← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
A Tale of Two Trials: Trump Case Goes to the Jury & Joe Biden Makes a Surprise Visit to a Key Witness on the Eve of Hunter's Gun Trial
00:38:40
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. And Senator, it is the trial of the century is how they were selling it on TV today. The jury in the Donald Trump trial is going to have an awful lot of power on his future.
- [00:17]
B
Well, that's exactly right. We had yesterday we had closing arguments from the defense, from the prosecution. And today the judge will give jury instructions to the jury and the jury will begin to deliberate and deliberate until they reach a verdict. And so this is, this is what it all comes down to. The witnesses are done, the evidence is done, and it now comes down to the judge and the jury and we're going to find out the outcome. So we're going to explain what to expect, what the jury's options are, what is critical in the jury instructions. And then we're also going to talk about yet another trial, which is the Hunter Biden trial, which is about to begin. And we're going to talk about the rather astonishing fact that right before the Hunter Biden trial, Joe Biden decided a little witness tampering is a good way to start that trial. We're going to compare and contrast these two trials, these two presidents, and the very different standards of justice that have applied to both of them.
- [01:14]
A
Yeah, one's the trial of the century, other one no one's talking about at all. Let me tell you real quick about our friends over at Patriot Mobile. I tell you what, I love knowing that every day when I use my cell phone I'm making a difference in standing up for what I believe in. And I love knowing that I'm no longer giving my money to woke companies that are fighting against my value. Now. If you have a cell phone, technology now has changed everything. In 2024, you don't have to worry about having spotty coverage when you switch cell phone providers because you're going to use the same exact towers you're using right now, meaning you get the same exact coverage. But the difference is you're not with Big Mobile who gets big donations. When you switch Patriot Mobile, you're going to give donations to conservative causes organizations. And instead of being with Big Mobile where they're giving big donations to Democratic causes and candidates and organizations, including Planned Parenthood. That is why I want you to switch to Patriot Mobile. You don't even have to go to a store to switch. You can literally call them 972 Patriot. With 2024 technology, you can switch over the phone. You can keep your same phone number you have now, your same phone you have in your hand or upgrade to a new one. And it's all now done over the phone. Plus, when you pay your bill every month, 5% of your bill at no extra charge to you goes back to causes that support our first and second amendment rights, the rights of unborn children. And at Patriot Mobile, they support our wounded warriors, our veterans and our first responder heroes. I love giving my money to comedy that's aligned with my values. So join me today. Make the switch and make a difference with every phone call. 972 Patriot or Patriot mobile.com verdict use a promo code verdict and you'll also get free activation. Patriotmobile.com verdict use the promo code verdict or 972-patriot Senator, this has been a trial the media has been obsessed with with Donald Trump in New York. We've also been kind of looking at them hedging their bets. And I'm referring to the media. They've started to say, well, you know, Michael Cohen didn't work very well. Maybe this thing won't happen the way we thought it was. There is a chance he could not be convicted. So let's go through what is now happening with the jury. They get their instructions from the judge. That'll take about an they then have to go deliberate and at that point there's nothing left from the outside world but for us to wait. So what is the jury's options? The Democrats want Trump to go to jail. They've been throwing these stories out there, the Secret Service talking to jail about maybe him if he goes to jail, then there's the other opt possibility of a hung jury or are not guilty. Tell me and explain each one of these scenarios.
- [04:05]
B
Well, as you noted, the judge is going to start the day by giving the jury instructions. The jury instructions matter enormously and we're going to find out just how wildly biased this judge is. Those jury instructions are going to set up what the task is. It's the judge's job to tell the jury what the law is. And depending on what the judge instructs, that that could well be putting a finger on the scale and leaning in against Trump and in favor of the prosecution. As we've talked about on this podcast, there are many aspects of the prosecution that did not go well for the prosecutor. Michael Cohen was a disaster of a witness. He admitted to lying on the stand. He admitted to being a thief on the stand. That really is a first. I don't know of another trial where the star witness admits and breaks news, oh, by the way, I stole a bunch of money from you too, that as we talked about this on this podcast that had CNN crying in their beer. I gotta say, I do feel a little bad for cnn. I don't know what they're actually gonna cover when this trial is over. They're certainly not going to cover the Hunter Biden trial because that would entail saying something negative about the White House. So they won't do that.
