Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) said it would be a "mistake" if President Biden opted to pardon his son Hunter Biden who is facing federal tax charges after a plea agreement appeared to fall apart during an initial court appearance this week.
ABC's Jonathan Karl asked Goldman if Biden pardoning his son would be a "mistake," noting that Biden has not come out publicly to say that he would.
"Yes, and I don't think there's any chance that President Biden is going to do that, unlike his predecessor, who pardoned all of his friends, and anyone who had any access to him," Goldman responded.
"President Biden has restored the integrity of the Department of Justice," he added. "And I think you've seen that in this case, where he kept on and Merrick Garland kept on a Trump appointed US attorney to investigate the president's son, if there is not an indication of the independence of the Department of Justice. Beyond that, I don't know what what we could look for."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has sharply suggested that the president would not pardon his son.
Hunter Biden is facing tax and gun charges and was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay income taxes after reaching a plea deal with the Justice Department last month. After the judge overseeing his case questioned the scope of Hunter Biden's plea deal, Biden pleaded not guilty during his first court appearance last week in order to give the legal teams more time to come up with a new agreement.
Republicans have compared the cases brought against the president's son and former President Trump, with many claiming the Justice Department is a "two-tier system of justice." House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) floated the idea of an impeachment inquiry into Biden in connection to his son and family businesses.
Two high-profile incidents in quick succession involving Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have put the issue of aging politicians front and center.
But the questions raised around mental capacity and fitness for office have no easy answers.
Proposals that might begin to address the issue, such as term limits or cognitive tests beyond a certain age, confront an instant Catch-22. In order to be enacted, they need the support of politicians who might be negatively impacted by them.
Meanwhile, the people around those politicians have generally no incentive to nudge them to change their minds.
“I think some of what drives these people to stay on forever is a personal power thing that they can’t let go of," progressive strategist Jonathan Tasini said. “The second thing that drives this, though, is the staff. I think what really gets ignored is how the staff cover for people who clearly can’t function, because they themselves don’t want to lose their power.”
This week’s incidents involved two of five current senators who are 80 or older.
First, McConnell appeared to freeze up, for unexplained reasons, while delivering remarks to reporters Wednesday.
The following day, Feinstein seemed confused during a committee roll-call vote. Feinstein started giving general remarks, when all that was required was that she cast her vote. “Just say ‘Aye,’” her colleague, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), could be heard telling Feinstein.
Feinstein, 90, is the oldest sitting senator. McConnell is 81.
There are specific concerns about both senators, separate and apart from the broader issue of elected officials seeking to remain in office in their ninth decade.
McConnell suffered a concussion earlier this year in a fall at a Washington hotel — an incident in which he also suffered a broken rib. The accident kept McConnell away from the Senate of almost six weeks while he recuperated.
In the wake of Wednesday’s incident, it has also been reported by multiple outlets that McConnell suffered two other falls this year — one in Helsinki, and one at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.
Medical professionals have speculated as to whether what happened Wednesday may have been a seizure or mini-stroke.
The majority leader himself has professed to be “fine.” His staff have said of the incident that he felt “lightheaded.”
The Feinstein incident was, in some ways, more worrisome, given that concerns have been raised about her cognitive abilities for some time.
In late 2020, she asked the same question twice in succession, apparently unaware she was repeating herself, in a hearing with then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Last year, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that four senators, including three Democrats, had told its reporters about their worries regarding Feinstein. One congressional Democrat representing California anonymously described a meeting at which he or she had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein repeatedly.
Feinstein, who is retiring at the next election, has defended her own capabilities. Her staff has said she was “preoccupied” during Thursday’s roll call vote.
Other allies have suggested there is an element of sexism in the apparent desire to push Feinstein out. They note examples of past male senators, including Sens. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), whose capacities were widely believed to be diminished late in life but who did not face the same public pressure to step down.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), 83, was one of Feinstein’s most vigorous defenders in that regard. Pelosi announced she was stepping down as the leader of House Democrats last year, having spent 20 years atop her conference.
But the McConnell and Feinstein episodes are also important because of the way in which they illuminate a larger picture.
