She heard her voice, she said, “I know my worth.”
Hunter Biden and the Delaware Prosecutor in the Case of a Gunning Induced by a Vice President: He hasn’t spoken to the State Department
The case against Biden narrowed earlier this year, and was a matter of discussion in early summer between FBI and IRS investigators, prosecutors in Delaware and the Justice Department, CNN previously reported. The discussions included assessing the strength of the case and questioning whether more work was needed before deciding on charges, according to sources who spoke to CNN in July.
Prosecutors have not yet made any charging decisions on the case and have not met since early summer to discuss the federal investigation, according to two sources familiar with the matter. A decision is not expected before the midterm election.
According to a source, talks between Biden’s team and the Justice Department have been going on for several months, and nothing has changed in the past couple of months.
“As is proper and legally required, we believe the prosecutors in this case are diligently and thoroughly weighing not just evidence provided by agents, but also all the other witnesses in this case, including witnesses for the defense,” Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said in a written statement to the Journal.
For the past two years, conservatives have accused President Biden’s son of influence peddling, money laundering, bribery and illegal foreign lobbyists in order to distract the whole administration. With control over House investigations, they may finally get what they want: a chance to turn Hunter Biden’s life inside out.
But prosecutors have also examined a 2018 incident in which a firearm owned by Biden ended up tossed by his then-girlfriend into a dumpster in Wilmington, a person briefed on the matter said. Biden described in media interviews that he was addicted to drugs and that it might have made him break federal law when he bought the gun.
Still, Biden has publicly discussed his own substance abuse struggles, and some Justice officials have debated whether his open discussions of his past drug use could potentially weaken their case should they bring one.
He said in a statement issued by his father’s presidential transition office that he took the matter very seriously but that he was confident that a professional and objective review of the matters would demonstrate that he handled his affairs legally.
The President, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he won’t interfere in the independence of the Justice Department. The investigation in Delaware was led by US Attorney David Weiss, who was appointed by Donald Trump, even as Biden kept him in office.
She popped up at times from time to time, such as during the summer of 2016 when she pulled her father away from the press during a walk at the beach in Delaware. Biden joked, “That’s my press secretary daughter.”
Now the normally private social worker, 41, is suddenly doing public appearances and making very personal statements, talking about everything from police reform and mental health to life as “a White woman with White privilege.” She’s also talking about the travails of her brother Hunter, an admitted longtime drug addict now in recovery.
But Biden is making it clear she’s ready to tell her own story, no small matter for a person whose personal diary was once stolen and peddled for sale to her father’s political detractors.
“I finally feel like I’m in a place where I really know who I am, I know my worth, I know my family – who are honestly some of the most incredible, kind, compassionate humans, who have given up their life, really, for service to the American people,” said Biden, speaking on the record last week to a small group of invited guests at a question-and-answer event at a hip DC hotel.
Even still, Ashley Biden appears willing to test some of her own boundaries of vulnerability. She speaks with a sense of urgency around socio-economic and health care issues – as the daughter of a lifelong politician, she knows first-hand the partisan stakes when funding, congressional support, health care and power all come into play.
“When I was growing up, kids were off limits, right?” said Biden at last week’s event, discussing an earlier time when campaigns practiced more civility. “You weren’t allowed. It was kind of a mutual understanding that you just didn’t really go after people’s children. You know? I don’t think that’s what I signed up for.
Ashley Biden: Getting to the bottom of the elephant’s eye. The white house in response to the Diwali remarks on October 24
On October 24, Biden joined her parents at the White House for a reception to celebrate the Indian holiday Diwali, standing beside the first lady as she made remarks. Both the Biden children wore dresses; one wore a dress and the other a sari.
She is not a frequent West Wing presence like her first daughter, nor is she a tabloid fodder like her older brother.
One person was doubtful if the recent comments by Biden were being monitored by the White House as well as the tendency of most administrations when family members make public speaking engagements. The source said that she had always been her own person.
She mentioned last week that the investigators wouldn’t find anything after looking into the case of Hunter Biden. “They’re just trying to do whatever they can, but that’s,” she said, pausing to shrug, “so when that started to happen, when people started to attack me, and I was like, ‘Whoa.’ It just became a widespread thing.”