- [05:11]
A
By the way, you just insulted beer drinkers. I don't think they drink beer at cnn. I think it's more like a white claw. I'm just going to be honest with you.
- [05:17]
B
Hey, don't knock white claws. I had white claws thrown at me. Two of them. That's where you need cat like reflexes. If someone throws a white claw, you got a duck.
- [05:28]
A
You got a duck. I will say you and I had a white claw at one of the shows after that happened. Can we both agree that might be one of the worst drink ever had.
- [05:37]
B
In your entire life? I've had precisely one white claw in my life and I didn't finish mine.
- [05:42]
A
I didn't finish mine either. It was like 75% still in the bottle. It was disgusting. But at CNN, I'm sure they drink that stuff.
- [05:51]
B
I, you know, probably with a little pink umbrella. But CNN is, they're worried, the media is worried that Trump will be acquitted. We'll find out. Look, the jury has not been sequestered. So they're all in New York. They all went over Memorial Day weekend. They were surrounded by their friends and family, presumably. And my guess is a whole lot of them were saying, you gotta convict this guy, you gotta convict this guy. They're not supposed to discuss the case with anybody, but the jury really should have been sequestered, and the jury instructions are gonna matter a lot. And by the way, if Trump is convicted, one of the many things that could lead to an appeal is what's in the jury instructions. And I'm gonna break down in particular an issue on that in a second. But you ask what will happen? Look, there are 34 counts of falsifying business records. And so the jury has to reach a verdict on each of the 34 counts. And the options are guilty or not guilty. Now, to find the defendant guilty, to find Trump guilty, the jury has to be unanimous. So all 12 jurors have to conclude he's guilty. Now, they don't have to reach the same result in every one of the counts, so they could conceivably find him guilty on some and not guilty on others, but it has to be unanimous. In order to find him guilty, if they can't reach an outcome, if they're deadlocked, then you could have a hung jury. And a hung jury leads to a mistrial, and they could start the whole thing all over again. And in terms of timing, we don't know how quick this could be, that we could see a verdict today, we could see a verdict tomorrow, or they could spend a week or two deliberating and end up being deadlocked. All of those are possibilities, and we don't really know what the timing will be.
- [07:30]
A
Can we go back to hung jury just for a second and explain that a little bit more? Is that a. Is that a positive? If you're the person being accused, obviously, in this scenario, that would be Donald Trump. And then you mentioned appeal. Play that out for us. And what would that look like? And then the timeline.
- [07:46]
B
Well, look, for a criminal defendant, a hung jury is a victory. It's certainly a lot better than a guilty verdict. So a hung jury means the prosecution failed to convict you, but it's not a verdict of innocence of not guilty. And so the result of a hung jury is that the judge is forced to declare a mistrial and you can go to the trial all over again. But a criminal defendant, in normal circumstances, and not a thing about this is remotely normal, but in normal circumstances, a criminal defendant is pretty darn happy with the hung jury. It means the prosecution failed. And. And with some frequency, the prosecution does not, chooses not to try it a second time. And so a hung jury is at least a partial victory for the defense. But as I said, it can all happen again, which truly would be a nightmare. But CNN may be rooting for that, because, as I said, they gotta cover something for the next couple of months, and they're not gonna cover the failures of the Biden White House. So this is all that's left to them.
- [08:48]
A
If this goes that scenario where someone holds out and they say, hey, I'm not gonna. And then you look at the timeline down the road, could this still. Would this be after election Day? Before election Day, and if Donald Trump wins reelection. Right. He gets elected a second time. The question I've been asked, and I said, I'm not a legal scholar, so I'm gonna ask you, could the president, in theory, pardon himself?
- [09:12]
B
No.
- [09:13]
A
Okay.
- [09:14]
B
Now the president can pardon himself from federal offenses. And so the indictments from the Department of Justice, they're two different indictments. From the special counsel, Jack Smith. There is the one that is the documents case that's down in Florida for his alleged possession, illegal possession of classified documents at Mar a Lago. There is the second one that is the indictment in D.C. for January 6th. Both of those, the president could pardon himself because those are federal claims. He wouldn't actually need to pardon himself because he could just direct the Department of Justice to dismiss the cases. And so if Trump is elected, both of those cases will go away. What he can't pardon himself of is the state offenses. So he can't pardon himself of the New York criminal charges. He can't pardon himself for the Georgia criminal charges because neither of those are federal charges. They're both state charges. And so only the governor can pardon. Actually, in Georgia, the governor can't pardon until after the trial. So even in that circumstance, it's not subject to a pardon until after the trial.
