WASHINGTON — A continuing focus on diversity appears to be the political strategy for how President Biden would approach filling any Supreme Court vacancies in a second term. 

Sources close to the White House and his re-election campaign say the president would use the successful nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as a template for navigating any future high court opening.

For now, officials say he plans to more prominently tout Jackson’s confirmation to various key constituencies as the presidential campaign intensifies, especially to Black voters who will be key to his re-election.

After Justice Stephen Breyer announced his 2022 retirement, Biden committed early on to naming the first Black woman as his replacement and gathered a number of qualified jurists for initial vetting. That internal list then expanded before three finalists were ultimately reached — Jackson and judges Leondra Kruger and J. Michelle Childs. Kruger and Childs remain top contenders for the Supreme Court, sources say.

The president, in public remarks, has made much of the diversity of his judicial nominees for the courts. Almost two-thirds are women, more than twice those named by President Trump in his single term (Biden 127; 64% as of May 22, versus Trump 55 total; 24%). Biden has also named an equal percentage of members of a racial or ethnic minority group to the federal bench — about 64%.

Biden could make history with the first justice who identifies as Asian American or Pacific Islander and would have more than 30 AAPI judges he has named to the lower federal courts to choose from. 

But any retirement by Justice Clarence Thomas, who turns 75 June 23, or Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who turns 70 two days later, would put political pressure on the next president to name a Black or Latino to the Supreme Court.

Overall, Biden has been actively finding qualified federal candidates to fill bench vacancies. His 200th federal judge was confirmed by the Senate last month, slightly outpacing the number by his predecessor at this point in his presidency. 

The following is an unofficial list of potential candidates for the Supreme Court by Biden. It was compiled from a number of sources, including officials within his inner circle, his political campaign and Democratic political and legal circles. 

The current White House administration, like those before, quickly began compiling an informal list of possible high court nominees to consider in the event of a sudden vacancy. But serious vetting only begins when such a vacancy occurs or is announced in advance by a retiring justice.

Leondra Kruger, California Supreme Court Justice

Born in 1976, Kruger is a former Obama Justice Department lawyer and argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court. She also clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens and was a finalist for the 2022 court seat that went to Brown Jackson. Her sterling resume and relatively young age could continue to make Kruger a strong favorite for a Supreme Court seat, especially if Thomas retires. She’s considered something of a moderate on the state high court and often a ‘swing’ or deciding vote in close cases. But state judges rarely receive serious consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court. The last was Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981. Kruger’s parents were both pediatricians. Her mother is Jamaican. Her late father was the son of Jewish immigrants. She gave birth to a daughter in March 2016.

Sri Srinivasan, D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Washington

Born in 1967 in India, Srinivasan was later named to the court in 2013 (97-0 vote), months before colleague Patricia Millett joined him. He is now chief judge on that bench. He was a finalist for the seat that Garland was nominated for. The son of Indian immigrants and raised in Kansas. Padmanabhan Srikanth Srinivasan was the principal deputy solicitor general at the Justice Department and argued more than two dozen cases before the Supreme Court. He would be the high court’s first Asian American. He clerked for Republican-nominated federal judges Harvie Wilkinson and Day O’Connor. Obama called him ‘a trailblazer who personifies the best of America.’ Known as low-key, practical and non-ideological, he may not excite many progressives, nor give conservatives much to dislike. 

Justice Elena Kagan has praised him (both worked together in the Obama SG’s office), saying Srinivasan ‘cools it down’ with his calm manner during oral arguments.

Elizabeth Prelogar, U.S. Solicitor General (pronounced: PRE’-low-guhr)

Born in 1980, Prelogar became the 40th solicitor general in October 2021, after serving for months in an acting role. The Idaho native clerked for justices Ginsburg and Kagan, a former solicitor general, and for then-Judge Merrick Garland on the D.C. Circuit appeals court. Besides Kagan, former solicitors general to later become a justice include William Howard Taft, Robert Jackson, Stanley Reed and Thurgood Marshall.

