In his opening statement to the House lawmakers leading the impeachment charge against Joe Biden, his brother James Biden said the president has never been involved in his business dealings, the Washington Post reports.
The testimony rebuts Republican claims that Joe Biden has used his official positions to assist his relatives and profit corruptly from their business dealings.
“I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures,” James Biden told the House oversight committee at his behind-closed-doors deposition today. “Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities. None.”
Here’s more, from the Washington Post:
House Republicans’ long-running effort to impeach Joe Biden was rocked by news of the arrest of a former FBI informant whose claims about Hunter Biden’s business with a Ukrainian gas firm were a key part of the GOP’s case against the president. Alexander Smirnov is accused of lying to the government, and yesterday, prosecutors revealed that he said he received information from Russian intelligence. Republican investigators are pressing on, and today interviewed the president’s brother James Biden, who denied that Joe Biden had ever been involved in his business. Jamie Raskin, a top House Democrat, called on Republicans to end the impeachment amid the Smirnov affair.
Here’s a rundown of what happened:
The US supreme court released two opinions, neither of which dealt with the challenges to Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility, or whether he is immune from prosecution for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
Nikki Haley said she supports an Alabama supreme court decision that could curb access to IVF care.
David Weiss, the special counsel prosecuting Hunter Biden, reportedly asked a judge to detain Smirnov, a day after a different judge allowed him to be released as he awaited trial.
John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, is running as a Democrat for a congressional seat in New York.
House Democrats called on the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to bring the chamber back into session to vote on Ukraine aid.
As for Joe Biden, he’s in Los Angeles, and just popped into the Mexican restaurant CJ’s Cafe along with the city’s Democratic mayor, Karen Bass.
According to the reporters accompanying him on the jaunt, the president was taking a picture with a customer, and switched their phone to selfie mode. The person was surprised Biden knew how to do that, to which the president responded: “After the last guy, the bar’s on the floor.”
The last guy, and potentially the next guy.
Besides the House oversight and judiciary committees’ interview with James Biden, Congress hasn’t been up to much today.
That’s because the House and Senate are both out of session. But a group of House Democrats, including Ohio’s Marcy Kaptur, want the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to call lawmakers back into session to vote on legislation that will send military aid to Ukraine:
Lawmakers departed the Capitol last week after failing to agree on new aid for Kyiv as well as Israel and Taiwan, despite weeks of negotiating over a proposal that would have paired that aid with hardline immigration policies.
It’s unclear whether, and how, the aid package will now be approved. The Senate returns next Monday, and the House on Wednesday.
Here’s video from NBC News’s interview with Nikki Haley, in which the former South Carolina governor says she supports the Alabama supreme court ruling that could complicate access to IVF care:
Notice it’s being shared on X by Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Ever since the US supreme court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, the president has promised to protect abortion access, and now seems set to make the same vow for IVF.
The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley announced her support for an Alabama supreme court ruling that could complicate access to in vitro fertilization procedures, telling NBC News in an interview: “Embryos, to me, are babies.
“When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that,” said the former South Carolina governor, who is the last major challenger to Donald Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination.
The Alabama supreme court last week ruled that frozen embryos are “children” and allowed two wrongful death suits to proceed against a fertility clinic where several embryos were destroyed in 2021, a decision that could complicate access to IVF treatment more widely.
Here’s more from NBC on what Haley’s comments mean:
Classifying embryos as children under state law raises significant questions about whether the practice, used by families having trouble conceiving, could continue in states like Alabama. Unused embryos are often destroyed, which could open families or clinics up to wrongful death lawsuits under this policy. Storing frozen embryos, meanwhile, is expensive.
Asked if legislation and rulings like the one in Alabama could have a chilling effect on families using IVF to become parents, Haley said, “This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it.”
“I know that when my doctor came in, we knew what was possible and what wasn’t,” Haley continued, adding: “Every woman needs to know, with her partner, what she’s looking at. And then when you look at that, then you make the decision that’s best for your family.”
Haley has sought to find a rhetorical middle ground on reproductive health policy as a 2024 presidential candidate. She has repeatedly calling for national “consensus” on abortion in debates instead of the bans and restrictions favored by some of her primary opponents.
After the state supreme court’s decision, Alabama’s largest healthcare provider paused IVF treatments:
The governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, has announced that he is proposing the elimination of medical debt across the state.
In a statement on Wednesday, Pritzker, a Democrat, said that he proposes that the state eliminate $4m of medical debt for more than 1 million Illinoisans over the next four years.
He also said that he intends to “break down bureaucratic barriers in state government” by increasing coordination across agencies to improve reproductive healthcare services.
Pritzker added that the Illinois department of human services will invest $1m in a pilot program to ensure new moms and babies have clean diapers, as well as an additional $5m into home visiting for the state’s most vulnerable families.
Donald Trump has compared the $350m fine he received in his New York financial fraud case to “a form of Navalny”.
Speaking at a Fox News town hall on Tuesday night, Trump hit back at the New York judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling. He also compared his case to that of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny whose death last week at a Russian penal colony has been largely blamed on the Kremlin.
The ex president said:
“It is a form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism. The guy [Arthur Engoron] is a nut job, I’ve known this for a long time and I’ve said it openly.”
Also on Tuesday evening, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, said that she will seize Trump’s assets if he does not pay the fine.
If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James said.
In the political reproductive rights war, with its real life repercussions, another new and consequential twist.
Less than a week after the unprecedented decision from the Alabama supreme court that frozen embryos are “children”, a key medical school in the state has paused in vitro fertilization procedures.
The court decision has been widely seen as one that would have serious implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments.
On Wednesday, AL.com reported, a spokesperson, Hannah Echols, said on behalf of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a research university and academic medical center that is also the largest healthcare provider in the state, that the institution is “saddened” for patients who hope to have babies through IVF.
“We must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments,” Echols wrote in the email, obtained by AL.com.
In the decision released on Friday, two wrongful death suits were allowed to proceed against a Mobile fertility clinic, effectively ruling that fertilized eggs and embryos are “children”.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system suspended in vitro fertilization procedures because of the risk of criminal prosecution and lawsuits, a spokeswoman told AL.com.
House Republicans’ long-running effort to impeach Joe Biden has been rocked by news of the arrest of a former FBI informant whose claims about Hunter Biden’s business with a Ukrainian gas firm were a key part of the GOP’s case against the president. Alexander Smirnov is accused of lying to the government, and yesterday, prosecutors revealed that he said he received information from Russian intelligence. Republican investigators are pressing on, and today interviewed the president’s brother James Biden, who denied that Joe Biden had ever been involved in his business. Jamie Raskin, a top House Democrat, called on Republicans to end the impeachment amid the Smirnov affair.
Here’s what else happened today:
The US supreme court released two opinions, neither of which dealt with the challenges to Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility, or whether he is immune from prosecution for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
David Weiss, the special counsel prosecuting Hunter Biden, reportedly asked a judge to detain Smirnov, a day after a different judge allowed him to be released as he awaited trial.
John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, is running as a Democrat for a congressional seat in New York.
Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, which is leading the push to impeach Joe Biden, called on Republicans to drop their investigation after prosecutors accused a former FBI informant of lying about Hunter Biden’s ties to a Ukrainian energy company.
“I’m restating to chairman Comer, to speaker Johnson, to fold up the tent to this circus show. It’s really over at this point,” Raskin said, referring to the oversight committee chair, James Comer, and the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, both Republicans:
Raskin’s demand came after Alexander Smirnov was arrested last week and accused of lying to the government about the president’s son’s work with Ukrainian firm Burisma, which has formed the basis for the GOP’s unproven allegations that Joe Biden is corrupt. Yesterday, prosecutors revealed that Smirnov told investigators that Russian intelligence had passed him “a story” about Hunter Biden, but it’s unclear what that was.
Republicans have fixated on financial records showing Joe Biden received money from his relatives, including a payment of $200,000 from his brother James Biden.
In his behind-closed-doors testimony today, James Biden said he would occasionally borrow money from his brother when necessary to pay the bills, and then repay him, the Washington Post reports.
Here’s more:
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
