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Posts tagged ‘Joe Biden’

Hunter Biden Is Above The Law


BY: EDDIE SCARRY | JUNE 23, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/23/hunter-biden-is-above-the-law/

Joe and Hunter Biden

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Everyone was assured by Democrats and our always helpful media that the sticky sweet plea deal for Joe Biden’s lowlife son Hunter was proof positive that “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW!!!1!1!”

ABC “The View’s” Sunny Hostin: “It shows no one is above the law, which is important, not even the president’s son.”

Obama 2012 deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter: “[I]t shows that no one is above the law and what taking responsibility looks like.”

Washington Post: “The sitting president’s son being held accountable for underpaying his taxes illustrates that no one is above the law in the U.S. system.”

And now look: overwhelming evidence that actually, no, Hunter Biden apparently is above the law. And that’s not just when he’s high on crack.

The House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday released the transcript of an interview with high-level IRS investigating agent Gary Shapley who testified that the Justice Department, under both presidents Trump and Biden, “provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in this investigation” into Hunter’s shady, questionable as hell business dealings. Included in Shapley’s exhaustively detailed testimony was a 2017 text message uncovered in the years-long investigation from Hunter to a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter wrote. It’s not clear what transaction he was referring to, but like the nasty little weenie that he is, he used his daddy’s status as a high-profile political figure to threaten the communist. “[I]f I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

Hunter mentions “my father” more frequently than David French gets off to Ukraine.

Throughout Shapley’s testimony, he names lawyers and officials within the IRS and FBI who admitted there was enough evidence to trigger more intensive investigations into Hunter (search warrants), which would, in turn, likely lead to criminal prosecutions (tax fraud), but that time and time again, they declined to pursue the matter.

“[W]hatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation,” Shapley said, referring to Hunter. “These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before [the 2020 election] to ensure the investigation did not go overt well before policy memorandum mandated the pause.”

He said his supervisors repeatedly deferred to the Justice Department regarding the investigation’s progress and that the DOJ consistently denied advancements and even tipped off Hunter’s lawyers as to what information the government knew, giving him a chance to conceal more incriminating material or concoct some feasible defense.

The New York Times reacted to this explosive testimony by noting that “Taken at face value, the message would undercut President Biden’s longstanding claims that he had nothing to do with his son’s international business deals.”

But that’s only if you take it at “face value,” folks!

The president knew what his son was doing. He was complicit and probably profited from it. The only reason we don’t know for sure is because, according to Shapley’s testimony, FBI agents deliberately avoided asking witnesses about it. On the one occasion that an agent did ask Hunter associate Rob Walker about Joe Biden, Walker said he believed Hunter had orchestrated a business meeting wherein his dad made a quick appearance for the purposes of bolstering the chances of “making a deal work out.”

“And, inexplicably,” Shapley said, after Walker confirmed this, “the FBI agent changed the subject.”

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW, they scream.

“The law” isn’t applied by artificial intelligence. It’s applied by people. And those people make decisions based on their predispositions. If those predispositions are to protect the ones who in turn protect the people applying the law, then it’s not equal justice. This is otherwise known as “The Way Washington Works.” If you’re in, you’re in. If you’re not, expect the FBI, the IRS, and every other federal agency to bear down until your last breath.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone.”

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Noted Constitutional Scholar Joe Biden Explains The Second Amendment


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | JUNE 22, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/22/noted-constitutional-scholar-joe-biden-explains-the-second-amendment/

The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775

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The day his son Hunter avoided punishment for breaking a slew of firearm laws, Joe Biden gave another speech on gun control. Well, not exactly another one. The president delivered the same ludicrous speech he’s been giving for at least a decade. And it contained one of my favorite arguments:  

And so, we have to change — there’s a lot of things we can change, because the American people by and large agree you don’t need a weapon of war. I’m a Second Amendment guy. I taught it for four years, six years in law school. And guess what? It doesn’t say that you can own any weapon you want. It says there are certain weapons that you just can’t own. Even during when it was passed, you couldn’t own a cannon. You can’t own a machine gun. (Laughter.) No, I’m serious. 

So, what’s the deal with the idea that it’s an absolute — you know, I love these guys who say the Second Amendment is — you know, the tree of liberty is water with the blood of patriots. Well, if want to do that, you want to work against the government, you need an F-16. You need something else than just an AR-15. Anyway. 

Virtually every word of this garbled nonsense is untrue.

The quote Biden keeps mangling originated with Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William Stephens Smith, the son-in-law of John Adams: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” (Biden leaves off that last part.) Jefferson’s support of sporadic revolutionary bloodletting (not his own) wasn’t shared by most of the founding generation, whose initial sympathy for the French Revolution quickly diminished with the news of violent mobs and mass executions.

Anyway, I feel relatively well-informed on the gun debate, and I have literally never heard anyone say, “The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots.” I’m not saying that a cosplay militant hasn’t uttered those words at some point. And I’m not saying Biden didn’t read about it in 1975 or 1992 or 2002. What I’m saying is that it’s a strawman and smear meant to insinuate that most gun owners are looking for violence.

Moreover, contending, as the president does, that your weapon is basically useless because the state can simply scramble F-16s and murder you and everyone you love doesn’t really convey the message he thinks it does. What it tells me is that Biden might be a sociopath and we all need tanks. The president could just as easily have said: “The First Amendment? Let’s see how your television station holds up when the government pulls the plug on the electrical grid!” or “You think the Fifth Amendment is going to save you when we torture you into a confession?” We all know the state is capable of abusing power. That’s the point.

None of this is even to mention that modern armies struggle to contain insurgencies equipped with little more than small arms. There have been countless such fights, including against Americans in places like Afghanistan. I guess we should be happy Biden didn’t threaten to nuke Kansas.

Also, AR-15s are not, and have never been, “weapons of war.” He keeps saying it. It’s not true.

ArmaLite, and its parent company Colt, began selling civilian versions of the semi-automatic AR in the early 1960s — before the more powerful M16 version was officially adopted for use by the U.S. Army. The AR-15 has been in “common use” by law-abiding civilians for a long time. Then again, muskets, rifles, revolvers, and semi-automatic handguns were once used as, or developed into, “weapons of war.” Guns are designed to kill, otherwise they would be worthless. John Browning designed his famous 1911 handgun before World War I, and it was subsequently used by the U.S. military until 1986. But you can buy as many 1911s as you like.

That said, the founders wanted the citizenry to own “weapons of war,” because they believed an armed population was a bulwark against those who would strip them of inalienable liberties. So, for instance, you could definitely own a cannon. You still can. There are numerous accounts of the American military buying cannons from private citizens. Then there are the privateers, which as the name suggests were private citizens. And they had lots of cannons. Americans were never barred from purchasing or constructing any type of weapon they desired without any hassle until the 20th century.

No, the Second Amendment also definitely doesn’t say “there are certain weapons that you just can’t own.”

Indeed, it is quite alarming that someone who claims to have taught constitutional law says something so obviously untrue. The Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee the right of individuals to “keep and bear Brown Bess muskets” any more than the First Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to “write with feather quill” or religious freedom to “members of the Anglican church.” It guarantees the right to bear arms. And it is foolish to believe that the founders, who saw tremendous technological advances in their own lifetimes, were too stupid to comprehend change.

Finally, Biden is not, in fact, a “Second Amendment guy.” He’s either voted for or supported every gun restriction legislation since the 1990s.

Though, there is one bit of good news. Biden has never taught anyone constitutional law, not for four or six years, or even one. He was given an honorary-professor position at Penn after his vice presidency, which the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in 2019 was “a vaguely defined role that involved no regular classes and around a dozen public appearances on campus, mostly in big, ticketed events.”

Thankfully.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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The Biggest Threat To Democracy Is Media Hysterics About ‘Threats To Democracy’


BY: EVITA DUFFY-ALFONSO | JUNE 21, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/21/the-biggest-threat-to-democracy-is-media-hysterics-about-threats-to-democracy/

RFK Jr. 'Threat to Democracy'

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The corporate media has added a new face to their exhaustive list of “threats to Democracy.” “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a threat to your health — and our democracy,” reads the headline of a recent Los Angeles Times column. According to disgraced L.A. Times journalist Michael Hiltzik, there are many “dangers” posed by RFK Jr. conducting a lawful and democratic campaign for president. 

Hiltzik writes that Kennedy’s candidacy “will increase the political credibility of anti-vax claptrap,” and “could cut into the vote in 2024 for a responsible Democrat,” allowing “Trump or a Trump clone” to take office and deploy “thuggish attacks on diversity, inclusion and voting rights that have become the alpha and omega of GOP politics.”

Ah yes, curbing racist, culturally Marxist “diversity and inclusion” policies and enacting measures to protect the integrity of American elections is a serious threat to America. Do not be fooled. The media attacks on RFK Jr. have nothing to do with vaccine acceptance.

As I wrote Tuesday, asking questions, whether they be about vaccines or literally anything else, is a defining feature of a free society. RFK Jr. has every right to discuss vaccines, particularly when the medical establishment thinks they are above debate. 

However, Hiltzik and his colleagues in the propaganda press aren’t really afraid of vaccine “misinformation.” The corporate media is primarily drumming up hysteria around RFK Jr.’s appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast because, as Hiltzik wrote, they perceive him as a threat to Biden’s 2024 presidential bid. In other words, RFK Jr.’s legitimate presidential campaign is a “threat to democracy” because it could help the opposition party win the upcoming presidential election and, ironically, throttle Democrats’ plan to erode the liberties prescribed in the Constitution. 

The Media Is the Real Threat

Using the phrase “threat to democracy” as a way of protecting Democrats ahead of a presidential election is a media tradition at this point. Recall how the press promulgated the FBI-contrived Russia-collusion hoax, claiming former President Donald Trump was a “threat to democracy” in order to interfere in the 2016 election and discredit the Trump presidency after he was elected. Today, the media is still trying to thwart a Trump presidency by praising Biden for prosecuting his most probable 2024 opponent in, of course, the name of “democracy.”

[Watch: Democrats Conveniently Forget Their Party’s Long History Of Rejecting Election Results]

Ahead of the 2020 election, the media again interfered in a presidential election when they claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” and a “threat to democracy” The laptop contained damning evidence that Hunter was engaging in sketchy foreign business dealings and that his father, presumably referred to as “the big guy,” was part of it. 

Fast forward to today, congressional Republicans have uncovered significant evidence that then-Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter received multimillion-dollar payouts from a Ukrainian Burisma executive in exchange for influence over American foreign policy. If the allegations are true, they mean the sitting president of the United States sold out America and may still be compromised by foreign nationals. 

Yet the institution so preoccupied with preserving democracy has done nothing to cover the Biden bribery scandal. Instead, the media has been obsessing over the deeply flawed Trump indictment and parroting White House talking points that Hunter was “held accountable” this week after he was charged with tax and firearm offenses.

[Read: Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal Is A Coverup Disguised As Justice]

Hunter was not “held accountable.” He received an excessively lenient plea deal for crimes many Americans are thrown behind bars for committing. More importantly, none of the charges have anything to do with the bribery scandal — rather, they appear to be a transparent ploy by the Department of Justice to cosplay as fair actors and distract the American people from the real Biden crimes. 

The media could have done their job in 2020 and reported — or at the very least not lied about — the Hunter Biden laptop. Then maybe we wouldn’t have a president who appears to be compromised by foreign nationals and American adversaries. But the media didn’t want to report on it because they didn’t want Biden to lose in 2020. 

For the propaganda press, “democracy” no longer means a form of government. It means the suppression of anything that threatens the left’s agenda or their candidates. Just a few examples of what the media considered a “threat to democracy” include Trump, half of the U.S. population, Ron DeSantis, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, lawfully conducted elections, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, poll watchers, Elon Musk, parents at school board meetings, pro-lifers, our bicameral legislature, free speech, and democracy itself.

Supposed “threat to democracy” are used by the left to actively call for the censorship of those who are willing to speak the truth. The legacy press encouraged Big Tech to censor the New York Post when the Hunter Biden laptop scandal broke, and they encouraged Big Tech to censor Joe Rogan’s RFK Jr. podcast.

The media feel justified in launching full-on assaults against the First Amendment because they’re entitled, believing they should be the sole arbiters of truth. In order to maintain a monopoly on information, they call for the annihilation of smaller media outlets or even random social media users who dare challenge their carefully curated narratives — all in the name of protecting “democracy.”

Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.

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More on the Hunter Biden Cover-up Deal


Sen. Ron Johnson to Newsmax: Hunter Plea Deal Attempt to Keep Truth From Public

By Brian Freeman    |   Tuesday, 20 June 2023 02:46 PM EDT

The Hunter Biden plea deal for failing to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon is highly suspicious and appears to be an attempt to keep the truth from the American public, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Newsmax on Tuesday.

“The timing is more than interesting — just as we find out about a credible source claiming a $5 million to $10 million bribery scheme and [Hunter’s business associate] Devon Archer poised to testify before the House committee,” Johnson told “National Report.”

“Is this the Justice Department’s attempt to try and seal this all up and keep the truth from the American public? This is what I fear.”……………..

For the rest of the article go to https://www.newsmax.com/us/donald-trump-classified-documents-trial-date/2023/06/20/id/1124171/

Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal Is A Coverup Disguised As Justice

BY: CHRISTOPHER BEDFORD | JUNE 20, 2023

Hunter Biden

To hear President Joe Biden’s supporters tell it, Hunter Biden was finally held accountable Tuesday, and the long national nightmare of him facing any scrutiny at all can finally end.

This accountability for the president’s son, however, was little more than a chiding for offenses that have virtually nothing to do with the serious allegations the Department of Justice should actually be pursuing — like giving a speeding ticket to “the getaway driver after a bank robbery,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley remarked.

Over the past two weeks alone, congressional Republicans have revealed a paid, “highly credible” FBI informant’s report that $10 million was paid in bribes to Hunter and his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, by Ukrainian oligarch and Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky.

Zlochevsky called the then-vice president “the big guy,” a nickname also used in the Biden family’s allegedly corrupt China dealings. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed the existence of two audio recordings Zlochevsky reportedly made of Joe Biden (and another 15 he made of Hunter) discussing their dealings, which Zlochevsky reportedly kept as a sort of “insurance policy” that he’d get what he was paying for.

What was he paying for? Emails from the chairman of Burisma (revealed three years ago) show “the ultimate purpose” of “the deliverables” was “to close down for any cases/pursuits against [Burisma’s president] in Ukraine.” That case was indeed closed down, when Vice President Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor pursuing Burisma.

Congressional investigators also revealed that Hunter helped Burisma executives open an account for their transactions at Satabank,……….

For the rest of the article go to https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/20/hunter-bidens-plea-deal-is-a-coverup-disguised-as-justice/

Hunter Biden’s Wrist Slap On Gun, Tax Crimes Is A Complete Smokescreen

BY: JORDAN BOYD | JUNE 20, 2023

Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Hunter Biden at inauguration in 2021

President Joe Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice is so desperate to distract from Republicans’ exposé of the Biden family bribery scandal that it finally brought a handful of weak charges against Hunter Biden for his tax and gun crimes.

Under the guise of serving equal justice, the DOJ announced on Tuesday that it would charge the president’s youngest son with two federal misdemeanor counts for failing to pay his taxes and one federal felony charge for possessing a gun while being an illegal drug user and addict.

Hunter’s lawyers are scrambling to declare “the five-year investigation” into their client as “resolved.” Corporate media like NBC News, similarly, claimed the DOJ’s “resolution suggests that prosecutors did not find cause to file charges related to Hunter Biden’s dealings with foreign entities or other wrongdoing.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Just like when it strategically timed its political arrest of a Republican congressman to coincide with a GOP press conference detailing evidence of Biden corruption, the DOJ is working overtime to ensure that Hunter serves as a distraction from the bigger Biden problem.

Since at least 2021 when Politico exposed records and receipts, the public has known that Hunter, who has an extensive and public history of illicit drug use, appeared to lie about this drug use on the Firearms Transaction Record he filled out during a revolver purchase in 2018.

Government officials such as local police, the Secret Service, FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, likely knew about the lie earlier than 2021 since the .38 revolver soon became the center of a missing gun investigation, in which the Secret Service reportedly tried to interfere on behalf of the Biden family.

Similarly, most of the preliminary federal investigation into Hunter’s 2017 and 2018 financial wrongdoings was completed by 2020.

Yet, U.S. Attorney David Weiss delayed bringing charges against Hunter because, as Politico described, “the investigation would become a months-long campaign issue” that would hurt Biden’s presidential chances. It wasn’t until Republicans’ increasingly evidenced probe into the Biden bribery scheme, which the Biden administration continues to hamper, that Weiss finally decided to target the president’s son.

That timing is not a coincidence………….

For the rest of the article go to https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/20/hunter-bidens-wrist-slap-on-gun-tax-crimes-is-a-complete-smokescreen/

Hunter Biden’s Charges Are Nothing But A Diversion

BY: BRETT TOLMAN | JUNE 20, 2023

Hunter Biden

What a breathtaking and damaging act of misdirection. After five years of investigation into a host of criminal acts by Hunter Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) finally brought charges against the president’s wayward son. But while the DOJ hopes the public focuses on words like “charges” and “guilty” to form an image of accountability for all, it’s letting Hunter walk away with the kind of slap on the wrist most defendants can only dream about from inside a prison cell.

In the same breath in which DOJ announced it was filing charges against Hunter Biden, it also stated that the case had already been resolved. Hunter will plead guilty to and serve probation for two tax fraud misdemeanors while a felony firearm possession charge will disappear after he completes pretrial diversion. It’s a resolution that if the defendant’s last name weren’t Biden would sound almost too good to be true.

The feds are notoriously tough on firearms. Nationally, for example, 94.2 percent of federal firearms convictions in 2022 involved some prison time, and the median sentence was 39 months.

Of course, Hunter won’t even have to end up with a conviction. This is an even rarer event. In 2021, fewer than 1 percent of cases filed by U.S. attorneys in federal court resulted in the kind of pretrial diversion offered to Hunter.

It’s that disparity between Hunter’s case and everybody else’s that’s the true problem, not necessarily the sentence itself. After all, the law in question, which prohibits individuals suffering from an illegal drug addiction from possessing a firearm, likely violates the Second Amendment. Plus, diversion programs across the country have improved public safety at lower cost to taxpayers than prison alternatives. 

But that’s clearly not how things are shaking out in practice at DOJ, and President Biden has expressed an ongoing willingness to harshly punish firearms offenses. His DOJ is defending this law in court, and he signed a law in 2021 to increase maximum penalties from 10 years to 15 years in prison. Apparently, President Biden does not believe offenders should be treated with kid gloves — at least when it’s not his kid.

Indeed, if Hunter’s were a typical case, ………….

For the rest of the article go to https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/20/hunter-bidens-charges-are-nothing-but-a-diversion/

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McCarthy: Hunter Plea Won’t Deter Probes


By Michael Katz    |   Tuesday, 20 June 2023 03:42 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/kevin-mccarthy-hunter-biden-joe-biden/2023/06/20/id/1124243/

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Tuesday that investigations into alleged influence-peddling schemes by President Joe Biden and his family will not be deterred after Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, reached a plea deal with the Department of Justice on tax-related charges to avoid jail time on a gun offense.

“This does nothing to our investigation,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday, according to The Hill. “It actually should enhance our investigation because the DOJ should not be able to withhold any information now saying that there’s a pending investigation. They should be able to provide [House Oversight Committee] Chairman [James] Comer with any information that he requires.”

As part of the agreement, Hunter Biden, 53, will plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses and admit to illegally possessing a weapon after his 2018 purchase of a handgun. As part of that admission, he would enter a diversion program, and if he meets the conditions of the program, the gun charge would be removed from his record.

Christopher Clark, Hunter Biden’s attorney, said he considers the case against his client to be resolved, The Hill reported. But the Delaware office of U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said the investigation is still ongoing.

McCarthy said he hopes that is not a ploy by the DOJ to withhold information and avoid complying with House Republicans.

“How can Hunter Biden plead guilty, no jail time, and the DOJ say there’s still an investigation, try to withhold information to the House?” McCarthy said. “That’s unacceptable and will not stand.”

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Everything We Know About The Biden Bribery Scheme From The FBI Document


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JUNE 16, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/16/everything-we-know-about-the-biden-bribery-scheme-from-the-fbi-document/

Joe Biden

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Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer of Kentucky dropped a bombshell subpoena last month demanding the FBI hand over a document alleging a bribery scheme between President Joe Biden and a “foreign national.”

On May 3, the pair of GOP lawmakers requested congressional access to an unclassified FD-1023 form, a document used by the bureau to catalog information from a confidential human source. The FBI record suggests President Biden took a foreign bribe during his time in the Obama administration.

After more than a month-long back-and-forth between agency leadership and Capitol Hill wherein House Republicans even prepared contempt proceedings for FBI Director Christopher Wray, members of Congress were finally able to review the document Thursday. Here’s everything we know about the record in question.

Confidential Human Source Is ‘Highly Credible’

The confidential human source (CHS) behind the FD-1023 is reportedly a “highly credible” informant with an agency tenure stretching back more than a decade. According to Fox News, the whistleblower informant has collaborated “in multiple investigative matters” with the FBI since the Obama administration, with consistent reviews for credibility.

“The confidential human source who provided information about then Vice President Biden being involved in a criminal bribery scheme is a trusted, highly credible informant who has been used by the FBI for over 10 years and has been paid over six figures,” Chairman Comer told reporters last week.

Contrary to MSNBC’s claim that “All roads lead to [Rudy] Giuliani” in the sourcing for the document, individuals familiar with the investigation told The Federalist the FD-1023 document came independent of information provided by the former New York City mayor.

Allegations Date Back to 2017

In addition to researching the cache of incriminating intelligence on the Biden family Giuliani sent to the FBI, agents searched the FBI’s databases and discovered a related FD-1023 from 2017. That prompted agents to re-interview the CHS and uncover details about the Burisma bribery scandal, resulting in the FD-1023 dated June 30, 2020.

Bidens Allegedly Took $10 Million From Burisma Executive

Grassley spoke in a Monday floor speech about the “foreign national” who allegedly bribed the Biden family, and who has since been identified by people familiar with the matter as Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma. The Ukrainian energy firm showered Hunter Biden in excess compensation on its corporate board while his father served as the “public face” of White House policy towards Ukraine.

The CHS summarized earlier meetings with Zlochevsky in the FD-1023, claiming the Bidens “coerced” the foreign businessman to pay the multimillion-dollar bribes. Zlochevsky had been trying to shut down government investigations into his Ukrainian energy firm. The energy tycoon allegedly paid $5 million to then-Vice President Joe Biden, referred to as the “Big Guy” by Zlochevsky in the FD-1023, and $5 million to Hunter.

According to a report from Grassley and Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in September 2020, Zlochevsky had separately paid a $7 million bribe to the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office to shut down another probe.

In 2018, Biden bragged about his lead role in the termination of Ukraine’s top prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.

Grassley: There Are Tapes

While the DOJ appeared to try to drown out coverage of the Biden bribery scheme with the unprecedented indictment of former President Donald Trump, Grassley reinjected the White House scandal into the news by disclosing the existence of audio recordings on Monday.

“According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden,” Grassley said. Another two recordings are reportedly calls between Zlochevsky and then-Vice President Biden, for 17 recordings in “total.”

Grassley said Zlochevsky kept the tapes “as a sort of insurance policy,” and noted that the form also suggested “then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden.”

House Republicans who reviewed the document also say Hunter Biden pressed Burisma to purchase an American oil company. In 2016, the Ukrainian firm ultimately took over a Canadian firm’s shares to buy into a joint venture with the American company Cub Energy.

AG Barr Referred Investigation To Delaware

Shortly after FBI Director Wray allowed members of the House Oversight Committee access to the FD-1023, Democrat Ranking Member Jamie Raskin sought to dismiss Republican allegations of corruption with a statement. An investigation into Biden bribery, Raskin said, had previously been shut down under Attorney General Bill Barr during the Trump administration.

“In August 2020, Attorney General Barr and his hand-picked U.S. Attorney signed off on closing the assessment,” Raskin said.

In an exclusive interview with The Federalist, however, the former attorney general debunked Raskin’s assertion.

“On the contrary,” Barr said, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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No, Democrats, These Are Not Your Kids


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | JUNE 15, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/15/no-democrats-these-are-not-your-kids/

Joe Biden talks to little kids

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Here is an utterly un-American quote from President Joe Biden:

These are our kids. These are our neighbors, not someone else’s kids; they’re all our kids. And our children are the kite strings that hold our national ambitions aloft. It matters a great deal how we treat everyone in this country. LGBTQI+ Americans, especially children: You are loved. You are heard. And this administration has your back.

Now, perhaps the phrase “they’re all our kids” sounds like an innocuous platitude to some woke White House speechwriter, but to me it sounds like a totalitarian notion.

Years ago, P.J. O’Rourke correctly described the purpose of Hillary Clinton’s detestable book on the same subject: “It takes a village to raise a child. The village is Washington. You are the child.” It’s no accident the head of the nation’s largest and most powerful teachers union praises op-eds with headlines like, “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.” That’s also the position of the institutional left, including the president, who argues that American values are at risk if parents dare demand kids’ libraries exclude books describing incestual rape, celebrating gender dysphoria, and depicting 10-year-old boys having oral sex.