- [10:21]
A
So let's talk about if the jury goes in there, what is what has to take place for them to find him either guilty or innocent. Does that have to be unanimous in these state cases?
- [10:32]
B
So it does have to be unanimous, and it has to be unanimous as to each of the counts, if any, that on which he's found guilty. Now, this is where the jury instructions really matter, though, because it depends on what the judge asks them to find. Remember these claims, these charges are all for bookkeeping offenses. They're for 34 allegedly false entries of bookkeeping. Now, under New York law, those bookkeeping offenses are misdemeanors and misdemeanors on which the statute of limitations has run. And so the whole trick of this very creative and frankly frivolous prosecution is they're trying to bootstrap a misdemeanor. And a misdemeanor is a crime that is punishable by less than a year in jail. And a misdemeanor typically has a short statute of limitations. They're trying to bootstrap it by focusing on another crime. And so if the bookkeeping offense is in furtherance of another crime, it can be elevated to a felony, which gives you a longer statute of limitations and a longer potential jail sentence. But what is really going to be critical is what the judge tells the jury they have to find about this so called other crime. And I will say there was a really good article that was written by Byron York and the Washington examiner entitled Judgment how prosecutors will use the quote, other crime against Trump. And in it, he points out that the bookkeeping offenses are misdemeanors, but that the theory that they're using is that in addition to the bookkeeping offenses, Trump violated a New York State election law, barring the, quote, conspiracy to promote or prevent election by unlawful means. Now, that is a misdemeanor as well. But what the Manhattan DA is arguing is that the two misdemeanors, when taken together, add up to 34 felony charges and a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison for Trump. And so which is really, I mean, it's a bootstrap strap. That is an extraordinary bootstrap. But what is even more amazing is it's not clear what the judge is going to instruct the jury about the so called object crime. In other words, do they have to agree on what the object crime is? And first of all, what is the object crime? Is there only one? Are there more than one? Does the object crime require an object crime of its own? What level of proof do the prosecutors have to have to reach before they can find Trump guilty? Remember, ordinarily in a criminal case, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Well, do they have to prove the object crime behind a reasonable doubt? And does the object crime even have to be a crime? And all of these were argued about before the judge. So last Tuesday, both sets of lawyers met with a judge and there was a lot of discussion about the most frequently mentioned object crime, which is the New York State election law, outlaw outlawing the promotion of an election by unlawful means. And the question is, what does unlawful means? Now, the prosecutors cite an alleged violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. And remember, we talked about in a previous pod how the judge would not allow Brad Smith, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, to testify about the Federal Election Campaign Act. Now, typically, violations of that act are a civil matter. Would a civil matter be an object crime? Well, there was a back and forth about whether it could be a civil offense or if it had to be actually a crime. And that also led to a discussion. And we'll see what the jury instructions say about the mens rea and in particular, whether it has to be a willful violation. The Trump lawyers wanted the judge to tell the jury that they must find that Trump willfully violated the law, which means that he specifically knew what he was doing was a crime and that he did it anyway. And so here's what Andrew McCarthy, who's a very, very experienced federal prosecutor and commentator and a good friend, here's, here's, here's what he wrote about that. He wrote, quote, whenever a crime is alleged, prosecutors must prove criminal intent. Willfulness is the most burdensome intent standard in the criminal law. Calling on prosecutors to prove that the defendant was aware of a legal duty and intentionally violated that duty. So those questions. And by. And by the way, what did DOJ say? DOJ came in and argued, no, no, no, we don't have to prove any of that. Instead, they said that the underlying crime, the unlawful means, doesn't have to be a crime. It doesn't have to be a criminal matter. And DOJ argued, quote, by its plain meaning, unlawful doesn't mean criminal. It means violation of law. That's what Michael Colangelo, who was one of the top officials at the Biden Justice Department and who left to join this, this rabid partisan DA's legal team. Uh, Colangelo argued, quote, the plain text of the statute provides that election law conspiracy occurred when the intended results are executed