(DCNF)—Noted attorney Alan Dershowitz raised questions Monday about one detail in the arrest of a suspect in the killing of UnitedHealth Group CEO Brian Thompson.
On Monday, police in Altoona, Pa. arrested Luigi Mangione, a person of interest in the fatal Dec. 4 shooting of Thompson, following an extensive manhunt. Dershowitz, a former Harvard law school professor, said that police may have violated Mangione’s rights in their search after the arrest, potentially endangering a conviction for the killing.
“I’m a little nervous about one aspect of the arrest. According to newspaper reports… when they arrested him, they found in his possession a series of documents relating to insurance companies. I don’t think that was based on a constitutional search,” Dershowitz said. “Get mad at me, but I believe in the Constitution. Look, I want this guy to be convicted if he did it, and obviously, it seems 99.999999% certain that he did it, notwithstanding the presumption of innocence, but I insist every I be dotted, every T be crossed when it comes to the Constitution.”
“Now the rules are this: When you arrest somebody, you can conduct a search that is consistent with the arrest and you can make sure you he has no guns, you can make sure he has no knives, no weapons, nothing like that, no means of escape, that’s all legitimate,” Dershowitz added. “But if you find in his pocket, you know a series of documents, there are cases, it’s not clear, that suggest before you read the documents, let’s assume… they were enclosed in an envelope, or they weren’t, there was more than one page, before you go inside the document, you may very well need a search warrant.”
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Failure to obtain a search warrant outside certain exceptions can result in a judge excluding evidence obtained in the search, according to Findlaw.
“It would have been easily obtainable, and you know, maybe no harm no foul, but the police should have obtained a search warrant,” Dershowitz said. “Maybe they did… But particularly when you have a case that’s so obvious and so apparent, police should do everything in their power to avoid giving the defense any arguments at all, the same thing happened in the O.J. Simpson case, they so clearly climbed over the fence, made up a story that that they were there to protect him.”
“I don’t want to see anything endangering a potential conviction in this case,” Dershowitz said later.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/Rumble/TheDershow)
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]]>(DCNF)—Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy said there is a “faction” of jurors in the Daniel Penny trial that have bought into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s alleged racial narrative.
Jurors told Judge Maxwell Wiley on Friday that they were at a “deadlock” in their deliberations on the verdict, leading the judge to dismiss the second-degree manslaughter charge and leave the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide up for consideration. As the jurors continued their deliberations Monday, McCarthy told “America’s Newsroom” that the trial will likely result in a mistrial due to several jurors believing in Bragg’s “racialized” framing of the case.
“Let’s remember what Bragg was pushing for up until Friday was the recklessness charge which carried a 15-year penalty,” McCarthy said. “So, I don’t see any change in the position of the DA, I see a change in the strategy of someone who couldn’t get the count that he was pushing for so now he’s onto this other count. But as far as this overcharging is concerned, look, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about two cases from Bragg. This case, where he overcharged it to push for a compromised verdict, and the other case which was at most a single transaction business record case and turned it into 34 felonies. So that’s what we’re dealing with here.”
“You have to wonder if some jurors think that they’re basically being brought back to court everyday until they finally convict this guy of something,” McCarthy continued. “My own view of it is that you probably have two factions on the jury, one that’s bought into this racialized presentation by the DA’s office that wants Penny convicted because [Jordan] Neely died whether Penny was actually responsible for that or not, and then you have another faction of jurors who think nothing should happen here, this guy should be acquitted. And what I assume is probably going to happen is after a day or two, it will be clear that we have a stalemate there will be a mistrial. I’d like to see him get acquitted, but it’s hard to believe that’ll happen given that there were some jurors, at least one, who was willing to convict him on the recklessness which I don’t even think there’s any evidence for.”
Bragg charged Penny, a 26-year-old former Marine, over the death of 30-year-old homeless man Jordan Neely after the defendant restrained him in a chokehold on a subway in New York City in May 2023. Neely allegedly screamed at commuters in an “aggressive” and threatening manner by throwing his jacket on the ground and telling passengers he did not care if he went to jail, prompting Penny to take action.
