Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that the Trump-appointed US attorney who is investigating Hunter Biden has been given "special counsel" status.
This gives the senior prosecutor, David Weiss, more powers than a typical US attorney and puts the nation in uncharted territory -- with three special counsels at the Justice Department currently investigating matters related to the sitting president, his son, and the previous president.
Garland's order appointing Weiss said he is authorized to "conduct the ongoing investigation ... as well as any matters that arose from that investigation or may arise" as the probe continues.
A senior Justice Department official said Weiss will write a report, which the attorney general is expected to publicly release when the probe is over. This has been the common practice of special counsels in recent years, like Robert Mueller and John Durham.
Weiss made a request to be elevated to a special counsel on Tuesday.
Calls for a special counsel have intensified in recent months, with leading Republicans claiming Hunter Biden got a "sweetheart deal," and IRS whistleblowers alleging that the Justice Department gave him preferential treatment in a plea deal earlier this summer.
Two career IRS agents who worked on the Hunter Biden probe went public as whistleblowers, claiming there was political meddling in the probe.
Last month, the plea deal between the Justice Department and Hunter Biden imploded at a court hearing where the judge said she wasn't ready to approve the deal, calling the arrangement "confusing," "not straightforward," "atypical" and "unprecedented."
Federal prosecutors have spent five years investigating Hunter Biden for potential felony tax evasion, illegal foreign lobbying, money laundering, and other possible crimes.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
