The Excerpt podcast: Florida GOP to oust leader Christian Ziegler after assault allegation
On today's episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Florida GOP is expected to oust leader Christian Ziegler after a sexual assault allegation. Outrage grows in Israel after the IDF killed three Israeli hostages. How worried is Trump's base about his 'dictator' comments? USA TODAY Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi breaks down Hunter Biden's tax charges case. USA TODAY Director of Photo and Video News Gathering Andy Scott looks at the year in photos. Check out some of the pictures of the year here.
Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here
Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Monday, December 18th, 2023. This is The Excerpt. Today, Florida Republicans have begun a push to oust their leader amid sexual assault allegations. Plus, we look at the aftermath in Israel after Israeli hostages were killed by Israeli forces. And we'll take a closer look at Hunter Biden's tax charges. We start this work week with a host of political news from around the country and the world.
♦
First, the Florida GOP yesterday began the process of removing Chair Christian Ziegler amid sexual assault allegations. The party's executive board voted during an emergency meeting to censure his chair, strip his authority, and reduce his salary to $1. The board also voted to hold a meeting of the party's full governing body for January 8th in Tallahassee when a vote is expected to remove him. A woman claims that Ziegler raped her in October. According to an affidavit, she and Christian agreed to have a sexual encounter that included Christian's wife, Bridget Ziegler, who co-founded the group, Moms for Liberty. When the alleged victim learned that Bridget could not make it, she changed her mind and canceled with Christian. She says he then entered her home and assaulted her. Christian Ziegler says the incident was consensual. Police are still investigating the allegations and have not charged him with a crime. If you're a survivor of sexual assault, REINN offers support through the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800 656 Hope or online.rainn.org. That's R-A-I-N-N.
♦
The family of an Israeli man who fled Hamas captivity and Gaza before being killed by confused Israeli troops buried him yesterday while his brothers blamed the government and military for his death. The 26-year-old was taken hostage by Hamas from a kibbutz in the October 7th attack. He and two other Israelis waved a white flag at Israeli troops on Friday, but were shot and killed. More than a hundred hostages remain in captivity, and many of their family members have accused the Israeli government of abandoning them by failing to negotiate their release. Demands inside Israel that the country reach an agreement with Hamas militants for a ceasefire have intensified. On Saturday, protestors set up tents outside the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, pledging to remain there until the government resumes hostage negotiations with Hamas. Meanwhile, inside Gaza, humanitarian conditions remain dire. Though telecommunications are being restored after a four day communications blackout, the longest of several outages that have hampered humanitarian efforts.
♦
Former President Donald Trump drew criticism when he told Fox News earlier this month that he wouldn't be a dictator except on day one of a second administration if that were to come. But many attendees at his campaign rally Saturday at the University of New Hampshire said the comment was a joke meant to provoke his rivals and that they're not concerned he would truly lead as a dictator. More than a dozen people who spoke with USA Today outside the rally said they believe the presidency will give Trump enough power to accomplish what's most important to them. That ranges from strengthening the economy to changes to migration policy and preventing US participation in foreign conflicts.
Some attendees told USA Today that their concerns about democracy aren't with Trump, but with the current president, Joe Biden. According to recent polling from the Associated Press and Newark Center for Public Affairs Research, a majority of both Republicans and Democrats feel democracy is at risk in the 2024 election, but for different reasons, 87% of Democrats said that Trump will threaten democracy and 82% of Republicans said that Biden would. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
♦
Hunter Biden faces a slew of tax charges after he was indicted earlier this month in a California federal court. I caught up with USA Today Justice Department Correspondent Aysha Bagchi for the latest in the case and what his defense strategy might look like going forward. Hi there, Aysha.
Aysha Bagchi:
Hi, Taylor. Good to see you.
Taylor Wilson:
Good to see you. Thanks for hopping back on. So let's just start with this. What charges does Hunter Biden actually face here?
Aysha Bagchi:
Hunter Biden is facing some really serious charges now. He faces nine tax charges, six of those are misdemeanors, three of them are felonies. Combined together, they carry a total maximum penalty of up to 17 years in prison. He's also facing some separate gun charges that carry a maximum penalty of up to 25 years in prison. Those maximum penalties aren't likely, but still, these are very serious charges.
Taylor Wilson:
And what's the defense strategy look like for Hunter and his legal team on this?
Aysha Bagchi:
I've been talking to tax law experts, including former tax federal prosecutors, and they've talked to him about a few ideas of things Hunter Biden's legal team might do. One of them is to argue about his drug addiction, which is really well known actually in the indictment itself. Prosecutors talk about things that Hunter Biden describes in his 2021 memoir about all the drugs he was on during some of the tax years in question, especially 2018, which is the year tied to the tax felonies. He describes a lifestyle where sometimes he was 24 hours a day doing drugs every 15 minutes, crack cocaine. His defense may argue that that kind of undermines the prosecutor's ability to prove that these alleged crimes were actual crimes because they weren't willful. Did he really understand what he was doing? And the tricky interesting thing about tax crimes specifically is that there's actually a higher bar of willfulness than you face with other federal crimes. Tax prosecutors have to prove that there was an intentional violation of a known legal duty, that he knew what his legal responsibility was and he intentionally violated it.