She was a beauty pageant contestant named Miss Idaho in 2004 and appeared last fall on the NPR quiz show, ‘Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me’ (her topic was vacuum cleaner salespeople).

Lisa Monaco, Deputy Attorney General

Born in 1968, Monaco was a former federal prosecutor and national security adviser under Obama from 2013-2017. She worked as a researcher under then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden starting in 1992. Monaco would also be a favorite for attorney general in a second Biden term if Garland retires.

Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Chicago

Born in 1979 in Norfolk, Virginia, both her parents are judges, U.S. District Judge Raymond Alvin Jackson and former Norfolk General District Court Judge Gwendolyn Jackson. A former federal defender in Chicago and, before that, a partner in a D.C. law firm, Jackson-Akiwumi was nominated by Biden in March 2021, one of three Black women named to appeals court seats in the administration’s first months.  

J. Michelle Childs, D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Washington

Born in 1966, Childs was nominated in December 2021 to serve on the high-profile D.C. Circuit appeals court, replacing the retiring Judge David Tatel. She was Biden’s second Black woman on the D.C. Circuit, after now-Justice Jackson. Sources say Rep. Clyburn (D-S.C.) strongly pushed the White House to name the South Carolina-based Childs to this seat. The D.C. Circuit is seen as something of a professional stepping stone to the Supreme Court. Besides Jackson, recent justices who earlier served on that appellate bench include John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. Childs had previously been a federal district court judge since 2010. The Detroit native went to law school at the University of South Carolina.

Myrna Pérez, 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, New York

Born in 1974, Pérez was a 2021 appointee to her current seat. She previously served at the progressive Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law as director of its Voting Rights and Elections Program. A native of San Antonio, she would be given serious consideration, especially if Sotomayor retired.  

Nancy Maldonado, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Judge, Chicago

Born in 1975, Maldonado was nominated for a seat on the 7th Circuit. She would be the first Hispanic judge on that federal appeals bench. Her nomination to the high court would have a strong backer in her home state of Illinois. 

Patricia Millett, D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Washington

Born in 1963, Millett was named in 2013 to a bench considered a stepping stone to the high court, where four current justices once served (so did Justice Scalia). Formerly a private Washington-based appellate attorney — Obama called her ‘one of the nation’s finest’ — who also had more than a decade experience in the U.S. Solicitor General’s office. Millett argued 32 cases before the Supreme Court, second-most ever for a female lawyer. Sources from both ideological stripes call her fair-minded, no-nonsense and non-ideological. Age may be a drawback for any future high court vacancies.

Her husband is U.S. Navy reservist Robert King, and the two met at a Methodist Church singles event.

Cindy Kyounga Chung, 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Pittsburgh

Born in 1975, Chung, a Korean-American native, is a Biden appointee to her current seat and a former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh.

Roopali Desai, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Phoenix, Arizona

Desai wasborn in 1978 in Toronto, Canada, to parents of Indian descent. After law school in Arizona, Desai, as a private attorney, worked successfully with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office to throw out challenges to the state’s 2020 presidential election results. She was then appointed by Biden to the largest federal appeals court. 

Lucy Haeran Koh, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, San Francisco

Born in 1968, Koh was renominated in 2021 by Biden to the federal appeals court. Her 2016 nomination expired with the end of the 114th Congress, and then-President Trump subsequently named someone else to the seat. The Oklahoma native is of Korean descent. Koh had been overseeing separate multidistrict litigation involving such tech giants as Samsung and Apple, Inc. She is married to state Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar (see below).

Jacqueline Hong-Ngoc Nguyen, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Pasadena, California

Born in 1965 in Dalat, Vietnam, and named to the court in 2012 after two years as a federal district court judge, Hong-Ngoc Nguyen could make history as the high court’s first Asian American justice. She is already the first Asian American woman to sit on a federal appeals court. A former state judge, federal prosecutor and private attorney, he moved with her family to the U.S. when she was 10, just after the fall of South Vietnam to the communists. Her parents eventually set up a doughnut shop in North Hollywood, California.

