(EAGLE PASS, Texas) — Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday that he would seek to eliminate the constitutional guarantee of citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants born in the United States.
So-called “birthright citizenship” has long been considered protected under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to all individuals “born or naturalized in the United States.”
That language has largely kept conservatives who oppose it from challenging it in court, though former President Donald Trump in 2018 promised an executive order to eliminate it, a threat on which he never followed through.
Trump, the current frontrunner in the Republican primary, has again promised to strike the protection if elected.
In a detailed list of immigration objectives he released on Monday, DeSantis, who also spoke to supporters and reporters in the Texas border town of Eagle Pass, pledged to “take action to end the idea that the children of illegal aliens are entitled to birthright citizenship if they are born in the United States.”
“Dangling the prize of citizenship to the future offspring of illegal immigrants is a major driver of illegal migration. It is also inconsistent with the original understanding of 14th Amendment, and we will force the courts and Congress to finally address this failed policy,” he added.
“This idea that you can come across the border, two days later have a child, and somehow that’s an American citizen — that was not the original understanding of the 14th Amendment and so we’ll take action to force a clarification of that,” he told reporters at a news conference.
DeSantis has expressed opposition to birthright citizenship before, saying in a Fox News interview during his 2018 run for Florida governor, “I don’t think that that’s a good policy.”
However, DeSantis seemed skeptical that courts would uphold an executive order banning the policy.
“The way the courts have ruled on it, I think there’s a question about, can you do an executive order? Can you do legislation? Do you need an amendment?” he said on Fox.
In a different interview in 2018, he told a Florida CBS station, “I think it would be good to have the courts finally resolve it.”
“It has never been finally determined whether someone who is transiently in the country – whether as a tourist or here illegally – whether that 14th Amendment would apply to that,” he said then. “I tend to think the original interpretation of that would not apply, but I think most of the court decisions lean toward, if you’re born here, you do it.”
The language in DeSantis’ immigration policy rollout seemed delicately framed to leave open how he would attempt to challenge the policy.
A spokesman for his campaign did not respond to a question about whether the governor would seek an executive order.
DeSantis introduced more than 30 other policy proposals on Monday, including several geared toward building a wall along the southern border and others aimed at holding drug cartels accountable.
DeSantis pledged to deport people who overstay their visas, tax remittances from undocumented immigrants, and end the policy of catch-and-release.
He also vowed to increase the salaries of Border Patrol agents and strengthen the penalties for people who traffic fentanyl into the United States.
DeSantis has involved himself in border issues as Florida governor, drawing scrutiny from Democrats last year for organizing flights to Martha’s Vineyard for migrants who critics allege were lured under false pretenses.His office organized similar flights this month to Sacramento.
“No more excuses, right? I think that’s what you’re going to hear from Governor DeSantis,” Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican representing a San Antonio-area district, told reporters before DeSantis spoke in Eagle Pass.
“No excuses, enforce the law. No excuses, knock the knees out from under cartels who are targeting Americans, endangering us with fentanyl, empowering China. He’s a no-nonsense guy and America needs a no-nonsense president who can restore this country to sanity,” Roy added.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden Monday announced how $42.5 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law he championed will be distributed to expand high-speed internet access across the country.
The funding will go to all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, and is aimed at bolstering internet access particularly for the 7% of people who live in underserved areas, according to the White House.
Biden called it an “equally historic investment” as the effort under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to bring electricity to rural America.
“For today’s economy to work for everyone, internet access is just as important as electricity or water or other basic services,” he said.
With White House remarks announcing the funding, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris plan to kick off a three-week pitch aimed at touting their administration’s investments across the country — from the 2021 infrastructure law and a host of other legislation they argue is starting to make concrete improvements in Americans’ lives.
It comes as Biden faces political headwinds on his handling of the economy, which consistently is a top issue for voters heading into the 2024 elections.
On Wednesday, he is scheduled to deliver what the White House is billing as a major speech on “Bidenomics” – what his advisers have labeled his economic philosophy of investing in the middle class.
It’s an attempt to rebrand a message Biden has repeated time and time again on the 2020 campaign trail and as president.
Over the next three weeks, top administration officials plan to fan out across America to show how legislation he has championed – his infrastructure law to the CHIPS and Science Act, a coronavirus relief package and more – is beginning to result in tangible benefits for people, like new jobs, new bridges and now, new internet access.
