Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
At your calls and your thoughts onthe Hunter Biden's guilty verdict, which came
down earlier today. So yeah,while you still can grab a phone line
and we'll get your thoughts here momentarily, though, let's get the let's get
the party started here with Steve Portnoyfrom ABC News. Steven, Welcome to
the show. Hunter Biden found guiltyon all three counts today. I got
(00:22):
to be honest, I was alittle bit surprised when it came down.
I'm curious as to why. Look, this was a three hour deliberation over
two days, and there were threequestions asked to the jurors. They came
back and said that it was guilty. But it is interesting. When we
spoke with the jurors, some ofwhom emerged from the courthouse eager to talk,
(00:42):
they said that in the initial roundyesterday afternoon, the jury was split
down the middle, six in favorof conviction, six in favor of acquittal.
In the end, those in favorof conviction prevailed. But I suppose
that's why, perhaps you were surprised, the idea that it came as quickly
as it did at midday today,guilty at all three counts. Yeah,
(01:04):
I think the biggest thing for me, Stephen, was it only would have
taken one, I think, toget this thing, you know, sideways
and just get you know, giventhe factors of you know, a smaller
area. Now I know, Iknow it was a federal case and all
of that, but just where itwas being tried and so on and so
forth, I just thought there wasgoing to be one that would be able
(01:25):
to get it sideways. And that'sreally where my comment came from. Well,
it's interesting, you know, we'retalking to the Jersey and one of
them said to us a couple ofthings. One that the politics did not
enter the conversation, but he alsosaid that the most compelling bit of evidence
for him was the geo targeting orthe geolocation of the text messages that were
sent by hunter Biden in places wherehe was known to have been buying crack,
(01:49):
that he was sending text messages aroundthe time that he bought the gun,
and it was difficult for him todeny and for this year or to
believe that hunter Biden wasn't using crackat the time he owned the gun because
of the location of the text messagesand the nature of the text messages.
So the text messages were, accordingto this Sturre, very important to his
consideration and probably useful in the deliberationto convince holdouts. So with regard to
(02:15):
do you know when the sentencing isgoing to be coming down, the sentencing
has not been scheduled. Judge MaryEllen no Reika indicated today that it would
be sometime over the next one hundredand twenty days. That's four months from
today. Look, Hunter Biden lessthan four months from now will be in
another federal court room in southern California. The same special Council is bringing a
(02:36):
separate set of changes having to dowith the allegation that Hunter Biden failed to
pay federal income taxes for several years. And this is going to be happening
as the presidential campaign really ramps up, and that has the potential to dredge
up embarrassing details of debauchery. Whilehunter Biden was, according to prosecutors,
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars ondrugs and escorts and cars and clothes,
(03:00):
he was evading the irs and that'sgoing to be the subject of an entirely
different prosecution in Los Angeles, rightso this one carries and I've heard some
of the you know, legal expertsspeaking for the last few hours steven about
you know this, does you knowmaximum sentence twenty five years for this particular
these three counts, a maximum oftwenty five years, some you know,
(03:24):
noting that you know, nothing previouswith regard to this kind of thing,
so they don't think that there's evengoing to be close to that. And
then obviously speculations all in between there. Do you have thoughts on that,
like as far as where this couldgo or what type of sentence it could
carry, No, nothing smarter thanwhat you've already heard. Look, the
(03:45):
fact is that Hunter Biden is thefirst time non violent offender, and this
is a crime that took place butsix yes, six years ago, almost
six years ago, And so thequestion becomes really it's entirely up to Judge
Noriika and how she feels, youknow, what's what's the appropriate sentence here.
There's no point in speculating about it. We simply don't know. But
(04:05):
it is interesting to hear one Durersay today that what she believes is Hunter
Biden needs help, that he oughtto go into rehabit he has already.
Of course we know that he has. But she said that she saw this
whole trial. There's a waste oftaxpayer dollars, and she believes this is
her opinion irrelevant to the judge,that Hunter Biden should be fined, not
(04:26):
sentenced to prison. Okay, verygood. Stephen Portnoy, ABC News national
correspondent out of Washington. Stephen,thank you very much. See ye.
