Hunter Biden convicted of all 3 felonies in federal gun trial

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Associated Press

Hunter Biden has been convicted of all three felony charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018 when, prosecutors argued, the president’s son lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

Jurors found Hunter Biden guilty of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application by saying he was not a drug user and illegally having the gun for 11 days.

He faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced by Judge Maryellen Noreika, though first-time offenders do not get anywhere near the maximum, and it’s unclear whether she would give him time behind bars.

Now, Hunter Biden and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, the chief political rival of President Joe Biden, have been convicted by American jurors in an election year that has been as much about the courtroom as it has been about campaign events and rallies.

Joe Biden has steered clear of the federal courtroom in Delaware where his son was tried and said little about the case, wary of creating an impression of interfering in a criminal matter brought by his own Justice Department. But allies of the Democrat have worried about the toll that the trial — and now the conviction — will take on the 81-year-old, who has long been concerned with his only living son’s health and sustained sobriety.

Hunter Biden and Trump have both argued they were victimized by the politics of the moment. But while Trump has continued to falsely claim the verdict was “rigged,” Joe Biden has said he would accept the results of the verdict and would not seek to pardon his son.

Hunter Biden’s legal troubles aren’t over. He faces a trial in September in California on charges of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes and congressional Republicans have signaled they will keep going after him in their stalled impeachment effort into the president. The president has not been accused or charged with any wrongdoing by prosecutors investigating his son.

The prosecution devoted much of the trial to highlighting the seriousness of Hunter Biden’s drug problem, through highly personal testimony and embarrassing evidence.

Jurors heard Hunter Biden’s ex-wife and a former girlfriend testify about his habitual crack use and their failed efforts to help him get clean. Jurors saw images of the president’s son bare-chested and disheveled in a filthy room, and half-naked holding crack pipes. And jurors watched video of his crack cocaine weighed on a scale.

Hunter Biden did not testify but jurors heard his voice when prosecutors played audio excerpts of his 2021 memoir “Beautiful Things,” in which he talks about hitting bottom after the death of his brother Beau in 2015, and his descent into drugs before his eventual sobriety.

Prosecutors felt the evidence was necessary to prove that Hunter, 54, was in the throes of addiction when he bought the gun and therefore lied when he checked “no” on the form that asked whether he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” drugs.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell had argued that Hunter Biden’s state of mind was different when he wrote the book than when he bought the gun — when he didn’t believe he had an addiction. Lowell pointed out to jurors that some of the questions on the firearms transaction record are in the present tense, such as “are you an unlawful user of or addicted to” drugs.

And Lowell suggested Hunter Biden might have felt he had a drinking problem at the time, but not a drug problem. Alcohol abuse does not preclude a gun purchase.

Hunter Biden had hoped last year to resolve a long-running investigation federal investigation under a deal with prosecutors that would avoided the spectacle of a trial so close to the 2024 election. Under the deal, he would have pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses and avoid prosecution in the gun case if he stayed out of trouble for two years.

But the deal fell apart after Noreika, who was nominated by Trump, questioned unusual aspects of the proposed agreement, and the lawyers could not resolve the matter.

Attorney General Merrick Garland then appointed top investigator David Weiss, Delaware’s U.S. attorney, as a special counsel last August, and a month later Hunter Biden was indicted.

Hunter Biden has said he was charged because the Justice Department bowed to pressure from Republicans who argued the Democratic president’s son was getting special treatment.

The reason that law enforcement raised any questions about the revolver is because Hallie Biden, Beau’s widow, found it unloaded in Hunter’s truck on Oct. 23, 2018, panicked and tossed it into a garbage can at Janssen’s Market, where a man inadvertently fished it out of the trash. She testified about the episode in court.

Hallie Biden, who had a romantic relationship with Hunter after Beau died, eventually called the police. Officers retrieved the gun from the man who inadvertently took the gun along with other recyclables from the trash. The case was eventually closed because of lack of cooperation from Hunter Biden, who was considered the victim.

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GOP congressman caught again doing same thing he accuses Biden of

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Walter Einenkel

For nearly a year, Head of the House Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer has used the power of his position to produce an evidence-free investigation into what he has called the “Biden family cover-up.” Warping half-truths in order to drive an investigation into old and debunked conspiracy theories has resulted in virtually no meaningful evidence of wrongdoing by President Joe Biden. It has, however, exposed the world to how much of a raging hypocrite Comer is.

In August, Comer told Newsmax that “Joe Biden was using pseudonyms to hide the fact that he was working with his son to peddle access to our enemies around the world.” The Kentucky congressman has repeatedly implied Biden’s use of aliases, a “common practice” in government correspondence, is proof he was involved in shady activities connected to his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

The Daily Beast reports that when he was Kentucky’s commissioner of agriculture in 2011, Comer was sending pseudonymous emails for government business. In fact, he was bungling hemp seed deals with China, and sending those emails from a government account, named after his 7-year-old son, to a big campaign donor who had a possible interest in the hemp product.

