June 21, 2023

Wednesday, June 21, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup

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Happy longest day of the year. Happy first day of summer.

Today is Summer Solstice 2023.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice marks the beginning of summer.

A summer solstice is the moment in time when the Earth's tilt towards the Sun is at its maximum and the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky.

A summer solstice occurs twice a year, once in June in the Northern Hemisphere (also called northern solstice, June solstice and Midsummer) and once in December in the Southern Hemisphere (also called southern solstice and December solstice).

In the Northern Hemisphere, the day of the summer solstice is the longest day of the year (the day with the most daylight and the shortest night).

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Yesterday’s Hunter Biden Settlement.

Hunter Biden Reaches Deal to Plead Guilty to Misdemeanor Tax Charges.

Under an agreement with the Justice Department, the president’s son agreed to probation for filing his taxes late, and he can avoid a charge that he lied about his drug use when he bought a gun.

Hunter Biden agreed with the Justice Department on Tuesday to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and accept terms that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a separate gun charge, a big step toward ending a long-running and politically explosive investigation into the finances, drug use and international business dealings of President Biden’s troubled son.

Under a deal hashed out with a federal prosecutor who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Biden agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his 2017 and 2018 taxes on time and be sentenced to probation.

The Justice Department also charged Mr. Biden but, under what is known as a pretrial diversion agreement, said it would not prosecute him in connection with his purchase of a handgun in 2018 during a period when he was using drugs. The deal is contingent on Mr. Biden remaining drug-free for 24 months and agreeing never to own a firearm again.

The agreement must still be approved by a federal judge. Mr. Biden is expected to appear in court in Delaware in the coming days to be arraigned on the misdemeanor tax charges and plead guilty.

“With the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved,” Mr. Biden’s lawyer, Christopher Clark, said in a statement.

Assuming there are no last-minute changes or complications, the deal would most likely resolve the investigation without Mr. Biden facing a federal prison sentence.

Even though years of investigation by a Republican-appointed prosecutor found evidence to charge Mr. Biden only on the narrow tax and gun issues rather than the broader international conspiracies promoted by Mr. Trump and Republicans on Capitol Hill, the agreement was assailed by the right as too lenient.

The agreement came less than two weeks after the Justice Department indicted Mr. Trump on charges that he risked exposing national security secrets and obstructed efforts by the government to reclaim classified documents from him. On Tuesday, Republicans argued that the deal demonstrated a partisan double standard, despite the clear differences in the nature and scope of the cases.

“The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket,’” Mr. Trump proclaimed on his website, Truth Social.

The federal prosecutor who oversaw the inquiry and signed off on the agreement, David C. Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, set out the terms in a terse public statement that concluded, without elaboration, “The investigation is ongoing.”

A White House spokesman, Ian Sams, said in a statement: “The president and first lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment.”

The crimes to which Mr. Biden is pleading guilty, said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University and a sentencing expert, are ones that the average person is rarely prosecuted for because they are usually only brought along with more serious offenses.

“If these are the only offenses, most prosecutors are going to say it’s not worth a federal case,” Mr. Berman said. “They would say: Let’s not make a federal case of it for the average person because it’s not worth it to bring a case unless there’s reason to be concerned that there’s a public safety issue or the trust that everyone is treated equally under the law is at stake.”

Mr. Berman said that in this case, federal prosecutors were in a unique situation because the very high-profile defendant was the subject of investigations for a variety of activities. The failure to bring some charges when there is no factual dispute, he said, could create the impression of a two-tiered system of justice.

“Everyone is paying attention, and the facts are not in dispute, so a failure to bring charges would create the perception that there was some sort of special treatment or leniency being given to the president’s son,” Mr. Berman said.

To read the whole New York Times article, click here.

In case you were wondering…

The outcome focused attention on whether Hunter Biden got a better deal than the average person would get.

Did Hunter Biden get the same deal that would be given to someone who was not the son of the president of the United States?

Douglas Berman, a professor of law at Ohio State University and a sentencing expert, read the court papers unsealed on Tuesday morning and said that it was difficult to assess from the filings whether Mr. Biden received a sweetheart deal.

The crimes to which Mr. Biden is pleading guilty, Mr. Berman said, are ones that the average person is rarely prosecuted for because they are usually only brought along with more serious offenses.

In Mr. Biden’s case, they include a charge stemming from lying about drug use on the government form used for his purchase of a handgun. Current and former officials say tens of thousands of Americans, out of the 25 million who buy guns each year, lie on their forms and are not prosecuted.