Marx also saw the traditional family as an antiquated unit. The first Soviet welfare ministers complained about the “narrow and petty” idea of the nuclear family in which reactionary bourgeois parents, selfishly wrapped up in their trivial anxieties, were “not capable of educating the ‘new person.’”

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe Joe Biden is going to ship parents to Siberia. Nor am I suggesting that the president’s handlers are sitting around thinking about the Frankfurt School. (They arrived at a similar philosophical destination organically, I suspect.) What I’m saying is that the White House is teeming with wannabe authoritarians who believe the state would do a better job raising kids by filling their impressionable heads with corrosive, immoral ideas. And that the institutions to achieve that goal already exist.

Public schools, some of them excellent and many of them disastrous, are not voluntary, communal places. In most municipalities, parents have little choice, and their kids are in a captive audience. State-run schools, conceived to educate and forge patriotic, civic cohesion, have often become places of left-wing indoctrination — from “universal pre-k” until they go off to college, where credentialed halfwits and leftist ideologues who detest the “national ambitions” of a constitutional republic run the place. You pay for all of it. But you also get to shut up.

It’s important to remember that totalitarian states do not stop citizens from participating in political life, they demand it. Everything one does in these societies is drenched in ideology. Sports. Movies. Academia. Books. Commerce. Morality. Family. Sex. Schools. Which very much sounds like the goal of contemporary leftism.

It’s none of our business who you sleep with or what sex you cosplay as, but it is our business that government-run elementary school kids are running around waving flags celebrating sexual identification and gender dysphoria like little soldiers in history’s dumbest Cultural Revolution.

Why wouldn’t they? Elizabeth Warren says things like, “Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy…” At the White House the other day, the self-anointed pontifex maximus of true Americanism raised the pride flag to the same level of reverence as the Stars and Stripes, a flag that exists to represent all of us. Though, to be fair, most contemporary leftists seem a lot more comfortable standing under a rainbow flag than an American one.

Let’s start by pointing out that there is absolutely nothing uplifting or patriotic about allowing doctors, operating under the patina of (pseudo)science, to forever mutilate confused kids. The state’s duty to your children is to protect them from violence and abuse. Those who allow that cruelty, even celebrate it, do not, in fact, have “your back.”

Yet, the White House hangs a flag that implicitly endorses this barbarity, and then demands you do too. Indeed, reactionary parents, believers, traditionalists, normies, contrarians — culture warriors — unwilling to salute an ideology that grates against their religious, moral, and/or scientific beliefs are smeared as “cruel” enemies of “democracy” and “diversity.” As the great Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (what a name) argued decades ago, despite all its rhetoric about inclusivity, the left is the “enemy of diversity and the fantastical promoter of identity. Uniformity is stressed in all leftist utopias, paradises in which everybody is the same, envy is dead, and the enemy is either dead, lives outside the gates, or is utterly humiliated.”

Of course, even if pride flags were completely unobjectionable, your kids are not “kite strings that hold our national ambitions aloft.” They are human beings with rights, parents, and unique ambitions, not platitude-spouting automatons who should be categorized by skin color or gender “identification.”  In a truly diverse and free nation, we have an array of aspirations and very different ideas about what constitutes “national ambition.” That’s why politics exists. That’s why neutral principles of governance and inherent rights (are supposed to) exist.

And we already have a flag for all of that.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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The Bidens ‘Coerced’ Burisma To Pay $10 Million In Bribes, Says Credible FBI Source


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JUNE 15, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/15/the-bidens-coerced-burisma-to-pay-10-million-in-bribes-says-credible-fbi-source/

Joe Biden standing with Ukraine

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The Bidens allegedly “coerced” a foreign national to pay them $10 million in bribes, according to individuals familiar with the investigation into the FBI’s handling of the FD-1023 confidential human source report. What, if anything, agents did to investigate these explosive claims remains unknown, however, with sources telling The Federalist the FBI continues to stonewall.

On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed a foreign national — identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky — allegedly possessed 17 recordings implicating the Bidens in a pay-to-play scandal. While 15 of the audio recordings consisted of phone calls between Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden, two were of calls the Ukrainian had with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to the FD-1023.

The Federalist has now learned the FD-1023 reported the CHS saying the Bidens “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay the bribes. Sources familiar with the investigation also explained the context of Zlochevsky’s statements, and that context further bolsters the CHS’s reporting.

In the FD-1023 from June 30, 2020, the confidential human source summarized earlier meetings he had with Zlochevsky. According to the CHS, in the 2015-2016 timeframe, the CHS, who was providing advice to Zlochevsky, told the Burisma owner to stay away from the Bidens. Then, after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential contest, the CHS asked Zlochevsky if he was upset Trump won. 

Zlochevsky allegedly told the CHS he was dismayed by Trump’s victory, fearing an investigation would reveal his payments to the Biden family, which included a $5 million payment to Hunter Biden and a $5 million payment to Joe Biden. According to the CHS, the Burisma executive bemoaned the situation, claiming the Bidens had “coerced” him into paying the bribes. 

The CHS responded that he hoped Zlochevsky had taken precautions to protect himself. Zlochevsky then allegedly detailed the steps he had taken to avoid detection, stressing he had never paid the “Big Guy” directly and that it would take some 10 years to unravel the various money trails. It was only then that Zlochevsky mentioned the audio recordings he had made of the conversations he had with Hunter and Joe Biden, according to the CHS.

The broader context of this conversation adds to the plausibility of Zlochevsky’s claims that he possessed recordings implicating the Bidens. And we already know from Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer that the FBI considered the CHS, who relayed Zlochevsky’s claims to the FBI, a “highly credible” source.

Further, according to individuals familiar with the investigation, the FBI admitted the CHS’s intel was unrelated to the information Rudy Giuliani had provided the Western District of Pennsylvania’s U.S. attorney’s office — the office then-Attorney General William Barr had tasked with reviewing any new information related to Ukraine. 

Sources told The Federalist that investigators out of the Pittsburgh office, in addition to reviewing Giuliani’s information, searched internal FBI databases and came across an earlier FD-1023 related to the CHS. That earlier FD-1023 then led to agents questioning the CHS on June 30, 2020, uncovering the details concerning Burisma’s alleged bribery of the Bidens. 

What the FBI did to investigate the allegations is unknown, with sources telling The Federalist the bureau refused to either confirm or deny that the DOJ under Barr sent the FD-1023 to Delaware for further investigation. On the contrary, the FBI allowed Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, to falsely represent to Americans that Barr and Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady had closed the investigation. Raskin’s deceit, tolerated by the FBI, forced Barr to publicly correct the record. 

The FBI is also refusing to provide any information on what, if any, steps it took to investigate the detailed claims contained in the FD-1023. But sources familiar with investigative procedures maintain there was insufficient time between the June 30, 2020, interview of the CHS and the FBI headquarters’ closing of an assessment related to the FD-1023 in August 2020 to properly probe the matter. “They couldn’t have done much,” one source said.

There is also no independent confirmation from Delaware indicating any investigative steps were taken regarding the FD-1023. Agents in Delaware “could have sat on it,” according to one individual familiar with the investigation. 

While the FBI’s efforts to unwind the pay-to-play scheme seem to have been nonexistent, banking records released in May by the House Oversight Committee show congressional investigators are unraveling the complex web behind the Biden family business. Those records provide concrete evidence of a pattern of public corruption involving foreign nationals, with Joe Biden at the helm. There are still more banking records to review, along with the many details recently discovered when the whistleblower came forward with the FD-1023. 

Apparently, Zlochevsky wasn’t far from the mark when he said it would take 10 years to unravel the complex payment path that led to Joe Biden.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Today’s TWO Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – What’s At Stake

A.F. BRANCO | on June 14, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-whats-at-stake/

Special Council Jack Smith continues the left’s witch-hunt against President Trump by indicting him on frivolous charges.

Jack Smith Witchhunter
Cartoon by A.F. Branco.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Desecrator In Chief

A.F. BRANCO | on June 14, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-desecrator-in-chief/

Biden desecrates the American flag on the White House lawn by prioritizing the pride flag display.

Biden Flag Day
Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023.

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump

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If ‘Banned’ Books Are Harmless, Joe Biden Should Read Them to Kids


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | JUNE 13, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/13/if-banned-books-are-harmless-joe-biden-should-read-them-to-kids/

white house lit up with rainbow pride flag colors

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This article includes graphic quotes from books that are being marketed to children.

On Thursday, Joe Biden will host a pride month event for families with LGBT kids on the White House South Lawn. It’s during this event that he’ll appoint a “banned-book” czar, whose job it will be to try to compel local communities to stock their libraries with race-obsessed pseudo-histories and books depicting oral sex, rape, violence, and gender dysphoria.

Now, if that sounds like an unfair description, there’s an easy way for the president to debunk his critics: He can read selected outtakes from some of these innocuous books to the prepubescent kids who show up to the event. Even better, he can do it on TV. After all, “[b]ook banning erodes our democracy,” says White House Domestic Policy Adviser Neera Tanden, and “removes vital resources for student learning, and can contribute to stigma and isolation.”

Hey! That’s a GREAT idea. Have President Biden, with Jill beside him, gather all his children, and grandchildren, all the children of the people who work in his cabinet and White House, along with all the children, and grandchildren of every democrat Congress Person, and Senators. Make sure the Mainstream Media cameras are broadcasting LIVE. Then have President Biden and his wife Jill, alternate books as they read them out loud to their guests, and the nation. EVERY WORD!

You’re right. The networks could not like that content be broadcasted live over the airwaves. So, why is it okay for impressionable children to read such smut?

As Biden says: “There is no such thing as someone else’s child. No such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children.” So, perhaps the White House could set up a themed reading circle on the South Lawn where the president can recite selections from Lawn Boy, which describes 10-year-old boys performing oral sex on each other. It is, after all, on PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans.

The School Library Journal praises Lawn Boy as an exploration of “race, sexual identity, and the crushing weight of American capitalism.” (Incidentally, do you know how many books celebrating traditional families or the Second Amendment or Western civilization or the wonders of capitalism are stocked in school libraries? Speaking from experience, I’d say maybe a handful — and that’s probably an exaggeration. They aren’t “banned,” schools just refuse to carry them.)

Or, better yet, First Lady Jill Biden — who, you may not have heard, earned a doctorate in education — should recite these words for the kids: “‘What if I told you I touched another guy’s d-ck?’ I said. … ‘I was ten years old, but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s d-ck in my mouth…’” and so on. This is a vital resource for kids, says the administration.

Though it doesn’t have to be Lawn Boy. It could be the graphic “novel” Gender Queer, banned by the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado, according to PEN. Dr. Jill — mom, educator — owes it to democracy to read the words, “I got off once while driving just by rubbing the front of my jeans and imagining getting a blow job.”

Some “banned books,” like It Feels So Good To Be Yourself, are meant to normalize trendy pseudoscientific jargon and ideas among kindergarteners and first graders, filling their heads with words like “non-binary,” “gender fluid,” and “gender expansive.” If reactionary parents won’t teach kids these ideas, someone’s got to. And that’s bad enough. But maybe Biden can explain why middle schoolers need to have access to the vulgar, graphic sexual scenes of incest and child rape featured in Sapphire’s “banned” novel Push.

I’m certainly not arguing that every book removed from libraries is porn or badly written or useless. Perhaps Push tells the story of an abused girl using appropriately realistic and horrifying words. Even so, the topic of brutal sexual violence isn’t morally or educationally tantamount to a math lesson. It’s up to parents, not teachers nor Joe Biden, to decide when, how, or if their kids read about it.

PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans claims there are nearly 1,500 “instances of book banning in schools, affecting 874 different titles in the first half of this school year.” The preponderance of the books on the list feature sexually explicit scenes — and many have minority and gay characters, because regrettably, so-called progressives have decided to teach kids that their immutable physical characteristics or sexuality or “gender expression” define them, rather than their achievements and deeds.

One of the ideas behind public schools was that they would break down ethnic and class barriers and build shared patriotic virtues and civic understanding. Instead, they are often used to trap kids and then indoctrinate them with leftist culture attitudes. That’s what Biden means when he says your kids are also his kids.

And if parents get involved, they’re accused of standing against “democracy.” Because in contemporary left-wing vernacular, “democracy” has been stripped of any useful meaning. Sometimes democracy means majoritarianism denying individuals their rights for the common good, sometimes “democracy” means courts unilaterally dictating policy, and sometimes it means parents having zero say in what their children read or learn.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget that “banned books” are a partisan myth. These days, a “book ban” is a euphemism for curating a library in a way that upsets left-wing activists. Not one book on PEN’s list is even difficult to obtain, much less banned. Parents don’t even need to leave their homes to buy any of these books. They can order any of the titles in mere minutes and have them delivered to their front door in days. There are no “banned books.” There are just cultural imperialists, ideologues, and cowardly politicians trying to force their ideas on all children.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

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Burisma audio tapes could be ‘cataclysmic event’ for President Biden, Matt Whitaker says


By Fox News Staff | Fox News | Published June 13, 2023 11:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/media/burisma-audio-tapes-cataclysmic-event-president-biden-matt-whitaker-says

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, made a stunning claim Monday that a Burisma executive who allegedly paid $5 million in a Biden bribery scheme maintained audio recordings of calls with the family as an “insurance policy.” On “Fox & Friends First” Tuesday, former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker discussed the “explosive” developments days after the FBI turned over a document to Congress that allegedly detailed a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden.

GRASSLEY: BURISMA EXECUTIVE WHO ALLEGEDLY PAID BIDEN HAS AUDIO RECORDINGS OF CONVERSATIONS WITH JOE, HUNTER

MATT WHITAKER: This is explosive. There’s so many issues surrounding this, but remember what my home state senator, Chuck Grassley, said. This was redacted from the document they looked at, the 1023 that Chris Wray finally provided to the House and the Senate. This information, that there were recordings of the president of United States talking to a foreign national about bribes, was redacted from that 1023. That’s extraordinary in and of itself. Now, the contents, if true, I mean, obviously this is a cataclysmic event because you just don’t have these types of recordings usually available. And… it will prove essentially what Joe Biden knew and what his scheme was to abuse his power as vice president.

Sen. Chuck Grassley speaks into mircrophone during hearing
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IO).  (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Monday that the Burisma executive who allegedly paid Joe Biden and Hunter Biden kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them, citing the FBI FD-1023 form that the bureau briefed congressional lawmakers on. 

Grassley revealed from the Senate floor Monday what was said to be a redacted reference in the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions.

Fox News Digital exclusively reported on the contents of the form last week. The FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI’s interview with a “highly credible” confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Fox News Digital has not seen the form, which is redacted, but it was described by several sources who are aware of its contents.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

Video

This article was written by Fox News staff.

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Rep. James Comer Op-ed: Did Joe Biden sell out America? 4 things to know about Democrats’ claims


Rep. James Comer

 By Rep. James Comer | Fox News | Published June 13, 2023 2:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/joe-biden-sell-out-america-4-things-know-democrats-claims

Listen to this article: BeyondWords

PROGRAMMING ALERT: Watch House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer discuss this topic and more on “The Ingraham Angle” on Tuesday, June 13 at 10 pm ET.

For the past year, the House Oversight Committee, where I serve as chairman, has been investigating the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes that generated millions of dollars for the Biden family. We are following the facts. We need to know whether these deals threaten national security and if President Joe Biden is compromised.

The Oversight Committee has already obtained thousands of pages of financial records related to the Biden family and has traced millions of dollars from China and Romania to the Biden family and their associates. Americans are asking: What is the Biden family business? They don’t sell anything, they don’t have lucrative assets generating income, yet they receive millions from around the globe. What are they selling? Influence and access.

President Biden has repeatedly lied to the American people about his family’s business dealings. Now, Americans are left wondering if Joe Biden was involved with them.

EXCLUSIVE: PERSON ALLEGING BIDEN CRIMINAL BRIBERY SCHEME IS ‘HIGHLY CREDIBLE’ FBI SOURCE USED SINCE OBAMA ADMIN: SOURCE

A highly credible whistleblower provided disclosures to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that the FBI has an unclassified, FBI-generated record known as an FD-1023 form.  The document memorializes a confidential human source’s conversations with a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Biden in exchange for certain actions. 

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Last month, Sen. Grassley and I demanded the FBI produce this unclassified record and I issued a subpoena to obtain it. We need to know what, if anything, the FBI did to verify the serious allegations contained within this record. The American people need to know if President Biden sold out the United States to make money for himself.

President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden departs the White House on Jan. 19, 2023. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Unfortunately, the premier agency that is supposed to investigate crimes appears to have run defense for the Bidens. FBI Director Christopher Wray refused for weeks to acknowledge the existence of the FD-1023 form and failed to produce it. 

Once Director Wray finally confirmed the record’s existence, the FBI still failed to comply with a congressional subpoena. 

FBI WILLING TO ALLOW ALL HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE MEMBERS TO VIEW BIDEN DOC ALLEGING CRIMINAL SCHEME: SOURCE

We made it clear: If the FBI didn’t hand over this form, the House Oversight Committee would begin contempt of Congress proceedings. The FBI was finally forced to cooperate and is allowing all members of the House Oversight Committee to review the record in person and producing additional documents.

Allowing all Oversight Committee members to review this record is a big victory and an important step toward conducting oversight of the FBI and holding it accountable to the American people. 

Video

Congress must investigate the allegations contained in this record. 

REPUBLICAN SENATORS CALL FOR FBI DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY’S RESIGNATION

Here is what we know:

  • The FBI confirmed multiple times during our briefing that the information contained within the record is currently being used in an ongoing investigation.
  • The confidential human source who provided information about then-Vice President Biden being involved in a criminal bribery scheme is a trusted, highly credible informant who has been used by the FBI for years and paid six figures.
  • The allegations contained within the record track closely with the thousands of pages of financial records obtained by the Oversight Committee. The Bidens have a pattern of using their network of over 20 limited liability companies and complicated financial transactions to hide the sources of the money and evade detection.

Disinformation from the left reinforces the need for the FBI to produce this unclassified FD-1023 record to the House Oversight Committee. 

Despite growing evidence, the White House and Democrats are lying to the American people about the allegations contained within this record and what was done with it. Let me set the record straight:

  • First, Democrats are peddling conspiracy theories and alleging the FD-1023 record is based on secondhand hearsay. The FD-1023 record was generated by a trusted confidential source who was working with the FBI for over ten years.
  • Second, Democrats claim that the record is part of the documents Rudy Giuliani provided the FBI in January 2020. That’s not true. The FD-1023 document stands on its own and contains information from the FBI’s confidential human source dating back to another FD-1023 generated in 2017.
  • Third, the FD-1023 was generated by the FBI in June 2020 based on other FBI records dating back to 2017. The Department of Justice conducted an assessment on separate material provided to the Department in January 2020, and this assessment was closed in August 2020. Democrats are claiming the DOJ investigated the FD-1023 and then took no action, but the FBI has refused to answer what information was part of their assessment. How could the DOJ have conducted a credible, thorough investigation in four weeks?  It’s not possible.
  • And last, let’s be very clear: The allegations in the record are not closed. FBI officials and former Attorney General William Barr have refuted Democrats’ lies that the Biden bribery investigation was closed. “On the contrary, it was sent to Delaware for further investigation,” former Attorney General Barr said this week on the record.

Republicans are going to follow the facts and ensure accountability for the American people.

Americans have lost trust in the FBI’s ability to enforce the law impartially and demand answers, transparency, and accountability.

The Oversight Committee will continue to follow the facts and ensure accountability for the American people. Democrats’ lies and deterrents will not distract us from this goal.

Republican James Comer represents Kentucky’s 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives where he is chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.

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Breaking: Ukrainian energy company executive involved in alleged Biden bribery scheme has secret recordings of Hunter and Joe, Sen. Grassley says


By: CARLOS GARCIA | June 12, 2023

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/grassley-biden-corruption-recordings-ukraine/

Photo by Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that a Ukrainian energy company executive involved in the alleged Biden bribery scheme had secret audio recordings of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. Grassley, who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the Burisma executive had a total of 17 secret recordings, and two of them are with Joe Biden, who was vice president under former President Barack Obama at the time. The other 15 recordings were of conversations with Hunter Biden.

Grassley made the claims in a speech on the floor of the Senate.

Republicans have been trying to build a case to prove that the Biden family has sold political favors as part of a criminal corruption scheme. He also said that the Burisma executive made the recordings as a kind of “insurance policy” in case the official got into a “tight spot.”

Grassley highlighted the apparent double standard between treatment of the Biden family by the Justice Department and that of former President Donald Trump.

“Based on the facts known to the Congress and the public, it’s clear that the Justice Department, the FBI, haven’t nearly had the same laser-focus on the Biden family,” said Grassley on the Senate floor.

“Special counsel Jack Smith has used a recording against former President Trump,” he added. “Well, what is U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high stakes bribery scheme?”

Trump has been indicted for charges related to his withholding of documents at Mar-a-Lago from his time as president.

Here’s more on the Biden corruption allegations:

James Comer: The Biden family had 20 shell companies www.youtube.com

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Trump Vows ’25 Retaliation After Biden Broke ‘Seal’


By Eric Mack    |   Monday, 12 June 2023 03:17 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-2024-presidential/2023/06/12/id/1123296/

Going after a presidential political opponent has consequences, says former President Donald Trump. And now, he says, the gloves will come off.

The “seal” for going after your political opposition as the U.S. president is broken, Trump vowed Monday as he heads to Miami for a Tuesday court appearance on an unprecedented federal indictment of a former commander in chief.

Trump wrote in a Truth Social post: “Now that the ‘seal’ is broken, in addition to closing the border & removing all of the ‘criminal’ elements that have illegally invaded our country, making America energy independent, & even dominant again, & immediately ending the war between Russia & Ukraine, I will appoint a real special ‘prosecutor’ to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the USA, Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family, & all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders, & country itself!”

Trump defenders have been hailing his administration for not going to the level of prosecuting his political opponents, despite some suggestions otherwise with both former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and then-2020 presidential candidate Biden.

Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani had found allegations of bribes with Ukraine as House Democrats sought myriad impeachment actions against then-President Trump.

Giuliani denounced special counsel Jack Smith’s claim in a brief and harried news conference Friday announcing the first ever indictment of a former president, saying “there’s one system of laws” and that “applies equally to everyone.”

“Well, of course, that’s the most ridiculous, idiotic statement to make on a day in which we find out that the Bidens took a $10 million bribe from a Ukrainian Mykola Zlochevsky, which I could have told you, you know, and did tell [the DOJ] three years ago,” Giuliani told Newsmax‘s “Saturday Report.”

“And they followed up on none of the evidence I gave them. They were hoping that people would disappear or die. It’s extraordinary.”

Giuliani added the Pittsburgh attorney general was looking into the case before it was taken away from him by then-Attorney General Bill Barr, who gave it to the “U.S. attorney in Delaware, who didn’t do a thing about it.”

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Russiagate Redux: Grassley Calls Out FBI For Leaking False Narratives To Obstruct Biden Investigation


BY: MOLLIE HEMINGWAY | JUNE 08, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/08/russiagate-redux-grassley-calls-out-fbi-for-leaking-false-narratives-to-obstruct-biden-investigation/

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Stop leaking to the media, peddling false narratives, and obstructing congressional oversight into the FBI’s handling of allegations that President Joe Biden was part of a criminal bribery scheme, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told FBI Director Christopher Wray in a floor speech Tuesday.

“Quit playing games,” Grassley said. “The Justice Department and FBI no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt,” he added, pointing to the FBI and Department of Justice’s track record of deception from the Russia-collusion hoax to the present.

Wray “made one excuse after another to not produce” the document detailing the bribery allegation against Biden, Grassley said, even refusing to admit it existed until Grassley revealed to him that he’d already seen a copy. The existence of the explosive allegation, which reportedly describes a Ukrainian energy concern seeking to pay then-Vice President Biden $5 million in return for a policy decision during his time as Ukrainian point man for the Obama administration, was revealed to Grassley by multiple FBI whistleblowers.

The continued practice of leaking false narratives to friendly media outlets instead of complying with constitutional oversight requests particularly bothered Grassley, he said. Everyone knows the “FBI has a penchant for leaking classified information to the media and producing documents to the media,” Grassley said.

Instead of complying with congressional requests, including a subpoena for the document, the FBI and its associates began leaking to Democrat media, in some cases to the exact same media figures they had worked with to spread the false Russia-collusion narrative. Grassley mentioned a May 18 article in The New York Times, likely the one by Adam Goldman, in which the noted Russia-collusion hoaxer wrote a glowing profile of Timothy Thibault that appeared to be sourced to Thibault and the FBI. The profile attempted to discredit decorated FBI agents who opposed his political handling of sensitive investigations.

Thibault was one of the FBI agents who reportedly shut down legitimate investigations into the Biden family business and spoke openly of his animus toward President Trump and former Attorney General Bill Barr. He was reportedly forced out of the bureau last year after questions about his conduct became public. Brian Auten is another FBI official under scrutiny, reportedly for pushing Trump-Russia collusion and inappropriately discrediting Hunter Biden stories.