through unlawful means, because it doesn't need to be criminal unlawful means. There's no need to add the word willful into the jury's instructions. So the prosecution's position on the object crime is it doesn't have to be a crime and he doesn't. They don't have to prove that he intended to commit a crime and that it doesn't have to be even a criminal act. It could be a civil violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act. Now, Trump's lawyers came back and said, I think quite sensibly, for this to be a criminal conspiracy, there has to be a criminal object. Otherwise, quote, we just have a civil conspiracy that it, that it can't be used to elevate this into a felony. The judge said he was reserving decision on the willfully issue. So what the standard of intent is, is going to be a big deal. Now, there was separately a debate about whether there has to be one object crime. Does the jury all have to agree on one object crime, or could there be several? With each juror finding a different object crime and saying, I like that one, so I'll use it to elevate it to a felon. No, no, I like that one. And what do the prosecutors have to have to prove? Now, Colangelo argued, quote, the people weren't required to identify any object crime, so you could be. Have it be whatever you. You wanted. Trump lawyers responded that, quote, the jury cannot infer that the unlawful means is established just by the fact that there was an agreement to promote President Trump's election in 2016. Of course there was. He won. They have to establish some kind of unlawful means to make that a crime. So these questions are a big, big deal. And as we sit here today, we don't know how the judge is going to resolve it. But if the judge sends it to the jury and says the prosecution doesn't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the object crime, it doesn't have to be a crime at all. You don't have to decide what the object crime is. Each one of you can pick a different object crime. That really illustrates how the jury instructions can stack the deck for the prosecution. My strong suspicious is we're gonna see some pretty messed up jury instructions today, but we'll find out when the judge gives them.
- [18:13]
A
So you look at all these counts, and I've seen this really pick up steam on cnn, msnbc, and the others. And it's the. Look, we don't have to basically get Trump on everything. We just need to get him on something. And with so many charges against him, the jury will probably. This are my words. What they were pontificating about is that they're gonna find something to convict him on. And that's all we really want here. Is that a real strategy? Like, hey, throw the book at him. And eventually, like, there's enough smoke, there's fire. They don't like him enough. They're like, all right, we'll let him go on a lot of this stuff, but we're nailing at least on something.
- [18:51]
B
Yeah, look, that is possible. I don't think that's likely. I think it's likely to be binary. I think you're either going to have one or more jurors that say, this is all crap, this is garbage. No. Or it's going to be a partisan jury that says, we hate Donald Trump and he's guilty on everything. I think it is likely to be one or the other. So actually, really one of three. That you could get guilty on all of them. You could get not guilty on all of them. Or a hung jury.
- [19:18]
A
If you get the hung jury and you get the appeal.
- [19:23]
B
So there's no appeal from hung jury.
- [19:25]
A
Okay. So no appeal from hung jury. Just okay. So, so hung jury is a victory by default.
- [19:31]
B
Yes. But the prosecution can bring the case again. It could literally start all over.
- [19:37]
A
And that could. And that can happen how quickly?
- [19:40]
B
As quickly as the judge wants to. The judge would have to empanel a different jury. So a hung jury means. Okay, we didn't get to a result. Thank you, jurors, for serving. And, you know, the judge could say, all right, next week, we're going to start voir Dyer and we're going to bring in potential jurors and get going again. I doubt it would happen that fast, but it conceivably could.
- [20:00]
A
If you're trying to influence the outcome of the election and tying Trump up in office and that's your goal, then it would make sense. Right? You would want to do it pretty quickly. And seven weeks can turn into, you know, 14 weeks, 15 weeks where you can't campaign. What would be the political fallout of this? And this is where I want you to put on a different hat. I look at this and I think they're messing with fire here. I think that this is a, there could be massive political fallout. Democrats are obviously hoping for a conviction so they can then, and this was, this has been reported now in leake the White House that they're, they're preparing for the President to make a statement from the White House. So it will quote, look non political being at the White House. If Trump is convicted, if it is a hung jury, or if he is innocent, innocent found innocent. How does the politics of all those three scenarios play out for them?
