(RUSSIA) — The Pentagon is downplaying Wednesday’s arrival of four Russian Navy ships in Cuba as U.S. officials acknowledge that U.S. Navy ships “actively monitored” the Russian ships as they made their way to a port of call in Havana.
At the on-camera Pentagon press briefing, spokesperson Sabrina Singh downplayed the Russian naval flotilla’s arrival in Havana noting that it’s happened multiple times over the years but acknowledged that U.S. military assets had been tracking the ships on their way to Cuba.
“We’ve been tracking the Russians plans for this,” Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary told reporters Wednesday.
The Russian ships’ transit towards Cuba was monitored by six warships from the United States Navy, Canada, and France. They included the U.S. Navy destroyers USS Donald Cook, USS Delbert Black, USS Truxton, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stone, the Canadian frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec, and a French Lafayette class frigate.
“This is not a surprise we’ve seen them do this these type of port calls before and these are routine naval visits that we’ve seen under different administrations,” Singh said.
“We’re always constantly going to monitor any foreign vessels operating near U.S. territorial waters,” she added. U.S. territorial waters stretch out 12 nautical miles from the coastline.
A U.S. official said the Russian ships never came close to the American coastline as they transited the Atlantic Ocean.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has been very open about the port of call in Havana being made by the frigate “Admiral Gorshkov,” the nuclear-powered submarine “Kazan,” the sea supply tanker “Akademik Pashin” and the ocean rescue tug “Nikolai Chiker.”
Cuba’s defense ministry has described the visit as “keeping with the historical friendly ties between Cuba and the Russian Federation and is fully consistent with international rules.” In a statement, the ministry said “none of the ships carry nuclear weapons, due to which our country does not pose any threat to the region.”
Even though the Russian ships are in port, Singh said the U.S. was “going to continue to monitor what’s happening in the region.”
According to the Pentagon, Russia has sailed warships into the Western Hemisphere yearly from 2013 to 2020 with regular port visits into Havana.
The most recent docking of a warship was in June 2023 though the most recent military exercise in the region was in 2008 with Venezuela.
A U.S. official said that the port visit to Havana will last a few days and that sometime next week the Russian flotilla is expected to make a port of call in Venezuela.
(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans on Wednesday afternoon passed a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur on his handling of classified documents.
The final vote was 216 to 207.
Earlier Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson projected optimism it would get the votes despite uncertainty given the party’s razor-thin majority.
“I do think the contempt of Merrick Garland will pass on the floor, and we’re anxious to have that happen,” Johnson said at his weekly news conference alongside GOP leadership.
MORE: Biden asserts executive privilege over audio of interview with special counsel Hur The speaker said Garland’s defiance of a subpoena for the audio is a “problem under Article I” and that lawmakers must “defend” the Constitution and the authority of Congress to conduct oversight.
“The attorney general doesn’t get to decide whether he hides the tape,” Johnson said.
Two House committees — Oversight and Judiciary — voted along party-lines last month to advance the report recommending that Garland be held in contempt.
The resolution passed on Wednesday directs the speaker of the House to refer the case to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for possible criminal prosecution.
While the Department of Justice has made a transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden available to the GOP-led committees, House Republicans argue the audio tapes are necessary to their stalled impeachment investigation into the president.
Before the Judiciary committee last week, Garland continued to defend his decision to not turn over audio tapes of the interview, over which President Biden assert executive privilege.
The attorney general said lawmakers don’t have a legitimate purpose for seeking the tape, and expressed concern that the sensitive information could harm the integrity of future investigations.
“I will not be intimidated. And the Justice Department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy,” Garland said at the hearing.
Democrats have also come to Garland’s defense, describing the GOP push to hold him in contempt a politically-motivated endeavor.
“This isn’t really about a policy disagreement with the DOJ, this is about feeding the MAGA base after 18 months of investigations that have produced failure after failure,” Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in testimony Tuesday before the House Rules Committee.
In the past, Congress has held Cabinet officials in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a House subpoena, including Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in 2019 and then-Attorney General Eric Holder in 2012.
Congress held Peter Navarro, a former top trade adviser in the Trump administration, in contempt of Congress in 2022 for defying records and testimony to the now defunct House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Navarro was recently sentenced to four months behind bars.
Steve Bannon, a Trump ally who was also held in contempt of Congress in 2022 for not complying with the Jan. 6 select committee, has been ordered to report to jail on July 1.
(ATLANTA) — The suspect in a bus hijacking that prompted a police chase in Georgia allegedly got into a fight with a passenger before fatally shooting him with the victim’s own gun, authorities said.
The incident began at approximately 4:35 p.m. ET Tuesday in downtown Atlanta, when police responded to a report of gunfire on a Gwinnett County Transit bus and a “possible hostage situation,” the Atlanta Police Department said.
“Upon the officers’ arrival at the scene, the bus fled the location, and a pursuit ensued,” the Atlanta Police Department said in a press release.
The suspect — identified as 39-year-old Joseph Grier, of Stone Mountain — allegedly got into an argument with a male passenger after boarding the bus in downtown Atlanta, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The two got into a fight when the passenger then pulled out a gun, GBI said.
Grier allegedly took the man’s gun and “began threatening passengers with it” before shooting him, GBI said in a statement Wednesday.
“Grier then shot the passenger and ordered the bus driver to flee the scene while threatening passengers with the gun,” GBI said.
The suspect held the bus driver at gunpoint during the hijacking, according to Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.
There were 17 people on the bus at the time, including the bus driver, according to Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum.
During the pursuit, police received a 911 call from a family member of an occupant of the bus “saying he was receiving text messages that there had been a hijacking and that individuals were being held hostage against their will,” Schierbaum told reporters during a press briefing Tuesday evening.
Police then received another 911 call made from the bus, which remained open throughout the pursuit and provided information that helped “craft an end of this hostage situation,” the chief said.
The ensuing pursuit spanned multiple jurisdictions, during which police attempted “various tactics” to stop the bus, police said. The bus hit several police vehicles during the pursuit, GBI said.
The vehicle was ultimately disabled in Stone Mountain in DeKalb County, approximately 16 miles northeast of where the incident began, police said.
A Georgia State Patrol trooper fired his patrol rifle into the engine compartment of the bus, causing it to malfunction and stop running, according to GBI.
Once the bus stopped, DeKalb County SWAT officers positioned a Bearcat armored vehicle “to prevent any avenues of escape,” the DeKalb County Police Department said in a statement.
Grier was taken into custody without further incident, police said.
SWAT officers found the gunshot victim while clearing the bus, DeKalb County police said. The victim — identified as 58-year-old Earnest Byrd Jr. — was transported in critical condition to a local hospital, where he died, Atlanta police said.
Grier is accused of “knowingly and intentionally” shooting the victim in the leg and causing his death, according to the arrest affidavit. He has been charged with murder, as well as 14 counts of aggravated assault, 14 counts of kidnapping, hijacking a motor vehicle, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, police said Wednesday.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said her office is unable to prosecute the case because one of her employees was on the bus, according to a letter she sent Wednesday to the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia requesting substitute counsel.
No other injuries were reported.
The investigation remains ongoing, Atlanta police said. GBI said it is also investigating the use of force by the state trooper.
A shaken passenger on the hijacked bus said the ordeal was “traumatic” and she is “thankful to be alive.”
“It was something that we’d never forget,” Paulette Gilbert, 60, told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB, adding she has ridden the bus for many years without incident.
The bus shooting and hijacking occurred after a separate, unrelated incident where gunfire broke out at a food court at a downtown Atlanta shopping center on Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Three people were injured, and an off-duty Atlanta police officer shot the armed suspect, police said.
The suspect in the bus hijacking boarded the bus near the shopping center but was not involved in that shooting, Schierbaum said. The suspects in both incidents are convicted felons, he said.
Dickens decried the spate of gun violence that occurred Tuesday and said it is the “result of too many people having guns in their hands.”
“We all have to say enough is enough when it comes to too many people having guns in their hands and using them in violence,” he said. “I’m thankful for the men and women of the Atlanta Police Department and all these agencies here that minimized what could have been even more dangerous.”