Michelle Friedland, 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, San Jose, California

Born in 1972 and named to the appeals court seat in 2014, Friedland was sworn in by former Justice O’Connor, for whom she once served as a law clerk.

Arianna Freeman, 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Philadelphia

Born in 1978, Freeman is a Biden appointee and the first Black woman on the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Her service as a former federal public defender in the City of Brotherly Love was criticized by Senate Republicans during her judicial confirmation. 

Tamika Montgomery-Reeves, 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Wilmington, Delaware

Born in 1981 in Jackson, Mississippi, Montgomery-Reeves was named by Biden in 2022 to her current seat after her service on the Delaware Supreme Court. Her home state professional roots would be an obvious selling point to the president. 

Paul Watford, private attorney in Los Angeles and former judge

Born in 1967, Watford’s age and background until recently made him a favorite among some liberal court watchers. Named to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 2012, he resigned in May 2023 to go into private practice. He was a finalist for the seat that went to Garland in 2017, although that nomination ultimately failed. He clerked for conservative-libertarian former federal Judge Alex Kozinski on the 9th Circuit and later for Bader Ginsburg. He is also a former federal prosecutor and law firm partner. Supporters call the Orange County, California, native an ideological moderate, which may not sit well with progressives seeking a stronger liberal voice. But his rulings limiting police discretion in search and seizure cases have been applauded by left-leaning advocates.

Goodwin Liu, California Supreme Court Justice

Born in 1970 and of Taiwanese descent, Liu is a former Justice Ginsburg law clerk who helped draft her dissent in Bush v. Gore. Liu joined the state high court after twice being rejected in 2011 by Senate Republicans for a seat on a San Francisco-based federal appeals court. He was eventually filibustered after conservatives said he was ‘outside the mainstream,’ expressing concerns over his past statements on a variety of hot-button topics such as same-sex marriage and health care reform. A Liu nomination would be among the most contentious made by a Democratic president. 

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, former California Supreme Court Justice

Born in 1972 in Mexico, Cuéllarwas named in 2021 as president of the D.C.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Nicknamed ‘Tino,’ Cuellar served in the Obama and Clinton administrations and is a former academic specializing in administrative law. He is married to federal Judge Lucy Koh (see above).

Jane Kelly, 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Born in 1964, Kelly is only the second woman to serve on the St. Louis-based court, appointed in 2013 (96-0 vote). She spent most of her legal career as a federal public defender in Iowa. One of her biggest fans is fellow Iowan Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, ranking member on the Judiciary Committee.

Kelly graduated in 1991 from the same Harvard Law School class as Obama.

David Barron, 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Boston

Born in 1967, Barron was confirmed to the bench in May 2014. He formerly served as acting assistant attorney general in the Obama administration, then went to Harvard Law School as a professor. He also clerked for Justice John Paul Stevens. Being a white male may hurt his chances if President Biden feels political pressure to replace Justice Ginsburg with another woman.

Robert Wilkins, D.C. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Washington

Born in 1963, Wilkins is an Indiana native and was raised by a single mother. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1989. He filed a civil rights lawsuit in 1992 against the Maryland State Police after being pulled over for speeding after officers were instructed to focus on young Black males when making lawful traffic stops.

Cheryl Ann Krause, 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Philadelphia

Born in 1968, Krause was a law clerk for two Republican-appointed court judges, including Justice Anthony Kennedy. She was named to her current seat in 2014 by Obama. 

Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)

A few members of Congress typically get mentioned on these lists, often as a political courtesy, especially to those senators who would vote on any nomination. Frequently mentioned are two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (and former 2020 presidential candidates) who gained national prominence during the Justice Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.

Booker, born in 1969, is the former mayor of Newark and one of four Black senators. Klobuchar, born in 1960, was a county prosecutor and adviser to former Vice President Walter Mondale. She was mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate for Biden and has frequently been mentioned as a high court candidate, dating back to 2009.

Hamas said Wednesday its response to a U.S. ceasefire plan for the war in Gaza against Israel opened a ‘wide pathway’ to reach an agreement, although neither the terrorist group nor Israel publicly committed to a deal.

The terrorist group submitted its formal response on Tuesday to a proposal U.S. President Joe Biden laid out on May 31. Israel said the response was equivalent to a rejection, and Hamas said it reiterated longstanding demands that the current plan did not include.

Egypt and Qatar said they received Hamas’ response but did not detail what was said.

This comes amid a months-long war between Hamas and Israel following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack against the Jewish State, leading to military retaliation from Israeli forces.

A member of Hamas’ political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, said in a statement the group’s answer was ‘responsible, serious and positive’ and ‘opens up a wide pathway’ for a deal.

Another Hamas official told Reuters on Tuesday the response reiterated its position that a ceasefire must result in a permanent end to hostilities in Gaza, withdrawal of Israeli forces, reconstruction of the Palestinian enclave and release of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

‘We reiterated our previous stance,’ the Hamas official said. ‘I believe there are no big gaps. The ball is now in the Israeli courtyard.’

Biden’s plan proposes a ceasefire and phased release of Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians jailed in Israel, which would ultimately lead to a permanent end to the war between Hamas and Israel.

The U.S. has said Israel accepted its proposal, but Israel has not publicly confirmed it has accepted. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said Israel would not end its attacks in Gaza until Hamas is eliminated.

An Israeli official said Tuesday that Hamas’ response had been received and that Hamas ‘changed all of the main and most meaningful parameters.’ The Israeli official said Hamas ‘has rejected the proposal for a hostage release that was presented by President Biden.’

A non-Israeli official briefed on the matter earlier said Hamas proposed a new timeline for a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

The U.N. Security Council voted Monday in favor of a U.S. resolution supporting the proposal from Biden. Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the group accepted the resolution and was prepared to negotiate on the details of a ceasefire.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli officials on Tuesday, said the response by Hamas was a ‘hopeful sign’ but that it was not decisive.

Blinken told reporters that more important ‘is the word coming from Gaza and from the Hamas leadership in Gaza. That’s what counts, and that’s what we don’t have yet.’

Reuters contributed to this report.

A handful of winners and losers have emerged following Hunter Biden’s guilty conviction on all three counts he faced in a federal gun case in Delaware.

The president’s son was found guilty on all charges in his historic criminal case focused on his purchase of a firearm in 2018. 

Hunter Biden faced a trial this month that lasted more than a week and included emotional testimony from members of his family, including daughter Naomi Biden, ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and sister-in-law turned girlfriend, Hallie Biden.

The Biden family, including first lady Jill Biden and Hunter’s wife, were a constant presence in the Delaware courtroom during the trial, leading many experts to wonder whether the Bidens’ political power in the state would influence the jury into a not guilty verdict. President Biden weighed in on the case in May and said he believed his son had done ‘nothing wrong.’

‘My son has done nothing wrong,’ Biden declared in a rare sit-down interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. ‘I trust him. I have faith in him, and it impacts my presidency by making me feel proud of him.’

The Republican-led committee has been at the forefront of investigating alleged crimes committed by Hunter Biden and has said the federal gun case represents a first step toward accountability. 

‘Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal was smoked out after scrutiny by a federal judge,’ House Oversight Chairman James Comer posted on X following the guilty verdict. 

‘Today’s verdict is a step toward accountability but until the Department of Justice investigates everyone involved in the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden family, it will be clear department officials continue to cover for the Big Guy, Joe Biden.’

Lowell, the lead attorney defending Hunter Biden, unsuccessfully attempted to make the case that there is ‘no evidence’ against the president’s son in the federal trial while Morris bankrolled Biden’s legal fees and tax issues to the tune of millions of dollars.

‘Kevin is completely tapped out,’ an individual close to Morris, a Hollywood entertainment lawyer who befriended Hunter in recent years, said in May.

Morris, whose daughter reportedly confronted Hunter recently about taking advantage of her dad, has often been seen accompanying Hunter during his trial and while out in California.

Emma-Jo Morris a former deputy politics editor at New York Post, was the first to publish the contents of Hunter Biden’s ‘laptop from hell’ in October 2020, which was filled with videos and photos of drug use, sex acts and sensitive business communications.

Despite being dismissed as ‘Russian disinformation’ by Hunter Biden’s political allies in Congress and in the media, the laptop was entered into evidence by the federal government and used as a key piece of evidence in Hunter’s gun trial. 

Garrett Ziegler, a former Trump aide who has played an instrumental role in the Hunter Biden investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, was sued by Hunter Biden last year for publishing the contents of his infamous laptop on the online database Marco Polo. 

He appeared at the gun trial in Delaware last week, and Hunter’s wife Melissa Cohen lashed out at him and called him a ‘piece of s—‘ and said, ‘You have no right to be here.’

‘It’s sad I’ve been sitting here the whole time and haven’t approached anyone,’ Ziegler told NBC last week.

The narrative that the Biden laptop was not legitimate was quickly latched onto by mainstream news outlets leading up to the November elections as social media companies, including Facebook, began to suppress the story over concerns about its authenticity.

Those concerns were amplified by a story published by Politico with the headline, ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.’

The article contained a letter signed by 51 former intel officials who warned that the laptop had ‘all the classic earmarks’ of Russian disinformation.

Fox News Digital recently reached out to all the officials listed on that letter inquiring whether they regretted signing the letter. The former officials who responded doubled down on their position.

James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, said, ‘No’ when he was asked by Fox News Digital about whether he regretted signing the laptop letter.

Noreika, U.S. district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware appointed by former President Trump, torpedoed Hunter Biden’s plea deal last year, which experts say is the only reason the president’s son’s case went to trial this year.

Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as part of plea deal to avoid jail time on a felony gun charge.

Noreika did not accept the plea agreement, questioning the constitutionality — specifically the diversion clause and the immunity Hunter Biden would receive.

The original plea agreement seemed to break down after Noreika asked Special Counsel Weiss if FARA charges could be brought against Biden.

The move prompted CNN legal analyst Elie Honig to say that the judge was the only person in the room who ‘did her job properly.’

The Wall Street Journal reported in September that the relationship between Biden and Garland was in a ‘deep freeze’ as sources familiar said Garland’s appointment of special counsels to look into the Biden family’s actions was driven by a ‘punctilious desire to give the appearance that sensitive investigations are walled off from political pressure’ as opposed to following the law.

Some White House aides came to the conclusion that ‘Garland had mismanaged the inquiry’ after the plea deal imploded last summer, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Hannah Panreck contributed to this report

The facts were simple, the law was clear, and the evidence of guilt can only be described as overwhelming.

The only surprise is that it took jurors more than five minutes to convict Hunter Biden on all three gun charges that he faced in a federal courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware. In sports vernacular, the case was a slam dunk.  

It did not matter that Hunter is the son of the president of the United States. Or that the first lady Jill Biden, was a hovering presence in the courtroom from day one. Or that the accused was represented by one of America’s premiere trial lawyers.

In the end, there was no defending the indefensible. But that did not stop Hunter’s attorney from trying. Lawyer extraordinaire, Abbe Lowell, employed every slight-of-hand and clever feint to cast reasonable doubt. He parsed the meaning of words (past tense vs. present tense) like a pedantic schoolteacher conjugating irregular verbs.       

The primary defense was a near-comical assault on credulity. That is, Hunter was a typical drug addict who was so addled that he convinced himself he was not, and he was therefore incapable of knowingly lying when he signed a federal form affirming that he was not ‘an unlawful user of, or addicted to,’ illegal drugs.  

Got that? Internal denial is an external excuse for criminality.     

That dumbfounding argument led Lowell to literally claim that his client was not ‘conscious and aware,’ as if that’s the kind of person we want purchasing a deadly weapon while tooling around in his daddy’s Caddy.  

Makes you feel all warm, fuzzy and safe, doesn’t it?

Beyond blatantly lying about his addiction, Hunter was also charged with unlawfully possessing a gun while abusing drugs. Lowell cavalierly dismissed the merits of this felony count by informing jurors that there were no witnesses, photos or videos of his client actually doing drugs during the 11 days in October 2018 that he owned the .38-caliber Colt revolver before it was tossed in a dumpster by one of his many girlfriends – his deceased brother’s widow.  

Granted, the absence of photographs is quite remarkable, inasmuch as Hunter had a freakish proclivity for snapping selfies while smoking crack cocaine. Indeed, there is one notorious image of him found on his infamous laptop with a crack pipe hanging from his mouth. It was taken just four days before the gun purchase. But wait… that was staged, the defense suggested, and no other such visual evidence came to light during the relevant 11-day period.

True enough. However, there are several damning texts to suspected drug dealers the days before he bought the gun and the day after. The messages happen to coincide with large cash withdrawals from ATMs and clandestine meetings arranged by Hunter at what appears to have been his favorite narcotics rendezvous, 7-Eleven. It adds a whole new dimension to the term ‘convenience store.’

Hunter’s real defense was a two-fold strategy written nowhere in the law books but sometimes plied as a desperate tactic of last resort: sympathy for a recovering drug addict and jury nullification.  

Yet, Lowell glossed nimbly over that part of the story. Maybe jurors were left to wonder whether his client was frittering away thousands of dollars by splurging on Pina Colada Slurpees at his preferred haunt.  

The incessant trope during the defense closing argument was that Hunter did not appear to be high on drugs the day he bought the gun. Under cross-examination, the seller testified that Hunter exhibited no signs of being under the influence.  

There are two problems with that clever artifice.

First, witnesses stated that Hunter had an uncanny ability to act normal even after inhaling copious quantities of crack. Second, it is largely irrelevant. Federal Judge Maryellen Noreika ruled that prosecutors needed only prove illegal drug use during a general time frame surrounding the purchase, not solely the day that the handgun was acquired.  

That didn’t stop the defense from warning the jury that prosecutors were trying to ‘dupe them’ with their legal theory of the case. Lowell dubbed it a ‘magician’s trick’ dependent on ‘suspicion or conjecture.’ His claim conveniently ignored the lawyer’s own chicanery when he declared that Hunter fabricated a story of his drug abuse to evade seeing his paramour right after he bought the gun.  

In the history of girlfriend avoidance, that’s gotta be one for the record books.

Smoke and mirrors aside, Hunter’s real defense was a two-fold strategy written nowhere in the law books but sometimes plied as a desperate tactic of last resort: sympathy for a recovering drug addict and jury nullification. The former is self-evident, while the latter is far more subtle.  

When Lowell pleaded with the jury that ‘it’s time to end this case,’ what he was really telling them was to acquit his client by ignoring the facts and disregarding the law. It is well established that jurors have no right to negate or nullify the law, but occasionally they do. They’re not required to state their reasons for a ‘not guilty’ verdict, which allows them to do as they please. If they like the defendant and/or dislike the law, they can set him free.      

In response, the prosecution set the record straight during its summation. Jurors were reminded that Hunter Biden was not charged with being a drug addict, even though the defense sought to portray it that way. No, he was charged with lying on a federal gun form and illegally possessing a firearm. It was a choice, not a condition. Hunter deliberately elected to lie and break the law.    

During the course of the trial, jurors could not help but take note of Jill Biden and a phalanx of Bidens sitting directly behind the accused. The family reunion was a visual reminder to the people sitting in judgment that they reside in the Bidens’ personal fiefdom. Would they have the audacity to convict one of their own in the presence of the great matriarch and her brood?   

In a poignant moment, prosecutor Leo Wise offered a rejoinder to this obvious effort to unduly influence the jury. He gestured in the family’s direction and calmly explained, ‘The people sitting in the gallery are not evidence. You may recognize them from the news… but respectfully, none of that matters.’ Indeed, it did not. 

Wise then repeated the well-oiled legal idiom that President Biden invoked a week earlier when a jury in New York handed down a very different verdict in the trial of former President Donald Trump. ‘No one is above the law.’

