Chip Roy plans House discussion on 25th Amendment regarding Biden’s mental fitness

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, plans to bring up options under the 25th Amendment in terms of President Biden’s fitness during a meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday.

Roy told Fox News he believes Republicans need to have a position on where they stand regarding Biden’s competence.

Section 4 of the 25th Amendment provides a series of steps for removing a president from office if he or she becomes incapacitated.

But a resolution on the 25th Amendment cannot just be presented to the House floor immediately.

CRITICS PILE ON BIDEN FOLLOWING ABC INTERVIEW, BLAST HIS REFUSAL TO COMMIT TO COGNITIVE TEST: 'DISQUALIFYING'

The bill would not be "privileged" and go straight to the front of the legislative line because it deals with the executive branch and not Congress.

Impeachment, on the other hand, could be considered "privileged" because those powers are enumerated in the Constitution as being under the purview of Congress.

PRESIDENT BIDEN FACES THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL WEEKEND OF HIS POLITICAL CAREER

Any resolution on the 25th Amendment would need to go through committee first, a senior House Republican leadership source told Fox.

Roy’s plan comes a week-and-a-half after House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., spoke about the cabinet weighing in on the 25th Amendment regarding Biden.

The Supreme Court has gone rogue. Now is the time to start fixing it

The conservative Supreme Court has gone rogue. It has “cemented its place in history as the most radical Supreme Court ever,” in the words of historian Kevin Kruse. It handcuffed all federal regulatory agencies last week, and elevated the president to king on Monday. They’ve done so on behalf of the American oligarchs who have bankrolled the lavish lifestyle of at least two of the justices. They have also done so on behalf of twice-impeached convicted felon Donald Trump.

If there is any hope of salvaging our republic out of this mess, President Joe Biden and Democrats have to fight back, immediately, in the campaign and in action. That means setting aside the trust institutionalists like Biden and Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin have in the system and in the basic decency of people like Chief Justice John Roberts. It means directly taking on the corrupt court and making the case to the American people that it has to be stopped.

Biden made a start Monday evening, giving a short prime-time address to the nation to point out the “dangerous precedent” of placing “virtually no limits on what a president can do.”

“This decision,” Biden said, “has continued the court’s attack in recent years on a wide range of long-established legal principles in our nation, from gutting voting rights and civil rights to taking away a woman’s right to choose to today’s decision that undermines the rule of law of this nation.”

In perhaps the most chilling words a president has uttered since the Civil War, Biden starkly defined where we’re at as a nation. 

“[I]t will depend on the character of the men and women who hold that presidency that are going to define the limits of the power of the presidency,” he said, “because the law will no longer do it.” 

That’s Biden declaring that, as of Monday, we are no longer a nation under the rule of law because of a decision made by a court that is fundamentally corrupt—the essential backdrop to this momentously, historically awful term.

Start with Justice Clarence Thomas, whose corruption has been detailed in months of reporting from ProPublica: the undeclared luxury trips, gifts, and real estate deals; the cozying up to the Koch machine; his own extortion of the court and the oligarchs insisting that if he didn’t benefit financially, he would leave the court. There’s also his wife, Ginni, who not only plotted in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but was rewarded by another billionaire—Leonard Leo—who funneled tens of thousands to her for consulting work. 

Not to be outdone in either the grift or the partisanship game, there’s Justice Samuel Alito. He was there for the luxury trips from hedge fund billionaires and the lavish trip to Rome to be feted for writing the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Like Thomas, Alito lets his spouse do his partisanship talk for him, or rather the flag-flying.

Then there’s Roberts refusing to even answer questions from the Senate about how these bought-and-paid for ideologues have tarnished the institution or to consider implementing a binding ethics reform to attempt to redeem the court.

And voters know it. Trust in the court plummeted after it overturned Roe to record lows, and it is not recovering.

So here we are. The only thing that can forestall the end of the republic is our vote and the hope that democrats—and Democrats—prevail in November in numbers that can’t be denied. Maybe then elected Democrats will fix this mess.

There are plenty of good ideas for reshaping the court from expanding it to imposing term limits to create a stable of justices that rotate in and out of the court. The solutions are there—Democrats need to embrace them. And run on them.