(PARADISE, Wash.) — Park rangers have recovered the body of a dead female skier from the base of Pebble Creek’s Moraine Falls above Paradise at Mount Rainier National Park.
Rangers had been searching for the missing skier after she was last heard from on May 18, before she set out on a ski tour above Paradise.
MORE: 23-year-old hiker missing in Rocky Mountain National Park The park’s contract helicopter found an unresponsive person who appeared to have fallen approximately 200 feet to the base of a waterfall, according to the National Park Service.
The area was surrounded by a large, unstable snow moat that was subject to rock and ice fall, posing a risk to recovery teams, according to the NPS.
“Rangers were able to recover the body using traditional crevasse rescue methods during another period of favorable weather,” according to the NPS.
The park’s contract helicopter transported the body to Kautz Creek Helibase for evaluation by the Pierce County Medical Examiner.
(ITALY) — It has been thousands of years since the eruption of Mount Vesuvius left the Italian city of Pompeii in ruins, but the ancient archaeological site continues to offer new findings.
An ornate “blue room,” distinguished by depictions of female figures on the cerulean-painted walls, was newly excavated by archeologists, according to a press release from the Archaeological Parks of Pompeii earlier this month.
The room, which is nearly 90 square feet, was initially discovered during the Bourbon period (1813-1840) but was recently excavated and shown for the first time on May 27.
Experts believe some murals represent the four seasons, or “Horea.” Other murals are emblems of agriculture, such as a plow and a “pedum,” a short staff used by shepherds and hunters, according to the release.
The pigment of the room is particularly significant, according to experts, who noted “the color blue found in this room rarely occurs in Pompeian frescoes and was generally used for elaborately decorated rooms.”
The rare blue room has been interpreted as a sacrarium, or a Roman sanctuary “devoted to ritual activities and the storage of sacred objects,” experts said.
Objects discovered in the room include 15 transport amphorae, or large vases, along with a set of bronze objects consisting of two jugs and two lamps.
Additionally, archaeologists excavated piles of building materials that were ready to be used in the renovation work. A heap of empty oyster shells was also found.
The excavation of the blue room is part of a larger project to “safeguard the vast heritage” of Pompeii, which includes 13,000 rooms in 1070 residential units, as well as public and sacred areas, according to the release.
In 2018, a discovery was unearthed in a large villa that stood just outside the walls of Pompeii, far from the known archaeological area, during a joint operation of the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Center and Pompeii archaeological superintendence.
Archaeologists working at the site uncovered buildings with big balconies that had Pompeian red colors and geometric decorations of flowers and animals. They named it the ‘Vicolo dei Balconi’ (Alley of Balconies).
(BETHANY, Okla.) — An Oklahoma girl has become the first pediatric patient in the world to have robotic deep brain stimulation performed on her, two hospitals have announced.
The patient, 8-year-old Karliegh Fry, suffers from rapid-onset primary dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions.
Karleigh’s condition initially left her paralyzed, unable to walk, eat or sit up on her own. She was put on several medications, which improved her condition slightly, but she was also left at times with involuntary movements that caused her to injure herself.
A joint team at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health and Bethany Children’s Health Center began exploring options and decided she might be a good candidate for deep brain stimulation (DBS).
“This marked the global debut of using a robot from our operating rooms to perform DBS in a child, setting a precedent not only in Oklahoma but also across the United States and worldwide,” Dr. Andrew Jea, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, said in a press release.
Deep brain stimulation is a procedure in which a surgeon implants one or more small wires knows as electrodes, or leads, in the brain. The electrodes are connected to a small device called a neurostimulator implanted in the upper chest.
It is used in the treatment of neurological conditions including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and Tourette’s syndrome. These conditions are caused by disorganized electrical signals in the parts of the brain that control movement, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
DBS works by interrupting the irregular signals that causes tremors or other involuntary movements. It does not cure these conditions but can improve a patient’s quality of life.
Using a robot to perform the procedure enhances “surgical precision and safety,” according to OU Health.
