State of the Union: Interview With Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY)
Interview
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Well, I defer to the attorney general's determination on this.
What we now know is that David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware, was right all along, that he did have ultimate authority. And when he requested special counsel status because the plea agreement has broken down and he may have to charge Hunter Biden in -- outside of his own district, which he requires additional authority to do, he got it.
And this is just another reflection of the true independence of this Department of Justice. A Trump-appointed U.S. attorney is investigating the president's son. 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. And that's a critical distinction that the public needs to understand.
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Well, no one knows what the evidence is. So when they say this is a sweetheart deal, they are blowing smoke, because they have no idea.
And so this is, to my mind, having been a federal prosecutor for 10 years, not at all a sweetheart deal. This is something that is routinely treated in a civil way, through civil penalties, not criminally. And yet Hunter Biden was charged with crimes. This is a five-year investigation. They looked at everything. We know that from testimony in the Oversight Committee. They had foreign bank records. They had domestic bank records.They had hundreds of thousands of documents. And this is ultimately what they thought they could charge.
Now, in the ordinary course, you would not give immunity for other conduct than what is charged. But this is not the ordinary course, because you have a petty, vindictive bully running as the -- for president on the Republican Party who will use revenge and weaponize the Department of Justice to potentially charge Hunter Biden.
So, even though I'm sure Hunter Biden has confidence that David Weiss will not charge him with additional crimes, they have no confidence that, if Donald Trump wins, that he would weaponize the Department of Justice to charge Hunter Biden, go back and charge him.
And that's why this plea agreement has broken down, because of the threat of Donald Trump's weaponization of the Department of Justice if he were to become president.
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Well, look, I think the president has been very clear that he's going to let the process play out.
What we do know is that, through all of the investigations in Congress, they're simply investigating a private citizen. Hunter Biden is not running for president. And Joe Biden is running for president. And yet -- and he is the president. And yet, notwithstanding all of the time, effort and all of the moving goalposts, there's no evidence connecting President Biden to any of his son's business dealings.
And 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 that he's been involved in anything. And 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.
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Look, I think that same witness also made very clear that they never discussed business, that Hunter Biden was trying to promote an illusion of access to his father for his own reasons.
That's Hunter Biden. And you can make whatever judgment you want to make about whether that was appropriate or not. But the president saying hello to people when his son puts them on the phone is not at all doing anything to influence any policy, to use his position for any nefarious purposes.
And, in fact, what we do know is that the only official action the president took related to Hunter Biden's business interests was detrimental to Hunter Biden's company business interest. It was detrimental to Burisma, as Devon Archer, this new star witness, for the Republicans said, because the -- Burisma had the corrupt prosecutor general -- quote -- and I quote the witness -- "under control, and that that was a good thing for that prosecutor general to be in office.
And yet Joe Biden urged Ukraine, the Ukrainian government, to fire that prosecutor general. That's the only connection that President Biden had with any of Hunter's business dealings.
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Thank you.
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