tv Americas Newsroom FOX News June 20, 2023 6:00am-7:00am PDT
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♪ >> that's beautiful. new bedford, massachusetts, gorgeous out there. will, thank you for filling in for steve. >> i'll be with you later this week. i'll be back. >> just going home briefly. >> see your wife and kids in texas and fly back to do the show on friday. listen to the radio and get dressed. >> bill: thank you, guys, good morning. there are lives hanging in the balance as a tourist submarine vanishes on a dive to the titanic. rescue mission underway but time is of the essence. we'll see how they do. >> dana: you have to feel for them. i should tell you i'm dana perino and this is "america's newsroom." you can't get these people out of your mind. the submarine known as a submersible used for tours of the titanic. it is 20 feet long, the size of
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a minivan. >> bill: close quarters for people inside. oxygen limited and complicating the effort to get them home safely. >> dana: the submarine's last known location is 400 miles off the coast of new foundland. >> bill: officials lost contact an hour and 45 minutes into the sub's descent on sunday morning. it's 13,000 feet. the deepest ocean recovery mission ever. >> dana: this is what we know. there are five people on board. they departed sunday morning. the coast guard is leading the search with help from canada. the passengers are estimated to have 45 hours of oxygen remaining. >> bill: the third voyage for this mission. the third year they've done this now. pass passengers pay to see the
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titanic. >> dana: the coast guard is working to reassure passengers' families. officials are mobilizing every resource possible. >> we're working very closely at this point to make sure that we're doing everything that we can do to locate the submersible and rescue those on board. the location of the search is approximately 900 miles east of cape cod in water of 13,000 feet. it is a remote area and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area. >> dana: molly line is following this story from boston. hi, molly. >> hi. the clock is ticking. coast guard officials have reiterated their thoughts are with the crew members and fame lalls and their goal is to bring them all home safely. french mariner is considered one
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of the leading experts on the titanic and he is feared to be among the five people who went missing on that tourist submersible. he was named in a facebook post by a fellow voyager, a billionaire. harding is the chairman of an aviation company. several photos of the sub and workers seemingly as the titan descended. the sub had a successful launch. harding is the chair of the middle east chapter of the explorers club, advancing field exploration and scientific influence. a pakistan company focused on energy and agriculture tweeted their vice chairman and their
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son embarked to visit the remnants of the titanic. there is limited information available beyond this that we know and we request that spec plagues is avoided. ocean gate charges $250,000 to hop aboard as a mission specialist. much of the searching is being conducted from the sky now. it is possible the titan carrying the five missing crew members returned to the surface but underwater sonar that has international cooperation. u.s. and canada are looking. if the vessel is found and in deep water potentially as deep as the titanic itself, additional assets and expertise would be needed to raise the titan to the surface including military assets. the u.s. navy has been called in for help on this.
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we're standing by for any updates from the u.s. coast guard. any information we'll bring to you immediately. >> dana: we'll be paying a lot of attention to this today. thank you. >> bill: let's look at geography now. over the weekend, st. john's is where the initial trip disembarked from. we mentioned this a moment ago, 435 miles off that coast. 6:00 a.m. sunday morning is when the sub went into the water initially. it's important to mark because of the amount of oxygen stored inside of that submersible underneath the water. here is the far eastern tip of cape cod in massachusetts. draw a line 900 miles and that's where you find the location. that's the location for the titanic about 12,500 feet below the surface. that is what they're trying to reach. this is a quick look now at the ocean gate submersible. they made three trips already to the titanic. this would have been number
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four. the front part here you are 22 feet long, the size of a minivan. anywhere in an american city today you have see them. what appears to be like the looking glass for the submarine. when you get close to the titanic that's really the area where these tourists would try to get the best view possible and take pictures and video that we've seen. it was accompanied by this craft out of st. john's, the polar prince. this was the craft that was floating on the surface of the water in contact with the submarine. they would text message back and forth. our understanding the sub did not have some sort of gps guidance system. the polar prince would send text messages to the submarine to tell it where to go to find and locate the titanic which sits on the floor of the ocean corroding now. the front picture of the bow for the titanic. looking at this, so much