Other examples of FBI leaks abound. CNN’s Evan Perez was used to push the FBI’s spin on the document Grassley seeks. He famously joined with Jake Tapper and Jim Sciutto to launder the Steele dossier to the American public on Jan. 12, 2017.

To mislead investigators, anonymous sources peddled to Perez the idea that the document was related to allegations supplied by Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Republican operative.

“The document has origins in a tranche of documents that Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020, people briefed on the matter said,” Perez asserted without evidence. It turns out it’s not true. Not only is the document, which details information from a longtime trusted confidential human source, unrelated to the information Giuliani brought to the FBI, it includes information from a previous interview of the source in 2017, three years before the Giuliani inquiry.

Jamie Raskin Is the New Adam Schiff

Still, the unsubstantiated story was enough for Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., to spread the falsehood even further. Raskin is the ranking Democrat on the House’s Oversight Committee, which is investigating FBI mishandling of investigations into the Biden family business. He serves a similar role to the one Adam Schiff played when Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., was attempting to unravel the FBI’s Russia-collusion hoax. Schiff’s office was known for misleading leaks to CNN and other Democrat media outfits. He also falsely claimed for years to have evidence of treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., is the House member overseeing the attempt to get information from Wray’s FBI. After threatening to hold Wray in contempt, the FBI director had a staffer brief Raskin and Comer on the document.

FBI briefings, leaks to friendly media outlets, and official statements include a frustrating mixture of unsubstantiated insinuations that the documented allegation was legitimately “closed,” contrary to whistleblower claims, were coupled with a refusal to answer questions about the documented allegation or its closing because it is part of an ongoing, “open” investigation. Grassley referenced the Kafka-esque situation in his jeremiad against Wray’s game-playing.

In any case, following his briefing, Raskin came out and claimed his FBI briefing showed him, “[i]n August 2020, Attorney General Barr and his hand-picked U.S. Attorney signed off on closing the assessment, having found no evidence to corroborate Mr. Giuliani’s allegations.”

First off, that’s not true in any way. Not only were these allegations not Giuliani’s, but Barr himself has also stated on the record to The Federalist that the investigation of the allegation was not closed and was in fact sent to the Delaware U.S. attorney for further investigation.

But the lie from Raskin was credulously reported by the Post for further dissemination to left-wing audiences.

Washington Post Joins the FBI Info Op

The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for its role in pushing the information operation the FBI and other malign actors orchestrated against President Donald Trump, in which he was falsely accused of being a traitor who had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. The widespread information operation was so effective that it led to the appointment of a damaging special counsel, the derailing of the Trump administration’s effectiveness, and a large majority of Democrats still believing the falsehood even years after it has been soundly and repeatedly debunked. One of the reporters who shared in the prize was Devlin Barrett, who reportedly spent time with Wray last week.

Along with Perry Stein and Jacqueline Alemany, Barrett helped the FBI and other Democrat operatives attempt a cover-up of the dispute with Congress. They claimed the FBI and Department of Justice, under the guidance of Barr, “reviewed allegations from a confidential informant about Joe Biden and his family, and they determined there were no grounds for further investigative steps,” according to Raskin and “other people familiar with the investigation.”

We already know Raskin’s claims are false. Whether the “other people” mentioned include Wray or other anonymous FBI officials is unclear. What is clear is that the spin is deceptive.

The media and other Democrats ignored the claim that a documented allegation existed. Once Wray finally admitted the document did, in fact, exist, the spin machine worked to say it had been investigated and found lacking. The issue is that Grassley and Comer are not as willing to believe the FBI’s unsubstantiated claims as The Washington “Democracy Dies In Darkness” Post’s operatives are.

Not only do they have whistleblowers telling them in detail that the investigation was not handled properly, but journalistic common sense says the same.

We know that the document, which has repeatedly been described by those who have seen it as “detailed,” was dated June 30, 2020. We also are told that Auten closed the investigation in early August 2020. To believe that the details of a complicated criminal enterprise allegation were fully and legitimately investigated and closed by the FBI in four weeks is almost impossible. It’s particularly difficult to believe given that the FBI is apparently leaking false narratives and refusing to substantiate the implausible claim with anything other than a request that they be trusted to tell the truth.

For comparison, the completely idiotic claim that Carter Page was a Russian spy was investigated for years, including securing four invasive warrants to spy on the individual, using extensive electronic surveillance, deploying human sources against Page, and more. Literally no one believes that the detailed claim from a highly trusted confidential human source who had specifics that matched up with verified Biden shell companies was fully investigated and put to bed in a matter of four weeks. Not even Devlin Barrett believes that, even if he pretends to.

No More FBI Lies

The Russia-collusion hoax perpetrated against the American people by the FBI, Democrats, and the media was remarkably effective. But because it was evil and false, the FBI, Democrats, and the media will have a much more difficult time running the operation with the same level of effectiveness again.

Still, Republicans on the Hill must be much savvier this time around, refusing to go along with the FBI’s misleading leaks for even a moment before they demand full compliance with congressional oversight. The good news is that any patience that Grassley and Comer seemed to have for Wray’s game-playing has already run out.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. She is the author of “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.” Reach her at mzhemingway@thefederalist.com

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EXCLUSIVE: Bill Barr Confirms Rep. Jamie Raskin Lied About Biden Family Corruption Investigation


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JUNE 07, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/07/exclusive-bill-barr-confirms-rep-jamie-raskin-lied-about-biden-family-corruption-investigation/

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“It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down,” William Barr told The Federalist on Tuesday in response to Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin’s claim that the former attorney general and his “handpicked prosecutor” had ended an investigation into a confidential human source’s allegation that Joe Biden had agreed to a $5 million bribe. “On the contrary,” Barr stressed, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”

Former Attorney General Barr went on the record with The Federalist following statements Raskin made to the press Monday afternoon. Soon after attending a closed-door meeting with House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and the FBI — at which lawmakers reviewed the FD-1023 form summarizing a CHS’s detailed allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions — Raskin spoke to the media. 

“What I learned,” Raskin claimed, “was that Attorney General Barr named Scott Brady, who was the U.S. attorney for Western Pennsylvania, to head up a group of prosecutors who would look into all the allegations related to Ukraine.”

“After Rudy Giuliani surfaced these allegations,” Raskin continued, Brady’s team looked into the FD-1023 and “in August determined that there was no grounds to escalate from an initial assessment to a preliminary investigation,” and so “they called an end to the investigation.” 

The Maryland Democrat then reiterated his claim that this was “under Attorney General William Barr and his handpicked prosecutor Mr. Brady, who was a Trump appointee.” “They were the ones who decided” there were no further grounds for investigation, Raskin’s claimed, adding: “If there is a complaint, it is with Attorney General William Barr, the Trump Justice Department, and the team that the Trump administration appointed to look into it.” 

Raskin would then double down on his claim that it was Barr and Brady who closed down the investigation, issuing a press release saying that in August 2020, Barr and his “hand-picked U.S. Attorney” signed off on closing an assessment into the FD-1023 form that memorialized the CHS’s claims. 

But that’s just not true, according to the former attorney general. Instead, the confidential human source’s claims detailed in the FD-1023 were sent to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office for further investigation, according to Barr. That, however, was just one of Raskin’s deceptions: The ranking member of the House Oversight Committee also falsely suggested the CHS’s allegations were related to the investigation of information Rudy Giuliani had unearthed of the Biden family corruption in Ukraine. 

Not so, according to an individual familiar with the investigation who told The Federalist that the CHS and the FD-1023 summary of his statement were both “unrelated to Rudy Giuliani” and “not derived” from any information Giuliani provided. This corroborates the House Oversight Committee’s representation that the June 30, 2020, FD-1023 “stands on its own” and was not part of the documents Giuliani provided the FBI in January 2020. 

In fact, according to the House Oversight Committee, the FD-1023 in question “contains information from the FBI’s confidential human source dating back to another FD-1023 generated in 2017,” which completely removes Giuliani from the mix.

Raskin’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Two Huge Scandals

These new revelations prove significant for two reasons. First, there’s the underlying scandal of the FBI’s alleged failure to investigate the FD-1023 and FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten’s opening of an assessment in August 2020 to discredit that information, which “caused investigative activity to cease.” 

Knowing that the FD-1023 originated in Brady’s Western District of Pennsylvania proves explosive because Grassley’s whistleblower alleged that in September 2020, FBI headquarters placed the information contained in Auten’s assessment in a restricted-access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s info could access. How then could the FBI agents in Delaware further investigate the allegations? 

And those allegations, further detailed by Comer on Tuesday, are shocking. “A trusted confidential human source obtained information from a foreign national who claimed to have bribed then-Vice President Biden,” Comer told The Federalist. So, the CHS didn’t just pass on information from some random third party: He spoke directly with the individual who claimed to have bribed Biden. FBI headquarters branding that information as “disinformation” without undertaking an appropriate investigation is outrageous — especially since the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office was directed to further investigate the FD-1023.

The way all this is unfolding sounds more and more like something you would expect to come out of communist Russia, Cuba or China. Such cover-ups are totalitarian in origan, and practiced by the same.

The second scandal is equally as large because it reaches the top of the FBI: Director Christopher Wray. 

Wray may well have been in the dark about FBI headquarters falsely labeling the FD-1023 as misinformation and secreting it away from other agents. But framing the intel from the “highly credible” longtime FBI CHS as coming from Giuliani reeks of a cover-up. And suggesting that Barr and Brady closed down an investigation into the FD-1023 when it was instead sent to Delaware for further investigation is a cover-up.

“The more the FBI leak and coverup machine spins for President Biden, the worse the bureau looks,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told The Federalist upon learning of Barr’s statement. “Enough is enough. It’s past time for the FBI to come clean and show their work if they have any hope of salvaging their own credibility.”

Comer went further, telling The Federalist, “The FBI is attempting a coverup, and Democrats are doing their bidding by lying to the American people.”

“The FBI must produce this record to the House Oversight Committee’s custody,” Comer continued, and “if not, we will take action on Thursday to hold Director Wray in contempt of Congress.”

Given Barr’s statement, that should be the least of Wray’s concerns.

Mollie Hemingway contributed to this report.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Here’s The Single Most Important Question 2024 GOP Presidential Candidates Must Answer


BY: BEN WEINGARTEN | JUNE 06, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/06/heres-the-single-most-important-question-2024-gop-presidential-candidates-must-answer/

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There is one fundamental question that any candidate vying for the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2024 must answer — but that as of yet has gone largely unaddressed, at least publicly, as the field spars over significant but ultimately subordinate issues. The question is this: How will you win the general election under the present voting system?

An inability to answer this question clearly, compellingly, and convincingly imperils Republican odds of retaking the White House, no matter how favorable their prospects might look come next November. It is incumbent on anyone who wants to earn the Republican presidential nomination to answer this question at the outset, and to operate accordingly.

Over the last two election cycles, Republicans lost in historically aberrant if not unprecedented ways. That, or they underachieved relative to what conditions on the ground would have suggested. Political analysts have pointed to numerous factors to explain why the results broke the way they did, but perhaps the one constant in the presidential and midterm elections was that they were both held under a radically transformed voting system.

Democrats are so well-positioned to thrive under this system that even under the most favorable political circumstances, and with a “perfect” Republican presidential candidate, it is not at all clear that such a candidate would prevail. At least that is the prudent assumption under which Republicans serious about winning the presidency should be operating.

As Americans well know, we are lightyears removed from the election days of old — singular days when people voted in person, on paper ballots, after presenting identification. Now, we have mass mail-in elections, conducted over weeks, where those voting in person often do so on electronic machines, and with lax identification standards.

New Norms

Democrats largely developed and long fought for this system, willing it into existence under the cover of Covid-19. Naturally, they have successfully manipulated and exploited the voting regime they made.

Ballot harvesting is becoming an accepted norm. Candidates not only have to earn votes but figure out how to collect as many votes as they possibly can. Are Republicans overnight going to out-harvest their opponents, or figure out some new means to identify and turn out voters otherwise sitting on the sidelines in sufficient numbers to overcome Democrats’ ballot-harvesting superiority?

“Zuckerbucks” continue to loom over our contests as well, despite bans in many states. The left is doing everything it can to steer private money toward public election administration — administration done in conjunction with left-wing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seemingly targeting the Democrat ballots needed to win.

Prepare for Lawfare

Lawfare is also now an integral part of our election system. Republicans have started to devote significantly greater attention and resources to the litigation game, but to catch up to Democrats will require a long-term, sustained effort, backed with real money. And filing suit over election policies and practices after votes have already been cast of course has proven a losing proposition, as demonstrated by courts’ unwillingness to grapple with fundamental issues around the 2020 election largely on technical grounds.

Meanwhile, Democrats have engaged in efforts to ruin the lives of Republican election lawyers — in their own words to “make them toxic in their communities and in their firms” — seeking to kneecap their competition before it ever reaches the courtroom.

Are Republican candidates devising comprehensive election lawfare strategies right now to both aggressively target existing election chicanery and stave off that which is to come — with the courage and intellectual heft behind it needed to win in the face of an unrelenting and calculating opposition?

Daunting Challenges

These in-built challenges exist before even discussing election fraud, and the imperative for a Republican candidate to exhaust every available means to prevent it, and in the absolute worst case to detect and mitigate it — this at a time when voting happens at further remove from the election booth than ever before, making finding and proving fraud all the more difficult.

Layer on top of these issues the broader forces any such candidate will be up against, and the prospect of winning becomes even more daunting.

Among them is a concerted ruling-class effort to stymie any Republican nominee who might challenge its power and privilege, as President Donald Trump found himself up against in 2020. As Time’s Molly Ball described it in her infamous “Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election” exposé, Trump faced: a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.

“They were not rigging the election,” Ball wrote, “they were fortifying it.”

This “cabal” will re-engage in 2024 and redouble its election “fortification” efforts, perhaps especially in “controlling the flow of information” — this is the working assumption Republicans must operate under. Candidates should also assume the deep state will engage in all manner of dirty tricks. The election interference has already begun in earnest. Frankly, it has been ongoing since 2016.

Given the Democrats’ advantages, it would be foolish for any Republican candidate, no matter how formidable, and against an opponent no matter how weak, to presume victory is preordained or even likely in 2024.

The two leading candidates have, to their credit, acknowledged the challenges presented by the voting system and Republicans’ failings in competing under it.

Former President Donald Trump has vowed that “we will become masters at ballot harvesting.” “We have no choice,” he has said, but to “beat Democrats at their own game.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also recently said, “We’re going to do ballot harvesting,” and that he won’t “fight with one hand tied behind [his] back.”

In that spirit, Republican candidates should devise and articulate a comprehensive plan to win, aimed at an electorate largely dubious of a system they see as rigged. Many are demoralized by this system, which could dampen turnout in key areas.

A Plan

In an ideal world, such a plan would begin with an effort to lobby state legislatures to pass a battery of election integrity-strengthening laws seeking to restore voting, to the greatest extent possible, to the standard of single-day, in-person, and with identification; purge voter rolls of ineligible names; provide maximum transparency and visibility into the voting process for observers, challengers, and the candidates; facilitate real-time arbitration over contested ballots and irregularities, and clear remedies for broader alleged malfeasance; empower state authorities to pursue vote fraud; and impose utterly crippling criminal penalties on anyone who engages in it.

Beyond a legislative effort to ensure end-to-end election integrity from delivery of ballot to vote-counting, candidates must lay out a realistic roadmap for success by internalizing lessons of recent election cycles and forthrightly recognizing Republicans’ strengths and weaknesses. They must determine how to optimally deploy finite resources to triumph in a bloody political war, and play on whatever advantages Republicans may have.

To prepare such a plan, candidates should seek to identify: Democrats’ most effective and decisive strategies and tactics in recent election cycles; what Democrats will do to improve upon these efforts; Republicans’ greatest strategic and tactical failures and successes in recent election cycles; Republican advantages yet to be exploited; and the most significant election integrity-eroding laws, policies, and practices on a state-by-state basis in recent election cycles.

Such an analysis would help the candidates determine which strategies and tactics to replicate, improve upon, experiment with, and totally discard. It would also help them anticipate the strategies and tactics they should combat using whatever means available, and, relatedly, discern what rules and features of the game they must relentlessly litigate over — as Democrats will no doubt be doing.

Then, candidates could develop a precinct-level plan to find and maximize turnout among voters in the most pivotal locales while building as strong and aggressive an on-the-ground poll challenging/fraud detection operation as possible to deter illegal or unethical Democrat behavior; develop a related lawfare plan; and determine how much money they must raise to implement the plans, when and where to allocate the funds, and to whom.

At minimum, this thought exercise would yield critical insights, and instill in voters and donors alike confidence there is a robust and coherent operation in place to maximize the odds for success.

The planning must begin now.

Only by competing and winning under a rotten system rewarding the kind of organizing and action historically anathema to conservatives will there ever be an opportunity to dismantle that system.

Ben Weingarten is Editor at Large for RealClearInvestigations. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, columnist at Newsweek, and a contributor to the New York Post and Epoch Times, among other publications. Subscribe to his newsletter at weingarten.substack.com, and follow him on Twitter: @bhweingarten.

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‘Highly Credible’ Source Reveals Scandal Bigger Than Biden Bribery: FBI Election Interference


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JUNE 05, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/05/highly-credible-source-reveals-scandal-bigger-than-biden-bribery-fbi-election-interference/

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The confidential human source (CHS) behind the detailed allegations that then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions was reportedly “highly credible” and used by the FBI in multiple criminal investigations dating back to the Obama administration. Friday’s exclusive by Fox News provides further insight into Sen. Chuck Grassley’s focus on the FBI — as opposed to the Biden family — as the primary scandal in play.

“We aren’t interested in whether or not the accusations against [then]-Vice President Biden are accurate,” Grassley said during an interview last week discussing FBI Director Christopher Wray’s refusal to comply with the congressional subpoena issued for the FD-1023 form. That form, dated June 30, 2020, included detailed information from a CHS to the FBI regarding an agreement by now-President Biden to deliver preferred foreign policy positions for a $5 million payment.

After Grassley revealed he had already seen the FD-1023, Fox News’ Bill Hemmer queried: “How damning is this document to the sitting U.S. president?” 

“I don’t know,” responded Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He stressed that while “there’s accusations” in the FBI report, the congressional oversight committees’ concern is whether “the FBI does its job.” “That’s what we want to know,” he continued.

Friday’s revelation that the CHS was “highly credible” and had served as a source in multiple prior criminal investigations — including ones run under the Obama-Biden administration — proves Grassley is properly focused on the FBI.

Yes, the CHS’s allegations offer more evidence of a Biden family pay-to-play scandal, and unraveling any criminal conduct by the Biden family remains important. But more significant to the future of our country is uncovering government actors responsible for violating the rule of law: America can survive select injustices, but it cannot withstand a corrupt bureaucracy that obstructs justice and interferes in elections. 

Yet that is precisely what occurred, according to the whistleblower. He claimed that “in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters’ team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” The whistleblower further alleged that the FBI HQ team that handled the Auten assessment, after concluding the reporting was disinformation, placed the information in a restricted access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s information could access. 

Now knowing the CHS behind the FD-1023 was not just “trusted,” as Grassley had previously indicated, but “highly credible,” and relied upon in multiple criminal cases dating back to the last time Biden worked for the executive branch, makes the whistleblower’s accusations even more damning because those additional facts mean the agents had reason to believe the buried accusations were true.

Not only does this evidence suggest FBI headquarters obstructed justice, but the date of the CHS’s report indicates those responsible for misbranding the intel as disinformation sought to interfere in the 2020 election. 

As Grassley’s colleague in the House, James Comer, revealed, the CHS report was dated June 30, 2020, and while the allegations against candidate Biden came from a “highly credible” CHS, the FBI closed them. According to the whistleblower, FBI headquarters closed out the source even though some of the allegations had already been verified and other details could have been verified. 

In contrast, when the bureau received a vague tip from an Australian diplomat of unknown veracity that a low-level Trump volunteer had claimed the Russians possessed dirt on Hillary Clinton, within days FBI headquarters opened an investigation into the Trump campaign.

John Durham’s special counsel report recently lay bare the impropriety of the FBI’s targeting of the Trump campaign based on unverified gossip from an unvetted source. Grassley is now highlighting the converse: the FBI’s improper branding of evidence from a “highly credible” CHS as disinformation to protect the Democrat candidate for president. 

This evidence of continuing political bias at the FBI is Grassley’s primary concern, prompting him to call for a “change in the culture.” That change will be a long time coming, however, given that Wray resisted the subpoena and appears poised to fight Grassley and congressional oversight committees every step of the way.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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James Comer Announces Contempt Hearings For FBI Director Christopher Wray


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JUNE 05, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/05/james-comer-announces-contempt-hearings-for-fbi-director-christopher-wray/

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Republican Chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer announced Monday that lawmakers will convene contempt hearings for FBI Director Christopher Wray later this week.

Speaking to reporters in a Capitol Hill press conference, the Kentucky representative charged the FBI with violating a congressional subpoena over an unclassified document. The FBI record purportedly implicates President Joe Biden in a $5 million-dollar bribery scheme with a “foreign national” from Biden’s time in the Obama administration.

“Anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena,” Comer warned last week.

The House Oversight chairman viewed the document in a secure SCIF at the Capitol on Monday after agency officials initially refused and demanded lawmakers travel to the FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“FBI officials confirmed that the unclassified FBI generated record has not been disproven and is currently being used in an ongoing investigation,” Comer said Monday. “At the briefing, the FBI again refused to hand over the unclassified record to the custody of the House Oversight Committee, and we will now initiate contempt of Congress hearings this Thursday.”

Comer noted the document “appears” to be used in an ongoing FBI probe “which I assume is in Delaware” and promised Congress’ own investigation is only in the “beginning” stages. Agency claims that the document can’t be released, however, are likely to be met with skepticism considering the FBI hired Igor Danchenko as an undercover informant to keep the lies around the Trump-Russia investigation quiet.

Republicans have threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress for weeks over the FBI chief’s refusal to hand over the requested record. Comer submitted a subpoena for the document with Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a primary watchdog of the Justice Department in the upper chamber.

“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” Grassley wrote in May. “What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. The FBI’s recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight.”

[RELATED: Chuck Grassley Demands DOJ Cough Up Document Over Criminal Scheme Involving Joe Biden]

While the FBI director faces contempt charges over the document implicating the president in a bribery scheme, the agency continues to stonewall congressional requests on a pair of pipe bombs found at the DNC and RNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio has demanded an FBI briefing on the pipe bomb investigation multiple times. According to Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent who worked on the case, the agency previously tracked down the suspect’s car but has not identified the culprit. The FBI also found both bombs to be inoperable.

[READ: The FBI Knows What Car Was Used In J6 DNC Pipe Bomb, But Refuses To Identify Prime Suspect]

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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FBI will bring document alleging Biden ‘criminal bribery scheme’ to Capitol Hill — but a major question remains


By: CHRIS ENLOE | June 02, 2023

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/fbi-brings-biden-document-capitol-hill/

MANDEL NGAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

FBI Director Christopher Wray will allow congressional investigators to view a document related to alleged criminal activity involving President Joe Biden.

Last month, the House Oversight Committee demanded that Wray turn over a copy of an FBI document that allegedly shows evidence that Biden, as vice president, was engaged in a “criminal bribery scheme” that involves “an exchange of money for policy decisions.”

According to Fox News, the FBI will bring the document in question to Capitol Hill on Monday. Only House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member on the committee, will be allowed to view the document. The document will be kept in a SCIF, a secured environment for viewing sensitive — most often, highly classified — information.

News of the planned document viewing comes after Wray offered to bring the document to Capitol Hill in a phone call with Comer on Wednesday. The FBI had previously refused to give Congress any access to the document. Bureau officials said the decision was necessary to protect confidential human sources. Still, it’s not clear whether Wray is complying with the subpoena, technically speaking.

On Wednesday, Comer said:

We have been clear that anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena. If the FBI fails to hand over the FD-1023 form as required by the subpoena, the House Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings.

A spokesman for the Republican lawmaker reaffirmed that sentiment on Thursday, suggesting the current plan may not spring Wray from contempt proceedings.

“Chairman Comer has been clear that anything short of producing the FD-1023 form to the House Oversight Committee is not compliance with his subpoena,” the spokesperson said. “This unclassified record contains pages of details that need to be investigated further by the House Oversight Committee.”

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Leading GOP Election Officials: Feds’ ‘Treasonous’ Interference Is A ‘Direct Attack’ On U.S. Elections


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | JUNE 02, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/02/leading-gop-election-officials-feds-treasonous-interference-is-a-direct-attack-on-u-s-elections/

A roll of 'I voted' stickers

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Several leading Republican election officials are sounding the alarm about the federal government’s persistent interference in U.S. elections.

Jay Ashcroft and Mac Warner, the secretaries of state of Missouri and West Virginia, respectively, recently told The Federalist they are increasingly worried about the mounting evidence documenting federal agencies’ interference in prior elections to the benefit of the Democrat Party.

Ashcroft pointed to the long-awaited report from U.S. Attorney John Durham that confirmed what The Federalist has been reporting for years: The FBI possessed no real evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump colluded with Russian government officials when it launched its investigation into the Trump campaign leading up to the 2016 election. The political investigation — which was “based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” — would continue throughout the 2016 election and well into Trump’s presidency.

This type of behavior from government agencies “is what you expect out of a banana republic,” Ashcroft said. “It is a direct attack on a foundational aspect of our country, that being fair, free elections.” As it turns out, he noted, “the largest purveyor of misinformation and disinformation with regard to elections [over the course of] the last several years has been the federal government.”

Warner echoed similar sentiments, calling the report’s findings “extraordinary” and adding that he can’t recall an instance in U.S. history where “our own federal agencies have gotten involved in an election to the point of lying to the American people to sway the outcome … for one candidate and one party.”

The 2016 election wasn’t the only one in which U.S. intel agencies decided to intervene to boost Democrats’ electoral prospects. Last month, a report released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government indicated the CIA “both solicited signatures for and eventually approved the infamous 2020 letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian disinformation plot.” The letter — which was signed by more than 50 former intel officials — was used as a pretext by Big Tech companies and legacy media to censor and ignore the New York Post’s reporting on the Bidens’ shady business dealings ahead of the 2020 election.

During his Oct. 2020 debate with Trump, Biden even cited the letter to dismiss Trump’s mention of the Post report, accusing the then-Republican president of partaking in a “Russian plan.” It’s also worth noting that during an August interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted Facebook algorithmically suppressed stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 election after being primed to do so by the FBI. According to Zuckerberg, the FBI warned Facebook about forthcoming “Russian propaganda” just before reports of the laptop dropped.

Polls taken since the 2020 election have shown that the coordinated efforts between U.S. intelligence agencies, America’s regime media, and social media companies to censor and ignore the Post’s reporting may have tipped the election to Biden. As Federalist CEO Sean Davis reported, a 2022 poll by TIPP Insights “found that 47 percent of those polled, including 45 percent of independents, said knowing the laptop contents were real and not Russian disinformation likely would have changed their votes in the 2020 election.”

In his remarks to The Federalist, Warner took specific aim at then-Biden campaign adviser and now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who, according to testimony from ex-CIA official Michael Morell, played a role in the creation of the debunked letter. During his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Morell said Blinken reached out to him to discuss the laptop story several days after it dropped and that the call “absolutely” pushed him to write the infamous letter. Morell additionally confirmed one of the main reasons he released the letter was because he “wanted [Biden] to win the election.”

“Using the word treason is not out of context. It’s treasonous when you betray your own, and this [was] a betrayal by our own people,” Warner said. “These agencies are supposed to protect us, and [yet] they are the ones who are perpetrating this fraud on the American people. You just can’t get any more insidious or dangerous than that.”

Warner has been among several Republican elected officials to call for Blinken’s resignation.

While discussing the integrity of future elections, Ashcroft and Warner both emphasized that failure to hold America’s intel agencies accountable for their previous shenanigans will only result in continued interference in future elections.

“Unless there is real punishment for the people involved, it will continue in future elections,” Ashcroft said. “They are violating federal law by being involved in elections in a political way that they are not allowed to be and they are using that to change the outcome. They are using … not just their office, but their clearance and their job titles, and using that to change the outcome of our elections. I don’t know what’s more severe than that.”

It’s worth mentioning that Missouri and West Virginia have implemented several election integrity reforms in recent years. Last year, Missouri passed legislation requiring voters to “provide a form of personal photo identification that is consistent” with state law in order to vote. Meanwhile, West Virginia, according to Warner, has successfully removed more than 400,000 ineligible voters from its voter registration lists since 2016. Both states were also among those to withdraw from ERIC — a leftist-controlled voter-roll management group — earlier this year.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Person alleging Biden criminal bribery scheme is a ‘highly credible’ FBI source used since Obama admin: Source


Brooke Singman

By Brooke Singman | Fox News | Published June 2, 2023 2:59pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/person-alleging-biden-criminal-bribery-scheme-is-a-highly-credible-fbi-source-used-since-obama-admin-source

EXCLUSIVE: The individual behind the information that then-Vice President Joe Biden was involved in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national is a “highly credible” FBI confidential human source who has been used by the bureau in multiple investigative matters dating back to the Obama administration, Fox News Digital has learned.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley were approached by a whistleblower alleging that the FBI was in possession of a document—an FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020—which explicitly detailed information provided by a confidential human source alleging Biden, while serving as vice president, was involved in a $5 million criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national in exchange for influence over policy decisions.

WHISTLEBLOWER ALLEGES FBI, DOJ HAVE DOCUMENT REVEALING CRIMINAL SCHEME INVOLVING BIDEN, FOREIGN NATIONAL

A source familiar told Fox News Digital on Friday that the confidential human source who provided the Biden information to the FBI was a “pre-existing” FBI source who has been used in multiple investigative matters separate from the Biden information.

President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden speaks at the University of Tampa on Feb. 9, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The source told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source was used by the FBI for “at least several years” before the generation of the June 2020 FD-1023 form detailing the Biden allegations. 

The source also told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source has been “consistently reviewed by the FBI” and has been “found to be highly credible.”

FBI TO BRING BIDEN DOCUMENT TO CAPITOL HILL MONDAY, AFTER THREATS TO HOLD WRAY IN CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS

The source said the individual participated in investigative matters during the Obama administration. The FBI did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Comer, R-Ky., subpoenaed the FBI’s FD-1023 document last month, but the bureau did not comply because it said it was trying to protect sources and methods. Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress if the bureau did not turn over the physical document to the committee. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray
FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks during a news conference on Aug. 10, 2022, in Omaha, Nebraska. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

WHITE HOUSE INSISTS NO ‘POLITICAL INTERFERENCE’ IN HUNTER BIDEN PROBE AFTER IRS WHISTLEBLOWER COMES FORWARD

The information in the FD-1023 form, according to the whistleblower, reveals “a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose” and details an arrangement involving an exchange of money for policy decisions. 

Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

An FD-1023 form is used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting from confidential human sources. The form is used to document information as told to an FBI agent, but recording that information does not validate or weigh it against other information known by the FBI.

SIX ADDITIONAL BIDEN FAMILY MEMBERS ‘MAY HAVE BENEFITED’ FROM HUNTER BUSINESS DEALINGS

The FBI offered to allow Comer and Grassley to review the document at FBI headquarters and later agreed to bring the physical document to Capitol Hill Monday for lawmakers to review in a secure SCIF. The FBI is also expected to deliver a briefing to the lawmakers in that same setting on the Biden document and allegations on Monday. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley speaks into mircrophone during hearing
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IO).  (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The White House has maintained that President Biden is not involved in any foreign business dealings and said that he has never spoken to his son, Hunter Biden, about them. Hunter Biden has been under federal investigation since 2018 for his “tax affairs” linked to suspicious foreign transactions. 

Biden administration officials maintain the president has never discussed investigations into members of his family with the Justice Department.

When asked for comment, the White House pointed Fox News Digital to a previous statement made last month, saying “Republicans in Congress have been lobbing unfounded, unproven, politically-motivated attacks against the President and his family without offering evidence for their claims or evidence of decisions influenced by anything other than U.S. interests.” 

“That’s because they prefer floating anonymous innuendo, amplified by the megaphone of their allies in rightwing media, to get attention and try to distract and deflect from their own unpopular ideas and lack of solutions to the issues the American people actually care about,” White House spokesman Ian Sams said in May. “When it comes to President Biden’s personal finances, anybody can take a look: he has offered an unprecedented level of transparency, releasing a total of 25 years of tax returns to the American public.”

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

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Senator Rick Scott Op-ed: Debt ceiling deal won’t deliver on inflation or America. Senate must scrap it


Rick Scott

 By Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) | Fox News | Published June 1, 2023 10:51am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/debt-ceiling-deal-deliver-inflation-america-senate-scrap

While I made it clear this week that I do not support the debt ceiling deal, I believe Speaker Kevin McCarthy and our House Republican negotiators gave it their best against a president who does not care about how the inflation he created, retirement concerns and medical bills are causing havoc on families all across this country. 

It’s OK to acknowledge that the deal being voted on this week may be the best that could be done with this president who refused to negotiate or even discuss this issue for months. But that acknowledgment must come with a second part: This legislation will only bury us deeper in debt and won’t actually deal with the raging inflation that is hurting every American family.

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Now conservatives in Congress have a choice. We can either do business with the devil knowing this debt ceiling bill will not slay inflation, reduce retirement concerns or medical bills. Or, we can say now is the time to live within our means and stop inflation in its tracks. 

If the time to say no is not today, when is it? Is it when we hit $40 trillion in debt, mortgage rates climb north of ten percent and credit card interest rates go over 30%? I say no, that would be far too late. 

Video

So ask yourself this question: is a yes vote this week simply kicking the can down the road and telling American families we don’t care about how inflation is impacting their ability to make ends meet. Of course, the answer is yes. 

HOUSE HOLDS ITS NOSE AND APPROVES BIDEN-MCCARTHY DEBT DEAL

When a family has a spendthrift child, all they want is for that child to learn to be independent and live within their means. We all love our kids and we don’t want them to fail, but seeing your child be independent and responsible is one of the greatest joys of parenthood. Standing up on your own feels good whether you’re a parent, running a company or leading a state. Only in Washington do people have a hard time accepting this basic and universal truth. 

I am a businessman who has negotiated a lot of deals. In every deal, you have to say no at some point. Maybe this is the time all Republicans need to say no.

Frankly, I’m sick and tired of watching people live in D.C.’s fantasy land where debt doesn’t matter, while America burns in the background.

I am a businessman who has negotiated a lot of deals. In every deal, you have to say no at some point. Maybe this is the time all Republicans need to say no. Not to be an obstructionist, but to tell every American family we hear them and we care about them.

DEBT CEILING DEAL’S BIGGEST LOSER IS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. REPUBLICANS, DEMS HELL-BENT ON DRIVING US INTO DEBT

When we say no to more debt, we are telling all American families we know inflation is too high and is caused by a federal government that cannot live within its means. By saying no to more debt, we are telling American families we know medical bills are too expensive, along with gas, groceries, college and rent. By saying no, we can force elected leaders to make choices like all American families do. 

Video

 Biden will not acknowledge what his reckless spending is doing to the American family. Inflation is causing American families to make tough choices. Inflation and mortgage rates are making housing unaffordable. Interest expense is eating up the federal budget, crowding out military spending when Communist China is building a military to defeat us. 

Let me give you some outrageous numbers. President Biden’s proposed budget for this year was $6.8 TRILLION – a 55% increase since 2019. Meanwhile, the U.S. population has grown less than 2% in that same time. This is the kind of reckless spending that gets embraced in Washington and it’s ruining our country.

Video

The only way out of this mess is to balance the budget, pay down federal debt, reduce the size of government, reduce regulations, make permitting easier and have government only do the must haves. That’s what I did as governor of Florida and the result was more and better paying jobs, less taxes, less debt, better schools and a lower crime rate. 

I supported what House Republicans originally passed in the Limit, Save, Grow Act. It wasn’t perfect, but at least it started the process to a balanced budget, get able-bodied Americans back to work, reduced the regulatory footprint which is killing American jobs and worked to grow the American economy not the Washington, D.C. economy. 

So, if our only two options are to make the tough choices to balance our budget or pass this bad bill, the decision is easy. 

Let’s do the hard work and make the tough choices so American families can realize the dream that has made our great nation the greatest place for opportunity on Earth. 

Above all, we must understand this – there will never come a day when the permanent political class in either party in Washington will stand up in favor of curtailing runaway spending and debt. But we must all hope that there will come a day when enough responsible adults are sent to Washington to stop this madness.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN. RICK SCOTT 

Republican Rick Scott represents Florida in the United States Senate. He is a former Florida governor.

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Breadcrumbs From a Buried FBI Source May Lead to a Bigger Biden Scandal


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 31, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/31/breadcrumbs-from-a-buried-fbi-source-may-lead-to-a-bigger-biden-scandal/

Chuck Grassley

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ALL EMPHASIS ARE BY ME – Jerry Broussard WDYS

After a confidential human source claimed then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions, FBI agents used what’s called an FD-1023 form to record the allegation. Now FBI Director Christopher Wray is defying a May 3 congressional subpoena to provide this form. On Tuesday, in response to Wray’s refusal to hand over the documents, Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer announced the House will move to hold the FBI director in contempt of Congress. 

It isn’t that announcement — or even the other explosive ones released over the past year by Comer’s Senate colleague, Chuck Grassley — that prove the most telling, however. Rather, it is the combination of all the details, big and small, that suggests the scandal set to unfold over the coming weeks will be bigger than anyone imagined.

The Dirt Is in the Details

Take recent big news from whistleblower disclosures revealing that the Justice Department and the FBI have the unclassified FD-1023 form spelling out Biden’s alleged criminal behavior. Then combine that with other known information to discover the bigger picture.

For instance, in response to Wray’s failure to comply with the subpoena, Grassley, who had previously noted the FD-1023 form was five or six pages long, indicated that the confidential human source (CHS) was “an apparent trusted FBI source.” This is huge because Grassley wouldn’t make that claim unless the whistleblower had. That means the source is not some random guy walking in off the street, but rather an existing “trusted” CHS, which is why the FBI used the FD-1023 form.

In response to Wray’s stonewalling, Comer likewise revealed some significant details, clarifying late last week that the CHS reporting document was dated June 30, 2020, and referenced “the amount of money the foreign national allegedly paid to receive the desired policy outcome” as “five million.” These details could only have come from a whistleblower with deep knowledge of the investigation, meaning the whistleblower’s characterization of the CHS as “trusted” carries more weight. Likewise, the whistleblower’s claim that the FD-1023 “includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose,” is more credible given the whistleblower’s knowledge of other details.

Comer’s reference to “five million” is also intriguing. In a letter to Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, Grassley had previously revealed a promise by a Chinese communist government-connected enterprise to funnel $5 million to “Hunter and James Biden to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president.” Records released by Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., also confirmed a $5 million payment to James and Hunter Biden from another Chinese-connected business. 

The date of the FD-1023 form, June 30, 2020, also proves significant when read in conjunction with Grassley’s letter to Wray in July 2022. In that letter, Grassley said the whistleblower had claimed that “the FBI developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity,” but “that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters (‘FBI HQ’) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” 

The whistleblower further alleged that in September 2020, the FBI HQ team that handled the Auten assessment, after concluding the reporting was disinformation, placed the information in a restricted access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s information could access. 

Several points merit mention here: First, Auten is the same agent responsible for some of the shenanigans in Crossfire Hurricane. Second, Grassley’s letter indicates Auten did not open the “assessment” on Hunter Biden or other members of the Biden family. The senator’s correspondence actually suggests the assessment may have been opened on the CHS.

Here’s the relevant language:

The basis for how the FBI HQ team selected the specific information for inclusion in Auten’s assessment is unknown, but in more than one instance the focus of the FBI HQ team’s attention involved derogatory information about Hunter Biden.

The whistleblower also reportedly told Grassley that FBI HQ later closed sources after branding their info as disinformation. Given the timing of the assessment (August 2020) and the date of the CHS report (June 2020), it seems likely the FBI used the CHS report as part of the “assessment” and that the “assessment” was of the CHS.

This leads to the next significant point: According to the whistleblower, Auten’s assessment led to the “improper discrediting” of the verified and verifiable derogatory information about Hunter Biden. Worse, based on several hints dropped by Grassley over the last year, FBI headquarters conducted little to no investigation on the CHS and other derogatory info before labeling it “disinformation.”

The timing of the CHS report in June 2020 also proves conveniently coincidental to the decision by Democrat Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Rep. Adam Schiff to send a letter just two weeks later, on July 13, 2020, to the FBI claiming Congress was being subjected to a foreign disinformation campaign. On July 16, 2020, the then-ranking members of two congressional committees asked the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force — the same one that handled the “assessment” that branded the Hunter Biden intel as disinformation — to give the committees a defensive briefing. News of that “Russian disinformation” briefing soon leaked to the press. 

What About a Recording?

Grassley’s correspondence and statements over the last year hint at one more possibility: The FBI had at least one recording that implicated members of the Biden family in a criminal enterprise and buried that evidence. Specifically, in one letter to the bureau, Grassley said other FBI records “shed light on Hunter Biden’s business and financial relationship with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky,” and those “documents include specific details about conversations by non-government individuals relevant to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden.” Grassley had previously requested interview summary forms that referenced Zlochevsky, and in seeking FBI records, the senator’s letter made clear that “records” included “recorded or graphic material,” including “recordings of verbal communications.” This possibility fits with the whistleblower’s description of “an avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting” that FBI HQ shut down in October 2020 “in furtherance of Mr. Auten’s assessment,” even though, according to the whistleblower, the intel could have been verified by use of search warrants. 

A follow-up question Grassley asked Wray further suggests the possibility of recorded conversations implicating the Bidens: “Does the Justice Department have a specific policy regarding the use of materials and information related to U.S. citizens who reside in the United States provided by foreign governments, including the fruits of surveillance carried out by a foreign state’s intelligence service?”

Whether these possibilities pan out remains to be seen, but what should be clear to all now is that the whistleblower knows where the evidence is buried — and Grassley and Comer have brought their shovels.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Republicans Use House Committee Hearing To Demolish Democrats’ Bogus Election Lies


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | MAY 25, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/25/republicans-use-house-committee-hearing-to-demolish-democrats-bogus-election-lies/

Former Georgia Rep. Scot Turner testifying before Congress

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During a House subcommittee hearing on “American Confidence in Elections,” Republicans demolished Democrats’ phony narratives regarding nonexistent “voter suppression.”

“Our hearing today will highlight how voters across the country are demanding reforms to ensure that every eligible American voter can be confident that they will have access to the ballot box and that their ballot will be counted according to established law,” said Chair and Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla.

For the past several years, Democrats have routinely slandered anyone with legitimate questions about the conduction of the 2020 election. Concerns raised about the influence of hundreds of millions of ‘Zuckbucks,’ interference by federal intel agencies, and censorship by Big Tech platforms have been met with leftist accusations of subverting “democracy” and advancing “conspiracy theories.” Legacy media have additionally used the term “election denier” to smear and silence their political opponents over such concerns.

During Wednesday’s hearing, however, Scot Turner, a former Republican state representative from Georgia, turned the tables, exposing Democrats as the party that has a history of pushing real conspiracy theories regarding the outcome of elections.

“Faith in the results of elections is vitally key for the health of our republic. But more and more, that faith is shaken by false allegations,” Turner said. “In 2016, the presidential election was marred by allegations of Russian hacking. And while evidence showed that the hacking was of email servers, by December of 2016, half of Democrat voters believed that Russians had changed vote tallies in favor of Donald Trump. That number would skyrocket to 67 percent … after a media barrage and many prominent leaders call[ed] the presidency of Donald Trump ‘illegitimate.’”

A November 2018 Economist/YouGov poll found this to be the case, showing that 67 percent of Democrats believed it was “definitely true” or “probably true” that “Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected.” Meanwhile, only 17 percent of Republicans and 41 percent of Independents believed such a statement to have any semblance of accuracy, according to the survey.

During his testimony, Turner also highlighted former Georgia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ repeated insistence that her 2018 election against now-Republican Gov. Brian Kemp was illegitimate due to nonexistent voter suppression. Shortly after the 2018 contest, for instance, Abrams told a crowd of supporters that “concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper” and that “as a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede.” Abrams repeated similar remarks during an August 2019 interview with CBS News.

Abrams’ bogus contention ultimately went down in flames last year when an Obama-appointed judge struck down her lawsuit challenging the election. In his opinion, Judge Steve Jones wrote that the voting practices challenged by Abrams’ team “violate neither the constitution nor the [Voting Rights Act of 1965].”

“Abrams’ refusal [to concede] in 2018 is when it became apparent to me as a state representative just how damaging misinformation and disinformation are to our country,” Turner said.

Turner additionally referenced Democrats’ slanderous attacks on Georgia’s 2021 election integrity law, saying that dishonest opposition to such measures “are a form of voter suppression in their own right.” Signed by Kemp in March 2021, SB 202 included provisions mandating voter ID for absentee voting and safeguards on giving voters gifts or money within 150 feet of a polling place. Early voting was also expanded under the law, with counties now required to “offer two Saturdays of early voting instead of just one.”

Immediately after the law’s passage, Democrats and their legacy media allies began smearing the law as a Republican-led effort to “suppress” nonwhite voters. President Joe Biden grossly referred to SB 202 as “Jim Crow on steroids” and called on Major League Baseball to relocate its 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta in protest. The MLB ultimately acquiesced, condemning the law and moving the game to Colorado. The decision ultimately cost Georgia an estimated $100 million in revenue. Coca-Cola and Delta were also among those to condemn SB 202.

Contrary to Democrats’ claims that the Republican-backed law would suppress Georgians’ ability to vote, the results from the 2022 midterms say otherwise. In addition to record early voter turnout ahead of the Nov. 8 general election, the state also experienced record turnout for in-person, early voting for its Dec. 6 Senate runoff.

A poll conducted after the midterms further revealed that 0 percent of black Georgia voters said they had a “poor” experience voting in the 2022 contest. In fact, as noted by Breitbart, “73 percent said they had an ‘excellent’ overall experience voting, 23 percent said they had a ‘good’ experience, [and] three percent said they had a ‘fair’ experience.”

“At each step of the way and with every improvement to the voting process, the Georgia General Assembly has had critics screaming at them that what they’re doing is wrong, racist, and will hurt communities of various types,” Turner said. “And just like the claims that Russia hacked the election and changed votes, or that Abrams lost because of ‘voter suppression,’ or that the election was stolen, the data and evidence don’t back up those claims.”

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood.

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Biden, McCarthy Appear Closer to Deal on Debt Ceiling


NEWSMAX Staff | Thursday, 25 May 2023 03:48 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/us/debt-ceiling-negotiations/2023/05/25/id/1121215/

Biden, McCarthy Appear Closer to Deal on Debt Ceiling
(Getty Images)

President Joe Biden and top congressional Republican Kevin McCarthy on Thursday appeared to be nearing a deal to cut spending and raise the government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, with little time to spare to head off the risk of default. The deal would specify the total amount the government could spend on discretionary programs like housing and education, according to a person familiar with the talks, but not break that down into individual categories. The two sides are just $70 billion apart on a total figure that would be well over $1 trillion, according to another source.

Biden said the two sides still disagreed where the cuts should fall.

“I don’t believe the whole burden should fall back to middle class and working class Americans,” he told reporters.

The Treasury Department has warned that the federal government could run short of money to cover all its obligations as soon as June 1 – a week away – but on Thursday it announced plans to sell $119 billion worth of debt that will settle on June 1, suggesting to some market watchers that date was not an iron-clad deadline. Any agreement will have to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democrat-controlled Senate. That could be tricky, as some right-wing Republicans and many liberal Democrats said they were upset by the prospect of compromise.

“I don’t think everybody’s going to be happy at the end of the day. That’s now how the system works,” said McCarthy, who serves as House speaker.

His office did not respond to a request for comment about the possible agreement with the  president. The deal would only set broad spending outlines, leaving lawmakers to fill in the blanks in the weeks and months to come. It would specify the total amount of military spending, which would a key sticking point in the talks, one of the sources said.

Biden has resisted Republican proposals to stiffen work requirements for anti-poverty programs and loosen oil and gas drilling rules, according to Democrat Rep. Mark Takano.

Rep.  Kevin Hern, who leads the powerful Republican Study Committee, told Reuters a deal was likely by Friday afternoon.

Even as Republicans tout progress, McCarthy is preparing to possibly let lawmakers leave Washington on Thursday for a week-long holiday recess, with the proviso that they need to be ready to return for a vote. The Senate is currently out but on similar orders to be ready to return.

A U.S. default could upend global financial markets and push the United States into recession.

POSSIBLE DOWNGRADE

Credit rating agency DBRS Morningstar put the United States on review for a possible downgrade on Thursday, echoing similar warnings by Fitch, Moody’s and Scope Ratings. Another agency, S&P Global, downgraded U.S. debt following a similar debt-ceiling standoff in 2011. The months-long standoff has spooked Wall Street, weighing on U.S. stocks and pushing the nation’s cost of borrowing higher. The yield on U.S. Treasury bills maturing in early June climbed in early Thursday trading, in a sign of investor unease.

Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said concerns about the debt ceiling had pushed up the government’s interest costs by $80 million so far. Lawmakers regularly need to raise the self-imposed debt limit to cover the cost of spending and tax cuts they have already approved.

House lawmakers will get three days to read any debt-ceiling bill before they have to vote on it. In the Senate, Republican Mike Lee said he would block a quick vote if he did not like the deal, which could delay action for days. McCarthy has insisted that any deal must cut discretionary spending next year and cap spending growth in the years to come, to slow the growth of the U.S. debt, now equal to the annual output of the economy.

He also said he had briefly spoken about the negotiations with former President Donald Trump, who has publicly urged Republicans to allow a default if they fall short of their goals. Biden has offered to freeze spending at current levels next year and proposed several tax increases to help curb the debt.

Lawmakers on the parties’ right and left flanks are growing frustrated by signs of compromise. Republican Representative Chip Roy, a member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, has insisted that any deal must include the sharp spending cuts they passed last month.

Some Democrats, meanwhile, say Biden has not been vocal enough about the downsides to Republicans’ proposed spending cuts, in contrast to McCarthy who has been briefing reporters multiple times per day.

