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  • Bill Clinton faces grilling from lawmakers over his connections to Jeffrey Epstein

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    Former President Bill Clinton is testifying Friday before members of Congress investigating convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, answering for his connections to the disgraced financier from more than two decades ago.The closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York, will mark the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress. It comes a day after Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sat with lawmakers for her own deposition.Bill Clinton has also not been accused of any wrongdoing. Yet lawmakers are grappling with what accountability in the United States looks like at a time when men around the world have been toppled from their high-powered posts for maintaining their connections with Epstein after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.Hillary Clinton told lawmakers that she had no knowledge of how Epstein had sexually abused underage girls and had no recollection of even meeting him. But Bill Clinton will have to answer questions on a well-documented relationship with Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, even if it was from the late 1990s and early 2000s.Hillary Clinton said Thursday that she expected her husband to testify that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s sexual abuse at the time they knew each other.Republicans were relishing the opportunity to scrutinize the former Democratic president under oath.“The Clintons haven’t answered very many, if any, questions about their knowledge or involvement with Epstein and Maxwell,” Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, said Thursday.“No one’s accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing,” he added.Republicans finally get a chance to question Bill ClintonRepublicans have wanted to question Bill Clinton about Epstein for years, especially as conspiracy theories arose following Epstein’s 2019 suicide in a New York jail cell while he faced sex trafficking charges.Those calls reached a fever pitch late last year when several photos of the former president surfaced in the Department of Justice’s first release of case files on Epstein and Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021 but maintains she’s innocent. Bill Clinton was photographed on a plane seated alongside a woman, whose face is redacted, with his arm around her. Another photo showed Clinton and Maxwell in a pool with another person whose face was redacted.Epstein also visited the White House several times during Clinton’s presidency, and the pair later made several international trips together for their humanitarian work.In the lead-up to the deposition, Bill Clinton has insisted he had limited knowledge about Epstein and was unaware of any sexual abuse he committed.“I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended several years before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light,” Hillary Clinton said at the conclusion of her deposition Thursday.Comer has pledged extensive questioning of the former president. He claimed that Hillary Clinton had repeatedly deferred questions about Epstein to her husband.Has a precedent been set?Democrats, who have supported the push to get answers from Bill Clinton, are arguing that it sets a precedent that should also apply to President Donald Trump, a Republican who had his own relationship with Epstein.“We’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of Oversight Republicans and Democrats,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Thursday.Comer has pushed back on that idea, saying that Trump has answered questions on Epstein from the press.Democrats are also calling for the resignation of Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Lutnick was a longtime neighbor of Epstein in New York City but said on a podcast that he severed ties with Epstein following a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.The public release of case files showed that Lutnick actually had two engagements with Epstein years later. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home, and in 2012 his family had lunch with Epstein on his private island.“He should be removed from office and at a minimum should come before the committee,” Garcia said of Lutnick.Comer on Thursday said that it was “very possible” that Lutnick would be called to testify.

    CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. —

    Former President Bill Clinton is testifying Friday before members of Congress investigating convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, answering for his connections to the disgraced financier from more than two decades ago.

    The closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York, will mark the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress. It comes a day after Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sat with lawmakers for her own deposition.

    Bill Clinton has also not been accused of any wrongdoing. Yet lawmakers are grappling with what accountability in the United States looks like at a time when men around the world have been toppled from their high-powered posts for maintaining their connections with Epstein after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.

    Hillary Clinton told lawmakers that she had no knowledge of how Epstein had sexually abused underage girls and had no recollection of even meeting him. But Bill Clinton will have to answer questions on a well-documented relationship with Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, even if it was from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

    Hillary Clinton said Thursday that she expected her husband to testify that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s sexual abuse at the time they knew each other.

    Republicans were relishing the opportunity to scrutinize the former Democratic president under oath.

    “The Clintons haven’t answered very many, if any, questions about their knowledge or involvement with Epstein and Maxwell,” Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, said Thursday.

    “No one’s accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing,” he added.

    Republicans finally get a chance to question Bill Clinton

    Republicans have wanted to question Bill Clinton about Epstein for years, especially as conspiracy theories arose following Epstein’s 2019 suicide in a New York jail cell while he faced sex trafficking charges.

    Those calls reached a fever pitch late last year when several photos of the former president surfaced in the Department of Justice’s first release of case files on Epstein and Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021 but maintains she’s innocent. Bill Clinton was photographed on a plane seated alongside a woman, whose face is redacted, with his arm around her. Another photo showed Clinton and Maxwell in a pool with another person whose face was redacted.

    Epstein also visited the White House several times during Clinton’s presidency, and the pair later made several international trips together for their humanitarian work.

    In the lead-up to the deposition, Bill Clinton has insisted he had limited knowledge about Epstein and was unaware of any sexual abuse he committed.

    “I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended several years before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light,” Hillary Clinton said at the conclusion of her deposition Thursday.

    Comer has pledged extensive questioning of the former president. He claimed that Hillary Clinton had repeatedly deferred questions about Epstein to her husband.

    Has a precedent been set?

    Democrats, who have supported the push to get answers from Bill Clinton, are arguing that it sets a precedent that should also apply to President Donald Trump, a Republican who had his own relationship with Epstein.

    “We’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of Oversight Republicans and Democrats,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Thursday.

    Comer has pushed back on that idea, saying that Trump has answered questions on Epstein from the press.

    Democrats are also calling for the resignation of Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Lutnick was a longtime neighbor of Epstein in New York City but said on a podcast that he severed ties with Epstein following a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.

    The public release of case files showed that Lutnick actually had two engagements with Epstein years later. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home, and in 2012 his family had lunch with Epstein on his private island.

    “He should be removed from office and at a minimum should come before the committee,” Garcia said of Lutnick.

    Comer on Thursday said that it was “very possible” that Lutnick would be called to testify.

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  • Bill and Hillary Clinton face House showdown over Epstein ties