“So it was like trying to decide if we thought that the surgery would be worth the risk … but I think anything to give her her best shot,” Karleigh’s mother, Trisha Fry, said in an interview with OU Health.
Karleigh’s surgery was split into two separate parts, according to her mother. The surgery was performed at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital and Karleigh was transferred to Bethany Children’s Health Center for post-operative care and pediatric rehabilitation.
Within a few minutes of the neurostimulator being activated, OU Health said Karleigh was able to lower and relax her arms, which she couldn’t do prior to the procedure.
She is able to exhibit more control over her movements and her speech is also improving, the hospital said.
“Her arms used to lock up to the point we would put socks on her hands because she would scratch her neck,” Trisha Fry said. “There’s definitely been some improvements, even from the moment they turned it on. She is even using her voice a little bit more, and we can make out some of her words. I think she’s going to have a great future for sure.”
The team said Karleigh is continuing to show progress and that this could pave the way for more robotic DBS procedures performed on pediatric patients.
(BETHANY, Okla.) — An Oklahoma girl has become the first pediatric patient in the world to have robotic deep brain stimulation performed on her, two hospitals have announced.
The patient, 8-year-old Karliegh Fry, suffers from rapid-onset primary dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions.
Karleigh’s condition initially left her paralyzed, unable to walk, eat or sit up on her own. She was put on several medications, which improved her condition slightly, but she was also left at times with involuntary movements that caused her to injure herself.
A joint team at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health and Bethany Children’s Health Center began exploring options and decided she might be a good candidate for deep brain stimulation (DBS).
“This marked the global debut of using a robot from our operating rooms to perform DBS in a child, setting a precedent not only in Oklahoma but also across the United States and worldwide,” Dr. Andrew Jea, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, said in a press release.
Deep brain stimulation is a procedure in which a surgeon implants one or more small wires knows as electrodes, or leads, in the brain. The electrodes are connected to a small device called a neurostimulator implanted in the upper chest.
It is used in the treatment of neurological conditions including Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and Tourette’s syndrome. These conditions are caused by disorganized electrical signals in the parts of the brain that control movement, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
DBS works by interrupting the irregular signals that causes tremors or other involuntary movements. It does not cure these conditions but can improve a patient’s quality of life.
Using a robot to perform the procedure enhances “surgical precision and safety,” according to OU Health.
“So it was like trying to decide if we thought that the surgery would be worth the risk … but I think anything to give her her best shot,” Karleigh’s mother, Trisha Fry, said in an interview with OU Health.
Karleigh’s surgery was split into two separate parts, according to her mother. The surgery was performed at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital and Karleigh was transferred to Bethany Children’s Health Center for post-operative care and pediatric rehabilitation.
Within a few minutes of the neurostimulator being activated, OU Health said Karleigh was able to lower and relax her arms, which she couldn’t do prior to the procedure.
She is able to exhibit more control over her movements and her speech is also improving, the hospital said.
“Her arms used to lock up to the point we would put socks on her hands because she would scratch her neck,” Trisha Fry said. “There’s definitely been some improvements, even from the moment they turned it on. She is even using her voice a little bit more, and we can make out some of her words. I think she’s going to have a great future for sure.”
The team said Karleigh is continuing to show progress and that this could pave the way for more robotic DBS procedures performed on pediatric patients.
(PARKLAND, Fla.) — For more than six years, the 1200 building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sat untouched like a time capsule, with its classrooms still filled with dried blood and students’ strewn papers.
This week, the site of the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting will be torn down — a move two grieving moms say is long overdue.
The demolition will start Thursday, timed for immediately after the last day of school, which was on Monday, according to Broward County Public Schools.
Seventeen students and staff members were killed in the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre. Victims’ families were permitted to go inside the 1200 building for the first time last summer, following the conclusion of the trials of gunman Nikolas Cruz, who was sentenced to life in prison, and former school officer Scot Peterson, who was acquitted of child neglect after he had allegedly retreated while students were being shot.
Victim Scott Beigel’s mother, Linda Beigel Schulman, was adamant about going in the building — and she said she was not prepared for what she saw.
