Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called Wednesday for the impeachment of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) over his handling of the state's coronavirus outbreak, saying, "The people we are lauding are actually making catastrophic decisions.""I think Gov. Cuomo...

George Kent, who testified last year about Trump allies' efforts to influence Ukraine, has agreed to sit for an interview as early as Friday.

A Senate committee investigating Joe Biden’s son has secured a deposition with a high-level State Department official, George Kent, who was a star impeachment witness against President Donald Trump.

Kent, who has served as the deputy assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs since September 2018, is expected to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), for an interview as soon as Friday, according to people familiar with the panel’s plans.

A spokesperson for Johnson declined to comment, saying “we are not commenting on our ongoing discussions with potential witnesses.” A lawyer for Kent did not return requests for comment.

Kent was recently promoted to a new rank in the Senior Foreign Service, and is one of the few impeachment witnesses who was not purged from government following his impeachment testimony. He told lawmakers in closed and open sessions late last year that Trump’s then-personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani conducted a "campaign of lies" about the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, that led to her early recall from Kyiv.

But he also testified that he had raised concerns in 2015 about the appearance of a conflict of interest stemming from Biden’s son Hunter’s position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma. At the time, he emphasized that he “did not witness any efforts by any U.S. official to shield Burisma from scrutiny.” And asked later during his testimony whether there was any truth to Trump’s theory that Biden was trying to protect his son’s interests, Kent replied: “None whatsoever.”

Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, has been investigated multiple times by Ukraine’s top prosecutor and the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, but a money laundering probe against him was abruptly dropped in January 2015, raising eyebrows among U.S. officials at the time.

“In early 2015, I raised questions with the deputy prosecutor general about why the investigation of Mr. Zlochevsky had been terminated, based on our belief that prosecutors had accepted bribes to close the case,” Kent said in prepared remarks during his public impeachment testimony.

“Later, I became aware that Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma,” Kent continued. “Soon after that, in a briefing call with the national security staff in the Office of the Vice President, in February 2015, I raised my concern that Hunter Biden’s status as board member could create the perception of a conflict of interest. Let me be clear, however: I did not witness any efforts by any U.S. official to shield Burisma from scrutiny. In fact, I and other U.S. officials consistently advocated reinstituting a scuttled investigation of Zlochevsky, Burisma’s founder, as well as holding the corrupt prosecutors who closed the case to account.”

Kent’s deposition is part of an escalating GOP probe of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his family. Johnson is also seeking testimony from former Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, currently a senior foreign policy adviser on Biden’s campaign; former special envoy for international energy Amos Hochstein; and former State Department officials Geoffrey Pyatt and Elizabeth Zentos.

The committee views testimony from Blinken and Hochstein in particular as critical for its forthcoming report on allegations surrounding Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Burisma, and is eyeing subpoenas for the pair if they don’t agree soon to voluntarily appear before the panel.

On Wednesday, Biden campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield said in a memo circulated to “interested parties” that Johnson’s probe was a “desperate taxpayer-funded smear campaign” based “on a farcical, long-debunked, hardcore rightwing conspiracy theory.”

Trump has long urged his Republican allies on Capitol Hill to target his political enemies, and Democrats have raised concerns, including in a recent letter to the FBI, that Johnson’s probe has become a vehicle for “laundering” a foreign influence campaign to damage Biden.

Johnson renewed his demand for transcribed interviews and documents from the former Obama administration officials days after a Ukrainian lawmaker — Andriy Derkach, who has met with Giuliani to discuss investigating the Biden family — used a news conference to make unsubstantiated corruption allegations against the Bidens and Hochstein.