President Biden is 80 and prone to slips-ups, as when he recently twice referred to the war in "Iraq” when he clearly meant “Ukraine.”
Former President Trump is 77 and, while rarely hesitant in the Biden fashion, he often launches into bizarre asides during his long campaign speeches.
It’s not as if the issue of aging politicians is off-limits. GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley has proposed mandatory cognitive tests for office-holders 75 and older.
Her proposal was seen more as a shot across the bow of Biden and Trump specifically rather than an idea that had any real chance of being enacted. Haley, 51, talks often on the campaign trail about the need for “new generational leaders.”
Talk also bubbles up intermittently about term limits for senators and House members.
Term limits face the philosophical question of whether voters should be denied the chance to reelect who they wish for as long as they wish — presidency excepted. There is also the practical difficulty that politicians are not eager to vote to, in effect, abbreviate their own careers.
“The fact is, politicians — like pretty much everyone else — are living to older ages, and some people stay physically and mentally sharp and other people deteriorate somewhat,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University professor emeritus who specialized in political communications.
“The question is, should it be up to the voters or up to the doctors to decide when someone should be out of office.”
There is also the question of how any restriction on age or mental abilities would be codified or enforced. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is 81, and even his most staunch ideological opponents don’t seriously question his mental capacity.
For the moment, it seems most likely that the issue of aging politicians will remain a conundrum without an obvious solution.
“It’s not that you reach 75 and you should be gone,” said Tasini.
The House Republicans who craft the conference’s government funding bills are showing signs of frustration as hard-line conservatives pressure leadership for further cuts to spending that some worry could be too aggressive.
Some of the 12 Appropriations subcommittee chairs — the so-called cardinals — told reporters that they are struggling to see where those additional cuts could come from, as September's shutdown deadline looms.
“I just don't see the wisdom in trying to further cut to strengthen our hand. I don't know how that strengthens our hand,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a House Appropriations subcommittee chairman, said of conservatives’ push to further cut the already-scaled-back spending bills.
“I do think it puts some of our members in a very difficult spot, particularly those in tough districts, because they're going to be taking some votes that become problematic,” he added.
The House left Washington for a long summer recess Thursday after being forced to punt a bill to fund agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.
Conservatives are dug in on their demand for steeper spending cuts, to the chagrin of moderates who are wary of slashing funding even more. The chamber has passed just one appropriations bill, funding military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The internal divisions are gripping the party as time is running out: The House has just 12 days in September to move the remaining 11 appropriations measures and hash out their disagreements with the Senate, which is marking up its spending bills at higher levels, setting the scene for a hectic fall that could bring the U.S. to the brink of a shutdown.
Those dynamics are putting GOP appropriators in a bind, leaving them searching for ways to appease conservative requests without gutting their spending bills.
“We’ve done a lot of cuts, a lot of cuts,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger (R-Texas) told The Hill this week. “And so if it’s cuts just for cut's sake, I don’t agree with it. But if it’s something that we can do without, that’s fine.”
‘Not a lot of wiggle room left’
Republican appropriators in the House announced earlier this year that they would mark up their bills for fiscal 2024 at fiscal 2022 levels, as leaders sought to placate conservatives who thought the debt ceiling deal struck by President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) earlier this year didn’t do enough to curb spending.
The Senate is crafting its bills more in line with the budget caps agreed to in the deal, but House Republicans are already fuming about a bipartisan deal in the upper chamber that would allow for more than $13 billion in additional emergency spending on top of those levels.
House GOP negotiators also said they would pursue clawing back more than $100 billion in old funding that was allocated for Democratic priorities without GOP support in the previous Congress.
While that move drew support from hard-line conservatives, the right flank was far from pleased when it heard appropriators planned to repurpose that old funding — known as rescissions — to plus-up the spending bills.
In a letter to McCarthy earlier this month, a group of hard-line conservatives called for all 12 appropriations bills to be in line with fiscal 2022 spending levels “without the use of reallocated rescissions to increase discretionary spending above that top-line.”
Otherwise, the 21 lawmakers threatened, they would vote against the measures. But that request could prove difficult for GOP appropriators to fulfill.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), chairman of the panel that proposes funding for the Department of State and foreign operations, said that appropriators are already “dramatically reducing spending,” suggesting that there are not too many remaining areas to trim from.
“My bill is below the 2016 levels,” he said, later adding, “When you’re below the 2016 level — and we're still confronting China — I think there's not a lot of wiggle room left.”
“It’s a challenge, but I think we’ll get through it. I really do,” he added.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who heads the subcommittee that oversees funding for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Interior, scoffed at the idea of even steeper cuts to his bill.
“Then you just drop it on the floor and stomp on it. What else do you do with it?” he told reporters. “You can’t make logical cuts in there.”
Republicans appropriators are voicing optimism that the conference will be able to sort out its differences on spending, but some also hope their levels will stick — even though they include rescissions.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) — whose panel handles funding for the Department of Energy, which is proposing offsetting billions of dollars in spending with clawbacks — said it would be “extremely difficult” to craft his bill without the rescinded funds.
“And given our priorities in my bill, national defense with the nuclear weapons portfolio, nuclear cleanup, Army Corps including, all the community-directed fundings, I feel good about my bill, and I hope my numbers hold,” he said.
“Because it's gonna have to be in negotiations with the Senate and the White House as well,” he added.
Womack — whose subcommittee crafts funding for the IRS and the Treasury Department — said he doesn’t think “moving the goalposts on these numbers is helpful in strengthening our ability to negotiate with the Senate.”
August preparations for a busy September
Frustrations among appropriators are bubbling up as Congress inches closer to the fall, when lawmakers are facing a Sept. 30 deadline to approve funding or risk a government shutdown.
With time running out, some House lawmakers say conversations may continue over the long August recess to try to hash out remaining differences.
“We'll have to see,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said when asked about potential plans for talks between leaders and House Freedom Caucus members over the break. “I mean, we got a lot of work to do.”
“I think a lot of work [has] got to be done behind the scenes,” he said. “If not, you know, here — You gotta beg the question about whether we should be gone for six weeks. We should be getting our job done.”
Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) echoed that sentiment, saying “I would think so” when asked if lawmakers will have conversations over the break.
Adding to the August workload, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) suggested earlier this week that bicameral negotiations could take place over the weeks-long recess as lawmakers stare down the shutdown deadline.
Not all Republicans, however, are viewing a shutdown as a risk.
During a House Freedom Caucus press conference this week, Good said “we should not fear a government shutdown,” claiming that “most of what we do up here is bad anyway; most of what we do up here hurts the American people.”
But that perspective does not jive with the view of McCarthy, who declared Thursday: “I don’t want the government to shut down.”
Multiple Republicans are ultimately expecting Congress to eventually pass what's known as a continuing resolution (CR), or a measure that temporarily allows the government to be funded at the previous fiscal year’s levels, to prevent a lapse at the end of September.
But they also understand the task could be difficult in the GOP-led chamber, where Republicans aren’t happy about the idea of continuing funding at the current levels — which were last set when Democrats held control of Congress.
“I think there's a very good chance that we'll see a CR, but I know there's a lot of work to get a CR done,” Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), another appropriator, said Thursday, noting there are “a lot of members that don't want CRs that are tired of them.”
But Aderholt suggested a CR could notch sufficient GOP backing if there’s a larger plan in sight that the party can support.
“The Speaker’s been very good about having a plan,” he said, adding, “I think that's what he's good at, and I'm optimistic that he can come up with something.”
"Let me say something that you never heard a Republican member of Congress say in the four years of the Trump administration, which is that if Hunter Biden broke the law, he should be prosecuted," Himes said on MSNBC. "And it is clear that he broke the law with respect to taxes and possibly the ownership of a handgun. He should be held accountable for that."
Himes criticized Republicans for not speaking out against former President Donald Trump when he was indicted, but also acknowledged that Hunter Biden should be held accountable if he used his father’s influence to commit crimes.
