David Weiss Should Resign – WSJ

Here s the dilemma: The plea deal is only the latest favor to Hunter. Arguably bigger was allowing the statute of limitations to lapse on offenses from 2014 and 2015 (think Burisma). If Mr. Weiss now comes back and charges Hunter with more-serious offenses, the obvious question will be: Why was he willing to go along with a sweetheart plea deal in the first place?

By the Justice Department s own measures, moreover, Mr. Weiss is a brazen pick. The Special Counsel, the rules state, shall be selected from outside the United States Government. An outside prosecutor is needed because the whole grounds for a special counsel is that Justice has a conflict of interest in this case, prosecuting the son of the attorney general s boss, the president. Mr. Weiss s own conflict is even more glaring.

The real problem is the conflict Weiss has in investigating himself, says David Rivkin, a constitutional lawyer who has served in the Justice Department and White House counsel s office.

He must investigate whether there was an earlier effort to obstruct the Hunter investigation, and he cannot do so because he was either involved in this obstructive activity or at least was a material witness to it.

via www.wsj.com

William McGurn.