HUNTER TO TESTIFY, BUT WHEN?
Americans will finally have their chance to hear Republicans question Hunter Biden before the world—eventually, someday soon, they promise.
A lawyer for the younger Biden has said he wants to testify in an open Congressional hearing in just over two weeks, on Dec. 13, the date House Republicans requested a deposition. House Republican leaders have said they’re up for it, but not on that date.
“Our client will get right to it by agreeing to answer any pertinent and relevant question you or your colleagues might have, but—rather than subscribing to your cloaked, one-sided process—he will appear at a public Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing,” Abbe David Lowell wrote in a Nov. 28 letter to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs that committee.
“A public proceeding would prevent selective leaks, manipulated transcripts, doctored exhibits, or one-sided press statements,” Lowell added.
House Republicans have been probing the connections between President Joe Biden’s son and the president’s own finances.
The attorney’s letter comes after Comer issued subpoenas to the younger Biden and others. The subpoena for the president’s son demanded he appear in Washington on Dec. 13 to testify before the committee, apparently behind closed doors.
Lowell’s letter offered to have his client testify in public on that date “or any date in December that we can arrange.”
In comments to The Epoch Times on Nov. 28, Comer said the Dec. 13 appearance would happen behind closed doors but consented to public testimony “at a future date.”
“Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else. That won’t stand with House Republicans,” Comer said.
“Our lawfully issued subpoena to Hunter Biden requires him to appear for a deposition on December 13. We expect full cooperation with our subpoena for a deposition,” he added.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who leads the House’s Judiciary Committee, reinforced that messaging on X.
“We are glad that Hunter Biden has decided to cooperate and we look forward to hearing from him in a deposition on December 13 and subsequently at a public hearing,” he wrote in a post.
While the House Republicans did not shoot down Lowell’s appeal for a public hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the minority leader on Comer’s committee, did not miss an opportunity to tear into his colleagues for rejecting the Dec. 13 date.
“Chairman Comer has now apparently decided to avoid all Committee hearings where the public can actually see for itself the logical, rhetorical and factual contortions they have tied themselves up in,” he said in a statement.
“What the Republicans fear most is sunlight and the truth,” Raskin added.
Conservative commentator Jack Posobiec had another perspective.
“Hunter Biden is willing to testify because no one is scared of the House GOP,” he wrote on X.
—Nathan Worcester
VOTE ON SANTOS EXPULSION WILL HAPPEN THIS WEEK
Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is being pushed toward the House door by Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.).
Garcia filed a privileged motion yesterday to force a vote on expelling the embattled New Yorker. That means there has to be a vote this week.
This is the third time representatives have tried to give Santos the boot. In May the House voted to refer a resolution to expel Santos to the House Ethics Committee. The referral was meaningless because the committee already had Santos under investigation.
So why do it? Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he didn’t want to preempt the committee’s work—and maybe he wasn’t ready to lose a Republican seat from his slender majority.
Earlier this month the House voted on a second resolution to expel Santos but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed. Some lawmakers said they didn’t want to take action without seeing the committee report, which came out a few days later.
This time the House can either table the privileged motion, refer it back to the committee, or vote on it. A vote seems likely since the move to expel has been gaining steam in the wake of the committee’s revelations.
The report found “substantial evidence of potential violations of federal criminal law.” The committee, chaired by Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), said Santos used campaign funds for trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas, Botox treatments, and purchases on an app known to feature adult content.
“He blatantly stole from his campaign,” investigators wrote adding that he had repeatedly “evaded” straightforward requests for information.
Santos has denied all that.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) spoke with Santos “at some length” over the weekend, talking through “his options.” Johnson told reporters in Sarasota, Florida, on Nov. 27 he wasn’t sure what the timing of a vote might be. Garcia’s motion will hurry it along.
Santos has said he won’t resign.
“I think [if] I resign, I admit everything that’s in that report,” he said in a livestream on X after the report became public. He added that he fully expects to be expelled.
Getting kicked out of Congress is the least of Santos’s problems. He’s facing 23 criminal counts, including wire fraud, making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), falsifying records to obstruct the FEC, aggravated identity theft, and access device fraud.
“Santos falsely inflated the campaign’s reported receipts with non-existent loans and contributions that were either fabricated or stolen,” Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
“This office will relentlessly pursue criminal charges against anyone who uses the electoral process as an opportunity to defraud the public and our government institutions,” Peace added.
Santos’s former campaign finance chief has also been indicted.
The congressman pleaded not guilty to all charges.
—Lawrence Wilson
GOP’s FEDERAL FUNDING FALTERS
The Democratic Party’s main fundraising apparatuses are taking the lead from the Republican Party.
According to the latest Federal Election Commission filings for the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee, the DNC collected about $18.9 million more in total receipts than the DNC through October. That’s the first time the DNC out-raised the RNC during the first 10 months of the year since 2013.
The RNC, in a statement provided to The Epoch Times, said it is spending its money on beating President Joe Biden next fall. It pointed to investments in new initiatives aimed at growing the GOP’s mail-in ballot total and new staff and offices in critical states.
Beyond the RNC, the Democrats are in a better position from a fundraising standpoint than they were at this point in the 2020 and 2022 races.
The RNC, NRCC, and NRSC raised less than the DNC, DCCC and DSCC. Through October, according to their FEC filings, Republican-aligned groups brought in about $211.4 million in total receipts. Democratic counterparts collected about $255 million.
This follows a trend. At the end of October 2019, the GOP’s groups raised about $92.1 million more than the Democrats. At the end of October 2021, the advantage dwindled to $11.3 million.
Online, Republicans continue to get drubbed by Democrat-aligned fundraising nonprofit ActBlue. By the end of June, according to its FEC filings, ActBlue collected about $320.5 million in total receipts. GOP counterpart, for-profit WinRed, raised about $183.6 million.
In 2022, ActBlue collected about $1.5 billion. WinRed brought in $662.2 million. In 2020, ActBlue raked in about $3.4 billion. WinRed? $2.1 billion.
—Austin Alonzo
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- President Joe Biden will tour CS Wind, the largest wind tower manufacturer in the world, in Pueblo, Colorado, and give remarks on how “Bidenomics is mobilizing investments in clean energy manufacturing.”
- The Supreme Court will hear SEC v. Jarkesy, a case that could have far-reaching implications on federal agencies’ ability to make enforcement adjudications.
- The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia holds a roundtable with family members of the hostages held in Gaza.
BOOKMARKS
Where does all that Ukraine money go? Into the pockets of U.S. defense contractors, as it turns out. Andrew Thornebrooke of The Epoch Times reports on the growing concern over how support for our allies is fueling the military-industrial complex.
Along that line, the Hill reports on how Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), whose district includes four military installations, is handling the National Defense Reauthorization Act.
Mike Rowe is known for the TV series “Dirty Jobs.” In real life, he’s become an advocate for rethinking the way Americans think about work and education. Jan Jekielek and Samantha Flom provide an inside look at Rowe’s focus on the value of skilled trades.
For the college skeptical, trades curious, check out this detailed breakdown on the cost of college by U.S. News & World Report. Spoiler: It’s up 132 percent in 20 years.
Half a century after the Warren Court led a liberal “constitutional revolution,” a more right-leaning Supreme Court strikes fear into the hearts of many on the left.
Writing in the Atlantic, law professor Noah Rosenblum holds forth on how a major new case could redefine the relationship between Congress and executive branch agencies. In the Atlantic’s judgment, it’s “The Case That Could Destroy the Government”; constitutional conservatives may see it differently.
The Epoch Times’ Matthew Vadum outlined the facts and deeper significance of that case in October.
Disclosure or disinformation? Congressional hearings over unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and related developments have spurred a debate over the phenomenon.
Now, the Daily Mail claims that the CIA’s Office of Global Access has been coordinating the collection of crashed UFOs for decades. Their three sources are anonymous.
In September of this year, The Epoch Times’ Mimi Nguyen Li reported on the Pentagon’s new website hosting declassified UFO records. She explains that it came about against the backdrop of Congressional pressure for answers, including a well-publicized bill from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) advocating declassification.
And Nikki Haley continues to mop up support from anti-Trump Republicans. The latest: an endorsement from the billionaire Koch family network, Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP).
“Our internal polling confirms what our activists are hearing and seeing from voters in the early primary states: Nikki Haley is in the best position to defeat Donald Trump in the primaries,” AFP Action’s Emily Seidel wrote in a memo announcing the decision.
The New York Times described the move as “a blow to Mr. DeSantis as he tries to maintain to donors that he is the only person who can beat Mr. Trump.”