- [20:53]
B
Well, this is all politics. This is not law. This is not a real criminal offense. There's no human being on planet earth who would be prosecuted for these baloney charges if they were not named Donald J. Trump. And so of course, the Biden White House is salivating now. They're fairly cloddish at announcing, oh, the President's gonna do an address from the White House. He's hoping to be reveling in, you know, Donald Trump is a felon. We now know that. Who knows how gleeful he will be? But it's all about politics. You know, I do think Democrats are dismayed. They really had hoped this trial would drag Trump through the mud and his numbers would plummet, and his numbers continue to be strong. He's leading in virtually every swing state. So I think Democrats, you know, there was a big story this week about Democrats panicking about how badly Biden's doing. I will say if there's a hung jury and the prosecution says, okay, we're going to go do it again, I think there will be a lot of exasperation expressed politically. But I think at the end of the day, this trial has not accomplished what the rabid partisans wanted it to accomplish. But I don't even know that they can see that Trump derangement syndrome is real. There are people whose mind has melted. Let's give an example. Robert De Niro decided, you know, what this country really needs is an angry left wing Hollywood actor outside the trial. And he kind of lost it. He had a meltdown. Give a Listen to what Didero said outside the trial.
- [22:26]
A
Under Trump, this kind of government will perish from the earth. I don't mean to scare you. No, no, wait, maybe I do mean to scare you. If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted. And elections, Forget about it. That's over. That's done. If he gets in, I can tell you right now, he will never leave. He will never leave. You know that. He will never leave. By the way, isn't that what they said last time? If Donald Trump got elected, he would never leave, and he wasn't gonna leave office, and yet he did.
- [23:08]
B
I gotta say what I'm most happy listening to it is he stands there and goes, forget about it. Like, yo, I'm in New York, I plan him upstairs. He gonna leave. Forget about it.
- [23:19]
A
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's De Niro for you. And I love how they roll out these stars, like they're trying to bring attention to this, hoping that it's their best political wet dream they've ever had, which is Donald Trump is convicted. And then that brings my final question on this. Let's say Trump is convicted. It's been leaked that the Secret Service has been talking with the prison system about how they would incarcerate Donald Trump. Can you run from prison if you're incarcerated? If hypothetically that happened, how does that work?
- [23:53]
B
Well, look, there is no legal bar. There's no constitutional bar to a felon being elected president. There's no legal or constitutional bar to someone in jail being elected president. Now, I do not believe Donald Trump will go to jail. That will not be the outcome. I think even this rabid, partisan judge would allow him to be free while the appeal was pending. And I think if they tried to put him in jail, you would see an emergency appeal. And I do not think he is going to jail. So I think that is in the rabid fantasies of left wing delusions. But, but I think if they did actually put him in jail, I mean, I said this on a previous pod, if they did actually put him in jail, I think he'd win the Presidency with. With 300 or more electoral votes.
- [24:42]
A
Yeah. And the crazy thing is, we've been talking so much about this case. There's another very big case that starts with Hunter Biden. I want to get into that, but first I want to take a moment and say thank you. So many of you that are verdict listeners have gotten involved with an incredible organization called Preborn. Preborn is Helping save the lives of countless unborn babies. They're doing it by allowing mothers to hear their baby's heart on ultrasound. You may not realize this, but the heart of a child begins to form at conception and adjust. At three weeks, it's already beating. At five weeks, a baby's heartbeat can be heard on that vitally important ultrasound. That's why we partner with preborn, because we need to help these precious babies. And every day, Preborn's networks of clinics rescues 200 babies from abortion. When a mother with an unplanned pregnancy meets her baby on ultrasound and hears their baby's heartbeat, it is a divine encounter that literally doubles a baby's chance at life. By six weeks, a child's eyes are forming. By 10 weeks, a baby is able to suck his or her own thumb. And for just $28, you could be the difference. For just $28 between the life or death of a child, all gifts to preborn are tax deductible. You can donate easily by just dialing £250. That's £250 and say the keyword baby. That's £250. Say the keyword baby. Or you can also donate securely online@preborn.com verdict. That's preborn.com verdict. And to all you that have already gotten involved, thank you so much for being involved in fighting back against the radicals at Planned Parenthood. All right, Senator, I want to get to the other big case and it is a very big case. It is a case that apparently is so nerve wracking in the White House it looks like the president could have been involved in witness tampering ahead of the trial of his son, Hunter Biden. Let's talk about that.