Ashley Biden said the brouhaha over the Hunter Biden allegations of wrongdoing and influence peddling has become little more than a family inside joke. “I still look at my brother and I’m like, ‘do you know you impeached Donald Trump, basically?’”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/politics/ashley-biden-white-house/index.html
Why aren’t people healing? When did she learn to question institutional racism? – Ashley Biden, a lawyer and entrepreneur who grew up in Philadelphia
“Growing up, I lived a very normal, down-to-earth life,” she said last week. She was an athlete, excelling at both field hockey and lacrosse during her Wilmington, Delaware, school years.
She took interest in her father’s politics and often accompanied him on his campaign stops, as well as on the door-to-door visits that were once a hallmark of gathering votes.
“I would travel with him everywhere and I would always question the inequity. During an October 20 interview in San Francisco, Biden said that he learned of racism from a very young age. “And it was my mission to tackle structural violence and institutional racism. Why aren’t people healing? Why are the most marginalized the least healed?
Biden became a social worker, working hands-on with cases, mostly in underserved areas of Delaware and parts of Philadelphia. She got her master’s degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania – a Biden-family favorite for higher education. She was the executive director for the Delaware Center for Justice.
Biden launched his Livelihood brand of hooded sweatshirts as a socially conscious fashion label. Biden said profits from the hoodies went to charities in support of social justice and minority entrepreneurship.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/politics/ashley-biden-white-house/index.html
Ashley-Biden White House: “It ain’t gonna be a problem, but… it’s over”
She was going to go with the first lady on two other foreign trips in May, to Slovakia and Ukraine, but pulled out before the trip even started. The East Wing cited Covid-19-related issues for both of the cancellations.
During the last presidential campaign, opponents made a lot of noise about her and her brother and Biden admits she shied from the spotlight.
The president’s age, approval ratings and performance are being hammered regularly by critics, and with the elections less than a week away, it is not clear if she will seek the White House again.
“Dad is dedicated,” she said during her public radio interview from San Francisco. “We’re going to have some real issues if we don’t win the House and Senate. I mean, it’s over, right? It’s over in the sense of what’s to come. Our rights. Mental health care. All of it.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/03/politics/ashley-biden-white-house/index.html
The Role of Dominoes in the Investigation of Donald Trump’s Democratic Candidate Effort for a Presidential Campaign
On the dais last week in Washington, Biden answered a few questions, and then replied for several minutes.
I believe we can work together, but I think it is the way we go about it that makes the difference. She didn’t say not to scream from the mountaintops of injustice, but she said that if we really wanted, we need to work with the other side.
After voting concludes Tuesday, look for the dominoes to start falling on a scramble of investigations from the Department of Justice and Republicans in the House of Representatives.
If investigators at the Department of Justice want to indict Trump prior to he launches a presidential campaign, they will have to act fast. Sources told CNN that his candidacy could be announced a week after Election Day.
Trump wants to claim credit for GOP wins, assuming they occur on Election Day, and take control of the primary field before other Republicans like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can get there.
Hunter Biden: When the Senate isn’t going to shut down, but the House is going to lock down. The Inquisition about the Biden Administration
The president should have a version of that, even if it is counter to the instincts a loving parent could ever have. Joe Biden made it clear to the world that his love for his son was not dependent on his behavior. Now is the time to make it clear that his behavior does have consequences. Joe Biden should call for his son to get involved with the Justice Department instead of just getting involved with the Republicans. Hunter Biden could stand on his own and the administration could focus on issues that mattered most to the American people.
The House January 6 committee will be shut down, and the public inquisition Republicans have been pursuing for years against President Joe Biden’s son will go into public overdrive.
The January 6 committee was investigating Hunter Biden and trying to document the insurrection while the GOP was looking into his business activities.
