Agreement ends months of defiance from president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly
Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly.
The House oversight committee announced on Thursday that the two parties have come to an agreement for Hunter Biden to sit for a deposition on 28 February.
Continue reading...New discussions with president’s son’s attorneys could lead to him testifying in the near future
Efforts by House Republicans to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress appear to be in suspension following new discussions with his attorneys that could lead to the president’s son testifying in the near future.
The development follows Biden’s surprise appearance at a congressional oversight committee meeting last week during which the Republicans complained he was refusing to make himself available in defiance of their subpoena for closed-door testimony.
Continue reading...President’s son switches gears and says he will speak to Congress members seeking to impeach his father
Hunter Biden offered on Friday to comply with any new subpoena and testify in private before House Republicans seeking to impeach his father over alleged but unproven corruption, an attorney for Joe Biden’s son said.
“If you issue a new proper subpoena, now that there is a duly authorised impeachment inquiry, Mr Biden will comply for a hearing or deposition,” Abbe Lowell wrote to James Comer and Jim Jordan, the Republican chairs of the oversight and judiciary committees.
Continue reading...House Republicans rally behind investigation authorized by party-line vote as Democrats stand united in opposition
The House on Wednesday authorized the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, with every Republican rallying behind the politically charged process despite lingering concerns among some in the party that the investigation has yet to produce evidence of misconduct by the US president.
The 221-212 party-line vote put the entire House Republican conference on record in support of an impeachment process that can lead to the ultimate penalty for a president: punishment for what the constitution describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors”, which can lead to removal from office if convicted in a Senate trial.
Continue reading...Ashlee Humphreys, a Northwestern professor, testifies that Giuliani’s claims against plaintiffs have significant effects on their reputations
Ashlee Humphreys said in court that prior to 3 December, 2020, there was almost no search traffic for “Ruby Freeman”, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports.
Afterwards, there was an increase, she said.
Continue reading...Charges come in addition to federal firearms charges and intensify pressure on president’s son ahead of 2024 election
Hunter Biden has been indicted on nine tax charges in California, becoming the second indictment against the president’s son, adding fuel to a scandal that Republicans have been seizing on in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
The state charges on Thursday follow federal firearms charges in Delaware alleging Biden unlawfully obtained a revolver in October 2018 after he falsely stated he was not using narcotic drugs.
Continue reading...After months of Republican investigations, Mike Johnson told Fox he believed GOP conference has enough votes to launch
The US House speaker Mike Johnson signaled on Saturday that Republicans are nearing holding a formal vote to launch an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden.
“I think it’s something we have to do at this juncture,” Johnson said during a Saturday appearance on Fox and Friends Weekend.
Continue reading...House committee has been searching for evidence of influence peddling when Biden was vice-president to Barack Obama
House Republicans issued subpoenas on Wednesday to members of Joe Biden’s family, taking their most aggressive step yet in an impeachment inquiry bitterly opposed by Democrats that is testing the reach of congressional oversight powers.
The long-awaited move by Representative James Comer, the chairman of the House oversight committee, to subpoena the president’s son Hunter and his brother James comes as Republicans hope to gain ground in their nearly year-long investigation. So far, they have failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in any wrongdoing.
Continue reading...Ro Khanna of California threw cold water on House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s capitulation to the hard right over government funding
One of Joe Biden’s key congressional allies has rejected the notion that Republicans can bait the president’s fellow Democrats into embracing an impeachment inquiry as an opportunity for him to be cleared over questions about his son’s business affairs.
“What the American people want is for us to fund government and solve their issues,” the California congressman Ro Khanna said on Fox News Sunday, referring to how some hard-right Republicans have made a Biden impeachment inquiry a condition for them to support new funding that would avoid at least a partial federal government shutdown after 30 September.
Continue reading...FDA approval makes way for vaccines targeting XBB.1.5 sub-variant to be rolled out
Joe Biden’s national security tour of south-east Asia reached Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday, where the president called for stability in the US-China relationship against an increasingly complex diplomatic picture in the region for his country.
“I don’t want to contain China,” Biden said.
I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up, squared away, everybody knows what it’s all about.
On the one hand, we’ve got to pass a continuing resolution. We also have the impeachment issue. And we also have members of the House, led by my good friend, Chip Roy, who are concerned about policy issues. They want riders in the appropriations bills, amendments in the appropriations bills that guarantee some type of security on our Southern border.
There is not a strong connection at this point between the evidence on Hunter Biden and any evidence connecting the president.
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The latest poll, which shows Donald Trump and Joe Biden virtually tied in a hypothetical 2024 rematch, paints a picture of a pessimistic and divided nation ahead of the most unprecedented election in modern times, according to a CNN report.
The survey’s findings pose the question of whether an 80-year-old Biden with a 39% approval rating is really the Democratic party’s strongest bet for next year’s election, the report says. But the president’s grip on his own party remains unshaken.
By definition in a 50-50 nation, a president facing majority disapproval across a slate of issues must be alienating independents. Those voters break for Biden over Trump, but the president gets poor marks from the cohort. Such vulnerability might encourage anyone mulling a third-party bid for the presidency – like strategists with No Labels, who held an event featuring West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin over the summer. The group says it will only field a candidate if there’s a chance of victory. But analysts warn that a third-party candidate could doom a weakened Biden and help Trump win a non-consecutive second term if he is the Republican nominee.
Continue reading...Republicans energized after special counsel seeks indictment of president’s son by end of September on gun possession charge
The White House is bracing for political trench warfare after prosecutors pursuing Joe Biden’s son on a gun possession charge said they would seek a criminal indictment by the end of September.
The prospect of Hunter Biden standing trial is likely to energise Republicans preparing to launch an impeachment inquiry into the president even as Congress tries to avert a government shutdown.
Continue reading...Exact charges president’s son would face were not immediately clear but indictment to come by 29 September at earliest
Federal prosecutors are seeking to bring a new indictment against Joe Biden’s son Hunter by the end of September, according to court documents filed on Wednesday.
The exact charges the president’s son would face were not immediately clear, but he has been under investigation in Delaware on gun and tax charges.
Continue reading...Response to federal prosecutors’ move to render plea deal moot comes days after appointment of David Weiss to special counsel
Lawyers for Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden who has been under a years-long federal investigation over failing to pay taxes and, separately, illegally possessing a gun, said that part of the plea deal which unexpectedly fell apart in July remains “valid and binding”, in a Sunday court filing.
Federal prosecutors, led by US attorney David Weiss, had on Friday asked the court to cancel its request that the two sides reach a renewed agreement on the deal “since there is no longer a plea agreement or diversion agreement for the Court to consider”.
Continue reading...US attorney general makes announcement deepening inquiry into Joe Biden’s son ahead of 2024 election
The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, sent shockwaves through US politics on Friday when he announced he is appointing a special counsel in the Hunter Biden inquiry, deepening the investigation of the president’s son ahead of the 2024 election.
The move is a momentous development from the usually cautious Garland and comes amid a pair of sweeping justice department investigations into Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s chief rival in next year’s election.
Continue reading...President had previously failed to publicly mention Navy, daughter from Hunter Biden’s relationship with Lunden Roberts
For the first time in an interview, Joe Biden acknowledged he has seven grandchildren, including Hunter Biden’s four-year-old daughter Navy.
“I have seven grandkids,” the president said, “five of ’em old enough to talk on the phone, you know, every day I either text or call them.”
Continue reading...The blog is now closed, but you can read more about Donald Trump’s swirling legal peril here.
A judge in Georgia turned down an attempt by Donald Trump to stop Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in the state. Over the weekend, Willis said she could announce charges in the case anytime between now and the first day of September. Meanwhile, a former business partner of Hunter Biden reported for an interview with the Republican-led House oversight committee, as the GOP toys with the idea of starting impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden when they return from their August recess.
Here’s what else has happened today:
Trump is in a historically good position to win the Republican presidential primary, CNN concludes.
At a weekend rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called for stopping aid to Ukraine until the government helps prove alleged corruption by the Biden family.
Ron DeSantis’s once-promising presidential campaign is suffering from both Republican defections and his own missteps.
Trump is not only in a historically strong position for a nonincumbent to win the Republican nomination, but he is in a better position to win the general election than at any point during the 2020 cycle and almost at any point during the 2016 cycle.
No one in Trump’s current polling position in the modern era has lost an open presidential primary that didn’t feature an incumbent. He’s pulling in more than 50% of support in the national primary polls, i.e., more than all his competitors combined.
What should arguably be more amazing is that despite most Americans agreeing that Trump’s two indictments thus far were warranted, he remains competitive in a potential rematch with President Joe Biden. A poll out last week from Marquette University Law School had Biden and Trump tied percentage-wise (with a statistically insignificant few more respondents choosing Trump).
The Marquette poll is one of a number of surveys showing Trump either tied or ahead of Biden. The ABC News/Washington Post poll has published three surveys of the matchup between the two, and Trump has come out ahead – albeit within the margin of error – every time. Other pollsters have shown Biden only narrowly ahead.
Continue reading...The GOP is obsessed with the president’s son, but the party’s attacks make it difficult to discern legitimate concern from crazy conspiracies
“Sweetheart deal!” “Two-tiered justice!” “Mere traffic ticket!”
Republicans had their applause lines ready on Tuesday when Joe Biden’s son Hunter struck a plea deal over unpaid taxes, and gun possession while being a drug user, that is likely to keep him out of prison.
Continue reading...Company temporarily restricted New York Post article in 2020 about contents of the abandoned computer of Joe Biden’s son
US lawmakers held a combative hearing on Wednesday with former senior staffers at Twitter over the social media platform’s handling of reporting on Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
The proceedings set the stage for the agenda of a newly Republican-controlled House, underscoring its intention to hone in on longstanding and unsubstantiated allegations that big tech platforms have an anti-conservative bias.
Continue reading...Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson grilled on why Jared Kushner should escape scrutiny for profiting from proximity to presidency
The Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson refused to say Republicans planning investigations of Hunter Biden for profiting from his connection to the presidency should also investigate Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser who secured a $1.2bn loan from Qatar while working in the White House.
“I’m concerned about getting to the truth,” Johnson insisted. “I don’t target individuals.”
Continue reading...