“I would urge the president to use the power of the bully pulpit of the presidency,” said Democrat Representative Steven Horsford.

© 2023 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

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Gregg Jarrett Op-ed: Durham reports shows Biden and Obama knew truth of Trump collusion hoax but kept silent


Gregg Jarrett

 Gregg Jarrett | Fox News | Published May 22, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/durham-reports-shows-biden-obama-knew-truth-trump-collusion-hoax-kept-silent

A silence kept in order to hide the truth is a lie.  

By that maxim, there are plenty of liars among prominent Democrats who knew that the damning Trump-Russia collusion narrative was all a hoax. But they chose to remain mum, preferring instead to watch contentedly as an American president was vilified nonstop by a media-driven orgy of lies. It consumed the nation for years and inflicted untold harm. None of them had the decency to volunteer the truth.

This is one of the key findings in the 306-page Durham report that the special counsel filled to the brim with documented acts of deviousness, dishonesty and malice by high officials in government whom we are supposed to trust but should not.    

Comparisons.org
Obama and Biden selfie
Barack Obama and Joe Biden (Joe Biden/Instagram)

In July 2016, CIA Director John Brennan rushed to the White House to brief then-President Barack Obama and Joe Biden, our current president, about alarming new evidence uncovered by American intelligence. The agency had obtained reliable information that “Hillary Clinton had approved a campaign plan to stir up a scandal against Donald Trump by tying him to Putin and the Russians” (page 81 of the report).    

BOMBSHELL DURHAM REPORT CONFIRMS FBI, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HAD THESE RADICAL MOTIVES

It was an outrageous and wholly invented accusation unsupported by anything except Hillary’s craven imagination. Her shrewd goal was to frame her opponent for unidentified crimes that he never committed and, thereby, damage or sink his candidacy.  

As Durham noted, the despicable smear had the dual benefit of distracting from her own nagging email scandal that was dragging down her poll numbers. Given its potency, the Clinton canard ranks as the dirtiest trick ever perpetrated in American politics.

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Obama and Biden knew all about Hillary’s treachery and so did others in their orbit who were secretly briefed, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director James Comey. This is corroborated by Brennan’s handwritten notes. For the next three years all of them remained silent about the CIA’s findings.  

Collectively, they concealed the truth of Trump’s innocence as he was hounded by the constant condemnation of conspiring with Moscow, even though he did no such thing. On almost a daily basis, the media pronounced him guilty in the court of public opinion. Brennan and Clapper took to the airwaves and dishonestly denounced Trump as a Russian asset, hiding what they knew.     

At the outset of the hoax, Hillary’s devoted coterie of disciples plotted to spread the lie. They secretly paid a sleazy ex-foreign spy, Christopher Steele, to obtain Russian disinformation about Trump and compose a phony “dossier.” They leaked it to journalists who promptly insisted that it was true without ever bothering to verify or corroborate its contents. News organizations even published the full collection of lies that was covertly bankrolled by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.  

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Andrew McCabe at hearing
The FBI’s Andrew McCabe testifies during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on May 11, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

DURHAM REPORT REVEALED CORRUPTION THAT COULD MEAN THIS STUNNER FOR TRUMP IN 2024

The shameless media was emboldened by the unscrupulous maneuvers of Comey and his confederates. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and senior counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok launched a dogged investigation of Trump. It commenced literally days after the FBI director learned of Hillary’s fraudulent machinations.  

The bureau had no basis whatsoever to open the probe because agents lacked “any actual evidence of collusion” and traduced their own strict guidelines, according to Durham. Those in charge broke every rule in the book. In a brazen reversal of standards, they willingly exploited the Clinton lie as a pretext to persecute Trump with salacious and specious slurs. Their lawless actions were inflamed by their “prejudice against him” and their “pronounced hostile feelings,” the report explained.

The vainglorious James Comey, who refused to cooperate with the Durham investigation, now publicly claims to be suffering near total amnesia. It is a curious affliction since the special counsel’s report reveals that he demanded and received “daily briefings.” Whenever agents working the case had the temerity to complain that there was no real evidence implicating Trump in any wrongdoing, Comey stuck wads of cotton in his ears. He pushed a relentless witch hunt in a maniacal quest to destroy the man he loathed so obsessively. 

James Comey
James Comey speaks to members of the media after testifying before the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform Committees joint investigation in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7, 2018. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The same FBI bias that worked against Trump worked in favor of Clinton. Comey commandeered authority he did not have to absolve her of the crimes she clearly committed in mishandling classified emails and destroying evidence under subpoena. He refused to pursue investigations of Hillary despite compelling evidence that she misused her charitable foundation for self-enrichment in ways eerily similar to the notorious Biden family influence peddling schemes. 

Tens of millions of Russian dollars landed in Clinton’s nonprofit, which she treated as her personal piggy bank. With Comey at the helm, four ongoing probes into likely “criminal activity” magically vanished. Trump didn’t collude with Russia, but it appears his opponent did – and got away with it. 

Durham minced no words in describing the FBI’s double standard and the “dual system of justice” it produced. Hillary received the courtesy of a defensive briefing about corrupt foreign actors but Trump did not. The FBI rejected a surveillance warrant on Clinton from the secret FISA court while seeking four successive spy warrants involving Trump’s campaign. To secure the intrusions, exculpatory evidence was withheld and supporting documents altered. 

Donald Trump Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton and former President Donald Trump (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Comey deceived the judges by vouching for the credibility of the bogus dossier that his agency had already debunked. He represented that Steele was a reliable source when he knew that the shady spook was not. Indeed, Steele was fired by the FBI as a paid confidential informant because he repeatedly lied. This vital fact was deliberately concealed from the court.     

The irony embedded in the great collusion con is fully exposed in the Durham report. Instead of conspiring with Putin in the bowels of the Kremlin, Trump became the victim of Clinton-induced Russian disinformation that helped fuel the fabricated dossier. Hillary’s cronies supplied much of the deceit in Steele’s work of fiction, but so did Moscow. 

From the moment he took the oath of office, the Republican president was saddled with multiple investigations by the FBI, Congress and a special counsel. Demands for his indictment and impeachment reverberated through the halls of Capitol Hill, in newsrooms across America, on television airwaves, and on social media websites everywhere. All the while, those who knew the truth remained conspicuously quiet.

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The special counsel’s well-documented report lifts the veil on the cesspool of corruption that has infected the FBI for far too long. Beyond Clinton, there are many villains in this sordid story but none so contemptible as Obama, Biden, Brennan, Clapper and Comey. They knew it was all a cunning lie but kept silent to hide the truth. They watched as a spasm of false allegations tore the nation apart.  

Such silence speaks volumes about their absence of character and integrity. They were more than willing to fan the flames of political divisiveness in America. That is not leadership. It is cowardice.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM GREGG JARRETT

Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News legal analyst and commentator, and formerly worked as a defense attorney and adjunct law professor. His upcoming book, “The Trial of the Century,” about the famous “Scopes Monkey Trial” will be released on May 30, 2023.  It is available now for pre-order online at the Simon & Schuster website.  Gregg is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.” His follow-up book was also a New York Times bestseller, “Witch Hunt: The Story of the Greatest Mass Delusion in American Political History.” Jarrett’s book, “The Constitution of the United States and Other Patriotic Documents,” will be published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins on September 19, 2023.

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Jason Chaffetz Op-ed: Durham report revealed corruption that could mean this stunner for Trump in 2024


Jason Chaffetz

By Jason Chaffetz | Fox News | Published May 19, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/durham-report-revealed-corruption-could-mean-stunner-trump-2024

Who is going to trust the Department of Justice now? In the wake of Special Counsel John Durham’s long-awaited report, Americans now know there was widespread political collusion and deliberate deception from the very top of the Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, the corporate media and the Department of Justice (DOJ), all in favor of the Democrats.  Not only did they abuse their power and lie to the public, they seem to be proud of it. 

With these facts now added to the long list of formerly crazy conspiracy theories come true, former president Donald Trump is essentially inoculated from any future prosecution by virtue of the public mistrust in an obviously weaponized federal government. Even if prosecutors somehow manage to get a partisan jury to convict, the public will see it as a political witch hunt predicated primarily on partisan politics.  

The more they try to “get ’m” the stronger they make him. 

John Durham
Special Counsel John Durham has created a firestorm of controversy with his just-released report on government collusion that targeted Donald Trump. (Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images)

For this reason, both Democrats and Republicans should fear what could come next if they don’t clip the wings of this rogue federal agency and institute serious systemic changes. If they can do it to Trump, and they did, then they can do it again to anyone. 

One thing has become crystal clear: the Justice Department cannot and will not police itself. DOJ is unwilling and unprepared to discipline let alone prosecute its own. That’s one reason the work of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is so vital. 

To restore its position as a coequal branch of government, Congress must lose its reluctance to wield the heavy tools available in the law and the Constitution. It can and must develop an independent means of enforcing congressional subpoenas.  

The threat of impeachment of Senate-confirmed bureaucrats must become more feared. The House of Representatives must unite to implement what is perhaps the most powerful tool – the power of the purse. And Congress should reconsider and expand the role of independent offices of inspectors general (OIG) to ensure the Justice Department can no longer ride above the law.  

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Republicans have been bafflingly reluctant to wield impeachment power. Getting support to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in 2015 was a heavy lift. It shouldn’t be. If Congress doesn’t hold administration officials accountable, who will? Under the advice-and-consent clause of the Constitution, the Senate was given a co-equal voice to confirm a bureaucrat and remove them, but they do not. 

Likewise, Congress has failed to secure its own subpoena power. For too long, the body has been content to rely on the DOJ to enforce congressional subpoenas. But now that we clearly see the DOJ applying a political litmus test to such requests, the American people need a new solution. For Democrats, subpoenas are enforced in record time with guns drawn. For Republicans, the DOJ will only enforce “legitimate” subpoenas based on their own whims after months of review. 

Congress can also leverage the power of the purse to play hardball by denying agency funding until the government produces requested documents and witnesses. But they don’t. 

While all of those options are on the table, perhaps the most effective solution could come from empowering the government’s independent inspectors general. Most everyone in government is currently subject to review by an office of Inspector General (OIG).  

One thing has become crystal clear: the Justice Department cannot and will not police itself. DOJ is unwilling and unprepared to discipline let alone prosecute its own. That’s one reason the work of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is so vital. 

The ability of these investigators to subpoena documents, interview witnesses and expose wrongdoing has yielded important evidence and numerous criminal referrals. But they don’t have authority to make any prosecutorial decisions – and they probably should. 

To the shock of most people, the IGs are prohibited from investigating wrongdoing by attorneys at the DOJ. Nor can they compel testimony once someone leaves federal service, and both of these need to change. 

Before the Durham report, there were two IG reports on the Russia collusion hoax that combined for more than 1,000 pages. They included discipline and criminal referrals that DOJ ignored. Consequences for wrongdoing by federal law enforcement have been minimal.  

Even ex-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, who pleaded guilty to making a false statement after altering a document in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, received only probation and community service for his crime. He forged documents to effect an election and he didn’t even lose his law license! 

Sadly, the American people have lost trust in some of the most important institutions, the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Justice. And this may very well propel Trump back into the White House. 

 CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM JASON CHAFFETZ

Jason Chaffetz is a FOX News (FNC) contributor and the host of the Jason In The House podcast on FOX News Radio. He joined the network in 2017.

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Se. Roger Marshall, M.D. Op-ed: I visited Biden’s broken border and you won’t believe what I learned


Sen. Roger Marshall, M.D.

 By Sen. Roger Marshall, M.D. | Fox News | Published May 19, 2023 6:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/visited-bidens-broken-border-you-wont-believe-what-learned

“The border is not open,” a lie repeatedly told to the American people by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.  But that isn’t what I witnessed last week in Brownsville, TX, the epicenter of this crisis the night that Title 42 was lifted. The scene was bleak, morale was low, and there was no sign of this crisis ending anytime soon.  

Across the Rio Grande Valley intake centers there’s room for 4,500 migrants. However, when we arrived the number of migrants at the RGV facilities had already hit 7,300 and was steadily rising. The day before the border patrol had recorded 11,000 illegal migrants crossing the southern border, with more than 3,000 “got-a-ways.”   

We visited ‘Camp Monument,’ a small makeshift intake center that is completely overwhelmed. According to border patrol, the cartels know exactly how to exploit this weakness. Quickly after processing, these migrants will communicate back to those waiting across the border when to make their move. A cycle that never ends. 

El Paso border crossing
Migrants stand across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, in December 2022. (Border Patrol)

To my shock, the Mexican officials, and I assume the cartels indirectly, are in communication with our border patrol and are notified when CBP has room and space for the next wave to be processed. 

Brownsville is a hot spot for illegal crossings; thousands continue to pour into our country – unvetted – given shelter, supplies, food and, in many ways, freedom. There is no fear of the consequences from crossings. Our systems are so backed up that our court orders are largely a joke, and the smugglers know this. We’re telling migrants to show up for a court date five years later, in 2028, to assess their crime. By then, they will be long gone.  

Border patrol officers shared with us the harsh realities of this crisis and how they feel abandoned by this administration. They have lost all operational control and are forced into an impossible situation.  

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Officers admitted to us only 10% of the agents are tasked with securing the border – while 90% are running the refugee camp, acting as nurses and social workers, processing and transporting migrants to their next destination.  

The magnitude of this crisis at our border should concern every American. The data we received, and the briefings given to us by border patrol, law enforcement and CBP do not reflect a border that’s “closed” but rather a border that has been erased by failed leadership in the White House. 

We heard the heartbreaking stories of repeated sexual assaults young women are enduring to come here, the massive drug smuggling operations the cartels are running with lethal fentanyl and confirmed our biggest fear – the cartels are calling the shots.  

The situation in Brownsville, the Rio Grande Valley and beyond is dire. A fifth-generation rancher told us the border crisis is the worst he has ever seen. A local Marine told us he was safer fighting in Afghanistan than living in Brownsville. 

Officers admitted to us only 10% of the agents are tasked with securing the border – while 90% are running the refugee camp, acting as nurses and social workers, processing and transporting migrants to their next destination.  

Each day that this crisis continues, the national security threat grows. In the Rio Grande Valley alone, they are averaging 90 Chinese military-aged nationals crossings every day. The largest number of Chinese nationals we’ve ever seen.  

As we saw this week, with the arrest of an Afghani on the terror watchlist in California and CBP announcing that 16 people on the FBI’s terror watchlist were arrested by border patrol at the southern border in April alone, these “got-aways” undoubtedly include terrorists, convicted criminals and the cartel’s drug smugglers.  

At what point does President Joe Biden look in the mirror and address the mess he’s created? Biden’s policies have created a draw for people worldwide to risk their own lives and their families as they put their care and safety into the hands of the cartels. We witnessed the impacts of a 3,000-mile journey for many: dehydration, malnutrition, injuries, disease and pestilence.   

Is this the America they were promised by this administration? Advertising freedom but instead living in the shadows owned by the cartel for years to come, even after they arrive?   

Yuma Arizona migrants released by Border Patrol
Migrants who have been processed by U.S. Border Patrol and have been released from their center, are given assistance from the Regional Center for Border Health to relocate to areas outside of Yuma, on Friday, May 12, 2023, in Somerton, AZ. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

On the night of our visit, as the clock ran out on Title 42, across the river thousands of migrants waited for their turn to cross the Rio Grande. We heard music, laughing, singing and cheering from these campsites. To me, that’s an obvious indication of how little they think of our border security measures – these migrants thought the worst part of their journey was over, and now, they just wait for their turn to cross.   

For our country to continue to be the best in the world, we must prioritize our safety, security, and restore law and order. That requires secure borders. 

But there is a solution. Every time I have visited the border, I asked the border patrol officers what they needed to keep our border secure. In the past, they have said more resources. This time their tone was different; they said very deliberately they do not need more resources; they need policies that we know work reinstated by this White House. Our agents on the front lines of this crisis need the president to reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy and eliminate the catch-and-release policies. 

This could all be accomplished quickly. Biden created this crisis, and he could end it with a stroke of his pen. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN. ROGER MARSHALL

Republican Roger Marshall, M.D., represents Kansas in the U.S. Senate. Previously he was the congressman for Kansas’ 1st District. Prior to Congress, Dr. Marshall was a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist in Great Bend, Kansas. He received his M.D. at the University Of Kansas School Of Medicine in 1987.

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Speaker McCarthy’s secret weapon in the debt ceiling negotiations is paying off


Newt Gingrich

By Newt Gingrich | Gingrich360.com | Published May 18, 2023 8:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/speaker-mccarthys-secret-weapon-debt-ceiling-negotiations-paying-off

There are powerful parallels in the 1961 movie “The Hustler,” the 1913 U.S. Open, and the current debt ceiling negotiation.

Let me explain.

In each case, there is a real question of which competitor is going to succumb to the pressure and break.

BIDEN VIEWS THE DEBT CEILING AS A STARING CONTEST WITH REPUBLICANS, NOT HIS DUTY AS PRESIDENT

In “The Hustler,” Paul Newman plays Eddie Felton, a young pool shark who takes on the greatest pool player of his time, Minnesota Fats (played brilliantly by Jackie Gleason). A great deal of money is involved, with the champion being backed by several big money guys. They are equally good pool players, but Gleason’s character is confident, and Newman’s character is insecure. 

Finally, as the night wears on, the Newman character breaks under the pressure and loses – even though in the early stages he had played as well as or better than Gleason. The movie is then a portrait of a man who collapses and fails and must rebuild himself with the help of sympathetic people. At the end, he comes back to take on the champion again. The key moment in the movie is when Gleason says, “I quit, Eddie, I can’t beat you.”

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Francis Ouimet’s great achievement is remarkably told in Mark Frost’s book “The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth Of Modern Golf.” While it is nonfiction, it is such a compelling story it became an entertaining movie of the same name.

In 1913, the two best golfers in the world, both British, came to the United States to prove the superiority of British golf over American golf. Harry Vardon was the first modern professional golfer and considered virtually unbeatable. They decided to prove their dominance at the U.S. Open at the Brookline Country Club in Massachusetts.

In an amazing, in some ways quintessentially American, story a 20-year-old former caddie from the club emerged as a national hero. In an 18-hole playoff, he beat the greatest golfers in the world. He won $300. More importantly, he popularized golf in America and stunned the British golfing elite.

WHAT IS THE DEBT CEILING, AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU?

The key moment in the match came when Vardon turned to his partner and said Ouimet is not going to break psychologically. He is as good as us, and we will not be able to beat him. Like Minnesota Fats in pool, Vardon had always relied on the pressure beating his opponents. He was a great golfer, but he was also a great student of human psychology.

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I thought of these two stories as I was watching Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in a powerful discussion with the White House press corps after Tuesday’s debt ceiling meeting with President Joe Biden and the other legislative leaders. I was struck by how the two sides are approaching debt ceiling negotiations.

Speaker McCarthy pointed out that he has been advocating serious negotiations for the last 97 days. President Biden has been avoiding serious negotiations and claiming he wanted a debt ceiling increase with no amendments. 

When the House Republicans passed the “Limit, Save, Grow Act” on April 26, they shocked the Washington establishment – and especially President Biden. The Democrats had been counting on the narrow Republican majority in the House to make it impossible for Republicans to pass a debt ceiling bill without Democrats helping. Since they would only help pass a bill with no amendments, they thought they would get a so-called clean debt ceiling increase (see my newsletter on why a clean debt ceiling bill is actually the dirtiest debt deal).

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Up until April 26, Democrats believed they held all the cards. They thought the House Republicans would fail. The elite media would blame the Republicans. In a panic the Republicans would cave and agree to whatever President Biden wanted to do on the debt ceiling.

So, the passage of the Limit, Save, Grow Act, changed history. Suddenly, the only bill that could lift the debt ceiling and avoid a default had been passed by the House Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had been busy attacking the Republicans, but suddenly it was clear that Schumer could not pass anything – and could bring nothing to the negotiating table. Similarly, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had just been defeated and could bring nothing to the table.

In a remarkable act of statesmanship, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a veteran of a number of debt ceiling showdowns, publicly stepped back and said Speaker McCarthy had earned the right to take the lead on the debt ceiling. McConnell then joined 42 of his colleagues in signing a letter Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, originated which served notice that on the debt ceiling Schumer could not get the 60 votes needed for cloture in the Senate. 

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Now, the Biden administration and the congressional Democrats are faced with a new and unexpected reality. A united congressional GOP was behind Speaker McCarthy in demanding spending cuts and reforms as part of any debt ceiling increase.

Having wasted 14 weeks, the Biden administration is finally facing reality and starting to negotiate. 

Having watched Speaker McCarthy live through a 15-vote marathon to become speaker, I am pretty sure who is going to stay cheerful and confident – and who is going to realize they just can’t win.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM NEWT GINGRICH

Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995-1999 and a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He is chairman of Gingrich 360.

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All Biden Has To Do Is Explain Why Foreign Governments Paid His Family $10 Million — But He Can’t


BY: SAMUEL MANGOLD-LENETT | MAY 17, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/17/all-biden-has-to-do-is-explain-why-foreign-governments-paid-his-family-10-million-but-he-cant/

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping

If Republicans had a spine or a brain — only one is required for this task — they would relentlessly pursue President Joe Biden for his long-standing cash-for-influence scheme, both during and beyond the 2024 presidential election.

During a May 10 press conference, the House Oversight Committee confirmed that since at least 2009, Joe Biden and his family received a minimum of $10 million from foreign entities. As The Federalist reported, this money entered the Bidens’ coffers through a complicated scheme of layered transactions deposited into multiple bank accounts.

Biden could make this entire story go away if he had a good reason for why his family received $10 million from foreign entities. Surely, if they weren’t corrupt, if this money came from non-sketchy and actually legitimate means, he could explain where this money came from and what services or goods his family exchanged to attain it. But this isn’t the case, as we continue to learn, so he cannot explain away the money.

Why did the Bidens receive this comically large sum of money? Well, no one really knows. But it probably has something to do with the fact that their last names are “Biden” and their family patriarch, the incumbent president, is one of the longest-serving federal officials in American history and has been able to avoid any meaningful public scrutiny for much of his career. As such, it increasingly appears the Bidens used their family’s political and corporate connections to engage in an elaborate foreign influence peddling scheme.

But as was the case with Hunter Biden’s role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where he was handsomely paid despite having zero energy sector experience, the corporate media continues to downplay the first family’s blatantly corrupt business dealings. “House Republicans ramp up claims Biden family received money from foreign contacts,” reads one headline from NPR. “Comer releases Biden family probe update without showing link to president,” declares one from Politico. CNN whitewashed the Biden family’s corruption by writing, “The latest report does not show any payments made directly to Joe Biden, either as vice president or after leaving office.”

And regardless of whether or not “the big guy” who benefited from the foreign business ventures of Biden family members is the current president, there remain glaring ethical and political issues about influence peddling — which House Republicans are continuing to pursue as they prepare to introduce legislation banning influence peddling — and a slew of potential legal issues arising from tax negligence.

Considering the federal government, for at least the short and medium terms, simply will not touch the Biden family, this rules out most legitimate risks of prosecution they might face, even if House Republicans federally criminalize influence peddling. This means that, realistically, the only way to hold them accountable is through utilizing political mechanisms. As such, the GOP should make the Bidens’ foreign benefactors central to their 2024 campaign messaging.

It’s obvious to everyone with functioning eyes and ears that Joe Biden is neurologically compromised, and it’s obvious to everyone paying attention that he and his family are financially compromised, as well.

Until there is a prosecutorial path forward, the GOP must proceed with political means and fill the airwaves in 2024 battleground states with messages amplifying how Joe Biden and his family sold out the country to enrich themselves.

Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.

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Biden Vetoes Bipartisan Bill Protecting US Solar Panel Makers from Chinese Competition


Thomas Catenacci

By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News | Published May 16, 2023 2:19pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-sinks-bipartisan-bill-protecting-us-solar-panel-makers-chinese-competition

President Biden vetoed a bipartisan resolution Tuesday that would have reversed his executive action last year ordering the Department of Commerce not to enforce tariffs on Chinese solar panel manufacturers for two years. Biden explained that the legislation — which recently passed the House and Senate with Democratic support — “bets against American innovation.” Last year, Biden implemented the 24-month moratorium on the enforcement of solar panel anti-circumvention tariffs designed to protect U.S. companies, a move the White House said would facilitate investment in domestic solar panel production capabilities.

“Passage of this resolution bets against American innovation,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday. “It would undermine these efforts and create deep uncertainty for American businesses and workers in the solar industry. Therefore, I am vetoing this resolution.”

Biden added that he doesn’t “intend to” extend the tariff suspension when the 24-month moratorium expires in June 2024.

DEM CONGRESSWOMAN SILENT ON WHY SHE SIGNED HUSH AGREEMENT INVOLVING CHINESE TECH COMPANY

President Biden implemented a two-year pause on enforcing tariffs on Chinese solar panels.
In June 2022, President Biden implemented a two-year pause on enforcing tariffs on Chinese solar panels. Congress passed a resolution to overturn that moratorium. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images | CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

The president’s executive action in June 2022 came after the Commerce Department said months earlier it would investigate whether Chinese manufacturers were routing solar panels through countries in Southeast Asia to avoid U.S. tariffs. And in December, the agency published its preliminary findings showing four large solar companies had routed products through Cambodia, Malaysia and Vietnam to circumvent duties.

