Up First from NPR - Hawaii Death Toll, Hunter Biden Special Counsel, Wisconsin's Top Court

Episode Date: August 12, 2023

The wildfires in Hawaii have become the state's worst natural disaster in recorded history. David Weiss continues his prosecution of President Biden's son, now as special counsel. The conservative chief justice of the the Wisconsin Supreme Court says the liberal majority has manufactured a "coup."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

At least 80 people have died in the wildfires in Hawaii. Residents say they have nowhere to flee. Here, I really felt every corner where we had just come from was on fire. I'm Scott Simon. I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is Up First from NPR News. The Justice Department appoints a special counsel to investigate President Biden's son, Hunter Biden. Even though the Attorney General said before one wasn't necessary. That's two weeks after a plea deal fell apart.

In Wisconsin, infighting among justices on the state Supreme Court. Now that liberals have the majority. The Chief Justice, a conservative, is calling it a coup. Please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend. Now Our Change will honour 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to Our Change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today.

The island of Maui continues to burn. And hundreds of people remain missing. NPR's Jason DeRose is in Maui. Jason, thanks for being with us. Morning. Such difficult news. Please tell us about the latest developments. Well, Scott, multiple wildfires are continuing to burn around the island, but things are a bit more under control than they were earlier in the week. Residents in affected areas are being allowed back into their neighborhoods if they can show proof that they live there. But sadly, some of them are returning to find only the burnt remains of their homes. There are daily curfews, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the burnt areas.

And I should point out that in the western part of the island, there's still no power, no water, and there isn't expected to be for some time. I understand you visited a shelter there in Kahului. Could you tell us about that? Well, Scott, this is an impromptu shelter at the Maui High School, started by volunteers from the community and from the school itself. So the gym, like most school gyms, has a shower for folks where they can clean up. There are cots set up for sleeping. They're handing out food, making sure everyone is hydrated. It's been really hot here. Friday was 85 degrees and quite humid. They also have about 300 people staying there.

And the Red Cross has started to take over running things. California resident Vesta Sung was vacationing here with her daughter when the fires broke out. She also happens to be a trained Red Cross volunteer. It's easy to have these bottlenecks. And I know for myself, I can feel really fearful because there's no escape. When there's fires in L.A. County, Orange County, you know, California's big. I don't even want to go to another state to escape, right? But here, I really felt every corner

where we had just come from was on fire. Now, Scott, an example of that bottleneck, a bad traffic accident yesterday shut down access to the western burn areas for much of Friday afternoon, even for rescue workers. Now, this shelter is in transition as things are becoming a bit more organized. That's creating some frustration for those folks who came earlier in the week just to

volunteer to help out when it was a community effort. And why frustration, Jason? Well, you know, on Wednesday and Thursday, folks showed up. They brought food. They brought water. Doctors came to see if people needed help. But now they have to go through official channels to volunteer. We spoke with one doctor who'd been helping earlier in the week, but by Friday he was being told, no, you have to go register with the Red Cross. And it's not been easy to talk with victims or volunteers. Reporters aren't allowed in the shelter. But we did speak with one evacuee outside who showed us videos on her phone of how quickly the fire escalated in just a matter of minutes.

She and her boyfriend got out safely, but their home was completely destroyed. Jason, from the conversations you have been able to have, how do people seem to be holding up? Well, people are tired. They're visibly tired. Their voices are tired. Volunteers are tired and sad. And, you know, this is just beginning since many people at the shelter aren't waiting to go back home because they no longer have homes to go back to. But I want to tell you about this wonderful moment of lightness Friday afternoon at the shelter. Out in front of the gym there, people have set up this little play area for kids where there are toys and games. And at one point, in the midst of all this tragedy and destruction and death, someone brought a bubble machine. So the whole front of the school gym was covered with these tiny bubbles floating in the air.

And you could see the little kids dancing for joy. Oh, what a beautiful moment. And Pierce Jason DeRose in Maui, thanks so much. You're welcome, Scott. Attorney General Merrick Garland says a special counsel makes sure the case against Hunter Biden is guided only by facts in the law. That means the president's son is apparently headed to trial after all. And PR Justice correspondent Kerry Johnson joins us.

Kerry, thanks for being with us. Happy to be here, Scott. Please tell us about David Weiss, this person who's now the special counsel. Well, he's a holdover U.S. attorney from Delaware, initially appointed by former President Donald Trump. And he's the same guy who's been investigating Hunter Biden since 2019. The difference now is that a special counsel, he will write a report explaining his decisions about charging people or declining to charge people, and he's going to operate outside of day-to-day supervision from the

Justice Department leaders, but they can override his decisions if they think they're inappropriate. The trick there is that Congress would learn about any of those overrides eventually. And Carrie, if he was already on the job in this investigation, why the need to become a special counsel? That's not entirely clear. The Justice Department doesn't tell us who they're investigating or for what. But the appointment paperwork references an investigation of Hunter Biden, among others. And Attorney General Merrick Garland told us Weiss had reached a stage in the investigation where becoming a special counsel was necessary.