As it turns out, even a privileged and coddled Biden must abide by the rule of law.

Reactions from Republicans poured in after Hunter Biden was found guilty on all charges Tuesday morning in his historic criminal case focused on his purchase of a firearm in 2018. 

Last year, Hunter Biden was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a plea deal to avoid jail time for his felony gun charge. But that arrangement – dubbed a ‘sweetheart deal’ by Republicans – fell apart when it was revealed Biden is still under investigation for possible Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) crimes.

‘Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal was smoked out after scrutiny by a federal judge,’ House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said in a statement after Tuesday’s verdict. ‘Today’s verdict is a step toward accountability but until the Department of Justice investigates everyone involved in the Bidens’ corrupt influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden family, it will be clear department officials continue to cover for the Big Guy, Joe Biden.’

In the months preceding Hunter Biden’s trial, Comer pledged to target President Biden, asserting ‘this was always about Joe Biden’ and vowed to continue investigating him in the subsequent stage of Biden’s impeachment inquiry. 

‘Remember, this is an investigation of Joe Biden,’ Comer said on Fox News’s ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ with Maria Bartiromo. ‘Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, Eric Schwerin, Devon Archer – these are all witnesses in an investigation of Joe Biden. This was always about Joe Biden.’

Stephen Miller, former senior adviser to President Trump, said in a post on X following the verdict that the ‘DOJ is running election interference for Joe Biden – that’s why DOJ did NOT charge Hunter with being an unregistered foreign agent (FARA) or any crime connected with foreign corruption.’

‘Why? Because all the evidence would lead back to JOE. DOJ is Joe’s election protection racket,’ he said.

In response, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said, ‘And yet Dems will now point to Hunter’s conviction as evidence that ‘there’s no lawfare.”

For his part, Rep. Matt Gatez, R-Fla., said on X, ‘The Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb tbh.’

Other Republicans used news of the guilty verdict to circle back to concerns over Biden family business dealings.

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said, ‘Biden DOJ is trying to distract Americans from the $20 million the Biden family raked in from China, Russia, Ukraine, etc.’ 

‘Can Joe Biden explain what the money was for?’

Hunter Biden has previously claimed he didn’t ‘stand to gain anything’ from his role on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma despite it leading to him making millions of dollars.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., also posted his reaction to the verdict on X.

‘Never forget DOJ tried to avoid this trial & verdict by giving Hunter a sweetheart plea deal. Until the judge exposed them,’ he said.

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told reporters he’ll ‘be very curious to see when they schedule the actual sentencing.’

‘That will be interesting because then you get to see if they’re going to do it before, after it impacts Joe Biden if he gives him a pardon.’

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., also posted on X: ‘GUILTY. Accountability for the Biden Crime Family at last?’

‘The Biden Crime Family is exposed again,’ Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., wrote on X. ‘No one, including Joe Biden’s son, is above the law. It’s time the DOJ takes action on Hunter Biden for using his father’s position to make millions of dollars from foreign influence peddling and even lying to Congress about it.’

‘In 2020, Blinken led 50 former intel officials in falsely claiming the Hunter laptop story was Russian disinfo,’ Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., wrote on X, referencing the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken. ‘Social media companies then silenced all who dissented including the New York Post. Now Joe Biden’s OWN DOJ is using that same laptop as evidence to prosecute Hunter.’

‘Today is the first step in delivering accountability for the Biden crime family,’ Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said to reporters Tuesday. ‘We must and we will continue as House Republicans to investigate the Biden crime family, for the corrupting influence peddling schemes that generated over $18 million in foreign payments to the Biden crime family members. So this is one step, but again, it goes back to the corruption of Joe Biden’s DOJ as they tried to negotiate a sweetheart plea deal.’

Hunter Biden faced a trial this month that lasted more than a week and included emotional testimony from members of his family, including daughter Naomi Biden, ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and sister-in-law turned girlfriend Hallie Biden. 

