Supreme Court publishes draft opinion showing a win for abortion rights | The Excerpt
On Thursday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Supreme Court may be about to allow emergency abortions in Idaho. USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Nick Penzenstadler explains why Hunter Biden's purchase at a Delaware gun shop was illegal for another reason. Senate Democrats are raising concerns that the U.S. Postal Service's decision to re-route some mail processing may hurt the delivery of mail-in ballots during this year's elections. Journalist Evan Gershkovich goes on trial in Russia. COVID-19 cases are ticking up, as summer gatherings get into full swing. USA TODAY Election Reporting Fellow Melissa Cruz discusses the decision by the Commission on Presidential Debates to step down. Watch tonight's debate on USA TODAY's YouTube channel. Plus, use our presidential debate bingo card to play during the Biden-Trump showdown.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Thursday, June 27th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, what the Supreme Court may rule on abortions in Idaho. Plus, how Hunter Biden's gun purchase at a Delaware store was illegal for another reason. And it's debate night.
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The Supreme Court may be about to allow emergency abortions in Idaho, according to a copy of the pending Opinion obtained by Bloomberg News. The version that appeared briefly on the court's website would reinstate a Lower Court order that had allowed hospitals to perform abortions needed to protect the health of the mother. A majority plan to dismiss the case was improvidently granted, according to the Bloomberg report. While the litigation would continue, the opinion would still be a win for the Biden administration, which had challenged Idaho's strict abortion ban. The administration argued abortions are the standard of care in some situations under a federal law that requires hospitals provide emergency treatment regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
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Hunter Biden's purchase at a Delaware gun shop was also illegal for another reason. I spoke with USA TODAY Investigative reporter, Nick Penzenstadler to learn more.
Nick, thanks for hopping on.
Nick Penzenstadler:
Yeah, happy to be here.
Taylor Wilson:
So Nick, would you just start by reminding us about Hunter Biden's gun case and what he ultimately was convicted of?
Nick Penzenstadler:
So this all came down to the gun transaction form that Hunter Biden filled out back in 2018. He goes into this gun shop in Wilmington. You fill out your name, your information, and then there's a series of questions. And one of the key questions is, "Are you an unlawful user of or addicted to drugs?" And he marked the checkbox no. And that's ultimately what he was convicted of in this case.
Taylor Wilson:
And you wrote that if a Delaware gun store had done its job, Hunter Biden would've perhaps not bought the gun and avoided these felony charges. What can you tell us about this shop and what they got wrong?
Nick Penzenstadler:
So with this same exact form, you have to prove your residency. So when you go into a shop, one of the things they ask for is your address, but then you also have to prove that you are a resident of that state when you buy a handgun. It's part of the federal law. In this case, Hunter Biden presented his passport, which is not super commonplace. Usually, people give their driver's license. The shop clerk in that case wasn't sure what to do. He went and asked his boss. They said, "Well, we know Hunter lives in the area, you can take it." They made a mistake right there and then in 2018; they didn't see any form of residency. And then fast-forward a few years, this becomes such an issue and the shop realizes they made a mistake and then they annotate this form. So there's two versions of this form that became an issue during the trial.
Taylor Wilson:
And was this brought up during Hunter's trial, the issue that you just outlined?
Nick Penzenstadler:
Yeah. The way we understand it is, if you remember last year there was this deal where he was going to plead guilty. It fell apart. So then it's heading towards trial. And in the pretrial preparations, the defense team for Hunter Biden sees this and realizes that the shop probably made a mistake. They try to sort it out and then they try to introduce it into evidence and say, "Look, this shop should not have sold this gun to begin with. We want to show this as proof that the clerks were biased against him. They goofed up." And the judge ruled on that actually, in the pretrial motions, and said, "We're not going to introduce these two forms. The jury is going to get confused. The gun shop's not on trial, so sorry, can't use it."
Taylor Wilson:
So, what does this now functionally mean for this gun shop? Could it be prosecuted? And what's next going forward?
Nick Penzenstadler:
Yeah. I mean, the people I talked to think that it's unlikely they would get a criminal charge. Usually the way these paperwork type errors come up is during the shop's inspection. It's supposed to happen every few years where the ATF comes in and reviews your paperwork. But there have been shops, as we write in the story, that have been prosecuted under this exact federal statute for not keeping accurate records. So it remains to be seen what's going to happen, if anything, to this shop.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. Or if this might be grounds for Hunter Biden's appeal, which he's widely expected to do. Nick Penzenstadler is an investigative reporter with USA TODAY. Thank you, Nick.
Nick Penzenstadler:
Thanks.
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Taylor Wilson:
A group of Senate Democrats is raising concerns that the US Postal Service's decision to reroute some mail processing may hurt the delivery of mail-in ballots during this year's election and have a broader impact in future political races. The letter to US Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, led by Senator Peter Welsh, was signed by 19 Senators, including several representing swing states in the 2024 presidential election. DeJoy was initially appointed by then President Donald Trump to lead the agency during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Senators cite a completed consolidation when local mail processing hubs are combined into a regional one in Richmond, Virginia, where the area's on-time postal delivery rate dropped nearly 18 percentage points.
Mail-in voting has become a key strategy for both political parties, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic pushed more voters to cast their ballot remotely and a number of states expanded access to mail-in voting. DeJoy came under fire from Democrats in 2020 as sweeping changes he implemented led to major postal delays. Trump and his allies have previously raised concerns about the security of mail-in voting, though multiple analyses of mail-in voting systems around the country indicate it is a safe and secure way to vote.
