UNBIASED - May 9, 2024: Court Rejects Hunter Biden's Indictment Appeal, New House Bills Aim to Punish Pro-Palestine Protesters, All 50 Governors Oppose New National Guard Proposal, and More.

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

1. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Effort to Oust Speaker Johnson Fails (1:16)2. Bills Introduced in House Aim to Punish Pro-Palestine Protesters (2:44)3. Barron Trump Named As At-Large Delegate Ahead of Republican National Convention (3:36)4. All 50 Governors Oppose Dept. of Defense Proposal to Change Authority Over National Guard (5:38)5. Appeals Court Rejects Hunter Biden's Firearm Indictment Appeal (8:25)6. Not Everything Is Bad: Good News of the Week (11:21) Use this link to register for LEXSummit and use code JORDANISMYLAWYER for 15% off your already discounted ticket!Get EXCLUSIVE, unbiased content on Patreon.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 Thursday, May 9th, and this is your final news rundown of the week brought to you by LexSummit, which I have the absolute pleasure of speaking at in September. LexSummit in Salt Lake City is a multi-day conference for legal professionals to learn from some of the brightest legal minds in the industry. At Lex Summit, you'll immerse yourself in cutting-edge AI solutions tailored to your firm so that you can return to work after the summit and you are absolutely ready to take your practice to the next level. And perhaps the best part is that while you're there,

you can actually earn CLE credits. I have a specialized link for you in this episode description where you can purchase your ticket, but be sure to use the code JORDANISMYLAWYER, all one word at checkout. You'll get an additional 15% off the already discounted early bird pricing, which will get you over $400 off of your ticket. Again, that's code JORDANISMYLAWYER for 15% off the already discounted Lex Summit ticket. Use the link in this episode description to learn more. You are definitely not going to want to miss this one. So without further ado, let's get into today's stories. Today was a bit of a slow day in the news, seems to be a trend this week.

So the first few stories are stories from yesterday, the first of which is that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene officially introduced her motion to oust Speaker Johnson, and this is something she's been talking about introducing for weeks. You've definitely heard me talk about it. She met with Speaker Johnson privately a couple of times this week, and then finally on Wednesday, the motion was introduced. It was quickly tabled, though, in a 359 to 43 vote, which means the House floor didn't even get to the point of actually voting on Green's motion, but instead chose to dismiss it. You can think of a motion to table in the House as a motion to dismiss in litigation. So let's say in litigation, if a party brings a lawsuit,

the defendant will almost always file a motion to dismiss that lawsuit, and the judge can either dismiss it or let it proceed to a trial, and then from there issue a ruling. In this case, Green's motion was brought, but it was dismissed before it even got to the point where the House votes on the actual merits of the motion. Now, the vote to table is not that surprising, since last week I did report that Democratic leaders had come out and said that they would actually help to defeat such a motion if Greene did introduce it, and that's obviously what happened, though a ton of Republicans also opposed Greene's motion as well. Speaking of House Republicans, though, Representative Andy Ogles introduced two bills yesterday that have very little chance of actually

passing Congress, but aim to punish university protesters. One bill is called the Anti-Semitism Community Service Act. It requires anyone convicted of unlawful activity on college or university campuses since October 7th to do six months of community service in Gaza. And the second bill, called the Study Abroad Act, attempts to cancel the visas of students studying abroad here in the United States if those students are arrested for either rioting or unlawful protest, or while establishing, participating in, or promoting an encampment. As I said, these bills almost certainly won't pass, but even if they did pass, President Biden would not sign them into law. Moving on, Donald Trump's youngest son, Barron Trump, was selected by the Florida GOP as an at-large delegate for Florida at the upcoming Republican

National Convention. The list of delegates was released last night, which you can of course find in the sources section of this episode if you so wish, but Barron joins several of his family members as an at-large delegate, including Donald Trump Jr., Donald Trump Jr.'s fiance, Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump, and Tiffany Trump's husband. So now that Barron is of age, he's 18, it doesn't really come as much of a surprise. However, this is his first sort of politically related action. So I think that's a lot of the reason it's making news. But the reason that I wanted to cover this story is to talk about what it means. What is the relevancy of being selected

as an at-large delegate? An at-large delegate is a delegate who is sent to the Republican National Convention in July and or the Democratic National Convention and represents the entire state and appears on the ballot of every county. At-large delegates are different than delegates from congressional districts, which just represent their specific district. So this year, Florida specifically will send in total 125 delegates to the convention, 41 of which are at-large delegates. Now here's why delegates matter. In order to win a party's nomination at the respective convention, a candidate has to receive support from a majority of the delegates, which is about 1,215 delegates, given that there are roughly 2,429 delegates in attendance.

