As Special Counsel David Weiss prepares to indict Hunter Biden for lying about his drug use to buy a handgun, Republican investigators are claiming that Mr. Weiss is using his prosecutorial power to shield President Biden from his son’s wrongdoing by not charging the younger Mr. Biden with offenses related to his business practices. This comes as a new poll shows a majority of Americans believe the president was involved, to some extent, in his son’s business dealings. 

During an appearance Wednesday on the radio program of a Republican megadonor, John Catsimatidis, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer, said Mr. Weiss is attempting to protect the rest of the Biden family from congressional investigations. 

“They already tried to sneak something through once,” Mr. Comer said of Mr. Weiss’s original plea deal with the first son that would have granted him immunity from future prosecutions, an agreement that fell apart under a judge’s scrutiny. “We need to make sure that they don’t do it again.” 

Mr. Weiss’s subordinate, Leo Wise, said in a court filing on Wednesday that prosecutors would indict Mr. Biden before the end of September on the gun charge. “The Speedy Trial Act requires that the Government obtain the return of an indictment by a grand jury by Friday, September 29, 2023, at the earliest,” Mr. Wise wrote to Judge Maryellen Noreika, who scuttled Mr. Biden’s plea agreement in July over concerns about the first son’s immunity. “The Government intends to seek the return of an indictment in this case before that date.”

Mr. Wise’s filing indicates that Mr. Weiss intends to indict Mr. Biden for lying on form 4473 from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The criminal penalties for lying on such a form were stiffened by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act — a law written by the elder Mr. Biden while a member of the Senate in the 1990s. The maximum penalty for lying on 4473 is 10 years in a federal prison. 

Not mentioned is whether the younger Mr. Biden could be charged with other crimes, such as violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act through his work as a director of a Ukrainian energy concern, Burisma, which was paying him $80,000 a month during his father’s vice presidency. GOP lawmakers have been seeking to prove, so far unsuccessfully, that the elder Mr. Biden, then vice president and President Obama’s point man on Ukraine, acted favorably toward Burisma in a quid pro quo. 

Indeed, during his appearance on Mr. Catsimatidis’s radio program, Mr. Comer said that lying on form 4473 “is the least of all the crimes that Hunter Biden has committed.” Mr. Comer has called the Biden family’s business affairs during the Obama administration “organized crime.”

In his now-failed plea agreement, Mr. Biden would have entered what is called a “pretrial diversion program,” typically given to first-time offenders, which essentially puts the guilty individual on probation and requires long-term sobriety and drug counseling. 

Mr. Biden’s plea agreement, which was made public in August after its July collapse, stipulated that the first son would be placed on a 24-month period of drug counseling and would have permanently forfeited his right to own a firearm. Mr. Biden was also scheduled to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of “willful” tax evasion. If he successfully completed the judicial diversion program, he would avoid prison.

Since the plea deal collapsed, Mr. Biden’s legal team has argued that the original plea agreement is in full effect and that Mr. Biden is, in fact, immune from prosecution for the firearms violation. They argue that because the agreement was signed by prosecutors on July 20, six days before the hearing where it was scuttled by Judge Noreika, it is in full effect, though the judge has rejected that argument. 

This comes as a new poll from CNN and the research firm SSRS shows that a majority of Americans believe the elder Mr. Biden was involved with his son’s business dealings. According to the poll, 61 percent of Americans believe the president was involved in his son’s business affairs to some extent. Of that 61 percent who believed Mr. Biden was involved, 69 percent of them said the activity was illegal, while 29 percent believed it to be unethical but legal. 

The Department of Justice and Mr. Weiss are coming under increasing scrutiny from congressional investigators for their handling of the criminal investigation into the younger Mr. Biden. On September 20, Attorney General Garland will sit before the House Judiciary Committee in what is expected to be blockbuster testimony that will cover everything from Mr. Weiss’s investigation to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of President Trump. 

Mr. Weiss is also under investigation by the three House committees leading the probe into the Biden family’s foreign business arrangements. On August 28, Mr. Comer and two of his colleagues sent a letter to Mr. Garland seeking information related to Mr. Weiss’s investigation of the first son and his appointment as special counsel in the case. 

“Recently reported information raises additional concerns about the Department’s unusual actions in this matter, and suggests that the Department under your leadership has been attempting to circumvent the rule of law in favor of Hunter Biden, President Biden, and the Biden family,” the letter states. 

The committee chairmen are seeking all documents and communications related to the deliberations surrounding Mr. Weiss’s appointment as special counsel, as well as all “memoranda, directives, or instructions” sent to him by the DOJ with respect to Mr. Biden. The committee has set a September 11 deadline for the DOJ to turn over those documents.