A Manhattan medical examiner ruled Neely’s death a homicide in May 2023, further prompting Bragg to press charges against Penny. The now-dismissed manslaughter charge came with a potential 15-year prison sentence, while the negligent homicide charges comes with a maximum four-year sentence.
In a separate case, Bragg charged President-elect Donald Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up an $130,000 hush money payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. A jury convicted Trump on every felony count in May, though Judge Juan Merchan indefinitely delayed the sentencing date following the election and permitted the president-elect’s legal team to file a motion to dismiss the case.
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]]>(DCNF)—Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy warned on Tuesday that GOP lawmakers might merely pay lip service to President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda while actively working against it behind the scenes.
During a discussion with Todd Starnes, Roy revealed that excuses are already surfacing among the GOP lawmakers as to why they won’t fully endorse Trump’s policies. Roy predicted a quiet resistance to Trump is forming within his party, unless significant pressure is applied to carry out Trump’s agenda.
“I think that Republicans in Congress are gonna give lip service to backing the president’s agenda and behind the scenes they’re going to be stonewalling it unless some of us can kick them right in the rear end and make them deliver,” Roy said. “That’s my blunt assessment. Truth is, you’re already hearing excuses. Well, we don’t have 60 votes in the Senate. You’re already hearing some of my colleagues say, ‘Well, we can’t do, you know, broad mass deportations,’ which by the way I think effectively just call it what it is, repatriation.”
"I think that Republicans in Congress are going to give lip service to backing the President's agenda, and behind the scenes, they're going to be stonewalling it. Unless some of us can kick them right in the rear end and make them deliver. " pic.twitter.com/d5rhy9TdFN
— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) December 4, 2024
Roy pointed out recent legislative actions that he believes would immediately bankrupt important programs.
“You can’t just write another blank check. They just voted for $200 billion to re-shift Social Security funding from some people to others, which will cause their security to be bankrupt six months earlier,” Roy told Starnes. “This is the natural way of things for Republicans in Washington. They need to understand they will change their ways or they will lose power. That’s it. I’m gonna be on the side of change. I’m gonna be on the side of disrupting the status quo.”
The U.S. House of Representatives approved the bipartisan Social Security Fairness Act, which aims to abolish two outdated rules that diminish benefits for public sector workers, according to Yahoo Finance. Initially introduced in 2023, the bill now advances to the Senate with substantial bipartisan backing and, if enacted, will incur an estimated cost of $196 billion over 10 years.
Roy voiced his support for a substantial faction within the party that is eager to advance Trump’s policies. However, he warned, “There’s a large block here who want to do it, and I think some people here in this conference are in for a rude awakening.”
Roy also touched on broader frustrations with federal funding practices, emphasizing his discontent with taxpayer money supporting (National Public Radio) NPR through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“I own a news talk radio station in Memphis, Tennessee. One of the things that angers me is the money I earn from my private business goes to fund competition across the street over at NPR, and I would love, I’ve already sent a message to Elon and Vivek, I would love for them to just dismantle the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Roy said.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy previously unveiled their strategy for the newly proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), detailing extensive cuts to federal regulations and staffing.
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]]>(DCNF)—Disillusioned with President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming immigration agenda and terrified of the level of crime in Mexico, many migrants are choosing to go back to their home countries.
Between 50 to 100 Venezuelan nationals in Mexico are now requesting what is known as “voluntary return” every week, according to a Venezuelan official that spoke with Reuters, who added that many of these migrants have faced perilous situations in Mexico, such as kidnappings and sexual exploitation. A dozen migrants in Mexico told the news outlet that they would prefer to go back to their home countries, despite whatever issues that drove them to leave in the first place.
A major point of contention is Trump’s promise to scrap the CBP One app, which has been used by hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals to schedule asylum appointments with U.S. officials. More migrants feel the obstacles to come from Trump make it no longer worth waiting in Mexico, where many of them have been subjected extortion, sexual assault, kidnappings and a slate of other violence from cartels and other dangerous individuals taking advantage of the migration crisis.