Harris has already traveled the country promoting high-speed internet access, and the president often asks audiences to imagine if they had to drive to a McDonald’s parking lot for their child to use the eatery’s internet to do their homework.
Biden’s chief of staff likened the push to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Act, which delivered electricity to farming families across the country, saying that decision “helped transform rural America.”
“For millions of Americans in rural communities in particular, the internet is down a lot,” White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zeints told reporters Sunday. “Sometimes there’s not even any access, and we all know from our day-to-day lives how internet access is not a ‘nice to have’ at this point – but it’s a ‘need to have’–a ‘must have.'”
A senior Biden administration official told reporters the investments would create “over 150,000 construction-type jobs. from laborers to electricians to communications workers.”
High-speed internet service is unavailable in about 8.5 million locations in the United States, or about 7% of the country, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
States will learn Monday how allocations will work, with every state, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico receiving at least $100 million, according to the Biden administration.
The president will take his economic message on the road Wednesday, when he travels to Chicago to talk more broadly about how the economy under his watch by many metrics, particularly job growth and low unemployment rates.
“Bidenomics is rooted in the simple idea that we need to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up—not the top down,” two of his senior advisers, Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon, wrote in a memorandum released Monday.
As an incumbent, Biden has the advantage of using his office to travel the country and talk about the actual, concrete impacts his policies have had on Americans’ economic well-being.
But he has a long hill to climb.
With stubborn inflation, it remains to be seen whether Biden can convince folks that they’re better off now – or will be better off with him in the presidency for four more years, instead of a Republican.
Last month, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that Americans by 54-36% said former President Donald Trump, who is running for president again, did a better job handling the economy when he was in office than Biden has done in his term so far.
His advisers argue he has a lot to talk about: a transformative infrastructure law; the CHIPS and Science Act, which they say will jumpstart domestic manufacturing; and various other investments through the coronavirus relief package.
“If ‘Reaganomics’ was based on the idea that if you cut taxes for the wealthiest corporations, the wealthiest people in the society, and then at some point the remnants of those will trickle down to the middle class and the working class, Bidenomics is the exact opposite,” Dunn said during a Monday interview with MSNBC. “Bidenomics says that the way you grow the economy in this economy is you grow the middle class.”
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris assailed a spate of laws restricting abortion in states across the country one year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, as her predecessor openly embraces a federal ban.
“Over the past 365 days, the women of our nation have suffered under the consequences of these laws,” Harris said, addressing a crowd in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday. “Laws that in design and effect have created chaos, confusion, and fear. Laws that have denied women of our country care even when their life and health were at risk.”
One of those laws is set to take effect in the state on July 1 and will ban most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The law passed last month after the legislature overrode the Democratic governor’s veto after state Rep. Tricia Cotham switched her party affiliation and gave Republicans a supermajority. Cotham was referenced by two speakers before Harris took the stage, eliciting boos from the crowd each time.
“I feel like the 12-week ban is very unfortunate,” Katie Moydell, a South Carolina resident and manager of an insurance company, told ABC News. “There are many situations when women have either found out recently that they were pregnant or even that there are anomalies with the pregnancy, and I feel like we as women have the rights and the brains to make decisions for our bodies. We should be trusted to make those decisions with our health care providers.”
Kelle Pressley, a doula from Charlotte and a mother of nine, panned the 12-week ban as “ridiculous.”
“Not giving them control of their bodies is taking away their rights to be a human, their right to be an American, the right to be a mother or chose not to be a mother,” Pressley said.
Harris’ speech serves as a bookend to the Biden campaign’s week-long push to center abortion in the election. On Friday, President Joe Biden and Harris, along with the first lady and the second gentleman, attended a rally in Washington, D.C., where they accepted endorsements from pro-abortion groups EMILYs List, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Biden also signed a largely symbolic executive order aiming to promote access to contraception. First lady Jill Biden also held a roundtable on abortion at the White House on Tuesday.
“Reproductive freedom is an issue for all of us. Men, women, everyone. Women cannot be less-than,” second gentleman Doug Emhoff said.
The campaign sees abortion as a winning issue for the ticket.
“Women put Joe and Kamala in the White House,” Jill Biden said Friday. “And we will do it again.”