The Commerce Department is expected to release its final findings this month.

CHINESE TECH COMPANIES ARE EXPLOITING US GREEN ENERGY GOALS, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS WARN

In response to the December findings, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., and joined by Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., introduced the resolution striking down Biden’s action in January, arguing tariffs were necessary to protect the fledgling U.S. solar industry which is dwarfed by Chinese industry. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., introduced companion legislation co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

The resolution — which utilizes the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows Congress to revoke federal regulations — passed the House in a 221-202 vote on April 28 and the Senate in a 56-41 vote on May 3.

Solar panels are pictured at the ENGIE Sun Valley Solar project in Hill County, Texas, on March 1, 2023. (MARK FELIX/AFP via Getty Images)

“I am disappointed that President Biden vetoed this important legislation,” Kildee said Tuesday. “Failing to stand up to those who engage in unfair trade practices hurts American workers and manufacturers. Our workers and businesses will never be able to compete globally unless we hold those who violate U.S. trade laws accountable.” 

“The president’s position, and today’s veto, fails to hold China accountable and hurts American workers,” the Democratic lawmaker continued. “Congress passed this bipartisan resolution with strong support from Republicans and Democrats. Now that the president has vetoed this bill, Congress should once again vote to override today’s veto without delay.”

Overall, Chinese companies control a more than 80% share in the global solar panel industry, controlling the supply chain in all the manufacturing stages of the product, according to the International Energy Agency. The Chinese solar industry has been tied to forced labor in China’s Xinjiang province.

The resolution was endorsed by pro-tariff groups like the Coalition for a Prosperous America and human rights groups like the Uyghur Human Rights Project. Environmental groups and green energy organizations including the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) opposed it.

“This action is a reaffirmation of the administration’s commitment to business certainty in the clean energy sector, and a signal to companies to continue creating jobs, building domestic manufacturing capacity and investing in American communities,” Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA’s president and CEO, said in response to Biden’s veto Tuesday.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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Senate Republicans Demand Biden Forfeit Info Over His Attempt To Federally Interfere In U.S. Elections


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | MAY 15, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/15/senate-republicans-demand-biden-forfeit-info-over-his-attempt-to-federally-interfere-in-u-s-elections/

Sen. James Lankford giving a speech at CPAC

Senate Republicans are demanding President Joe Biden hand over documents related to his March 2021 executive order directing federal agencies to interfere in state and local elections.

On Wednesday, 13 Senate Republicans sent a letter to Biden requesting his administration forfeit documents related to Executive Order 14019, which required hundreds of federal agencies to interfere in the electoral process by using taxpayer money to boost voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities. As The Federalist previously reported, voter registration efforts are almost always a partisan venture and often involve left-wing groups that abuse their nonprofit status to target likely-Democrat voters.

“First, while we all agree that increased voter participation is a good thing, the job of federal agencies is to perform their defined missions in a nonpartisan way, not use their taxpayer funds for clandestine voter mobilization and election-turnout operations,” the senators wrote. “Second, it seems doubtful that Congress approved all federal agencies to use appropriated funds for the purpose of voter mobilization.”

Under Executive Order 14019, the heads of each agency were required to draft “a strategic plan” explaining how his or her department intends to fulfill Biden’s directive. Despite attempts by good government groups to acquire these plans, the Biden administration has routinely stonewalled such efforts by slow-walking its response to federal court orders and heavily redacting any related documents it has released.

In their letter, Senate Republicans are demanding the White House provide them with copies of these strategic plans, as well as a “full accounting of all federal funding used to-date” to comply with the order, by May 23.

“Therefore, reviewing the agency plans is critical to understanding the degree to which implementation of this order has resulted in improper uses of federal resources,” the senators wrote.

Signatories of the letter include Republican Sens. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Braun of Indiana, Mike Lee of Utah, Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Katie Britt of Alabama.

Most recently, Budd, along with New York GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney, introduced the Promoting Free and Fair Elections Act, which, in addition to requiring federal agencies to disclose their strategic plans to Congress, would prohibit federal agencies from using federal funds to “solicit or enter into an agreement with a nongovernmental organization to conduct voter registration or voter mobilization activities.”

The bill would furthermore amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to bar public universities from using taxpayer-funded Federal Work Study programs to pay college students to engage in voter registration campaigns. In April 2022, the Biden administration told colleges they could use work-study funds to partake in such activities. Having taxpayers fund get-out-the-vote efforts in this way had previously not been allowed.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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The Left’s 2020 ‘Fake Electors’ Narrative Is Fake News


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 15, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/15/the-lefts-2020-fake-electors-narrative-is-fake-news/

JFK and Richard Nixon in 1960

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Headlines recently proclaimed that eight of Trump’s “fake” electors accepted immunity deals. Of course, in reporting the news, the corporate outlets all missed the real story — that the electors’ testimony failed to incriminate anyone, including Trump, and that the county prosecutors engaged in massive misconduct. Equally appalling, however, was the corrupt media’s continued peddling of the “fake electors” narrative. 

There were no “fake” electors. There were contingent Republican electors named consistent with legal precedent to preserve the still ongoing legal challenges to the validity of Georgia’s certified vote. 

Nor was appointing an alternative slate of electors some cockamamie plan devised by Trump lawyers. On the contrary, Trump’s election lawyers and the contingent electors followed the precise approach Democrats successfully used when the date Congress established for certifying an election came before the legal challenges John F. Kennedy had brought in Hawaii were decided. And that approach allowed Kennedy to be certified the winner of Hawaii’s three electoral votes on Jan. 6, 1961, even though the Aloha State had originally certified Richard Nixon the victor.

The Hawaii scenario in 1960 mirrors in every material respect the facts on the ground in Georgia on Dec. 14, 2020 — the date both the Democrat and Republican presidential electors met and cast their 16 electoral votes for Joe Biden and Donald Trump respectively. 

Here’s What Happened in Hawaii Six-0 

Election day in 1960 fell on Nov. 8 and pitted Kennedy, a Democrat, against Republican Richard Nixon. The outcome remained unknown for some time, with a total of 93 electoral votes from eight different states undecided in the days following the election. Hawaii was one of those states. 

By Dec. 9 of that year, Kennedy had accumulated enough electoral votes to win the White House, but Hawaii’s winner was still in question. While the presidency did not depend on Hawaii’s three electoral votes, Democrats there had challenged the initial returns that gave Nixon a 141-vote edge, or 0.08 percent margin of victory.

Based on the original count in favor of Nixon, the acting governor of Hawaii, Republican James Kealoha, certified the Republican electors on Nov. 28, 1960. On Dec. 13, over the objections of the state attorney general, state circuit court Judge Ronald Jamieson ordered a recount. Then, on Dec. 19, both the Nixon and Kennedy electors met, “cast their votes for President and Vice President, and certified their own meeting and votes.” 

In casting their electoral ballots for Kennedy, the three Hawaiian Democrats certified they were the “duly and legally qualified and appointed” electors for president and vice president for the state of Hawaii and that they had been “certified (as such) by the Executive.” The Hawaii electors further attested: “We hereby certify that the lists of all the votes of the state of Hawaii given for President, and of all the votes given for Vice President, are contained herein.”

Two of the three Democrat electors were retired federal judges, William Heen and Delbert Metzger, and Heen personally mailed the Democrat electoral votes to Congress on Dec. 20. In fact, the envelope containing the certificates, further attested: “We hereby certify that the lists of all the votes of the state of Hawaii given for president … are contained herein.”

Ten days later, on Dec. 30, 1960, Judge Jamieson held that Kennedy had won the election. In so holding, Jamieson stressed the importance of the Democrat electors having met on Dec. 19, as prescribed by the Electoral Count Act, to cast their ballots in favor of Kennedy. That step allowed the Hawaii governor to then certify Kennedy as the winner of Hawaii’s three electoral votes and, in turn, Congress to count Hawaii’s electoral votes in favor of Kennedy.

The Peach State Repeat

The Georgia situation in 2020 mirrored the events of 60 years ago in Hawaii. 

Election day in 2020 fell on Nov. 3, although by then many ballots had already been cast, given the adoption of mass mail-in and early voting. Trump held a lead in Georgia until the morning of Friday, Nov. 6, when Biden overtook the incumbent. With the margin remaining tight, on Nov. 11, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a statewide audit. 

Following the audit, Biden remained in the lead by approximately 12,000 votes, leading Raffensperger to certify the election results on Friday, Nov. 20, 2020. Republic Gov. Brian Kemp signed the certification the same day. Then on Nov. 21, Trump requested a recount, as allowed under Georgia law given the closeness of the count.

On Dec. 4, 2020, then-President Trump and Republican elector David Shafer filed suit in a Fulton County state court against Raffensperger, arguing tens of thousands of votes counted in the presidential election had been cast in violation of Georgia law. While Trump’s lawsuit was still pending, on Dec. 7, 2020, based on the recount, Raffensperger recertified Biden as the winner of Georgia’s 16 electoral votes by a margin of 11,779. 

Trump and Shafer’s Fulton County lawsuit contesting the election results remained pending on Dec. 14, 2020, the date the presidential electors were required by federal law to meet. Thus, while the Democrat electors met and cast their ballots for Joe Biden, the Republican electors met separately and cast their 16 votes for Trump. 

At that time, Shafer made clear the Trump electors had met and cast their votes to ensure Trump’s legal battle in court remained viable. Nonetheless, following Biden’s election, Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis targeted the Republican electors as part of her criminal special purpose grand jury investigation.

While the grand jury has since issued a report and been disbanded, Willis agreed to grant immunity to eight of the electors, likely to push them to implicate the other electors. However, their lawyer confirmed in a court filing that none of the electors implicated anyone in criminal activity. 

Since then, Shafer’s attorneys, Holly Pierson and Craig Gillen, wrote Willis a detailed letter reviewing the Hawaii precedent. The attorneys noted they had made three prior written requests to meet “to discuss the factual and legal issues” relevant to Shafer’s role as a contingent Trump elector but had “not yet received any response to those requests.” 

The 11-page, single-spaced letter then proceeded to detail both the Hawaii precedent for Shafer’s actions following the 2020 election and the legal advice the Republican elector received that “he and the other contingent presidential electors should meet at the state capitol building on December 14, 2020, and perform the duties of a presidential elector to preserve potential remedies in the event Trump et al. v. Raffensperger, et al. was successful.” 

In addition to detailing the Hawaii precedent from 1960, Shafer’s lawyers highlighted the fact that in contesting the 2000 election, lawyers for then-Democrat presidential candidate Al Gore cited that very precedent to support his position that two elector slates could be appointed. In fact, Democrat Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii suggested the 2000 Florida electoral dispute be resolved based on that Hawaii precedent too. And three Supreme Court justices in Bush v. Gore cited the Hawaii precedent as a basis for allowing the Florida recount to proceed. 

As the letter and Hawaii precedent make clear, Shafer and the other Trump electors not only did nothing wrong, but they acted prudentially to ensure that if the state court lawsuit resolved in the president’s favor, Georgia’s electoral votes would be properly counted on Jan. 6, 2020.

Here we see one of the only differences between Trump’s legal challenge and Kennedy’s: The Hawaii state court promptly resolved the merits of Kennedy’s legal challenge, while in violation of the Georgia Election Code that requires lawsuits contesting elections to be heard within 20 days, the Fulton County court delayed assigning a judge to hear Trump’s election dispute and then delayed the first scheduled hearing until Jan. 8, 2021 — two days after Congress certified Biden the winner of the 2020 election. 

Now you know the rest of the story. There were no fake electors. The question now is whether Willis will charge Shafer and others with fake crimes.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Allison Weisenberger Op-ed: Biden’s Title 42 disaster is making America Los Angeles


Allison Weisenberger

 By Allison Weisenberger | Fox News | Published May 15, 2023 4:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/bidens-title-42-disaster-is-making-america-los-angeles

To say that our border is about to be overwhelmed with the end of Title 42 is an understatement. Our border and the heroic men and women who patrol it have been overwhelmed for more than two years now. Now the dam – long spilling over – is about to break, and communities in border states are going to experience chaos and lawlessness like this country has not yet seen. 

As a mother of young children living in Los Angeles County, I can tell you that soft border policies are in direct conflict with any parent seeking to keep their children safe. This isn’t the Los Angeles of yesteryear. 

We have already seen the footage of the streets of El Paso, Texas, completely overrun. You have seen the images of massive amounts of people lining up at our border on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande Valley. Border Patrol intelligence revealed more than 700,000 migrants were waiting in Mexico for Title 42 to expire – this figure is larger than the population of El Paso, (600,000).

The only way to end this crisis, and to head off the much worse one literally waiting on America’s doorstep, is to change policy.

Even worse than the visible tsunami of people showing up to claim asylum, numbers of known “gotaways” are also already through the roof, according to Homeland Security’s own statistics. These are the ones who do not surrender themselves to law enforcement or try to apply for asylum; they’re the ones who have to run and avoid authorities to get into the United States. As former Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan explains, these are the worst of the worst actors, and include murderers, sexual predators and gang members, to name a few.

DHS SEC. MAYORKAS TAKES VICTORY LAP AS BORDER SURGE CONTINUES

I live in a city close to the border – one overrun by a crime wave that has only worsened during the course of this manmade disaster. Unless the proper steps are taken, what my family and other southern Californians have experienced for more than two years will become the new daily reality for cities, towns and neighborhoods across America. 

Video

From 2020 to 2022, homicides, robberies, assaults and car thefts all increased by double-digit rates amid Soros-backed District Attorney George Gascon’s efforts to shield illegal aliens from prosecutions, in a city where 1 in 5 people are either here illegally themselves or live with someone who is. With more people pouring over the border, with Border Patrol even more overwhelmed, and with more bad actors using this crisis to evade authorities, things are going to get much, much worse in the City of Angels.

Meanwhile, more Americans died from fentanyl in 2021 than during the entire course of the Vietnam War. Fentanyl deaths among American children and teens have also spiked, a heartbreaking reality of our border crisis. More chaos means more cover for traffickers, and that will mean more weapons-grade poisons on our streets, in our neighborhoods, and at our kids’ schools.

Now, without even this remnant of a Band-Aid solution, this crisis is only going to get worse. U.S. authorities will be more overwhelmed than ever before, and bad actors are going to escape past them into the interior.

Video

ENDING TITLE 42 PROVES BIDEN’S BORDER DISASTER COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED

The reality is that the Biden administration has been using Title 42 – a public health measure used during the pandemic – as a stopgap measure to mitigate the impending chaos of his own disastrous open-borders policies. Biden’s own administration asked the courts to prolong Title 42 just a few months ago.

Our Border Patrol agents have been stretched further than ever thought possible for the duration of this crisis. With Title 42 gone, it only makes sense to wonder if there are any agents left to arrest bad guys and seize deadly drugs like fentanyl, or if the entire agency is going to be overwhelmed with the influx of paperwork.

President Biden made headlines recently by announcing that his administration would send 1,500 troops to the border. Anyone with sense knows this is for show. Biden could mobilize the entire 82nd Airborne Division and it would not make any difference as long as our policies encourage lawlessness, empower cartels, and enable the industrial-level trafficking and smuggling operation that has been a reality in border states every single day since Biden took office. 

Video

The only way to end this crisis, and to head off the much worse one literally waiting on America’s doorstep, is to change policy. 

That means ensuring that the laws duly passed by the American people are faithfully enforced. It means giving American authorities the tools they need to confront and destroy the cartels enriching themselves off this crisis through incalculable human suffering. It means finishing the wall – including other necessary infrastructure such as access roads. 

Last week, House Republicans delivered on their promise to pass a strong border bill; now it’s time for them to use the power of the purse to bring Biden and Senate Democrats to the table on this issue. They have already shown it can be done on the debt ceiling, thanks to the backbone of the House Freedom Caucus. Just like we have to fix federal spending so that we don’t drown our children in debt, we have to secure our border to protect our children’s safety. 

Video

The preamble to our Constitution outlines some of the most critical duties of any good government, and among them is the duty to “establish Justice and insure domestic Tranquility.” 

American families deserve better than chaos and confusion. Our kids deserve better than to grow up unprotected from overdoses and smugglers. Migrants deserve better than a reckless promise of exploiting the American asylum process only to be exploited themselves in return. 

In order for America to be truly free, the rule of law must prevail. In order to be a place worth living, our streets and communities must be safe for American families to raise their children.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY ALLISON WEISENBERGER

Allison Weisenberger is a founder and vice president of Women for America. You can follow her on Twitter @AllisonJanel

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Exclusive: RNC Launches New Year-Round Election Integrity Department Ahead Of 2024


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MAY 12, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/12/exclusive-rnc-launches-new-year-round-election-integrity-department-ahead-of-2024/

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The Republican National Committee (RNC) is gearing up for next year’s presidential race with the launch of a new department dedicated solely to election integrity. The new internal infrastructure will bring on year-round staff operating new technology designed to facilitate recruitment and litigation, according to a 35-page report shared exclusively with The Federalist.

“The RNC built a historic election integrity program in 2022: we put 80,000 volunteers on the ground, secured key legal victories, and learned how we can grow even stronger in the future,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told The Federalist. “As we prepare for 2024, the RNC will establish a full-time permanent Election Integrity Department that will combine our existing tools to build on our unprecedented progress.”

The report sent to RNC members Thursday details the party’s plans to transform the GOP’s election integrity efforts from pop-up operations into year-round initiatives that remain ongoing immediately after each election. Prior to 2021, the national Republican Party was restricted from engaging in electoral oversight, such as hiring poll watchers over a 1981 consent decree. That meant any initiatives designed to maintain integrity in American elections were patchwork efforts coordinated by independent campaigns with the support of the GOP congressional campaign committees. The decades-long order was lifted in 2018 after more than three decades, and the party officially resumed efforts on poll watching and voter fraud in the 2021-2022 election cycle.

“The need for the RNC to be the permanent and year-round home for the Republican [Election Integrity Operations] is glaringly obvious, and the party is fortunate that we now have that,” the report reads. “For the past two years, the RNC has worked tirelessly as a bridge among those groups with unprecedented cooperation.”

The RNC is now preparing to hire an army to the tune of “tens of thousands” of attorneys and poll watchers with an aggressive litigation strategy to ensure a free and fair election next year.

“Beginning with the successful 2021 operations in Virginia and New Jersey, the RNC established a multifaceted [Election Integrity Operations] program in partnership with the NRSC and NRCC that resulted in dozens of lawsuits,” wrote Ashley MacLeay and Art Wittich, who chaired the RNC committee behind the report.

The fallout from the 2020 election, wherein Democrats exploited lockdown-era protocols to radically expand unsupervised access to the ballot box, has led the GOP to prioritize election integrity as a pillar of the RNC’s 2024 campaign strategy.

Three years ago, Democrat operatives through Facebook’s Center for Tech and Civic Life took over the administration of elections and erected ballot boxes in liberal strongholds to gin up turnout. Mark Zuckerberg’s project gave more than $400 million to the effort, with only a small fraction of the “Zuckbucks” spent in areas won by President Donald Trump.

[READ: The 2020 Election Wasn’t Stolen, It Was Bought By Mark Zuckerberg]

Other efforts by Democrats to rig the 2020 contest included turning election day into election season, with voters able to cast ballots weeks before November, absent of the typical safeguards that protect against fraud. All happened while Big Tech conspired with the corporate press and even federal intelligence agencies to manipulate public opinion throughout the process.

While Republicans are limited with what they can do to confront the corporate collusion, the new RNC department marks an effort to master the mechanics of modern elections. The GOP is also planning to jump in the ballot harvesting game in states with loose restrictions. The party largely refrained from participating in the mass collection of ballots three years ago to the detriment of Republican candidates who faced Democrat opponents eager to exploit relaxed protocols.

Last fall, the RNC took a two-pronged approach to ballot harvesting: GOP attorneys fought to ban the practice in states such as Arizona, where attorneys were successful, while party workers took advantage of harvesting in states where efforts failed to rein in the rules.

[RELATED: Conservatives, Get Busy Ballot Harvesting Or Get Busy Losing]

“The RNC ballot harvested where the law allowed it in 2022, helping to secure key congressional wins that flipped the House,” McDaniel told The Federalist. “We will build on and expand those efforts in 2024 where legal while still holding Democrats accountable for bad laws that undermine election integrity.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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9 Questions Corporate Media Should Ask Biden About Latest Corruption Evidence But Won’t


BY: JORDAN BOYD | MAY 12, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/12/9-questions-corporate-media-should-ask-biden-about-latest-corruption-evidence-but-wont/

President Joe Biden talks to the press

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Corrupt corporate media outlets love scandal but when it comes to questions about whether President Joe Biden sold out the U.S. to enrich his family, they deliberately turn a blind eye.

There are plenty of questions ripe for the asking about the Biden family’s dealings with people tied to some of the nation’s biggest foreign adversaries. Republicans have spent months searching for answers, but every piece of evidence of corruption they uncover simply raises more questions. Meanwhile, press outlets that usually busy themselves with aiding Democrat investigations of this nature either deny the evidence or remain silent altogether.

Here are nine questions the corporate media should ask POTUS about his latest scandal but likely won’t.

1. What Exactly Is the Biden Family Business?

Perhaps the biggest question the American people deserve to know an answer to is: What exactly does the Biden family do to warrant massive payments from foreign nationals? Outside of spending decades influencing U.S. domestic and foreign policy, nobody seems to know.

“We know what [Trump’s] businesses were. I’m not saying whether I agreed with what he did or not but I actually know what these businesses are. What are the Biden businesses?” Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer asked during a press conference this week.

2. Why Did Your Unqualified Grandchild Get Paid?

Joe Biden’s son Hunter receiving checks from foreign energy moguls makes some sense if you overlook his suspect rise to fame in the international energy sector. Why at least one of Biden’s grandkids, some nieces or nephews, and even an ex-daughter-in-law are all on the receiving end of funds from foreign nationals is unexplainable.

Despite having no formal experience or education that would qualify them to receive payments from foreign energy companies or “legal fees,” bank records show that at least nine people, between Biden family members and their lovers, spent decades getting rich on at least $10 million from people associated with some of the United States’ biggest foreign adversaries.

3. How Many More Bidens Received Money from Foreign Nationals?

If Hunter’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle profited off of deals she claimed to have “my head buried in the sand” about, it’s more than fair to ask the president just how many more members of the Biden circle benefitted from these international deals.

4. Why Dilute Payments from Foreign Nationals?

Payments to the Bidens were diced up and transferred to a spread of Biden associates before hitting the family’s bank accounts. These transactions often occurred within weeks of significant political action by the then-vice president in the country of the transactions’ origins.

“It’s very hard to come up with any legitimate business reason to conduct transactions in this type of complex way,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong noted during a recent Oversight Committee presser. “Why would separate payments go to Hunter Biden’s business and to himself individually? Why would Walker transfer money from his business account to his personal account before distributing the money? Why are other Biden family members receiving any of these payments?”

These are fair questions, based not on speculation but on the pure facts outlined in the Biden family bank records. If the Bidens’ multimillion-dollar “business” is legitimate, the president shouldn’t have a problem answering basic questions about the complexity of transactions from Chinese, Romanian, and other companies.

5. How Many More Biden Bank Accounts and Shell Companies Are There?

Republican investigators say they’ve looked into four of at least 12 apparently Biden-linked bank accounts and have discovered “a web” of more than 20 companies that were “formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency.” The question of how many more are out there has yet to be determined but could be helped with clarification from the president.

6. Why Did You Repeatedly Lie about Your Knowledge of Hunter’s Dealings?

During a presidential debate in October 2020, Biden told the nation that neither he nor any of his family members profited from overseas business deals with companies connected to communist China.

That is completely false. It’s also evident that Biden knew about his family’s dealings.

In fact, visitor logs show that Hunter’s associates visited the White House more than 80 times while the elder Biden was vice president. During some of these meetings, several of Hunter’s closest assistants and business partners met with Biden and Biden aides and even attended VP briefings. Vice President Biden also welcomed Hunter on several official trips on Air Force Two, which Hunter appeared to use to secure deals that would enrich his family.

Why would the president go to great lengths to lie over and over and over about it?

7. Should Presidents’ Families Make Money off of People Associated with Our Top Foreign Enemy?

The White House maintains Biden’s hands are clean. Yet, even if Republicans do not find a direct link between the president and the millions sustaining his family’s lavish lifestyles, as corporate media repeatedly and hypocritically demand, he is at least eligible for scrutiny just for his closeness to the alleged corruption.

Biden’s approval with Americans is already low. His proximity to the national security threat his family transactions pose only serves to further hurt that low trust.

8. Have You Instructed the DOJ to Avoid Taking Action against You and Your Family?

Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys in California and Washington, D.C. both apparently blocked the filing of criminal tax charges against Hunter Biden, according to one IRS whistleblower. The Department of Justice also gave potentially false statements about information on the Bidens’ business in China. And the FBI, which falls under the DOJ’s authority, has refused to turn over records that allegedly implicate Biden in a bribery scheme, despite a congressional subpoena. What’s stopping the DOJ from continuing to do what’s politically favorable for the president and his family by ignoring the issue at hand? Certainly not Biden.