“It was horrible,” she told ABC News last year. “All the glass being shot out … seeing the bullet holes in the walls.”
Beigel, a geography teacher and cross-country coach, was shot to death while ushering his students to safety in his third floor classroom.
Inside Beigel’s room, Schulman saw her son’s notes and his open laptop, covered in dust.
One year later, the images are just as vivid in her mind.
“I could draw Scott’s room,” Schulman told ABC News last week. “I see Scott’s desk, I see as you walk into Scott’s room where he was when he was murdered.”
As hard as it was to witness, Schulman said she’s glad she did.
“I came out very different after the trial than I went in, and it took me awhile to process [the details the trial provided]. And going back into Scott’s classroom was really the same,” Schulman explained. “I was definitely not the same when I came out of there.”
“It’s just a body-shaking experience,” she said. “That’s where he worked and that was his happy place — and that’s where Scott was murdered.”
Patricia Oliver, whose fun, athletic 17-year-old son Joaquin was among those killed, never stepped foot in the 1200 building. She said it’d be too painful.
“Walking through the area where he was found, surrounded by blood, that I can’t handle — I really can’t handle it,” she told ABC News last week.
Seeing “every single piece of evidence [at Cruz’s trial], to me, was more than enough,” Oliver said. “I need my well-being in the right place.”
“I know more than enough of what happened to him — and his absence is absolutely painful every single day,” she added.
After the families’ visits, politicians went to the 1200 building to see the bullet-ridden walls for themselves, including Vice President Kamala Harris and some members of Congress.
“It’s important to see, unfortunately, what it looks like when a mass shooting comes to your high school,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., who graduated from Stoneman Douglas, said at the time. “Every backpack that was dropped, every shoe that fell off … is exactly as it was on that very day.”
Schulman supported the tours and said witnessing the inside of that building should’ve been mandatory for lawmakers to help open their eyes to the realities of gun violence.
But, Oliver said, “I wasn’t comfortable seeing they were using the building as an exhibition.”
“This is not a circus,” Oliver said. “It is a crime scene.”
“Every parent reacts in a different way, and that doesn’t mean it’s good or bad,” Oliver added. “I think everyone is carrying this emptiness, that, you don’t know how to handle it. It’s not for me to judge anyone.”
Neither Oliver nor Schulman will go witness the demolition. But both mothers say it’s overdue.
Oliver drives by the school frequently and she said it’ll bring her relief to not have the “physical reminder.”
Schulman lives in New York, but she said on each trip to Parkland, she feels nauseous passing by the building.
“I think it’s a long time coming,” Schulman said. “We can never forget — we just don’t need that.”
Demolition will likely take several weeks, and will involve dismantling the structure in pieces, starting with the top floor, the school district said.
“Survivors of the tragedy, families of victims, as well as teachers and staff had any items they desired returned to them,” according to the district.
District officials have not revealed any future plans for the site.
Schulman said she hopes it’ll be transformed into a place for students to have fun and laugh, like a baseball field.
“Something that brings joy. Because it’s done nothing in the last six years but bring horror,” Schulman said.
Oliver said she’d like the space to be filled with whatever would bring comfort and peace to current students, like a garden or patio.
The district said in a statement last month, “We understand this is a sensitive and difficult time for the families of those who were killed, those who were injured, and all of those who are forever impacted by the tragedy. … We will continue to keep the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School community informed and updated as we navigate this process together.”
In the wake of their tragedies, both moms are finding ways to honor their sons’ lives.
Schulman and her husband started the Scott J. Beigel Memorial Fund, which sends at-risk kids touched by gun violence to camp.
“They can actually leave their cares behind — they can just be kids,” she said.
Oliver and her husband have become advocates for gun control through their organization Change the Ref.
Each summer, they ramp up their efforts with events honoring Joaquin’s Aug. 4 birthday. This year, he would’ve turned 24.
Joaquin was always looking ahead, his mom said. Now, “he’s the one who pushes us,” she said.
