The deep rift between Republicans and Democrats around the American justice system grew this week after President Biden's son, Hunter, was found guilty on three felony gun charges.
The president said he will not pardon Hunter nor commute his sentence.
But former President Donald Trump and Republicans continue to rail against the Justice Department and system after Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in his New York hush money trial.
How Republicans and Democrats view the Justice Department and our country's legal system is where we begin tonight.
And joining me to discuss this and more are Leigh Ann Caldwell, an anchor of Washington Post Live and the co-author of the Early Brief Newsletter, Francesca Chambers is a White House correspondent for USA Today, Evan McMorris-Santoro is a reporter with NOTUS, a new media outlet from the Allbritton Journalism Institute, and Sabrina Siddiqui is White House reporter at the Wall Street Journal.
Thank you all for joining us.
Let's go ahead and start with that Hunter Biden verdict, of course.
The president in this case is both a father of someone convicted and the president.
And he had to address both.
He did so pretty succinctly.
JOE BIDEN, U.S. President: I'm extremely proud of my son, Hunter.
He has overcome an addiction.
I said I abide by the jury decision, and I will do that and I will not pardon him.
LISA DESJARDINS: Now, Biden also said he won't commute a sentence either, just to clarify all that.
Two weeks ago on this set, Jeffrey asked how much the Trump conviction may or may not matter.
Sabrina, I want to ask you, how much do you think the Hunter Biden conviction would matter ultimately in the election and American politics at this point?
SABRINA SIDDIQUI, White House Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: So, what we've seen in polling ever since the legal challenges surrounding Hunter Biden have come to the public view is that this is not an issue that impacts how the majority of Americans will vote.
Now, this was before the verdict came in, but, you know, most Americans said that they it's not going to change that the way they're approaching the November election.
Now, among those voters who said that, you know, the, the charges against Hunter Biden might sway their thinking, most of those voters were Republicans.
So, they're probably people who aren't voting for President Biden anyway.
I think that in this particular case, the issue of addiction has also been one that I think a lot of families can relate to.
I think that when you interview voters, there is some degree here.
But importantly, it also showed that the justice system works as intended.
It doesn't matter if you are a former president who is once again seeking the White House or if you are the son of a sitting president, if you have charges against you, a jury will weigh them.
If they believe the evidence stacks up, then you will be convicted.
And in some ways, they actually may have taken away a talking point from former President Trump and Republicans that there's a two-tier justice system and only he's being held accountable or prosecuted and not Hunter Biden, the president's son.
LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.
Francesca, what does the Biden campaign think about that?
Do they feel like now it's easier for them to throw punches at Trump, because they too have dealt with the justice system and they are acknowledging it, or is this a case where the Biden campaign wants all the other Democrats to throw the punch?
Is it -- a classic question, how aggressive is the Biden campaign going to be about this?
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, White House Correspondent, USA Today: So, they certainly haven't backed off calling Trump a convict, saying that he is a criminal.
And, in fact, since then, they've really only seemed to ramp that up.
And from what I've seen, and as far as what you were saying, Sabrina, what I've heard from Democrats is that they do think that there are many families who have struggled with this in America, that they're empathetic to the president on this issue.
And the Reuters/Ipsos poll that did drop right after this ruling came out really showed that the race is still in the margin of error nationally.
It was a two point, two-point difference of the swing between them.
And when you look at independents in particular, it's 36, 33, it's very, very close.
And you also have to keep in mind that when you're talking about all the issues that voters are looking at in the election, even if you ask about Trump and his legal struggles, or Hunter Biden and his legal struggles, this is all within the realm of the economy and other issues being very important, like abortion rights too.
LISA DESJARDINS: Do you think the Hunter Biden conviction matters, Evan?
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, Reporter, NOTUS: I kind of want to push back on this notion that it doesn't matter, because I do kind of think that if you look at the way a lot of Republicans are talking about it, they definitely think it matters, right?
There's a significant vocal group in the Republican Party, supporters of former President Trump, who have taken this verdict and said, this verdict proves that the system is somehow rigged, there's something wrong with the system, right?
They're obviously doing this because they think they need to do it, because if Trump got convicted, they want to tear that conviction down as well, right?
This is an actual thing.
LISA DESJARDINS: It's sort of three logical steps to get there, but they're saying it.
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: But the overall attack on the justice system, right, to see a situation where a special counsel originally appointed by former President Trump convicts the president's son in the state where the president is the most powerful that he is, right, Delaware, to see all that happen and then they come back and say that shows it's rigged, people inside the president's orbit think that this is a very important thing to push back on and to tear down because it takes one of their talking points away.
And they're clearly trying to use it to influence voters in the election.
LISA DESJARDINS: So, it's in this environment that the former president came to Washington this week.
And part of that environment was also about Merrick Garland and the idea that the House held him in contempt.
Leigh Ann, I want to talk to you about that, but, first, I want to point out that the attorney general actually did something unusual involving The Washington Post.
He posted an op-ed this week about the justice system.
This is very unusual for him in the Department of Justice.