So with regard to this, andI know you're just kind of you're,
you know, just a couple ofhours now for you since you kind of
realized what was happening, Josh asfar as Hunter Biden and being found guilty
(04:47):
on three counts and so on.Again a two to one WTVN one eight
hundred and six to ten WTVN.If you have any thoughts or speculations or
so on, So what's your takeso far with this? I I don't
think he's going to get any jailtime. I think you know, you
can say now, like I youknow those oh you know you're going to
(05:11):
vote for a convicted felaon. Youknow how much of that now gets negated
by Trump being able to say,well, yeah, your son's a convicted
felon and a crackhead. You knowwhat will how will that affect anything?
I just don't. I think I'mat the conclusion right now that yeah,
okay, whatever justice was served,blah blah blah. But in the end,
(05:33):
I don't think this is going tohave any sort of far reaching consequence
or impact on anything. Like.It just doesn't. It just doesn't feel
like there's a lot of because he'snot they're not going to get in jail
time. It wasn't he didn't comein an armed robbery. He didn't you
know, he wasn't smuggling weapon likeyou know, it just he just how
(05:55):
many people right now own a weaponand use cannabis gummies or whatever. Okay,
you're you're technically a felon right now, so you know, am I
about stuffing somebody in jail over it? No? Hunter Biden deserves to be
in jail for all the money heembezzled through his father in Ukraine and China.
(06:21):
I'd want to. I want tosee him under the prison for that
more than I care about lying onhis form there. But I don't know,
you know, it's not I don'tthink anybody's going to be like,
you know what I was going tovote Biden, but now Hunter got convicted,
I'm switching to Trump. That's youknow, that's not going to happen.
I can already hear it now,and I swear I haven't heard it
(06:42):
yet, but I think that's probablyWe're going to be hearing this from a
lot of the left, especially themainstream flash, legacy media, whatever you
want to call him now. Sowhen they are having talking heads that are
opposing them and talking about well,Hunter is now a convicted felon, They're
going to say Hunt not running forpresident of the United States. Hunter has
also not already been forty five,the forty fifth president of the United States.
(07:08):
That's going to be their defense.That'll be the sole defense of the
left of anybody who is asked aboutthis. I swear I can already hear
it, and I haven't yet,but I know that that's what they're going
to retreat to. They're going tosay, he is not running for president,
nor has he already been president.He has a different set you know,
(07:29):
the president, forty fifth president andnow running again for president, has
a different set of standards that hehas to operate by as opposed to the
president's son. Think about, forone second, if this were Don Junior
or Eric. Think about if thiswas them on trial in this situation,
and how the Left would be clamoringfor jail time. And from what I
(07:54):
understand, I think I think Iheard Buck saying this earlier, that the
average the average sentence connected to somethinglike this where it's provable same exact defense
where you are using drugs and youindicated that you weren't and then you know
it turns out so on and soforth, that I think the average time
is eight years. I thought Isaw or I thought I heard him say
(08:18):
that earlier. Could be off onthat. Yeah, what your your MIC's
not on. There's no way he'sgoing to get eight years. There's no
way. I can't believe that that'sthe average sentence for a first time first
first time conviction. It's not likehe had a bunch of priors, right,
(08:39):
So I wow, I find thatamazing eight years. I also the
fact that President Biden has said whateverit was a week ago or whenever that
was, he said, I willnot pardon my son if he gets convicted
or so on. We you know, I was just having this conversation with
zarch Attack Forwood on the air,go, you know, why wouldn't he
just be honest there and say he'smy son, I love him, and
(09:01):
if he is convicted, yeah,I'm gonna help him out because I'm in
a position to do that. AndI and then I told Zach if I
were him, if I were thepresident, I would be saying and you
could say this stuff whether or notit's even one hundred percent true. Quite
frankly, it seems like a lotof the left in America is believing anything
that he feeds him. Anyway,why not say Hunter is clean now,
(09:22):
he's had some trouble in the past. I'm in a position as his dad
to help him out, and youbet your ass I'm gonna help him out
if he gets convicted. For himto stand up there and say I'm not
gonna pardon him is yet another lieagain, demonstrating weekly, if not a
daily, on a daily basis,that he's a liar. All he does
is lie. I really don't thinkhe's gonna pardon him. I think he
(09:45):
wants to use maybe at least untilif you will win. What No way,
man, he's gonna he's not.He's not, and he's not gonna
be it'll be after the election.But he's gonna pardon him. I'm telling
you, man, well, yeah, it'll be after the If it's anything,
it's after the election. But thenthey lose, They lose all credibility
by saying, no one's above thelaw. If you pardon your own son
(10:07):
for that. I'm just telling Idon't. I honestly don't think he will.