Carrie, what happened to the Hunter Biden plea deal? It looked to be in place, and then something changed. Yeah, things went wrong. Last month, a federal judge in Delaware questioned the terms of the deal, specifically whether it conveyed a kind of broad immunity to Hunter Biden over his business dealings and foreign lobbying. So prosecutors said no, and lawyers for Hunter Biden said yes. There was no meeting of the minds. Yesterday, prosecutors said they remained at an impasse. They said there's no plea deal. So this agreement for Hunter Biden to plead guilty to two tax charges and enter a diversion program for a gun charge now seems to be dead. Right now, unless something big happens, it seems this case could be headed for trial.

And, of course, President Biden is running for reelection at the same time. How was the White House responding to the news of a special counsel? The White House's declining comment, Hunter Biden's lawyer says, nothing has changed in their view now that there's a special counsel. He says they expect a, quote, fair resolution, not infected by politics. And former President Trump got in line too. He accused the Justice Department yesterday without any evidence of protecting Joe and Hunter Biden, even though the Justice Department is now investigating them both. Republicans in Congress

have been demanding that prosecutors take action against Hunter Biden. Now they say the special counsel move is designed to stonewall their investigations. But for what it's worth, special counsels do regularly testify before Congress, but only after their work is done. And President Trump had another day in court yesterday. Carrie, tell us about that, please. Busy day. This is the case against Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the Capitol riot. Judge Tanya Chutkin imposed a protective order to limit how much Trump can talk about sensitive documents he'll get in the course of the case. She's worried about him potentially intimidating witnesses and polluting the jury pool here in D.C.

The judge says Donald Trump does have First Amendment rights, but he's subject to restrictions like any other criminal defendant, and she warned everyone to be careful in their public statements before trial, a message to the defense that making inflammatory remarks could actually lead to having a trial in D.C. sooner rather than later to minimize prejudicial statements of the potential jurors might hear. NPR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson, thanks so much. My pleasure. It's been less than two weeks since Janet Protasewicz was sworn into the top court in

Wisconsin. Her election in April gave liberals a slim majority on the panel for the first time in 15 years. So far, the session has been very messy. Mayan Silver of WUWM in Milwaukee joins us now. Welcome. Hi, Aisha. So as we mentioned, the new liberal majority has only been in power for a short time and already there's been, I guess, how can we say this, drama. Tell us about what's going on. Right. So the liberal majority really started reshaping the court administratively within days of taking control. They fired the director of state courts who was appointed by conservatives. They limited the power of the conservative chief justice. They opened up administrative meetings to the public and they set up a committee to

establish recusal rules. That's when a judge sets out a case because of a conflict. Liberal justices say they're just making things more transparent, but conservatives have really responded with bitterness. One conservative justice actually tweeted that there's a, quote, cabal of extreme leftists now running the court. The Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, who's a conservative, called it a coup on conservative talk radio. Meanwhile, Liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet issued a press release in response and said they've repeatedly asked the chief justice to join them in meetings, but she's refused. So keep in mind, this is all playing out very publicly in press releases and comments to the

media. So what's the problem with the liberal justice making changes now that they have the majority? Is this just sour grapes or do the conservative justices have grounds for their objections? So some observers say that really liberals aren't doing anything that conservatives wouldn't do if the tables were turned. The real problem here isn't all this back and forth. It's really the acrimony and partisanship on the court. I talked to Barry Burden about this. He's the director of the Elections Research Project at UW-Madison. Public trust in the court and, you know, the willingness to accept its decisions is going

to be lower and much more partisan in the reaction that we see. This is true of the U.S. Supreme Court as well. In Wisconsin, I think we're likely to see a similar sort of polarization of public reactions play out. In the meantime, Burden says it'd just be good for the justices to get in a room face-to-face, maybe stop tweeting and issuing press releases. They really have a lot of important work to do. A lot of important work to do. It seems like the court does have some really big cases to decide this term. Remind us what's coming up. going to be before the court soon. Redistricting is the one we're really watching because that has a tight deadline. The case would have to be decided by mid next year for those new districts to be in place before the general election. That could have big implications for the balance of power

in the state legislature, which has been controlled by conservatives for quite a while in Wisconsin. There's already two lawsuits filed within two weeks of the new court. There's also a lawsuit making its way through the system over Wisconsin's near total abortion ban. And then of course, election laws will be important because Wisconsin is such a narrow swing state. It's cliche to say that every vote counts, but here we really mean it. That's Mayan Silver in Milwaukee. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. And that's Up First for Saturday, August 12, 2023.

I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Aisha Roscoe. Tomorrow on Up First, introducing the Love Commandos, a group in India that protects intercast couples. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ravenna Koenig, Donald Clyde, Prishna Dev Kalamar, Fernando Naro-Roman, Liz Baker, and Matthew Sherman. It was produced by Danny Hensel and directed by Michael Radcliffe, with engineering support from Hannah Gloven. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor. Our executive producer is Sarah Oliver. And our deputy managing editor is Jim Cain.

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