Republicans are already delegitimizing the DOJ's newly-appointed special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden

• US Attorney David Weiss, who's investigating Hunter Biden, has been appointed special counsel.
• It represents a significant escalation in the department's inquiry into the President's son.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden on Friday, representing a significant escalation in the federal government's ongoing probe into President Joe Biden's son.

Garland named David Weiss, who was appointed to be US Attorney in Delaware by former President Donald Trump and has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2019, to the position. The new position will afford Weiss greater powers to investigate the president's son, and will require him to produce a final report at the end of the investigation.

But Republicans aren't rejoicing at the news. In fact, they're already slamming Weiss.

"David Weiss can't be trusted," wrote the Twitter account for House Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. "This is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family's corruption."

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also questioned whether Weiss can be trusted and said that House GOP-led investigations into the Biden family will continue.

Republicans are arguing that Weiss, who has brought criminal charges against Hunter Biden for failing to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018 and for unlawful possession of a firearm, won't pursue the president's son forcefully enough.

They're repeating their claim that Hunter Biden is enjoying a "sweetheart plea deal" with the DOJ due to his family name, though prosecutors rarely pursue charges in similar cases against other defendants.

And that plea deal is effectively dead as of Friday, with prosecutors under Weiss declaring that the parties were "at an impasse and are not in agreement," raising the possibility that Hunter Biden will go on trial.

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, claimed in a statement that the DOJ was "trying to stonewall congressional oversight" into allegations that the Biden family is corrupt, referencing a case that House Republicans have sought to build but have yet to fully prove.

A whistleblower from the IRS previously claimed in June that the Department had hampered Weiss' worked and denied his request to be named special counsel, claims that Weiss firmly rejected. Garland said on Friday that Weiss asked to be named speicla counsel on Tuesday of this week.

Nonetheless, the special counsel appointment could complicate things for House Republicans.

Some of them, particularly members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, have floated the idea of "defunding" aspects of the DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation over claims that the department has been "weaponized" against conservatives and Trump, who was recently indicted by the Department over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The DOJ's escalated investigation into Hunter Biden will force those Republicans to consider whether their plans for restricting DOJ funding could hamper that investigation — or whether they might seek to target certain aspects of the Department's work while leaving Biden-related investigators alone, creating the impression that their efforts are purely political.

Additionally, Republicans including Jordan have previously called for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden.