--:-- Michelle Martin: Hello, it's Michelle Martin. And Dave Martinez. On this Monday after Thanksgiving, a quick note that it's almost Giving Tuesday, a global day of generosity. That means it's the perfect time to support the causes and organizations you love, like us here at NPR. NPR is public media, always free and accessible to everyone. If you've given to NPR, thank you for supporting our work. And if you haven't, or maybe it's been a while, well, there's no time like the present to support us by signing up for NPR+. Your tax-deductible donation not only unlocks sponsor-free listening to every episode of Up First, but it also gives you perks and even some bonus episodes for more than 25 NPR podcasts. Join us today at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org. That link is in our episode notes. All right, on to the show.
--:-- Michelle Martin: President Biden has pardoned his son Hunter, something he previously said he would not do. I said I'd abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him. All right, so what changed his mind?
--:-- A Martinez: I'm Michelle Martin. That's A. Martinez. And this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Trump plans to replace the director of the FBI with a staunch ally, one who says he wants to destroy the agency from within. I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Can Kash Patel make it through the Senate confirmation process?
--:-- Michelle Martin: And a rebel offensive in Syria reignites the country's long-running civil war. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.
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--:-- Michelle Martin: President Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter Biden. The president issued the full and unconditional pardon seven weeks before he leaves office and after the president previously said he would not do this. For more, we're joined now by NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas. So, Ryan, what does this pardon cover?
--:-- Ryan Lucas: So this is, as was said at the top, it's a full and unconditional pardon for offenses Hunter Biden has committed or may have committed from January 1st, 2014 through December 1st, 2024, so yesterday. Specifically, that includes the two cases brought against Hunter Biden by Justice Department Special Counsel David Weiss. In one of those cases, a jury in Delaware convicted Hunter of lying on a federal background check form about his addiction to crack cocaine when he bought a gun in 2018. And in the other Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to failing to pay at least a million in taxes. Sentencing in both of those cases was scheduled for later this month. He could have faced prison time. But now, of course, he has been pardoned.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So what's the explanation for this? What has President Biden said?
--:-- Ryan Lucas: So in a statement put out last night by the White House, President Biden did explain his thinking here. And what he said is that when he took office, he promised not to meddle or interfere with the Justice Department. And he says that he kept his word on that, even as his son, he says, was, quote, being selectively and unfairly prosecuted. President Biden says Hunter was charged only after Republicans in Congress, he says, instigated the prosecutions to try to hurt the president politically. And he says any reasonable person would look at the facts of these legal cases and conclude that Hunter was unfairly singled out.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Now, President Biden said he believes in the justice system, but he also believes that what he calls raw politics infected the process in this instance and led to what he called a miscarriage of justice. So he made this decision to pardon his son. And Biden ended by saying that he hopes that Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision.
--:-- Ryan Lucas: Any word from Hunter Biden about this?
--:-- Ryan Lucas: Yeah, he put out a statement last night, too, in which he says that he has admitted and taken responsibility for mistakes that he made when he was struggling with addiction. He says that those mistakes have been used to publicly humiliate him, to publicly humiliate his family, he says, for political support. But he says that he has been sober now for more than five years despite those challenges. And he said he will not take this clemency here for granted. He said he'll devote the life that he has now, the one that he has rebuilt since his recovery from addiction, to help those who are still sick and still suffering.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Now, President-elect Donald Trump has criticized Hunter Biden over his business dealings and also his personal dealings and his legal trouble. So how has President-elect Trump responded to this pardon?
--:-- Ryan Lucas: Well, certainly not positively. President-elect Trump put out a short post on social media in which he asked whether the pardon includes what he calls January 6th hostages. That's what he calls his supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. More than 1,200 have either pled guilty or been convicted at federal trial in connection with that attack. Trump has vowed to pardon them. It's also worth pointing out that Trump himself faced criticism for pardons that he doled out to several political allies and friends in his first term. That includes his one-time campaign manager, Paul Manafort, Republican operative Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, and Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. Charles Kushner, by the way, Trump has selected to be the next ambassador to France in the president-elect's incoming administration.
--:-- Michelle Martin: President-elect Trump says he'll nominate ally Kash Patel to serve as the next director of the FBI. That's setting up a move to replace the current director, Chris Wray, whom Trump appointed during his first term in office. FBI director served for 10 years, and Wray has two years left on his term. Patel has been a fierce critic of the country's top law enforcement agency and has been vocal about his plans to change it. We're joined now by NPR justice correspondent Kerry Johnson. So Kerry, tell us more about Kash Patel. What are his qualifications for this job?
--:-- Kerry Johnson: Patel worked as a public defender and as a federal prosecutor for a while, but he's really best known for his unyielding loyalty to Donald Trump. And he's been controversial even among some Trump supporters. Patel's falsely said Trump won the 2020 election. He's helped raise doubts about the investigation of Russian election interference in 2016. And for a time, he served as an aide in the Pentagon during Trump's first term. But when Trump first proposed the idea of installing Patel at the FBI back in those days, then Attorney General Bill Barr said it would be over his dead body because Patel did not have the qualifications for a job that important and that sensitive.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So what he been saying about those institutions?
--:-- Kerry Johnson: Patel's been clear about wanting to clean house inside the DOJ and the FBI top ranks. Here's what he had to say earlier this year on the podcast, The Sean Ryan Show. I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Patel says he wants to shrink the government and do the same thing at the DOJ. He's also said he's ready to use law enforcement power to go after people who oppose Trump with prosecutions and civil lawsuits. And that could include members of Congress, people who prosecuted Donald Trump and reporters.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Now, FBI director is a 10-year job. There's already someone at that job, Carrie. So what might happen to this person?
--:-- Kerry Johnson: That's right. Trump chose Chris Wray, a Republican and a member of the Conservative Federalist Society, after Trump fired Jim Comey in 2017. It's been rare to fire an FBI director with time left on his term, but it has happened before. And now it's not clear whether Wray would stick around to be fired in January or whether he might resign first. Over the weekend, the FBI said Chris Wray, the director, is focused on the FBI workforce and on protecting the American people from threats.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Now, becoming FBI director requires approval from the Senate. So what's the reaction been so far from lawmakers?
--:-- Kerry Johnson: Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican in line to lead the Judiciary Committee next year, did not explicitly offer support for or against Patel. Grassley said on X he wants to see more transparency from the FBI. And he says Patel needs to prove to the Senate he's ready to reform the agency and restore public trust. But other lawmakers did not sound so sure. Republican senators are going to have the power to sink this choice, just as they did recently with the idea of putting Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz in charge of the Justice Department. And for their part, Democrats on Capitol Hill say Trump is following through on his campaign threat to try to turn the Justice Department into a political operation bent on revenge.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Even if Kash Patel does not make it through the process to become the FBI director, this choice signals the DOJ and the FBI are in for a very rough ride next year.
--:-- Kerry Johnson: NPR's Carrie Johnson. Carrie, thanks.
--:-- Michelle Martin: My pleasure.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Rebel militias made territorial gains in Syria over the weekend. In response, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to, quote, crush the rebels who seized much of the country's second most populous city, Aleppo. The country's brutal 13-year civil war has long been at a stalemate, and this renewed fighting poses the biggest challenge to the ruling regime in years. NPR international correspondent Ruth Sherlock joins us now. So Ruth, what happened?
--:-- Ruth Sherlock: Good morning. Yeah, well, the rebels launched this surprise offensive and made sudden massive gains. You know, the war in Syria, it's been stalemated for many years. But then in just about 72 hours, opposition militias seized the huge city of Aleppo and a string of villages around there. And then they pressed even further south, racing down towards the central city of Hama. Rebel General Ahmed Hamzi talked to me about how quickly this all happened. He's saying they broke through the regime's first line of defence, then the second line, and then the third. Even the rebels seemed shocked by their successes, and there was this brief moment where people thought they might be able to carry on towards the capital Damascus. But then by Sunday the offensive had slowed. The government says it taken back some territory in central Syria. And there also videos now that seem to show convoys of militias backed by the regime's ally, Iran, coming down from Iraq into Syria to help President Assad. The regime's other ally, Russia, has stepped up airstrikes on rebel-held areas. But for now, rebels still hold most of Aleppo city and large swathes of more territory.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Okay, so tell us who these rebels are.
--:-- Ruth Sherlock: Well, it's an umbrella group, some of whom are backed by Turkey. The biggest in this group is an Islamist militia. It's called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. And it has some members who have had links to al-Qaeda. And for this reason, the US and Russia have designated them a terror organization. But HTS has really tried to rebrand itself as a less hardline group, though it is still religiously conservative. And, you know, there are some, many in Syria, who would welcome a rebel takeover because Syria is run by a brutal dictatorship. But this is also a country with lots of different religious sects, and there are some people who are terrified to see these gains that these Islamist factions are making.
--:-- Michelle Martin: We managed to reach one woman in the government-held city of Hama, and she's from the minority Alawite sect. That's the same as the Assad families. And she was too afraid to give her name. She says she's standing on her balcony, watching people streaming out of their homes to their cars, packing and preparing to escape as they hear the news of a rebel advance towards them. There have been sectarian massacres committed by regime militias and opposition forces in this war. Rebels here are trying to show their accepting of different groups. In Aleppo, in the Christian neighborhood this weekend, when some fighters knocked down a Christmas tree on the street, the militia made a point of putting it back up and filming itself doing it.
--:-- Ruth Sherlock: Now, why is all this happening now? Well, one reason is that Assad's key ally, Russia, is especially stretched in Ukraine. And then there's also been intense Israeli airstrikes on the regime's other ally, the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. So neither has been able to protect the regime as it has in the past in this war. And Damascus, therefore, is more exposed than it has been for many, many years.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It's MPR international correspondent Ruth Sherlock. Ruth, thank you.
--:-- Ruth Sherlock: Thank you.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And that's Up First for Monday, December 2nd. I'm Amy Martinez. And I'm Michelle Martin. And don't forget, please take our audience survey. This will help us make this podcast better. And it will give you a chance to tell us more about what you like or don't like. Go to npr.org slash Up First survey.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Dana Farrington, James Heider, Lisa Thompson, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziat Butch, Nina Dumas, Katie Klein. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is Carly Strange.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Join us again tomorrow.
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