This is just the latest example of how enormous his hypocrisy is in regards to the allegations he levied against President Biden.

Back in November 2023, Comer accused Joe Biden of corruption based on a check for $200,000 he gave to his brother Jim Biden in 2018, which was repaid. Comer called it a “bombshell” piece of evidence. Days later, it was revealed that Comer had also paid his own brother $200,000, in one of many “land swaps” deals the Comers and their businesses had been involved in over the years.

In March 2023, the Congressional Integrity Project—the Democratic-aligned group committed to putting Republicans on the defensive—wrote a letter asking for a Kentucky prosecutor to investigate Comer for possibly committing “at least one, and perhaps multiple, felony offenses during his failed attempt to secure the Republican nomination for governor in 2015.” The motivation for the letter was a New York Times profile on Comer, in which the congressman talked about the tight gubernatorial primary he had lost—which included allegations by a blogger against him that he was abusive to a college girlfriend:

The month before the primary, a story appeared in The Lexington Herald-Leader in which leaked emails suggested coordination between the blogger and the husband of the running mate of one of Mr. Comer’s opponents in the race, the Louisville developer Hal Heiner.
The rumor whispered around Kentucky political circles at the time was that Mr. Comer had swiped the emails from the computer server for the husband’s former law firm and leaked them to the newspaper. In an interview with The Times, Mr. Comer confirmed, for the first time, that he had been behind the leak and strongly hinted he had gotten them from the server.

“I’ve had two servers in my lifetime,” Mr. Comer said when asked about the emails. “Hunter Biden’s is one, and you can — I’m not going to say who the other one was, but you can use your imagination.”

This tactic by Comer seems to have worked out as well as his investigation into Biden, as Comer’s former girlfriend, angered by the leaked emails, wrote and published a letter detailing what she described as a “toxic, abusive” relationship with Comer. Comer has denied the allegations of abuse.

Recently, reports say Comer spends his days fantasizing about the dead-end Biden impeachment disappearing. The constant humiliation of having failed to actually prove anything against Biden has prompted even right-wing news outlets like Fox News to stop giving him primetime mentions.

However, Donald Trump is running for president again, and the demands to create the semblance of corruption by Biden seems to be Comer’s primary job. On Sunday, Comer told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo he was not done with trying to get Biden, saying “This is just the beginning.”

He’s had almost a year, and all he’s proven is that Biden is a supportive father.

Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records on May 30. What are potential voters saying about this historic news? And what is the Biden-Harris campaign doing now that the “teflon Don" is no more?

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House GOP amps up its revenge against Attorney General Merrick Garland

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Joan McCarter

The House is going to spend half of this week on their revenge agenda for convicted felon Donald Trump, this time voting to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress. This is part of the mounting campaign among Republicans to enact retribution on President Joe Biden, his administration officials, congressional Democrats and anyone else Trump puts on his enemies list. It’s a precursor to what they’ll do if they maintain the House, win the Senate, and Trump wins.

The House will send the resolution against Garland to the Justice Department for criminal referral if it passes later this week. Which essentially means it’s going nowhere. The referral would go to the U.S. attorney who would be tasked with determining whether a crime was committed by Garland in refusing to turn over audio recordings of the interviews special counsel Robert Hur conducted with Biden in a classified documents inquiry, and if charges should be brought.

The U.S. attorney for D.C. is highly unlikely to find criminal action on Garland’s part, which would likely send the case to federal courts, and there wouldn’t be an outcome before the election. But if the election favors Republicans, Garland is going to be high on their list for locking up.

House Democrats have done a bang-up job of humiliating Republicans on this goose chase and are continuing to do so, but a little humiliation isn’t enough to deter them from doing Trump’s bidding.

“Desperate to blame someone—anyone—for the utter failure of this impeachment inquiry, Republicans have contrived an allegation that Attorney General Merrick Garland has impeded their impeachment inquiry by preventing them from hearing President Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Hur by withholding the audio recording,” Democrats on the Oversight Committee said in a statement.

“In fact, Republicans, and the American public, can already read the full content of that interview.”

That’s absolutely true—Garland released the transcripts when Hur testified before Congress, a hearing that turned out to be a flop for Republicans. They want that audio, though, to use to show Biden unfavorably in their televised hearings. This is why the Justice Department is refusing to cede to the demand. It’s also why Biden claimed executive privilege to block release of the tapes.

White House Counsel Ed Siskel blasted GOP lawmakers' attempts to get the tapes, insisting that they have no legitimate purpose for acquiring them, only a political one "to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes.”