And if but if he does,it will be post election. It's
gonna happen if he even gets anythingout of it, I don't know.
Hey, Susan, Welcome to theshow. Hi, Mark, Josh,
how are you? Hey? Hey, what's happening? Hey, Just a
couple of questions and if you talkto anybody who has expertise and the law
(10:28):
about this two questions. Is theverdict going to impact the presidential race?
And about the September trial? Doyou guys think the nation will get all
the facts and I mean the factsabout what went down with China. Well,
as far as the facts go,I think they're already out there.
(10:48):
There's there's a lot of effort.It feels like to suppress them or spin
them or spin is probably a betterway to say that. I mean,
the facts are already there, youknow, as far as for America to
know about and see. But yeah, as they are presented, if in
fact America is given full access tothat, you make an interesting point,
will they get any well now again, I feel like they're available right now.
(11:11):
You know, all you have todo is is kind of dig I
think there's too much money involved.The Chinese government is too good at concealing
things. I don't think we'll everknow exactly how much money, who's involved,
what the payoff was, what youknow, what China demanded. We
know that the Bidens have been veryfriendly, and we know China is buying
(11:35):
up all of our farmland. Weknow they're doing all kinds. That's what
I want to I don't think wewill ever know how deep it actually goes,
unfortunately. I mean, there's enoughsmoke there to show that there was
fire, but the full extent ofthe damage of the fire, I don't
know if that'll reveal itself. Gosh, I wish I wasn't so cynical,
but I just it just feels likenothing ever happens to these people. Susan,
(11:56):
thank you very much, Hey Bean, welcome to the show. I
don't think hello being are you there? Yeah, yeah, I'm here.
Yeah, turn your radio down becauseyeah, it's gonna goof you up there.
But what's up? Man? Yeah? Yeah, I day on on
the then I'm still behighot. Thatgun charge got the mandatory twenty four months.
(12:20):
That's what it's got in the stateof Ohio. So if it would
have happened here, man, mandatoryOkay, I see a mandatory twenty four
months because friend from us or akid from town just got then doing two
years first defense? What first defense, first offense? No priors? Huh
(12:45):
wow, okay, no priors?Interesting and he just got done doing two
years Okay, thanks man. Yeah, I don't know. On a federal
level, you would think that itwould carry a stiffer minimum, But they
don't talk about minimum in this situation. I haven't heard one person say anything
about minimum minimum. I from whatI understand, there is no mandatory sentencing
(13:07):
guidelines. It's going to be thejudge's discretion, you know. Also,
I just heard Juror number ten wasbeing interviewed by Fox News, and this
guy's going on. It almost soundedlike he had rehearsed for this questioning that
he was getting from Fox News andthen about halfway through he said, you
know, nobody's above the law,and that started making me go, are
(13:28):
you kidding me? Man? That'swhat these that Now it feels like the
fix is in and this is awhole big work. I I don't know,
but somebody who does know the lawreally really well is UH host up
for the defense defense attorney Brad Kobble. He's going to join us a little
later in the show give us histake and his speculation as to where this
(13:52):
goes for now. But yeah,a two to one WTV in one
At your calls and your thoughts onthe Hunter Biden's guilty verdict, which came
down earlier today. So yeah,while you still can grab a phone line
and we'll get your thoughts here momentarily, though, let's get the let's get
the party started here with Steve Portnoyfrom ABC News. Steven, Welcome to
the show. Hunter Biden found guiltyon all three counts today. I got
(00:22):
to be honest, I was alittle bit surprised when it came down.
