Matt Gaetz Has the Wildest Reaction to Hunter Biden Verdict

Hunter Biden was found guilty Tuesday on three charges in his federal gun trial. He could face up to 25 years in prison for lying on a federal form about his drug use, lying to a gun dealer, and possessing a gun.

But as Republicans sprang into a frenzy, someone very unexpected downplayed  the first son’s conviction: Florida Representative Matt Gaetz.

“The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh,” Gaetz wrote on X moments after the ruling was released.

Gaetz wasn’t the only Republican rushing to retroactively claim that the gun possession conviction was pointless. Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk also chimed into the conversation, revealing a deeper reason why conservatives might not want to jump on the bandwagon against Biden’s son—all in a thinly veiled effort to aid another convicted felon, Donald Trump.

“Hunter Biden guilty. Yawn,” Kirk wrote. “The true crimes of the Biden Crime Family remain untouched. This is a fake trial trying to make the Justice system appear ‘balanced.’ Don’t fall for it.”

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has already indicated that he won’t be pardoning his son. In an interview with ABC News last week, Biden said that he would accept the outcome of his son’s trial and that a pardon wasn’t on the table. Conversely, Biden said that Donald Trump was trying to “undermine” the legal system by claiming that he had been unjustly targeted by the legal system.

Biden repeated his acceptance Tuesday, saying that above all else, he would keep supporting his son.

“I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal,” he said in a statement. “Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.”

Hunter has become a favorite target of Republicans over the last couple of years. Besides the gun trial—which dredged up emotional testimony from the 54-year-old’s ex-wife and sister-in-law about his drug use—conservatives have dogged Hunter with alleged tax evasion charges in California and with a sham inquiry remarkably devoid of evidence at the Congressional level, claiming that the president had netted millions off of his son’s connection to Ukrainian oil company Burisma. 

But that effort completely blew up in their face when their star informant Alexander Smirnov was indicted by the Department of Justice for lying to the FBI. Smirnov then reportedly admitted to law enforcement that top Russian intelligence officials were involved in the smear campaign against the sitting president. And all of the other witnesses that Republicans called on in their year-long probe instead debunked every single accusation against the Biden family.

Democratic donors are test-running a series of party-style campaign events aimed at getting young voters to the polls—a nice idea, but some of their tactics seem downright dystopian.

Over the past few months, The Voter Project has been hosting parties in Pennsylvania, fine-tuning strategies under the banner Stand Up Strong ’24, according to The Washington Post.

“Turning people out to cultural events is not a hard thing to do. The key thing is to make it fun and keep out the doom and gloom,” Kevin Mack, the group’s lead strategist told the Post.

Stand Up Strong ’24 recently held an event in Philadelphia that had all the usual fixings of a community event, including beer, free giveaways, and music.

But there was one more thing: a raffle giving away one month’s rent to lucky attendees. A total of $8,000 was distributed, according to the Post.

Democrats are so desperate to reunite with young voters that they’ve resorted to paying them. Somehow, throwing money at the problem seems easier than making substantial policy changes.

Unfortunately for Biden, his glacial work to erase crippling student loans for millions of people hasn’t proven to be enough to keep young voters, especially not in the face of his disastrous Israel policy, which has actively backed the country’s catastrophic military campaign in Gaza.

For the Biden campaign, youth voter turnout may be the key to keeping the White House in November. In 2020, an astounding young voter turnout, higher than in any presidential election in nearly 50 years, lifted Biden to victory. Without their support, 2024 could look a lot like 2016—with even more dangerous results.

It’s undeniable that community events are essential tools in building public power and engaging young voters. Just look at the massive pro-Palestinian rallies across the country! If only Biden could think of some way to tap into that … oh well.

Fox News is attempting to downplay conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s astronomical $4 million in lavish vacations and gifts by fixating on gifts received by liberal justices—specifically, Beyoncé tickets given to Ketanji Brown Jackson by the superstar herself, which is just an unequivocally cool fact.

Jackson’s Beyoncé tickets, which the Supreme Court justice reported totaled $3,700, have consumed a substantial amount of Fox’s attention. According to an analysis by Mediaite, Fox spent multiple segments discussing Jackson’s tickets in detail while saying next to nothing about the real scandal of Thomas’s mind-boggling disclosure report. Fix the Court tallied all Supreme Court justice disclosures over the last 20 years, finding they collectively received more than $6.5 million in gifts—with a extreme majority of that total attributed solely to Thomas.

When Fox News does mention Thomas’s amended financial disclosure forms (which only come after bombshell reports expose that he failed to disclose them), it’s paired with mention of Jackson’s tickets, seemingly in an attempt to conflate being swayed by conservative billionaire interests with being swayed by the melodious rhythm of Queen Bey’s splashy bops.

According to Mediaite, in the week since Fix the Court’s findings, Fox News mentioned Clarence Thomas’s amended financial disclosures three times, each time omitting the astronomical quantity of his gifts. Every time Fox News mentioned Thomas, it brought up Jackson’s Beyoncé tickets and noted the price.

“Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is acknowledging previously unreported trips that were paid for by a conservative billionaire,” said Fox News anchor John Roberts, during a June 6 episode of America Reports. “Thomas has amended last year’s financial disclosure form to include the trips that were back in 2019. The vacations to Bali and California were not originally included in his 2019 disclosure form. By the way, last year, Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justice, got four tickets from Beyoncé for a concert worth $3,700.”