New York Times reporter Julian Barnes implied on Tuesday that some intelligence officials believe that the Kremlin is fanning corruption allegations against Joe Biden's son Hunter in order to "obscure" Russia's ongoing election interference attempts.During an MSNBC interview, host Nicole Wallace referred to Russian disinformation campaigns that she said appear to have "infected" the House Intelligence Committee, asking Barnes, "What access to any information or briefings do Democrats really have?""Russia uses these disinformation campaigns to deflect from what they did in 2016," Barnes, who reports on national security for the Times, responded. "A lot of intelligence officials believe the sort of Burisma accusations that are being revived are once again trying to obscure what Russia is up to."On Monday, top congressional Democrats led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a letter alleging a foreign disinformation campaign aimed at influencing the 2020 presidential election and interfering with Congress. The letter included few specifics, but Democrats demanded an FBI briefing to warn members of Congress about the threat. Officials familiar with an addendum to the letter said it referred to a potential Russian attempt to harm Biden's presidential campaign, Barnes reported for the Times.Barnes continued that he believes Democrats published the letter because "the only remedy that really works is the resilience of a population, and a population can only be resilient if they know what's going on. So much of this stuff is secret, falls into bitter, partisan divisions, but it's important for voters not to be affected by the disinformation campaign, and that requires talking about it, putting some of this stuff out in the open, realizing when it is being done to the American public."Hunter Biden was appointed to Burisma’s board in 2014 while his father was vice president and resigned from the board in April of last year.During a July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump asked Zelensky to help his administration investigate allegations that Biden used his position as vice president to help Burisma avoid a corruption probe soon after his son was appointed to the board— a controversy that became the focal point of the impeachment probe against Trump.In spring, 2016, Biden called on Ukraine to fire the prosecutor who had been investigating the energy company paying his son. The vice president threatened to withdraw $1 billion in U.S. military aid to Ukraine if the country did not fire the prosecutor, who was accused by the State Department and U.S. allies in Europe of being soft on corruption.

The House Judiciary Committee has teed up a bill that would criminalize a presidential pardon offered in exchange for anything of value — such as a witness' silence — a key addition to legislation already slated for consideration that would empower Congress to investigate potential abuse of the pardon power.

Under the updated proposal from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a presidential pardon granted — or dangled — in order to obtain a "thing of value" would be punished under federal bribery laws. The restriction would include not just pardons but commutations — reprieves that reduce criminals' prison sentences but maintain their convictions.

The sweeping measure is aimed at curtailing abuses of the pardon power that Democrats allege were committed by President Donald Trump in the commutation granted to his longtime confidant, Roger Stone. Stone was convicted last year of repeatedly lying to the House Intelligence Committee in its investigation of links between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia — a probe that also examined Trump himself.

Trump has assailed Stone's prosecution as politically motivated, even though the Justice Department repeatedly defended it and Attorney General William Barr called it "righteous." Democrats described Stone's pardon as an unprecedented abuse intended to reward a close ally of the president for frustrating the efforts of investigators looking at Trump's knowledge of a Russian interference effort that damaged his 2016 opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Schiff's proposal also requires that the Justice Department share with Congress any case files connected to a witness or suspect pardoned in an investigation in which the president — or a relative of the president — is a subject, target or witness. Such a requirement would ensure lawmakers have a chance to assess whether the pardon was evidence of self-interest or to mask potentially impeachable conduct.

The measure also includes a second update — an amendment offered by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) that would declare presidential self-pardons invalid.

"The President’s grant of a pardon to himself or herself is void and of no effect, and shall not deprive the courts of jurisdiction, or operate to confer on the President any legal immunity from investigation or prosecution," the amendment reads.

"It is essential that Congress clarify right now that no president of any party can use his pardon power to pardon himself or commute his own sentence," Raskin said in a statement. "If we don’t make that essential constitutional truth clear, a corrupt and incorrigible president could embezzle from the government, take bribes for pardoning criminals, engage in foreign money laundering schemes, commit massive tax fraud, aid and abet sex traffickers, and obstruct justice by covering up all these crimes — and then simply pardon himself or herself to permanently avoid prosecution for these crimes for all time."

