It was not immediately clear why the sedan smashed into an SUV that was part of the motorcade. The driver was surrounded by agents who had their guns drawn.

A sedan smacked into a Secret Service vehicle that was part of President Joe Biden’s motorcade in Delaware on Sunday night.

Following the crash, U.S. Secret Service agents whisked Biden into a vehicle.

Agents quickly surrounded the sedan with guns drawn and aimed at its driver, who had his hands up. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

Special Agent Steve Kopek, a Secret Service spokesperson, said the vehicle that struck was securing Biden’s motorcade route.

    • ivanafterall@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      A car accident is horrifying enough. Can you imagine realizing you just hit the presidential motorcade? In Delaware?

    • FireTower@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      On the other hand, the driver probably has a uniquely high chance of a presidential pardon. Seeing how the president is already aware of his case.

        • FireTower@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Good eye skimmed over the Delaware part. Assuming it was a DUI (and not an intentional attack) it’d be state jurisdiction.

          • Ook the Librarian@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Yeah, he might catch some federal flack, but it seems most of his issues will be state affairs unless this wasn’t just hitting the worst possible car.

            Even if he were a drunk terrorist, the feds would handle the attack, and as long he isn’t charged federally (if one even could be), the state can still slap an everyday DUI there.

      • CluckN@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        If he gets pardoned and it happens again can he use the same pardon twice?

        • FireTower@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Non-joke answer: Pardons are for a person’s actions not the person in general. He would need a second pardon.

            • FireTower@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Not sure what exactly you want me to touch on. But pardons can’t be for future actions.

              Let’s say you rob a bank and get pardoned. Having received that pardon doesn’t mean you can go rob that bank again free of charge.

              If you had robbed that bank again after getting pardoned you’d face prison time. But if the president happens to believe in second third chances and grants you a second pardon for the second robbery you could walk free.

              • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Gotcha, ya I didn’t think it was like omnibus/universal immunity for future offences aha. That would be like…presidential immunity and even that’s not supposed to be a forever thing, shouldn’teven be allowed during or should be heavily qualified

                Edit: found it interesting that pardons can actually halt the prosecutorial effort altogether, like prior to a verdict. Maybe there should be a cooling off period like requiring all oending litigation to play out and then by then see where everybody’s at.

                Justice delayed/disrupted ⚖️ right?

                • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  Yeah the idea behind a pardon is that the head executive is basically saying that you’ve been punished enough and that no further prosecution will occur. It’s similar to how they can stay a death penalty. But the big downside is that accepting a pardon means accepting legal guilt. You can’t keep fighting a case saying you weren’t ever guilty.

                  For an example of how far pardons go look at Nixon. The case was still being built, and Ford (idiotically) deemed that proceeding with a trial of a former president over election misdeeds would do too much damage to the nation’s trust in its political system. Nixon didn’t stand trial. Nixon only pled guilty by acceptance of the pardon. But because of that, had he been able to run again (he’d hit his term limit) and tried, he would’ve had a court case over if his crimes prohibited him from running again, same as if he’d gone to prison for them.

      • Kbobabob@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Would this be considered a federal offense? Seems like a local thing. The president can only pardon federal crimes.

        • First
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          11 months ago

          That’s not true, he can also pardon his French.

        • FireTower@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          There’s a couple ways they could make this a federal offence depending on the circumstances, ranging from destruction of federal property (assuming Biden was in a gov car) to attempted assassination of the active US president. Again depending on the circumstances.

      • MagicShel
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        11 months ago

        Yeah I was hoping for an update, but I just realized the Secret Service is going to be up this guy’s ass like a colonoscopy for a long time before we hear anything.

    • 21Cabbage@lemmynsfw.com
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      11 months ago

      Decidedly one of the worst hangovers anyone’s ever had. “What happened last ni-oh my God”

    • chitak166@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      To be fair, he shouldn’t suffer any greater punishment than if he had hit into anyone else.

  • KISSmyOS@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    My prediction: It was really just an accident, but they’ll throw the book at the driver and lock him up for several years.

    • EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Well yeah it’s not like a planned and malicious attack on congress, that only gets you a few months and that’s hundreds of elected officials.

      This is what, one old dude - accidental collision must be worth six years.

  • aluminium@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Shoutout ma man biden still rockin that iPhone X or XS. You don’t always have to have the latest and greatest.

    • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      You don’t always have to have the latest and greatest.

      That’s why we have Biden

          • arin@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Very odd rule. I just passed 35 recently and i feel like I’m slowly dying already. Feels like a struggle to learn new things

          • poppy@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            Can one run for president “early” if one will be old enough during election/potential presidency?

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              In theory, you just have to be 35 to be President.

              If she ran, she would turn 35 a month before election day and would be 35+3 months when sworn in.

              The youngest elected US President to date was JFK, who was 43.

              Theodore Roosevelt was 42 when he assumed office after McKinley was assassinated.

            • ExLisper@linux.community
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              11 months ago

              If you’re republican you can run when you’re 20 yo Canadian and just claim funding furthers didn’t really mean it like that.

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        11 months ago

        Wouldn’t the latest president be Washington?

    • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
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      On the other end, I remember when Obama came into office and there were no smartphones certified for meeting the security regulations, the USSS & NSA had to work with RIM to build a custom hardened blackberry because he wouldn’t give it up.

      He was stuck with that blackberry until his last year or two in office and complained publicly that iPhones weren’t allowed yet lol

    • ByteWizard@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      No better way to keep a poor person poor than trying to appear rich.

      • hh93@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Case in point “luxury” clothes that cost insane amounts of money just because they have labels printed on them for everyone to see and not because.the fabric is particularly great.

        Sure it’s good quality but not better than what you get for half the price and not even close to the custom tailored stuff the really rich people wear…

        Really don’t understand how people spend a fortune to walk around advertising for Gucci, LV, etc…

    • TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world
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      Yes getting into an accident and then immediately surrounded by aggressive machines of death pointed at you… Sounds like a blast

      • JPSound@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’m certainly no A2 lovin back the blue gun nut but if there’s any group that I feel completely fine with having guns, it’s the president’s secret service. These folks are held to the highest standards with the highest training guarding arguably the most important political figure in the world. They are not your average frumpy ass cop with a drinking problem and anger management issues. These sneaky fuckers are hand picked from the best of the best. You never hear about the secret service gunning someone down because they were just in a bad mood that day.

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
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          Lol ok put your dicks away, the Secret Service (in the past decade or two at least) has been laughably unprofessional and, in some cases, derelict in their duty. In fact, the scandals are too numerous to even just point to a single one.

          Just Google “Secret Service scandals” and take a look for yourself. Make sure to pay attention to the dates on the articles to see how long they have had these problems.

        • TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world
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          And after you’re disoriented from an accident, you know none of that. All you know is something happened. Now you’re covered with airbag powder, your ears are ringing, blood maybe, and now an armed gang surrounds your car and starts screaming at you.

          No that’s not COOL. That’s a dystopia. If you arm your civilians to the teeth, the violent reactions required for any situation escalate dramatically.

          • Crowfiend@lemmy.world
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            Bruh it wasn’t just an accident. This was the presidential motorcade and secret service. Literally everybody in a 10-block radius knew who was there, and whether they had permission to be there.

            This person drove their car into the motorcade, and then kept going. Secret service’s job is to protect the president, and as far as anybody knew, this was someone after the president. They weren’t harassing some idiot that was driving drunk, they were pursuing and engaging a very real potential threat to the leader of the nation.

            I like how through these comments, you’ve called other users “stupid Americans” and you don’t even know anything about the event in question. Good job kid.

            • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
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              I remember when I lived in Denver and Dubya was president. I225 was completely shut down and I was stuck in a huge traffic jam on the dam road just trying to get around that big old empty highway to get home. One does not simply drive into the presidential motorcade. I mean maybe a massive screwup happened but it seems incredibly unlikely that this guy didn’t do it on purpose.

          • lingh0e@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            This you?

            No that’s called actions having consequences. Sometimes when you’re a victim, it’s because you’re a dipshit and you deserve it. Not everything is 100% black and white and “victim blaming” should absolutely happen when it is deserved.

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        11 months ago

        He said to see the footage. Not to be the guy driving. More of you need to think 5 minutes before actually writing a comment.

        • TechNerdWizard42@lemmy.world
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          It’s the same thing. You want to see someone be terrorized versus someone being terrorized. Americans are fucking stupid.

          • Crowfiend@lemmy.world
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            So do you never watch modern action movies then? Or even just the daily news? Wanting to see how something happened doesn’t mean you want it to happen again or at all, but knowing how it happened can prevent it from happening again.

            Americans are fucking stupid

            Yes, as a whole, we are, but in this situation, the only one who’s stupid, is the person who’s saying, “close your eyes and cover your ears and it doesn’t exist.”

            Edit: All these chucklechodes hyper-fixating on the example I used instead of what I was saying. Not wanting to see something on the principal of ‘it’s bad’ is the height of ignorance. Instead, you watch so you can learn from something. In this case, someone discouraging review of the incident, sets a tone of incompetent malpractice that is the exact reason why this world is the way it is.

      • Lionel@endlesstalk.org
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        No, you misunderstand. I want to see the guy who managed to fuck up bad enough surrounded by secret service, not myself.

  • SCB@lemmy.world
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    Imagine you have a fender bender, and while you’re processing it and thinking “oh fuck where did I put my insurance card” as you hastily dig through your glove box, you look up and there’s a dozen dudes with suits and guns surrounding you

    And then you have to go to work afterward lol

    “Hey Bob, how was your drive in this morning?”

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      You really think they’re letting that driver go to work any time soon?

      They’re probably still just gettting started with the probes. And I don’t mean that… figuratively. We’ll not just figuratively.

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    “Why are you losing to trump in the polls?”. This is a reflection on the people … Might add well ask “why are people stupid Mr President?”… But what do I know, I did not stayed at a Holiday inn last night.