9. How Many Media Outlets Have You Asked to Defend You amid the Investigation?

Comer asked Democrats this week “Do you want to continue covering up the Bidens’ influence-peddling schemes when the evidence is being placed right in front of you?”

The same can be asked of the corrupt corporate media which, since before the 2020 election, offered the president and his family not scrutiny but defense. From the moment House Republicans officially launched an investigation into Biden’s corruption, the press inaccurately asserted there was “no evidence of wrongdoing.” In addition to repeatedly taking the White House’s assertions of innocence at face value, the press tried to distract from the Biden family’s scandals by conflating that corruption with the Trump family’s conduct and blacked out coverage of Comer’s ongoing supply of evidence.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Feds Started A Dangerous Game With Hunter Biden’s Laptop, But GOP Lawmakers Can Finish It


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 11, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/11/feds-started-a-dangerous-game-with-hunter-bidens-laptop-but-gop-lawmakers-can-finish-it/

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The interim report of the House Intelligence Committee and Weaponization Subcommittee released Wednesday established extensive coordination between the Biden campaign and those behind the statement signed by 51 former intelligence officials that painted the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation. More explosive, however, is the fact, first reported on Tuesday by The Federalist, that a Central Intelligence Agency employee solicited a former CIA officer to sign the statement. 

Yet there is still much more to unravel to expose the breadth and depth of the info op painting the infamous laptop as Russian disinformation and the government actors involved. Here are five threads that will lead to the truth.

Subpoena All 51 Signatories

As its title stated, the House’s report focused on “How Senior Intelligence Community Officials and the Biden Campaign Worked to Mislead American Voters.” While the October 2020 letter signed by the former intelligence officials is only part of the scandal, it’s a solid entry point to learning the identity of many of those involved. 

The report already established Secretary of State Antony Blinken — then a senior adviser to the Biden campaign — contacted Obama’s CIA acting director, Mike Morell, to discuss the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Morell also testified that speaking with Blinken spurred him to craft the letter in question so Biden could reference it during his final debate against then-President Trump. 

The House report highlighted several other plays involved in gathering signatories for the letter and revealed that at least one CIA employee solicited an individual to sign the letter. 

The House stressed its investigation is continuing but that neither Blinken nor the CIA have yet to provide documents requested by the committees relating to both the statement and the interactions between its signatories and the CIA. The committees also reportedly scheduled interviews with former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. 

But it is not merely Brennan and Clapper who should be interviewed. While they are two of the most prominent former intelligence officials to have signed the letter, every signatory should be questioned and asked to provide relevant communications. If they refuse, subpoenas should be served and enforced.

Specifically, Brennan, Clapper, and other signatories should be asked to identify anyone they communicated with, or tried to, about the laptop or the letter to reveal the identity of the “nine additional former IC officers” who were unnamed but represented as supporting the letter’s conclusions.

Those 60 people should be asked about everyone with whom they spoke or attempted to speak about the laptop or the letter at any time, including those connected to: 1) the Biden family, 2) the Biden campaign, 3) elected officials, 4) the Democrat Party, 5) politicians opposed to Trump, 6) the media, 7) current government officials, 8) other signatories, 9) foreign governments, and 10) anyone else. All related communications should be obtained.

Based on those findings, any individuals not previously known should be added to the list of those to be questioned and subpoenaed. Those names will likely include many members or allies of the Biden campaign. We already know former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and Biden adviser Michael Carpenter and Andrew Bates, then a Biden campaign spokesman and the director of his “rapid response” team, were involved in pushing the “Russian disinformation” narrative.

Additionally, from Morell’s testimony to House investigators, we know the head of Biden’s campaign, Steve Ricchetti, was involved, given that he arranged to personally thank Morell for the letter. Morell also said Jeremy Bash, whom Morell knew through Beacon Global Strategies, arranged Morell’s conversation with Ricchetti, raising the possibility that Beacon Global Strategies played a role in the plot. 

These individuals should be further questioned on their roles related to the letter: Did they draft any language? Propose revisions to the language? We know some of this already from the House report, but there’s more to probe.

Furthermore, all of the signatories should be asked: Had they read the New York Post articles? Did they know of the existence of the laptop or the FBI’s seizure of it? Why did they supposedly believe it was Russian disinformation? Did they have any doubts? Did they watch the final Trump-Biden debate and, if so, did they believe Biden had accurately described their letter? What about Politico’s infamous “Russian disinfo” article? Did they believe Biden or Politico had misrepresented their letter? If so, to whom, if anyone, did they express their concerns? If not, why not? 

Probe FBI’s Involvement

The aforementioned strategy is a good starting point, but because members of the Biden campaign and others involved outside the government may not know — or be honest — about who inside the government participated in the election-interference scheme, investigators should simultaneously work from the FBI out.

Congressional oversight committees should start by interviewing and obtaining all relevant documents, voluntarily or by subpoena, from the FBI agents with knowledge of the laptop. They should begin with those who first learned of its existence when the father of John Paul Mac Isaac — the owner of the computer repair store where Hunter had abandoned his laptop — contacted the agency. 

According to Mac Isaac, in October 2019, his father, a retired Air Force colonel, reported the laptop to FBI agents in the Albuquerque, New Mexico field office. Mac Isaac’s father spoke with an agent, telling him that his son had “the laptop of the son of a presidential candidate” and that it “has a lot of bad stuff on it, and he needs your help.” 

Mac Isaac’s father also told the agent the hard drive contained pornographic material and content that was “geopolitically sensitive,” including “dealing with foreign interests, a pay-for-play scheme linked to the former administration, lots of foreign money.” And while Mac Isaac’s father offered the FBI a copy of the laptop, the agent instead asked to review the repair contract.

After reviewing it, the agent reportedly “consulted with a regional legal officer,” then told Mac Isaac’s father they should “lawyer up” and not “talk to anyone about this.” The agent then directed the repairman’s father to the door. 

An agent later reportedly contacted Mac Isaac’s father, who provided the agent with his son’s contact information. Then, “on December 9, 2019, the FBI served a subpoena on John Paul for the computer, the hard drive, and all related paperwork,” which Mac Isaac provided. 

Mac Isaac would later claim one of the two FBI agents who retrieved the laptop from his Delaware store suggested he keep quiet. According to Mac Isaac, as the agents were leaving, he quipped, “Hey, lads, I’ll remember to change your names when I write the book.”

At that point, Mac Isaac claimed, “Agent DeMeo paused and turned to face me,” replying: “It is our experience that nothing ever happens to people that don’t talk about these things.”

After seizing the laptop, the “local FBI leadership told employees, ‘You will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop,’” according to multiple whistleblowers. The whistleblowers further alleged that “the FBI did not begin to examine the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop until after the 2020 presidential election — potentially a year after” retrieving it.

These details give congressional investigators ample leads to uncover who in the FBI knew about the Hunter Biden laptop, beginning in Albuquerque and then moving to the FBI’s Baltimore field office, which holds jurisdiction over Delaware-based investigations.

The agents involved should be questioned to learn what they knew, what they did, and with whom they spoke, including whether they communicated with any member of the Biden family, campaign, or media. Investigators should also obtain the various FBI reports, the subpoena, the warrant used to obtain the subpoena, the chain of custody for the laptop and other seized material, and all written or electronic communications. 

Focusing on the FBI is especially important because the day after the Post broke the laptop story, Russia-collusion hoaxer Ken Dilanian, ran an “exclusive” at NBC, reporting that “federal investigators are examining whether emails allegedly describing activities by Joe Biden and his son Hunter and found on a laptop at a Delaware repair shop are linked to a foreign intelligence operation.” The next day, USA Today similarly reported the FBI’s supposed involvement in investigating whether a Russian influence operation was at play. On Oct. 17, 2020, USA Today reiterated that the “federal authorities” are investigating whether the laptop is “disinformation pushed by Russia.”

However, the FBI was not investigating whether the laptop was related to a “foreign intelligence operation,” but instead was investigating Hunter Biden. This FBI leak nonetheless furthered the “Russia disinformation” narrative. In fact, Blinken went on to share one of the USA Today articles with Morell. Then Morell referenced the nonexistent FBI investigation as a justification for the letter, as a text included in the House report shows. 

Specifically, Morell texted Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA acting chief of operations, saying, “I’m thinking of writing something that says the FBI is investigating whether there is Russia involvement in this thing and that makes sense because it has the feel of a Russian op.” Morell asked Polymeropoulos if he wanted to help with the effort, leading the duo to draft the initial version of the statement together.

Questioning the FBI agents with knowledge of the laptop and obtaining relevant communications would help establish who was behind the leak and whether anyone from the FBI communicated with the Biden campaign, the CIA, or any of the letter’s signatories. Likewise, this line of inquiry would establish if anyone with knowledge of the laptop cautioned social media companies — or suggested other FBI agents warn Big Tech — to expect a “hack-and-leak” operation.

Probe DEA’s Involvement

A third line of inquiry requires looking to the Drug Enforcement Administration and its role in executing a search warrant on the Massachusetts office of Hunter Biden’s former psychiatrist Keith Ablow. 

On Oct. 30, 2020, NBC News first reported that during a February 2020 DEA raid on Ablow’s office, agents reportedly recovered a second laptop belonging to Hunter Biden from a safe in Ablow’s basement. The DEA then returned the computer to Hunter’s lawyer George Mesires.

For a year, Ablow had reportedly “made repeated efforts to persuade Hunter Biden to retrieve his computer.” But then the DEA raided Ablow’s office just a few months after the FBI had seized Hunter’s other laptop from Mac Isaac. 

The DEA agents involved should be asked whether they knew Ablow possessed the laptop and whether that fact motivated the execution of the search warrant. Did the DEA agents speak with any FBI agents? Did the DEA know of the Delaware U.S. attorney’s investigation into Hunter? Did agents review the laptop before returning it? If not, why not? If so, what information did they discover, and why was the laptop not retained as evidence? 

This line of inquiry may prove a dead end, or it could reveal more election interferers.

Dig Into Biden Briefings

Next, investigators should review the intelligence briefings provide to Biden since October 2019 when the FBI first learned of the laptop’s existence. Given the incriminating evidence contained on it, the intelligence briefings should have alerted Joe Biden to the national security risk.

If the briefings included details about the laptop, the individuals involved should be questioned and documents subpoenaed to learn who knew what and did what with the information. But if the briefings did not mention the laptop, investigators should ask those responsible for putting together the briefings about their knowledge of the laptop and their explanation for omitting mention of it. 

Investigate the Giuliani Investigators

A fifth line of inquiry should look to those behind the investigation of Rudy Giuliani. 

The New York Post’s Miranda Devine previously reported: “[T]he FBI spied on the former mayor’s cloud for two years from May, 2019, a month after he began working as then president Donald Trump’s personal attorney. … So the FBI had access to all Giuliani’s emails and iMessages for two years,” meaning it’s possible the FBI saw Bob Costello’s Aug. 27, 2020, email to Giuliani “telling him of Mac Isaac’s ‘amazing discovery.’”

In that email, Costello wrote: “I am arranging to get a complete copy of the hard drive as it contains lots of materials beyond the Ukraine stuff according to the owner. … The five emails he sent show that Hunter was directly involved in orchestrating his father Joe Biden’s intervention to stop the Ukrainian investigation of Burisma.” The email continued: “I believe that we are on the verge of a game changing production of indisputable evidence of the corruption we have long suspected involving the Biden’s and Ukraine — but there is more.”

The joint committees’ investigation should run down the possibility that those investigating Giuliani had access to his emails and learned of the laptop before the Post’s stories. If so, with whom did the agents share that knowledge? Again, interviews and documents are necessary to determine if any of these FBI agents were responsible for the leaks or communicated with the Biden campaign or Big Tech.

Wednesday’s report provides crucial details about the info ops run on Americans, but there is much more left to investigate to uncover all of the players who helped interfere in the 2020 election.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Senator Tim Scott Op-ed: Biden abandons Title 42, so here are 3 ways to solve our border crisis


Published May 11, 2023 12:00pm EDT | https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-abandons-title-42-3-ways-solve-border-crisis

Sen. Tim Scott

 By Sen. Tim Scott | Fox News

President Joe Biden is fueling the raging fentanyl epidemic, a true national public health emergency warranting immediate action. As a new wave of the Biden border crisis is boiling over with the end of Title 42, this administration has shown little interest in actually solving it. One thing is clear: America needs new leadership.

Across this great country, I hear time and time again the pain of families who have lost a loved one to fentanyl. Every community has felt the impact of the grueling epidemic, and it’s something that has hit close to home for me. A friend of mine, Alan Shao, buried his 27-year-old son and namesake who died from fentanyl earlier this year. Alan’s painful story serves as a stern reminder there is no family in this nation that is immune to this tragedy. 

The epidemic does not discriminate. In Biden’s America, every town is a border town and anyone at any time can fall victim. President Biden’s failure to secure our border is directly responsible for the escalating number of deaths the American people are facing due to fentanyl.

This problem will only be magnified as the Biden administration allows Title 42 to expire, something even Secretary Mayorkas admitted in 2022 will only cause the number of migrants showing up along our southern border to surge. The administration’s inaction will not only result in more fentanyl being flooded into our communities, but it will also put more felons, human traffickers, drug dealers, and known terrorists on the streets and among our families’ neighborhoods – a tragic story we’ve witnessed before on President Biden’s watch.

BORDER PATROL SECTORS MAY START RELEASING VETTED PAROLEES WHEN TITLE 42 EXPIRES

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The reality is bleak under his leadership, but we have an opportunity to change course right in our own hands. It’s time for us to take bold and decisive action. It starts with securing our border and dismantling the criminal cartels trafficking fentanyl into our country. Here’s how we do it:

First, let’s pass my legislation – the Alan T. Shao II Fentanyl Public Health Emergency and Overdose Prevention Act – to utilize powers similar to those under Title 42 and apply them in response to the new public health emergency: the fentanyl epidemic. Today, more Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 die from fentanyl than from COVID-19, car accidents, cancer and suicide combined, making fentanyl the leading cause of death among adults. To treat this with any less rigor than our COVID-19 response would be an injustice to grieving families and loved ones. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

Next, let’s pass my Securing Our Border Act. This important piece of legislation redirects $15 billion the Biden administration previously designated to hire an army of 87,000 IRS agents and instead funds critical border security initiatives. These funds would give our border agents the tools and incentives they need to do their job effectively, finish construction of the southern border wall, and end the Biden administration’s disastrous catch-and-release policy.

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March 29, 2023: Border Patrol agents encounter over 1,000 migrants in El Paso, Texas (Customs and Border Protection)

Finally, Congress must pass the FEND Off Fentanyl Act to curb the flow of money powering these cartels by tapping into the economic security tools at our disposal and empowering law enforcement to do their job. It would enact the toughest sanctions regime on criminal cartels in American history, freeze the cartels’ collective and individual assets, and curb their ability to conduct their dealings in the United States and abroad.

Together, my three bills form a three-pronged approach to address and finally solve our border crisis and fentanyl epidemic.

The solutions are right there in front of us. It’s time for a president to implement them. With new leadership, guided by an optimistic vision of what America can be, I know we get the job done to keep our streets safe, secure our southern border, and put this country on a path towards a better and brighter future.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN. TIM SCOTT

Republican Tim Scott represents South Carolina in the United States Senate. He is author of the new book, “America, a Redemption Story: Choosing Hope, Creating Unity” (Thomas Nelson, August 9, 2022).

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Bidens Made Millions Exchanging Political Favors For Foreign Money, Then Tried To Cover It Up: Oversight Report


BY: JORDAN BOYD | MAY 10, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/10/bidens-made-millions-exchanging-political-favors-for-foreign-money-then-tried-to-cover-it-up-oversight-report/

Rep. James Comer and Oversight Committee detail Biden corruption

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President Joe Biden and his family are at the center of an influence-peddling scheme in which they traded the patriarch’s decades of time in political offices to line their own pockets and then tried to cover up their profiteering with a myriad of complicated transactions and accounts, the House Oversight Committee confirmed during a press conference on Wednesday.

With the help of whistleblowers and congressional subpoenas, Republicans are confidently reporting that the Bidens received at least $10 million worth of diluted payments from foreign companies during and after the president’s time in the Obama White House.

These payments were diced up and transferred to a spread of Biden bank accounts within weeks of significant political action by the then-vice president in the country of the transactions’ origins.

“These complicated and seemingly unnecessary financial transactions appear to be a concerted effort to conceal the source and total amount received from the foreign companies,” the Oversight Committee’s latest memo warns.

At least nine Biden family members including the president’s son Hunter Biden, his brother James Biden, James’s wife, Hunter’s ex-girlfriend who is also his brother Beau Biden’s widow, Hunter’s ex-wife, Hunter’s current wife, and at least one grandchild and a couple of nieces and/or nephews profited from the funneling of funds.

“That’s odd,” Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said. “Most people with grandchildren, who work hard everyday, doesn’t get a wire from a foreign national or anything like that.”

The latest round of records, obtained by the Oversight Committee from four of the Bidens’ 12 apparent banks, detail yet another round of these payments — this time from China and Romania to the Bidens.

One $3 million payment came from the company of Gabriel Popoviciu, who is the subject of a criminal corruption probe in Romania, to the accounts of Biden family associate Rob Walker mere weeks after Biden, then-vice president, welcomed Romanian leaders to the White House to discuss “anti-corruption efforts” and just more than a year after Biden lectured in Romania about the threat corruption poses to national security. Those transactions were quickly funneled to Owasco (one of Hunter’s 15 companies), a Biden associate’s company, one of Hunter’s personal bank accounts, Hallie Biden, and “an unknown Biden bank account.”

The Romanian payments, the Oversight Committee alleges, further prove that the Bidens’ influence peddling operation was in full swing while Biden facilitated foreign policy discussions, especially in Eastern Europe, during the Obama administration.

The newest Romanian payment dilution strongly resembles how the Bidens appeared to use their more than a dozen companies to coordinate with Chinese nationals suspected of close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and “engage in financial deception.”

“The purpose of all these companies being created is to conceal money that the Biden family has been gaining because Joe Biden has been sitting at the upper echelon of our politics for almost five decades. That is the entire purpose here,” Rep. Byron Donalds explained on Wednesday.

These companies receiving funds from foreign nationals, the Republican asserted, serve no legitimate purpose other than enriching the president, his family, and his business associates.

“Joe Biden has no business, except his position in politics,” Donalds concluded.

“If it looks complicated and sounds complicated, it was intentionally made to be complicated so you could not follow the money,” Republican Rep. Nancy Mace added during her talking time. “What we’re trying to do today is show you how to follow the money.”

During a presidential debate in October 2020, Biden told the nation that neither he nor any of his family members profited from overseas business deals with companies connected to communist China.

“My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China. I have not had—The only guy who made money from China is this guy [Donald Trump]. He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China,” Biden said.

Despite the fact that the Oversight Committee has repeatedly proven Biden’s denials wrong with bank records detailing millions of dollars worth of transactions from foreign shell companies to the president’s family, the White House refuses to do anything but double down on the lie.

“House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is loudly and proudly broadcasting a press conference today to continue his long pattern of making absurd claims that President Biden has made governing decisions not in the interest of America, but of the Chinese Communist Party, using baseless claims, personal attacks, and innuendo to try to score political points,” White House spokesman Ian Sams told Fox News, after smearing the committee’s latest memo as an “absurd innuendo [that] ignores reality.”

The Oversight Committee once again rejected these claims on Wednesday and refuted them with hard evidence that several Biden family members, including Hunter, James, Hallie, an unknown “Biden,” and companies linked to the family “collectively received $1.3 million in payments” from Walker, whose company was paid millions by Chinese firm State Energy HK Limited, implicating the family in selling political favors to China.

The Biden family received the money via several bank transfers within six months of the vice president departing the Obama White House. Comer said in April that his committee still did not know who the unnamed Biden was in the China transaction because the Biden family holds so many bank accounts and LLCs.

“The Biden family needs to answer for this and the DOJ needs to get off its ass and investigate. We’ve done the work for them so that they can’t screw it up. Now, if these allegations, any of these allegations are proven true then someone with the last name Biden needs to be charged, prosecuted, and maybe spend a little time in prison,” Mace said at the conclusion of her remarks.

Last week, Republicans Sen. Chuck Grassley and Comer subpoenaed the FBI over a document they say alleges a criminal scheme between now-President Joe Biden and a “foreign national” during his years in the Obama White House.

The Oversight Committee led by Comer, who previously warned it “doesn’t look good for POTUS,” promised to continue investigating whether Biden sold out the American people to the nation’s foreign enemies to line family’s pockets.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Rep. Comer: Probe Reveals Bidens’ ‘Influence Peddling’


By Sandy Fitzgerald    |   Wednesday, 10 May 2023 09:27 AM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/comer-joe-biden-oversight/2023/05/10/id/1119256/

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., on Wednesday outlined what he called a “pattern of influence peddling” by President Joe Biden’s family, revealing information the committee obtained showing that the “family, their associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals and their companies.”

“Some of that money came from a Chinese company and went to Hunter Biden’s company,” Comer said in a press conference, referring to the president’s son. “Other transfers occurred with money from foreign entities to the Biden family, with many of the wire payments occurring while Joe Biden was vice president and leading the United States’ efforts in these countries.”

Comer noted that the committee has had subpoena power for just four months, and has made “astonishing progress” in uncovering information on Biden family members.

While much of the information centered around connections with China, other countries were also involved, Comer said.

“First instance, Vice President Biden was lecturing Romania on anti-corruption policies,” said Comer. “In reality, he was a walking billboard for his son and family to collect money. Hunter Biden and his associates capitalized on a lucrative financial relationship with the Romanian nationals who were under investigation for and later convicted of corruption in Romania. The Bidens received over $1 million for the deal.”

Comer added that 16 of 17 payments to an associate’s account that “funneled” the money occurred while Biden was the vice president, and “the money stops flowing from the Romanian nationals” soon after Biden left the vice presidency.

The committee also provided information on the Biden family’s relationship with China, posting its outlines on its Twitter account during the press conference. In one chart, the trail of the money is shown coming from Chinese President Xi Jinping and heading through several levels and accounts before eventually reaching payments to Hunter Biden, the president’s brother and his wife, James and Sara Biden, to Hallie Biden, the wife of the president’s late son, Beau, and to an “unnamed Biden.”

Comer said the committee is particularly concerned with Ye Jianming, former chair of the Shanghai-based CEFC China Energy conglomerate, who “had close ties to the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party and operated a multibillion-dollar energy company with access to large sums of money.”

“The Bidens’ foreign entanglements are breathtaking and raise serious questions about why foreign actors targeted the Biden family, what they expected in return, and whether our national security is threatened,” Comer said in a media statement posted to the House Oversight Committee’s website, in which the new findings are outlined.

“We will continue to pursue additional bank records to follow the money trail and inform legislative solutions to prevent this type of corruption. Americans deserve answers, transparency, and accountability.” 

Meanwhile, Comer said the president has claimed since 2020 that his family never received money from China.

“That was a lie in 2020, and he continues to lie to the American people now,” said Comer. “The Bidens have received millions of dollars from China. It is inconceivable that the president did not know it.”

Comer added that he subpoenaed the FBI a week ago for a document a whistleblower says shows that Biden, as vice president, received payment in a pay-for-play scheme, but that document has not yet been turned over.

“Chinese nationals affiliated with the Bidens created limited liability companies in the United States and then in a short period of time transferred their interest to a Chinese company that sent money to the Bidens,” said Comer. “This is not normal. Hunter Biden and his associates courted business in countries that correlated directly with Joe Biden’s work as vice president. This is also not normal. It is not ethical. And this is why we need legislative solutions.”

Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee is crafting legislative solutions to strengthen reporting requirements related to certain foreign transactions involving senior elected officials, and evaluating the Bank Secrecy Act and money laundering laws, Comer said.

Comer said that with the information released Wednesday, the committee is moving its investigation into a new phase, and that he will issue a new round of subpoenas to banks for specific-targeted information.

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., also speaking during the press appearance, explained in further detail some of the information the committee uncovered, including how the Bidens used an associate, Rob Walker, “to bring in millions of dollars” from China and Romania through Walker’s limited liability company, Robinson Walker LLC. Biggs said the company paid the Biden family members more than $2 million after foreign money hit his account.

“For example, on March 1, 2017, only two months after Joe Biden left office, Robinson Walker received a $3 million wire from State Energy HK,” said Biggs. “The next day, one-third of that money, $1,065,000, went to the bank account in Abu Dhabi of the company, EIG, which was controlled by James Gilead, another Biden associate.

“Over the next three months, Robinson Walker LLC sent 16 incremental payments to over five different Biden accounts totaling $1,065,692.”

White House spokesman Ian Sams, in a memo provided to Fox News Digital early Wednesday, accused Comer of “loudly and proudly broadcasting a press conference today to continue his long pattern of making absurd claims that President Biden has made governing decisions not in the interest of America, but of the Chinese Communist Party, using baseless claims, personal attacks, and innuendo to try to score political points.”

Comer told Newsmax’s “The Record with Greta Van Susteren” Tuesday night: “What we have is something no one else has ever been able to produce.”

“We have bank records, we have evidence that shows that the Biden family was involved in this extensive influence peddling thing,” he said. “It wasn’t just the president’s son — it was the entire family, so this is of the utmost concern to our committee.

