We’ve harbored an antipathy for special prosecutors ever since Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting in Morrison v. Olson, underscored how such appointments might threaten the boldness of the president. Yet it adds insult to injury, as it were, to assign too narrow a scope of inquiry to a special prosecutor once named. It’s by no means clear to us how broad a remit has been given to Special Counsel David Weiss in respect of the Bidens’ corruption.

Attorney General Garland, in his remarks today announcing the appointment of the United States Attorney for Delaware to the job, was careful not to suggest any constraints on the special counsel’s work. Mr. Weiss, who has been leading the investigation of the president’s son, “will continue to have the authority and responsibility,” Mr. Garland said, “to oversee the investigation and decide where, when, and whether to file charges.”

All that gave birth to a wrist-slap on tax evasion and gun-related charges. This is why so many Republicans were quick to criticize the appointment. “This is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption,” said a spokesman for the House Judiciary chairman. Speaker McCarthy warned that it “cannot be used to obstruct congressional investigations” and asked whether Mr. Weiss can be “trusted as a Special Counsel.”

Mr. Garland avers that Mr. Weiss “will not be subject to the day-to-day supervision of any official of the Department.” It’s hard to see these pledges as anything other than a rebuttal of claims advanced by whistleblowers in the Internal Revenue Service. Mr. Weiss, one whistleblower said, was rebuffed by senior federal prosecutors when he attempted to pursue tax charges against Hunter Biden at Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Mr. Weiss for his part said he wasn’t “denied the authority to bring charges,” though, and refuted the claim that he had requested to be named as a special prosecutor, also put forward by IRS whistleblowers. Mr. Garland today made a point of noting that it was Mr. Weiss himself who had asked to be named as a special counsel in the case. Mr. Garland said he agreed, citing the “extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter.”

Mr. Garland puts it mildly. The cascade of disclosures relating to the business dealings of Hunter Biden, his father, and other members of the Biden family are raising serious questions that could even rise to the level of an impeachment inquiry. The global scale of Hunter Biden’s deal-making, as well as the suggestions of collaboration with Mr. Biden père, raise concerns that the two in effect partnered in the sale of the office of the vice presidency.  

The sums of money involved look to be substantial. The House Oversight Committee, our Matt Rice reports, “claims to have uncovered more than $20 million that passed to members of the Biden family from foreign entities in Russia, Communist China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania.” The recipients, the committee says, include “President Biden’s brother, James, and Beau Biden’s widow, Hallie.”

Amid these larger questions, today’s appointment of Mr. Weiss was followed by news that the plea agreement negotiated between Hunter Biden and his father’s Justice Department is a dead letter. The deal was meant to spare him any jail time in exchange for guilty pleas on misdemeanor tax charges. The first son and his lawyers appear to have believed that it would have ruled out any other criminal charges attendant to his global dealmaking.

That pact collapsed under the scrutiny of a federal judge at Delaware, Maryellen Noreika. Her skepticism of the pact appears to have unraveled an arrangement to keep Hunter Biden out of trouble. We are doubtful that Mr. Garland means what he seems to say. So it will be up to Judge Maryellen Noreika to play the part played in Watergate by The Honorable John J. “Maximum John” Sirica.