Following 24 hours that have shocked communities across Northwest Arkansas and the country, the Duggar family has broken its silence.
On Friday afternoon, various members of this famous and polarizing household reacted to the most damaging and disturbing scandal to date involving their family:
The arrest of thelr eldest child, Josh Duggar.
On child pornography charges.
Earlier this week, Duggar was arrested by federal agents in Arkansas.
At the time, it was not known on what charges the father of six was beind held.
On Friday morning, however, Josh appeared before a judge via Zoom and pleaded not guilty to charges of receiving and possessing child pornography.
The former reality star allegedly received this material in May of 2019, downloading all kinds of inappropriate pictures and videos, seemingly from the location of his former used car dealership.
This is why agents raided that property in November of 2019.
It's not clear why authorities took so long to arrest him, but evidently the Duggars knew it was coming.
Duggar’s trial date is scheduled for Tuesday, July 6.
He will remain in custody at least for another week, until a detention hearing on May 5.
It would not be surprising if he were denied bail once again at that point, given the severity of these charges.
The 33-year-old is accused of downloading images of minors below the age of 12.
If convicted, Duggar faces up to 20 years of imprisonment and fines up to $250,000 on each count.
He may never see the outside of a cell again.
Obviously, his family is shaken by the news, whether they knew he was in big trouble or not.
Now they've broken their silence on the matter.
“We appreciate your continued prayers for our family at this time,” Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar said in a statement after the charges were made public.
"The accusations brought against Joshua today are very serious."
"It is our prayer that the truth, no matter what it is, will come to light, and that this will all be resolved in a timely manner."
"We love Josh and Anna and continue to pray for their family."
Anna, of course, announced five days before her husband's arrest that she was pregnant with the couple's seventh child.
She remained by her husband's side even after he confessed to having multiple affairs back in 2015.
She did so also after he claimed to have a pornography addiction that landed him in rehab six years ago.
Jim Bob and Michelle, meanwhile, basically covered up their oldest child's molestation scandal way back when he was 14 years old.
The public discovered (also in 2015) that Josh had inappropriately touched five little girls when he was a young teenager.
Two of those girls were his sisters.
In response, Jim Bob and Michelle sent him to some kind of counseling program that was run by a family friend.
And ... done.
That was all they really did.
Handle the matter "in house."
Describing it as "one of the darkest times our family has ever gone through," Jim Bob told Fox News at the time that he and Michelle put safeguards in place to make sure nothing else happened.
"We watched him like all the time," said Jim Bob of his response to his son's behavior.
"I took him to work with me," he went on.
"We just poured our life into him."
Jim Bob described Josh as a "changed person" in this same interview with Megyn Kelly back then.
Sort of ironic to read those words all these years later, isn't it?
Ironic and extremely troubling, to say the absolute least.
Josh’s wife, Anna, has already given birth to six children. She announced on April 23 that they she is pregannt their seventh child.
“It’s a GIRL!!!!!” she captioned a video of the sex reveal via Instagram.
“We are overjoyed to announce baby seven is on the way and we can’t wait to hold her in our arms this fall!”
She has not yet commented on this new and damaging development.
However, Jill Duggar and husband Derick Dillard have spoken out.
“We just found out this information yesterday,” the couple said in a short statement of their own on Friday, April 30. “It is very sad.”
On that point, we can all agree strongly.
Josh is the father of Mackynzie, 11, Michael, 9, Marcus, 7, Meredith, 5, Mason, 3, and Maryella, 17 months.
We keep these children in our prayers.