Attorne Attorney General Merrick Garland announcing he will give david weiss Special Counsel status to investigate the president s son. Hello and welcome everyone, im sandra smith. Gillian, great to have you back. Gillian this is America Reports. Garland says weiss told him he wanted to be given Special Counsel status to continue his probe into hunter biden. This after insisting for months that step was not necessary. Sandra the timing of this announcement is certainly being highlighted at this hour, and raising Big Questions about how the probe will intersect with a separate congressional investigation. And a Draft Plea Deal between hunters attorneys and weiss thats currently being reworked. Gillian Lindsey Graham as well as house ways and Means Committee chair jason smith are both here to react. Sandra mark meredith, live at the Justice Department at this hour for us. Why did the attorney yes decide to do this and decide to do this now, mark . Sandra, good afternoon to you. The u. S.
under the law. gillian: all along for weeks david weiss and the attorney general have insisted weiss had all the authority he needed, he could move forward with prosecutions as he saw fit. in light of that, if that holds true, what extra authority or powers does the new appointment of special counsel afford him? it allows him to continue, and so it provides him and the attorney general, actually, some protection and coverage. we don t know when we are going to get answers. it could be a long time, and given the statute of limitations, which is five years and most potential crimes looking at with respect to hunter and frankly even his father, given that that s probably run, my guess is that this was done in part so david weiss to prepare a report on the findings of what happened both in the obama administration and this administration, but when we will get the report, it could be years and certainly could be after the election. gillian: we learned with the mueller investigation th