It’s a rallying cry Harris reiterated Saturday.
“When we fight, we win,” Harris said.
But many of the Republicans competing to take on Biden are leaning into their stances on abortion, with Harris’ predecessor advocating for nationwide restrictions.
“I want to say from my heart, every Republican candidate for president should support a ban on abortion before 15 weeks as a minimum nationwide standard,” former Vice President Mike Pence told an audience at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s conference Friday in the nation’s capital.
Pence has suggested he’s willing to go further, previously saying he’d support banning abortion nationally after just six weeks of pregnancy — a window that would be among the most restrictive proposed by any candidate.
“Extremist Republicans in Congress have proposed to ban abortion nationwide. Nationwide,” Harris said. “But, I have news for them: We’re not having that. We’re not having that.”
Support for abortion being legal has increased since last year, according to recent polling.
(WASHINGTON) — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, arguably the 2024 Republican presidential candidate most willing to attack Donald Trump, lambasted the former president over his conduct, drawing cheers and jeers from the crowd.
“He’s unwilling to take responsibility for any of the mistakes that were made. Any of the faults that he has. And any of the things that he’s done. And that is not leadership everybody that is a failure of leadership,” Christie said to boos from attendees at the Faith & Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington, D.C., on Friday.
“You can boo all you want,” Christie shot back. “But here’s the thing: Our faith teaches us that people have to take responsibility for what they do. People have to stand up and take accountability for what they do,” he said, garnering cheers from others in the audience.
The former two-term governor of New Jersey mentioned Trump by name only once in his nearly 30-minute-long remarks, but he focused heavily on faith and character as essential qualities of a successful leader.
“My Catholic faith teaches us that character doesn’t mean you’re perfect. It doesn’t mean that you’re free of sin or faults,” Christie said. “But what I believe my faith requires of me is when I do sin, when I do make mistakes, when people who work for me do the same, that I must admit it, that I must take responsibility.”
He continued: “Beware, everybody, of a leader who never makes mistakes. Beware of a leader who has no faults. Beware of a leader who says that when something goes wrong, it’s everybody else’s fault.”
Gaggling with the press afterward, Christie said that he believed that “a lot of people of faith in that room” wanted to hear the truth from him.
“Look, guys, we can’t pretend that Donald Trump is a man of character,” he said. “This is a guy who paid off a porn star. This is a guy who has regularly lied. This is a guy who has abused people who’ve worked for him.”
Christie, a former Trump ally, has hinged his campaign on going toe-to-toe with Trump, telling ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos after announcing his candidacy that the only path he sees to the nomination is through the former president.
“There’s only one lane to the Republican nomination for president, and Donald Trump is at the head of it, and you have to go right through him and make the case against him,” Christie said.
Following his speech on Friday, Christie brushed off being booed during an interview on CNN.
“I’m not going to change my message depending on who I go in front of. That would be a lack of integrity, and I won’t do that,” Christie said.
“You know, the fact is that there are a lot of people in that audience who were standing and cheering when I left, and there were some that were booing,” he said. “But no one left wondering what I think.”
Trump was hit with a sweeping 37-count indictment from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office earlier this month, alleging that he willfully retained documents containing the nation’s most sensitive secrets. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and criticized the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney general’s office of conducting a political “witch hunt.”
The former president was previously indicted by a Manhattan grand jury and charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to one of those 2016 hush money payments. Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, entered a plea of not guilty to all 34 counts.
Trump holds a healthy lead over all rivals, including Christie, in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department’s five-year probe into Hunter Biden lurched toward a conclusion this week with the announcement of a plea deal that will likely allow President Joe Biden’s 53-year-old son to avoid prison. But that hasn’t stopped congressional Republicans from levelling fresh accusations of corruption against the president and his family.
GOP lawmakers on Thursday released transcripts from two IRS whistleblowers who together complained in April that the Justice Department sabotaged investigators’ efforts to level harsher penalties against the younger Biden — an accusation at odds with statements made by the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case.
The latest whistleblower allegations follow a string of investigative efforts by the GOP-led House Oversight Committee and its chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., that have thus far yielded few meaningful results.
The White House has repeatedly downplayed Republican accusations as unfounded innuendo intended to harm President Biden’s political standing. And the Justice Department on Thursday dismissed the claims by the IRS whistleblowers.