The analysis from Mediaite further notes that Fox News carried its lopsided framing to its website, publishing articles that vaguely report on Thomas’s amended disclosures while providing itemized detailing of gifts received by Jackson. Fox describes the cost of the Beyoncé tickets as “eye-popping” and includes mention of a floral arrangement gifted by Oprah Winfrey to celebrate Jackson becoming the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Fix the Court responded to Fox’s focus on Jackson’s meager gifts while underplaying Thomas’s extravagant boon, posting on X (formerly Twitter), “$4,000 in gifts is the same as $4 million in gifts, right?”

“Here, a decision was made at Fox News at least five times—three on-air television reports plus the two articles on the network’s website cited above—to leave out the seven-figure total of the gifts to Thomas, leave out the broader controversy about Thomas’ gifts from Crow, repeatedly mention the four-figure cost of the concert tickets given to Jackson, and emphasize the celebrity aspect of the story,” Mediaite’s Sarah Rumpf notes.

Supreme Court financial disclosures are intended to prevent conflicts of interest, an issue that has come up frequently with Thomas. Fox’s fixation on Jackson’s Beyoncé tickets moves away from the purpose of financial disclosures toward making a scandal of the fact that Beyoncé did an extremely cool thing, and that tickets to one of her legendary concerts apparently cost just $925 apiece.

Judge Aileen Cannon is definitely lending Donald Trump a helping hand in his classified documents case—at least, that’s according to the former president’s legal team.

Cannon on Tuesday* granted a request by Trump’s team to delay the trial until July 8, allowing the defense more time to find expert witnesses to bolster their case. But four words included near the bottom of the motion revealed exactly what legal experts have been fearing.

“We respectfully submit that no prejudice would result to the Special Counsel’s Office from granting the requested adjournment,” the team wrote in the Monday night filing, adding that “President Trump is disclosing to the Office tonight the topics of expert testimony that he will seek to present at trial should there be one.”

Cannon has added so many delays to the criminal trial that it has seemingly no start date in sight. Legal experts have warned that the Trump-appointed judge’s actions and apparent aversion to expedite the federal obstruction case could delay the trial until after November.

It could even be Cannon’s way of not-so-surreptitiously dismissing the trial altogether—and now, Trump has spelled it out.

In May, Cannon ordered a stay on the GOP presidential nominee’s legal requirement to give the government advance notice of which classified materials will be discussed—but offered no expiration date for the theoretically temporary reprieve. She also slapped down a gag order request for Trump on the basis that his defense did not have enough time to mull over its details.

Cannon has even scheduled an “unusual” hearing on June 21, making time for amicus briefs from non-parties to make oral arguments on whether special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment to the case is constitutional.

Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb has accused Cannon of “incompetence,” insisting that the case could have “easily” gone to trial before Election Day with the amount of evidence available.

“Only her incompetence and perceived bias has prevented that,” Cobb told CNN last month.

Trump faces 42 felony charges in the case related to willful retention of national security information, corruptly concealing documents, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. But the judge actually overseeing the former president’s classified documents case seems to have no motivation to move forward with the trial.

*This story has been updated with Cannon’s response.

Judge Aileen Cannon has once again helped Donald Trump in his classified documents trial, this time by removing an entire paragraph from the indictment.

The paragraph in question alleged that Trump showed a classified map of a foreign country related to a military operation to a representative of his political action committee, who did not have security clearance. Trump’s defense team said the paragraph was prejudicial and included information that was not essential to the underlying charges.

Trump’s team had requested that multiple charges in the indictment be dismissed, but Cannon denied that request. However, while delivering that news, she chided special counsel Jack Smith’s team for including language in the charging documents that she called “legally unnecessary to serve the function of an indictment” and that she said created “arguable confusion” in the allegations.

Trump’s defense team has made numerous pretrial requests and motions, which Cannon’s handling of the case has allowed to pile up. She has postponed the case indefinitely to examine each motion, even if they seem outrageous or frivolous. For example, she has scheduled a hearing for later this month to determine whether Smith’s appointment and funding by the Justice Department was even legal.

Cannon has also agreed to hear Trump’s arguments that the FBI plotted to assassinate him—a completely made-up conspiracy theory. Two weeks ago, she blocked a gag order request from special counsel Jack Smith because it was “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.” And one of Trump’s former lawyers, Ty Cobb, thinks that Cannon is doing a terrible job with the case.

The frequently delayed case has not reflected well on Cannon, a former federal prosecutor and University of Michigan law school graduate. One hearing with a Trump co-defendant devolved into a shouting match, and Cannon seems to misunderstand basic legal proceedings and principles in court, forcing legal counsel to explain them to her as the trial proceeds.

All of this has given fodder to allegations that she is deliberately slowing down the case against the convicted felon and Republican presidential nominee, or seeking to ultimately dismiss the case entirely. But, it all could be used by Smith in a motion to try and have her removed from the case. Regardless of whether Cannon’s odd handling of Trump’s case is due to inexperience or a deliberate attempt to help Trump, he certainly seems to appreciate it.