“We need to keep going, we need to keep fighting,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump’s lawyers are continuing their push to terminate the limited gag order in his New York hush money case, arguing that Trump’s “political opponents” — including President Joe Biden, Robert DeNiro, Michael Cohen, and Stormy Daniels — are using the gag order as a “sword” to attack the former president.
In a 21-page filing this week, Trump’s lawyers argued that the gag order was an “extraordinary, unprecedented, and unwarranted restriction” on Trump’s speech that has caused irreparable harm.
“These violations have harmed not only President Trump, but also the constitutional rights of all American people to receive and engage with President Trump’s protected campaign speech,” the filing said.
Trump in May was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to Daniels, an adult film actress, in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
Last week, Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Juan Merchan to terminate the gag order, which prohibits Trump from making public comments about witnesses, jurors, and other participants in the proceedings. The gag order does not impact Trump’s ability to make comments about the judge, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, or Biden. During the trial, Judge Merchan held Trump in criminal contempt 10 times for violating the limited gag order, which does not apply to President Biden.
Bragg responded last week by arguing that the gag order should remain in place at least until Trump’s sentencing — scheduled for July 11 — in order to protect the integrity of the proceedings. Judge Merchan asked for further briefings on the topic.
Trump’s filing this week renewed their main argument that the gag order is no longer necessary since the trial has ended, arguing that Trump’s remarks no longer present a clear danger to the proceedings. Defense lawyers argued that Trump should be able to respond to “attacks” from his political opponents, citing a Biden campaign event on May 28 featuring DeNiro as well as remarks from Biden himself following the verdict.
“On May 31, following carefully scripted remarks about the verdict at a press conference, President Biden offered a disturbing grin to the gathered media cameras when asked whether President Trump is his ‘political prisoner,'” the filing said.
Defense lawyers also argued that Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and the trial’s star witness, repeatedly “mocked” Trump following the verdict and that Daniels suggested in a interview that Trump’s wife Melania should leave him.
“President Trump’s opponents and adversaries are using the Gag Order as a political sword to attack President Trump with reference to this case, on the understanding that his ability to mount a detailed response is severely restricted by the Gag Order,” the filing said.
Trump’s lawyers also argued, without providing evidence, that Bragg’s push to keep the gag order in place was part of a coordinated “lawfare strategy” with “President Biden and their overlapping cast of associates” to silence the former president in the runup to the election.
“Such an unlawful restraint would be egregious here, where District Attorney Bragg is seeking to help President Biden and his political associates by asking the Court to silence President Trump during and after the upcoming presidential debate,” the filing said. “Worse still, the District Attorney is pursuing that strategy in a case he claims, falsely, is about influencing the 2016 election by allegedly withholding information from voters. The irony is palpable.”
The filing was docketed the same day that a top Department of Justice official confirmed that an extensive search of Justice Department records found no contacts between Bragg’s office and senior DOJ officials related to the Trump case, discrediting the former president’s repeated claim that federal officials coordinated the prosecution.
Speaking a day after Trump was found guilty, President Biden said the case “was a state case, not a federal case.”
“Now he’ll be given the opportunity, as he should, to appeal that decision, just like everyone else has that opportunity,” Biden said. “That’s how the American system of justice works, and it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”
(WILMINGTON, Del.) — “Apples to ORANGE,” read a text back from one campaign staffer for President Joe Biden reacting to news that Hunter Biden, the president’s only surviving son, had been found guilty on all three felony gun charges on Wednesday.
It was a dig at former President Donald Trump, mocking his fake tan. But also a clear summary of how the Biden campaign viewed this new verdict. In a campaign punctuated by courtroom trials, their job was to show this one was different from that of the former president, who was found guilty two weeks ago in a Manhattan criminal court on 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents.
And it is different.
First, Hunter Biden is not running for anything. His name will not be on any ballot in November. But more, this case could be harder for Republicans to exploit for partisan gain.
Whereas Republicans had no doubt planned to have a field day should Hunter have been acquitted, his guilty conviction cut against their narrative that the legal system is rigged against them. Plus, the spotlight on addiction in Hunter’s case is both sensitive and salient for millions of American families.
Sources and allies to the president tell ABC News that he sees this less as a political liability, and more as a deeply personal issue. The president flew to Delaware after the verdict on Tuesday and was seen embracing his son on the tarmac in Wilmington.
Unlike Trump, Biden has said repeatedly he will respect the jury’s decision even if it was devastating for his family. He has consistently urged all Americans to respect the country’s legal system during his volatile election season.
Hunter Biden was convicted for lying about his drug use when filling out a federal form to purchase a gun and then for possessing that gun while an addict. But the fact of his dark struggle with addiction was not a surprise, salacious discovery or something anyone in the Biden family has not talked about already at length. Just the opposite — Hunter has been brutally honest in the past about his dependence on illegal drugs and effort to get clean.
More than 40 million Americans, one in six adults over 12, reported a substance use disorder, according to the 2022 United States National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Of those, more than 22% had severe cases characterized by “impairment caused by the recurrent use of alcohol or other drugs (or both), including health problems, disability, and failure to meet major responsibilities at work, school, or home.”
Nearly 108,000 people in the U.S. died from drug-involved overdoses in 2022, including from illicit or prescription drugs, according to the National Institutes of Health.
This reality means Republican attempts to bash the Bidens over this conviction could backfire in the court of public opinion. American voters know their country is drowning in addiction and have loved ones struggling too. They are looking for leaders who sympathize and have solutions.
Speaking to the public after the verdict, special counsel David Weiss said, “Ultimately this case was not just about addiction, a disease that haunts families across the United States, including Hunter Biden’s family. This case was about the illegal choices the defendant made while in the throes of addiction, his choice to lie on a government form when he bought a gun and the choice to then possess that gun.”
That might be true in terms of the law, the jury findings and Hunter Biden’s eventual sentencing. But even the Trump campaign seemed to acknowledge that politically this case was tricky for them.
Normally, quick to speak and verbose, Trump himself was noticeably more muted on Tuesday. He posted nothing about Hunter Biden, who has long been a Republican punching bag, on Truth Social.
In one short statement Trump’s campaign called this case against Hunter “a distraction.” If it were up to them, Hunter Biden and his father would be investigated further based on Hunter’s business practices instead. Republicans have long accused Hunter of illegal influence peddling abroad.
Of course, special counsel Weiss, who was originally nominated by Trump, has looked into Hunter Biden’s finances extensively and so far, found no evidence of foreign corruption. Though he has charged Hunter on two tax-related misdemeanor counts. That trial is set to start in September
A Republican-led House impeachment inquiry launched 10 months ago also has produced no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.
“The politics of this are not going to be clean for Donald Trump and for the Republicans,” Kate Bedingfield, former Biden White House communications director, said on CNN on Wednesday after Hunter Biden’s verdict. “You have somebody here who has been very vocal and eloquent about his struggles with addiction, in Hunter … I do think for people who have this struggle in their family seeing this play out in this way, I think gives them a link to the Biden family in a way that I think is powerful.”
Last week, during an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, Trump said of Hunter Biden, “I feel very badly for him in terms of the addiction part of what they have right now, because I understand the addiction world.” Trump has shared personal stories of his experience with addiction through his brother Fred, who struggled with alcohol.
One of the jurors who handed down the guilty verdict, told ABC News’ Terry Moran, “I just think [Hunter] needs help. He needs rehab. In my opinion this is a waste of taxpayers’ dollars. They should have fined him.”
Ironically, not only do Republicans talk often on the campaign trail about the prevalence of drugs and addiction in the country, but have also pushed for looser restrictions on guns. Many conservatives would like to see courts scrap those federal regulations Hunter Biden violated.
And there is the matter of whether or not to trust and respect the justice system.
The case against Hunter was a federal one, brought by a prosecutor who does actually report to Attorney General Merrick Garland. Even if as a special prosecutor, he is given more leeway and latitude. The hush-money case against Trump was brought and prosecuted locally in New York state court.
As Biden has said, “you can’t only respect the results when you win.” Or, in this case, it is harder for Republicans to argue the system is fundamentally broken only when their candidates loses.