“I am traumatized. If I don’t get the appointment, I will go back,” Nidia Montenegro, a 52-year-old Venezuelan national, said to Reuters.
Trump — who already established himself as an immigration hardliner during his first term in office — has vowed to embark on a number of hawkish measures for his second term, such as executing the largest deportation initiative in U.S. history, resuming wall construction, restarting the Remain in Mexico program and a number of other proposals.
“As President I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America. We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration),” Trump posted on X in September.
First launched in October 2020 by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) primarily for cargo inspections, the CBP One app was expanded incredibly in January 2023 to include migrants waiting in Mexico hoping to schedule asylum appointments. More than 800,000 foreign nationals have scheduled appointments to present at ports of entry since the app’s expansion in January 2023, according to CBP.
While there have been reports of human smugglers urging migrants to rush to the southern border before Trump takes office and immigration officials have braced for such a possibility, border crossing numbers and on-the-ground interviews have largely suggested that most migrants feel defeated after Trump’s election victory. Todd Bensman, a national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, reported Tuesday that “most everyone” he interviewed at a migrant camp in Mexico City said that they’re giving up and going home after Trump is inaugurated and cancels the CBP One app program.
Nevertheless, there are some that are still holding on to hope that they will land an appointment before the Republican re-enters the White House.
“I trust I will arrive before Mr. Trump takes office,” Johana, a young Venezuelan national hoping to cross from Guatemala to Mexico, said to Reuters. “If it’s not by appointment, there’s always a way.”
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]]>(DCNF)—The Biden-Harris administration has granted millions of dollars in funding for a virtual treatment that aims to help cure eating disorders by “affirming” LGBTQIA+ patients’ sexual orientation and gender claims.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Auburn University Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences Tiffany Brown and San Diego State University Professor of Psychology Aaron Blashill up to $5 million in grants to “develop and provide” the Promoting Resilience to Improve Disordered Eating (PRIDE) treatment — a virtual “identity-affirming eating disorder treatment for LGBTQIA+ patients,” the Auburn University College of Liberal Arts website states. The PRIDE initiative is undergirded by the idea that “identity-related stress” is an “underlying motivator of disordered eating,” and thus that “affirm[ing] and support[ing]” patients’ beliefs that they are LGBTQIA+ can help cure eating disorders.
“Even when available, many LGBTQIA+ people across the country feel uncomfortable accessing treatment, for fear of discrimination or lack of understanding,” Brown said of the PRIDE initiative. “That is why we are so excited and honored to receive this grant from the NIMH to evaluate a treatment that integrates approaches that affirm and support LGBTQIA+ identities.”
Brown runs Auburn’s Appearance Concerns, Eating, Prevention and Treatment (ACCEPT) lab, which states its aim is to “improve eating disorder treatment for traditionally underserved populations,” according to the Auburn website. Blashill heads San Diego State University’s Body Image, Sexuality and Health lab, which “explores the role body image plays in influencing eating disorders and other health behaviors, with a focus on health disparities among sexual and gender minority individuals.”
Blashill co-authored a study published in November entitled, “The Association Between Minority Stressors, Intraminority Stressors, And Borderline Personality Disorder Symptomatology Among Sexual Minority Men,” which linked “minority stressors” such as “internalized homophobia and sexual orientation concealment” to criteria for borderline personality disorder.
The $5 million in total potential funding for the PRIDE program comes amid a broader Biden administration effort to fund LGBT initiatives across the globe, including the development of a mobile health app in Malaysia that instructs men on how to more safely engage in drug-fueled intercourse and a sex change program in Guatemala.
The incoming Trump administration could be poised to crack down on Biden’s LGBTQIA+ agenda, with President-elect Donald Trump announcing the creation of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Nov. 12 that will look to “slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal Agencies.”