Prosecutors had pored over Mr. Biden’s finances, including examining two years of unpaid taxes. But in 2021, Mr. Biden paid the I.R.S. the full amount that his accountants estimated he owed, and paid off his liens.

By making the payments, former officials said, Mr. Biden complicated the ability of prosecutors to charge him with tax evasion because juries often question why the government has indicted someone who has paid his taxes. That left prosecutors with the options to charge Mr. Biden with filing his 2017 and 2018 taxes late — something that Mr. Biden’s lawyers argued to prosecutors are often handled without criminal charges and that in this case were handled as misdemeanors.

“If these are the only offenses, most prosecutors are going to say it’s not worth a federal case — they would say: Let’s not make a federal case of it for the average person because it’s not worth it to bring a case unless there’s reason to be concerned that there’s a public safety issue or the trust that everyone is treated equally under the law is at stake,” Mr. Berman said.

Mr. Berman said that in this case, federal prosecutors are in a unique situation because there was a very high-profile defendant who was the subject of investigations for a range of activities. The failure to bring some charges when there is no factual dispute, he said, could create the impression of a two-tiered system of justice.

“Everyone is paying attention and the facts are not in dispute, so a failure to bring charges would create the perception that there was some sort of special treatment or leniency being given to the president’s son,” Mr. Berman. (New York Times).

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August 14th is the official day of the Trump classified documents trial, but probably not.

Judge Aileen Cannon sets a date for the trial of Donald Trump, but not really.

Donald Trump has a court date. And a judge. For those who assumed that the Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon would naturally remove herself from presiding over this trial, especially after her actions earlier in the same case ended up with the 11th Circuit stepping in to reverse her every decision and scold her for breaking every judicial convention … think again. Because everything about the order she just issued indicates that Cannon intends to be in the big chair when testimony begins.

The order calls for the case to begin on Aug. 14, or “as soon thereafter as the case may be called.“ Pretrial motions are to due by July 24. The statement anticipates a two-week trial before the jury.

No one should anticipate that Trump’s trial will actually start promptly on that date. It’s common for cases before the federal court to be continued to a later date. If there is anything that Trump has proven himself to be good at when it comes to court cases, it’s delay, and Cannon has demonstrated that she is his willing partner in pumping the brakes. This is a placeholder date. The difference between Aug. 14 and when a gavel actually hits the table is likely to be measured in months.

Even though Trump’s arraignment was held at the federal courthouse in Miami, the trial is scheduled for the Alto Adams Courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida. This is is the normal courthouse for the Southern District of Florida, where Cannon normally hears cases, and where she presided over the whole “special master” fiasco.

The difference between the date on the order and the date on which things might get rolling is highlighted by some of the conditions Cannon attaches to her order. For example:

Any motion for a continuance of trial shall (1) set forth in detail which factors constitute grounds for a continuance pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(B), including the complexity of the case, 18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(7)(B)(ii), the security clearance process, and any anticipated impact of the Classified Information Procedures Act, Pub. L. 96–456, 94 Stat. 2025, 18 U.S.C. App. III §§ 1–16; and (2) indicate whether the reasons served by granting the continuance outweigh the defendant’s constitutional and statutory rights to a speedy trial

This paragraph anticipates that there will be a continuance because of the need to obtain security clearances for attorneys and staff, the issues caused from the numerous classified documents at the heart of the case, and the inherent “complexity of the case.”

Of the two dates, the July 24 date may be the only one that matters, because Trump’s team is likely to wait until the last possible minute of that day before handing in their paperwork, which will be a request for a continuance—one that moves the date for filing more requests for a continuance weeks into the future.

Unless something happens in that time to replace Cannon at the helm, don’t expect any of these requests to be denied.

Donald Trump is facing even more legal jeopardy and the sharks in the Republican Party seem to sense there is some blood in the water. Chris Christie has made his campaign all about going directly at Trump, and Ron DeSantis seems to be closer and closer to becoming completely isolated from the field. (Daily Kos).

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Moving toward Saturday, the one year anniversary of Roe overturned.

Jill Biden Laments Consequences Of Overturning Roe V. Wade.

Jill Biden Says Overturning Roe V. Wade Affects More Than Right To Choose.

The first lady hosted a conversation on Tuesday with four women, including a Texas doctor, who shared emotional stories of being denied necessary reproductive care.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Jill Biden said Tuesday that the consequences for women of losing the constitutional right to an abortion “go far beyond the right to choose” as she hosted a conversation with four women, including a Texas doctor, who shared emotional stories of being denied necessary reproductive care.

