David Weiss | |
---|---|
Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice | |
Assumed office August 11, 2023 | |
Appointed by | Merrick Garland |
United States Attorney for the District of Delaware | |
Assumed office March 10,2017 Acting: March 10,2017 –February 22,2018 | |
President | Donald Trump Joe Biden |
Preceded by | Charles Oberly |
Acting January 2009 –January 24,2011 | |
President | George W. Bush Barack Obama |
Preceded by | Colm Connolly |
Succeeded by | Charles Oberly |
Personal details | |
Born | David Charles Weiss 1956 (age 67–68) Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,U.S. |
Political party | Republican |
Education | Washington University in St. Louis (BA) Widener University (JD) |
David Charles Weiss (born 1956) is an American attorney. He was nominated by President Donald Trump to be United States Attorney for the United States District Court for the District of Delaware,and was retained by President Joe Biden. He has served in that office since February 22,2018. [1]
Weiss received his bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis and his Juris Doctor degree from Widener University School of Law. [2] He clerked for Justice Andrew D. Christie of the Delaware Supreme Court. He then served as an assistant United States Attorney in Delaware from 1986 to 1989,prosecuting violent crimes and white-collar criminal offenses. Leaving the U.S. Attorney's office,he worked as a commercial litigation associate and partner at the Duane Morris firm and as an executive at a financial services firm. [3] [4] He returned to the Delaware U.S. Attorney's office as First Assistant U.S. Attorney in 2007. [2] In this capacity,he served as Acting US Attorney for the District of Delaware from 2009 until the confirmation of Charles Oberly. [5]
Weiss later served as Acting U.S. Attorney for Delaware again during the administration of Donald Trump following the resignation of Oberly. He was subsequently nominated to officially fill that position,and on February 15,2018,his nomination to be the United States Attorney was confirmed by the Senate by voice vote. He was sworn in on February 22,2018. [2]
Weiss has been in charge of the investigations into the financial dealings of Hunter Biden and was asked to stay on during the Biden administration. [6] [7] On August 11,2023,Weiss was named special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe by Attorney General Merrick Garland. [8] On February 14,2024,he indicted a former FBI informant with lying about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s involvement in business dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings undercutting a major aspect of Republicans’impeachment inquiry into the president. [9]
Ralph Warren Norman Jr. is an American real estate developer and politician who has served as the U.S. representative for South Carolina's 5th congressional district since 2017. His district includes most of the South Carolina side of the Charlotte metropolitan area,along with outer portions of the Upstate and Midlands. A member of the Republican Party,Norman served as the South Carolina state representative for the 48th district from 2005 to 2007 and from 2009 to 2017.
John Henry Durham is an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut from 2018 to 2021. By April 2019,the Trump administration assigned him to investigate the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections,and in October 2020 he was appointed special counsel for the Department of Justice on that matter.
Colm Felix Connolly is the chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. He formerly served as United States Attorney for the District of Delaware.
Robert Hunter Biden is an American attorney and businessman. He is the second son of U.S. President Joe Biden and his first wife,Neilia Hunter Biden. Biden was a founding board member of BHR Partners,a Chinese investment company,in 2013,and later served on the board of Burisma Holdings,one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine,from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019. He has worked as a lobbyist and legal representative for lobbying firms,a hedge fund principal,and a venture capital and private equity fund investor.
Rod Jay Rosenstein is an American attorney who served as the 37th United States deputy attorney general from April 2017 until May 2019. Prior to his appointment,he served as a United States attorney for the District of Maryland. At the time of his confirmation as deputy attorney general in April 2017,he was the longest-serving U.S. attorney. Rosenstein had also been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2007,but his nomination was never considered by the U.S. Senate.
John Joseph Sullivan is an American attorney and government official who served as the United States Ambassador to Russia from 2020 to 2022,and who previously served as the 19th United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party,Sullivan served as Acting United States Secretary of State from April 1,2018,to April 26,2018,following President Donald Trump's dismissal of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 13,2018,until Tillerson's official successor,Mike Pompeo,was sworn in. Tillerson did not officially leave office until March 31,2018. Sullivan,however,was delegated all responsibilities of the Secretary of State beginning March 13.
James Richardson Comer Jr. is an American politician from the Commonwealth of Kentucky who represents the state's 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. A member of the Republican Party,he has served in the Congress of the United States of America since 2016,during the 114th United States Congress. He previously served in the Kentucky House of Representatives and also served as the Agriculture Commissioner of Kentucky.
