By Marshall Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — The Justice Department special counsel whose six-year case into Hunter Biden was short-circuited last month by the unconditional pardon President Joe Biden granted to his son, criticized the outgoing president in his final report Monday.

Special counsel David Weiss chastised President Biden as part of the 280-page report for making “gratuitous and wrong” accusations that his long-running investigation was unfair and tainted by politics. The president, when pardoning his son last month, had said Hunter Biden was the victim of a “selective” prosecution that was “unfair” and a “miscarriage of justice.”

“Other presidents have pardoned family members, but in doing so, none have taken the occasion as an opportunity to malign the public servants at the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations,” Weiss said in the report.

“Far from selective, these prosecutions were the embodiment of the equal application of justice – no matter who you are, or what your last name is, you are subject to the same laws as everyone else in the United States,” he added.

The report stated that “politicians who attack the decisions of career prosecutors as politically motivated when they disagree with the outcome of a case undermine the public’s confidence in our criminal justice system. The President’s statements unfairly impugn the integrity not only of Department of Justice personnel, but all of the public servants making these difficult decisions in good faith.”

Weiss also quoted the federal judge who presided over Hunter Biden’s tax case, who rebuked the president on similar grounds after he issued the blanket pardon, accusing him of “rewriting history.”

CNN has previously reported on the false and inaccurate claims that Joe Biden made in an interview with USA Today earlier this month to justify the pardon. Some of those claims about the facts of Hunter Biden’s gun case were contradicted by the evidence and testimony at trial.

The president’s pardon shielded his son from any prosecution stemming from any federal crimes he may have committed between 2014 and December 2024. Therefore, “in light of this pardon,” Weiss said he didn’t include any legal analysis in his report about “whether additional charges were warranted” beyond the 12 tax and gun crimes he charged Hunter Biden with in 2023.

In a statement Monday, Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell? said, “What is clear from this report is that the investigation into Hunter Biden is a cautionary tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power.”

Lowell blasted several of Weiss’ key decisions, including his attempt in 2023 to wind down the probe with a negotiated plea agreement. That deal – which would’ve averted a trial – imploded after scrutiny from a federal judge and top Republican lawmakers.

“Mr. Weiss also fails to explain why he reneged on his own agreement, a reversal that came at the 11th hour in court as he and his office faced blistering attacks from Republicans,” he said.

Six-year investigation

Weiss had investigated Hunter Biden since 2018, when he was the Donald Trump-appointed US attorney for Delaware. After Joe Biden became president, he kept Weiss to finish his work, even while replacing almost all other US attorneys, as is common.

Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated Weiss to “special counsel” in 2023, after the proposed Hunter Biden plea deal fell apart in court.

In an opening note at the beginning of the report, Weiss thanked Garland for “allowing (his) Office to conduct its investigations and prosecutions independently.” The note pushes back on GOP allegations that Garland, a Biden appointee, had meddled in the probe to protect the Bidens.

Weiss charged two people during the course of his investigation: Hunter Biden and Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant who falsely accused Hunter and his father of taking $10 million in bribes from Ukraine. House Republicans used those claims to bolster their failed impeachment push.

Smirnov was sentenced last week to six years in prison.

During Weiss’ investigation, he made history by becoming the first prosecutor in American history to file criminal charges against the son of a sitting president. Hunter Biden was convicted by a jury on three counts related to his unlawful purchase and possession of a gun while abusing illicit drugs.

Weiss also brought a nine-count federal tax indictment against Biden, who pleaded guilty on what was supposed to be the first day of his trial in September. He admitted to tax evasion, filing false tax returns, and failing to file and pay his taxes on time.

Hunter Biden was never sentenced for those crimes, because he was pardoned by his father after the November election, short-circuiting the court process.

Weiss says he ‘ignored’ political attacks

The Weiss special counsel investigation has been fraught with allegations of politicization from both sides of the aisle. He has previously denied that his work was hampered by any political interference.

The Biden family and some Democrats have accused Weiss of unfairly targeting Hunter Biden and doing Trump’s bidding, caving to his demands to indict Hunter Biden. But many Republicans argued that Weiss went soft on Hunter Biden and offered him a “sweetheart deal” that would’ve swept his crimes under the rug, if it hadn’t fallen apart.

In the report, Weiss said he “ignored” politicians who repeatedly weighed in on his investigation of Hunter Biden and focused instead on “the facts and the law” while prosecuting the president’s son.

“I also never considered whether my decisions would be viewed favorably or unfavorably by any politicians,” Weiss wrote. “And when politicians expressed opinions about my conduct, I ignored them because they were irrelevant. Simply put, my decisions were based on the facts and the law and nothing else.”

Despite the fact that figures from both political parties hammered Weiss at various points of his probe, his report only rebuked Joe Biden by name for his commentary about the probe.

The report does not mention the congressional Republicans who called for Weiss’ resignation, tried to upend the plea agreement he negotiated with Hunter Biden in 2023, held hearings with ex-IRS investigators who said his probe was filled with misconduct, and pressured the FBI to release documents about an now-debunked tip from an informant that the Bidens took massive bribes from Ukraine.

Joe Biden’s looming presence

The report contains about 30 pages of new material and about 250 pages of court filings that were previously part of the public record of Hunter Biden’s gun and tax cases.

Ironically, Weiss said one of the reasons he prosecuted Hunter Biden for gun crimes was because President Biden’s administration prioritized gun control and stiffened penalties for some gun offenses.

“I considered the federal law enforcement priorities, including any federal law enforcement initiatives or operations aimed at accomplishing those priorities,” Weiss said, pointing to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that Biden signed into law in 2022, and various Biden-era gun control actions at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

For years, Republicans have pushed unproven accusations that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden engaged in illegal overseas business dealings. Weiss said in the report released Monday that Hunter Biden “had no co-conspirators” in his financial crimes, which prosecutors investigated from 2018 to 2024.

While Weiss was speaking narrowly about the specific federal tax charges he filed against Hunter Biden, his report is another reminder that prosecutors never accused Joe Biden of wrongdoing and never backed up GOP claims that Joe Biden engaged in illegal influence-peddling schemes with his son.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN’s Evan Perez contributed to this report.

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