That can start with rallying around Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s impeachment resolution against the justices who perpetrated this “assault on American democracy.” No, it won’t move forward in a Republican-controlled House, but it can help unite Democrats for an immediate course of action should they regain the House.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries echoed that, saying Democrats plan to “engage in aggressive oversight and legislative activity” to determine that “extreme, far-right justices in the [Supreme Court] majority are brought into compliance with the Constitution.”

The Senate has to take the lead in the coming months, and it has to come from Durbin, who failed in his first task of responding to the devastating ruling. He complained over spilled milk, that Thomas and Alito “brazenly refused to recuse themselves from this case.” He scolded Roberts for not using “his existing authority to enact an enforceable code of conduct.”

It’s a lot too late for that. Durbin and his colleagues need to get on the same page as House Democrats, because they actually are in an oversight position and need to start using it. No, they can’t fix the Supreme Court now, but they can start building the case for it. 

They have to win back the two elected branches, and one of the best ways to do it will be to put aside the niceties of institutionalism and comity and declare war on the unelected branch—the one that would make Trump king.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Bloody Monday, every single Democrat should be talking about that—exclusively that. Enough hand-wringing over Biden’s debate performance. Enough speculation about replacing the top of the ticket. Enough Democrats in disarray. Too much is at stake now.

Tell the people—show the people—the danger the republic is in. How Democrats react now to what this court has done could make all the difference in November.

If you want to help make America the place it ought to be, it starts by electing more and better Democrats. And you can do your part right here. Please give $10 to each of these Daily Kos-endorsed candidates today!

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Comer reveals White House physician was involved in Biden family business deals, demands he testify

FIRST ON FOX – House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is demanding that the White House physician appear before Congress to answer questions on President Biden’s "declining mental state," while also revealing that the doctor has been involved in the Biden family’s business dealings. 

Fox News Digital obtained the letter Comer, R-Ky., sent to Dr. Kevin O’Connor on Sunday. Comer is seeking to question O’Connor, given his "connections" with the Biden family, on whether he is "in a position to provide accurate and independent reviews of the President’s fitness to serve."

Comer wants to know whether O'Connor's medical assessments of the president have been improperly influenced by his work with the Biden family with the company Americore. 

COMER DEMANDS WHITE HOUSE PROVIDE RECORDS TO PROVE $200K PAYMENT TO BIDEN FROM BROTHER WAS A LOAN

"After a concerning debate performance by President Biden against former President Donald Trump on June 27, journalists have rushed to report on what Americans have seen plainly for years: the President appears unwell," Comer wrote. 

Comer said that because Americans have been questioning Biden’s "ability to lead the country," his committee has been investigating circumstances surrounding O’Connor’s February assessment of the president. 

Comer noted that O’Connor determined in February that the president "is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old-male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency." 

Comer, though, pointed to reports that O’Connor did not recommend that Biden take a cognitive test. 

TOP DEMS PLANNING MEETING ABOUT BIDEN'S FUTURE DESPITE PRESIDENT'S VOWS TO CONTINUE CAMPAIGN

"The Oversight Committee is concerned your medical assessments have been influenced by your private business endeavors with the Biden family," Comer wrote. 

Comer said the committee has obtained evidence that shows he was involved with Americore Health, LLC, along with the president’s brother, James Biden. 

Americore, a company which operates rural hospitals, has been investigated by the committee as part of its impeachment inquiry against the president – specifically related to James Biden's work, which brought him more than $600,000. 

The committee says James Biden, while serving as a principal at Americore, received payments for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The committee found that James Biden received a $200,000 wire in 2018 from the company that he then used to write a $200,000 check to his brother, President Biden, which he labeled as a "loan repayment." 

JAMES BIDEN GIVEN LOAN, DIDN'T PROVIDE SERVICES TO AMERICORE DESPITE PROMISES TO USE LAST NAME, TRUSTEE SAYS

James Biden, according to testimony from other Americore employees, did not provide any services to the company, but instead, promised that his "Biden" name could bring funding to the struggling hospital operator from the Middle East. 

That employee, Carol Fox, a Chapter 11 trustee for Americore, testified that the loan was provided to Biden with no documentation in return for the promise of funding from the Middle East that never came. She filed a lawsuit against James Biden, saying he made "representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections." 

But during James Biden’s interview with the committee earlier this year, he told investigators that O’Connor "provided him counsel in connection with the alleged work he was performing for Americore." 