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    For some of their conservative critics, this is the scandal that could finally topple them. Their resistance to testifying proved futile. And now, staring down another epic fight, they’re harnessing their considerable political skills to try to turn the tables on their accusers.For Bill and Hillary Clinton, the 1990s are back.The Clintons are slated to testify Thursday and Friday in a House investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, part of a deal with Republicans after it became clear that Congress — with the help of some Democrats — was on track to hold them in contempt if they refused to cooperate. For the battle-hardened couple, it amounts to one more Washington brawl. And like so many of the battles that came before, this one is another mix of questionable judgment, sexual impropriety, money and power.Video above: Justice Department releases more than 3 million items in final batch of Epstein filesDuring his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton pitched his candidacy as “two for the price of one,” previewing a presidential marriage like none that had come before, with a spouse whose professional credentials rivaled his. In the years since, that partnership helped the Clintons weather repeated scandals, including those so personal that many other relationships would have shattered. When his political career was ending, hers was ascending when she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York, then served as secretary of state before becoming the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.For those who have long watched the Clintons, this moment is a reminder that the couple — weaned on the politics of the Vietnam War and Watergate — has never been far from the heat of a cultural fight. And with the Epstein case unfolding unpredictably around the world, the Clintons are once again ensnared in the scandal of the moment.“It’s kind of a sad but fitting coda to extraordinary political lives,” said David Maraniss, who has written two biographies of Bill Clinton.There’s no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Clinton when it comes to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who committed suicide in 2019 while he was in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.But Epstein had ties to Bill Clinton for years, visiting the White House multiple times in the 1990s, according to visitor logs. After Clinton left office, Epstein was involved in his philanthropy and the former president flew multiple times on his private jet.“Traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward,” Bill Clinton wrote in his 2024 memoir. “I wish I had never met him.”Bill Clinton’s ties to EpsteinBy last summer, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for the Clintons. For months, Bill Clinton, 79, and Hillary Clinton, 78, largely ignored the matter in public, but that became harder to sustain in December when the former president was featured prominently in the first batch of Epstein files.Among thousands of documents made public, some photos showed him on a private plane, including one with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated alongside him with her arm around him. Another showed Bill Clinton in a pool with Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and a person whose face was redacted. Yet another photo portrayed Bill Clinton in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.The oversight panel’s chairman, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt if they didn’t comply with the subpoenas, a historic move considering a former president has never been compelled to appear before Congress. Between his first and second terms, Donald Trump invoked that precedent to fend off a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.While there was no context surrounding the photos of Bill Clinton, they underscored how his political promise has always been tempered by personal indiscretions.The 1992 campaign that represented the emerging preeminence of the Baby Boom generation was the same one dogged by rumors of an affair with Gennifer Flowers. A presidency largely defined by economic prosperity was nearly derailed when Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying under oath and obstructing justice when he denied engaging in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.Each time, many Republicans thought they finally found leverage over the Clintons. But each time, the Clintons found a way out of the vise.Asa Hutchinson, the former Republican congressman from Arkansas who was a House manager during Clinton’s impeachment trial, described the couple as “a smart lawyer and brilliant communicator.”The Clinton playbook: fight back fiercelyAs each crisis surfaced, a pattern emerged: the Clintons fiercely denied the allegations and often dismissed women who came forward with claims. They villainized the GOP and re-centered the public’s attention on more favorable themes like the booming economy of the era.Bill Clinton, who famously told voters “I feel your pain,” always managed to stay connected with the public. Indeed, he enjoyed some of the highest approval numbers of his presidency during his impeachment inquiry and trial, when about 7 in 10 U.S. adults approved of the way he was handling his job.Hillary Clinton similarly dispatched Republicans who sensed an opening in her handling of a 2012 attack on a compound in Libya that killed four Americans. She came out of an 11-hour televised congressional hearing in 2015 appearing poised. Even the Republican chair of the committee probing the attack said he wasn’t sure she revealed anything new about an issue many in his party considered a scandal.That experience has informed how the Clintons are approaching this week’s testimony. Hillary Clinton has been especially vocal in calling for the proceedings to happen in public, rather than in private as Comer currently plans.“We have nothing to hide,” she told the BBC earlier this month.Bill Clinton’s communication operation has taken a sharper tone, recalling the political “war room” popularized during the 1992 campaign to respond to negative storylines.One release accused Comer of “lying in every appearance he’s made this week.” Another mocked GOP Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona with a “hypocrisy award of the day,” noting how the Oversight Committee members defied subpoenas from the Jan. 6 panel.Meanwhile, the Clintons released a four-page letter to Comer on social media defiantly belittling a process they said was “literally designed to result in our imprisonment.”Much as they tried to refocus attention during the 1990s, the letter hit the White House for dismantling institutions, imposing a harsh immigration crackdown and pardoning those involved in the Capitol riot.Conservative attacks on the ClintonsThe Clintons’ rise to power paralleled the explosion of talk radio as a political force, with Rush Limbaugh using his daily show as a platform to constantly berate the White House. Today, conservative podcasters like Benny Johnson have filled Limbaugh’s space and were gleeful after the House panel moved last month to hold the couple in contempt.“Do you understand Donald Trump made good on his oldest promise arguably which is he told all of us 10 years ago that Hillary Clinton would be going to jail?” Johnson said last month.Still, some dynamics have changed.The lockstep support the Clintons enjoyed among congressional Democrats has eroded as a new generation of lawmakers has taken office — nine Democrats joined with Republicans on the House committee to advance the contempt resolution. Trump, who has faced scrutiny over his own ties to Epstein and may be uncomfortable with the precedent of forcing a former president to testify, has expressed rare concern for the Clintons.He told NBC News that it “bothers me that somebody is going after Bill Clinton.” He has described Hillary Clinton as a “very capable woman.”Even Hutchinson, who helped make the case for Bill Clinton’s impeachment, expressed sympathy for the couple.“It’s frustrating and disappointing that President Clinton and Secretary Clinton are having to go through this fact-finding ordeal,” he said. “That’s difficult for them.”

    WASHINGTON —

    For some of their conservative critics, this is the scandal that could finally topple them. Their resistance to testifying proved futile. And now, staring down another epic fight, they’re harnessing their considerable political skills to try to turn the tables on their accusers.

    For Bill and Hillary Clinton, the 1990s are back.

    The Clintons are slated to testify Thursday and Friday in a House investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, part of a deal with Republicans after it became clear that Congress — with the help of some Democrats — was on track to hold them in contempt if they refused to cooperate. For the battle-hardened couple, it amounts to one more Washington brawl. And like so many of the battles that came before, this one is another mix of questionable judgment, sexual impropriety, money and power.

    Video above: Justice Department releases more than 3 million items in final batch of Epstein files

    During his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton pitched his candidacy as “two for the price of one,” previewing a presidential marriage like none that had come before, with a spouse whose professional credentials rivaled his. In the years since, that partnership helped the Clintons weather repeated scandals, including those so personal that many other relationships would have shattered. When his political career was ending, hers was ascending when she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York, then served as secretary of state before becoming the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.

    For those who have long watched the Clintons, this moment is a reminder that the couple — weaned on the politics of the Vietnam War and Watergate — has never been far from the heat of a cultural fight. And with the Epstein case unfolding unpredictably around the world, the Clintons are once again ensnared in the scandal of the moment.

    “It’s kind of a sad but fitting coda to extraordinary political lives,” said David Maraniss, who has written two biographies of Bill Clinton.

    There’s no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Clinton when it comes to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who committed suicide in 2019 while he was in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

    But Epstein had ties to Bill Clinton for years, visiting the White House multiple times in the 1990s, according to visitor logs. After Clinton left office, Epstein was involved in his philanthropy and the former president flew multiple times on his private jet.

    “Traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward,” Bill Clinton wrote in his 2024 memoir. “I wish I had never met him.”

    Bill Clinton’s ties to Epstein

    By last summer, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for the Clintons. For months, Bill Clinton, 79, and Hillary Clinton, 78, largely ignored the matter in public, but that became harder to sustain in December when the former president was featured prominently in the first batch of Epstein files.

    Among thousands of documents made public, some photos showed him on a private plane, including one with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated alongside him with her arm around him. Another showed Bill Clinton in a pool with Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and a person whose face was redacted. Yet another photo portrayed Bill Clinton in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.

    The oversight panel’s chairman, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt if they didn’t comply with the subpoenas, a historic move considering a former president has never been compelled to appear before Congress. Between his first and second terms, Donald Trump invoked that precedent to fend off a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    While there was no context surrounding the photos of Bill Clinton, they underscored how his political promise has always been tempered by personal indiscretions.

