A Biden family split on gun rights
Joe Biden has staked his career on championing gun laws. His felon son is trying to unwind them.
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When the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen two years ago, President Biden responded with a blistering statement.
“We must do more as a society — not less — to protect our fellow Americans,” Biden said about the decision, which set a new standard requiring that gun control laws be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Biden added that he was “disappointed” by the ruling, charging that it “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.”
One person apparently untroubled by the decision was Biden’s son, Hunter, who is likely to use Bruen in appealing his three felony convictions, which were announced by a Delaware jury yesterday. The younger Biden was found guilty of lying on a gun form in 2018 — he falsely claimed that he was not using drugs at the time — and illegally possessing the firearm. He is the first child of a U.S. president to be convicted of a crime.
Before his trial began, the younger Biden’s lawyers pushed to dismiss the case by arguing that the law he was accused of violating — which forbids drug addicts from owning firearms — was unconstitutional according to the Second Amendment, due to the “historical tradition” test set up by Bruen. A federal judge rejected the dismissal attempt, ruling that such an issue would be proper to raise on appeal if Biden was convicted — teeing him up to do so now.
The “historical tradition” test has led to judicial splits on a range of gun laws, as dueling jurists point to separate sets of evidence to argue that various regulations do or don’t comport with historical attempts to curtail firearms. The Supreme Court is set to revisit the case in an opinion expected later this month, in United States v. Rahimi, in which a defendant is using Bruen to challenge the federal law that prohibits individuals from owning a firearm while under a domestic abuse restraining order. The justices siding with the defendant in Rahimi (an outcome his father would no doubt decry) would bolster Biden’s appeal.
As for the specific law at the heart of Biden’s case, two circuit courts have already issued contradictory rulings on its constitutionality, highlighting the unsettled state of gun laws after Bruen. The conservative Fifth Circuit — which has been responsible for many of the envelope-pushing cases that have reached the Supreme Court this term — ruled last year that there was no historical analog for laws preventing gun access to drug users. The Eighth Circuit, meanwhile, upheld the law in April. The Fifth Circuit case has already been appealed to the Supreme Court, making it possible that the justices will weigh in on the issue.
Theoretically, Hunter Biden could seek to appeal his case to the Supremes as well. If the justices take his case — and then his side — the conservative writer Charles C.W. Cooke notes, “it will yield the bizarre outcome of there being a Second Amendment case called Biden that overturned a bunch of laws at the intersection of drugs and firearms that Joe Biden championed frenetically for years.”
That irony — a president who has long promoted gun control laws and a son now seeking to unwind them — was deepened Tuesday with the president’s first event after Hunter’s conviction. Hours after his son was found guilty of illegally possessing a firearm, President Biden delivered a previously scheduled speech at “Gun Sense University,” an annual event put on by Everytown for Gun Safety, where the White House said he would be highlighting his efforts to “keep guns out of dangerous hands.”
I was in the Washington Hilton ballroom Tuesday to cover the event. Biden did not mention his son’s conviction in his 20-minute address, instead focusing on his gun control record, including the 2022 passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and his more recent creation of a White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
“Folks, you’ve helped power a movement that is turning this cause into reality,” Biden told the audience of activists in attendance. “Especially young people who demanded our nation do better and protect us all, who protested, who organized, who voted, who ran for office and, yes, who marched for their lives.”
Although it was an official, not political, event, Biden referred repeatedly to “my predecessor,” including by citing Trump’s January comment that “we have to get over it” after a school shooting in Iowa. “Hell no, we don’t have to get over it,” Biden retorted.
Notwithstanding a brief walkout by a trio of pro-Palestinian protestors — “Innocent children have been lost. They make a point,” the president responded — the crowd was a friendly audience for Biden on a day when his mind was likely elsewhere. He was repeatedly interrupted by chants of “four more years”; at one point, an attendee yelled out “I love you so much.”
“He’s our guy,” Alissa Dumont, an Everytown volunteer from Connecticut, told me. “He’s been fighting this fight for a very long time, for decades. He touches us and he can sympathize because of the losses he’s had and the tremendous amount of loss of the people that are here at this convention right now.” During his speech, Biden twice referred to the “black hole in your chest” after losing a loved one.
The attendees I spoke to seemed largely unbothered by Hunter Biden’s conviction; most declined to talk about the case, saying they weren’t familiar enough with the details. Others said it had little bearing on the father’s advocacy for gun safety.
“If we were to blame every parent for the things their kids did, we would get absolutely nowhere,” said Raygn Jordan, a public school teacher from Virginia. “They’re two separate people and, yes, that’s his son and I’m sure he love him, but...what his son is doing doesn’t distract from what he’s doing as president.”
Biden issued a statement Tuesday pledging to “respect the judicial process” and “accept the outcome of this case.” In contrast to former President Donald Trump and his allies, who have framed Trump’s own conviction as evidence of a “rigged” justice system, Biden’s supporters at the Everytown conference seemed to follow the president’s less combative lead. If anything, some seemed to take pride in a legal system that could peacefully convict the son of a sitting president.
“I think the fact that he was convicted and found guilty shows the system’s working,” Jordan said. “He committed a crime and he is now going to suffer the consequences of that. Our movement doesn’t get to pick and choose and say, ‘Oh, you’re the president’s son, you don’t have to worry about this law.’ That’s where these loopholes come in.”
Biden’s speech at the Everytown conference was supposed to be his last stop of the day, but after Hunter’s verdict was announced, the White House made a change to the president’s schedule. Instead of spending the night in D.C., as originally planned, Biden returned to Delaware, the longtime center of his family life and the site of Hunter’s trial.
Hunter Biden met his father on the tarmac; the two embraced, lingering for several minutes.
Word of the day: Silverado
As regular readers of this newsletter know, I always try to bring you historical parallels for the day’s news. Well, there’s a long history of presidential relatives creating awkward headlines, from Billy Carter’s “Billy Beer” and relationship with Libya to Roger Clinton’s alleged influence peddling to the Bush daughters’ underage drinking citations.
“I can be President of the United States or I can control Alice Roosevelt,” Theodore Roosevelt famously said of his rambunctious daughter. “I cannot possibly do both.”
While there may not be any precedent for a president’s child being criminally indicted by their own father’s government — there is precedent for one being sued by their dad’s subordinates.
Neil Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush, was a director of the Denver-based Silverado Savings and Loan association in the 1980s, when its failure during the broader S&L crisis cost taxpayers an estimated $1 billion. In 1990, during his father’s presidency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) sued the younger Bush and other Silverado personnel, accusing them of “gross negligence” that violated regulations and led to the S&L association’s collapse.
The civil case eventually ended in a settlement, with the younger Bush paying $50,000.
There are other parallels between Neil Bush and Hunter Biden. Like Hunter, Neil also sparked controversy with his foreign business dealings and for receiving help with his legal fees from political allies of his father. They also share a track record of receiving board positions in industries they have seemingly little experience in — as well as for racy sexual exploits that eventually became public.
“Mr. Bush,” his wife’s attorney said during their divorce proceedings, “you have to admit that it’s a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her.”
“It was very unusual,” he responded, although he insisted he didn’t know if she was a prostitute.
More news to know.
Republicans won a House special election in Ohio last night by a much closer margin than expected. State Sen. Michael Rulli (R) took 55% of the vote in the race to succeed former Rep. Bill Johnson (R), who resigned to become a college president, while Air Force veteran Michael Kripchak (D) took 45%. Donald Trump won the district by about 30 percentage points, making the contest yet another example of Democratic overperformance in special elections. As of the last filing deadline, Rulli had spent more than $600,000 — while Kripchak spent less than $8,000.
More election results: Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) fended off a primary challenger backed by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who she helped oust... North Dakota voters approved a
Hamas has transmitted its response to the U.S.-backed Israeli ceasefire proposal. The group did not accept the proposal, as the Biden administration had hoped, instead asking for “amendments that confirm the ceasefire, withdrawal, reconstruction and [prisoner] exchange,” according to a spokesperson. The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution earlier this week calling on Hamas to endorse the deal. Negotiations, mediated by Egypt and Qatar, will continue.
Meanwhile: An Israeli strike killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon last night, as a war continues to unfold in slow motion at the border between the two countries.
More headlines:
ABC: In sweeping change, Biden administration to ban medical debt from credit reports
CNN: Federal judge blocks Florida’s ban on transgender care for adolescents
Axios: Alvin Bragg to testify to Congress as GOP bashes Trump case
WaPo: In Trump’s orbit, some muse about mandatory military service
FiveThirtyEight: Trump and Biden are tied in 538’s new election forecast
AP: Sandy Hook shooting survivors to graduate with mixed emotions without 20 of their classmates
The day ahead.
White House: President Biden will travel from Wilmington, Delaware to Fasano, Italy, where he will attend the G-7 summit later this week.
Congress: The Senate will vote to confirm two members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The House will begin consideration of the annual defense policy bill and may also vote on a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt — although Republican leadership may pull that vote, pending moderate support.
Context: Republicans are seeking to hold Garland in contempt for refusing to turn over audio of Special Counsel David Weiss’ interview with President Biden.
Supreme Court: The justices have nothing on their schedule.
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