"I met with, for example – my brother wasn’t in office at the time. He was a private citizen. And I had gotten through his – as vice president, his personal physician was Colonel Kevin O’Connor," James Biden testified. "And Kevin O’Connor – there was a very – and still there is an outcry for a solution for post-traumatic stress disorder." 

James Biden said O’Connor "introduced me to a team" that worked with PTSD and alcoholism amid a "backlog" at the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

COMER RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT $200K 'DIRECT PAYMENT' FROM JAMES BIDEN TO JOE BIDEN IN 2018

Comer, in the letter, also notes that O’Connor, along with Hunter Biden, "joined a meeting with Jim Biden and the president of a hospital being acquired by Americore." 

Meanwhile, the White House maintains that Biden has not been examined by a doctor since February. But during a call with Democratic governors last week, the president himself told governors "he was checked out by a doctor and that everything was fine." 

"The statements by the White House Press Secretary and President Biden appear inconsistent, and the Committee seeks to understand the extent of your role at the White House at this time," Comer wrote. "Given your connections with the Biden family, the Committee also seeks to understand if you are in a position to provide accurate and independent reviews of the President’s fitness to serve." 

Comer requested that O’Connor make himself available for a transcribed interview with counsel for the House Oversight Committee by July 14. He is also demanding all documents and communications that O’Connor has regarding Americore and James Biden. 

The request for O'Connor's cooperation with Congress comes amid calls for Biden to suspend his re-election campaign – even from top Democrats, former staffers and allies. 

But the White House maintains that President Biden is "absolutely not" considering dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.

"I am running. I am the leader of the Democratic Party. No one is pushing me out," Biden said last week. 

Republicans furious that Hunter Biden is reportedly sitting in on White House meetings

House Republicans are crying foul over reported revelations that first son Hunter Biden has been sitting in on President Biden's White House meetings in recent days.

"Joe and Hunter Biden have a record of selling their last name to foreign adversaries like Russia and China. Having Hunter now engaged in official, executive business only further enhances the urgency for transparency and accountability regarding the Biden family's corrupt business dealings," House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., called Hunter Biden "a walking national security threat."

"He's raked in more than $20 million from foreign entities, including the CCP, for the Biden [family]. He's also the owner of the FBI-investigated laptop from hell. … Does Hunter have the clearance necessary to sit in on high-level White House meetings with his dad?" Steube told Fox News Digital.

HUNTER BIDEN HAS MAJOR CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AS TOP ADVISER TO THE MAN WHO COULD PARDON HIM

It comes after NBC News reported that the president's son has sat in on meetings between Biden and his top White House aides in recent days.

He began joining the sessions after Biden returned from Camp David on Monday, according to the report.

"Hunter Biden wants Joe Biden to remain president more than anyone in America. He should be worried [about] what a new attorney general would consider criminal activity under a possible Trump administration. No more sweetheart deals the moment his father leaves office," said Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis.

Hunter Biden has long been a target of Republican scrutiny, with House GOP impeachment inquiry investigators accusing him of enriching himself via foreign business dealings by using his father's political stature and connections. House GOP leaders also believe President Biden himself participated in and benefited from the schemes, something he and his allies have denied.

EX-REP CHARLIE RANGEL, 94, QUESTIONS WHETHER BIDEN BELONGS IN NURSING HOME, NOT WHITE HOUSE

Hunter Biden was also recently convicted on three felony firearm charges and faces more legal troubles in a federal probe into his taxes. The latter case is going to trial in California in September.

The report comes as Biden is facing mounting pressure to step aside as the 2024 Democrat presidential nominee after his performance in last Thursday's CNN debate, with concerns over his advanced age and mental fitness for office plastered across headlines this week.

Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., said on Fox Business' "Mornings with Maria" that Hunter Biden has a vested interest in keeping his father in power because it's a shield from the worst scrutiny.

OBAMA CAUTIOUSLY ADVISES BIDEN AFTER SHAKY DEBATE PERFORMANCE, LOOMING REMATCH WITH TRUMP: REPORT

"I think it's probably very predictable that Hunter wants his dad to be in the White House. His best option for protection and immunity going forward is his dad in the White House," Ogles said when asked about the report. "The moment you have a change of regimes, you're going to have a change of personnel. And suddenly, Hunter is not going to have the umbrella and the protection of his father."

The NBC News report said aides were "struck" by Hunter Biden's sudden presence at White House meetings. One was quoted as saying, "What the hell is happening?"