Watch: Attorney general pushes back on GOP's absurd Trump defense

‘Political huckster’: GOP congressman exposed in contentious hearing

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AG Merrick Garland deserves impeachment for politicizing the Justice Department

Posted on June 9, 2024 (Updated June 9, 2024) by David Harsanyi

Merrick Garland is no "by-the-book" attorney general.

Biden’s inner circle deeply involved with family’s business dealings: report

Posted on June 9, 2024 by Latest Political News on Fox News

President Biden has long attempted to distance himself from his family’s business dealings as he ran for and eventually became president, but a new report details just how involved those in the president’s inner circle have been in Biden family ventures.

Biden has shared a personal bookkeeper with this son, Hunter Biden, a personal lawyer with this brother, Jim Biden, and the former head of then-Vice President Biden’s Secret Service detail helped Jim Biden investigate a potential Chinese business partner, according to a report from Politico.

While the Bidens have long said they observe strict "firewalls" when it comes to discussing business with each other, the Politico report details just how involved those in the president’s orbit have been in dealings with Hunter and Jim Biden.

In one case, the president’s brother, Jim Biden, hired the head of the former vice president’s Secret Service detail, Dale Pupillo, to investigate a Chinese executive the president’s son, Hunter Biden, was traveling to meet in 2017.

TOP CHAOTIC MOMENTS FROM THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT HEARING INTO BIDEN FAMILY'S 'INFLUENCE PEDDLING'

The president’s brother stressed during the February impeachment inquiry that he personally commissioned the investigation into the executive so that he was not going into the situation blind, but insisted he did not know the details of the potential venture being led by his nephew.

"I wanted to know who I was meeting with and if there were any complications at all," he said at the impeachment interview, noting that it was common in the Biden family to keep the details of business dealings away from each other.

The executive, Patrick Ho, was later arrested and convicted on federal corruption charges.

The Politico report notes that Jim Biden had a long habit of tapping those connected to his powerful older brother. In one case, in 1975, during Joe Biden’s first Senate term, Jim Biden secured a loan from the senator’s old law firm, Walsh, Monzack & Owens, to help fund his nightclub business.

One of those partners, Mel Monzack, has gone on to serve as the president’s personal attorney and campaign treasurer. Monzack’s current firm has also served as the registered agent for the president’s personal S Corporation, CelticCapri, which handles income from activities such as writing and speaking fees.

GOP LAWMAKER SAYS REPUBLICANS ‘DON’T HAVE THE GUTS’ TO IMPEACH BIDEN

Monzack has also served as Jim Biden’s personal attorney, helping to negotiate a proposed deal that would have given the president’s brother’s company a 35% stake in the Americore hospital chain.

While the deal fell through, Monzack’s involvement raised questions, though Jim Biden has insisted he does not have knowledge of the attorney’s arrangement with President Biden.

"I don’t have the full depth of what he does or doesn’t do," he said in February. "But I know that he’s intricately involved and has been, you know, for the last 40 or 50 years."

Another close associate of President Biden, body man Fran Person, stayed involved with Hunter Biden after leaving government in 2014. Emails showed that Person, who the Bidens have said became like a son to them over the course of Joe Biden’s service in the Senate and as vice president, pitched Hunter Biden on a plan to develop SeaWorld parks in China in a deal between Person’s business and the state-owned Chinese Development Bank in 2015.

WhatsApp messages that were revealed as part of an IRS investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax matters also showed conversations between Person and Hunter Biden, including conversations in which Person told Hunter Biden his Chinese business partner, Bo Zhang, was eager to help the president’s son overcome his growing financial troubles.

GOP LAWMAKER SAYS REPUBLICANS ‘DON’T HAVE THE GUTS’ TO IMPEACH BIDEN

The Politico report also detailed the role another Hunter Biden business partner, personal bookkeeper Eric Schwerin, played in the family, with President Biden leaning on the bookkeeper to handle his own finances.

Nevertheless, Schwerin testified during the impeachment inquiry that there was no intermingling between the president and his son’s finances.

The connection between the president’s orbit and his family even extended to President Biden’s personal physician, Army doctor Kevin O’Connor. O’Connor served as then-Vice President Biden’s personal physician and grew close to Biden throughout his time in the Biden administration. The doctor now serves as Biden’s White House physician, the report notes.

In between those two roles, the president’s brother, Jim Biden, sought O’Connor’s help as part of his proposed Americore deal. According to the report, the president’s brother wanted to partner with the Veterans Affairs Department "to use vacant space at rural hospitals to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder."

The White House did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Running for Congress: Pooch leads police, reporter and Senate staffers on hairy rush-hour chase around Capitol

Posted on June 8, 2024 by Latest Political News on Fox News

I thought it was a jogger at first.

Someone clad in black ran up the sidewalk on the north side of Constitution Avenue, just across from the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol.

But it was too fast for a jogger. There was an urgency.

This was a female U.S. Capitol Police officer, wearing a thick tactical vest. A radio pack and other police equipment sprouted from the front. Then yelling.

Then three other Capitol Police officers charged up Capitol Hill, knees churning.

Police radios crackled. Something was terribly wrong.

WOMAN DISCOVERS HER DOG IS ALIVE AND UP FOR ADOPTION AFTER 'PUTTING HIM DOWN'

A security issue? A terrorist threat? Someone with a gun? A bomb?

It was something else.

A scruffy, brown and gray terrier scurried up the hill, with no leash. It darted between cars during the pm rush hour on Constitution Avenue.

The dark pavement respirated petrichor on this sticky June day. A stray shower had just bathed the street, charging the air with moisture in the way Washingtonians know all too well during warmer months.

But it was about to become a dog day afternoon.

The loose pooch charged toward the Russell Senate Office Building. But then haphazardly hopscotched across the bustling roadway — eluding vehicles like an ‘80s arcade master playing Frogger.

The dog artfully dodged the cars. But the canine risked getting KO-ed.

That’s when I realized the mutt was heading toward me on the Capitol side of the street.

He made a dogleg turn and loped toward the Capitol.

MISSING DOG RESCUED AFTER SPENDING 18 HOURS STRANDED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HIGHWAY: OWNER WAS 'PANICKED’

I had just gotten off the air — delivering a live report on Bret Baier’s program about criminal referrals for Hunter Biden and James Biden by a trio of House committees. It was around 6:25 pm and I was walking to my car. I dropped my lunch pouch on the sidewalk and inched toward the street between two parked cars. I crouched down, arms extended and hands sagging toward the ground, like a soccer goalkeeper about to challenge a breakaway at the front of the penalty area.

Things were looking up. Anything to get the dog out of the street. A pursuit would be much easier on the Capitol square side of the Congressional complex. The U.S. Capitol rests atop a 60-acre expanse of lush open areas, bushes, leafy trees, park benches, accentuated by twisting footpaths. This would be safer for the dog than having it lope around Constitution Avenue.

The pup spotted me.

Zoooosh!

He made a hard right and galloped into the gulley between where cars were parked on Constitution and the curb. There’s a raised, concrete barrier between the curb and the grass. It was too high for the dog to make it onto the Capitol square. Now he had reversed course and was running back down Capitol Hill.

"Help!" I yelled at an oblivious woman talking on her phone next to one of the parked cars. "Get that dog!"

She looked up just as he ran over her beige mules and zipped back into the street.

Oh no.

By that point, several of the officers who joined the chase on the north side of street had now run over to the south side near the Capitol with me. Fortunately, no traffic was headed up the hill on Constitution as the dog loped down the hill. He undulated back and forth across the six lanes of roadway like running between agility obstacles at the American Kennel Club dog show at Madison Square Garden.

DOG RESCUED AFTER BEING CHASED OFF ‘STEEP CLIFFSIDE’ BY RACCOONS: VIDEO

I took advantage of the break in cars coming up the hill, taking off in a sprint. My blue, striped tie flapped over my shoulder. My TV IFB cable was still connected to my earpiece and draped down my back from the live shot.

"Stop traffic!" I yelled behind me to the trailing officers.

I peaked over my shoulder and saw a few cars creeping slowly in the westward lanes down the hill. The drivers obviously saw the commotion, spotting the contingent of uniformed officers running in the street.

Now the dog was drifting toward the north side of the hill, toward the lower end of the Russell Senate Park and the Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon.

Exhausted and scared, the terrier sought refuge under a parked car on the north side of the street. Someone must have called to shut off traffic on the radio because there was no traffic advancing in the far lane toward us. I could see a wave of traffic clustering at the foot of Capitol Hill, backing up toward the Department of Labor. An officer who is assigned to the post at the corner of Constitution and 1st St., NW, stood in the middle of the roadway, halting the cars.

I get to the rear of the car and drop down to my knees. The dog is there. One officer slides up by the driver’s side and drops to the ground, peeking under the vehicle.

But all that did was flush our quarry. The dog escaped because there was only two of us surrounding the car. There was no way to trap him or grab ahold of a leg or a collar.

There he goes again, tiny legs pumping like miniature pistons as he races back up the hill and toward the Capitol side of the street. The dog crisscrosses lanes like a manic commuter on the Beltway. Fortunately, there was no traffic now. So the roadway was clear for the dog to bolt away and slip under a gunmetal-colored Toyota sedan with Maryland tags parked behind a maroon Acura SUV.