    The 1992 campaign that represented the emerging preeminence of the Baby Boom generation was the same one dogged by rumors of an affair with Gennifer Flowers. A presidency largely defined by economic prosperity was nearly derailed when Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying under oath and obstructing justice when he denied engaging in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

    Each time, many Republicans thought they finally found leverage over the Clintons. But each time, the Clintons found a way out of the vise.

    Asa Hutchinson, the former Republican congressman from Arkansas who was a House manager during Clinton’s impeachment trial, described the couple as “a smart lawyer and brilliant communicator.”

    The Clinton playbook: fight back fiercely

    As each crisis surfaced, a pattern emerged: the Clintons fiercely denied the allegations and often dismissed women who came forward with claims. They villainized the GOP and re-centered the public’s attention on more favorable themes like the booming economy of the era.

    Bill Clinton, who famously told voters “I feel your pain,” always managed to stay connected with the public. Indeed, he enjoyed some of the highest approval numbers of his presidency during his impeachment inquiry and trial, when about 7 in 10 U.S. adults approved of the way he was handling his job.

    Hillary Clinton similarly dispatched Republicans who sensed an opening in her handling of a 2012 attack on a compound in Libya that killed four Americans. She came out of an 11-hour televised congressional hearing in 2015 appearing poised. Even the Republican chair of the committee probing the attack said he wasn’t sure she revealed anything new about an issue many in his party considered a scandal.

    That experience has informed how the Clintons are approaching this week’s testimony. Hillary Clinton has been especially vocal in calling for the proceedings to happen in public, rather than in private as Comer currently plans.

    “We have nothing to hide,” she told the BBC earlier this month.

    Bill Clinton’s communication operation has taken a sharper tone, recalling the political “war room” popularized during the 1992 campaign to respond to negative storylines.

    One release accused Comer of “lying in every appearance he’s made this week.” Another mocked GOP Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona with a “hypocrisy award of the day,” noting how the Oversight Committee members defied subpoenas from the Jan. 6 panel.

    Meanwhile, the Clintons released a four-page letter to Comer on social media defiantly belittling a process they said was “literally designed to result in our imprisonment.”

    Much as they tried to refocus attention during the 1990s, the letter hit the White House for dismantling institutions, imposing a harsh immigration crackdown and pardoning those involved in the Capitol riot.

    Conservative attacks on the Clintons

    The Clintons’ rise to power paralleled the explosion of talk radio as a political force, with Rush Limbaugh using his daily show as a platform to constantly berate the White House. Today, conservative podcasters like Benny Johnson have filled Limbaugh’s space and were gleeful after the House panel moved last month to hold the couple in contempt.

    “Do you understand Donald Trump made good on his oldest promise arguably which is he told all of us 10 years ago that Hillary Clinton would be going to jail?” Johnson said last month.

    Still, some dynamics have changed.

    The lockstep support the Clintons enjoyed among congressional Democrats has eroded as a new generation of lawmakers has taken office — nine Democrats joined with Republicans on the House committee to advance the contempt resolution. Trump, who has faced scrutiny over his own ties to Epstein and may be uncomfortable with the precedent of forcing a former president to testify, has expressed rare concern for the Clintons.

    He told NBC News that it “bothers me that somebody is going after Bill Clinton.” He has described Hillary Clinton as a “very capable woman.”

    Even Hutchinson, who helped make the case for Bill Clinton’s impeachment, expressed sympathy for the couple.

    “It’s frustrating and disappointing that President Clinton and Secretary Clinton are having to go through this fact-finding ordeal,” he said. “That’s difficult for them.”

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  • Bill and Hillary Clinton face House showdown over Epstein ties

    [ad_1]

    For some of their conservative critics, this is the scandal that could finally topple them. Their resistance to testifying proved futile. And now, staring down another epic fight, they’re harnessing their considerable political skills to try to turn the tables on their accusers.For Bill and Hillary Clinton, the 1990s are back.The Clintons are slated to testify Thursday and Friday in a House investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, part of a deal with Republicans after it became clear that Congress — with the help of some Democrats — was on track to hold them in contempt if they refused to cooperate. For the battle-hardened couple, it amounts to one more Washington brawl. And like so many of the battles that came before, this one is another mix of questionable judgment, sexual impropriety, money and power.Video above: Justice Department releases more than 3 million items in final batch of Epstein filesDuring his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton pitched his candidacy as “two for the price of one,” previewing a presidential marriage like none that had come before, with a spouse whose professional credentials rivaled his. In the years since, that partnership helped the Clintons weather repeated scandals, including those so personal that many other relationships would have shattered. When his political career was ending, hers was ascending when she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York, then served as secretary of state before becoming the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.For those who have long watched the Clintons, this moment is a reminder that the couple — weaned on the politics of the Vietnam War and Watergate — has never been far from the heat of a cultural fight. And with the Epstein case unfolding unpredictably around the world, the Clintons are once again ensnared in the scandal of the moment.“It’s kind of a sad but fitting coda to extraordinary political lives,” said David Maraniss, who has written two biographies of Bill Clinton.There’s no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Clinton when it comes to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who committed suicide in 2019 while he was in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.But Epstein had ties to Bill Clinton for years, visiting the White House multiple times in the 1990s, according to visitor logs. After Clinton left office, Epstein was involved in his philanthropy and the former president flew multiple times on his private jet.“Traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward,” Bill Clinton wrote in his 2024 memoir. “I wish I had never met him.”Bill Clinton’s ties to EpsteinBy last summer, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for the Clintons. For months, Bill Clinton, 79, and Hillary Clinton, 78, largely ignored the matter in public, but that became harder to sustain in December when the former president was featured prominently in the first batch of Epstein files.Among thousands of documents made public, some photos showed him on a private plane, including one with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated alongside him with her arm around him. Another showed Bill Clinton in a pool with Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and a person whose face was redacted. Yet another photo portrayed Bill Clinton in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.The oversight panel’s chairman, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt if they didn’t comply with the subpoenas, a historic move considering a former president has never been compelled to appear before Congress. Between his first and second terms, Donald Trump invoked that precedent to fend off a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.While there was no context surrounding the photos of Bill Clinton, they underscored how his political promise has always been tempered by personal indiscretions.The 1992 campaign that represented the emerging preeminence of the Baby Boom generation was the same one dogged by rumors of an affair with Gennifer Flowers. A presidency largely defined by economic prosperity was nearly derailed when Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying under oath and obstructing justice when he denied engaging in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.Each time, many Republicans thought they finally found leverage over the Clintons. But each time, the Clintons found a way out of the vise.Asa Hutchinson, the former Republican congressman from Arkansas who was a House manager during Clinton’s impeachment trial, described the couple as “a smart lawyer and brilliant communicator.”The Clinton playbook: fight back fiercelyAs each crisis surfaced, a pattern emerged: the Clintons fiercely denied the allegations and often dismissed women who came forward with claims. They villainized the GOP and re-centered the public’s attention on more favorable themes like the booming economy of the era.Bill Clinton, who famously told voters “I feel your pain,” always managed to stay connected with the public. Indeed, he enjoyed some of the highest approval numbers of his presidency during his impeachment inquiry and trial, when about 7 in 10 U.S. adults approved of the way he was handling his job.Hillary Clinton similarly dispatched Republicans who sensed an opening in her handling of a 2012 attack on a compound in Libya that killed four Americans. She came out of an 11-hour televised congressional hearing in 2015 appearing poised. Even the Republican chair of the committee probing the attack said he wasn’t sure she revealed anything new about an issue many in his party considered a scandal.That experience has informed how the Clintons are approaching this week’s testimony. Hillary Clinton has been especially vocal in calling for the proceedings to happen in public, rather than in private as Comer currently plans.“We have nothing to hide,” she told the BBC earlier this month.Bill Clinton’s communication operation has taken a sharper tone, recalling the political “war room” popularized during the 1992 campaign to respond to negative storylines.One release accused Comer of “lying in every appearance he’s made this week.” Another mocked GOP Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona with a “hypocrisy award of the day,” noting how the Oversight Committee members defied subpoenas from the Jan. 6 panel.Meanwhile, the Clintons released a four-page letter to Comer on social media defiantly belittling a process they said was “literally designed to result in our imprisonment.”Much as they tried to refocus attention during the 1990s, the letter hit the White House for dismantling institutions, imposing a harsh immigration crackdown and pardoning those involved in the Capitol riot.Conservative attacks on the ClintonsThe Clintons’ rise to power paralleled the explosion of talk radio as a political force, with Rush Limbaugh using his daily show as a platform to constantly berate the White House. Today, conservative podcasters like Benny Johnson have filled Limbaugh’s space and were gleeful after the House panel moved last month to hold the couple in contempt.“Do you understand Donald Trump made good on his oldest promise arguably which is he told all of us 10 years ago that Hillary Clinton would be going to jail?” Johnson said last month.Still, some dynamics have changed.The lockstep support the Clintons enjoyed among congressional Democrats has eroded as a new generation of lawmakers has taken office — nine Democrats joined with Republicans on the House committee to advance the contempt resolution. Trump, who has faced scrutiny over his own ties to Epstein and may be uncomfortable with the precedent of forcing a former president to testify, has expressed rare concern for the Clintons.He told NBC News that it “bothers me that somebody is going after Bill Clinton.” He has described Hillary Clinton as a “very capable woman.”Even Hutchinson, who helped make the case for Bill Clinton’s impeachment, expressed sympathy for the couple.“It’s frustrating and disappointing that President Clinton and Secretary Clinton are having to go through this fact-finding ordeal,” he said. “That’s difficult for them.”

