UNBIASED - June 4, 2024: Biden Issues Executive Action Restricting Entry at Southern Border, Opening Statements in Hunter Biden's Trial, Oral Arguments Set for Fani Willis Appeal, and More.

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

1. Opening Statements in Hunter Biden's Trial; Juror Drops Out (0:46)2. President Biden Issues Executive Action Restricting Entry at Southern Border (4:11)3. Georgia Appeals Court Sets Tentative Date for Oral Arguments in DA Fani Willis Appeal (6:48)4. Quick Hitters: Wisconsin Attorney General Brings Charges Against Trump Allies for Over 2020 Election; AG Garland Testifies Before House Committee Re: DOJ's Work Under Garland's Leadership (9:10)Watch this episode on YouTube.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Conax Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Tuesday, June 4th, and this is your daily news rundown. If you love the unbiased approach that this episode provides and you feel more informed after listening, please go ahead and leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen, share the show with your friends, and if you're watching on YouTube, hit that thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel if you're not subscribed already. All of those things really help me out. So thank you in advance. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. And just as a reminder, my news cycle ends at 3 p.m. Eastern

time, just so I can get this episode out. So I will cover the news until then. And if any of the big stories drop after that, they'll be in tomorrow's episode. First story is that opening statements started today in Hunter Biden's firearm trial. One of the jury members actually dropped out late last night. So by the end of the day yesterday, the full jury had been seated, which meant that this morning when everyone came back, the day would start with opening statements. But once the lawyers and the judge entered the courtroom this morning, the judge actually announced to everyone that one of the jurors emailed late last night to say that she lives an hour away from the courthouse, she didn't realize

she'd have to be in the courtroom every day, and she could not fulfill her duty as a juror. So following that whole thing, an alternate was sworn in and things proceeded as usual from there. Now the reason that opening statements in any case are important is because they tell us what each side is going to argue and what each side is going to rely on. In other words, opening statements gives us a better understanding of how this case will play out, what to expect as far as evidence, testimony, all of that good stuff. So today what we learned is that prosecutors are going to focus on Hunter's addiction and more so the fact that he knew he had an addiction. This is because the crime that

he is charged with requires the defendant to knowingly be addicted to a controlled substance and lie on the form that he filled out when he bought the gun. So the prosecution says it'll be quoting from Hunter's memoir, showing pictures of drugs that were taken on Hunter's devices, text messages that Hunter sent admitting he was an addict, all of those things that speak to Hunter's knowledge. The prosecution also says it will call the gun store employee that sold Hunter the gun as a witness, though the first witness that was called today was an FBI agent who testified as to the contents on Hunter's laptop. Hunter's attorney, on the other hand, said he will be focusing on the term knowingly as it's defined in the charges against Hunter. In other words, whether or not Hunter saw himself as an addict at that time, because if he didn't and if the form didn't

define what an addict was, then according to the defense, Hunter didn't make a false statement. The defense will also rely in part on the fact that Hunter had just finished an 11-day rehab program, which will speak to the defense's argument that he didn't see himself as an addict at the time. The defense also plans to rely on the idea that Hunter actually didn't have much interest in buying a gun in the first place, but he found himself in the store after visiting an AT&T store across the street, and it was the gun salesman that was the one who led Hunter to the guns and picked one out for him. The defense's strategy there is to sort of undermine the claims from the prosecution that Hunter knowingly lied

to the gun dealer. One other thing that's interesting about this case is that there is no video, audio, or electronics allowed in the courtroom. And it's not that we never see that, it really just depends on the jurisdiction. But with such a high-profile case, it creates this interesting situation as to how the public obtains information about the case. With Trump's case, for instance, his hush money case, video and audio were prohibited, but reporters could still have their laptops and cell phones in the courtroom with them to relay what was going on inside of the courtroom to the outside world. But in Hunter's case, the reporters actually have to send handwritten notes to other reporters outside of the courtroom to get that

information out. So it does pose an interesting scenario just as far as reporting goes. In some other Biden news, this time a different Biden, President Biden announced a new executive order today that will limit illegal entries at the southern border and take effect tonight at midnight. So what the order does is it allows for individuals to be turned away at the border if the average number of daily encounters over the course of any given week reaches 2,500 and if that person is crossing illegally, meaning between lawful ports of entry. These restrictions would be lifted once there have been 14 days of encounters at 1,500 or less.