Rather than assuaging Republicans’ longstanding focus on Hunter Biden, the plea deal his lawyers brokered with federal prosecutors this week appears to have only further animated lawmakers’ efforts to target the Biden family. Republican leaders called the agreement, which still requires approval from a federal judge, a “sweetheart” deal that would undermine faith in the criminal justice system.
Here are some of the most recent Republican claims, what’s known about them, and what’s not.
‘Sitting here with my father’
As part of their rollout on Thursday of allegations that senior Justice Department officials stymied the probe into Hunter Biden’s taxes, congressional Republicans have seized on a July 2017 WhatsApp message in which the younger Biden purportedly threatened a Chinese business associate by invoking his father’s political connections.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden allegedly wrote. “Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight.”
“And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction,” the message continued. “I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
ABC News could not immediately verify the WhatsApp message. But Republicans say it undercuts President Biden’s claim that he never discussed overseas business endeavors with his son. Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, reiterated Friday that “the president was not in business with his son.”
In July 2017, Joe Biden’s term as vice president had already ended and he held no political office, despite what some Republicans incorrectly suggested on Thursday. At the time, Hunter Biden, by his own admission, was in the throes of his crack addiction.
Chris Clark, the lead attorney for Hunter Biden, condemned the GOP’s “biased and politically-motivated leaks” in a statement on Friday afternoon, and sought to distance Hunter Biden’s alleged words from President Biden.
“Any verifiable words or actions of my client, in the midst of a horrible addiction, are solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family,” Clark said.
Clark also cast doubt on the authenticity of the message: “A close examination of the document released publicly yesterday by a very biased individual raises serious questions over whether it is what he claims it to be.”
If the message is in fact real and its contents taken at face value, it would certainly raise political and ethical questions for the White House. Hunter Biden and his uncles, James and Frank, have a lengthy record of invoking the family name to secure business deals without Joe Biden’s knowledge, which could have been the case in this circumstance. But if Joe Biden wasn’t in office at the time, it would not necessarily amount to evidence of a crime.
Other records released Thursday by the committee appear to conflict with their broader claim that President Biden was an active participant in Hunter Biden’s business endeavors.
In his interview with the committee, for example, one of the IRS whistleblowers recounted an interview with one of Hunter Biden’s business associates, Rob Walker, during which Walker said: “I certainly never was thinking at any time the VP was a part of anything we were doing.”
The unproven Biden bribery claim
After months of hearings, Republicans in the House and Senate more recently turned their focus on an alleged “criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions,” as a May 3 press release from Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley framed it.
The FBI received the tip in June 2020, the lawmakers said, during former President Donald Trump’s tenure. According to Republicans who reviewed the FBI document in question, known as an FD-1023, a foreign national who brokered the alleged $10 million bribe had made 17 audio recordings of his discussions with the Bidens.
On Tuesday, after weeks of contentious negotiations that culminated in the committee’s threat to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress, Comer was given access the redacted FD-1023. He told reporters afterward that the exercise was “a total waste of my time,” as more than half of the document, he said, was redacted.
“All I know is it mentioned Hunter Biden, Burisma, and there was some type of investigation with respect to fraud taking place,” Comer told reporters, referring to the Ukrainian oil firm on whose board Hunter Biden once served. “But there was so much redacted that you couldn’t really tell anything.”
As a presidential candidate in September 2019, the elder Biden told reporters, “I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” The White House has since reaffirmed that statement.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight panel, also had an opportunity to review the FD-1023 earlier this month and accused Comer of “recycling stale and debunked Burisma conspiracy theories.” Raskin said the Trump-era Justice Department investigated the claims and, “in August 2020, Attorney General [William] Barr and his hand-picked U.S. Attorney signed off on closing the assessment.”
Sams, the Biden White House spokesperson, called Republicans’ bribery claims “yet another fact-free stunt staged by Chairman Comer not to conduct legitimate oversight, but to spread thin innuendo to try to damage the President politically and get himself media attention.”
Investigating the investigators
Several high-ranking Republicans responded angrily this week when details of Hunter Biden’s plea deal became public, directing their ire toward an unexpected target: the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who brokered the deal, David Weiss. Under the plea agreement, which still requires a federal judge’s approval, Hunter Biden will plead guilty to a pair of tax-related misdemeanors and avoid prosecution on a felony gun charge so long as he adheres to the terms of a pretrial diversion program.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called the agreement a “sweetheart deal.” Former President Trump called it a “mere traffic ticket.” Several Republicans said it demonstrated a two-tiered criminal justice system that favors Democrats.