So his lawyers might point to his drug use to say he was really out of it. He didn't know what he was doing at this time, so he can't be held responsible under criminal statutes. Another thing that they might talk about, in fact, his attorney, Abbe Lowell, has already seemed to be hinting at it in public statements, is the idea of selective prosecution. It's against any American's constitutional rights for you to be targeted based on a protected classification for prosecution. So they might say, Hunter Biden is being targeted based on a protected classification like political party. Maybe he's being targeted because he's a Democrat or because he's associated with a Democrat. I did talk to a couple legal experts about this. This can be an uphill battle to really prove that that was the case. It's on the defendant to show that this is the reason you're being targeted and that it has to do with a protected classification. It can't just be that he was famous, but he could say that he's being selectively prosecuted and that violates his constitutional rights.
Taylor Wilson:
Is all that related to why the defense team might really try to keep a lot of evidence out of the case?
Aysha Bagchi:
Somewhat. I mean, with the drug evidence, actually, you can see how they would have competing incentives. They might want to get some of that in because they might want to show that he wasn't really in his right mind and so he didn't know what he was doing and he's not criminally responsible. But with other forms of evidence, that's really true. I mean, the indictment talks about, things about Hunter Biden's lifestyle at this time, alleging that he was spending lots of money, millions of dollars a year when he wasn't paying his taxes, including spending money on drugs, escorts, hotels, cars, clothes, lots of things other than his taxes. And you can see how they might want to paint a picture that puts him in a really bad personal light if this comes to a trial. And Hunter Biden's team is probably going to argue that a lot of that stuff is unfairly prejudicial, that it doesn't have much to do with whether he actually committed these crimes. So yeah, I expect a lot of wrangling over what evidence actually makes it into court.
Taylor Wilson:
And Aysha, going forward, what's the timeline look like in this case?
Aysha Bagchi:
Things are always a bit uncertain, but most people I talked to told me that they expect this to take some time. I mean, it did look, if you go back just some months, like all of Hunter Biden's criminal issues might be wrapped up really quickly. He had a plea deal in place with prosecutors where he was going to plead to misdemeanors and go through a diversion program and maybe avoid any jail or prison time on both the tax and gun charges. And basically that plea deal fell apart. And given that, people said to me they don't expect something similar to happen again necessarily, where things are going to wrap up quickly.
The time that it takes to get to trial really depends a lot on the judge you get. They get to kind of determine the timeline. But given that Hunter Biden is probably going to bring up a lot of different defenses, this could go on for more than a year before you're seeing any potential trial. Now, the curve ball there is the politics of it all. Joe Biden is facing a presidential campaign coming up and who knows how that'll impact calculations about how to wrap this up as quickly as they can, but we could be in for a long call.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Aysha Bagchi covers the Justice Department for USA Today. Thanks as always, Aysha.
Aysha Bagchi:
Thanks, Taylor.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
From natural disaster and war to high profile moments in politics and sports, a lot happened in 2023, and photojournalists across the USA Today network managed to capture much of it. I spoke with Andy Scott, director of photo and video news gathering at USA Today about some of the year's major themes and more. Andy, thanks for hopping on The Excerpt. So good to have you on.
Andy Scott:
Great to be here.
Taylor Wilson:
Why is USA Today's photo gallery so unique?
Andy Scott:
Yeah, well, it's a great question. Our package, which just published this morning, is a really great reflection of the work by our photo journalists across the network. It's a representation of more than 80 of our photographers from what they captured over the course of the year on almost equal distribution between men and women from more than 50 of our outlets. And that's from outlets large and small across the US from news events that are very local at level to some of the largest news events of the year. The fact that we have journalists living and working in all these communities lends a level of authenticity to the work that they're producing that's not necessarily reflected in other publications.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, absolutely. So Andy, what were some overall themes that really stood out to you in photojournalism this year?
Andy Scott:
I think like a lot of years we have images of big breaking news stories, of tragic events, of local sports, big time national sports, entertainment, images of joy, sorrow. I mean, it really runs the gamut.
Taylor Wilson:
What do these photos show us about how America is changing?
Andy Scott:
I think the images in our presentation really are a reflection of our time. There are things that are very unifying in our country, but there are things that are also very divisive. There's a lot of hot button political issues that are really boiling up both locally and nationally, that we are covering in local communities, we're covering in Washington DC that are reflective in the news around say tragic shootings like the Covenant shooting in Nashville, that spurred a political movement of its own. It became a larger event than just the tragic shooting itself.
Taylor Wilson:
And Andy, going into 2024, it's a big year, we know for many reasons, but what are you keeping an eye on to continue telling stories visually in the new year?
Andy Scott:
Well, I think obviously 2024 is going to be a very interesting and challenging year for journalism and journalists, photojournalist around the country. We're deep in a political cycle and we're kicking off caucuses in primary season. The middle of the summer we're going to have two big political conventions where both parties will be coalescing around their candidate. And then we're going to be going into a national election in the fall. And that's just to look at the political realm. You've got the Olympics in the summer, which is always something that garners a lot of attention from around the world. And news that develops throughout the year that we can't really anticipate.
Taylor Wilson:
Andy Scott is director of photo and video news gathering at USA Today. Andy, we look forward to checking out this gallery and thanks for hopping on and talking about the pictures.
Andy Scott:
Absolutely. Thanks a lot.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
And pace yourselves, listeners, this is the final stretch of 2023. You can do it. Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you use a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.