I'm curious as to why. Look, this was a three hour deliberation over
two days, and there were threequestions asked to the jurors. They came
back and said that it was guilty. But it is interesting. When we
spoke with the jurors, some ofwhom emerged from the courthouse eager to talk,
(00:42):
they said that in the initial roundyesterday afternoon, the jury was split
down the middle, six in favorof conviction, six in favor of acquittal.
In the end, those in favorof conviction prevailed. But I suppose
that's why, perhaps you were surprised, the idea that it came as quickly
as it did at midday today,guilty at all three counts. Yeah,
(01:04):
I think the biggest thing for me, Stephen, was it only would have
taken one, I think, toget this thing, you know, sideways
and just get you know, giventhe factors of you know, a smaller
area. Now I know, Iknow it was a federal case and all
of that, but just where itwas being tried and so on and so
forth, I just thought there wasgoing to be one that would be able
(01:25):
to get it sideways. And that'sreally where my comment came from. Well,
it's interesting, you know, we'retalking to the Jersey and one of
them said to us a couple ofthings. One that the politics did not
enter the conversation, but he alsosaid that the most compelling bit of evidence
for him was the geo targeting orthe geolocation of the text messages that were
sent by hunter Biden in places wherehe was known to have been buying crack,
(01:49):
that he was sending text messages aroundthe time that he bought the gun,
and it was difficult for him todeny and for this year or to
believe that hunter Biden wasn't using crackat the time he owned the gun because
of the location of the text messagesand the nature of the text messages.
So the text messages were, accordingto this Sturre, very important to his
consideration and probably useful in the deliberationto convince holdouts. So with regard to
(02:15):
do you know when the sentencing isgoing to be coming down, the sentencing
has not been scheduled. Judge MaryEllen no Reika indicated today that it would
be sometime over the next one hundredand twenty days. That's four months from
today. Look, Hunter Biden lessthan four months from now will be in
another federal court room in southern California. The same special Council is bringing a
(02:36):
separate set of changes having to dowith the allegation that Hunter Biden failed to
pay federal income taxes for several years. And this is going to be happening
as the presidential campaign really ramps up, and that has the potential to dredge
up embarrassing details of debauchery. Whilehunter Biden was, according to prosecutors,
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars ondrugs and escorts and cars and clothes,
(03:00):
he was evading the irs and that'sgoing to be the subject of an entirely
different prosecution in Los Angeles, rightso this one carries and I've heard some
of the you know, legal expertsspeaking for the last few hours steven about
you know this, does you knowmaximum sentence twenty five years for this particular
these three counts, a maximum oftwenty five years, some you know,
(03:24):
noting that you know, nothing previouswith regard to this kind of thing,
so they don't think that there's evengoing to be close to that. And
then obviously speculations all in between there. Do you have thoughts on that,
like as far as where this couldgo or what type of sentence it could
carry, No, nothing smarter thanwhat you've already heard. Look, the
(03:45):
fact is that Hunter Biden is thefirst time non violent offender, and this
is a crime that took place butsix yes, six years ago, almost
six years ago, And so thequestion becomes really it's entirely up to Judge
Noriika and how she feels, youknow, what's what's the appropriate sentence here.
There's no point in speculating about it. We simply don't know. But
(04:05):
it is interesting to hear one Durersay today that what she believes is Hunter
Biden needs help, that he oughtto go into rehabit he has already.
Of course we know that he has. But she said that she saw this
whole trial. There's a waste oftaxpayer dollars, and she believes this is
her opinion irrelevant to the judge,that Hunter Biden should be fined, not
(04:26):
sentenced to prison. Okay, verygood. Stephen Portnoy, ABC News national
correspondent out of Washington. Stephen,thank you very much. See ye.