- [27:08]
B
Yeah, that's right. So this trial begins on Monday, June 3rd. Hunter Biden is going to face a federal trial for his gun crimes. And one of the key witnesses is going to be Hallie Biden. Now who is Hallie Biden? Halley Biden is the widow of Beau Biden, Hunter's older brother who tragically passed away of cancer. And also the ex girlfriend of Hunter Biden. And Hallie Biden is expected to be a key witness. And Sunday night, Joe Biden stopped by Hallie's house. It was about 8pm on Sunday night. Joe Biden came by and Hallie was dating Hunter at the time of the crimes. And she's one of the expected witnesses. She was married to Beau Biden. He died in 2015 of brain cancer. And the prosecutors allege that Hunter lied about his drug use on the gun purchase forms, and then that he illegally possessed at least one gun, which Hallie is alleged to have thrown in a public dumpster in 2018. So she's the one who allegedly got rid of the evidence. And so she's not just a witness, she is a central witness in the case. And the White House spokesman, when asked about, gosh, why is Joe Biden visiting one of the key witnesses in the case against his son eight days before the trial? They said, no, no, no, he visited her because of the approaching ninth anniversary of Beau's passing. Now, I gotta say, that is. That strikes me as a highly dubious explanation. It naturally raises the question, gosh, did he visit Halley before the eighth anniversary? Before the seventh anniversary? The sixth, fifth, fourth, third, second, first. And if he did, I'm unaware of it. And you certainly would think the White House, if that was their line and he had visited her at any time previously, you sure do think the White House would have pointed it out. But they didn't. And I gotta say, for the President of the United States, listen, when the president travels, the president never travels quietly. It's not subtle. You come in with a motorcade, with Secret Service. And so for him to go, it's brazen. It is Joe Biden and the Biden family feels that they are not bound. They behave as if they feel that they're not bound by criminal law, by any restrictions, that he's entitled to go. And the natural presumption is that he had a conversation with her about what she was going to say when she testifies.
- [30:03]
A
Yeah, right. It would be important. Hey, we want to know what you're going to say, or, hey, here's what we need you to say. If anyone else was in this scenario, what traditionally would happen when before a trial, if everyone found out about the same way we did, regardless of an alibi, if Trump would have done this, if I was on trial or you were on trial and we were going to meet with somebody that's about to be a witness and testimony for a kid, like, what would happen?
- [30:30]
B
Well, you would expect the judge to make an inquiry of why were you meeting with this person? You expect the prosecutor to make an inquiry as to why were you meeting with this witness? Did you discuss what her testimony was going to be? So witness tampering is attempting to improperly influence or change the testimony of a witness within criminal proceedings. And it. We don't know that that happened. But the United States, a federal crime of witness tampering is decided, defined by statute, it's 18 USC Section 1512, which is entitled, quote, tampering with a witness, victim or an informant. And it describes witness tampering is a crime even if the proceedings not pending. And it is a criminal offense even if you are unsuccessful in your attempt to tamper. In other words, if you try to convince the witness, hey, you know, it really help if you testified to X, even though X isn't the case. The witness might not do what you said, but it is still witness tampering. And that's a natural question. Now, I'm quite confident the Department of Justice is not going to inquire of Joe Biden. What conversation did you have with the witness? They might ask her. It is possible they ask her. But I think there's no indication that the DOJ or the trial court is going to even ask what Joe Biden said to her.
- [32:09]
A
Yeah. And the media was silent on this, excluding Fox News, which broke this story. Here's how they reported it. President Biden also made a surprise unannounced.
- [32:17]
B
Stop at Hallie Biden's house in Delaware last night. She is Beau Biden's widow and Hunter Biden's ex girlfriend, who is also set to testify in Hunter Biden's gun trial in Delaware that begins next week.
- [32:32]
A
White House officials are saying this presidential.
- [32:35]
B
Visit to her house had nothing to do with that testimony. They say it has to do with the upcoming 9th anniversary of Beau Biden passing. Gillian.
- [32:43]
A
All right, by the way, how often does the president, United States of America, make a surprise unannounced visit in and around Washington, D.C. in a massive motorcade? That does not happen very often.