Four officers charged from the grassy hillside of the Capitol square toward the vehicle. Another three ran down the hill, including the original officer in the tactical vest. Two officers approach the car from the south side of the street along with yours truly. Two Senate aides are now involved. One in a long skirt and another wearing a tie so orange it resembles the Tampa Bay Buccaneers colors of the 1970s. His white, oxford dress shirt now spills over the top of his belt, apparently from his part in the pawchase.

Almost everyone drops to their stomachs, reaching under the car for the little guy, flailing around. It will be hard for him to dash away this time. Every corner of the vehicle is now covered. Two officers in the street stand back a few feet, hands on knees like a third baseman guarding the foul line. They’re backup – ready to grab the wayward dog if he somehow escapes again.

I’m on the ground, my right arm outstretched under the driver’s side. I can smell the fresh rain from the greasy pavement. An officer on the passenger’s side somehow clasps the collar. But the pup wiggles out of it. I poke at it from my side, trying to flush it toward the curb. Finally a mustachioed officer in a U.S. Capitol Police ballcap manages to pull the pooch out from under the car on the curbside.

"F---!" shouts the officer, nipped almost immediately by the petrified dog.

No good deed ever goes unpunished.

"F---!" yells the officer again, grimacing.

He unceremoniously hands the dog to another uniformed officer and inspects his right hand.

That officer in turn gives the panting pup to what appeared to be a plainclothes officer who arrived on the scene wearing shorts and a bandanna. He pulls the hound close to his chest and cuddles it. The dog began to relax.

Unfortunately, there was no tag attached to the collar. But there was a report of a missing dog in the area. It’s believed there’s a microchip embedded in its neck for identification purposes.

Everyone is grinning. But gasping for breath. Beads of sweat glisten and slip down cheekbones. It was four minutes of an intense, aerobic pursuit. Considering all of the direction changes, it’s a wonder no one turned an ankle or tore an ACL. The officer in the tactical vest is now smiling. Laughing, even.

The quest has ended. The dog is safe. The officers re-open Constitution Avenue to traffic. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was riding in one of the stalled vehicles and hollers something out the window, having witnessed the entire episode.

Harry Truman famously declared that "if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog."

Dogs may be man’s best friend. And if you’re a dog in Washington, perhaps your best friends are the U.S. Capitol Police.

Trump plans to grab the power of the purse from Congress

Posted on June 7, 2024 by Mark Sumner

The Constitution gives the power to allocate federal funding to Congress, but Donald Trump isn’t about to let that stop him. Trump has made no secret that he wants to restore presidential impoundment, a power that has been severely limited since 1974, and seize the power of the purse away from Congress.

As The Washington Post reports, Trump’s ambitions go beyond just bringing back a power that was limited after Richard Nixon abused it to shut down programs he didn’t like, such as blocking billions Congress had authorized for subsidized housing. Presidential impoundment is both a sword and a scalpel, capable of eliminating entire departments or taking out individual programs.

Trump has already made it clear he means to purge the federal government, dismantle existing agencies, and replace career federal employees with an army of supporters loyal only to Trump. He’s also determined to turn the Department of Justice and FBI into agents of his retribution, allowing him to round up and imprison political opponents. And those are just a few of the choice pieces of destruction laid out by Trump and his cohorts in their 887-page Project 2025 playbook.

But even with Republicans in Congress shedding every member not committed to the MAGA cause, Trump still would not have every lever of power in his tiny hands so long as Congress can determine the spending. So he wants to end that control.

“Presidential Impoundment”—refusing to spend money authorized by Congress—was a power that had been exercised by many presidents going back to Thomas Jefferson, but most instances involved small amounts and concerns over funds that were duplicated or in conflict. It wasn’t until Nixon began treating the impoundment power as a kind of line-item veto, blocking tens of billions from programs that didn’t fit his agenda, that Congress took action to limit this power by passing the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

Ending this act has become part of the right-wing agenda to create a powerful authoritarian president. The Federalist Society insists that the 1974 act ended the president’s “constitutional spending authority,” though no such authority exists in the Constitution. Bringing back impoundments is also part of Project 2025.

Trump already attempted to violate the Impoundment Control Act during his first time in office. That includes the events leading up to his first impeachment when he illegally impounded funds that had been authorized for Ukraine.

In 2023, Trump gave a speech making clear that he wants to end controls on impoundments to strangle any program he doesn’t like.

“I will then use the president’s long-recognized Impoundment Power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings,” Trump said in a video address now posted to his campaign site.

Unlimited use of the Impoundment Act goes well beyond even the authority of a line-item veto. It would allow Trump to halt funds at any time to inflict pain or apply pressure. It’s easy to see how this program might be used to force a weakened Congress into signing on to legislation provided by Trump, to slice out programs that had fallen out of favor, or to destroy whole departments. It’s hard to see how Congress could negotiate any kind of meaningful legislation when Trump could come in and selectively block funding.