Whatever House Republicans do will feel like a sideshow if the Department of Justice does take the unprecedented plunge of indicting Trump for either his involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 election or his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Anticipating they’ll win a majority in Tuesday’s election, Republicans on Capitol Hill won’t wait to take control in the House in January. The new chair of the House Oversight Committee told CNN that he would issue subpoenas for suspicious bank activity reports if he was given the power.
That’s the nugget at the top of a dizzying report by CNN’s Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju and Annie Grayer that ticks off all the things Republicans have promised or teased they will investigate about the Biden administration.
Hunter Biden is the tip of the iceberg in a planned barrage of investigations. Republicans call for the secretary of Homeland Security to be impeached if the president’s immigration policy is not changed.
Experts say even the most basic acts of governing — such as passing a budget or raising the debt ceiling to prevent the U.S. from default — could become a legislative grind in the new Congress. If the Senate is taken over by the GOP, judicial confirmations could be put on hold.
Results are not settled, particularly for the Senate. But Republicans appear likely to control the House of Representatives. Biden’s legislative agenda will come to a halt because of that.
“I’m prepared to work with my Republican colleagues,” he told reporters the day after the election. The people of the United States expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well.
“There’s always enough people on the other team — whether it’s Democrat or Republican — that the opposite party can make an appeal to and maybe pick them off to get the help,” he said.
Mari Urbina, managing director of Indivisible said that it’s hard to see where the idea of things that improve people’s lives and secure their rights comes from.
He didn’t say what those areas of consensus could be. The president has talked about veterans’ issues as part of a unity agenda where Republicans and Democrats might be able to find common ground.
Biden also recently expressed hopes for a continued bipartisan approach to Russia’s war in Ukraine, though in recent months, some Republicans have begun voicing concerns over the large sums of money being given to the Ukrainian government.
Biden was more explicit about areas where he will not compromise. He will not allow the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, or any attempts to create a federal abortion ban. He says he won’t accept any big cuts to Social Security or Medicare, a proposal that was put forth by Rick Scott.
With a divided government, it’s easier for him to have a conversation with the American public, said one of his advisers. You have a right to say, ‘This is what I want to do.’ This is the agenda I want to pass. The Republicans in the House are standing in my way.
The last two years when Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, but fought about policy with each other, have been easier to contrast.
With legislation stalled, the president is more likely to try to advance his domestic policy using executive actions, much like his predecessors who have dealt with split government.
Late Thursday, Biden left for a series of summits overseas, featuring a face-to-face meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 in Bali. The war in Ukraine and competition with China are two key diplomatic priorities for the White House, which will need to address those issues after the elections.
The repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act is symbolic because of the veto power of Biden. But they could try to squeeze the president on their priorities by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless he agrees to some of their initiatives.
When a congress gets kicked out, it’s usually because people don’t like what they’re doing, and it’s easy to think the election was about them. It’s not necessarily a validation of the new party,” Buck said.
In the next general election, going too far could result in backlash. “That’s what we saw in 2010 into 2012,” Buck explained. In the 2010 midterms, Republicans gained a whopping 63 seats in the House, only to see then-President Barack Obama win reelection two years later.
The Comedy of the State: Joe Biden and the Investigations he’s Had to Watch over in the Senate and House of Representatives
Bill Galston, who was an adviser to the Clinton White House on domestic policy, said that it was payback. “They are very angry about the investigations to which they believe they’ve been subjected.”
There were threats of impeachment but Biden brushed them off. “I think the American people will look at all of that for what it is. It’s just almost comedy,” he said this week.
Biden faces questions about whether to run for a second term due to his age and low approval ratings. Polls show many Democrats are half-hearted about a Biden reelection bid.
“This is going to decrease the pressure on President Biden to step down in favor of a fresh face, since there might be some pressure left from within the Democratic party,” said Galston.
I believe there would be a lot of behind thescenes pressure that could have come out earlier than later if there had been a resounding victory. I don’t think that’s going to happen now,” he said.
But after a wild week in Washington, it’s fair to ask who is on each side of the line the Arkansas governor drew in her Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
The unspoken purpose of Biden’s theatrical delivery on Tuesday night, and much of his presidency, is to ask Americans who the real extremists are. Republicans have behaved in a manner that gives an emphatic answer to moderate voters, as they tolerate election deniers, and use their investigatory power on topics that aren’t top of mind for most Americans.