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US journalist Evan Gershkovich went on trial behind closed doors yesterday in Russia, where he faces charges of espionage and a likely sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors say The Wall Street Journal reporter gathered secret information on the orders of the USCIA about a company that manufactures tanks for Russia's war in Ukraine. Gershkovich, his newspaper, and the US government all reject the allegations and say that he was just doing his job as a reporter, accredited by the foreign ministry to work in Russia.
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Just as summer gatherings begin, Americans are also catching COVID-19 again. Cases predictably rose in upticks during the winter with more people indoors. And they're also increasing, as experts expected, at the start of summer. CDC data shows small jumps in hospitalizations and deaths, and slight increases in new cases. Still, the upticks from the latest subvariants are nowhere near levels the US experienced in 2020 or when the Omicron variant began to drive cases and deaths across the globe in 2021. Hospitalizations and emergency room visits are far less frequent this season than in December, and deaths have not reached the levels of this winter when more than 2,000 people died from COVID each week in January. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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Tonight is the CNN Presidential Debate between Democratic incumbent President Joe Biden and Republican presumptive candidate Donald Trump. Tonight's debate in Atlanta comes after the Commission on Presidential Debates announced this week that it had canceled contracts for this election year. I spoke with USA TODAY Election Reporting Fellow, Melissa Cruz, to find out what that means.
Melissa, thanks for hopping on today.
Melissa Cruz:
Hey. Thanks so much for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So the Commission on Presidential Debates has stepped down. What is this Commission, and how has it historically been involved with debates?
Melissa Cruz:
So the Commission on Presidential Debates, or CPD, is a nonprofit corporation. It was established in 1987, and really, it got its start in the 1984 debates. Essentially, candidates at that time were given veto power over who could moderate and which reporters were allowed to be even in the debates. And as you can imagine, it was pretty much a disaster. The candidates vetoed over 100 journalists from attending. And so, basically, the Republican and Democratic Parties came together and said, "We really need to try to solve this problem." And so they came up with this idea of an independent body that would organize and moderate all the presidential debates. And so they've been involved with planning all the presidential and vice presidential debates since 1987 until 2020.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. So this move to step down this year. Why did they make this move, and really, what's it mean for the debate calendar the rest of the year?
Melissa Cruz:
So they stepped down about six weeks after Trump and Biden announced they wouldn't participate in any of the Commission's debates. They didn't cancel right away because they were holding out hope that the candidates would really actually change their minds. Candidates have bluffed in the past, said they wouldn't come, and then they've always come around in the end. But ultimately, they decided to cancel because they felt it was unfair to the sites they had contracted with, which were universities. So they went ahead and canceled all of the contracts for the rest of the presidential election.
Taylor Wilson:
As you mentioned, Biden and Trump changed their own debate plans before this decision. Can you just walk us through why they've done so?
Melissa Cruz:
So, Biden and Trump really seemed to agree on this one thing. They both disliked the timing of the debates. These debates originally were scheduled to happen in September and October, and they both felt it was too close to the general election. Some people would've already mailed in their ballots by this point. And so they saw that the debate really wouldn't have much of an impact changing people's votes one way or the other.
Taylor Wilson:
And this Commission's lack of involvement, does it change anything now about the debates themselves, whether it be topics or debate rules? And what does all this mean, really, for viewers and voters?
Melissa Cruz:
So we're seeing for the CNN debate on Thursday, there have been some rule changes between this debate and the more traditional Commission debates. Mainly, Biden and Trump won't be allowed to have notes or any pre-written remarks on their podiums. They're only allowed to have a sheet of paper, a pen, and some water on stage. And so this means that voters will hopefully get a less filtered response from the candidates. CNN has also added mute buttons. Candidates will only be allowed to talk during their turn. There will also be commercial breaks, and that's different in that the candidates won't have time to consult with their teams. And then last, there won't be a live audience at the debate. So that's meant to foster a more serious discussion, CNN says.
Taylor Wilson:
And so, Melissa, going forward, what's next for this Commission on Presidential Debates, and also just the future of debates in general?
Melissa Cruz:
So they said in their statement that they're ready to come back to life if the candidates change their minds. It doesn't necessarily seem like that will happen this year, so their future is a little unclear. We'll have to wait to see for future debates how things play out this year.
Taylor Wilson:
Melissa Cruz is an election reporting fellow for USA TODAY. Thank you, Melissa.
Melissa Cruz:
Thank you so much.
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Taylor Wilson:
Tune into the CNN Presidential Debate tonight at 9:00 PM Eastern on CNN, or watch the simulcast on USA TODAY's YouTube channel. And if you're going to watch, why not compete in some political games of your own with USA TODAY's exclusive Debate Bingo cards. You can find links to USA TODAY's YouTube channel and our Debate Bingo card in our show notes. Or just pick up a copy of USA TODAY at your local newsstand for a printed bingo card.
Most US states and Washington DC now allow any adult to place a bet on their favorite sport. In some cases, even with the click of a button on the phone. But what happens when the athletes themselves are placing bets? Several athletes have been banned from their respective leagues in recent months for doing just that. USA TODAY Sports reporter Steve Gardner joins me later today to discuss this moment and what sports fans can expect next. You can find the episode right here on this feed, beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern Time.
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Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. Sarah Ganim will be in for me in the next few days, and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SCOTUS draft opinion showing a win for abortion rights | The Excerpt