"If he traded on his father’s influence, he should be held accountable for that. And I’m emphasizing this because you never, ever heard a Republican say the same thing about Donald Trump or his family," Himes argued.
The Democratic congressman argued there was no evidence that President Biden colluded with his son on any crimes, but insinuated that any evidence should be taken seriously if it arises.
"Now, to the question about impeachment, there is today zero evidence, zero evidence that Joe Biden, the president of the United States, knew about what his son was doing. If, if he did know about it, if he participated in that, then that is a very different conversation," Himes added.
Hunter, who is still under federal investigation, pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax on Wednesday. He was set to plead guilty as part of a deal, but the plea deal fell through.
"Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and this was a personal matter for him. As we have said, the president, the first lady — they love their son and they support him as he continues to rebuild his life," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previously said. "This case was handled independently, as all of you know, by the Justice Department under the leadership of a prosecutor appointed by the former president, President Trump."
Fox News Digital reached out to Himes' office for a statement, but has not heard back.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it,” Alito said Friday, referencing Congressional Democrats’ recent efforts to mandate stronger ethics rules. “No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
"I don’t know that any of my colleagues have spoken about it publicly ... But I think it is something we have all thought about," he told the Journal.
His remarks sparked pushback from a slew of House Democrats.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) argued Congress would always have regulation power over the high court.
"Dear Justice Alito: You’re on the Supreme Court in part because Congress expanded the Court to 9 Justices,” Lieu posted Friday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. "Congress can impeach Justices and can in many cases strip the Court of jurisdiction."
"Congress has always regulated you and will continue to do so," he added. "You are not above the law."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) claimed the Supreme Court should be the "most scrutinized" because of its power.
“What a surprise, guy who is supposed to enforce checks and balances thinks checks shouldn’t apply to him," Ocasio-Cortez wrote. "Corruption and abuse of power must be stopped, no matter the source," she added. "In fact, the court should be *most* subject to scrutiny, bc it is unelected & life appointed."
“Alito’s next opinion piece in the WSJ is about to be ‘I am a little king, actually. The Constitution doesn’t explicitly say I’m not,’” she added in a separate post.
Both California Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff also responded to the justice's remarks, calling his view "controversial."
“This view is more than controversial; it’s incorrect,” Porter said on X. “This is coming from a justice who tried to hide the fact that he accepted luxury vacations on private jets. As a government official, I welcome the American people holding me accountable—why doesn’t Justice Alito?”
Schiff, referring to the ProPublica report that revealed an undisclosed Alaskan fishing trip the justice accepted in 2008 that was paid for by a conservative donor, said Alito's view shows why an "enforceable code of ethics" is needed. The investigation — paired with another that revealed Justice Clarence Thomas received financial gifts without disclosing them — ultimately led to lawmakers' push for the ethics review.
“Let’s translate these statements from Justice Alito, real quick: What we do and how we do it, who pays for our trips and our vacations, or a family member’s tuition, is none of your damn business,” Schiff posted on X. “So buzz off. They need an enforceable code of ethics. Now.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the sponsor of a bill to reform Supreme Court ethics standards and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also shared on social media that the Journal author of the interview with Alito is the lawyer for Leonard Leo, a prominent conservative legal activist who reportedly organized the fishing trip to Alaska that Alito attended alongside Paul Singer, a hedge fund manager whose plane they took.
“The lawyer who ‘wrote’ this is also the lawyer blocking our investigation into Leonard Leo’s Supreme Court freebies,” Whitehouse tweeted. “Shows how small and shallow the pool of operatives is around this captured Court — same folks keep popping up wearing new hats.”
“This seems escalatory, and nudges even reluctant court watchers and skeptics of statutory reforms towards doing something,” Schatz said. “I mean, this is a fancy way of telling everyone to pound sand because he’s untouchable.”
Rep. John James (R-Mich.) criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Friday for his response to Republican lawmakers who called him out on his state’s new Black history education standards Friday.
“@RonDeSantis, #1: slavery was not CTE!” James posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Nothing about that 400 years of evil was a ‘net benefit’ to my ancestors. #2: there are only five black Republicans in Congress and you’re attacking two of them.”
