Just how bad has David Weiss handled the investigation into Hunter Biden and the multiple allegations of tax fraud and weapons charges? Alan Dershowitz lamented the decision to keep the man who attempted to engineer a smelly plea deal as special counsel, scoffing at the notion that Weiss has demonstrated any independence at all.

Instead, Dershowitz called on his friend of 40 years, Joe Biden, to “appoint an independent outside special counsel to investigate the relationship between Hunter Biden and President Biden.” Dersh wants to be able to vote for Biden next year, but if the only independent probe into Biden Inc comes from the GOP-controlled House, that makes it worse for Biden Inc:

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz called for an “independent special counsel” in the Hunter Biden probe, saying he didn’t want the House of Representatives to look into the matter. …

“It pains me to say this because I like Joe Biden, I’ve known him for 40 years, I’d like to vote for him in the next election,” Dershowitz said. “But the time has come to appoint an independent outside special counsel to investigate the relationship between Hunter Biden and President Biden. There’s already a special counsel on the classified material. That is totally different. In fact, if I were Joe Biden, I would be calling for a special counsel to take this case out of the partisan House of Representatives.”

Weiss has been anything but “outside” or “independent.” On the first point, Merrick Garland violated the special-counsel statute by appointing him to that status. That statute, 28 CFR 600.3, explicitly requires that the Attorney General select a candidate “from outside the United States Government.” There have been exceptions; John Durham was a current US Attorney at the time William Barr appointed him as special counsel for the investigation of the FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane, for example. However, Durham resigned the US Attorney post shortly afterward, and only got appointed a few weeks before Biden’s inauguration, when US Attorneys usually are asked to resign as a matter of course. And more to the point, Durham had not been involved in any such investigation prior to that appointment.

Those are the structural reasons to replace Weiss, but the case regarding “independent” is even stronger for Weiss’ removal. At NRO this morning, Andrew McCarthy gives a much broader indictment of Weiss on the substance of his performance. Andy argues that Weiss doesn’t just lack independence, but that Weiss has actively obstructed progress toward felony charges. On top of that, Weiss got caught with his pants down on Hunter’s plea deal and diversion agreement, which adds incompetence to what looks like a corrupt effort:

Back in Judge Maryellen Noreika’s Delaware courtroom this week, we found the prosecutor still flailing in the miasma of his imploded schemes. At issue was the corrupt “diversion agreement” that Weiss, on behalf of the president’s Justice Department, executed with the president’s son: the pact whereby Weiss gifted Hunter not merely a complete pass on a gun felony punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment, but a total immunity bath — no prosecution for bribery, money laundering, tax evasion, failing to register as a foreign agent, or any other crimes arising out of the Biden family business of peddling Joe Biden’s political influence to operatives of corrupt and anti-American regimes.

Having been humiliated by Judge Noreika’s exposure of Biden Justice Department corruption, Weiss is now posing as a tough guy who insists the diversion is null and void because Hunter did not fulfill a separate plea agreement that called for him to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges — not content with eschewing easily provable tax felonies, tough guy Weiss also promised to push for a no-jail sentence.

This would be quite hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating.

Andy’s lengthy dissertation sits behind the NRO paywall, but it’s worth a shekel or two to read this. He argues that Weiss has been “disappearing” the Hunter case for five years, allowing it to drag beyond statutes of limitation for significant tax-fraud charges. That might never have come to light without the whistleblowing from a half-dozen IRS whistleblowers and at least one FBI agent assigned to the case — and that wouldn’t have happened without Republicans in charge of the House, contra Dershowitz. Appointing Weiss as special counsel allows Weiss to keep the clock running on other felony charges, which has been Weiss’ clear intent until the whistleblowers blew the lid off of the lie about Weiss’ supposed plenary authority to charge anywhere and anything.

Weiss also used a diversion agreement as a way to get around the judge on the firearms charge. Judges must approve plea deals, but it’s not required for diversion agreements. Andy argues convincingly that the diversion agreement was the key to creating a sotto voce total-immunity status for Hunter going forward that would prevent any further investigation of Biden Inc influence peddling. But Weiss bungled that too, Andy declares, by screwing up the application to the Probation Office, which does have to approve such agreements. That lengthy part of Andy’s analysis is especially worth reading in full.

Why didn’t this get past the Probation Office? Again, the likely answer is that the revelations from House Republicans’ investigation into Weiss’ attempts to run out the clock and provide cover for Hunter in a smelly plea deal had everyone suspicious about Weiss. In fact, James Comer explicitly and publicly warned the Department of Justice over three months ago not to cut a plea deal with Hunter while their own investigation dug up more evidence, such as apparent money laundering of millions of dollars from foreign sources through 20 or more Biden Inc LLCs. Weiss and Garland ignored the warning, but they may have been in the minority at the DoJ and elsewhere.

Dershowitz wants to end the House probes, but they have been the catalyst for uncovering the evidence of Biden corruption. Without a Republican majority in the House, that investigation wouldn’t exist. Without the investigation, the IRS whistleblowers would have had nowhere to turn. Without majority control of Oversight and other committees, Republicans wouldn’t have had subpoena powers to force compliance with demands to the Treasury to turn over almost 200 Suspicious Activity Reports regarding the movement of those funds.

Instead of ending the House probe, we need it ramped up — and may need another one into why Garland and Weiss have tried to bury the Hunter Biden and Biden Inc probes.