    WASHINGTON —

    For some of their conservative critics, this is the scandal that could finally topple them. Their resistance to testifying proved futile. And now, staring down another epic fight, they’re harnessing their considerable political skills to try to turn the tables on their accusers.

    For Bill and Hillary Clinton, the 1990s are back.

    The Clintons are slated to testify Thursday and Friday in a House investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, part of a deal with Republicans after it became clear that Congress — with the help of some Democrats — was on track to hold them in contempt if they refused to cooperate. For the battle-hardened couple, it amounts to one more Washington brawl. And like so many of the battles that came before, this one is another mix of questionable judgment, sexual impropriety, money and power.

    Video above: Justice Department releases more than 3 million items in final batch of Epstein files

    During his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton pitched his candidacy as “two for the price of one,” previewing a presidential marriage like none that had come before, with a spouse whose professional credentials rivaled his. In the years since, that partnership helped the Clintons weather repeated scandals, including those so personal that many other relationships would have shattered. When his political career was ending, hers was ascending when she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York, then served as secretary of state before becoming the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.

    For those who have long watched the Clintons, this moment is a reminder that the couple — weaned on the politics of the Vietnam War and Watergate — has never been far from the heat of a cultural fight. And with the Epstein case unfolding unpredictably around the world, the Clintons are once again ensnared in the scandal of the moment.

    “It’s kind of a sad but fitting coda to extraordinary political lives,” said David Maraniss, who has written two biographies of Bill Clinton.

    There’s no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Clinton when it comes to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who committed suicide in 2019 while he was in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

    But Epstein had ties to Bill Clinton for years, visiting the White House multiple times in the 1990s, according to visitor logs. After Clinton left office, Epstein was involved in his philanthropy and the former president flew multiple times on his private jet.

    “Traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward,” Bill Clinton wrote in his 2024 memoir. “I wish I had never met him.”

    Bill Clinton’s ties to Epstein

    By last summer, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas for the Clintons. For months, Bill Clinton, 79, and Hillary Clinton, 78, largely ignored the matter in public, but that became harder to sustain in December when the former president was featured prominently in the first batch of Epstein files.

    Among thousands of documents made public, some photos showed him on a private plane, including one with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated alongside him with her arm around him. Another showed Bill Clinton in a pool with Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and a person whose face was redacted. Yet another photo portrayed Bill Clinton in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.

    The oversight panel’s chairman, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt if they didn’t comply with the subpoenas, a historic move considering a former president has never been compelled to appear before Congress. Between his first and second terms, Donald Trump invoked that precedent to fend off a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    While there was no context surrounding the photos of Bill Clinton, they underscored how his political promise has always been tempered by personal indiscretions.

    The 1992 campaign that represented the emerging preeminence of the Baby Boom generation was the same one dogged by rumors of an affair with Gennifer Flowers. A presidency largely defined by economic prosperity was nearly derailed when Clinton was impeached in 1998 for lying under oath and obstructing justice when he denied engaging in a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

    Each time, many Republicans thought they finally found leverage over the Clintons. But each time, the Clintons found a way out of the vise.

    Asa Hutchinson, the former Republican congressman from Arkansas who was a House manager during Clinton’s impeachment trial, described the couple as “a smart lawyer and brilliant communicator.”

    The Clinton playbook: fight back fiercely

    As each crisis surfaced, a pattern emerged: the Clintons fiercely denied the allegations and often dismissed women who came forward with claims. They villainized the GOP and re-centered the public’s attention on more favorable themes like the booming economy of the era.

    Bill Clinton, who famously told voters “I feel your pain,” always managed to stay connected with the public. Indeed, he enjoyed some of the highest approval numbers of his presidency during his impeachment inquiry and trial, when about 7 in 10 U.S. adults approved of the way he was handling his job.

    Hillary Clinton similarly dispatched Republicans who sensed an opening in her handling of a 2012 attack on a compound in Libya that killed four Americans. She came out of an 11-hour televised congressional hearing in 2015 appearing poised. Even the Republican chair of the committee probing the attack said he wasn’t sure she revealed anything new about an issue many in his party considered a scandal.

    That experience has informed how the Clintons are approaching this week’s testimony. Hillary Clinton has been especially vocal in calling for the proceedings to happen in public, rather than in private as Comer currently plans.

    “We have nothing to hide,” she told the BBC earlier this month.

    Bill Clinton’s communication operation has taken a sharper tone, recalling the political “war room” popularized during the 1992 campaign to respond to negative storylines.

    One release accused Comer of “lying in every appearance he’s made this week.” Another mocked GOP Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona with a “hypocrisy award of the day,” noting how the Oversight Committee members defied subpoenas from the Jan. 6 panel.

    Meanwhile, the Clintons released a four-page letter to Comer on social media defiantly belittling a process they said was “literally designed to result in our imprisonment.”

    Much as they tried to refocus attention during the 1990s, the letter hit the White House for dismantling institutions, imposing a harsh immigration crackdown and pardoning those involved in the Capitol riot.

    Conservative attacks on the Clintons

    The Clintons’ rise to power paralleled the explosion of talk radio as a political force, with Rush Limbaugh using his daily show as a platform to constantly berate the White House. Today, conservative podcasters like Benny Johnson have filled Limbaugh’s space and were gleeful after the House panel moved last month to hold the couple in contempt.