- [32:56]
B
So, look, it is certainly possible. Presidents do have family. They visit their family. So. So I don't know the frequency with which Joe Biden visits other members of the family and that presidents do that. What they don't do with great frequency is do it right before. Do it when you're meeting with a key witness who is about to testify in the trial against your son. That is a dramatically different context and it raises obvious questions, questions that the media seems completely uninterested in asking and that I expect the Biden Department of Justice is completely uninterested in asking.
- [33:39]
A
I was asked this question the other day and I hadn't actually thought about it yet. And I was asked this question when I was on Fox and they said, if Hunter Biden is convicted at either of these trials, will it have any impact on the presidential election? My personal opinion, I said is instantly I was like, no, I don't think so. I think most people know who Hunter Biden is. They know he clearly has been trading off the family's name. They know he was a drug addict and did a lot of really bad things. We've seen the laptop. It's pretty darn clear. I don't believe it's gonna make a difference. So in the presidential election, do you believe that it will or won't?
- [34:21]
B
Yeah. And there's a second trial that is set to begin in September. It's in Los Angeles, and it's for allegedly failing to pay more than $1.4 million in federal taxes from 2016 to 2019. So you'll have two different trials that are scheduled. Listen, if the president's son is convicted. And now, remember, initially DOJ tried to give him a sweetheart deal where he wouldn't go to jail, and ultimately that fell apart. Hunter originally agreed to a probation only deal to both the gun and tax crimes in June, but he walked away from the sweetheart deal at a July court hearing where his attorneys demanded broad immunity of past conduct, of all past conduct, including violations of the Foreign Agents Registration act, which could implicate his father. So he walked away from a deal that would have gotten him largely scot free, but it wasn't. And remember, I think the judge may well have signed off on that deal, but there was enormous public scrutiny on it, and I think that the judge decided, no, we can't do this.
- [35:29]
A
Well, and even then, he was going to admit he was guilty in that deal. So there's also, it's been out there in the media like, hey, he was going to get the deal. He's admitting he was guilty of these two crimes, which in many ways insulated his father. So if he's convicted this time, I'm not sure with a lot of Democratic voters it'll matter.
- [35:48]
B
Yeah. Look, I don't think that Hunter Biden is guilty of gun crimes and tax evasions. Any rational person knows that already. That's kind of baked into the cake. I agree with you. It doesn't alter the election. What this has always been about is protecting Joe and the relevance. We've talked about this a lot, although it's been a while since we've talked about it on the podcast. Look, Hunter Biden is not someone of public interest, separate and apart from his father. He is a troubled soul who seems to have struggled his whole life, which is the entire White House defense, that he has substance abuse problems and he's just had a hard time. And I have no reason to doubt that. That surely seems to be the case. But the reason it is a public import is that the evidence at this point keeps piling up that his entire business model was selling favors from his father was corruption. The reason this matters is Joe Biden, not Hunter Biden. And these two trials are designed to insulate and protect Joe Biden, not to bring him in at all. And as long as Joe Biden is not directly implicated, I don't think Hunter's being convicted will have any material effect on the election. Listen, if his son goes to jail, that may be a very difficult thing personally for Joe Biden and emotionally for Joe Biden. But at the end of the day, the Biden DOJ succeeded in what I think its principal goal was, which is protecting the big guy and ensuring that there's no investigation into corruption by the sitting president.
- [37:31]
A
Final question on this, what is the possibility of pardons for Hunter Biden by.
- [37:36]
B
His father before the election? I think zero. After the election, I think if Trump wins, I would wager large sums of money before he leaves office. Joe Biden pardons his son and there'd.
- [37:51]
A
Be no political fallout for him because he's not running for reelection again.
- [37:55]
B
Yeah, if he's leaving, it would be a Bill Clinton midnight pardon special. And I think particularly if he loses, it's almost a no brainer that Joe Biden would do it. He might even do it if he wins. But there it's a more costly decision because he'd pay a political price for it even if he as he was starting a second term.
- [38:16]
A
Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out. We're going to keep you up to date on it. Don't forget we do the show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hit that subscribe or auto download button. And on those in between days, make sure you grab my podcast, the Ben Ferguson Podcast. And I will keep you up to date on the breaking news in both of these cases in between and the senator, I will see you back here on Friday morning.