The President's Daily Brief - PDB Afternoon Bulletin | December 2nd, 2024: Biden's Sweeping Pardon For Hunter & Iranian-Backed Iraqi Militias Join The Fight In Syria

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin:   First, after a long legal odyssey, President Joe Biden has granted his son Hunter Biden a full and unconditional presidential pardon, insulating him from facing justice for crimes dating back a decade. Then, an update on the intensifying fight in Syria, where Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have crossed into Syria to aid forces of the Assad regime, as they attempt to mount a counteroffensive against rebel groups who seized control of Aleppo last week. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Patriot Gold: Call 1-888-870-5457 for a free investor guide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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dating back a decade. Then, an update on the intensifying fight in Syria, where Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have crossed into Syria to aid forces of the Assad regime as they attempt to mount a counter-offensive against rebel groups who seized control of Aleppo last week. But first, our afternoon spotlight. After a long legal odyssey, President Biden has decided to issue a sweeping presidential pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, ahead of the return of President-elect Donald Trump

to the Oval Office. The legal breadth of the pardon is, well, rather extraordinary, not only protecting Hunter from his upcoming sentencing related to federal felony gun and tax convictions, but also retroactively covering any offenses committed between January 1, 2014, and December 1, 2024. We should also note that the move reverses numerous past promises from President Biden that he would respect the legal decisions regarding his son and not use his executive authority for the benefit of his family. Now, that's fine when a president is talking about, well,

just an unrelated individual. I mean, you can make that sort of unemotional, disconnected decision. But the dynamic, the decision, was always going to be a pardoned, because you're talking about a father dealing with his son. Now, you can seriously disagree with the decision, for sure, but anybody with a kid would be hard-pressed to honestly say that they would have not pardoned their own child if given the ability. When announcing the pardon on Sunday, Biden spoke, of Hunter's past struggles with drug addiction and argued that the trials against his son were the result of a political witch hunt designed to, quote, break him and his family. President Biden said, quote, no reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion

than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son, and that is wrong. In trying to break Hunter, they've tried to break me, and there's no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough, end quote. Now, Hunter, well, he did break the law. Frankly, any ordinary citizen who committed similar acts as Hunter would have been tried and convicted long ago. So he wasn't simply singled out, as President Biden said, because his last name is Biden. In truth, he managed to avoid earlier legal consequences for his actions because his name is Biden. But also, on the other side of that offense, it's a truism that presidential pardons are, well, commonplace in Washington politics. Look, Trump himself previously pardoned his son-in-law Jared Kushner's father for tax evasion,

and he's just nominated him as the new ambassador to France. My point being, well, it's Washington, D.C., and both sides play the same game. As a reminder, in June of this year, a Delaware jury convicted Hunter Biden of three felonies for lying about past drug use on a form when per person. purchasing a gun in 2018. He was due in court on December 12th to face sentencing on the charges, which many expected would land him a stint in jail. Separately, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor in several felony charges in September for unpaid taxes totaling at least $1.4 million. Sentencing for the federal tax evasion charges was scheduled to take place on December 16th. Taken together, the 12 counts Hunter was either convicted of or pled guilty to, and

carried a maximum possible prison sentence of 42 years. On Sunday evening, with the stroke of a pen, albeit a presidential one, his father Joe Biden wiped the slate clean. In his statement, President Biden said, quote, I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.

And once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father, and a president would come to this decision, end quote. Now, according to our report from Politico, it's the most sweeping presidential pardon seen in generations, drawing comparisons to the blanket pardon given by President Gerald Ford in 1974 to, of course, Richard Nixon.

Legal analysts say the pardon was likely written to be deliberately vague to cover any potential new accusations or charges leveled by the incoming Republican-led Congress. many Republican congressional leaders have threatened to launch new investigations into the business dealings of the Biden family come the new year. Margaret Love, a former U.S. pardon attorney with the Justice Department, told Politico, quote, I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon. Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned, end quote.

Now, the pardon cannot be undone by President-elect Trump when he takes office in January and will prevent his Justice Department from reopening criminal probes into Hunter Biden. Still, the Trump transition team reacted swiftly to the news, blasting the Biden administration for, quote, weaponizing the justice system against Trump, without mentioning Hunter directly and vowing substantial reforms. Trump himself took to truth social, where he hinted at mass pardons for defendants of the January 6th Capitol riot. Trump said, quote, does the pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the January 6 hostages who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of justice,

end quote. For those wanting to question President Biden over the pardon, well, they'll have to wait. In the wake of Sunday evening's announcement, Biden flew off to Africa for a long-delayed trip to the nation of Angola, likely his last foreign trip as president before leaving office. Coming up, An update on the intensifying violence in Syria, where Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have crossed into the country to join a counter-offensive on behalf of the Assad regime. I'll be right back. Crispy chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know.

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from the makers of QuickBooks. Learn more at Intuit.com slash ERP. Welcome back to the afternoon bulletin. Iranian-backed Iraqi militias are mobilizing in Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad's forces in a critical counter-offensive following a surprise insurgent advance that captured Aleppo, the country's second-largest city just this past week. The escalation marks one of the most significant challenges to Assad's regime in years and raises the specter of renewed violence in a region, obviously already strained by multiple conflicts.

As we've been tracking, the insurgent offense. led by Hayat Tarir al-Sham, or a group known as HTS, has pushed deep into Aleppo, Idlib, and Khmer provinces, threatening to reopen a violent front in Syria's long-running civil war. On Monday, Assad's forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, reported killing 400 insurgents in the last 24 hours, as government troops race to encircle rebel strongholds. Tehran has taken a leading role in the counter-offensive, to shore up Assad's regime. Iran's president, Mossoud Peschekian, pledged full support during a call with Assad on Monday, while Iranian militias have sent reinforcements. According to the Syrian

Observatory for Human Rights, 200 fighters crossed the border overnight into Syria to join the fight for Aleppo. The Iranian foreign minister said that the Iranian regime stems ready to provide all necessary assistance to Assad, as Iran seeks to prevent the insurgency from undermining its decade-long investment in propping up Syria's regime. And Russia, a key ally of Assad, has echoed Iran's position, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov reaffirming Moscow's commitment to stabilizing Syria. The renewed violence is a sharp embarrassment for Assad, whose forces and allies, including Iran and Russia, are stretched thin by overlapping conflicts. Assad's failure to anticipate and repel the insurgent attack underscores the fragility of his regime even after years of foreign support.

Neighboring Iraq has responded by increasing security along its border with Syria, wary of potential spillover from the fighting. Iraq's interior ministry spokesman confirmed heightened deployments along the border with Syria. The escalating conflict also risks drawing in other key players. Turkey, which backs certain rebel factions, has been silent so far, but remains a pivotal actor in the region. The broader stakes extend, of course, beyond Syria as the insurgency unfolds against the backdrop of heightened tensions involving U.S.-backed Israel and Iranian-aligned groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Whether the counteroffensive succeeds or the insurgents hold their ground, the violence is, of course, fueled fears of deeper regional instability, not something that we need, drawing yet another front into a web of conflicts that already threatens to overwhelm the Middle East. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Monday to December. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirstTV.com. And finally, as you've likely read in all the major dailies, to listen to the show ad-free, well, simply become a premium member of the president's daily brief

by visiting PDB premium.com. Told you it was simple. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much.

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