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fascinating hills tree here. 50 years ago this year in 1973 the deepest submarine mission rescue effort was carried out at what depth in the ocean? 1500 feet. >> dana: 2500 i was going to say. >> bill: off the coast of ireland. 76 hours in they got to them with 12 minutes to spare before they ran out of oxygen. that's one heck of a story from 1973. a very different circumstance this time around. >> dana: let's talk to tom maddox, he is the founder and director of underwater forensics. tom, thank you for being here. maybe you could step back and give people a sense of what it's like to be down there. you have done it many times. >> good morning, bill and dana. yes, the titanic, as you already mentioned, lies in 12,500 feet of water. that's 2 1/2 miles deep. the subs -- we were part of the
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twouf five international expedition and dove in the russian subs and they are independent, not tethered to the surface. you are going into one of the harshest possibly the harshest environment in the world with the pressures, the inability to breathe, you are in a small capsule and becoming minuscule at the bottom of the ocean. it is very difficult to do. >> bill: tom, we're guessing here a little bit. i will make a guess now and see how you can answer it. based on what we understand they lost contact with the sub after it had gone into the water one hour and 45 minutes into the mission. just before 8:00 a.m. you lose contact. either the submarine has to realize that and resurface, or perhaps it can't resurface because something happened on board. what's likely? what's possible?
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>> well, bill, that's exactly right. the communication systems are hard. you have to understand you can't transmit radio through water to air. so there has to be some kind of transition. so usual life hydro phones in the water or some type of l link linking it to the surface. if they lost communications it could be just the communication system or unfortunately and we hope and pray there is not the case a catastrophic failure in which case they would have a much more problem. the sub would be designed in an emergency to resurface. i can tell you in the subs i was in, we had a number of situations we could drop ballast weight and return to the surface in an emergency. unfortunately, in my opinion it seems highly likely that there was some kind of catastrophic
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failure. i hope not. but we didn't -- we don't know the sub returned to the surface and recommunicated with the mother ship. it is not a good sign but we hope and pray that's not the case. >> dana: what about the technology today to carry out the search and rescue effort? >> there are no submersibles that can go that deep. with the russian subs we dove two at one time. we were there to help out the other one if possible. we actually had an incident where one of the subs became a little bit lodged into the wreckage and we were on stand by to see if we could render assistance. they were able to fight the current and get out. it is a dangerous expedition. in the case of the ocean gate if they are diving alone and no one to help and no assets other than we've heard about the unmanned
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submersible is the only possible scenario that i can think of or know of that would be possibly able to rescue that sub in that deep of water. that's not a manned sub, that's a remote operated vehicle. >> bill: we need a miracle and we're praying for one today. thank you. >> we do. thank you for having me on. >> bill: 11 past now. president trump saying things would be done differently if he were still in the white house. he sat down with a long-ranging interview with bret baier aired last night. part two later this evening talking about the federal indictment against him, to the 2024 race, foreign policy. china at the forefront after president xi's meeting with blinken this week. he said the incident with the spy craft earlier this year would never have happened if he were the commander-in-chief.
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>> there wouldn't be a spy balloon over our country. they took pictures of every one of the nuclear facilities in the midwest and they know better than everybody we have a lot. >> that wouldn't have happened under you? >> they would have have done it. president xi and i had a very strong relationship. >> that was one topic. part two will air later tonight and talk about more things. i thought bret cut through a lot of material. >> dana: super wide ranging. i have thought some of his best answers were on foreign policies. when you are running the first time in 2016 you don't have all the knowledge around the world. fast forward you have one term under your belt and can answer a lot of questions decisively what you would do in a situation. >> bill: great point. as for the current administration they put the whole spy caper behind them, right? play it.
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sound bite one. joe biden saying it's behind us now. >> president biden: china has soave legitimate difficulties unrelated to the united states. i think one of the things that balloon caused was not so much that it got shot down, but i don't think the leadership knew where it was and knew what was in it and knew what was going on. i have think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional. >> bill: that was saturday. it's tuesday. looking at the calendar there are other indications they're putting it behind. we had a deadline over the weekend to release these papers on the origins of covid. congress passed a law to go ahead and release the stuff and perhaps you hold that back to get through blinken's interview. >> dana: it's in the legislation we should get it done.