Prosecutors worked to prove that Hunter Biden lied on a federal firearm form, known as ATF Form 4473, in October 2018 when he ticked a box labeled ‘No’ when asked if he is an unlawful user of a firearm or addicted to controlled substances. Hunter Biden purchased the gun from a store called StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply in Wilmington.

The president’s son pleaded not guilty in the case.

Hunter Biden has a well-documented history of drug abuse, most notably described in his 2021 memoir, ‘Beautiful Things,’ which walks readers through his previous need to smoke crack cocaine every 20 minutes, how his addiction was so prolific that he referred to himself as a ‘crack daddy’ to drug dealers, and anecdotes revolving around drug deals, such as a Washington, D.C., crack dealer Biden nicknamed ‘Bicycles.’

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

President Biden issued a heartfelt statement after his sole surviving son was convicted in federal court in Delaware.

‘I am the President, but I am also a Dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today,’ Biden said Tuesday minutes after Hunter Biden was found guilty by a federal jury on criminal gun charges.

The younger Biden was convicted on three counts tied to his October 2018 purchase and possession of a revolver while using illegal drugs. Federal prosecutors accused the president’s son of lying on a federal background check form when he claimed he was not using or addicted to illegal drugs.

While the case appears to be a personal and emotional distraction for the president, the big question moving forward is whether his son’s guilty verdicts will make any kind of political impact on Biden’s 2024 election rematch with former President Trump and whether it will influence persuadable voters.

‘Today’s conviction of Hunter Biden on all counts is unlikely to have much impact on the presidential campaign,’ veteran New Hampshire-based political scientist and New England College president Wayne Lesperance told Fox News.

Lesperance said that ‘while they share the same last name, Hunter is not Joe and voters will not hold the father accountable for the crimes of the son.’

Longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams agreed, saying, ‘It’s a deep personal blow to the president, but I don’t think it will have that much of an impact on the election. People aren’t going to vote for or against Joe Biden based on his son’s actions.’

The president, who has said he wouldn’t pardon his son if Hunter was convicted, emphasized in his post-verdict statement that ‘I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal.’

Biden’s language stands in direct contrast with Trump, who repeatedly slammed his own recent trial as ‘rigged’ and a ‘sham.’

Trump was found guilty of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to payments during the 2016 election that he made to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about his alleged affair with the adult film actress.

Prosecutors in the case – which was the first trial of a former or current president in the nation’s history – argued that this amounted to illegally seeking to influence the 2016 election.

Trump repeatedly claimed, without providing concrete evidence, that the trial was a ‘political Witch Hunt’ orchestrated by the president and the Justice Department.

But Williams, a veteran of a handful of Republican presidential campaigns, said Hunter Biden’s convictions ‘undercut the argument that Trump makes that the Department of Justice is politically motivated against him and Republicans. Joe Biden’s Justice Department has convicted President Trump. It’s also convicted his own son.’

Lesperance agreed, saying the ‘verdict blunts GOP claims about a partisan judiciary targeting Republicans. It is difficult to imagine how Republicans can claim bias as they did following the Trump verdict when today’s conviction involved the son of the sitting Democratic president.’

Hunter Biden will likely be sentenced in the trial – which witnessed graphic testimony of his years-long struggle with drug addiction – just days before the November presidential election.

And he faces a second trial in California in September over his failure to pay taxes for several years.

The guilty verdicts could provide Trump and his allies with more ammunition as they aim to conflate the former president’s convictions with those of Hunter Biden.

The Trump campaign, reacting to the verdict, argued in a statement that ‘this trial has been nothing more than a distraction from the real crimes of the Biden Crime Family, which has raked in tens of millions of dollars from China, Russia and Ukraine.’

Ryan said Tuesday’s verdicts ‘muddy the waters to some degree now that there are convictions on both sides.’

But seasoned Democratic operative Joe Caiazzo called the comparison ‘a false equivalent’ because ‘Hunter Biden is not on the ballot.’

‘The Trump campaign is going to try to use this as a political football, which is disturbing, disgusting and dishonest. Millions of Americans deal with substance issues on a daily basis,’ Caiazzo, a veteran of several Democratic presidential campaigns, said.