Both proposals are certain to face constitutional challenges. Presidential pardon power has largely been unchallenged and construed as sweeping and unreviewable in court. The impeachment power and other checks afford to Congress is the remedy for a president who abuses pardon authority, some legal experts say. However the FBI and Congress have investigated pardons in the past, particularly President Bill Clinton's decision shortly before leaving office to pardon fugitive financier Marc Rich.

And the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has previously indicated that it doesn't consider self-pardons to be valid. In 1974, days before Nixon resigned, OLC determined that presidential self-pardons are improper. However, Trump has declared that he believes he has the "absolute right" to pardon himself

"As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself," Trump tweeted in June 2018, "but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?"

Trump made a similar pronouncenment in July 2017: "While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us."

A second proposal that Democrats intend to advance Thursday would ensure that presidents are unable to run out the clock on the statute of limitations for any crimes committed before or during their tenure of office. The proposal, offered by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), would essentially pause the clock on the statute of limitations while a president is in office.

The measure is aimed at ensuring that a president who committed crimes prior to assuming the office can still face charges for alleged criminality after stepping down — and can't use the office as a shield from prosecution.

For the first time ever, Congress’ most MAGA contingent on Tuesday decided to test the rule that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is the only high-profile Republican who can criticize President Trump and get away with it. By the end of the day, their efforts had made abundantly clear that Cheney can, in fact, still get away with it—at least for now—with her reputation largely unscathed. At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans—their first fully in-person meeting since early March—several lawmakers who present themselves as unflinchingly loyal to Trump took the opportunity to execute what struck some as a coordinated broadside on the third-ranking House Republican. According to Politico, Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Chip Roy (R-TX), and others attacked Cheney for being insufficiently supportive of Trump and his agenda, for supporting Dr. Anthony Fauci, and for backing a primary challenger to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), among other things. After the news of the meeting broke, Gaetz upped the ante by publicly calling on Cheney to step down from her position as conference chair. “Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against @realDonaldTrump and his agenda,” tweeted Gaetz. “Liz Cheney should step down or be removed.” The call was amplified with a well-timed release of an episode of Gaetz’s podcast, “Hot Takes with Matt Gaetz.”At least one high-profile denizen of Trumpworld clearly heard the call: The president’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., piggybacked on Gaetz’s tweet, saying “We already have one Mitt Romney, we don’t need another.” Trump, Jr. is an influential and well-connected figure in House GOP circles. But, as Cheney pointed out at a press conference later, Trump’s son is “not a member of the House Republican conference.”Ultimately, none of Gaetz’s band of rabblerousers backed his call to remove Cheney from her post—even those who reportedly aired their grievances against her Tuesday morning. In fact, one after the other, those reportedly involved changed the subject. “I am focused on making sure the President wins re-election and helping us take back the majority. I want to stay focused on that, that should be what we’re doing,” said Jordan, when asked if he had confidence in Cheney. “We had a good robust private conversation,” Roy said—and called Cheney a friend, “just like all my other colleagues in this conference are friends. We’re going to get busy making sure we’re going to win this fall.”And Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), who was not at the meeting but is close to the Trump family, also declined to take the bait on Cheney, telling The Daily Beast, “I’ve gotten along with her the entire time that she’s been here. And my interactions with her, where we’re aligned on issues, has been only positive.”Other Republicans chided the push: Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-MI), who is retiring, said it was a bit “extreme” to try to oust Cheney over her views on Trump. “She’s done what she thinks is right,” said Mitchell. “I’m not endorsing it, it’s just if that’s the criteria we use, I don’t think unquestioning support of the president is in the job description of conference chair.” Trump himself, meanwhile, did not publicly weigh in on the dust-up, and to date has never publicly attacked Cheney in the merciless style he’s gone after other Republicans he views as critical of him. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Cheney and the GOP meeting. With the would-be insurgents largely silent, Cheney ended the day pocketing public praise from allies and the full backing of House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who appeared beside her at a press conference and proclaimed “we’re honored to have her as conference chair.”Privately, too, many Republicans seethed at the optics of outspoken male lawmakers going after a highly visible Republican woman. “Where is the party struggling right now? With women,” said one House Republican aide. “And the game plan is to go after the top female elected Republican in all of Congress?”“There is zero appetite,” said another House Republican aide, “to get rid of the only woman in leadership.”Indeed, it was unlikely that a fit from House conservatives, who historically love to rattle their leaders, would result in any meaningful effort to oust Cheney. But their first shot at it may portend future turbulence within the Republican Party—especially a post-Trump party that so many believe that Cheney is positioning herself to lead. The timing of the attack, which was unconnected to any specific bit of news or provocation by Cheney, was “quite intentional,” according to a former House Republican aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe conference dynamics freely.“It’s also misplaced and purely personal. Cheney is a strong supporter of the President, wants him to win in November, and is arguably more conservative than those chirping,” said the aide. “But, those that have risen in influence because of President Trump’s personal and punch-driven politics made it clear today they will not go quietly if he falls in November. The fight for the future of the Republican Party has broken out into the open.” The third-term congresswoman’s willingness to push back on Trump at all—where she could easily remain silent or supportive of him—has given rise to chatter that she is planning for a future where the party has moved on from Trump. Her criticisms of Trump have hardly risen to the level of someone like Romney, who voted with Democrats in an impeachment Cheney slammed as permanently damaging to the country. According to trackers like FiveThirtyEight, Cheney has voted more frequently with Trump’s agenda in her career than detractors questioning her loyalty to the president, such as Gaetz, who did time of his own in the White House doghouse in January over his high-profile fight to rein in Trump’s war powers on Iran. But within the House GOP’s Trump cheering section, Cheney’s at-times harsh criticism has stuck out—particularly when it comes to Trump’s national security platform and the petty controversies the president reflexively kicks up regularly—putting her in contrast with Republicans like Jordan, who have thrown in their lot so clearly with the president that the association will be hard to shake, no matter what happens to him in November.  Indeed, Trump’s political fortunes were a focal point of the closed-door discussion Tuesday morning, with Cheney’s critics accusing her of undermining the president’s chances at reelection and saying she wasn’t a “team player.” Cheney, a top fundraising officer on the Trump campaign, reportedly parried the attacks with subtle digs at her rivals, wishing Gaetz luck on his new HBO documentary and raising Jordan’s past reputation as anything but a team player.But leaving that meeting, Cheney illustrated a reason why she’s been able to get so far while lodging criticism of the president—picking her battles. "We had an exchange of views,” Cheney told reporters, saying not a word about what she’d just confronted. “I think it's all clear we're unified in terms of recognizing the danger... if Joe Biden were elected President. We talked at length about Vice President Biden, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and the kind of America we'd be living in if they prevail. That was really the focus of it. We had a healthy exchange of views.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus tore into Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) during a heated GOP conference meeting on Tuesday, lobbing attacks at her for breaking with President Donald Trump, supporting Dr. Anthony Fauci and backing a primary opponent to one of their colleagues.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a Freedom Caucus co-founder and one of Trump’s top allies, called out Cheney, the GOP conference chair, for all the times she has opposed Trump and began ticking off some recent high-profile examples, according to two sources in the room. While Jordan praised her defense of Trump during impeachment, he also said Cheney’s recent rebukes of Trump — which have focused on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, his Twitter rhetoric, and his foreign policy — were not helpful.

Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, the head of the Freedom Caucus, even accused Cheney of undermining the GOP’s ability to win back the House and said that if someone has a problem with Trump, they should keep it to themselves.

Cheney responded to the criticism by saying she disagrees with Jordan’s assessment and making clear her views are her own.

To Jordan, whose arch-conservative Freedom Caucus was a constant pain for GOP leadership when the party was in the majority, Cheney said: “I look forward to hearing your comments about being a team player when we’re back in the majority,” according to two sources in the room.