But keep in mind that Trump has already secured enough delegates to win the Republican nomination, just like Biden has already secured enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination. So while we can sit here and talk about what it means to be a delegate and who's on the list of delegates, just know that the nominations have already been secured. So this year's Republican and Democratic National Conventions won't really tell us anything we don't already know. Moving on, all 50 governors have signed letters opposing a Biden administration proposal that would in part change who has control over a state's Air National Guard. A new Pentagon proposal called LP-480, which would be included in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025, would give the Air Force Secretary the sole authority to move Air National Guard members from any state to federal Space Force units. Now, sole authority currently belongs to each state's governor. So the proposal reads in

part, quote, subsection A authorizes the Secretary of the Air Force to transfer to the Space Force the covered space functions of the Air National Guard of the United States. It also waives the requirement in the relevant federal law to obtain a governor's consent prior to making these changes to a National Guard unit. End quote. A White House official said the administration stands by the Pentagon's proposal for a one-time transfer of airmen to help expand the Space Force and expand space security. Governors, on the other hand, say this proposal is an overreach. In a joint letter to lawmakers and the Department of Defense, 48 governors wrote in part, quote, legislation that sidesteps, eliminates, or otherwise reduces

governors' authority within their states and territories undermines longstanding partnerships, precedents, military readiness, and operational efficacy. This action also negatively affects the important relationships between governors and the Department of Defense at a time when we need to have full trust and confidence between the two to meet the growing threats posed by the era of strategic competition as well as natural disasters. An action like this will violate the trust of the brave women and men who have volunteered to serve our states and our nation, end quote. So as I said, that letter was from 48 governors. The two governors who were not a part of that joint letter were Governor DeSantis of Florida and Governor Abbott of Texas. They each

wrote their own separate letters. Now, the way that this works is that the Department of Defense can propose this type of legislation, but it's ultimately up to Congress whether to pass the annual National Defense Authorization Act with that language in it. So the purpose of the letters is to get the Pentagon to withdraw the proposal, but even if the Pentagon decides not to withdraw the proposal, the ultimate decision as to whether to enact something like this is in Congress's hands. And that's why these letters were written not only to the Department of Defense, but also to lawmakers, because it's up to the Department of Defense to withdraw, but ultimately up to the

lawmakers to make a final decision. Now for the fifth and final story, a federal appeals court has rejected Hunter Biden's appeal to have his federal firearm indictment dismissed. But I think the aspect of this story worth talking about is why the appeal was denied, because if one were to just simply read the headlines of the story, it may actually come off as something other than what it is. And what I mean by that is the reason the appeals court denied Hunter Biden's attempt to dismiss his indictment is based on procedural grounds, not the actual merits of the indictment, or actually, I should say, not the actual merits of his arguments. So Hunter Biden had asked the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss his

firearm charges based on various arguments. But special counsel David Weiss's team argued that the appellate court actually doesn't have the proper jurisdiction to even review the appeal. And here's why. Under the rules of criminal procedures, certain court orders called non-final orders are not appealable, except in very limited circumstances. And how we know, typically, if a judge's order is non-final and therefore not appealable, is once the order is issued, you ask the question of whether the case still presents outstanding issues to be adjudicated. If the answer is no, the case is over with the issuance of the order, the order is final. But if the answer is no, the case is over with the issuance of the order,

the order is final. But if the answer is yes, there are still issues to be sorted out in the case despite the order being issued, that order is a non-final order. It's kind of similar to why in Trump's Georgia election interference case, we saw Judge McAfee give Trump special permission to appeal the ruling not to disqualify Fannie Willis. That was a non-final order that Trump wanted to appeal, but in order to appeal it before the case was actually over, he had to get special permission from the judge. Now granted, the Georgia election interference case is a state case, so it's subject to slightly different rules than federal cases, but all of this to say, generally

speaking, certain orders are not appealable unless a final judgment has been rendered in the case. And that is ultimately what the appellate court based their decision on here. So in dismissing Hunter Biden's appeal, the three-judge panel wrote in part, quote, this appeal is dismissed because the defendant has not shown the district court's orders are appealable before final judgment, end quote. Now, of course, once this case is over, if it doesn't go in his favor, Hunter will likely appeal on the same grounds. And at that point, the appellate court could then take up the appeal and render a decision on the merits. So following that ruling from the appellate court, the judge

overseeing Hunter's case actually scheduled a trial date for June 3rd, and that jury trial is expected to last between three to six days. And just for clarity's sake, this trial pertains to his federal firearm charges, not the federal tax charges. And finally, it's Thursday, so you know what that means. We're finishing the final episode of the week with some good news. The first good news is about a nine-year-old boy in Oklahoma named Branson Baker, who was riding in the car with his parents last week when an EF4 tornado threw a tree and other debris into their truck, causing it to crash. The front of the car was severely damaged, leaving his parents, who were

in the two front seats, not only severely injured, but also trapped. Branson, who was in the back seat, was thankfully okay, so Branson's dad told him to get out and go to try and find some help. That's when Branson, as he calls it, channeled his inner superhero and told his parents, don't die, I'll be right back. And he ran as fast as he could. He ran for over a mile before he reached the house of some nearby friends. Those friends were ultimately able to help emergency crews get his parents out of the car. And while Branson's mom and dad both suffered pretty serious injuries, thankfully both are going to make a full recovery but they both attribute their you know the fact that they're alive and well to their son who ran over a mile in very terrible weather conditions

to get some help the second story is about a couple of boston police officers who made someone's birthday just a little more special exactly one week ago on may 2nd a man named chris was turning 25 years old. He called 911 and said he wanted someone to wish him a happy birthday. The officers who were dispatched thought the call might just be a joke, but after going to Chris's address and verifying his name and his birthday through a license check, they realized that it wasn't a joke at all. The officers came prepared with a muffin, some candles, and a lighter,

and when Chris kindly let the officers inside, they lit the candles and sang happy birthday. Chris's face in this body cam footage is absolutely priceless. He's just so incredibly happy. And of course, I do have that body cam footage linked for you in the sources section. But one of the officers told a local outlet, everyone has one birthday, so everyone deserves to feel special on that one day. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a great Friday and a great weekend. And I will talk to you on Monday.