Now, given that the current average number of daily encounters is right around 3,500, 4,000, this order does have an immediate effect. And just for clarity's sake, that average number of daily encounters is calculated over a week time span. So once there have been seven consecutive days of more than 2,500 encounters, that's when these restrictions would kick in. Also under the order, those who do make it into the country illegally and are found and located could be removed within days or hours under the order. So it expedites the removal process a bit. The order does exempt certain individuals,

so unaccompanied children, victims of trafficking, those who present an acute medical emergency or an imminent and extreme threat to life and safety. Those are some of the people that are exempt from this executive order. Note that this does not restrict people from requesting and scheduling asylum appointments at lawful ports of entry. So even if the average number of daily encounters is above that 2,500 threshold, appointments can still be made. It's just that those who come to the border and try to cross illegally or come to the, without an appointment can now be turned away. The White House did acknowledge that due to a strain on federal resources, there could be challenges in carrying out the authority under this order, adding that unlike the measure that Congress just rejected, the executive order can't authorize additional personnel funding or reforms to the immigration process. So the White House wrote in its fact sheet, quote,

we must be clear this cannot achieve the same result as congressional action, and it does not provide the critical personnel and funding needed to further secure our southern border. Congress must act, end quote. And that is, of course, because an executive order holds or gives different authority and can do different things than congressional action. The third story is that a Georgia appeals court has set a tentative date of October 4th to hear oral arguments in the appeal over District Attorney Fannie Willis's disqualification from the Georgia election interference case.

You may remember me talking about this case a little bit, but basically Trump and his co-defendants had argued that Willis should be disqualified from the case because of her previously undisclosed relationship with the prosecutor that she ultimately hired to prosecute the case. His name is Nathan Wade. Ultimately, the judge declined to outright disqualify Willis, but said that one of them had to go. So Wade ultimately resigned. Willis stayed on the case. The defendants then requested permission from the judge to appeal that decision because in certain instances with non-final orders, meaning decisions from judges that merely decide a pending issue rather than, you know, closing out the case, can't be automatically appealed. You actually have to get permission from the judge to appeal. Otherwise you have to wait until the entire case is over and then bring up the issue on appeal. But in this case, the judge did give

the defendants the ability to appeal his decision. So that's what they did. And now the Georgia court of appeals has set a tentative date of October 4th to hear the arguments as to whether Willis should be removed from the case. Now, obviously, because that's just about a month before the election, the chances of this case being prosecuted before the election are slim. However, there's a reason I said a tentative date of October 4th. There is a chance that the case doesn't even go to oral arguments and instead the judges rule on this issue based on briefs that have been submitted to the court. Because what happens is that the matter is first appealed and if the court grants that appeal,

which in this case the court did, it'll be put on the docket with this tentative date for arguments presuming arguments happen. But even still, at least one of the parties has to request oral arguments, which I'm sure at least one will in this case. And from there, the court has to officially decide whether to grant or deny that request. If they grant it, oral arguments will go forward on the tentative date of October 4th. But if the court denies it, then the judges will just rule based on the briefs submitted. So that's why in the beginning I said October 4th was a tentative date for oral arguments. It's not official yet. Let's finish with some quick hitters. Just a couple of quick hitters today. I only have two for you. The first one being that

Wisconsin became the latest state to bring charges against individuals involved in the 2020 election. Two of Trump's former lawyers, Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis, as well as former campaign official for Trump, Michael Roman, are each facing a single forgery charge. Wisconsin joins Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia as states that have brought charges against individual defendants for their role in the election. And the second and final quick hitter is that Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before the House Judiciary Committee today as part of an annual oversight hearing. Garland was to testify about the DOJ's

work under his leadership, and he ended up testifying about various matters, but some of the matters included the DOJ being independent from the Manhattan DA's office, the worry of a potential terrorist attack in light of October 7th. He said he hasn't listened to any of the recordings of Biden's interview with investigators regarding his handling of classified documents because that was a big issue. He defended the appointment of Jack Smith to oversee the investigations into Trump and much, much more. That is what I have for you today. Today was a shorter episode, but that's okay because honestly, there's been a lot of content over the last four days or so. So with that said, I hope you have a great night and I will be back tomorrow to give you the daily news rundown for Wednesday.