    “Do you understand Donald Trump made good on his oldest promise arguably which is he told all of us 10 years ago that Hillary Clinton would be going to jail?” Johnson said last month.

    Still, some dynamics have changed.

    The lockstep support the Clintons enjoyed among congressional Democrats has eroded as a new generation of lawmakers has taken office — nine Democrats joined with Republicans on the House committee to advance the contempt resolution. Trump, who has faced scrutiny over his own ties to Epstein and may be uncomfortable with the precedent of forcing a former president to testify, has expressed rare concern for the Clintons.

    He told NBC News that it “bothers me that somebody is going after Bill Clinton.” He has described Hillary Clinton as a “very capable woman.”

    Even Hutchinson, who helped make the case for Bill Clinton’s impeachment, expressed sympathy for the couple.

    “It’s frustrating and disappointing that President Clinton and Secretary Clinton are having to go through this fact-finding ordeal,” he said. “That’s difficult for them.”

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  • Bill & Hillary Clinton Agree To Testify Before Congress Over Epstein Files! What Will They Reveal?? – Perez Hilton

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    Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State and one-time presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have now agreed to testify before Congress in the ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

    The agreement comes just in time. The House of Representatives had been preparing to vote on holding the Clintons in contempt of Congress for refusing to appear before the House Oversight Committee. That vote is now off the table after their legal team agreed to the committee’s terms, avoiding a confrontation that would have been unprecedented and explosive.

    Related: Prince William & Princess Catherine Heckled HARD Over Andrew’s Jeffrey Epstein Link!

    Bill is scheduled to sit for a filmed and transcribed deposition on February 27, per BBC News and others on Tuesday, with Hillary set to appear the day before that on February 26. There will be no time limit to either of their interviews.

    This marks the first time a former US president has testified before a congressional panel since Gerald Ford in 1983, underscoring just how serious and unusual this moment is.

    Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer did not mince words when addressing the reversal in a statement sent out to the media:

    “Once it became clear that we would hold them in contempt, the Clintons completely caved. Republicans and Democrats on the Oversight Committee have been clear: no one is above the law — and that includes the Clintons.”

    Until recently, the Clintons had taken a defiant stance, arguing they had already submitted sworn statements outlining what they described as their supposedly limited knowledge of Epstein. Which, uh, Bill, are ya REALLY sure about that?

    Anyway… they had also previously dismissed the House Oversight Committee’s legal summonses as:

    “Nothing more than a ploy to attempt to embarrass political rivals, as President Trump has directed.”

    The pressure only intensified as bipartisan support grew for holding them in contempt. A last-minute offer from the Clintons’ lawyers proposing limited testimony was rejected over concerns that Bill would run out the clock.

    Confirmation of their appearance came Monday night from Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña, who fired back publicly at the committee in a post on X (Twitter) that said this:

    “They negotiated in good faith. You did not. They told you under oath what they know, but you don’t care. But the former President and former Secretary of State will be there. They look forward to setting a precedent that applies to everyone.”

    It’s important to note that neither Bill nor Hillary have been accused of wrongdoing by survivors of Epstein’s abuse.

    Both deny any knowledge of his crimes, to boot. Hillary has said she never met or spoke to Epstein. Bill has acknowledged a past acquaintance, including flights on Epstein’s private jet in the early 2000s, but his team claims those trips were tied to Clinton Foundation work and ended long before Epstein’s crimes became public.

    Related: Wow! Blake Lively Hires Jeffrey Epstein’s Victims’ Attorney For Justin Baldoni Trial!

    Still, photographs, flight logs, and unanswered questions have kept this story alive. As for the Clintons themselves, they have accused Comer of politicizing the investigation and stalling meaningful progress.

    Now, under oath and on camera, they will have to answer. And the whole world will be watching to see what they say…

    Reactions, y’all? Share ’em (below).

    [Image via New York Sex Offender Registry/MEGA/WENN]

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  • How Bill and Hillary Clinton Could Soon Become Criminal Defendants

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    Photo: Kenny Holston/Getty Images

    Republicans have thirsted for a criminal prosecution of a Clinton — Bill, Hillary, any Clinton will do — since the 1990s. Thirty years and several near-misses later, they may finally get their wish.

    The Clintons almost certainly aren’t going to prison, or even getting convicted. But with characteristic hubris, Bill and Hillary have walked themselves to the brink of federal charges by defying bipartisan congressional subpoenas on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. And it’s a good bet that our current Justice Department — which apparently makes critical decisions by a sophisticated litmus test that asks, “Do we like you, or not?” — will pursue criminal contempt charges.

    The Clintons have, of course, had previous brushes with the law. We all remember the impeachment (and acquittal) of Bill Clinton over his false testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. But nearly lost to history is that Clinton barely avoided a federal indictment. On his final day in office in January 2001, Clinton agreed to a deal with prosecutors that spared him criminal charges for perjury and obstruction in exchange for a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license, a $25,000 fine, and a public statement acknowledging that he had testified falsely. For my latest book, I asked Robert Ray, who replaced Ken Starr as Independent Prosecutor in late 1999, whether he would have indicted Clinton had he not agreed to the deal. Ray responded, “We were more than prepared to pull the trigger, if necessary.”

    A decade and a half later, Hillary Clinton narrowly dodged an indictment for her use of a private email server while secretary of state. Shortly before the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey unilaterally announced that Clinton had been “extremely careless” but that the Justice Department would not pursue criminal charges; he then announced the case’s re-opening, eleven days before the election. Clinton was spared an indictment, but Comey’s public comments probably cost her the presidency.

    Yet for all the political drama and close prosecutorial calls, the Clintons could soon find themselves sitting at the defense table over a pair of comparatively mundane subpoenas.

    In August 2025, the House Oversight Committee — led by Republican James Comer, a serial over-promiser who habitually teases shocking revelations about prominent Democrats but never delivers — subpoenaed both Clintons for in-person testimony over their connections to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Both subpoenas were approved unanimously by all Republicans and Democrats on the Committee.

    Through their lawyers, the Clintons engaged in a monthslong pushback campaign. They argued to the Committee that the subpoenas were unrelated to any legitimate legislative purpose; were intended to harass and embarrass; and were overbroad and unduly burdensome. Indeed, it’s not clear Hillary would know anything of substance about the details of Epstein’s criminal enterprise. And while Bill Clinton would have a hellacious time explaining newly-revealed photographs of his nighttime frolic in a pool with Maxwell and an unidentified female, it’s difficult to articulate how testimony about his dealings with Epstein thirty years ago might somehow inform the drafting of anti-human-trafficking legislation now, as the Committee disingenuously claims.

    But the Committee holds broad subpoena power, and Comer was unswayed by these legal arguments. Comer declined the Clintons’ offer to provide written statements in lieu of live testimony and, ultimately, the parties reached no resolution.

    Listen to The Counsel podcast

    Join a team of experts — from former prosecutors to legal scholars — as they break down the complex legal issues shaping our country today. Twice a week, Elie Honig and other CAFE Contributors examine the intersecting worlds of law, politics, and current events.

