President Biden Pardons His Son Hunter
Plus, Trump taps "deep state" critic Kash Patel to lead FBI and rebels in Syria advance against Assad regime
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📌 PRESIDENT BIDEN ISSUES PARDON FOR HIS SON, HUNTER BIDEN
President Joe Biden announced Sunday night that he has pardoned his son Hunter, who pleaded guilty in September to nine federal tax charges and was found guilty on federal gun charges in June. Hunter was set to be sentenced to prison time as soon as this month, and Republicans were vowing to keep investigating him. This comes after the president has repeatedly said he would not use his executive authority to pardon his son or commute his sentence.
The pardon covers the 11-year period from 2014 to 2024, which includes both the conviction and the guilty plea, and ensures the first son cannot face future charges for any offenses committed during the past decade.
President Biden wrote in a statement: “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”
HOW WE GOT HERE
NBC reports that Biden had been discussing a potential pardon since his son’s conviction in June, but had decided to publicly lie about the move so that it did not affect the outcome of the election.
In his statement, the president said, “Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.”
President-elect Trump responded by asking why Biden didn’t pardon several hundred people convicted on January 6 charges related to rioting on the Capitol. Trump has vowed to issue pardons upon taking office.
Family pardon history: In 2020, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared, for tax evasion and illegal donations. Trump nominated Charles Kushner to be ambassador to France over the weekend.
President Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger at the end of his term in office.
HUNTER’S STATEMENT
Hunter Biden released his own statement Sunday night. “I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” he said. “I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.”
📌 TRUMP TAPS POLITICAL SUPPORTER TO LEAD F.B.I.
President-elect Donald Trump named Kash Patel as his choice for FBI director on Saturday, seeking to replace Director Christopher Wray seven years into his 10-year term.
Patel is a staunch Trump loyalist who has pledged to seek retribution against Trump adversaries, and has stated he would empty out FBI headquarters and turn it into a museum of the “deep state.”
Some Senate Republicans voiced support for the nomination on Sunday, but Patel faces an uphill battle to be confirmed to a position designed in recent years to remain independent from presidential politics.
DOWN WITH THE DEEP STATE
Patel, 44, worked in the first Trump administration, focused primarily on foreign policy and national security, and was a federal public defender. He has called for replacing "anti-democratic" civil servants in law enforcement and intelligence with "patriots" and Trump loyalists.
In his 2023 memoir, ‘Government Gangsters,’ Patel wrote, “The Deep State is an unelected cabal of tyrants who think they should determine who Americans can and cannot elect as president.”
He has claimed the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
Earlier this month, Patel said that he’d “shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one, and reopen the next day as a museum of the Deep State. And I'd take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals.”
BACKGROUND
In the final months of his first term in 2020, Trump considered naming Patel second in command at the FBI. He faced fierce opposition from CIA Director Gina Haspel, who threatened to quit, and then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who wrote in his memoir that Patel would only join the FBI “over my dead body.” Trump backed down.
Wray, the current FBI director whom Trump nominated during his first term but quickly turned against, will likely either resign or be fired.
Trump nominated Wray in 2017 after firing James Comey, also cutting short Comey’s 10-year term.
The term length, imposed as part of post-Watergate reforms in 1976, was meant to insulate the role from political pressures and extend it beyond two consecutive presidential terms.
The F.B.I. is an agency within the Department of Justice, where Trump has nominated a team of his criminal defense lawyers as the new leadership. Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for Attorney General, has vowed that “the prosecutors will be prosecuted.”
The president of the F.B.I. Agents Association said the group "is committed to preserving the bureau's independence and effectiveness."
🇸🇾 SYRIAN REBELS MAKE MAJOR GAINS AGAINST ASSAD REGIME
Thousands of Syrian opposition fighters took over most of Aleppo this weekend — the largest city in Syria and home to 2 million+ people — in an unprecedented and rapid offensive that caught dictator Bashar al-Assad’s troops by surprise. It marks the most significant shift in Syria’s power balance in recent years, amid its 13-year civil war.
In response, Syria was joined by Russian forces to launch airstrikes aimed at halting advances made by the rebel groups.
Assad, who currently controls just over 2/3 of Syria, has depended on Russia, Iran, and the Iranian proxy terrorist group Hezbollah to hold back insurgents within its borders. But recently, its allies have been distracted or weakened by their own wars – including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Hezbollah being decimated by Israel in recent months.
Opposition forces seized on this moment to train for and execute one of the most consequential assaults on government-held territory in recent years.
WHO THEY ARE
The insurgents, led by an Islamist group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), took over the Aleppo airport on Saturday. HTS is an offshoot of Al Qaeda and was co-founded by a former leader of ISIS.
The fighters have since advanced into outlying provinces in the northwestern region, as well as population centers previously held by government forces.
HTS’s goal is to establish a fundamentalist Islamist government in Syria.
HOW WE GOT HERE
In 2011, anti-government protests were met with brutal crackdowns, with Assad refusing to step down, and instead going to war against the rebel groups.
The fighting has killed 600,000 people, including Assad using poisonous gas to kill Syrian civilians, and destroying large parts of the country. Seven million people have been internally displaced, and the conflict has led to more than 5 million Syrian refugees moving abroad.
Some of the rebel groups have been backed by the U.S., Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia at times over the last decade. However, HTS has long been designated as a terrorist organization by both the U.S. and the U.N. — complicating Western support for the recent mobilization.
⏳ SPEED READ
🚨NATION
📌 4 million under winter storm alerts as snow buries Buffalo, rest of Great Lakes region (ABC)
📌 Pete Hegseth's mom called him 'abuser of women' during his 2018 divorce, NYT reports (MSNBC)
📌 Ken Martin emerges as early front-runner in race to lead Democrats as DNC chair (POLITICO)
📌 Trump threatens 100% tariff on BRICS countries if they pursue creating new currency (NBC)
🌎 AROUND THE WORLD
📌 Justin Trudeau dines with Trump at Mar-a-Lago after tariff threat (AP)
📌 UN says it is halting aid through main Gaza crossing because route is too dangerous (NPR)
📌 Zelenskyy says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war (AP)
📌 Unprecedented protests sweep Georgia after government scraps EU bid (POLITICO)
📌 A new Belgium law gives sex workers contracts, benefits and safety protection (AP)
📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH
📌 Volkswagen’s woes mount as workers prepare to strike across Germany (CNN)
📌 Atlantic hurricane season races to finish within range of predicted number of named storms (NOAA)
📌 Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares steps down as carmaker continues struggle with slumping sales (AP)
📌 Inside your body, aging unfolds at remarkably different rates (WASHINGTON POST)
🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
📌 Thanksgiving box office record: ‘Moana 2’ scores dazzling $221 million debut, ‘Wicked’ adds huge $117 million (VARIETY)
📌 Brawl ensues after Michigan deals stunning upset loss to rival Ohio State (CNN)
📌 Eddie Murphy's son is marrying Martin Lawrence's daughter: 'A love that feels like destiny' (USA TODAY)
📌 ‘Wicked’ star Marissa Bode speaks out against ‘harmful’ ableist comments made about her character (TODAY)
🗓 ON THIS DAY: DECEMBER 2
1804: Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor of France in a coronation ceremony at the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral.
1983: Michael Jackson's ‘Thriller’ music video aired on MTV.
1993: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, who led the powerful Medellín cartel, died during a shoot-out with authorities.
1997: ‘Good Will Hunting,’ written by and starring childhood friends Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, premiered in Los Angeles. It won Best Screenplay at the Oscars.