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special counsel john durham is set to testify before the house intelligence committee today after releasing a scathing report last month on the trump/russia investigation. are more revelations expected? we asked the committee chairman after the break. >> social media and depression in teenagers. we look at the findings. plus this. >> it's my second win on the pga tour. first one was sur real and this one is sur real. it hasn't hit me yet. so blessed and humbled to be here. >> dana: wyndham clark won the u.s. open and he will be here on set with us next hour to tell us the story behind his path to victory. ♪ psoriasis really m
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>> dana: a new impact on the impact of screens on teens find the number of teens who are depressed has double in the age. social media. half of those surveyed say they can't do anything right and their life is not useless. it is up since cell phones became more widespread. the new great depression, how social media has made teens
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despair. >> bill: needs our attention clearly, right? you can't talk to enough doctors about this and spread the word oust there. put this on screen here. this is just gives you a bit of a timeline starting in 2010 when smartphone use really started to skyrocket. here is what we found. a blue line and a red line. the blue is rarely meet up with friends. look what happens in 2010. the red line is not feel good to be alive. there is a direct correlation. we need to stop, figure it out and do something about it to help american teenagers and people around the world. >> dana: we do. parents are dealing with a lot already and this on top of it. >> bill: a lot more about mental health these days. maybe this is somewhere we can make some progress. 21 past. two days of hearings on the hill, dana. special counsel john durham scheduled to testify before the house intel committee later today. and the judiciary committee tomorrow. today is private. tomorrow public. his testimony comes a month after he released a blistering
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review of the trump-russia investigation concluding the d.o.j. and f.b.i. failed to uphold their mission. mike turner, chairman of the house intel committee is with me now. nice to have you on today. good morning. two topics. first the durham matter. he found then c.i.a. director john brennan realized the significance of the intelligence that hillary clinton was trying to drum up during the campaign of 2016. to tie donald trump to russia. he expeditiously briefed barack obama, briefed joe biden and then nothing happened after that. what do you think about that? >> it shows they are all in on it. we start with the special counsel mueller report. that report indicated that the russia/trump collusion story was false. the durham report goes farther. he looks into the actual wrongdoing that was occurring in the f.b.i. at the time. he traces it back and identifies
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the steele dossier, russia collusion document itself, came from the clinton campaign and there was, as you were describing the clinton plan communicated to try to propagate this and tie the president to it. durham says the whole investigation that happened at the f.b.i., including the mueller investigation itself, should not have happened. there was no evidence to go over the bar enough to cause an investigation to occur. he considers it wrongdoing on the part of the f.b.i. the problem is there is no one held accountable. that is why we're holding hearings over the next two days. why aren't people being held accountable and how do we need to change the laws so it doesn't happen to a president again. >> bill: are your democratics colleagues moved by this? >> this shows that the law enforcement arm of our government could be used for political means and doesn't matter what political stripes you have, it is wrong and something of grave troubling.
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always we know not only did it be summer much the president and the campaign himself but his first two years as president he robbed it of time and energy what he could be -- >> bill: by law we were supposed to know this sunday the origins of covid. when will the documents be made available? >> we have that question. the chair of the covid origins task force, we're working collaboratively and this certainly is a deadline that was passed and put-in-law. explaining and producing the documents. when these documents are made public and they are read they will be in sharp contrast to the unclassified version by the biden administration and give people pause. they believe the administration was being --
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>> bill: can you guarantee we'll see it or will it be like the manifesto from the nashville killer? >> this is-in-law. they don't have a chase. we'll use all mechanisms to insure that law is enforced. >> bill: we're waiting and watching. thank you for your time today. mike turner from ohio. >> dana: members of the squad want to stop landlords from doing criminal background checks of potential tenants. a controversial ending to a fishing competition after a 600 pound winning fish is disqualified and the team is very salty about that. we'll talk to the captain. >> it would appear that this fish has been bitten by a shark. muscle, bone, and heart health. everyone: woo hoo! ensure with 25 vitamins and minerals. enter the $10,000 nourishing moments giveaway.