In this op-ed in the Washington Post, Attorney General Garland wrote, we have seen an escalation of attacks that go far beyond public scrutiny, criticism, and legitimate and necessary oversight of our work.
They are baseless, personal, and dangerous.
Now, he published that op-ed the very day before Republicans voted to hold him in contempt in Congress.
That has to do with the Biden classified documents case.
Republicans want the audiotape of President Biden.
But Speaker Johnson came out after that op-ed, and he said this about Garland.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): It's a rich irony to hear this attorney general talk about weaponizing a function of government.
That's what the Department of Justice has been under his leadership, or lack thereof.
LISA DESJARDINS: Republicans have offered just a few examples of weaponization.
They pointed to the 2023 FBI memo out of just one bureau about Catholics.
There was also an anti-abortion protester in Pennsylvania who had an aggressive raid at his house.
But other than that, really, there's not evidence of systemic weaponization of the Department of Justice.
Leigh Ann, how much do you think Republicans are going to continue to talk about this, continue to keep up these attacks, even as the head prosecutor in the country says it's dangerous?
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, Anchor, Washington Post Live: They're absolutely going to continue this.
Not only do they only have a couple instances of weaponization, but they set up an entire select committee in Congress to investigate this issue, which hasn't really resulted in any proof that there is actual intent to weaponize the Justice Department.
But I will say that this is -- the reason this matters is because it motivates the base of the Republican Party, want to keep them fired up and motivated to come out for Republicans and former President Donald Trump on Election Day.
And that's why it matters.
Democrats -- getting back to Merrick Garland actually.
I was going to go in a couple different directions, but Merrick Garland -- LISA DESJARDINS: Should we?
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: No.
So, Merrick Garland is defending the Justice Department because what the Republican attacks are doing is they are effectively delegitimizing people's views of not only all the institutions but definitely the Department of Justice.
This is something that is seeping deeper, deeper into American consciousness.
You see this in polling, not only with all of government institutions, but specifically the Justice Department.
And that's why Merrick Garland is defending the Justice Department and the employees that work there.
He also did something very similar in a congressional hearing before House Republicans last week.
LISA DESJARDINS: Yes.
Let's keep going a little bit bigger picture on this.
I was in the Hudson Valley in New York.
There's a few good swing congressional districts in that area.
I was there earlier this week.
And I spoke to one voter who told me he wasn't sure who he's going to vote for.
You know, he said, like many voters, he doesn't want to think about it, isn't excited about the election.
But then he told me, you know, whoever I vote for and whoever wins, it's rigged anyway, which is sort of a news, like it's not just if this guy wins.
It's like if anybody wins, it's rigged.
So, Evan, I want to talk to you about how deeply you see this idea permeating that our institutions, no matter what happens, are corrupt.
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: Oh, very deep.
I think we're in an actual real crisis moment for the justice system, which is an extremely important element of our democracy.
It's not just Republicans who are saying this or people, maybe undecided voters.
I spoke with a TikTok influencer who covers news, right, who had a million viewers on our channel, very big deal.
And I talked with the end of the Trump trial, because I wanted to see like how was this playing in this new medium, TikTok.
And she said, look, my audience doesn't really care about it.
If you have people who like President Trump, they think the thing is just rigged, it doesn't really matter what happens.
And if people who don't like President Trump, former President Trump, they think that it doesn't really matter what happens.
Nothing will really happen to him, that there is really an absolute, like there's like an ennui that is being built up about around the justice system.
And all this conversations, you know, it's not just what's going on with the Trump campaign and Hunter Biden and everybody else and Donald Trump and all this stuff.
Well, you also have a lot of these stories about the Supreme Court that don't look so great.
This is a moment where you need people who lead the justice system, who care about the justice system, you need to step up and really defend it a lot more against a lot of people who are starting to think it doesn't count anymore.
FRANCESCA CHAMBERS: And I was just going to pick up on that and say, go one step further.
It's attacks on the justice system.
It's attacks on the government writ large.
It's attacks on the American media and trying to under undermine the credibility of everyone at this table as well.
It's all of American institutions.
And when you look at the contempt vote for Garland specifically, though, look, they knew that Democrats were not going to vote for this.
Obviously, the White House is going to say that they're going to put out executive privilege.
Obviously, the Justice Department under President Joe Biden is going to respect executive privilege.
So, all of those things were baked in.
But when you are in an election year and that is one of your top campaign messages, you want to try and get the other side on the record as voting against your thing, whether it's this or it's border security or abortion rights.
I think you're going to see a lot of that.
School is out for the summer basically, and a lot of these votes moving forward are going to be messaging votes and they're about politics.
EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO: The impact is still to be seen, right?
I mean, on that Garland vote, there was one Republican who voted against it, Representative Joyce from Ohio, right?
And he said, one of the things I'm worried about with this vote, why I'm not voting, I'm a former prosecutor, I'm not voting for this because I feel like we're trying to score political points off the DOJ.
And so the political points have now been scored.
Now we see what happens to the institution in the long run.