“The woke mind virus consists of creating very, very divisive identity politics…[that] amplifies racism; amplifies, frankly, sexism; and all of the -isms while claiming to do the opposite,” DOGE co-leader Elon Musk said at an event in Italy in December 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It actually divides people and makes them hate each other and hate themselves.”
Brown, Blashill, Auburn, SDSU and the NIH did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
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]]>(DCNF)—Fox Business host Charles Payne called out the alleged “huge double standard” of President Joe Biden’s family Tuesday by revealing that his brother, who struggles with a crack addiction, is currently serving a jail sentence.
Payne said his brother, who is getting out of jail on Friday, is likely one of the first Americans to struggle with an addiction to crack cocaine and may likely start using the substance again once he is free. He accused Biden of participating in elitism in order to save his son from jail time while everyday Americans struggling with addiction have had to face the consequences for their crimes.
“Hearing Democrats try to justify what Biden is doing with his son because his son has a drug habit is just heartbreaking,” Payne said on “America’s Newsroom.” “I’m gonna tell you something right now, and I probably shouldn’t say this. My brother’s getting out of jail on Friday. My brother was among the first 100 crack addicts in America. At least the first 1 out of 200. In the hood, when he came upstairs and told us about crack and how great it was, I had never heard of it before. I kind of don’t want him to come out of jail because before he went in, he stopped my aunt’s house and he didn’t have shoes on in the middle of winter.”
Payne accused black Democrats of remaining silent on the pardoning of Hunter despite the crack issue being a detriment to their community. (RELATED: Jonathan Turley Breaks Down How Hunter Biden Could Face ‘Additional Charges’ In The Future Despite Being Pardoned)
“What’s happening with the Biden’s, and this is the ultimate sign of elitism, and just of entitlement gone amok … Where are black Democrats saying this is such a huge double standard? That if this was Donald Trump and anyone in his family, there would be people in the streets screaming. Now if you want to use this as a way of saying ‘hey, we need to find more ways of reforming and helping everyone out and not just Hunter Biden,’ but this has hurt our community so badly and no one’s immune from it,” Payne continued.
“And listen, I wish I could be there waiting for [his brother] when he gets out on Friday, but I can’t,” he added. “I wish I could be there to hold his hand and everything, I can’t. We talked about this. He’s probably going to go back to smoking crack even though he hasn’t had it for a year. He was the smartest one in my family growing up, he’s a great person in his heart, and he could’ve been a great American. It’s a slap in the face to everyone that Joe Biden gets to do this. It really is, it’s a slap in the face for anyone whose family members had gone to jail for doing stupid stuff.”
Biden issued a “full and unconditional” pardon for his son on Sunday regarding any crime he is charged with or may have committed from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024. The president alleged that his political opponents “singled out” Hunter by charging him for crimes that almost no American allegedly gets prosecuted for having committed, including writing false information on a gun purchase form and paying back their taxes past the deadline.
A Delaware jury convicted Hunter in June on three felony charges related to his purchase of a gun in 2018 while knowingly being addicted to drugs and for writing false information on a gun purchase form. He faced up to 17 years in prison over nine charges relating to his alleged failure to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019 in California.
The pardon further protects Hunter from facing any potential charges regarding an alleged influence peddling scheme in his overseas business dealings in Ukraine, China and Romania.
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]]>(DCNF)—A CNN panel said South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law could somehow be comparable to President-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming presidency during a Tuesday segment.
Yeol made the declaration during an unannounced Tuesday television address where he accused the country’s opposition Democratic Party of sympathizing with North Korea and of intending to incite a “rebellion,” which lawmakers later voted to block and overturn the measure within hours. The CNN panel claimed this event should be a warning bell for Americans as Trump is about to take office, citing his statements to use the military to stop rioting in the streets.
“Obviously, we around the table should talk about why this should be an important thing for Americans to pay attention to, particularly given that Donald Trump is about to be president in a number of weeks, who has said wants to use the military to go after his own enemies,” CNN White House correspondent MJ Lee said.