Both Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) have criticized the new standards, which indicate that American slavery helped enslaved people develop “skills” that benefited them, in the past few days.
Scott rebuked the language during a campaign stop in Iowa on Thursday, claiming "there is no silver lining in slavery."
“Slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives," he said. "It was just devastating."
DeSantis responded to the lawmakers by saying they were falling in line with Vice President Kamala Harris, who called the guidelines "propaganda."
“They dare to push propaganda to our children,” Harris said earlier this week in Jacksonville, Fla. “Adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother.”
James pleaded with DeSantis to change course.
“My brother in Christ… if you find yourself in a deep hole put the shovel down,” he wrote. “You are now so far from the Party of Lincoln that your Ed. board is re-writing history and you’re personally attacking conservatives like [Scott] and [Donalds] on the topic of slavery."
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) said impeachment articles targeted at President Joe Biden and other administration officials would lead to “dead ends” during a TV appearance Friday.
Ivey, a House Judiciary Committee member, said Republicans’ efforts to impeach Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas “damaging” to their party. During his appearance on "The Hill" on NewsNation, Ivey said he sees “no case” against the current president and that Republicans are unclear in what they think his wrongdoing is.
“I think they’re heading in the wrong direction,” Ivey said.
Ivey, also said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given “way too much ground” to Freedom Caucus members. He said he thinks they “definitely” want "one or maybe all three" administration members impeached.
“I think the Speaker's struggling to give them enough to keep them on board, but without destroying the party as a whole in the upcoming elections,” Ivey said.
"This is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed," said McCarthy on Fox. "This President has also used something we have not seen since Richard Nixon used the weaponization of government to benefit his family and deny Congress the ability to have the oversight."
This suggests the House could prospectively launch an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over alleged ties to his son’s business dealings.
"When more of this continues to unravel, it rises to the level of an impeachment inquiry where you would have the Congress have the power to get to all these answers," said McCarthy.
In addition, McCarthy has more than cracked the door on impeachment with President Biden and maybe even Attorney General Merrick Garland.
"I would move to an impeachment inquiry if I found that the Attorney General has not only lied to the Congress, the Senate, but to America," said McCarthy said earlier this month about Garland and how his office handled the Hunter Biden case.
But while McCarthy talks "impeachment inquiry," he’s not ready to launch an actual impeachment inquiry.
"Define what this is right now," I asked the Speaker on Tuesday.
"We’re no different from where we were yesterday," replied McCarthy. "We continue to find more information.
But just the Speaker saying "impeachment" alters the fundamental equation.
McCarthy’s impeachment language impresses the hard right.
"When he does speak to impeachment, it carries a tremendous amount of weight," said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va.
I asked Good if the Speaker mentioning this "shifted the ground?"
"I don't think there's any question that him speaking to that has caused a paradigm shift," said Good.
The House must vote to launch an official impeachment inquiry. As per usual, this is about the math. It’s unclear if the House has the votes to do that. Let alone impeach the President. Or Garland. Or anyone else. House Republicans are struggling to settle on exactly who they want to impeach.
"It's all of the above," said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. "Look at the evidence that we have."
Sometimes mentioned as impeachment candidates: FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss. Weiss handled the Hunter Biden prosecution. Another name: U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves.
Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., suggested that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the "low hanging fruit."
A senior House Republican leadership source tells Fox that potential impeachment for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is "the furthest along." Although that doesn’t mean that it’s that far along. It’s just that GOPers believe they have the strongest case against Mayorkas regarding the border.
Fox is told that this is something of a high-level "trial balloon." McCarthy wants to get a sense of what GOPers want to do. And most importantly, where the votes may lie for impeaching anyone.
Thus, the math.
A senior House GOP source says Republicans leaders will try to see "if there is one (impeachment) that could pass."
Keep in mind that House Republicans are only operating with a four seat majority. Threading the needle on anything as serious as impeachment is challenging.
"A lot of our members will make decisions on how well the argument is made," said a Republican leadership source.