In response to the plea deal, Comer and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, signaled their interest in calling Weiss to testify before Congress.
Weiss had previously rebuffed Republicans’ efforts to learn more about his investigation. In a June 7 letter to Jordan, Weiss said that he “must respectfully decline the Committee’s request for documents and information at this time to protect confidential law enforcement information from disclosure,” citing the fact that his investigative work was “ongoing.”
Weiss also stated unequivocally in the letter that he had been “granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges.”
Republicans have since seized on Weiss’ statement — made in his announcement of the plea deal — that his “investigation is ongoing,” which seems to contradict a statement from Hunter Biden’s attorney, who said Tuesday, “It is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved.”
Comer told Axios he will request clarity from Weiss about “what he means when he says this is an ongoing investigation,” as the ongoing nature of the probe could complicate lawmakers’ efforts to learn more about the investigative underpinnings of the plea deal.
On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland told ABC News that he “would support Mr. Weiss explaining or testifying on these matters when he deems it appropriate.”
“I certainly understand that some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department and its components and its employees by claiming that we do not treat like cases alike,” Garland said. “This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy, and essential to the safety of the American people. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a state-led challenge to the Biden administration’s deportation policy.
The court ruled 8-1 that Texas and Louisiana lacked standing to bring the case. The lone dissent came from Justice Samuel Alito.
In his 14-page opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the two Republican-controlled states “brought an extraordinarily unusual lawsuit.”
“They want a federal court to order the Executive Branch to alter its arrest policies so as to make more arrests,” he wrote. “Federal courts have not traditionally entertained that kind of lawsuit; indeed, the States cite no precedent for a lawsuit like this.”
Kavanaugh said while the court held the states lacked standing, “we do not suggest that federal courts may never entertain cases involving the Executive Branch’s alleged failure to make more arrests or bring more prosecutions.”
(WASHINGTON) — A robust field of 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls descend upon Washington on Friday and Saturday for one of the first multi-candidate cattle calls of the primary cycle, with their positions on abortion expected to be a prime focus.
The gathering — billed as one of the largest forums for conservative and Christian activists, will coincide with the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court stripping away the constitutional right to abortion in the landmark case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The Road to Majority Conference, the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s annual gathering of conservatives, will feature former President Donald Trump, along with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, talk show host Larry Elder, and other Republican notables.
On Friday and Saturday, the slate of candidates will likely address abortion in the context of the Dobbs anniversary. The remarks may differ, however, reflective of the various positions the group has taken around the issue.
Abortion, which won big on many ballot measures during the 2022 midterms, is often cited as the reason for so many Republican windfalls last November. The GOP took a decisive stance against the practice ahead of the elections and have eased significantly around the topic ahead of the 2024 race.
The former president has taken credit for nominating Supreme Court justices who delivered the Dobbs decision but also says “It was the ‘abortion issue'” that lost large numbers of voters during the midterms. In May during a CNN Town Hall, Trump said he was able to pull off what other Republican presidents couldn’t but again wavered around the issue.
“Deals are being made. Deals are going to be made,” Trump told a voter.
On whether he would sign legislation imposing a 15-week federal ban on abortion, Trump repeatedly wouldn’t answer.
“What I’ll do is negotiate so that people are happy,” he said.
At “the nation’s premier pro-faith, pro-family event,” Trump is expected to be the keynote speaker at the “Patriot Gala” on Saturday.
Other contenders, including DeSantis, Scott and Haley, have been vague about how they’d address the issue as president.
Pence — most audacious in his support of abortion among the 2024 field — is expected to be vocal in his remarks over his support for the issue. He’ll also be a speaker at the National Celebrate Life Day Rally, co-hosted by 40 Days for Life, Live Action, and the Pro-Life Partners Foundation, on Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial.
Faith & Freedom’s Iowa Coalition held its first gathering of candidates and potential hopefuls back in April, when most of the current field had not been announced yet. At the time, announced presidential candidates included Hutchinson, Ramaswamy and Johnson, who addressed the Clive, Iowa crowd. Trump addressed the crowd virtually.