    Last week, the Clintons launched a self-important, last-ditch public relations campaign. In a letter signed personally by both Bill and Hillary (not their lawyers), the Clintons wrapped themselves in all manner of high-minded irrelevancy. They cited “[p]eople [who] have been seized from their homes by masked federal agents,” the mass pardons of January 6 rioters, Donald Trump’s targeting of universities and law firms, and the recent fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis. “Every person has to decide when they have seen or heard enough, and are ready to fight for this country, its principles, and its people, no matter the consequences,” the Clintons wrote with a self-important flourish. “For us, now is that time.” Yet the Clintons conspicuously failed to explain how their cited examples had anything to do with whether Bill Clinton should tell Congress what he knows about Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking network.

    Now the Clintons have worked themselves into a jam. They made a curious tactical decision not to file a lawsuit in advance to “quash” (invalidate, essentially) the subpoenas; while they still might formally challenge the subpoenas in court, it’s likely too late. When the designated days arrived last week for the Clintons to testify, they both failed to appear. At that point, the Committee had all it needed to pursue contempt: presumptively valid subpoenas (and no court order invalidating them); two dates for testimony; and no-shows by both Bill and Hillary.

    On Wednesday, the Oversight Committee voted to hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress. Notably, nine Democrats joined their Republican colleagues to vote for contempt for Bill Clinton, while three Democrats voted for contempt against Hillary. The matter will next move to the full House for a vote. If it passes — Republicans hold a slim majority, and several Democrats on the Committee voted for the subpoenas and contempt — then the matter will be formally referred to the Justice Department for potential prosecution.

    That’ll leave the final call to DOJ leadership. Both attorney general Pam Bondi and deputy attorney general Todd Blanche have made clear that political retribution is their highest aspiration. Witness, for example, the spectacularly failed payback prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James, and the recent full-bore investigations of seemingly every prominent Democrat in Minnesota — but not the ICE officer who fatally shot Good.

    And consider that, during the Biden administration, lightning-rod Trump confidantes Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon were prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for four months each for contempt after they, too, defied Congressional subpoenas. Navarro and Bannon made less of an effort than the Clintons have to engage with the Committee, and were more defiant in general, but those are thin distinctions. At bottom, the Clintons did the same thing as the two Trump loyalists.

    If the Justice Department does indict the Clintons for contempt, don’t count on the cases getting anywhere. The cases would have to be charged in Washington D.C., which is overwhelmingly pro-Democratic and anti-Trump. Trump received less than 7 percent of the vote in D.C. in all three of his presidential runs; Bill Clinton topped 84 percent in both of his campaigns, and Hillary topped 90 percent in hers. A grand jury might well refuse to indict, even under the low “probable cause” standard, and it’s almost impossible to conceive of a D.C. trial jury unanimously voting to convict Bill or Hillary.

    But it’s not clear the Justice Department, or Comer, or Trump would care about the ultimate outcome. After more than three decades of futile yearning for a Clinton indictment, Republicans have never seen an opportunity quite like the one the Clintons have handed them now. The prospect of a Clinton criminal charge — even if unlikely to succeed — might just be too much to resist.


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    Elie Honig

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  • Bowser slams ‘politically motivated’ House committee report on DC crime data – WTOP News

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    D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser lambasted the House Oversight Committee’s report accusing the city’s police chief of leading a pressure campaign to alter crime data.

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    Bowser slams ‘politically motivated’ House committee report on DC crime data

    In a letter sent Monday to the chair and members of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser lambasted its report accusing the city’s police chief of leading a pressure campaign to alter crime data and questioned the Republican-led committee’s political motivation, methodology and timing.

    The committee’s findings, released Sunday, accuse D.C. Chief of Police Pamela Smith of pressuring subordinates to change the classification of crimes, creating the illusion of a safer city.

    As part of its investigation, the committee said it interviewed the commanders of all seven D.C. patrol districts, and a former commander currently placed on suspended leave. In her letter, Bowser pointed out the committee elected not to interview Smith or any of her assistant chiefs.

    Bowser went on to accuse the committee of crafting a biased report based on one side of the story — the side she said the committee believed to be true before it even began its investigation.

    “Even a cursory review of the report reveals its prejudice: of the 22 block quotes presented as complaining about Chief Smith’s management style, 20 of them were made by only two command officials interviewed,” Bowser wrote.

    Smith is the second woman and first Black woman to serve as D.C.’s police chief. She announced Dec. 8 she’d be stepping down at the end of the month in order to spend more time with family after a nearly 30-year career in law enforcement.

    The committee, in its report, states it released the partial findings after her resignation “to add context to this decision,” and says its investigation will continue. But the committee’s chair, Republican Rep. James Comer, called on her step down immediately after the report’s release.

    “The interim report betrays its bias from the outset, admitting that it was rushed to release,” Bowser wrote.

    “Rather than letting the investigation proceed and risk losing the opportunity for attention grabbing headlines if it were released after Chief Smith’s retirement after nearly three decades of law enforcement service, the Committee stooped to ad hominem attacks using cherry-picked quotes without providing additional relevant context,” she continued later in her letter.

    It’s one of the stronger rebukes from Bowser toward Republicans, who’ve repeatedly targeted her city’s handling of crime and homelessness.

    When President Donald Trump’s administration seized more control over D.C.’s police department and deployed National Guard Troops on city streets in August, Bowser, while critical of the approach, largely cooperated.

    Since that law enforcement surge began, Trump and other members of his Republican administration have been taking credit for lowering crime in the nation’s capital, something Bowser mentioned in her letter.

    “The irony of the interim report’s questioning of the Department’s crime statistics, which have been widely lauded in the last several months, is not lost on me. We know that crime had spiked in 2023 and it is undisputed that under Chief Smith’s tenure, crime has decreased significantly. This is corroborated by independent data on visits to District hospitals for firearm injuries, she wrote.”

    Bowser wrote that she will hold any official accountable who does intentionally alter crime data, and that she stands ready to work with the committee to continue to reduce crime and improve public safety in D.C.

    U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said Monday her office has been investigating D.C.’s crime data reporting since August, and that no criminal charges will be filed as a result of that investigation. However, Pirro said her probe found “a significant number of reports had been misclassified, making crime appear artificially lower than it was.”

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Thomas Robertson

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  • Kirk killing suspect feared being shot by police and agreed to surrender if peaceful, sheriff says

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    Tyler Robinson, the Utah man charged with assassinating Charlie Kirk, was afraid of being shot by police and agreed to surrender as long as it was done peacefully, a sheriff involved with taking him into custody said Wednesday.Robinson appeared quiet and somber when he turned himself in with his parents last Thursday at the Washington County Sheriff’s office, a day after Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University, said Sheriff Nate Brooksby.”He didn’t want a big SWAT team at his parent’s house or his apartment,” said the sheriff, who was only involved with the surrender and not the broader investigation. “He was truly fearful about being shot by law enforcement.”On Tuesday, prosecutors charged the 22-year-old Robinson with capital murder and announced they will seek the death penalty while revealing a series of incriminating messages and DNA evidence that they say connect Robinson to the killing of Kirk, a prominent conservative activist and confidant of President Donald Trump.Utah Valley University students returning to campus Wednesday clustered silently, staring down at the barricaded courtyard where an assassin struck down conservative activist Charlie Kirk in an attack that upended the nation.Care stations offering stuffed animals, candy and connections to counseling dotted the campus on the first day of classes since the shooting more than a week ago.Matthew Caldwell, 24, said his classmates were quieter and seemed more genuine about being in class, even with sadness still in the air.”The way that we treat each other in our words can ultimately lead to things like this,” he said. “And I think everybody sort of understands that a little bit better now.”Since the shooting, the Republican president has threatened to crack down on what he calls the “radical left” and has classified some groups as domestic terrorists. Former Democratic President Barack Obama said this week that Trump has further divided the country rather than working to bring people together.On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee called on the chief executives of Discord, Steam, Twitch and Reddit to testify on how they are regulating their platforms to prevent violence.”Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” said GOP Rep. James Comer, the committee chair, signaling a shift for congressional Republicans, who had previously scrutinized online platforms for policing free speech.Video below: Students at Utah Valley University returned to campus after Kirk’s killingHidden note in suspect’s apartmentInvestigators say that sometime after Robinson fired a single fatal shot from the rooftop of a campus building overlooking where Kirk was speaking on Sept. 10, he texted his romantic partner and said to look under a keyboard.There was a note, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it,” according to court documents.After expressing shock, his partner who lived with Robinson in southwestern Utah, asked Robinson if he was the shooter. Robinson responded, “I am, I’m sorry.”Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray said DNA on the trigger of the rifle used to kill Kirk matched Robinson, who faced his first hearing in the case Tuesday. A judge read the charges and said he would appoint an attorney to represent him. A message was left Wednesday with the county’s public defender office.Robinson’s family has declined to comment to The Associated Press since his arrest.Investigators looking at whether Robinson had helpLaw enforcement officials say they are looking at whether others knew about Robinson’s plans or helped, but they have not said if his partner is among those being investigated, only expressing appreciation for the partner sharing information.The partner apparently never went to law enforcement after receiving the texts. Robinson remained on the run for more than a day until his parents recognized him in a photo released by authorities.Also getting a closer look is the security on the day of the attack. Utah Valley is conducting a review, university President Astrid S. Tuminez said Wednesday.Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox met with students and campus leaders near the shooting scene, saying he understands they might still be haunted and angry over what happened. “What you do with that anger, that’s what determines where we go from here,” he said.Was Charlie Kirk targeted over anti-transgender views?Authorities have not revealed a clear motive in the shooting, but Gray said that Robinson wrote in a text about Kirk to his partner: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, was credited with energizing the Republican youth movement and helping Trump win back the White House in 2024. His political organization, Arizona-based Turning Point USA, brought young, evangelical Christians into politics through social media, his podcast and campus events.While court documents said Robinson wrote in one text that planned the attack for more than a week, authorities have not said what they believe that entailed.Gray declined to answer whether Robinson targeted Kirk for his anti-transgender views. Kirk was shot while taking a question that touched on mass shootings and transgender people.Robinson was involved in a romantic relationship with his roommate, who investigators say is transgender.Parents said their son became more politicalRobinson’s mother told investigators that their son had turned hard left politically in the last year and became more supportive of gay and transgender rights, Gray said.She recognized him when authorities released a picture of the suspect and his parents confronted him, at which time Robinson said he wanted to kill himself, Gray said.The family persuaded him to meet with a family friend who is a retired sheriff’s deputy. That person was able to get Robinson to turn himself in, the prosecutor said.Robinson detailed movements after the shootingIn a text exchange with his partner released by authorities, Robinson wrote about planning to get his rifle from his “drop point,” but that the area was “locked down.”The texts, which Robinson later told his partner to delete, did not include timestamps, leaving it unclear how long after the shooting Robinson sent the messages.”To be honest I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age. I am sorry to involve you,” Robinson wrote.___Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.

    OREM, Utah —

    Tyler Robinson, the Utah man charged with assassinating Charlie Kirk, was afraid of being shot by police and agreed to surrender as long as it was done peacefully, a sheriff involved with taking him into custody said Wednesday.

    Robinson appeared quiet and somber when he turned himself in with his parents last Thursday at the Washington County Sheriff’s office, a day after Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University, said Sheriff Nate Brooksby.

    “He didn’t want a big SWAT team at his parent’s house or his apartment,” said the sheriff, who was only involved with the surrender and not the broader investigation. “He was truly fearful about being shot by law enforcement.”

    On Tuesday, prosecutors charged the 22-year-old Robinson with capital murder and announced they will seek the death penalty while revealing a series of incriminating messages and DNA evidence that they say connect Robinson to the killing of Kirk, a prominent conservative activist and confidant of President Donald Trump.

    Utah Valley University students returning to campus Wednesday clustered silently, staring down at the barricaded courtyard where an assassin struck down conservative activist Charlie Kirk in an attack that upended the nation.

    Care stations offering stuffed animals, candy and connections to counseling dotted the campus on the first day of classes since the shooting more than a week ago.

    Matthew Caldwell, 24, said his classmates were quieter and seemed more genuine about being in class, even with sadness still in the air.

    “The way that we treat each other in our words can ultimately lead to things like this,” he said. “And I think everybody sort of understands that a little bit better now.”

    Since the shooting, the Republican president has threatened to crack down on what he calls the “radical left” and has classified some groups as domestic terrorists. Former Democratic President Barack Obama said this week that Trump has further divided the country rather than working to bring people together.

    On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee called on the chief executives of Discord, Steam, Twitch and Reddit to testify on how they are regulating their platforms to prevent violence.

    “Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” said GOP Rep. James Comer, the committee chair, signaling a shift for congressional Republicans, who had previously scrutinized online platforms for policing free speech.

    Video below: Students at Utah Valley University returned to campus after Kirk’s killing

    Hidden note in suspect’s apartment

    Investigators say that sometime after Robinson fired a single fatal shot from the rooftop of a campus building overlooking where Kirk was speaking on Sept. 10, he texted his romantic partner and said to look under a keyboard.

    There was a note, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it,” according to court documents.

    After expressing shock, his partner who lived with Robinson in southwestern Utah, asked Robinson if he was the shooter. Robinson responded, “I am, I’m sorry.”

    Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray said DNA on the trigger of the rifle used to kill Kirk matched Robinson, who faced his first hearing in the case Tuesday. A judge read the charges and said he would appoint an attorney to represent him. A message was left Wednesday with the county’s public defender office.

    Robinson’s family has declined to comment to The Associated Press since his arrest.

    Investigators looking at whether Robinson had help

    Law enforcement officials say they are looking at whether others knew about Robinson’s plans or helped, but they have not said if his partner is among those being investigated, only expressing appreciation for the partner sharing information.

    The partner apparently never went to law enforcement after receiving the texts. Robinson remained on the run for more than a day until his parents recognized him in a photo released by authorities.

    Also getting a closer look is the security on the day of the attack. Utah Valley is conducting a review, university President Astrid S. Tuminez said Wednesday.

    Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox met with students and campus leaders near the shooting scene, saying he understands they might still be haunted and angry over what happened. “What you do with that anger, that’s what determines where we go from here,” he said.

    Was Charlie Kirk targeted over anti-transgender views?

    Authorities have not revealed a clear motive in the shooting, but Gray said that Robinson wrote in a text about Kirk to his partner: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

    Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, was credited with energizing the Republican youth movement and helping Trump win back the White House in 2024. His political organization, Arizona-based Turning Point USA, brought young, evangelical Christians into politics through social media, his podcast and campus events.

    While court documents said Robinson wrote in one text that planned the attack for more than a week, authorities have not said what they believe that entailed.

