Joe Biden shows support for son as his gun trial begins
US President Joe Biden has said he has “boundless love” for his son Hunter as jury selection in his federal gun case started on Monday.
Hunter Biden has been charged in Delaware with three felonies stemming from a 2018 firearm purchase when he was, allegedly, addicted to crack cocaine.
He has been accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application used to screen firearms applicants when he said he was not a drug user, and illegally having the gun for 11 days.
Hunter and Melissa Cohen Biden arrive at court. Pic: Reuters
A plea deal that would have avoided a trial so close to the 2024 election previously collapsed.
Biden pleaded not guilty and has argued he is being unfairly targeted by the US justice department, after Republicans decried the now-defunct deal as special treatment for the Democratic president’s son.
Joe Biden said that as president he would not comment on the criminal trial – but as a father, he has “boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength”.
Proud father
The US leader said: “I am the president, but I am also a dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today”.
First lady Jill Biden was seated in the front row of the Delaware courtroom in a show of support.
Hunter Biden’s trial comes just days after Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was convicted of 34 felonies in New York City.
Jill Biden arrives at court on the opening day of Hunter Biden’s trial. Pic: Reuters
A jury found the former president guilty of a scheme to cover up a hush-money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels made to fend off damage to his 2016 presidential campaign.
Prospective jurors in Hunter Biden’s case were quizzed individually to determine whether they could be fair and impartial.
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Questions put to them ranged from their knowledge of the case, thoughts about gun ownership and whether they or anyone close to them have struggled with substance abuse or addiction, or ever owned a gun.
Hunter Biden is also facing a separate trial in California in September for failing to pay $1.4m (£1.1m) in taxes.
Campaign distraction
Joe BIden’s allies are worried the trial could become a distraction as the presidential election campaign gets underway.
Joe Biden and Hunter Biden go for a bike ride on Saturday. Pic: Reuters
Prosecutors are hoping to show Hunter Biden was in the throes of addiction when he bought the gun and therefore lied on the forms.
They have said they are planning to use his published memoir as evidence, and they may also introduce contents from a laptop that he left at a Delaware repair shop and never retrieved.
The highly personal contents made their way to Republicans in 2020 and were publicly leaked to cause maximum embarrassment to the Biden camp.
Drug addiction
The case against Hunter Biden stems from a period when he was addicted to crack cocaine.
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His descent into drugs and alcohol followed the death of his brother, Beau Biden, from cancer in 2015.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty in both cases, and his attorneys have suggested they may argue he did not see himself as an addict when prosecutors say he checked “no” to the question on the form. They will also attack the credibility of the gun store owner.
If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison, though first-time offenders are unlikely to get anywhere near this maximum term, and it’s unclear whether the judge would give him time behind bars.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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