Trump said during a Fox News interview in October that he would support deploying the National Guard or the military if necessary to stop “outside agitators” who would have potentially caused violence in the streets on Election Day. Democrats and the liberal media accused him of preparing to use the military to arrest his political opponents he deems as an “enemy of within,” including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic California Rep. Adam Schiff.
“You talked about, shocking, the parallels of January 6, just the image of a democracy facing this kind of crisis, I think people are scared about or sort of Democrats are scared about when they think about Trump’s return,” Punchbowl News co-founder John Bresnahan said. “Because he has encouraged the use of force to achieve political goals or try to achieve a political goal on January 6 or at least played with it. And he’s talked about now pardoning some of these folks on January 6, the rioters, insurrectionists, whatever you want to call them.”
The liberal media, Democrats and the White House all attempted to paint Trump as a threat to democracy and accused him of being a “fascist” before the 2024 election in large part due to the events that took place at the Capitol riot. Despite the messaging, Trump won all seven battleground states and became the first Republican presidential nominee to win the popular vote since 2004.
The now-president-elect stated in June 2020 that he would deploy “all available resources” including members of the military, to tackle the violent riots roaming across Washington D.C. and other major cities in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. He urged governors throughout the U.S. to deploy the National Guard to counter the rioters, looters and lawlessness dominating the streets.
Colorado, Maine and Illinois attempted to remove Trump from the 2024 Republican primary ballot citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, as they accused Trump of engaging in an insurrection in the aftermath of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The Supreme Court later overturned in March by ruling that a state does not have the power to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
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]]>(DCNF)—More Americans are leaning into their Christian faith in what some religious leaders and scholars are calling a “fourth Great Awakening.”
Bible sales in the United States have skyrocketed in 2024, religious colleges are seeing enrollment boosts despite overall declines in higher education attendance and several states are pushing for Bible-based curriculum in public schools. Some Bible scholars believe this may mark a significant cultural shift.
“While it has been apparent to a few of us for some time, millions are now realizing that ‘woke’ ideologies are, in fact, destructive attempts to re-found the nation according to a new civic religion which both parodies and persecutes Christianity,” Chad Pecknold, theologian and professor at The Catholic University of America, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Despite overall book sales increasing by only 1% compared to 2023, Bible sales in the U.S. have reached an impressive 22% increase as of October 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Cardinal Newman Society in October reported that enrollment at Catholic colleges has risen in 2024 despite an overall enrollment decrease at other institutions, with several schools such as Ave Maria University in Florida and Benedictine College in Kansas seeing record growth, increasing attendance by more than 20% over the last 10 years.
“There is a resurgence of Christianity among young people,” Wade Burleson, retired pastor and president of Istoria Ministries, told the DCNF. “I see what is happening [as] more of an Awakening. An Awakening occurs when the irreligious come to faith in Christ.”
Burleson pointed to several instances of young people coming into faith in doves in recent years, with hundreds of students being baptized on campuses across the nation, including several members of the four-time national champion Oklahoma University women’s softball team.
“There have been three Great Awakenings in America, and a few smaller ones,” Burleson continued. “I believe we are in the beginning of a fourth Great Awakening and it is a response to inflation (financial panic), pandemics (Covid), wars (global), and the sudden death of stability in America. There is no anchor in life better than the Anchor of Hope, and when the ship of life is tossed to and fro, faith awakens.”
Pecknold shared this sentiment, arguing that far-left politics have driven Americans towards Christianity.
“Democrats, and the corporations and institutions they controlled, embraced this pseudo-civic religion in their attempt to take total control over the American republic,” Pecknold said. “The American people saw their totalitarian appetites on display in everything from forced vaccinations to extreme racialism to the redefinition of marriage and the denial of sexual difference, all under the ever-evolving banner of ‘the Progress Flag.’”
“This is when the Democrats were defeated so thoroughly on November 5th, it was not only seen as a political victory, but also as a religious victory: it was a repudiation of the ersatz civic religion that Democrats had used to re-found the country.”
