President Biden has no plans of pardoning son Hunter Biden, White House says
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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden does not plan to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on federal gun charges, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated during a press briefing on Thursday.
Hunter Biden is scheduled to be sentenced next month on the gun charges as well as federal tax-related charges in a separate case.
When asked Thursday whether the president has any intention of pardoning his son, Jean-Pierre responded, “We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.”
Jean-Pierre said she didn’t have comment on pardons the president intends to make at the end of his term, including any administration officials or people threatened by President-elect Donald Trump with legal action.
“I know pardons is going to be a big part of the questions that I get here over the next several weeks and a couple of months that we have,” she said. “I don’t have anything to share or any thought process on pardons. Once we have something to share, we certainly will share with that.”
No son of a sitting president has faced a criminal trial before.
President Biden told ABC News anchor David Muir during an interview in June amid the Delaware trial in the gun case that he would not pardon his son.
Hunter Biden was ultimately found guilty that month on three felony counts related to his purchase of a firearm in 2018 while allegedly addicted to drugs. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12.
In a separate case, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty in September to nine federal tax-related charges in Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 16.
(WASHINGTON) — Federal authorities have arrested an Arizona man after he allegedly posted videos online threatening to kill President-elect Donald Trump and his family.
In the videos, posted on Facebook in recent months, Manuel Tamayo-Torres issued an array of bizarre and outlandish claims about Trump, but he also apparently brandished an AR 15-style rifle and other weapons in the videos, and in August he recorded his trip to an arena in Glendale, Arizona, as Trump was holding a campaign rally there, according to charging documents filed in the case.
While the charging documents only refer to Trump as “Individual 1,” they say Tamayo-Torres made “vague yet direct threats” against “the president-elect,” and sources familiar with the investigation separately confirmed Tamayo-Torres’ alleged threats targeted Trump.
“[Y]ou’re gonna die,” Tamayo-Torres allegedly said in a video he posted on Thursday. “[Y]our son’s gonna die. Your whole family is going to die. … I’m going to put a hole in your face.”
The clip was one of “numerous” rambling and curse-laden videos he’s posted “on a near-daily basis” in recent months claiming that “Individual 1” kidnapped and sex-trafficked his children, according to the charging documents.
It’s unclear if Tamayo-Torres actually has children.
Earlier in November, Tamayo-Torres allegedly posted a video threatening “Individual 1” while holding up “what appears to be a white AR 15-style rifle with a 30-round magazine inserted into it,” charging documents said.
In another video, according to the charging documents, Tamayo-Torres said he witnessed “Individual 1” and the Secret Service kidnap his daughter. The video was posted Aug. 23 from Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, where Trump was holding a campaign rally that day.
During the rally, Trump noted that he was “nearly assassinated” a month earlier, when a Pennsylvania man, Thomas Crooks, opened fire on him with an AR 15-style rifle during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Authorities have yet to identify a clear motive in that attack.
Trump told rallygoers there are “risks incurred by leaders who stand up to the corrupt political establishment.”
“When you stand up, you bring on some trouble for yourself, but you have to do what’s right,” Trump said.
While investigating the more recent alleged threats from Tamayo-Torres, an officer from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives task force found photos on Facebook that showed Tamayo-Torres holding a bullpup-style shotgun, a rifle, and the AR15-style rifle seen in one of his videos, according to charging documents.
Tamayo-Torres was arrested Monday near San Diego, where he anticipated moving soon, court records indicate.
Though he was arrested in California, the charges against him were filed in Arizona. He was charged with one count of making threats against a president or president’s successor.
He was also charged with four counts of making false statements during the purchase of a firearm, after he allegedly lied on federal forms a year ago while trying to buy a pistol from a Phoenix gun store.
He swore on those forms that he had not been previously convicted of a felony, but he had been convicted of assault in 2003 in San Diego, so he was legally prohibited from possessing firearms, the charging documents said.
As of Tuesday evening, court records did not list an attorney representing Tamayo-Torres.
(NEW YORK) — A detective was shot and killed during a home invasion at her residence in New Jersey, authorities said.
Detective Sgt. Monica Mosley, with the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey, was fatally shot at her home in Bridgeton on Tuesday night, according to police.
Police responded to the home around 10:30 p.m. for a report of “several subjects kicking in a front door at a residence,” the Bridgeton Police Department said in a press release.
Mosley, 51, died at the scene, police said.
An individual who had been treated for a gunshot wound at a hospital in Camden was detained for questioning in connection with the incident, police said. No additional information on the individual was released.
No arrests have been made or charges filed in the case as of Wednesday morning, police said.
Multiple agencies are investigating the deadly shooting, including the State Police Major Crime Bureau, the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office and the Bridgeton Police Department Criminal Investigation Bureau.
Authorities could be seen on the property of the Bridgeton home on Wednesday.
Mosley began her career at the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office, located in Bridgeton, in 2006 as a paralegal specialist. She became a county detective in 2009, “where she served our community with honor, dignity and respect before her untimely passing,” Cumberland County Prosecutor Jennifer Webb-McRae said in a statement.
Bridgeton Chief of Police Michael Gaimari Sr. said he knew Mosley for most of her career.
“Always loved and admired, so devastating of a loss,” he said in a statement. “Justice will be served and you will always be in our thoughts and prayers.”
Mosley served in several units of the Cumberland County Prosecutor’s Office, including Trial Teams, the Special Victims Unit, the Community Justice Unit and the Professional Standards Unit, where she was assigned as the unit supervisor, the office said.