The House chamber sounded more like a heckler filled comedy club than a solemn state occasion as Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor had been on her feet yelling “liar” at Biden. New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was seen trying to shush his ruder lawmakers, but he was among those Republicans who voted not to certify Biden’s 2020 election victory over false claims of fraud. And it was McCarthy who embraced ex-President Donald Trump after his baseless claims of a stolen election incited an unprecedented insurrection at the US Capitol. Last month, he was able to get into power by appeaseing untamed elements of his party.
The new House majority is also dealing with the distraction of GeorgeSantos, the New York congressman who has lied about his education, job and family background. His fellow New York Republican, freshman Rep. Nick LaLota, told CNN on Wednesday, “Every time I have to come to something like this and talk about George Santos, I can’t talk about what Republicans ought to be doing instead.”
Some Republicans tried to make the hearing into a scandal by virtue of the lack of a smoking gun. Some members said that some executives disliked Trump even if they did not suppress the story for political reasons. And for members like Greene and Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, berating supposed deep-state witnesses keeps the clicks coming on conservative media and the fundraising machine turning.
Party leaders risk alienating moderate voters if they allow such showdowns to occur, so that they can use them to encourage base voters and cook up a scandal that could hurt the Biden administration.
Political normality is something that is in the eye of the beholder. The country is in the grip of left-wing culture and Biden surrendered to a “woke mob” that cannot tell you what a woman is, argued the senator.
The lesson of the November elections is that when voters reject right-wing extremism, it isn’t a good sign for a rising star in the party.
Since McCarthy has said that Social Security and Medicare are not on the table for debt ceiling talks, some Republicans may be annoyed that Biden claims they want to sunset Social Security and Medicare. And McCarthy’s comment on Fox that it was one of the most partisan State of the Union addresses he’d ever heard was not totally wide of the mark.
But the president again positioned himself as the bulwark between more moderate Americans and the excess of what he has called “ultra MAGA” Republicans – a tactic he used especially successfully in the midterms.
This is why Biden’s strategy goaded McCarthy’s most radical followers into acting out on Tuesday night after saying Americans didn’t want to see fighting in Congress.
McCarthy, meanwhile, dodged efforts from reporters to get him to comment on the performance of Greene, with whom he has developed a strong political relationship. He wanted to avoid a public spectacle of extremism with millions watching on TV, but his hopes of keeping his job are dependent on her and her colleagues. One reason why McCarthy did not repudiate Santos is that he has a small majority.
Greene told CNN’s Manu Raju on Wednesday that she wasn’t sorry for her poor manners during Biden’s speech, even though she provided Democrats with the exact image they most want to highlight. She said she was “pissed off” and “I don’t clap for liars.” Pelosi told CNN Tuesday night that the choice for Americans was between chaos and stability.
Not every Republican is happy with the party. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney went where McCarthy has failed to go, telling Santos he had no place in the House. LaLota, meanwhile, in his interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, stressed how the New York Republican had become a distraction from the party’s priorities.
“We want to talk about putting our economy back on the right track, securing our border, hold the administration accountable – these are the things that Republicans campaigned on, these are the things that Republicans want to govern on,” LaLota said.
What the Bounds on Hunter Biden’s Obsessed Oscillations are Against the Swamp and the Mainstream News
House Oversight Chair James Comer warned of a “coordinated cover-up by Big Tech, the Swamp, and mainstream news” to suppress a story that could hurt Biden.
The hearing appeared to be a result of a misperception that a private company could be breaking the free speech provisions of the First Amendment if it does not carry certain material on its platform. There were documents from the new owner ofTwitter that Republicans claim prove there was a connection between the company and the FBI. The material doesn’t seem to prove the contention. Several tech executives and staff along with several federal officials denied any such directives was given, according to CNN.
Nothing feeds the perpetual outrage machine like a sprawling investigation into a vague but titillating scandal. The obsessive obsession with Hunter Biden is more vague and flirtatious than any other pursuit.
