Hunter Biden trial: President changes his schedule to be with his son after guilty verdict
After three hours of deliberations, the jury convicted the president’s son on all charges
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Your support makes all the difference.President Joe Biden flew to Wilmington, Delaware, on Tuesday to be with his son Hunter Biden after a jury convicted him on three federal gun charges.
Hours after the verdict, the White House Press Office announced that the president’s schedule had changed and that he would head hometown. Later that afternoon, Biden landed in Delaware – greeting his son, daughter-in-law and grandson on the tarmac.
Hunter was charged with two counts of making false statements and one count of unlawfully possessing a firearm for obtaining a gun in October 2018 while he was addicted to crack cocaine.
The president has already said he will not pardon his son but issued a statement saying he and first lady Jill Biden love and support their son and are proud of his resilience in recovery.
Throughout Hunter’s federal gun charges trial, members of the Biden family flocked to the courthouse to show their support for the defendant.
On Tuesday evening, CNN aired a montage comparing and contrasting the very different reaction of Fox News hosts to the criminal convictions of Donald Trump and the younger Biden at their respective trials.
How the Hunter Biden guilty verdict will affect the election
Were the charges serious? Yes. Any gun-related criminal charge is generally serious, even in a country with relatively lax laws governing the possession and acquisition of firearms.
The week-long trial, held in a federal courthouse not far from where President Biden’s re-election campaign is based, marked a low point for Hunter. The Yale-educated attorney-turned-businessman has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for decades, by his own admission.
Andrew Feinberg reports:
Hunter Biden has been found guilty. Here’s how the verdict will affect the election
Despite the dramatic fallout and political posturing, there are multiple reasons why we shouldn’t expect this to change how voters cast their ballots in November
Juror says they felt badly about Naomi Biden testifying
Naomi Biden’s testimony during her father’s testimony weighed on the jury as they deliberated Hunter Biden’s conviction.
Speaking to CNN after the verdict on Tuesday afternoon, an unnamed juror said he believed that it “was a bad mistake” to put the defendant’s daughter on the stand, adding that most of the jurors “felt sorry” for the 30-year-old.
“No daughter should ever have to testify,” an anonymous juror told CNN an hour after the verdict.
When she took the stand, President Joe Biden’s granddaughter admitted she was “nervous” before proceeding to tell the court that “things got bad” after her uncle Beau died in 2015. She also testified that she never saw her father using drugs.
Hunter grew tearful as he listened to his daughter speak.
The anonymous juror also spoke about another “very sad” revelation that came up during the trial: “I did not know that Hallie also got addicted to crack.”
‘This case was about the illegal choices the defendant made'
Special counsel David Weiss made sure to emphasize that the charges and case against Hunter Biden were not about addiction but rather the choices he made while experiencing addiction.
“While there has been much testimony about the defendant’s abuse of drugs and alcohol 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 throws of addiction,” Weiss said in a press conference on Tuesday.
Weiss repeated a sentiment heard throughout the trial, “No one in this country is above the law.”
“Everyone must be accountable for their actions, even this defendant. However, Hunter Biden should be no more accountable than any other citizen convicted of this same conduct. The prosecution has been, and will continue to be, committed to this principle.”
Watch: Special Counsel deliver speech after Hunter Biden verdict
CNN calls out Fox News’s very different reactions to Hunter Biden and Trump guilty verdicts
CNN aired a montage on Tuesday evening comparing and contrasting the very different reaction of Fox News hosts to the criminal convictions of Donald Trump and Hunter Biden at their respective trials, a surprisingly direct attack on a media rival.
Introduced by anchor Abby Phillip, the segment presented the likes of Jeanine Pirro declaring in the wake of the Trump verdict on May 30 that the outcome “goes against the ilk of who we are as Americans and our faith in the criminal justice system”, before praising the Delaware jury for “not being intimidated” by the Bidens and recognising that the case in front of them was “clear-cut… and that no one is above the law”.
Laura Ingraham was shown sneering that “we all need to shop at Banana Republic from now on” in response to Trump’s being found guilty and then insisting that the Bidens had escaped accountability for “their sleazy, corrupt conduct” for years but “today, their luck ran out”.
And Jesse Watters was seen accusing “weak lawyers and talentless political bloodhounds” of being willing to “destroy the rule of law” to prosecute Trump but saying that the Biden verdict “gave me a little boost of confidence in the American legal system”.
Phillip wrapped up the feature by commenting: “Yes, these are two different trials under very different circumstances. Hunter Biden’s was federal, Trump’s was not. The crimes and the evidence? All completely different.
“You can’t claim the justice system is dead because of a single conviction while also praising it for another.
“And you can’t claim President Biden is weaponizing the Justice Department to go after his enemies when that same department just convicted his own son.”
Phillip actually didn’t have time to include Sean Hannity but, rest assured, he kept it up too.
Democratic representatives Jamie Raskin and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez meanwhile teamed up to offer a postive spin on the Hunter verdict in conversation with Chris Hayes.
Here’s our report.
CNN calls out Fox’s very different reactions to Hunter Biden and Trump convictions
Abby Phillip accuses rivals Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham and Jesse Watters of hypocrisy: ‘You can’t claim the justice system is dead because of a single conviction while also praising it for another’