s answer:

I think the president has been very clear that he’s going to let the process play out. What we do know is through all of the investigations in Congress, they are simply investigating a private citizen. Hunter Biden is not running for president. Joe Biden is running for president, and he is the president, and yet notwithstanding all of the time, effort, the moving goalposts. There’s no evidence connecting President Biden to any of his son’s dealings. You can sing all you want and make all sorts of accusations, but the fact of the matter is that President Biden — there’s been no evidence to show he’s been involved in anything. So Hunter Biden will be treated by the Department of Justice, as he should be, but Congress needs to stop investigating a private citizen and stop this fishing expedition to try to link President Biden to Hunter Biden’s conduct when there is no evidence to support that.

Tapper then turned to the closed-door testimony of Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, who claims that the president’s son put his father on speakerphone multiple times as he spoke with his associates. Goldman has claimed that Archer couldn’t prove a link between Biden and his son’s international dealings, though Tapper wondered if the president should’ve known better what his son was playing at.

“Shouldn’t President Biden have realized what Hunter was doing here?” Tapper asked. “Didn’t he, at the very least, show a major lapse of judgment and a blind spot with his son and how he handled this?”

Watch Goldman’s answer above via CNN.