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president's son was also present during debate prep, and she dismissed concerns about his presence when asked in Tuesday's regular news briefing.

"It is a week where there's going to be more family members who are going to come to the White House. I'm sure you'll see some of them on Fourth of July," she said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for further comment.

Congressional Dems plot revenge for Supreme Court ruling on Trump immunity

Democratic lawmakers are already calling for congressional action to respond to the Supreme Court's decision on presidential immunity, arguing that the decision is a blow for democracy while empowering former President Trump.

But the forceful outcry is a stark contrast to Democrats mostly downplaying concerns regarding President Biden's chances of beating Trump in November.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has threatened to introduce articles of impeachment against the Supreme Court's conservative justices when Congress is back in session next week.

"The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control. Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture," Ocasio-Cortez said on X, formerly Twitter.

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Another Democrat, Rep. Joe Morelle, of New York, said he would introduce a resolution to reverse the Supreme Court's decision.

He wrote on X after the ruling came out: "The conservative, extremist majority on the Supreme Court has decided former President Trump is above the law. Today's decision further erodes the public’s confidence in our institutions and poses as great a threat to our democracy as the former president's behavior."

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Trump's classified documents case that presidents do have immunity for official acts while in the White House, and that those acts cannot be used as evidence against them in a trial. However, it also ruled that not all of a president's actions are official, and left it to a lower court to decide which of Trump's actions constitute which.

Democrats argued that it gave Trump a vast legal shield over matters he should be prosecuted for. It also almost guaranteed that the ex-president will not have a federal trial in his classified documents case before November.

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It prompted Sens. Tina Smith, D-Minn., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., to renew their calls to expand the Supreme Court.

But to stand any chance of doing so, Democrats would need to win commanding victories in the House, Senate and White House – and several polls since Thursday night's debate show Biden's appeal slipping among general election voters.

Discussions surrounding Biden's viability as a candidate have swirled in the media and among pundits on the left after the 81-year-old president's poor performance in his debate against Trump last Thursday. 

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Elected Democratic officials have largely defended Biden since then, however, arguing he's still the best candidate to beat the ex-president in November – while others have stayed silent. 

A new CBS News and YouGov poll released over the weekend showed nearly three-quarters of Democratic voters believe Biden does not have the cognitive health to serve as president. 

A USA Today/Suffolk University poll released Monday shows Trump leading Biden 41% to 38% among nationwide voters.

But the aforementioned Democratic lawmakers did not respond to queries from Fox News Digital about whether they were concerned Biden's performance in the debate would enable Trump, who they view as a threat to democracy, to win in November.

Morelle said earlier this week that he "wouldn't write Joe Biden off because of one bad performance," according to local outlet WXXI.

He indicated, as others have, that Biden himself should decide his own viability. "I think he has to make a decision, his family and his inner circle about whether they think he feels he can still fulfill his obligations." Morelle said.

Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez, who has publicly broken with Biden on certain issues in the past, appeared on video days after the debate urging Latin American voters watching the Copa America soccer tournament to support Biden.

A rogue Supreme Court awaits its king

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts admonished liberal members of the court in his opinion that vastly expanded the idea of presidential immunity on Monday. The court’s three liberal members were only “fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals,” he wrote.

That finger-wag toward terrified, dissenting justices came only a few hours after Donald Trump signaled his desire for “televised military tribunals” that would try former Rep. Liz Cheney for treason. 

On call with Biden-Harris campaign, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) says SCOTUS' decision on presidential immunity means a Trump re-election isn't just the biggest threat to democracy in a generation. "It's far and away the biggest threat since the Civil War."

— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) July 1, 2024

In less than a week, the Supreme Court has issued a string of rulings that demolish the ability of the government to regulate safety, labor, and the environment. Effectively, they’ve made being homeless illegal and being a Trump insurrectionist perfectly fine. And now they’ve presented a vast expansion of presidential power that exceeds the greatest dreams of Richard Nixon

Everything that the Supreme Court has done in these rulings paves the way for Trump and his allies’ Project 2025 to complete the purge of democracy that this court has already begun. And it all makes defeating Trump infinitely more important.

There was a time when Roberts was seen as a moderating voice on the Supreme Court, as someone who was concerned about the court being accused of partisanship, and who was willing to ally with the court’s more liberal elements to keep a new conservative majority under control. But the court-watchers who made such predictions could not have been more wrong.