After the meeting, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida — who is not a member of the Freedom Caucus but is closely aligned with the conservative crew — tweeted that Cheney should step down from her position as the No. 3 House Republican. He also discussed at length his issues with Cheney in the most recent episode of his podcast, which posted Tuesday afternoon.

“Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against @realDonaldTrump and his agenda. House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair,” tweeted Gaetz, who himself once split with Trump over a war powers resolution. “Liz Cheney should step down or be removed.”

Donald Trump Jr. also took a swipe at Cheney: “We already have one Mitt Romney, we don’t need another ... we also don’t need the endless wars she advocates for,” he tweeted.

The president, however, has been silent about Cheney’s public criticism, and has even heaped praise on her at White House events.

Cheney — a staunch conservative who quickly climbed the leadership ranks and has wide support in the House GOP conference — votes with Trump 97 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight. She also is one of the Trump campaign’s fundraising co-captains and strongly defended him during the impeachment battle.

During a press conference Tuesday afternoon, Cheney told reporters that she takes her role in leadership “seriously” and that “healthy exchanges” are good for the party, noting that she and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — who confronted Cheney during the meeting — are in a “good place.” Cheney was later spotted on the House floor having a conversation with Massie. She also noted that Donald Trump Jr. is not a member of the House GOP conference.

Then, unprompted, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) chimed in to defend Cheney: “We're honored to have her as conference chair,” he said.

The pile-on came during the House GOP’s first in-person meeting in months, with large in-person gatherings in the Capitol mostly replaced by conference calls during the pandemic. And after Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) tested positive for coronavirus last week, leadership stepped up its safety precautions for Tuesday's meeting by requiring masks and temperature checks at the door.

The meeting also comes as there is growing concern in the GOP about Trump’s slumping poll numbers and his leadership during the coronavirus pandemic. Cheney has been one of the Republicans who has been willing to publicly call out Trump — a risky move in today’s GOP, but one that could position herself for a post-Trump world — and has managed to avoid the kind of scathing retort that Trump has doled out to others in the party.

But tensions over Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, flared during Tuesday’s closed-door conference meeting.

The confrontation began when Gaetz got on the microphone to unload on Cheney for previously donating to a Republican primary challenger to Massie and demanded answers about leadership's policy on backing primary opponents to incumbents. Cheney later pulled her endorsement of Massie's primary opponent and requested a refund for her donation after past racist tweets from the candidate resurfaced.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Biggs also defended Massie and expressed their concerns about GOP lawmakers playing in primaries involving their colleagues. McCarthy eventually intervened, saying they shouldn't go after each other.

Cheney told Massie that his issue is with Trump, not her, since the president has openly called for Massie’s ouster. She also told Massie he was a "special case." But Massie insisted his issue was indeed with Cheney. Meanwhile, Cheney responded to Gaetz by telling him she looks forward to seeing his upcoming HBO documentary. A little bit later, she again took a jab at Gaetz, saying that filming a documentary isn't the way to win back the majority.

But the attacks on Cheney didn’t end there. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who faces a competitive reelection battle this fall, complained about Cheney’s support of Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, and pointed out that his Democratic opponent for November's general election even retweeted one of Cheney’s tweets praising Fauci.

In recent weeks, some White House officials and other Trump allies who are frustrated by the slow pace of reopening the economy have tried to undermine Fauci.

The Wyoming congresswoman responded by forcefully defending Fauci and saying they should focus on defeating the virus, not launching attacks against individuals who are trying to accomplish that mission. Cheney again reiterated her support for Fauci during Tuesday's presser, saying his expertise is "absolutely" needed and she "can't think of a better person" for that job.

At one point during the GOP conference meeting Tuesday, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) also chimed in, focusing his ire on national security issues and Cheney’s hawkish foreign policy stance. Norman even brought up the Bush administration, to which Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, replied: “I’m not a Bush.”

Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.