It’s not hard to see how this could be an extension of Trump’s ability to punish his enemies, especially in the wake of calls to “defund” the entire state of New York following Trump’s felony conviction on 34 counts in a Manhattan courtroom. It’s an idea that seems laughable … until you add impoundment.

A limited presidential impoundment ability was arguably beneficial over the nation’s first 200 years. However, it was unsupported by anything in the Constitution and lost in the only case in which it was directly challenged in the Supreme Court. That doesn’t mean that it would lose now, with a Republican-dominated court that seems anxious to hand Trump all the authority he wants.

An unlimited presidential impoundment authority isn’t a “budgetary issue.” It’s full control of the entire government. Which is exactly why it’s on Trump’s agenda.

Trump’s ‘jokes’ about climate change are no laughing matter

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Fox News Politics: Potential Perjury

Posted on June 5, 2024 by Latest Political News on Fox News

Welcome to Fox News’ Politics newsletter with the latest political news from Washington D.C. and updates from the 2024 campaign trail.

What's happening…

- Biden accused of trying to ‘out-Republican Republicans’

- Squad Democrats furious over Netanyahu invitation to congress

- Trump catching up to Biden on fundraising

As Hunter Biden faces criminal gun charges in Delaware, House Republicans are sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department recommending that the president's son and brother be charged with making false statements to Congress about "key aspects" of the impeachment inquiry of President Biden, Fox News Digital has learned.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., who have been leading the inquiry, sent the criminal referrals of Hunter Biden and James Biden to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Special Counsel David Weiss on Wednesday, saying the alleged false statements "implicate Joe Biden’s knowledge and role in his family’s influence peddling schemes and appear to be a calculated effort to shield Joe Biden from the impeachment inquiry."

‘LIKE A SON’: Former top Biden adviser with deep business ties to China spotted inside Hunter Biden gun trial …Read more

'MISTAKE': Biden accused by own party of 'trying to out-Republican the Republicans' on border …Read more

'HE ADMIRES DICTATORS': Kamala Harris tells Jimmy Kimmel that he's right to be worried about what Trump could do to him …Read more

'THIS IS JOE BIDEN': Biden's old age concerns aren't 'going away' soon, CNN reporter says …Read more

'FOUR MORE YEARS, PAUSE': 5 recent gaffes by President Biden …Read more

'NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE': Former WH doctor raises alarms on Biden's mental state after WSJ report …Read more

'TOO DANGEROUS': Gaetz pushes immigration ban on this nationality …Read more

'TOO MUCH AT STAKE': Nancy Mace confronts House Republican who endorsed her opponent …Read more

'SECOND' MATTERS: Lawmakers invoke Hunter Biden in gun law chats …Read more

'IT'S ABSURD': 'It's absurd': Congress takes bipartisan action after Cuban officials' tour secure parts of major airport …Read more

'FULL OF IT': Possible McConnell replacement takes Democrat IVF claims head on with major announcement …Read more

SUPREME ETHICS: Dems accused of ethics violations after demanding Justice Alito recusal …Read more

'FEARMONGERING': Contraception bill would bulldoze religious liberty, 'parental rights,' Republicans say …Read more

'ACCUSED WAR CRIMINAL': Squad Dems furious at Netanyahu being invited to Congress …Read more

LEFT OUT: 'The View' co-host warns Biden will 'lose' if he lives in fear of the left-wing …Read more

'TRUST OF VOTERS': New Mexico DA who indicted Alec Baldwin fends off primary challenge …Read more

MAGA MUDSLINGING: Brutal swing state primary takes center stage as accusations of ‘disloyalty’ to Trump swirl …Read more

MAGA BUCKS: Trump catching up to Biden's fundraising with super PAC …Read more

PUT ON PAUSE: Georgia court freezes Fani Willis' sweeping election case against Trump …Read more

'PROTECT THE INTEGRITY': Manhattan prosecutors oppose Trump request to lift gag order, urge court to 'protect the integrity' of case …Read more

PARTY OVER CLIMATE: NY's Dem governor indefinitely halts congestion pricing plan reportedly over November concerns …Read more

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Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

House GOP wants to prosecute Biden’s family days after Trump conviction

Posted on June 5, 2024 by Mark Sumner

Republican Reps. James Comer, Jim Jordan, and Jason Smith announced on Wednesday that they are referring President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and brother James for "criminal prosecution" to the Department of Justice. The referral accuses Hunter and James of “making false statements to Congress.”