So with regard to this, andI know you're just kind of you're,
you know, just a couple ofhours now for you since you kind of
realized what was happening, Josh asfar as Hunter Biden and being found guilty
(04:47):
on three counts and so on.Again a two to one WTVN one eight
hundred and six to ten WTVN.If you have any thoughts or speculations or
so on, So what's your takeso far with this? I I don't
think he's going to get any jailtime. I think you know, you
can say now, like I youknow those oh you know you're going to
(05:11):
vote for a convicted felaon. Youknow how much of that now gets negated
by Trump being able to say,well, yeah, your son's a convicted
felon and a crackhead. You knowwhat will how will that affect anything?
I just don't. I think I'mat the conclusion right now that yeah,
okay, whatever justice was served,blah blah blah. But in the end,
(05:33):
I don't think this is going tohave any sort of far reaching consequence
or impact on anything. Like.It just doesn't. It just doesn't feel
like there's a lot of because he'snot they're not going to get in jail
time. It wasn't he didn't comein an armed robbery. He didn't you
know, he wasn't smuggling weapon likeyou know, it just he just how
(05:55):
many people right now own a weaponand use cannabis gummies or whatever. Okay,
you're you're technically a felon right now, so you know, am I
about stuffing somebody in jail over it? No? Hunter Biden deserves to be
in jail for all the money heembezzled through his father in Ukraine and China.
(06:21):
I'd want to. I want tosee him under the prison for that
more than I care about lying onhis form there. But I don't know,
you know, it's not I don'tthink anybody's going to be like,
you know what I was going tovote Biden, but now Hunter got convicted,
I'm switching to Trump. That's youknow, that's not going to happen.
I can already hear it now,and I swear I haven't heard it
(06:42):
yet, but I think that's probablyWe're going to be hearing this from a
lot of the left, especially themainstream flash, legacy media, whatever you
want to call him now. Sowhen they are having talking heads that are
opposing them and talking about well,Hunter is now a convicted felon, They're
going to say Hunt not running forpresident of the United States. Hunter has
also not already been forty five,the forty fifth president of the United States.
(07:08):
That's going to be their defense.That'll be the sole defense of the
left of anybody who is asked aboutthis. I swear I can already hear
it, and I haven't yet,but I know that that's what they're going
to retreat to. They're going tosay, he is not running for president,
nor has he already been president.He has a different set you know,
(07:29):
the president, forty fifth president andnow running again for president, has
a different set of standards that hehas to operate by as opposed to the
president's son. Think about, forone second, if this were Don Junior
or Eric. Think about if thiswas them on trial in this situation,
and how the Left would be clamoringfor jail time. And from what I
(07:54):
understand, I think I think Iheard Buck saying this earlier, that the
average the average sentence connected to somethinglike this where it's provable same exact defense
where you are using drugs and youindicated that you weren't and then you know
it turns out so on and soforth, that I think the average time
is eight years. I thought Isaw or I thought I heard him say
(08:18):
that earlier. Could be off onthat. Yeah, what your your MIC's
not on. There's no way he'sgoing to get eight years. There's no
way. I can't believe that that'sthe average sentence for a first time first
first time conviction. It's not likehe had a bunch of priors, right,
(08:39):
So I wow, I find thatamazing eight years. I also the
fact that President Biden has said whateverit was a week ago or whenever that
was, he said, I willnot pardon my son if he gets convicted
or so on. We you know, I was just having this conversation with
zarch Attack Forwood on the air,go, you know, why wouldn't he
just be honest there and say he'smy son, I love him, and
(09:01):
if he is convicted, yeah,I'm gonna help him out because I'm in
a position to do that. AndI and then I told Zach if I
were him, if I were thepresident, I would be saying and you
could say this stuff whether or notit's even one hundred percent true. Quite
frankly, it seems like a lotof the left in America is believing anything
that he feeds him. Anyway,why not say Hunter is clean now,
(09:22):
he's had some trouble in the past. I'm in a position as his dad
to help him out, and youbet your ass I'm gonna help him out
if he gets convicted. For himto stand up there and say I'm not
gonna pardon him is yet another lieagain, demonstrating weekly, if not a
daily, on a daily basis,that he's a liar. All he does
is lie. I really don't thinkhe's gonna pardon him. I think he
(09:45):
wants to use maybe at least untilif you will win. What No way,
man, he's gonna he's not.He's not, and he's not gonna
be it'll be after the election.But he's gonna pardon him. I'm telling
you, man, well, yeah, it'll be after the If it's anything,
it's after the election. But thenthey lose, They lose all credibility
by saying, no one's above thelaw. If you pardon your own son
(10:07):
for that. I'm just telling Idon't. I honestly don't think he will.