“We’re concerned about our national security and we’re wondering whether or not this president is compromised because of the millions of dollars his family’s received from our adversaries around the world.”

Sams said the press conference shows that the investigation is running into problems and that the investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings has yet to result in an indictment. Sams also claimed House Republicans, not the Bidens, are guilty of boosting China’s interests, saying they have “taken positions that benefit the PRC and its leaders, and worked to erode America’s ability to compete with China,” including denying legislation that would help finance semiconductor plants in the United States.

“Instead of floating evidence-free innuendo, and making absurd attacks on the President and his family to try to score political points, Chairman Comer and House Oversight Republicans should answer the question: Why have you repeatedly sided with PRC interests over American workers and the American economy, instead of joining President Biden to put in place a strong agenda to create more American jobs and make us more competitive with China?” Sams wrote.

Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, last week subpoenaed a document from the FBI and Justice Department that a whistleblower says describes a pay-for-play scheme involving Biden, when he was vice president and a foreign national.

Democrats on the committee are also pushing back on Comer’s claims.

“There’s a lot of innuendo and a lot of gossip taking place and much of it is recycled from prior claims,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, told Politico.

Wednesday’s press conference won’t be the end of Comer’s investigation, as he also is reportedly planning to reveal his next actions, likely including more third-party financial records.

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McCarthy rules out short-term deal with Biden on debt ceiling: ‘Just get this done’


By Elizabeth Elkind , Kelly Phares FOXBusiness | Published May 9, 2023 1:50pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/mccarthy-rules-out-short-term-deal-biden-debt-ceiling-get-this-done

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday ruled out the possibility of a short-term debt ceiling extension until the end of this fiscal year, narrowing the options available to President Joe Biden and Congress as they look for a way to increase the federal borrowing limit before the government runs out of money to pay its bills. McCarthy, R-Calif., gave reporters a firm “no” at the U.S. Capitol when asked whether he’d agree to such a measure Tuesday at his White House meeting, which would line up debt ceiling talks with negotiations over next year’s spending levels.

“We shouldn’t kick the vote. Let’s just get this done now,” the speaker said.

It comes hours before he is set to meet with Biden and other House and Senate leaders on the debt ceiling. Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the U.S. government is projected to run out of cash to pay its bills as early as June 1.

HOUSE PASSES MCCARTHY’S DEBT CEILING BILL BY TWO VOTES; FOUR REPUBLICANS VOTE AGAINST

kevin mccarthy
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is rejecting a short-term delay on the debt ceiling and says that Congress and the White House need to find an answer in the next few weeks. (Alex Wong) (Getty Images)

“I hope it’s different than it’s been for the last 97 days,” McCarthy told reporters, noting how long it had been since his last formal sit-down with Biden on the debt limit. “On Feb. 1, I went to see the president and sat down with him, saying we should work on the debt ceiling so we wouldn’t get to this point.”

No concrete solutions are expected to come out of Tuesday’s meeting, but Wall Street and other financial sectors are anxiously watching to see if the five principals can agree to keep working on some kind of deal that allows the government to keep paying its current obligations.

Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have led Democrats in opposing a compromise on lifting the debt limit while enacting future spending cuts, something Republicans have demanded.

SENATE REPUBLICANS, INCLUDING MCCONNELL, SAY DEBT LIMIT FIGHT IS BETWEEN MCCARTHY, BIDEN

Biden addressing firefighters union
President Joe Biden (Evan Vucci / File / AP Newsroom)

The GOP House majority and their counterparts in the Senate have coalesced around McCarthy’s Limit, Save, Grow Act, which passed the lower chamber along party lines and is now being put forward as Republicans’ starting point in negotiations. But Democrats argue that a “clean” debt ceiling increase is an obligation of the federal government rather than a bargaining chip. They’ve also attacked Republicans’ spending cut proposals as a non-starter, accusing the GOP of holding the country “hostage.”

MCCARTHY AGREES TO MAY 9 MEETING WITH BIDEN TO RESOLVE DEBT CEILING STANDOFF

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (Drew Angerer / File / Getty Images)

“We’re going to stay focused on what Congress needs to do here, their congressional duty, which is to prevent a default,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her briefing on Tuesday when asked about the upcoming meeting.

“If House Republicans get their way, it could also … trigger a recession. And we’ve listed over and over again what this could be, if they continue to hold the American economy hostage. That’s going to be our focus. That’s going to be the president’s focus today, to make that clear to the leaders … that they have to do their congressional duty. And that’s what’s expected.”

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White House Blocks New York Post Reporter From Rare Biden Event


By: Alana Goodman | May 8, 2023

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/white-house-blocks-new-york-post-reporter-from-rare-biden-event-2659980941.html/

The White House blocked the New York Post from covering a Monday public event with President Joe Biden, according to the paper, a sign the president’s team is increasingly sensitive to coverage of the president’s son, Hunter Biden, and could be cracking down on media access after the launch of his reelection campaign.

The Post, which first revealed the existence of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop in October of 2020, said the White House rejected its request to attend Biden’s press event discussing airline policies with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The decision comes as federal prosecutors are wrapping up a tax investigation into Hunter Biden, which could result in criminal charges in the coming days.

Photos from the event show there were about 20 empty media seats, undermining the explanation from the White House press office for the decision to block the Post.

“We are unable to accommodate your credential request to attend the Investing in Airline Accountability Remarks on 5/8,” the White House press office told the Post. “The remarks will be live-streamed and can be viewed at WH.gov. Thank you for understanding. We will let you know if a credential becomes available.”

Biden—who has held the fewest press availabilities of any president in two decades—in February blew up at a Post reporter after the reporter asked during a similar media event about the first family’s financial dealings with China. “Give me a break, man,” Biden said, ignoring the question. “You can come to my office and ask a question when you have more polite people with you.”

Steven Nelson, the Post reporter who was denied access, told the Washington Free Beacon that Biden’s staff are “setting an anti-press freedom precedent by prescreening journalists allowed to attend large indoor events. These spaces were open to all reporters on White House grounds in the past.”

He noted that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre promised last July to end a much-criticized COVID-era screening process that gave Biden’s press office control over which reporters were allowed to attend presidential remarks. Reporters accused the White House of arbitrarily enforcing the policy, saying it was “done without any transparent process into how reporters are selected to cover these events” in a letter last June.

“The White House Correspondents’ Association also has called on the administration to restore large indoor spaces to their historical status as open to all,” added Nelson. “If the Biden White House continues to discriminate against large outlets such as the New York Post, future administrations can do the same to other newspapers. It should end now.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House Correspondents’ Association also did not respond to a request for comment.

Update 5:34 p.m.: This piece has been updated since publication.

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Chuck Grassley Demands DOJ Cough Up Document Over Criminal Scheme Involving Joe Biden


BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MAY 04, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/04/chuck-grassley-demands-doj-cough-up-document-over-criminal-scheme-involving-joe-biden/

Chuck Grassley

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley is demanding transparency from an agency with no interest in transparency.

On Thursday, the Iowa lawmaker went to the Senate floor to demand FBI compliance with a congressional subpoena compelling documents related to a criminal scheme involving the president and a “foreign national.” Grassley joined House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer in issuing the subpoena Wednesday.

“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” Grassley wrote. “What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. The FBI’s recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight.”

[READ: Think The FBI Deserves The Benefit Of The Doubt? This Laundry List Of Corruption Should Make You Think Again]

In his Thursday floor speech, Grassley spoke about his tenure conducting constitutional oversight of federal law enforcement agencies.

“In many of those floor speeches, I’ve discussed legally protected and unclassified whistleblower disclosures made to my office relating to the Hunter Biden criminal investigation,” Grassley said. “Those disclosures have a very common theme: the Justice Department and FBI have allowed political infection to take root within each agency’s decision-making process. Such an infection is an existential threat to any government agency.”

The latest whistleblower cited in Republican lawmakers’ demands to the FBI on Wednesday alleges President Biden engaged in bribery while serving in the Obama administration.

“The allegations my office has received are very precise, very direct, and very consistent. Accordingly, they’re highly credible,” Grassley said Thursday. “Not once – let me emphasize that again – not once has the Justice Department or FBI substantively disputed the whistleblower allegations that I’ve made public.”

“Simply put, did the Justice Department and FBI treat this information like they would if we, the people, were implicated, or did they sweep it under the rug to protect then-candidate Biden and President Biden now?” Grassley added. “If the Justice Department and FBI have any hope of redeeming their once-trusted position with the American people, Attorney General Garland and Director Wray must answer. Their credibility is on the line.”

[READ: 19 Times Democrats And DOJ Deliberately Politicized Law Enforcement]

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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Whistleblower alleges FBI, DOJ have document revealing criminal scheme involving Biden, foreign national


By Brooke Singman | Fox News | Published May 3, 2023 2:00pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/whistleblower-alleges-fbi-doj-have-document-revealing-scheme-involving-biden-foreign-national

A whistleblower is alleging that the FBI and the Justice Department are in possession of a document that describes a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley said Wednesday.

Comer, R-Ky., and Grassley, R-Iowa, said the whistleblower claims the document “includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose.”

Joe Biden leaves church washington d.c.
President Biden is seen in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1, 2022. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The document, an FBI-generated FD-1023 form, allegedly details an arrangement involving an exchange of money for policy decisions. 

HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATION BEING MISHANDLED, ‘CLEAR CONFLICTS OF INTEREST’: IRS WHISTLEBLOWER

Comer issued a subpoena Wednesday following legally protected disclosures to Grassley’s office.

“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” Grassley said. “What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. The FBI’s recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight.” 

James Comer
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Comer added that the information “raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national.”

WHITE HOUSE INSISTS NO ‘POLITICAL INTERFERENCE’ IN HUNTER BIDEN PROBE AFTER IRS WHISTLEBLOWER COMES FORWARD

“The American people need to know if President Biden sold out the United States of America to make money for himself,” Comer said. “Senator Grassley and I will seek the truth to ensure accountability for the American people.”

Comer and Grassley notified FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday of the “legally protected and highly credible unclassified whistleblower disclosures.”  

Sen. Chuck Grassley speaks into mircrophone during hearing
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.  (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Based on those disclosures, it has come to our attention that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) possess an unclassified FD-1023 form that describes an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions,” they wrote, adding that the whistleblower alleged that the document “includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose.” 

Comer and Grassley said that based on “the alleged specificity within the document, it would appear that the DOJ and the FBI have enough information to determine the truth and accuracy of the information contained within it.” 

Chris Wray testifies before House intel
FBI Director Christopher Wray. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

“However, it remains unclear what steps, if any, were taken to investigate the matter,” they wrote, adding that the “significant public interest in assessing the FBI’s response to this information, as well as growing concern about the DOJ and the FBI’s track record of allowing political bias to infect their decision-making process, necessitate exacting congressional oversight.” 

“The DOJ and the FBI appear to have valuable, verifiable information that you have failed to disclose to the American people,” they added, notifying them that Congress “will proceed to conduct an independent and objective review of this matter, free from those agencies’ influence.” 

Merrick Garland news conference
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers remarks at the U.S. Justice Department.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“Transparency brings accountability,” they wrote. 

Comer’s committee has been investigating Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, how the Biden family has been involved, and whether President Biden has been involved in those foreign business dealings. Comer has warned the business ventures with individuals in China, Ukraine and more pose a national security risk. 

In the Senate, since 2019, Grassley has been investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings and any alleged involvement by the elder Biden. 

BIDEN’S CLAIM TO HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF HUNTER’S BUSINESS DEALINGS IS BECOMING HARDER TO MAINTAIN

The White House has maintained that the president never spoke to his son about his business dealings, and has continued to say that the president was never involved in them. Officials also say the president has never discussed investigations into members of his family with the Justice Department.

White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, Ian Sams, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that for “going on five years now, Republicans in Congress have been lobbing unfounded, unproven, politically-motivated attacks against the President and his family without offering evidence for their claims or evidence of decisions influenced by anything other than U.S. interests.”

“That’s because they prefer floating anonymous innuendo, amplified by the megaphone of their allies in rightwing media, to get attention and try to distract and deflect from their own unpopular ideas and lack of solutions to the issues the American people actually care about,” Sams said. “When it comes to President Biden’s personal finances, anybody can take a look: he has offered an unprecedented level of transparency, releasing a total of 25 years of tax returns to the American public.”

Does any of this sound familiar? Somebody play all the video of the Left with all their comments around the multiple investigations into President Trump.

Hunter Biden gets off plane with president
President Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, step off Air Force One at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, N.Y., on Feb. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

VP BIDEN’S OFFICE TRIED TO QUASH BLOOMBERG STORY ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN AT HIS FIRM’S REQUEST, EMAILS SHOW

Hunter Biden has been under federal investigation since 2018. The federal investigation into his “tax affairs” began amid the discovery of suspicious activity reports (SARs) regarding funds from “China and other foreign nations.”

The FBI confirmed it had received the letter, adding, “We don’t have any additional comment.”

Fox News’ Kelly Phares and Jake Gibson contributed to this report. 

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – White House Deadbeat

A.F. BRANCO | on May 3, 2023 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-white-house-deadbeat/

You would think with all the money Hunter and the Bidens made from selling influence to China, they could afford child support for his daughter Navy Joan.

Hunter Deadbeat Dad
Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2023

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and Presiden

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Biden Sending 1,500 Troops to Mexico Border Over Migrant Surge


NEWSMAX Staff | Tuesday, 02 May 2023 02:47 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/joe-biden-border-troops/2023/05/02/id/1118279/

The Biden administration will send 1,500 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border ahead of an expected migrant surge following the end of coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed Tuesday.

“At the request of the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary [Lloyd]   Austin approved a temporary Department of Defense (DoD) increase of an additional 1,500 military personnel to supplement U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) efforts on the U.S. Southwest Border,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.

“For 90 days, these 1,500 military personnel will fill critical capability gaps, such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support, until CBP can address these needs through contracted support. Military personnel will not directly participate in law enforcement activities. This deployment to the border is consistent with other forms of (?)”

It was unclear when the troops would be deployed.

The COVID-19 restrictions allowed U.S. officials to turn away tens of thousands of migrants crossing the southern border, but those restrictions will lift May 11, and border officials are bracing for an expected surge of migrants. Even amid the restrictions, the administration has seen record numbers of people crossing the border, and President Joe Biden has responded by cracking down on those who cross illegally and by creating new pathways meant to offer alternatives to a dangerous and often deadly journey.

Biden’s actions follow similar moves by then-President Donald Trump, who deployed active duty troops to the border to assist border patrol personnel in processing large migrant caravans, on top of National Guard forces that were already working in that capacity. There are already roughly 2,700 National Guard members at the border.

For Biden, a Democrat who announced his reelection campaign a week ago, the decision signals his administration is taking seriously an effort to tamp down the number of illegal crossings, a potent source of Republican attacks, and sends a message to potential border crossers not to attempt the journey. But it also draws potentially unwelcome comparisons to Biden’s Republican predecessor, whose policies Biden frequently criticized. Congress, meanwhile, has refused to take any substantial immigration-related actions.

It’s another line of defense in an effort to manage overcrowding and other possible issues that might arise as border officials move away from the COVID-19 restrictions. Last week, administration officials announced they would work to swiftly screen migrants seeking asylum at the border, quickly deport those deemed as not being qualified, and penalize people who cross illegally into the U.S. or illegally through another country on their way to the U.S. border.

They will also open centers outside the United States for people fleeing violence and poverty to apply to fly in legally and settle in the United States, Spain or Canada. The first processing centers will open in Guatemala and Colombia, with others expected to follow.

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Biden: ‘Free Press Is A Pillar Of Free Society,’ Unless Your Name Is Tucker Carlson


BY: JORDAN BOYD | MAY 01, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/01/biden-free-press-is-a-pillar-of-free-society-unless-your-name-is-tucker-carlson/

President Joe Biden speaks at 2023 White House Correspondent Dinner
Biden’s ‘joke’ about Tucker Carlson may have been hilarious to people who hate the pundit, but it didn’t land with the American people.

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Less than one week after Fox News abruptly ousted its most popular host, Tucker Carlson, President Joe Biden joined in the chorus of corporate media, Democrats, and celebrities praising the exit as a victory for the left.

Biden began his speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night with a tribute to the press and the First Amendment that keeps them in business.

“The free press is a pillar — maybe the pillar — of a free society, not the enemy,” he said in his opening comments.

Minutes later, after he quoted Thomas Jefferson’s letter about preferring “newspapers without government” over a “government without newspapers,” the Democrat took a moment to toot his own horn and relish in Tucker Carlson’s abrupt departure from Fox News at the same time.

‘Well, the truth is we really have a record to be proud of,” Biden started. “Vaccinated the nation. Transformed the economy. Earned historic legislative victories and midterm results. But the job isn’t finished. I mean — it is finished for Tucker Carlson.”

Biden’s jab was met with an “oooh” and laughter from the crowd.

“What are you wooing about like that?” Biden said between laughs. “Like you think that’s not reasonable? Give me a break. Just give me a break.”

It’s hauntingly ironic that the president and his allies in the corporate media spent their weekend laughing at the dismissal of one of their top political enemies while regular Americans mourn the loss of the nation’s most influential critic of the corrupt ruling class.

Ever since the Murdochs decided to yank “Tucker Carlson Tonight” from the air, disenfranchised viewers committed to divorcing the network in droves.

[RELATED: I Taped A Show With Tucker On Censorship Right Before He Was Fired]

At the end of the day, however, neither Biden nor the corporate media care that the man whose show consistently ranked as the highest-rated cable news programming, including among young Democrat viewers, is no longer on screens all over the nation.

It’s been clear for years now that the same First Amendment rights the media’s preferred candidates like Biden pretend to affirm are not afforded to commentators like Carlson or anyone else who questions The Narrative™.

Carlson admitted this during his last public address before news of his departure broke.

“No, we have a First Amendment. That can’t happen here, but it has,” Carlson said at The Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary gala celebration.

It is easy for Biden to sing the praises of the press when all he gets from them are fawning, optimistic attention, and cover that caters to his every request. For those like Carlson who expose the cozy relationship between Democrats and media, only condemnation awaits.

Because Carlson reports on issues that the president’s allies refuse to — like Biden family corruption, election maladministration, and Democrats’ Jan. 6 show trial — the Biden White House has repeatedly sought to discredit the host and his former employer.

Biden pretends, like at the Correspondents’ Dinner, that the journos who gladly help Biden use cheat sheets at his few and far between press conferences are not “the enemy” of society and democracy — though Americans overwhelmingly know better. At the same time, he gloats that one of his personal enemies, a member of the press, could potentially stay off of cable news for good.

Biden’s “joke” about the former Fox News host may have been hilarious to a room full of people who rooted for the death of Carlson’s career for years, but it didn’t land with the American people. If anything, Biden’s Carlson crack further confirms that the regime only plans to recognize the constitutional rights of its allies.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Republicans Proved They Aren’t Holding Anyone ‘Hostage’ On Raising The Debt Limit


BY: CHRISTOPHER JACOBS | MAY 01, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/01/republicans-proved-they-arent-holding-anyone-hostage-on-raising-the-debt-limit/

Speaker McCarthy speaking behind podium on House floor
After last Wednesday’s vote, Democrats can’t claim conservatives amount to legislative nihilists who can’t get to ‘yes’ on an issue.

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Conventional wisdom holds that last week’s vote by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to approve a debt limit and spending reduction bill is meaningless. Democrats called the legislation dead on arrival in the Senate, making whatever the House decides to do on its own irrelevant.

As with many things in Washington, the corporate media’s conventional wisdom is wrong.

Approving a debt limit bill did more than dispel the narrative that the Republican House, and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., will remain perpetually in disarray. By eliminating one of the major elements of Democrats’ political argument, it raised questions about their own strategic endgame.

House vs. Senate

Under the traditional, “Schoolhouse Rock” version of lawmaking, the House would pass its version of a bill, the Senate would pass its version, and the two would convene a House-Senate conference committee to reconcile the differences between the measures. That outcome seems unlikely regarding this debt limit increase.

Virtually all Democrats support a so-called “clean” debt limit increase. That is, they want to extend the limit on the nation’s credit card without any accompanying spending reforms. (They claim they will discuss spending levels in separate legislation, just not as part of the debt limit.)

But most legislation requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and advance in the Senate, and Democrats only hold 51 Senate seats. As a result, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., must persuade nine Republicans — 10 if Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who continues to recover from a case of shingles in California, remains absent from the Senate — to approve a clean debt limit increase for the measure to clear the chamber. That scenario appears unlikely, as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would lean on his troops not to approve a Schumer-led measure.

Indeed, Schumer may not bring a debt limit bill to the Senate floor at all, rather than wasting precious days of the Senate schedule on a measure he believes will fail. But this strategy would allow members in the lower chamber to ask an obvious question: The House did its work, and approved a debt limit bill — why won’t the Senate do the same?

Republicans Get to ‘Yes’

But amid the larger debate about the debt limit and fiscal policy, a key point about last week’s events has somehow gotten lost. Democrats continue to decry supposed Republican “hostage taking,” alleging that conservative lawmakers are threatening to ruin the country’s full faith and credit unless Democrats acquiesce to their demands.

Ignore for a moment the not-insignificant question of whether the Treasury Department can prioritize government payments in the event Congress doesn’t increase the debt limit, so as to prevent a default on government bonds and protect the country’s credit rating. The Democratic argument in large part rests on the premise that Republican lawmakers would never vote to raise the debt limit.

All the talk about “hostage taking” — which the left has utilized ever since the Republican takeover of the House in 2010-11 turned the debt limit into a bigger political issue — might have merit if lawmakers under no circumstances would vote to increase the debt limit. If there is no possible way someone will vote for a debt limit increase, if a lawmaker’s vote isn’t “gettable,” to use the Beltway parlance, then yes, one might credibly accuse conservatives of wanting to sabotage the country’s credit rating, just to make a point.

That’s where last week’s vote proved revealing, and decisive. Numerous conservative members of Congress, who in the past had never supported legislation that raised the debt limit, voted last week for a bill to do just that. People like my friend and former think-tank colleague Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, probably didn’t like the idea of raising the debt limit, but they did it.

After last Wednesday’s vote, Democrats can’t claim conservatives amount to legislative nihilists who can’t get to “yes” on an issue. Instead, they don’t like the fact that Republicans said “yes” to raising the debt limit and “yes” to reforming federal spending. They can no longer attack Republicans for not approving the debt limit, so now they will try to attack Republicans for the way in which they did so.

That position amounts to an attempt to dictate both sides of the debate. It’s the legislative equivalent of a tennis player whining, “You didn’t hit the ball to me the right way.” It holds a particular irony given quotes like the following: “I cannot agree to vote for a full increase in the debt without any assurance that steps will be taken early next year to reduce the alarming increase in the deficits and the debt.”

That quote comes from none other than Joe Biden himself, circa 1984. Given the way in which he and many other Democrats previously supported the notion of linking a debt limit increase to spending reforms, this egregious flip-flop undermines the integrity of their position still further.

Now that Republicans in the House have agreed to a debt limit bill, Democrats should agree to get in a room, figure out each side’s position, and arrive at an agreement that will hopefully increase the debt limit while addressing the nation’s calamitous fiscal state. It’s called “legislating” — Congress actually doing its job.

Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book “The Case Against Single Payer.” He is on Twitter: @chrisjacobsHC.

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Axios: GOP Puts Points on Board Against Dems, Biden


By Eric Mack    |   Monday, 01 May 2023 12:47 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/gop-debt-default/2023/05/01/id/1118139/

The Republican Party racked up victories in the past week, including keeping its House GOP together on raising the debt ceiling, getting a heavy hitter in the race for a battleground Senate seat, and polling strong against President Joe Biden, Axios reported.

Fiscal conservatives in the GOP do not want to raise the debt ceiling, preferring to cut Democrats’ runaway domestic spending, but they did a bit of both in the bill and effectively put the debt default in the hands of Democrats in the Senate and Biden.

Also, popular West Virginia GOP Gov. Jim Justice jumping into the 2024 Senate primary race for the seat currently held by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., gives the GOP hope for flipping a Senate seat, if not forcing Manchin into a third-party or Democrat primary against Biden, Axios noted.

The polling is increasingly unfavorable for Biden in prospective 2024 races, including against former President Donald Trump.

“Zoom out from the most eye-catching headlines, and Republicans showed clear signs of momentum — from the GOP’s surprising unity on Capitol Hill to Senate Republicans’ recruitment success to polls showing Trump running competitively against Biden,” Axios wrote.

The RealClearPolitics polling average has the race as a virtual tie, with even the Harvard-Harris poll giving Trump a 5-point edge over Biden. An NBC News poll that found 70% of voters did not want Biden to run again, just days before Biden announced his reelection campaign in a Tuesday morning three-minute video. That same poll found Biden trails a generic Republican by 6 points (47%-41%), a rare sign of weakness for a U.S. presidential incumbent.

Even The New York Times, historically anti-Trump, had its election expert concerned.

“The modest Biden lead in national polls today wouldn’t be enough for him to secure reelection,” Nate Cohn wrote. “If Mr. Trump is doomed, why isn’t he getting trounced in the polls?”

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