The announcement wasn’t exactly a surprise, as GOP hard-liners had already laid out a “payback plan” to help Donald Trump following his conviction last week on 34 felony counts. As Politico reported on Tuesday, the criminal referrals were something that Comer, Jordan, and Smith could push through without support from other House members, since even some of their fellow Republicans are skeptical of their stunt “investigations.”

Ever since gaining control of the House, Republicans have conducted multiple simultaneous inquiries into every member of Biden's extended family. The original plan was to gift Trump with a Joe Biden impeachment so that Trump could feel better about having been impeached (twice). But that plan fizzled out badly after the kangaroo court that went after Biden displayed hilarious levels of incompetence.

Now the House GOP’s Turgid Trio has produced a sorry document riddled with debunked claims, half-truths, and outright lies.

The announcement blares that Comer & Co. have tracked millions of ill-begotten dollars to members of Biden's family, "related companies," and "business associates"—which actually means this was a game of Six Degrees of Separation in which Republicans claimed that every transaction, no matter how remote, was tied to "Chinese money.”

It seems unlikely that the public will be very interested in how unspecified entities did business with something called Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC, which also had business with Hunter Biden, and how Hunter may have mistakenly sent texts to the wrong person, which could be read as implying his father was present. Only he wasn’t.

Or how James Biden made money at his business and later repaid his brother for a small personal loan. The trio insists this was Chinese money because someone paid someone who paid someone who paid James Biden who paid back Joe Biden.

By that standard, isn’t it all Chinese money, or Russian money, or whatever anyone wants to claim?

Another charge against James Biden claims that someone named Tony Bobulinski remembered James being at a meeting that he said he didn’t attend. Not that his presence or absence at the meeting made a whit of difference—this was just all that Comer, Jordan, and Smith could find by combing through hours of testimony and looking for contradictions.

Maybe in some deep-cut version of “Fox & Friends,” Bobulinski is a star and Rosemont Seneca is on everyone’s tongue. But outside that pocket universe, all of this is simply malarkey, to borrow one of Joe Biden’s favorite terms.

This latest stunt is mostly an excuse for Comer and Jordan to grab air time and distract Fox News viewers with talk about the "Biden crime family" in hopes of making a false equivalence to Trump's very real felony conviction.

It’s a very, very, very good bet that Attorney General Merrick Garland won’t jump on these referrals, because the evidence is unimaginably weak and the document attached to the charges contains far more lies than any alleged wrongdoing by Hunter or James Biden. But for the Republican trio, that’s also a part of the plan.

Because when the DOJ rightly ignores these nonsense charges, they'll get to make fresh complaints about Biden, Merrick Garland, and the "weaponized" justice system.

It’s all hogwash. But doing all they can to ingratiate themselves with Trump is the House GOP’s No. 1 job, after all.

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House Republicans refer Hunter Biden, James Biden for criminal prosecution amid impeachment inquiry

Posted on June 5, 2024 by Latest Political News on Fox News

FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are sending criminal referrals to the Justice Department recommending Hunter Biden and James Biden be charged with making false statements to Congress about "key aspects" of the impeachment inquiry of President Biden, Fox News Digital has learned.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., who have been leading the inquiry, sent the criminal referrals to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Special Counsel David Weiss on Wednesday, saying the alleged false statements "implicate Joe Biden’s knowledge and role in his family’s influence peddling schemes and appear to be a calculated effort to shield Joe Biden from the impeachment inquiry."

HOUSE GOP CLAIMS HUNTER BIDEN LIED UNDER OATH MULTIPLE TIMES DURING CONGRESSIONAL DEPOSITION

Attached to the letter are 60 pages of records supporting their referral.

House Republicans allege Hunter Biden "falsely distanced himself from a corporate entity – Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC – and its bank account (Rosemont Seneca Bohai Bank Account) that was the recipient of millions of dollars from foreign individuals and foreign entities who met with then-Vice President Biden before and after transmitting money to the Rosemont Seneca Bohai Bank Account that then transferred funds to Hunter Biden."

"Hunter Biden made additional false statements as to whether he held positions at Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC. After deposing Hunter Biden, the Committees obtained documents showing Hunter Biden represented that he was the corporate secretary," they wrote. "Additionally, Hunter Biden during his testimony relayed an entirely fictitious account about threatening text messages he sent to his Chinese business partner while invoking his father’s presence with him as he wrote the messages. Hunter Biden told the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee he had transmitted this threat to an unrelated individual with the same surname. However, documents released by the Committee on Ways and Means demonstrate conclusively that Hunter Biden made this threat to the intended individual, and bank records prove Hunter Biden’s Chinese business partners wired millions of dollars to him after his threat."

They added: "A portion of the proceeds has been traced to Joe Biden’s bank account."

As for James Biden, House Republicans said he "stated unequivocally during his transcribed interview that Joe Biden did not meet with Mr. Tony Bobulinski, a business associate of James and Hunter Biden, in 2017 while pursuing a deal with a Chinese entity, CEFC China Energy."