The first lady invited the women from Texas, Florida and Louisiana to the White House to help highlight the anniversary Saturday of the Supreme Court decision overturning its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to an abortion.

The ruling last June left it up to individual states to set their own abortion policies, and 18 of them — including the home states of Biden’s guests — have put abortion bans in place.

“The consequences of these bans go far beyond the right to choose,” the first lady told the women, as she detailed examples of women being denied access to medication or are being forced to go to other states for care. And some doctors, she added, are withholding treatment “because they don’t know which procedures are legal.”

“And like those who are with us today, far, far too many women are experiencing devastating consequences to their health, their fertility and their lives,” said Biden, who came of age when abortion was illegal before it was became the law of the land in 1973.

One of the women in conversation, Anya Cook of Florida, told the group that a 15-week abortion ban that was in effect in her state last year “very, nearly killed me.”

She had suffered multiple miscarriages, but was on her 18th pregnancy when her water broke early, at 16 weeks. Doctors said her baby wouldn’t survive without amniotic fluid and would die within days.

“Because she was beyond 15 weeks and there was still a heartbeat, they couldn’t touch me or treat me or admit me,” Cook said. “They sent us home to deal with it ourselves.”

She said she became convinced that she wouldn’t survive and went to a “really dark place.” Within days, her daughter was stillborn in the bathroom of a beauty salon. She had lost half the blood in her body, was weak and underwent multiple follow-up surgeries that left her fertility in doubt.

“We don’t know if I can get pregnant now or carry to birth, but the target of our wrath is very well-known: It’s the people who have taken our human rights to health and liberty and personal autonomy,” Cook said. “Someone needs to fight back against these insidious laws in states across the country.”

Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Dallas, decided to have an abortion after an ultrasound showed that her fetus’ brain and skull had not developed. She had to end an earlier pregnancy by an abortion she obtained in Texas, but “this time I would have to flee my own state,” she said.

Dennard worried that the trip for an out-of-state abortion could jeopardize her medical license or invite harassment against herself and her husband, also an obstetrician-gynecologist.

She recently joined a lawsuit filed by other Texas women who were denied abortions, despite pregnancies that they say endangered their health or lives. The women are asking the court to put an emergency hold on some abortion restrictions.

“The state of Texas should not be making these decisions for me, let alone anybody else,” Dennard said at the White House.

Jill Biden said her husband, President Joe Biden, “is doing everything he can to fight back” but that he needs Congress to send him legislation that will “make the protections of Roe v. Wade the law of the land once again.”

Meanwhile, Democrats and the White House see the rollback of abortion rights as an issue that will play in their favor in the 2024 elections.

“I know that it isn’t easy to relive what you’ve already gone through, but stories like yours are how we shed light on the cruel and devastating consequences of those bans,” she told the women.

The first lady’s event is among several events the administration is planning this week to mark one year after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The president, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the administration’s point-person on the issue, the first lady and Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff, are slated to appear at event on Friday in Washington with several women’s and pro-choice groups.

Harris is also scheduled to deliver what the White House says will be a major speech on Saturday in North Carolina on the Biden administration’s efforts to safeguard reproductive freedom.

The Republican-controlled General Assembly in North Carolina recently overturned Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of legislation banning abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The law is set to go into effect on July 1, and is being challenged in federal court by abortion providers in the state. (HuffPost)

Julie Rikelman, Prominent Abortion-Rights Lawyer, Confirmed As Federal Judge.

Julie Rikelman, who represented an abortion clinic in the landmark Supreme Court case that gutted Roe v. Wade, will now serve on a U.S. appeals court.

The Senate voted Tuesday to confirm Julie Rikelman to a lifetime federal judgeship, overcoming opposition from conservatives and anti-abortion groups angry about her long record of advocating for women’s reproductive rights.

Rikelman, 51, was confirmed 51 to 43 to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, based in Boston.

Rikelman has been the litigation director for the Center for Reproductive Rights since 2011, and is well known for representing abortion providers in federal court challenges. Most recently, she argued for a Mississippi clinic in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the landmark 2022 Supreme Court case that led to Roe v. Wade being overturned. (HuffPost)

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Brittney Griner is now protected.

What do her teammates think? Shouldn’t all WNBA players fly charter?

Brittney Griner permitted to fly charter for rest of 2023 season after being harassed at airport, per report.

Hillary executive produced a film we should all watch.

Airing tomorrow.