Pence and Scott spoke, also — both were at that point expected to announce 2024 runs.
Then, topics spanned from preserving religious liberty to banning abortion in the country. They also spoke out against radical gender ideology.
At the time, Trump did not address his March indictment, but said he was the “most pro-life president” in American history for appointing the U.S. Supreme Court justices that he said led to the Dobbs decision.
“Those justices delivered a landmark victory for protecting innocent life,” Trump said. “Nobody thought it was going to happen, they thought it was going to be another 50 years because Republicans had been trying to do it for exactly, at that period of time, 50 years.”
(WASHINGTON) — Just days after agreeing to plead guilty to tax-related misdemeanors, Hunter Biden on Thursday night attended a White House state dinner with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The president’s son was among hundreds of high-profile guests who gathered to toast the foreign dignitary, marking his first official event since news broke Tuesday of his agreement with prosecutors.
Hunter Biden was seen shaking hands and smiling as he made his way around the room.
As he arrived at the White House event in a trolley accompanied by his wife Melissa Cohen, he declined to answer a question from ABC News about how he felt after taking the plea deal.
Also in attendance for Thursday’s festivities were Attorney General Merrick Garland, as well as Hunter’s daughter Naomi Biden Neal and her husband Peter Neal, Ashley Biden, the president’s brother James and his wife Sara.
There were also several prominent Republicans leaders who’ve vowed to continue their efforts to investigate Hunter Biden and the Biden family.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who slammed the plea agreement as a “sweetheart deal,” ignored a question about how he felt about dining with Hunter Biden and the attorney general. The speaker only said he looked forward to bringing his daughter-in-law to the White House for the first time.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, when asked the same question, paused and smiled before telling reporters: “It should be an interesting dinner.”
After being the target of a yearslong probe by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, Hunter Biden acknowledged his failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2017 and 2018. He will also enter into a pretrial diversion program that will enable him to avoid prosecution on one felony gun charge.
“I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life,” his lawyer Chris Clark said in a statement on Tuesday. “He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”
The White House, after the plea deal was announced, released a brief statement that President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden “love and support” their son and wouldn’t be commenting further.
President Joe Biden, when asked about the charges, told reporters, “I’m very proud of my son.”
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
(AUSTIN, Texas) — When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton goes on trial later this year in the state Senate after being impeached, one lawmaker in the chamber will be barred from casting a vote: his wife.
Angela Paxton, who represents state Senate District 8, will not be able to take part in closed sessions or vote on “any matter, motion, or question” during the trial, according to rules for the trial that were adopted late Wednesday night.
The 31 rules were produced after two days of closed session and passed 25-3. Angela Paxton voted nay.
Her presence at the trial is still required and, even as a non-voter, her seat will contribute to the overall calculation for the vote: With 31 senators seated, 21 votes are required to permanently remove the attorney general from office.
Days before the adoption of the rules, Angela Paxton issued a statement via Twitter saying she would “carry out [her] duties” but did not specify whether she would vote — now no longer an option for her.
In a statement on Thursday afternoon, she said that the rules of the trial didn’t allow her to comment beyond the vote she cast. “I hold my constitutional obligations sacred, and my understanding of those obligations has not changed. I will continue to do everything in my power to be a voice for the people of [my district],” she said.
Another rule specifies that the body will notify the attorney general of a new trial start time of Sept. 5. Originally, the state House called for the proceedings to begin no later than Aug. 28.
The rules also allow Ken Paxton’s defense to be heard and have “access to the floor of the Senate at all times” and “be provided seats on the floor of the Senate, except when the court of impeachment is in closed session.”
Each side will be given 24 total hours for evidence presentation.
“After 2 days of thoughtful deliberation, the Texas Senate has adopted rules for the impeachment trial of Attorney General Paxton. The Senate will perform its duty per the Texas Constitution,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the chamber, said in a statement.
Last month, an investigative committee in the state House brought 20 articles of impeachment against Ken Paxton, now in his third term as attorney general.
He was accused of multiple forms of misconduct, including bribery, obstruction of justice and misappropriation of public resources. He was subsequently impeached in a 121-23 vote, with many Republicans — who control the state Legislature — voting against him.