Catholic voters played a pivotal role in the 2024 presidential election, making up approximately 25% of the vote and overwhelmingly siding with President-elect Donald Trump, with other Christian voters following suit.
This was a surprising revelation considering tens of millions of Christians were expected to refrain from voting, citing a dislike of both candidates and general uninterest in politics, according to Relevant Magazine. Some religious organizations, however, made efforts to warn voters prior to the election that the Democratic ticket was “patently anti-religious.”
Greg Boyd, theologian and Pastor at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota is less convinced of this religious revival.
“My concern is that a lot of it seems to be wrapped up with nationalism,” Boyd told the DCNF. “And it concerns me because whenever the Christian faith has gotten too close to political power, it’s been transformed by the political power, and we have Christians trying to control others and conquer others, the same as we’ve had throughout history. And in my opinion, that doesn’t look anything [like] what we find in the Gospel.”
Boyd pointed to examples of states like Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma approving the implementation of Bible lessons into public school lessons. Texas’ law is meant to help “students to better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature, and religion on pivotal events” in history and Oklahoma’s is similarly meant “as an instructional support into the curriculum.”
“Where did Jesus ever impose himself on others?” the pastor asked.
“I mean, I would love to see a revival in the country,” Boyd said. “The evidence of that would be, I would think, people become more Christ-like, they become more loving. They would be trying to turn the other cheek, trying to reach out across the aisle and build bridges instead of walls. And I don’t see any of that happening with the church as a whole. Seems like it’s kind of gone deeply into political polarization.”
Boyd agreed that many issues in politics have driven people to view current affairs through a religious lens.
Cultural issues such as abortion, gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have been hot topics dividing Americans’ opinions, especially religious Americans. The ongoing war in Gaza, as well as the hundreds of protests that spanned the U.S. in response, also impacted Christians’ perspective, with many viewing the apparent prosecution of Jews on college campuses as an infringement on religious freedom as a whole.
Church attendance among Christians remains relatively low in the United States, with only 30% of Protestants and 23% of Catholics attending church every week, according to a March Gallup poll. However, more Americans than ever are consuming religious content, with the Hallow prayer app becoming the first religious app to top Apple’s App Store in 2024 and Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Bible In A Year podcast consistently topping charts in recent years, according to National Review.
Young men in particular are maintaining their devotion to faith, with more Gen Z men identifying as Christian than women for the first time, according to the New York Times.
“We are currently seeing a kind of clarity about the civilizational conflict that ‘woke’ ideologies provoked,” Pecknold told the DCNF. “In brief, the people are fed up with this fake religion, and even if they aren’t Christian themselves, they’re realizing that Christianity provides a far better ‘unwritten constitution’ for the nation than anti-Christian wokism can supply. There’s a simple realization at work here.”
“Christianity is an ordering principle which elevates and ennobles souls, families, and societies — it’s inherently public, and cannot be ‘privatized,’ relegated to the margins, or separated from questions of education, heritage, public morality, family policy, law, or the aspirations of nations,” Pecknold said. “We still date time by the Incarnation because, deep down, everyone knows that Christianity is objectively true and good for all people — it roots us in reality, it helps us to promote the truly good, and avoid those evils which cause so much suffering — it elevates us by the Light of Christ. Public Christianity is literally what makes civilizational renewal possible. The fact that Americans are remembering this, and having the courage to state it, is a sign of great hope for the nation.”
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]]>(DCNF)—Trump-appointed Judge Mark C. Scarsi ripped into President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden on Tuesday in a filing, saying that while the president has broad authority, he cannot “rewrite history.”
Biden released a statement Sunday evening announcing his pardon of Hunter Biden’s cases, claiming that any “reasonable” person reviewing the facts in the case would conclude that his son was being targeted because of his connection to the president. In a filing on Tuesday evening, Scarsi, who presided over Hunter’s federal tax case in California, criticized the president for misrepresenting the facts in his statement.
“According to the President, ‘[n]o reasonable person who looks at the facts of [Mr. Biden’s] cases can reach any other conclusion than [Mr. Biden] was singled out only because he is [the President’s] son.’ But two federal judges expressly rejected Mr. Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President,” Scarsi wrote.