And if but if he does,it will be post election. It's
gonna happen if he even gets anythingout of it, I don't know.
Hey, Susan, Welcome to theshow. Hi, Mark, Josh,
how are you? Hey? Hey, what's happening? Hey, Just a
couple of questions and if you talkto anybody who has expertise and the law
(10:28):
about this two questions. Is theverdict going to impact the presidential race?
And about the September trial? Doyou guys think the nation will get all
the facts and I mean the factsabout what went down with China. Well,
as far as the facts go,I think they're already out there.
(10:48):
There's there's a lot of effort.It feels like to suppress them or spin
them or spin is probably a betterway to say that. I mean,
the facts are already there, youknow, as far as for America to
know about and see. But yeah, as they are presented, if in
fact America is given full access tothat, you make an interesting point,
will they get any well now again, I feel like they're available right now.
(11:11):
You know, all you have todo is is kind of dig I
think there's too much money involved.The Chinese government is too good at concealing
things. I don't think we'll everknow exactly how much money, who's involved,
what the payoff was, what youknow, what China demanded. We
know that the Bidens have been veryfriendly, and we know China is buying
(11:35):
up all of our farmland. Weknow they're doing all kinds. That's what
I want to I don't think wewill ever know how deep it actually goes,
unfortunately. I mean, there's enoughsmoke there to show that there was
fire, but the full extent ofthe damage of the fire, I don't
know if that'll reveal itself. Gosh, I wish I wasn't so cynical,
but I just it just feels likenothing ever happens to these people. Susan,
(11:56):
thank you very much, Hey Bean, welcome to the show. I
don't think hello being are you there? Yeah, yeah, I'm here.
Yeah, turn your radio down becauseyeah, it's gonna goof you up there.
But what's up? Man? Yeah? Yeah, I day on on
the then I'm still behighot. Thatgun charge got the mandatory twenty four months.
(12:20):
That's what it's got in the stateof Ohio. So if it would
have happened here, man, mandatoryOkay, I see a mandatory twenty four
months because friend from us or akid from town just got then doing two
years first defense? What first defense, first offense? No priors? Huh
(12:45):
wow, okay, no priors?Interesting and he just got done doing two
years Okay, thanks man. Yeah, I don't know. On a federal
level, you would think that itwould carry a stiffer minimum, But they
don't talk about minimum in this situation. I haven't heard one person say anything
about minimum minimum. I from whatI understand, there is no mandatory sentencing
(13:07):
guidelines. It's going to be thejudge's discretion, you know. Also,
I just heard Juror number ten wasbeing interviewed by Fox News, and this
guy's going on. It almost soundedlike he had rehearsed for this questioning that
he was getting from Fox News andthen about halfway through he said, you
know, nobody's above the law,and that started making me go, are
(13:28):
you kidding me? Man? That'swhat these that Now it feels like the
fix is in and this is awhole big work. I I don't know,
but somebody who does know the lawreally really well is UH host up
for the defense defense attorney Brad Kobble. He's going to join us a little
later in the show give us histake and his speculation as to where this
(13:52):
goes for now. But yeah,a two to one WTV in one
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