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attorney in the district. it looks official to me that this is the decision made pretty remarkable. for so long the white house has insisted that hunter never did anything wrong. they would try to punt things over to the justice department. they would comment on things like that. we have reached out to the white house. waiting for a response on that. i'm sure -- hoping we'll get one. >> bill: so we have known for some time or at least it has been report evidence that biden's team, hunter biden's team has said he paid the back taxes to the i.r.s. and our legal minds have told us that oftentimes in these cases when you pay your back taxes it is essentially admission of guilt. so if you were to go before the judge, the judge would be leaning on you because you essentially did your time in terms of paying the money and you could avoid jail time because of that. >> dana: right.
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that is also in accordance with what you were talking about the minor gun charge dealing with the fact he applied for a gun permit and lied on the application. and there has to be some consequence for that and perhaps this is a way for them to avoid jail time for the president's son. hunter biden. unprecedentsed. not the first in history for a criminal charge to be made against a president's son while he is in office. so we have soave some -- some -- >> biden will admit to illegally possessing that gun after his purchase five years ago in 2018. as part of the admission, he will enter a diversion program that we were just referring to, which is a lesser sentence that typically applies to people who have a substance issue.
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at the time he put in his application he had a substance abuse problem that he lied about on the application and able to get the gun. prosecutors would then recommend two years of probation and diversion conditions. now, if he meets the conditions of the program, the diversion program, the gun charge is removed from his record. it is expunged after 24 months and does not appear as some sort of federal charge or felony charge. >> dana: further to your point this is one of the reasons people do decide to make a plea deal to try to get this behind them. hunter biden is 53 years old. charged with illegally possessing a handgun in 2018 and failure to timely file and pay taxes in 2017 and 2018. we'll see if we can get john levine from the "new york post." one of the questions has been the question of how much money hunter biden was getting. we know some of that money was wired to different family members. bill, one of the things is you
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get a decision like this, does it answer the question or do you get to get the answers to who is the big guy? you have to imagine bobulinski, what is he thinking this morning as this news come to fruition? from the beginning if you remember the 51 security officials who said the hunter biden laptop was russian disinformation, and now we get to this result today. >> bill: you think about the political aspects of this, dana, if that case moves forward that you referred to. these two cases are resolved. 16 months away from really the heat of a national election that joe biden plans to fully participate in and if you can take this issue off the table, does it help you politically during that campaign? one could argue yes if it's resolved. >> dana: in a recent past he changed lawyers. do you remember that? he had a legal team and then he changed lawyers and went with --
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there are so many investigations. the white house initially, the biden camp was reportedly unhappy with the new hunter biden legal team. they didn't like their approach. if you are running for president of the united states for re-election and your son is going to be indicted and possibly face jail time, i would imagine they thought this was coming that it was the best thing to do to get this done now 14 months, 16 months before the general election? >> bill: roughly 16, that's right. so the questions that have not been answered, however, is what was going on with ukrainian energy company and what was going on with the money from china? and there are republicans who will argue that you are not going to get answers on that so long as joe biden is in the white house and merrick garland is the attorney general. that may or may not be the case.