The problem for the GOP is that there is a wide swath of Republican members in rock-ribbed conservative districts who would impeach Mr. Biden and many members of his cabinet "no matter what" said one GOP source. But actually executing a successful impeachment depends on the math.
There are 18 House Republicans who represent districts which President Biden carried in 2020. A vote to impeach any cabinet figure, let alone the President, could spell a political death sentence.
So, impeachment is out there – even if it isn’t.
This sounds familiar.
Rewind to late July 2019, following the House testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller about former President Trump.
Mueller didn’t exactly deliver the goods on Mr. Trump at what turned out to be an overhyped hearing.
So, Democrats began talking about impeachment – without acting on impeachment – as they entered the customary August Congressional recess.
But, as we often write in this space around this time of year, beware the Ides of August.
In August 2019, Pelosi observed a sea change in her caucus. A number of moderate Democratic freshmen who represented swing districts altered their views on impeachment.
Political leaders must have their finger on the pulse of their Members. This is critical. Otherwise, they look like they are being led by their members – not leading themselves. After there were more revelations about former President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Pelosi shifted her position.
McCarthy isn’t quite there yet on impeaching anyone. But he must be mindful of where his members are – and stay in front of them. McCarthy’s statements the past two weeks were efforts to "get in front" of his members, should the votes to impeach present themselves and there is a bona fide shift in that direction.
However, Fox is told that McCarthy is internally worried about overusing impeachment and protecting the institution of the House.
But all members on his right heard was "impeachment." And that’s all the red meat they needed to take into the August recess.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., says he would vote yes on impeachment. But Comer points out a stark fact.
"The Senate’s never going to remove from office," said Comer.
"Every week we hear a new member of the Biden administration that extreme MAGA Republicans are determined to impeach," said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. "The extreme MAGA Republican majority has nothing to show for their time in office but the peddling of conspiracy theories, facilitating hate against communities all across the country and figuring out who was going to be at the top of the list of their impeachment fantasies."
All of this could spell trouble if the GOP base expects too much.
"This is the danger, particularly for a Speaker, who has so far been trying to tamp down the impeachment expectations," said George Washington University professor Casey Burgat. "It seems like he's getting a lot of pushback within his individual conference to say, ‘hey, we have to escalate these investigations and impeachment is now on the table’ if it wasn't before."
House Republicans are planning more investigations over the next month. Burisma board member Devon Archer appears for a closed-door, transcribed interview on Monday. Burisma is the Ukrainian firm associated with Hunter Biden.
It wasn’t quite impeachment week. But some Republicans would like August to become impeachment month.
President Biden on Friday made his first public remarks about his 4-year-old grandchild Navy, the daughter of his son Hunter Biden, after silence from the White House over the young girl amid legal disputes between her parents.
In a statement exclusively provided to People, Biden said that his son and Lunden Roberts, Navy's mother, are working to provide a life for her.
“Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” the president said. “This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter. Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.”
The New York Times earlier this month published a piece about the child, writing that she’s never met Hunter Biden or her grandfather. After that was published, the White House dealt with questions in the briefing room from reporters about whether Biden accepted Hunter Biden’s daughter in Arkansas as his granddaughter.
Roberts, who is in Arkansas, filed a paternity suit against Hunter Biden in May 2019, and he appeared in court this May. In June, he reached a settlement in his child support case after he was ordered to sit for a deposition under oath to answer questions about his finances.
An anonymous source told People that the president and first lady Jill Biden have been “giving Hunter and Lunden the space and time to figure things out” and have been “following Hunter’s lead” throughout the legal proceedings involving the young girl.
Biden has come under criticism from the right over not recognizing the 4-year-old child.
The statement given to People, as a result, was significant. It was also given to a publication whose readership is estimated to be 69 percent female. Suburban women voters are a key block for the White House team in 2024.
Hunter Biden’s personal and legal troubles have been increasingly in the spotlight in recent weeks. He appeared in a Delaware court Wednesday, where his plea deal on federal tax and gun charges was put on hold by a judge who questioned the scope of the agreement.