"Specifically, James Biden stated he did not attend a meeting with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Tony Bobulinski on May 2, 2017 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. These statements were contradicted not only by Mr. Bobulinski, but Hunter Biden."

"Mr. Bobulinski also produced text messages that establish the events leading up to and immediately following his meeting with Joe Biden on May 2, 2017," they wrote.

House Republicans said, "Hunter Biden and James Biden made materially false statements to the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee, as demonstrated by the evidence presented in the attached referral."

"The nature of these false statements is not lost on the Committees: every instance implicates Joe Biden’s knowledge of and role in his family’s influence peddling," they wrote.

COMER INVITES BIDEN TO TESTIFY PUBLICLY AS PART OF HOUSE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY

"Hunter Biden denying his affiliation with the Rosemont Seneca Bohai Bank Account obfuscates the account to which foreign individuals who met with Joe Biden transmitted funds. Similarly, Hunter Biden creating from whole cloth a fiction in which he transmitted a threat to the wrong individual appears to be an attempt to hide the fact that invoking Joe Biden succeeded in coercing his Chinese partners to send him money," they wrote. "It also calls into doubt Hunter Biden’s other testimony about that event, such as his contention that his father was not, in fact, sitting next to him when he transmitted the message."

They also said James Biden’s "denial that Joe Biden’s meeting with James Biden, Hunter Biden, and Hunter Biden’s business associate for a Chinese transaction, Tony Bobulinski, took place – despite evidence being placed in front of him and being given multiple opportunities to amend his response – appears to be a clumsy attempt to protect Joe Biden from the reality that Joe Biden has indeed met with his family’s business associates."

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Comer said Republicans' investigation "has revealed President Biden knew about, participated in, and benefitted from his family cashing in on the Biden name around the world."

"Despite this record of evidence, President Biden continues to lie to the American people about his involvement in these influence-peddling schemes. It appears making false statements runs in the Biden family," he said, adding that lawmakers have "caught President Biden’s son and brother making blatant lies to Congress in what appears to be a concerted effort to hide Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s schemes."

"As part of our efforts to hold the Bidens accountable for profiting off public office, we are today referring Hunter and James Biden to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution for making false statements to Congress," Comer said.

He added: "This is not the end of our efforts to hold the Bidens accountable; it’s only the beginning."

"Lying to Congress is a serious crime with serious consequences. Both Hunter and James Biden did just that," Jordan said. "They lied to coverup President Biden’s involvement in their family’s international influence peddling schemes that have generated millions of dollars."

Jordan said the criminal referrals are "a reflection of criminal wrongdoing by the Biden family, and the Department of Justice must take steps to hold the Bidens accountable."

Last month, Ways and Means Chairman Smith held a mark-up session to discuss documents protected under IRS code 6103 – a portion of the tax code that keeps certain information confidential. Discussing that material without it being properly released by the Ways and Means Committee is considered a felony.

HOUSE OVERSIGHT RELEASES JAMES BIDEN'S DEPOSITION TRANSCRIPT AS IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY MOVES INTO 'NEXT PHASE'

The panel voted to release that information. Included were records Smith said prove "indisputably" that Hunter Biden lied under oath multiple times during his congressional deposition earlier this year.

"President Biden claims no one is above the law. We will soon see his Department of Justice put that principle to the test," Smith said Wednesday. "Congress cannot allow anyone, not even the president’s son or his brother, to stand in the way of its oversight of the executive branch or deny the American people the accountability they deserve."

Smith said IRS whistleblowers "have provided indisputable evidence that Hunter Biden broke the law and lied to Congress during his February deposition."

FLASHBACK: HUNTER BIDEN IN 2017 SENT 'BEST WISHES' FROM 'ENTIRE BIDEN FAMILY' TO CHINA FIRM CHAIRMAN, REQUESTED $10M WIRE

Smith maintained that "lying to Congress to impede an ongoing congressional investigation is a serious crime."

"If the Department of Justice fails to act on our criminal referral and hold Hunter Biden accountable, they will once again be telling the American people there are two tiers of justice in this country," Smith said. "One for the wealthy and politically connected, and one for everyone else."

House Republicans are continuing their impeachment inquiry against the president. They are investigating his role and knowledge of his family’s international influence-peddling schemes that they say generated more than $18 million for Biden family members and their companies, and more than $27 million, when including the payments to their business associates, who they say were often used to transfer funds to Biden family members.

Hunter Biden is currently on trial stemming from federal gun charges brought against him by Special Counsel David Weiss. He pleaded not guilty.

Weiss also charged the first son with federal tax crimes. That trial is set to begin on Sept. 5 with jury selection in California. Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty.