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Recreational Drug use is a new and spectacular scourge upon mankind and youth in particular. Leandro De Niro is just one of thousands of youth who die every day from the madness of recreational drug use. Is there no way to stop it? Is there any desire to stop it? It seems we are sacrificing a generation of children to this madness.
Robert De Niro’s daughter Drena claims son Leandro died from
fentanyl-laced pills
By Emily Crane and Craig McCarthy, NYPost
July 5, 2023 3:53pm Updated
‘You can’t spell love without Leo,’ Leandro De Niro Rodriguez’s dad says
while escorting grieving mom
Robert De Niro’s 19-year-old grandson Leandro De Niro Rodriguez died after taking pills laced with fentanyl, his heartbroken mom has claimed.
The teenager’s death is being probed as a possible overdose after his lifeless body was discovered inside a Lower Manhattan apartment Sunday with a white, powdery substance and drug paraphernalia nearby, police sources said.
While the toxicology report is still pending, his grief-stricken mom, Drena De Niro, has alleged someone knowingly sold her son tainted drugs.
“Someone sold him fentanyl-laced pills that they knew were laced yet still sold them to him,” Drena, 51, wrote on Instagram Tuesday in response to a comment asking about the cause of her son’s death.
“So for all these people still f–-ing around selling and buying this s–t, my son is gone forever,” she added.
The city Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has yet to disclose an official cause of death, but sources said NYPD detectives in Narcotics Borough Manhattan South have been brought in to probe the case — a sign they could be investigating who, if anyone, provided the drugs.
Leandro De Niro Rodriguez, pictured with his mom Drena and grandfather Robert De Niro,
was found dead in a Manhattan apartment Sunday.
NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told reporters last month that fentanyl is now “laced in probably 98% of the drugs” in the Big Apple.
“Fentanyl is in everything now, everything,” Essig said. “Now people have low tolerance, that’s why they’re overdosing so much.”
A view of the Lower Manhattan building where Leandro De Niro was found dead.
Matthew McDermott
Meanwhile, Drena — who is De Niro’s eldest daughter with his ex-wife Diahnne Abbott — has shared several tributes on Instagram in the wake of her son’s death.
“I can barely type through my tears but all the love, the messages, calls, texts, emails, the friends and family that held me up these last 24 hrs I’ve not been able to respond yet but we’re grateful for the all your love and condolences,” she wrote Monday evening.
“None of this is right or fair and my heart hurts in a way I never knew possible while still breathing and barely functioning. Leo my darling I love you today like the first day I held you in my arms.”
She continued: “The same man that picked us up from the hospital when you were born drove us to the funeral home where I touched and held you for the last time.”
Her Oscar-winning father issued a statement of his own on Monday, saying: “I’m deeply distressed by the passing of my beloved grandson Leo. We’re greatly appreciative of the condolences from everyone. We ask that we please be given privacy to grieve our loss of Leo.”
Of course, the First Son is very well known to have, or to have had, cocaine addictions. Did he drop the bag of cocaine found in the White House? Did someone drop it for him? The WH spokeswoman and others refuse to say explicitly that it wasn't Hunter's drugs.
In the second story below, we are introduced to a sweet little girl who was the product of Hunter and, I believe, a stripper at the time. Were drugs involved in this relationship? Is that why the President and his wife have nothing to do with this adorable grandchild? It's insidious how drugs affect the lives of children, insidious and tragic.
Cocaine runaround at the White House
by Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent |
Washington Examiner, Daily Memo
July 07, 2023 03:41 PM
Republicans in Congress are starting to ask questions about last weekend's discovery of a baggie of cocaine in the White House. On Friday morning, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), best known as the chief investigator of Hunter Biden on Capitol Hill, sent a letter to Kimberly Cheatle, head of the Secret Service. "The presence of illegal drugs in the White House is unacceptable and a shameful moment in the White House's history," Comer wrote. "This incident has raised additional concerns with the committee regarding the level of security maintained at the White House." Comer requested a briefing for the committee by no later than next week.
Most of what the public knows, or thinks it knows, has come from unnamed sources in news reports. It has been hard to get anyone in the White House to reveal any details about what happened.
President Joe Biden himself has said nothing. On Wednesday, during a photo-op with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, a reporter asked, "Mr. President, do you know how cocaine got into the White House?" Biden ignored the question.
At the same day's White House briefing, spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre tried to push the whole issue onto the Secret Service. She said the cocaine was discovered in "a heavily traveled area where many ... West Wing visitors come through." Beyond that, Jean-Pierre said: "I just don't have anything more to share."
Jean-Pierre offered just one more bit of information: "The president and the first lady and their family were not here this weekend. ... They left on Friday and returned just yesterday [Tuesday]." That seemed a clear effort to distance not only the president from any of the mess but, more specifically, to exonerate the president's son Hunter Biden, who spends a lot of time at the White House and has been infamously addicted to cocaine at times in the past.
Beyond that, Jean-Pierre referred reporters to the Secret Service. "As you know, this is under the purview of the Secret Service," she said. She stuck to her talking points so tightly that she repeated the word "purview" 13 times in the briefing. "This is in their purview. ... This is under their purview. ... It's under their purview." And so on. And, of course, the Secret Service wasn't answering questions, either, so the whole exercise was futile, from the standpoint of the public's right to know.
What the White House would not answer was more revealing than what it would answer. On Thursday morning, the president flew to Columbia, South Carolina, for a political event. On the way, deputy spokesman Andrew Bates held an off-camera briefing for the press. He built on Jean-Pierre's nonanswers from the day before but added a note of sincerity that appeared designed to reassure those who might have thought the White House was covering something up.
"I respect there is interest in this," Bates said. "To be transparent with you, I do not have additional information to provide beyond what Karine laid out in the briefing room yesterday, which is: This is something we take seriously. The law enforcement professionals in the Secret Service are investigating after this substance was discovered in a highly traveled area. We're willing to assist in any way needed. Beyond that, I'm going to respect their process."
It was a highly respectful, entirely transparent way to refuse to release any information. But Bates outdid himself with the next question. A reporter brought up the last resident of the White House and asked: "Former President Trump has made some pretty wild posts recently on social media. One of them was the cocaine found in the White House ... had belonged to either the president or his son. Are you willing to say that that's not the case, that they don't belong to them?"
"I don't have a response to that," Bates replied, "because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act."
What? The Hatch Act? That is the 1939 law that bars federal employees from engaging in some political activities. Biden White House spokespeople often use the Hatch Act as a way to dodge questions. But a question about cocaine in the White House? The first thing to note is that there is nothing in the Hatch Act that prevents an administration spokesman from making public details of the discovery of a baggie of cocaine in the White House. Nothing.
The second thing to note is that from there, claiming he could not speak because of the Hatch Act, Bates went on to speak at some length about Trump, thereby brushing up against actual Hatch Act restrictions. "What I will say is that I have noticed there does seem to be some increasing frustration coming from that corner in general," Bates said, with "that corner" apparently referring to the Trump camp. "And I think it is probably rooted in the contrast between their substantive policy records." Bates then touted the Biden record on the economy, jobs, Medicare, and what the White House now calls "Bidenomics." It was a mini-campaign pitch.
Later, Bates refused to promise that the White House would fully inform the public about the cocaine incident. When a reporter asked, "If the Secret Service is able to determine the individual responsible, will the Secret Service and will the White House commit to transparency in this, in making that information public?" It would seem that the simple answer would be, "Yes," but instead, Bates responded, "I'm just not going to engage on hypotheticals about it."
At Friday's briefing, national security adviser Jake Sullivan addressed the issue, specifically talk that the cocaine was found quite close to the White House Situation Room. "The Situation Room is not in use and has not been in use for months because it is under construction," Sullivan said, adding that the White House is using an alternative Situation Room in another part of the complex.
As for the cocaine itself, Sullivan said, "We have rigorous drug testing policies at the White House. We have rigorous drug use policies at the White House. If it involves someone from the White House, the appropriate consequences will ensue."
Even if it's the First Son? Not bloody likely!
A number of news reports suggest that the Secret Service investigation will be finished by early next week. There was word that authorities have finished fingerprint and DNA testing and are going through video from the White House's many surveillance cameras.
Toward the end of Friday's briefing, a reporter re-asked the key question that some Republican see in the cocaine matter: "Can you just say once and for all whether the cocaine belonged to the Biden family?" Jean-Pierre took offense. "There has been some irresponsible reporting about the family," she said. "I've got to call that out here. I have been very clear ... the Biden family was not here. They were not here. They were at Camp David. ... So to ask that question is actually incredibly irresponsible."
A simpler answer — like, "No, the cocaine did not belong to the Biden family," would have been more effective. But like everything else, the public is in the dark at the moment. Judging by statements from the White House, perhaps the public will find out what happens, and perhaps it won't.
For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show -- available on the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found. You can use this link to subscribe.
===================================
White House refuses to answer questions about Biden’s
estranged 4-y/o granddaughter fathered by Hunter
By Patrick Reilly, NYPost
July 5, 2023 9:27pm Updated
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre once again declined to answer questions about President Biden’s estranged granddaughter following a weekend report claiming that aides are told not to acknowledge Hunter’s child with a former stripper.
Jean Pierre was asked about the New York Times’ bombshell report Saturday on 4-year-old Navy Joan Roberts, whom Hunter Biden shares with Arkansas baby mama Lunden Alexis Roberts, at Wednesday’s press briefing.
“There was a story in the New York Times over the weekend about Hunter Biden’s daughter in Arkansas. Does the president acknowledge this little girl as his granddaughter?” a reporter asked.
“I don’t have anything to share from here,” Jean-Pierre bluntly responded.
Why? Did she not know the question was coming?
The White House has refused to answer any questions pertaining to Roberts’ and Hunter Biden’s years-long child support dispute.
White House aides have reportedly been told for years in “strategy meetings” that President Biden only has six grandkids — excluding Hunter’s toddler with Roberts, according to the Times report.
Karine Jean-Pierre again declined to answer questions about President Biden’s estranged granddaughter, Navy Joan, the 4-year-old child of son Hunter and former stripper Lunden Alexis Roberts.
Instagram @lundentownn_
The commander-in-chief has claimed on several occasions that he only has six grandchildren, even making the declaration at the White House’s “Take Your Child to Work Day” event in April.
“I have six grandchildren, and I’m crazy about them. And I speak to them every single day. Not a joke,” he said at the event, according to Fox News.
Biden’s other grandchildren are Naomi, 29, Finnegan, 22, and Maisy, 21, Hunter’s daughters with ex-wife Kathleen Buhle; Natalie, 18, and Robert, 16, the children of his late son Beau Biden and wife Hallie; and 3-year-old Beau, Hunter’s son with current wife Melissa Cohen.
The White House refused to say whether or not President Biden acknowledged his seventh grandchild on Wednesday.
DNCC via Getty Images
Last month, the embattled first son settled his child support case with Roberts.
Many of the financial specifications have been redacted, however, the strange settlement stipulates that Roberts will drop her demand that he allow their daughter to have the Biden family name in exchange for an undisclosed number of paintings to be provided by Hunter for an undisclosed amount of time.
Hunter Biden once denied ever meeting Roberts, but text messages from his abandoned laptop revealed that she was on the payroll of his consulting firm while pregnant with Navy Joan.
Last month, first son Hunter Biden settled his child support case with Roberts.
Getty Images
A paternity test confirmed Roberts’ claims that Hunter was the father of her child.
The younger Biden subsequently agreed to cough up $20,000 in monthly child support payments in 2020.
The most recent settlement allegedly significantly slashed the support to $5,000 a month.
Wow! She has to raise the President's granddaughter on $5,000 a month! Good grief! Sell the paintings Lundin!
The first son also agreed to pay Roberts’ attorney fees and court costs as part of the deal.
Hunter “has never seen or contacted” Navy, while the president and first lady Jill Biden “remain estranged” from her, Roberts claimed in court documents in April.
“Lunden is a great mom, and little Navy is going be fine,” Roberts’ lawyer, Clint Lancaster, told The Post last month.
“The kid has lots of love on the maternal side of the family in Batesville. They are a very, very close family. They adore her and are always going to support her … But I think everybody is disappointed that there’s not more contact [with the Biden family].”
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