Despite his odes to stare decisis, Roberts has consistently voted to overturn long-standing precedent. Since gaining the support of three Trump-appointed radicals, Roberts has become a reliable member of a series of 6-3 decisions that have redefined the traditional role of the three branches of government. 

In the decision on presidential immunity, Roberts is trying to dismiss the dissents of the three remaining liberal judges as overblown, but if anything, they are a subdued response to this ruling. 

  • The ruling extends absolute immunity to anything that falls within the “‘outer perimeter’ of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are ‘not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority,’” Roberts writes.

  • In determining whether an act is official, “courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.”

  • Also, courts can’t “deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.”

If you’re having trouble seeing how anyone is permitted to question any action of the president under this ruling, you’re not the only one.

As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson writes in her dissent, “Departing from the traditional model of individual accountability, the majority has concocted something entirely different: a Presidential accountability model that creates immunity—an exemption from criminal law—applicable only to the most powerful official in our Government.” She makes it clear that the court creates a “multilayered, multifaceted threshold” that would have to be cleared to charge a president under any circumstance, meaning that “no matter how well documented or heinous the criminal act might be,” it can still be dismissed.

And when it comes to the theoretical example that was raised during oral arguments, yes, “a hypothetical President who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics” or who “indisputably instigates an unsuccessful coup” still has “a fair shot at getting immunity” for those actions.

Don't tell me the conservative justices don't believe in abortion rights. They are currently trying to abort democracy in the 992nd trimester. And if they get Trump onto the throne they’ve built, the odds of ever finding America again are slim to none.

President Joe Biden may be the last remaining politician in Washington who maintains endless respect for the institutions we have inherited and the network of implicit agreements that kept our democracy patched together over two centuries. As recently as a year ago, he rejected the idea of expanding the number of justices or taking other actions to restrain a court veering dangerously away from its traditional role.

Biden needs to reconsider. The damage this court has done, in just a matter of days, is inestimable, and those horrific decisions are stacked on top of years of increasingly nonsensical rulings, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade

This is a highly partisan court whose primary interest is in enacting a radical MAGA agenda. It’s also a court that has repeatedly made clear that it holds itself above the law and has nothing but contempt for anyone trying to hold it accountable. Now it wants to extend that privilege to Trump.

This court must be tamed. But most of all, this court must be prevented from joining the man whose throne they have been preparing. This nation can’t survive this court and Donald Trump. 

Joe Biden is going to have to beat them both. And we’re going to have to help him.

"If Joe Biden is not elected in November, we will not have a democracy that we have known for 250 years," says Goldman, who led the first House impeachment investigation into Trump in 2019.

— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) July 1, 2024

AOC threatens Supreme Court articles of impeachment over immunity ruling

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., threatened to bring articles of impeachment against the Supreme Court after Monday's immunity ruling regarding former President Trump. 

"The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. "Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture. I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return." 

The ruling in question said a president has absolute immunity from prosecution for "actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority," and "presumptive immunity" for official acts in general. The court said there is no immunity for unofficial acts.

CONGRESSIONAL DEMS BLAST RULING ON TRUMP IMMUNITY: 'EXTREME RIGHT-WING SUPREME COURT'

Fox News Digital reached out to Ocasio-Cortez's congressional office seeking clarification on who in particular she intends to impeach, but did not immediately hear back. 

Ocasio-Cortez was not the only congressional Democrat to blast the Supreme Court’s ruling.

In a statement, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., vowed that "House Democrats will engage in aggressive oversight and legislative activity with respect to the Supreme Court to ensure that the extreme, far-right justices in the majority are brought into compliance with the Constitution." 

NY DEM SLAMS 'SQUAD' MEMBER'S PROFANITY-LACED RANT AT RALLY WITH AOC: 'UNHINGED'

"Today’s Supreme Court decision to grant legal immunity to a former President for crimes committed using his official power sets a dangerous precedent for the future of our nation," Jeffries said. 
 

"This is a sad day for America and a sad day for our democracy," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote on X. "The very basis of our judicial system is that no one is above the law. Treason or incitement of an insurrection should not be considered a core constitutional power afforded to a president." 

The court's ruling did not say whether any of Trump's alleged actions fell under his constitutional powers, leaving such matters to be sorted out by a lower court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.