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that's oftentimes they have come on the program and argued that. recall in december of 2020, okay, a couple weeks after the election is decided, f.b.i. agents approached hunter biden to talk to him about his finances. so now we are 2 1/2 years on from that interview and we really don't have a conclusion on that. but at that time, december of 2020, that's when he publicly confirmed that he was under investigation. also with the time, a spokesperson for the president said that he had never even considered being involved. that's a quote now, in business with his family nor in any overseas business whatsoever. this question has come up repeatedly on behalf of jacque heinrich and peter doocy and the president has been rather consistent on his answers. i believe just recently he suggested that was a dumb question and he has had various responses to that that are
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sarcastic along the way. >> dana: jonathan turley, you have been following this story with us over the last several years. this is a result that might have been if you look back, this was so expected. but it is a historic precedent, i believe, one that needs some explanation. even if you get this to closure on these counts, there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered. >> well, there are more questions than answers. over a year ago i wrote a column about how you can implode this scandal involving the biden family, and what the column talked about is precisely this plea agreement. that it is basically the same plea agreement i said would likely happen. you could close out the scandal
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waft talking about the influence meddling allegations. this plea deal has the makings of an avoidance of any jail time but more importantly, it was vive corinth -- for many it will look like you ticketed the getaway driver after a bank robbery. many people view the influence peddling allegation as being a very serious form of corruption with potential crime and he pled guilty to relatively minor tax and gun charges. and that's not going had not bey
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just form of corruption, but it's the consumer of the corruption that can lead to criminal conduct. so our viewers know if they're just joining us fox news can confirm that hunter biden age 53, the son of president biden. has agreed to plead guilty to two tax. misdemeanors he will enter a probation agreement on the gun charge that if there is a violation of that charge would mean a prosecution for illegal possessing the firearm while he was a drug user and filling out that form, um with a lack of candor. that gun purchase happened professor in 2018. the tax charges also 2018 and then one prior to that, in 2017 as well, so that would essentially take these two stories off the table. and would leave the rest of the country wondering what then happens to the charges of
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influence peddling and the millions of dollars that were allegedly taken in from countries like communist china and also ukraine. professor stand by david spun. doj joins us now with more from there, david good morning to you. welcome to our our breaking news coverage. >> thank you, this is a significant deal and bill and dana i can't stress enough this is almost five years in the making about half a decade is when the feds began investigating hunter biden. a lot of sensitivities over this specific case. many critics argue he received preferential treatment and may still argue he is receiving that kind of treatment as something is coming out showing that he a plea deal is in the works before those official charges were even made public. a lot of this is going to look suspicious to people. however, those that would counter that argument say hunter biden has been charged in u.s. district court in delaware.
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that is a fact right now. as you mentioned two different charges. i am looking at this document from u.s. attorney. willful failure to pay federal income tax. the other is one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user or addicted to a controlled substance in violation of another federal statute. bill and dana we've been reporting that back in 2018, biden reportedly put down no on a federal firearm form that asked if he was currently using drugs at the time and according to sources, he lied about that. that's where this specific charge comes from. it's a little murky, dana and bill, the timeline from here how things will work out. we know hunter biden lives in
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california. it is not clear if he will make his first appearance in california or perhaps if he will, in fact, fly to delaware. the bottom line here, hunter biden has pleaded guilty. he has not officially entered his plea yet. but you can't not look at the fact that the house republicans are continuing to investigate that and that will certainly ramp up perhaps even more now that there are no charges involved in those biden family business dealings that are seen here today. >> bill: when would he be before a judge to enter a plea? >> not clear. it even says right now this is signed by the u.s. government
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that they are getting ready to -- the parties jointly request the court schedule a consolidated initial appearance on the firearm and then a change of plea hearing on the tax information charges. so a little bit fluid right now. it does not look like there has been an actual date set right now for his first appearance. this document right here that i'm reading, this initial information was just filed a couple of hours ago this morning, bill. >> dana: david spunt, thank you so much. want to bring in dave rubin. i believe you've been following the breaking news along with us this morning. let's get your reaction to hunter biden pleading guilty to two tax violations and a minor gun charge this morning. >> well, my first reaction was i'm just sort of glad that something is happening related to this. we'll find out if there is more or if this sticks. it sounds like getting a deal already seems a little fishy or something. i think maybe they're trying to
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come off as a bit impartial, the d.o.j. related to all the trump stuff. clearly there is something to look at with the biden family, all of the burisma payoffs, all of the stuff. so it is good to see something happening here but maybe this is just a show so it seems impartial and who legaly knows. >> dana: how did hunter biden get the money that then led to him having this tax violation? if you are following the story and concerned that d.o.j. hasn't been moving fast enough on this, i think it would be one of the questions, wait, he had the tax violation because he had all this money and where did the money come from? >> that's the point, right? the guy was consulting for a ukrainian energy company and no expertise. he was a drug addict at the time. no right to have that job. it was clearly because of his dad's connection. it doesn't take a true private
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investigator to connect the dots here. why did you have the job and what were you doing to influence things? it clearly had something to do with your dad, who was vice president at the time. >> bill: there is this story we've been watching with chuck grassley, the senator from iowa. he claims there was a document in possession of the f.b.i. shows there were up to 17 audio recordings on behalf of a businessman out of ukraine. no one has heard these audio recordings that i know of. i went to the senate and made the claim. bill barr said the d.o.j. should give that document to republicans and congress. i don't know what your position is on that. if that were to happen republicans would share that with the public. >> well sure. i think what people want right now more than anything else is a little transparency and a little equality under the law. we're watching all of this stuff happen with trump and look, if trump did something wrong and it
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sounds like he possibly did, maybe several things, then okay, so be it. if the biden family is allowed to get away with things and people see that and they're not happy about it. if there are recordings, new documents, things uncovered on either side, let's find out and talk about it. that's what america is all about, actually, right? having and open and free dialogue and equal justice under the law. >> dana: byron york is with us this morning. historic day, byron. one that will leave people with more questions than answers, i think. >> we're in the very first stages of even knowing what happened. we can say now a lot of republicans will say it is a real slap on the wrist. we have actually seen this coming. a few months ago "the new york times" reported after hunter biden got a new legal time.
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"the new york times" report evidence the u.s. attorney in delaware was looking into possible charges for hunter biden failing to meet filing deadlines for his 2016 and 2017 tax returns. and today his lawyer says he has pleaded to miss demeanor failure to file tax payments when due. then there is the whole gun charge thing. as far as the taxes are concerned, you raised a key issue that a lot of republicans will raise. wait a minute, we've heard of these huge payments, $50,000 a month, maybe more, coming just from burisma in ukraine. we've heard of tons of money from china. all sorts of money coming to hunter biden from shady foreign actors and did he pay taxes on all of that? is the only problem here that he was late in filing his returns for a couple of years and has now pleaded to misdemeanors?
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republicans will say it is a slap on the wrist. there has to be more there. >> bill: i was reading a statement from his lawyer with the announcement of two agreements between my client and the u.s. attorneys office, it is my understanding that the five year investigation into hunter is resolved. that may or may not be the end of it, byron, as you just suggested there because congressional republicans are digging in on their own investigations in just about every aspect and every facet of hunter biden's business dealings all over the world. >> if you are hunter biden and his legal team, this is the big one. these are the people who have the power to put you in jail at the justice department. so it was a legal issue with the justice department where a lot of republicans are going to say biden got some sort of preferential treatment because his father is the president. the house, it is a political fight. you are going to see and we've
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already seen, the hunter biden legal team essentially engaging in a p.r. war against james comer and jim comey in the house and then i think what you will see with comer and others is this continued focus on documentary evidence on suspicious activity reports, on bank records, on all sorts of things that they believe will ultimately prove there was a biden family enterprise of foreign money and they believe that president joe biden knew about it and benefited from it. >> dana: it is interesting this will definitely move to the political defense. if you are at the white house i imagine you would say look, to reporters you would say this has been resolved. the lawyer hunter biden's lawyer is saying. congressional republicans will say no it's not, not so fast.
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then the d.o.j. and f.b.i. are still then caught between the left saying they didn't do enough to go against trump and the right saying you didn't do enough to protect trump from this deep state situation. and you also have the other thing that the story that broke today that president trump's trial date right now set august 14th on the documents case which seems very quick and maybe his lawyers will push to move that. but the juxtaposition, put it into context for us about how they -- it is quite extraordinary going into a presidential election these are the main issues that consume a lot of the summer. >> bill: the question republicans asked about the justice department investigation, wait a minute, five years for this? this has taken five years of investigation and a couple of misdemeanor counts of filing your returns late that millions of americans do without any sort
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of foreign strange dealings? so i think republicans are going to say what in the world took five years to investigate here? and you are right, one theme among republicans now is that there is a two-tiered system of justice. they often refer to donald trump being charged criminally and hillary clinton not being charged criminally over classified information cases. i think they will throw the hunter biden case into the mix too saying well, the government took forever to resolve the hunter biden case and now they want to hang trump tomorrow. so i do think you are going to hear a lot of criticism from republicans of this deal and you, like a true white house spokesman, you got what the biden administration is going to say, which is this is over, the justice department is completely independent. they did their work. the president in no way
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intervened. this is over, let's move on. >> bill: on this other issue that involves the f.b.i. and some sort of paperwork that has been filed with the agency, that we haven't seen but apparently some members of congress have. you have been following that and reporting on that. chuck grassley claims there were 17 audio recordings from that ukrainian businessman tied directly to hunter biden and also the current sitting president. do you know of anyone who has heard those recordings? >> i do not. and as a reporter, i would say it would probably be better for newsmakers like senator grassley and like representative comer to just be quiet for a while until they have more information, because certainly grassley's speech on the floor of the senate really set off a lot of talk about there is a whistleblower and all these actual recordings and they captured president joe biden.
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he wasn't president at the time, but joe biden himself talking about some of this business stuff that he now denies ever knowing about? well, that would be a huge deal. so everybody's question is let's hear them or have you heard them? we don't have anybody who has. >> bill: let me come back to that point in a moment. dana has more breaking news from the white house. >> dana: we reached out to the white house for comment from the president of the united states on the fact his son has pled guilty to these charges. white house spokesman says the president and first lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. we will have no further comment. just one more time the president and first lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. we will have no further comment. >> bill: we'll see if there is more from that. did you have a question about that? >> dana: i am thinking it just confirms what byron and i were
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saying the white house will shut it down. doesn't mean the republican congressional offices won't continue to push or reporters won't continue to dig and may be more information may come out if there are audio tapes of recordings of phone calls to explain where the money came from that led to the tax filing. >> bill: one more question, byron. bill barr said the f.b.i. should give the document to congress. i don't know if you think that is going to happen or if it is likely to happen. if republicans in congress have their hands in that document we would all see it very soon. >> i hope we would. i have think this is something where the public needs to know. the f.b.i. did soften its position a little bit when credibly threatened with contempt of congress. it might have to happen again. you know, i think one thing that this whole fight over the alleged 17 tapes or the 1023
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form has -- there has been a bit of a distraction because we do have whistleblowers who were in significant positions in the internal revenue service saying that the hunter biden case got special treatment inside the i.r.s., which was working with the justice department because so much of the hunter biden case was a tax case. and that's a really fruitful area to look into. these are real life people with real positions of authority and responsibility in the i.r.s. handling this case saying that there was preferential treatment involved that may go back to the question earlier, why did it take five years to handle this? >> dana: all right, byron. thank you so much. this is breaking news, as you said. we have a lot of questions still but we are getting more answers. we have a statement from the white house saying the president and first lady love their son and support him as he rebuilds his life.
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they make it clear in the statement they will have no further comment on this. imagine this might be hard to do in a debate situation, but that's what they will try. >> bill: thanks for that, byron. we have a bunch of people at the top of the hour. i don't know how much this is a surprise today. as we've been watching this story develop over time and talking to all the great legal minds that have informed us how these matters are handled, it seems like it played out. a lot of people predicted it. when it comes to the gun charge and the tax evasion charges. >> dana: i do think what byron said is true, if you look at this from a critical point of view you think it took five years to get to this result? really? how is that possible? you can imagine there are reporters looking at people who have pled guilty to things like this almost immediately when the i.r.s. knocks on your door you say fine, sorry. but doing these kind of plea deals to a misdemeanor can help
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you move on. think of other classified documents cases. that's what those guys did. people in high positions of power who said fine, you got me. i took the documents. here you go, misdemeanor. president trump is trying a different tactic and his first trial date august 14, 2023. buckle up for the summer. >> bill: let's get to the headlines as we approach 10:00 eastern time on this bullsy tuesday morning. >> dana: welcome to a new hour of "america's newsroom," here we go. i'm dana perino. >> bill: i'm bill hemmer. nice to see you, partner. we're joined by jonathan turley and bret baier with us now. bret, let's go to you. fox news can now confirm that hunter biden has reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors on two minor tax crimes and admits to a gun charge that will likely keep him out of jails with court papers filed today. bret, your initial comment reacting t
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