Various people and groups assert that former U.S. president Donald Trump engaged in impeachable activity both before and during his presidency,and talk of impeachment began before he took office. Grounds asserted for impeachment have included possible violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by accepting payments from foreign dignitaries;alleged collusion with Russia during the campaign for the 2016 United States presidential election;alleged obstruction of justice with respect to investigation of the collusion claim;and accusations of "Associating the Presidency with White Nationalism,Neo-Nazism and Hatred",which formed the basis of a resolution for impeachment brought on December 6,2017.
John Charles Demers is an Italian-born American lawyer who served as United States Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division (NSD) from 2018 to 2021. Following the resignation of Jeffrey A. Rosen,Demers also served as acting United States Attorney General for a few hours on January 20,2021 until President Joe Biden signed an executive order naming Monty Wilkinson as acting United States Attorney General later that day.
Maryellen Noreika is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2018 as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.
The Trump–Ukraine scandal was a political scandal that arose primarily from the discovery of U.S. President Donald Trump's alleged attempts to coerce Ukraine into investigating a Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory,and thus potentially damage 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden. Trump enlisted surrogates in and outside his administration,including personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr,to pressure Ukraine and other governments to cooperate in supporting conspiracy theories concerning US politics. Trump blocked payment of a congressionally-mandated $400 million military aid package,in an attempt to obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Contacts were established between the White House and government of Ukraine,culminating in a call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25,2019.
The inquiry process which preceded the first impeachment of Donald Trump,45th president of the United States,was initiated by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on September 24,2019,after a whistleblower alleged that Donald Trump may have abused the power of the presidency. Trump was accused of withholding military aid as a means of pressuring newly elected president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter and to investigate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine,not Russia,was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. More than a week after Trump had put a hold on the previously approved aid,he made these requests in a July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president,which the whistleblower said was intended to help Trump's reelection bid.
The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of false allegations that Joe Biden,while he was vice president of the United States,improperly withheld a loan guarantee and took a bribe to pressure Ukraine into firing prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to prevent a corruption investigation of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and to protect his son,Hunter Biden,who was on the Burisma board. As part of efforts by Donald Trump and his campaign in the Trump–Ukraine scandal,which led to Trump's first impeachment,these falsehoods were spread in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation and chances during the 2020 presidential campaign,and later in an effort to impeach him.
The 46th and incumbent U.S. president Joe Biden has seen multiple efforts by some members of the Republican Party to impeach him. An impeachment inquiry into Biden was launched in September 2023,without a vote,by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy,who designated three House committees led by James Comer,chairman of House Committee on Oversight and Accountability. A number of prominent Republican lawmakers,along with Donald Trump and some of his political allies,have indicated the motivation behind efforts to impeach Biden is also driven by resentment over Trump's previous two impeachments.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2019 related to the investigations into the myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate,relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8,and the transition,the first and second halves of 2017,the first and second halves of 2018,and the first half of 2019,but precedes that of 2020 and 2021.
In October 2020,a controversy arose involving data from a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden. The owner of a Delaware computer shop,John Paul Mac Isaac,said that the laptop had been left by a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden. Mac Isaac also stated that he is legally blind and could not be sure whether the man was actually Hunter Biden. Three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election,the New York Post published a front-page story that presented emails from the laptop,alleging they showed corruption by Joe Biden,the Democratic presidential nominee and Hunter Biden's father. According to the Post,the story was based on information provided to Rudy Giuliani,the personal attorney of incumbent president and candidate Donald Trump,by Mac Isaac. Forensic analysis later authenticated some of the emails from the laptop,including one of the two emails used by the Post in their initial reporting.
The United States House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family is an ongoing investigation since January 2023 by the United States House of Representatives into US President Joe Biden and his family. The investigation was initiated on January 11,and includes examination of the foreign business activities of Biden's son,Hunter,and brother,James,as well as Twitter's involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop controversy.
The Weiss special counsel investigation is an ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden,the son of U.S. President Joe Biden. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of David Weiss,U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware,as the special counsel on August 11,2023,three days after Weiss requested such authority.
On September 12,2023,Kevin McCarthy,then-speaker of the United States House of Representatives,announced an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. The inquiry was conducted by the House's Judiciary,Oversight and Ways and Means committees. James Comer,chairman of the Oversight Committee,was named to lead the investigation.
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