U.S. district court judge takes issue with Biden’s claim in his pardon that no reasonable person looking at the case could reach any conclusion other than that Hunter was targeted because he is the POTUS’s son, noting that federal judges & Biden’s own DOJ rejected that argument. pic.twitter.com/vdxX9YDXyr
— Jerry Dunleavy IV
(@JerryDunleavy) December 4, 2024
“And the President’s own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges. In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people,” Scarsi said. “In short, a press release is not a pardon. The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”
In September, Hunter pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in his California case after he allegedly failed to pay an estimated $1.4 million in taxes and filed falsified tax paperwork. While Scarsi had initially accepted the plea and scheduled Hunter’s sentencing for Dec. 16, he stated in his recent ruling that he would vacate the sentencing hearing but would not terminate the case until the pardon is formally signed by Biden.
Since Biden’s announcement to pardon his son, the president has faced major backlash from pundits and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle due to his and his staff’s repeated denials that he would pardon Hunter.
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]]>(DCNF)—MSNBC contributor Sam Stein called President Joe Biden a “weird historical figure” Sunday on a podcast while discussing the decision to pardon his son, Hunter Biden.
Biden released a statement Sunday evening announcing that he had pardoned Hunter after the younger Biden was convicted on three felony gun charges in June. On “The Bulwark,” host and libertarian political strategist Tim Miller questioned “what leg” Democrats “have to stand” on, leading the two to discuss how Biden’s decisions have affected his legacy throughout his term.
“They don’t have any leg. That’s the whole thing. But like, it wasn’t going to stop Trump from pardoning every J6er he wanted to anyway. So it’s, again, I don’t think we’re like that far apart. I just view it kind of differently. I think to me, this is a stupid step that Biden probably felt he had to take,” Stein responded.
“But ultimately, it’s not going to cause irreparable damage to our norms. Our norms are shattered,” Stein added. “Like we are picking, we’re staring at the ashes right now and we’re like, ‘Oh no, how could he?’ But it’s like, yeah, we just got a big pile of shit put on our arms. He’s adding a little bit more.”
Miller went on to express his frustration with Biden, calling out a recent photo of the president smiling during his meeting with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House last month to discuss the upcoming transition of executive power.
“I’m so mad at Joe Biden right now,” He already did the stupid happy, happy, joy, joy picture with Trump. Like the whole thing. I don’t know. I think that Joe Biden has acted unimaginably selfishly this year,” Miller said.
“I think that if you have a list of people that you, I mean, like that you want to blame for the current predicament in which we’re in, obviously the Republicans are all at the top. Mitch McConnell is at the top,” Miller continued. “The fact that they didn’t, they didn’t impeach and convict him. But like, once you move past the Republicans, it’s hard for me to think of anybody.”
Stein responded to the host, stating that while Biden defeated Trump in 2020, he has made “very ill-founded and selfish” decisions throughout his four years in office.
“He’s such a weird historical figure, right? Like on the one hand, obviously deeply sympathetic guy. On the other [hand], we should recognize he defeated Trump for like four years without Trump because Joe Biden defeated him in 2020,” Stein said.
“Got us out of the pandemic and then just sort of acted, like made one very ill-founded and selfish move after another. Then we end up here,” Stein continued. “Again, not a straight line. A lot of people could have helped. A lot of people could have prevented this.”
Following Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat, Democrats have questioned where her campaign went wrong after the party lost both the Electoral College and the popular vote. Some have criticized Harris’ rhetoric against the former president, while others, like Democratic California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, have suggested that if Biden had stepped down before July 21, the party could have held an open primary to select and strengthen their candidate.
In Biden’s statement regarding Hunter, the president claimed the cases against his son were brought forward only because he is a Biden. However, prior to the decision, Biden and his staff had repeatedly assured the public that he had no intention of pardoning his son, stating in June that he was “satisfied” with the conviction and that he wasn’t “going to do anything.”