Weiss said in the report, made public by Attorney General Merrick Garland, that he “remained impervious to political influence at all times” during his past 17 months as special counsel.

“However, Mr. [Hunter] Biden and his counsel have continuously accused me of vindictively and selectively prosecuting him,” Weiss wrote. “And in the press release accompanying his son’s pardon, President Biden echoed these claims, stating that he believed Mr. Biden was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.’ These baseless accusations have no merit and repeating them threatens the integrity of the justice system as a whole.”

Weiss began investigating Hunter Biden in 2019 while serving as Delaware U.S. attorney, but after a high-profile plea deal with the first son collapsed in the summer of 2023, Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel to continue his work. Weiss proceeded to bring three felonies against Hunter Biden for purchasing a firearm while he was addicted to crack cocaine and nine charges, including three felonies, for failing to pay taxes on more than $7 million in income.

Weiss secured a conviction for the gun charges and a guilty plea for the tax charges, but before Hunter Biden could be sentenced in either case, Joe Biden issued a surprise pardon for his son that prevented him from facing any penalties.

Joe Biden said in a press release at the time that he believed “raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

Weiss noted that eight different judges, who were appointed by six different presidents, found that Hunter Biden’s indictments were not a result of political pressure from Republicans.

“The President’s characterizations are incorrect based on the facts in this case, and, on a more fundamental level, they are wrong,” Weiss wrote.

Joe Biden’s pardon was one of the most expansive in history, as it also preemptively covered all of Hunter Biden’s uncharged conduct over the past 11 years. Weiss said in his report that he could not discuss additional charges he had considered bringing against the first son because of the pardon.

“In light of this pardon, I cannot make any additional charging decisions as to Mr. Biden’s conduct during those eleven years,” Weiss wrote. “It would thus be inappropriate to discuss whether additional charges are warranted.”

According to Weiss, the pardon effectively prevented him from explaining his decision not to charge Hunter Biden for other violations that Republican lawmakers and two IRS whistleblowers have said the DOJ once considered bringing.

Hunter Biden had, for example, come under investigation by the DOJ for possible breaches of the Foreign Agents Registration Act that were related, in part, to his lucrative seat on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, a position he was given in 2014 while Joe Biden was vice president.

Under FARA, U.S. citizens are required to disclose to the U.S. government any lobbying and public relations work they are doing on behalf of foreign entities.

Weiss had testified to House Republicans in 2023 that he would answer their questions about uncharged conduct in his special counsel report once the prosecutions were over, but the special counsel now says he cannot do that because of Joe Biden’s pardon.

One of the IRS whistleblowers’ lawyers, Empower Oversight founder Tristan Leavitt, criticized Weiss on X for submitting what Leavitt viewed as a thin report.

“Wow. Talk about phoning it in,” Leavitt wrote.