The case for Paxton’s impeachment traces back to 2020, when top aides accused him of abuse of office to benefit a donor, himself and his alleged mistress.
In a defiant statement last month, Paxton called the proceedings “unjust” and a partisan “sham,” and dismissed the case against him as “false statements and outright lies.”
Members of the state Senate committee that recommended the rules for his trial, including five Republicans and two Democrats appointed by Patrick, have not spoken publicly about the details of their work.
A gag order has also been issued, so Senate members are not permitted to publicly discuss the case.
Paxton’s legal defense had urged the committee to submit rules that would allow for the tossing out of the House impeachment articles. In a news conference, Tony Buzbee, a lead defense lawyer known well by many Texans, labeled the articles “bologna,” criticizing the House for not allowing the attorney general to defend himself and for, in his words, rushing the impeachment proceedings, which he called a “hurried, kangaroo court.”
Rusty Hardin and Dick DeGuerin, the prosecutors hired by the House impeachment managers and who are also household names in Texas, have defended the proceedings.
In a statement, Hardin wrote, “The House impeachment proceedings were analogous to a grand jury proceeding. They were designed simply to decide whether these serious allegations merited being presented to the Senate in a full-blown trial. That is all the House has decided so far. All of the due process, transparency, and presentation of evidence that his lawyers are concerned about will be observed in a trial before the Senate.”
Under state law, Ken Paxton has been suspended since being impeached, with an interim attorney general named by Gov. Greg Abbott.
If he is removed from office, he will be barred from holding future elected office in Texas.
(NEW YORK) — A progressive group plans to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into an effort to elect hundreds of left-leaning school board members across the country — underscoring how those local races are increasingly drawing the attention of noted advocacy groups and politicians.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) on Friday launched the “Save Our School Boards” campaign to boost more than 200 aligned school board candidates in the upcoming cycle. The group hopes to raise $450,000 to assist with collecting signatures to get on ballots, budgeting, sustaining grassroots support and so on.
Missy Zombor, a PCCC-endorsed and recently elected school board member in Milwaukee, said the support of the organization can be make-or-break for many would-be members, in part because of the scrutiny and competition the races are currently attracting.
“School Board campaigns are some of the most polarizing and difficult political campaigns right now and they are often run by brand-new candidates with little to no campaigning experience. Learning how to build a budget, obtain your voter file, communicate with the media, and prepare for everything else along the way can be daunting,” Zombor said in a statement to ABC News.
Educational issues have become more central to political discourse on the national level, especially on the right, since COVID-19-era restrictions upended schooling after 2020. That includes conversations about what topics are appropriate for which grade levels — particularly lessons around race and LGBTQ issues — and the best balance between the government’s authority in schools versus parents’ ability to decide how their kids are taught.
Last year, for example, San Francisco voters ejected three members of the city school board regarding COVID-19 and virtual learning protocols, marking the first time in the city’s history that members of the board had been recalled.
Focusing on these issues was seen by experts as contributing to the victory of conservatives like Virginia Gov. Glen Youngkin, elected in 2021.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for president next year, celebrated his own successful endorsements for a slew of school board candidates in his state in 2022.
“We were able to take school boards that had leftist majorities …. We were able to replace them all across the state,” he said then.
DeSantis championed “parents’ rights” through his Legislature, backing a sweeping and controversial ban on classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for most K-12 students.
Some high-profile Democrats are mounting their own campaign from the other side of the spectrum, as seen with Illinois’ Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s recent outlaw of book bans.
PCCC’s fundraising launch on Friday comes just a week before conservative nonprofit group Moms for Liberty holds its annual meeting in Philadelphia, where several Republican 2024 hopefuls, and Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are slated to speak.
Hannah Riddle, director of PCCC’s candidate services, told ABC News that she sees efforts from the right as “really serious and not theoretical threats.”
PCCC will be focusing its efforts in battlegrounds like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, as well as Illinois and Virginia, where several school boards seats will see vacancies, Riddle said.
Riddle said that pushing local races can have an impact on broader voter interest and turnout.
“It’s not only training candidates to run for office this year. But it’s also creating infrastructure that exists locally and allows us to build vertically,” she said. “Local races are going to drag a lot of people out to vote next year.”
“A lot of folks are feeling disillusioned by the inflammatory federal messaging that we’re seeing every day in the media,” she argued.