“Sergeant Mosley was a constant friend and role model for all those with whom she served and led in the law enforcement community throughout Cumberland County and beyond,” Webb-McRae said. “She will be missed more than words can detail, but she will never be forgotten by her CCPO family.”
(NEW YORK) — It was a story tailor-made for Hollywood: A wealthy white family takes in a Black teenager, guiding his football career from a high school standout to Ole Miss to the NFL. However, years later now Michael Oher claims he was blindsided by the movie that so many of us know and love, underscoring the importance of his perspective for a balanced narrative.
The Tuohy family and Michael Oher’s inspiring story was a book by acclaimed author Michael Lewis and then a blockbuster movie — “The Blind Side.”
The movie premiered in 2009 and reportedly earned $300 million at the box office. Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for portraying Leigh Ann Tuohy, a strong and determined character not to be underestimated.
Audiences embraced the movie’s message of racial harmony, but now the retired NFL star, who is a Super Bowl champion offensive tackle, is questioning everything he thought was true.
“The movie is something that will shadow Michael Oher for life because people think they know his story,” Michael Sokolove, a New York Times journalist and author who interviewed and spent time with Oher, said. “But that’s not actually Michael Oher.”
In a surprising turn, Oher is now suing the family that took him in.
An “IMPACT x Nightline” episode, now available to stream on Hulu, unpacks how such a feel-good story ended up mired in contentious litigation and looks at how everything went so wrong.
In his lawsuit, Oher alleges that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy saw him as a “gullible young man whose athletic talent could be exploited for their own benefit,” and that the Tuohys claimed he was their adopted son when, in reality, he wasn’t.
“What happened is that he entered a conservatorship with the Tuohys, which is wildly different than an adoption,” ESPN reporter Kelley Carter said.
Oher and his attorneys filed a 15-page petition against the Tuohys, alleging that they and their children have made millions of dollars off Oher’s name and story while Michael Oher has made comparatively little.
The petition also accuses the Tuohys of negotiating a movie deal where they would reap millions while Oher and others received nothing.
Oher seeks a full accounting of the money earned from using his story and unspecified damages.
Oher said he did not wish to respond when ABC News reached out to him for comment.
The lawyers for the Tuohys stated that each family member, including Oher, made an equal amount of money from the film.
In court filings, the Tuohys submitted an accounting statement showing they made full payments to Oher for his equal share. The amount was a little over $138,000, one-fifth of the money they say they all made from the movie.
The Tuohy family is claiming that Oher is trying to extort them. Text messages they say are between them and the former NFL star allegedly show Oher demanding they pay him millions, writing in a text, “If something isn’t resolved this Friday, I’m going to go ahead and tell the world how my supposed-to-be parents robbed me. That’s the deadline.”
“Whether we agree with how he sees it, I think it’s understandable that someone would feel differently as a 38-year-old adult than they would as an 18-year-old or even a 26-year-old in the midst of trying to stay in the NFL,” Sokolove said.
The Tuohys filing states that the term “adopted” was always used in its colloquial sense and was never intended as a legal term of art.
“This is a sad day,” Steve Farese Sr., lawyer for the Tuohy Family, said. “It’s devastating to the family. And we hope that it doesn’t have a chilling effect on others who want to help needy individuals.”
The Touhys declined to comment to ABC News, but in an interview with The Daily Memphian last year, Sean Tuohy said lawyers advised them that they couldn’t adopt Oher since he was over the age of 18. However, it is legal to adopt an adult in Tennessee.
Attorneys for the Tuohys say Oher always knew he was in a conservatorship.
“Fact of the matter is, he wrote a book in 2011,” Randall Fishman, attorney for the Tuohy family, said. “And in 2011, he acknowledged in that book, on three separate occasions in that book, that he — that there was, in fact, a conservatorship.”
In the book “I Beat the Odds,” Oher explains that the term “adoptive parents” pretty much means the same thing as “legal guardians,” but the laws were written to consider his age. He didn’t care about the terminology which was explained to him that way by the Tuohys; he was just happy that no one could argue that they weren’t legally what they already knew was real: a family.
“Ultimately, Michael Oher did win a victory, maybe just a moral victory, in getting the Tuohys to pull down any mention that Michael Oher is their adopted son and to stop saying that going forward,” ABC News legal contributor Brian Buckmire said.
Just last year, at Oher’s request, the probate court judge dissolved the nearly 20-year conservatorship. The Tuohy family also agreed to remove all mentions of Oher’s supposed adoption from their websites, and not to mention adoption in public speeches.
“People don’t know anything about me,” Oher told ABC News’ Deborah Roberts in a 2009 interview. “I mean, you might see something on TV and think you know, but you gotta get to know me as a person. But you’ll never know a person by watching a movie or reading a book.”
Now, as the legal case wends its way through the court system, Oher is moving on to the next season of his life. Since 2022, Oher has been the president of the Oher Foundation, a nonprofit set up to empower economically disadvantaged kids through high school scholarships.
In an interview last year with “Good Morning America,” Oher said, “I shouldn’t be a miracle. And no kid — we shouldn’t be miracles. We should have opportunities and resources to live a normal, young adult, child life and grow up and be successful.”
ABC News’ Kevin Rochford, Kelley Robinson, Claire Pedersen and Jaclyn Skurie contributed to this report.