    Gray declined to answer whether Robinson targeted Kirk for his anti-transgender views. Kirk was shot while taking a question that touched on mass shootings and transgender people.

    Robinson was involved in a romantic relationship with his roommate, who investigators say is transgender.

    Parents said their son became more political

    Robinson’s mother told investigators that their son had turned hard left politically in the last year and became more supportive of gay and transgender rights, Gray said.

    She recognized him when authorities released a picture of the suspect and his parents confronted him, at which time Robinson said he wanted to kill himself, Gray said.

    The family persuaded him to meet with a family friend who is a retired sheriff’s deputy. That person was able to get Robinson to turn himself in, the prosecutor said.

    Robinson detailed movements after the shooting

    In a text exchange with his partner released by authorities, Robinson wrote about planning to get his rifle from his “drop point,” but that the area was “locked down.”

    The texts, which Robinson later told his partner to delete, did not include timestamps, leaving it unclear how long after the shooting Robinson sent the messages.

    “To be honest I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age. I am sorry to involve you,” Robinson wrote.

    ___

    Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.

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  • House committee asks Discord, Valve, Twitch and Reddit to testify on online radicalization

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    House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has asked the CEOs of Discord, Twitch, Valve and Reddit to testify at a hearing on online radicalization. The hearing will be held on October 8, 2025, and is in direct response to the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk, an event some have tried to connect to the online communities the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, participated in.

    “Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence,” Comer shared in the press release announcing the hearing. “To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes.”

    Following Kirk’s death, law enforcement, regulators and the press have exerted significant effort to both understand Robinson’s actions and structure them into a coherent narrative. The fact that he seemingly engraved the bullets he used with references to furry memes and the game Helldivers implies he may have been immersed in online culture, and could have been influenced by who he interacted with there. But a recent report on his Discord chats suggests his motivations are hard to pin down, even for his friends.

    In general, online platforms don’t escape scrutiny after tragic events, so these sorts of hearings are to be expected. Twitch and Discord were both investigated by the New York and New Jersey Attorney Generals following a 2022 shooting in Buffalo, New York, for example. Given the reaction to Kirk’s death, though, it remains to be seen how much the House Oversight Committee actually wants answers from online platforms, and how much it wants to lay the blame at their feet.

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    Ian Carlos Campbell

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  • Charlie Kirk’s widow vows to continue his mission after his killing

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    Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has vowed to continue her husband’s mission after he was shot and killed at an event in Utah, with police arresting 22-year-old Tyler Robinson for the murder.”If you thought my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea, you just have no idea what you have unleashed across this entire country,” Erika Kirk said. Vigils were held across the country last night in honor of the late conservative activist. The FBI has been searching Robinson’s home for evidence and clues. Investigators say Robinson fired a single round from a bolt-action rifle, leaving behind the weapon and bullet casings engraved with messages like, “Hey fascist, catch.” Authorities say Robinson had grown increasingly political in recent years, telling family members he knew Kirk would be on the Utah Valley University campus and criticizing the conservative activist.Police say it was Robinson’s father who recognized his son as the suspect after the FBI released photos. He encouraged Robinson to turn himself in. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said, “A family member of Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend who contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.”Robinson is due in court Tuesday on murder charges. Both President Trump and Utah’s governor have expressed their desire for prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.Voter registration records show that Robinson is registered to vote unaffiliated with any party, although he is listed as an “inactive” voter, meaning he hasn’t voted in at least the most recent two general elections.Kentucky Rep. James Comer said people feel safer now that the suspect is in custody, but there are still concerns from lawmakers about the rise of political violence. Some lawmakers have changed or canceled their political events. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling for calmer rhetoric and more security, something that is being considered on Capitol Hill.

    WASHINGTON —

    Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, has vowed to continue her husband’s mission after he was shot and killed at an event in Utah, with police arresting 22-year-old Tyler Robinson for the murder.

    “If you thought my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea, you just have no idea what you have unleashed across this entire country,” Erika Kirk said.

    Vigils were held across the country last night in honor of the late conservative activist.

    The FBI has been searching Robinson’s home for evidence and clues. Investigators say Robinson fired a single round from a bolt-action rifle, leaving behind the weapon and bullet casings engraved with messages like, “Hey fascist, catch.”

    Authorities say Robinson had grown increasingly political in recent years, telling family members he knew Kirk would be on the Utah Valley University campus and criticizing the conservative activist.

    Police say it was Robinson’s father who recognized his son as the suspect after the FBI released photos. He encouraged Robinson to turn himself in.

    Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said, “A family member of Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend who contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s Office with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident.”

    Robinson is due in court Tuesday on murder charges. Both President Trump and Utah’s governor have expressed their desire for prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.

    Voter registration records show that Robinson is registered to vote unaffiliated with any party, although he is listed as an “inactive” voter, meaning he hasn’t voted in at least the most recent two general elections.

    Kentucky Rep. James Comer said people feel safer now that the suspect is in custody, but there are still concerns from lawmakers about the rise of political violence. Some lawmakers have changed or canceled their political events. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling for calmer rhetoric and more security, something that is being considered on Capitol Hill.

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  • US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro says DC Council is soft on juvenile crime – WTOP News

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    The Trump Administration is taking aim at youth crime in Washington. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro is harshly criticizing the D.C. Council for what she says is being soft on juvenile offenders.

    President Donald Trump’s administration is taking aim at youth crime in the District. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro is harshly criticizing the D.C. Council for what she says is being soft on juvenile offenders.

    Pirro’s remarks come as a key member of Congress is introducing legislation to take back some of the city’s home rule powers, especially when it comes to law enforcement.

    She made her remarks at a Friday news conference announcing the arrest of two teenagers on murder charges in the killing of a congressional intern who was struck by stray bullets during a shooting in the nation’s capital.

    “The D.C. Council has coddled young criminals for years,” Pirro said. “Everything we do, the D.C. Council is looking to change to benefit the criminal. They reject mandatory minimums that the law requires, they don’t force judges to follow the law. They have sometime called youth rehabilitation and incarceration reduction as well as record sealing.”

    Pirro is calling on Congress to change the law so people as young as 14, who are charged with violent crimes, are prosecuted by her office instead of D.C. Family Court.

    “The D.C. Council thinks that these kids need to be protected. They do not need to be protected. They need to be made accountable, and we need to be protected,” she said. “I am advocating and have advocated for jurisdiction over juveniles 14, 15, 16 and 17.”

    Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, 21, of Granby, Massachusetts, was fatally shot on the night of June 30 near the Mt. Vernon Square Metro station in Northwest D.C. Both suspects in his killing — Kelvin Thomas Jr. and Jailen Lucas — are 17 years old but are being charged as adults with first-degree murder while armed, according to Pirro.

    “It’s bad enough to be gunned down on any street, but to be gunned down in our nation’s capital is an outrage,” she said.

    Tarpinian-Jachym was a rising senior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was in D.C. to work as a summer intern in the office of Rep. Ron Estes, R-Kansas.

    In July, the House observed a moment of silence after Estes paid tribute to Tarpinian-Jachym, calling him “a dedicated, and thoughtful and kind person who loved our country.”

    House panel sets target on DC’s Home Rule Act

    Meanwhile, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, says the committee will mark up a bill next Wednesday that strips away some of the city’s Home Rule Act, specifically when it comes to crime, criminal sentences, and police enforcement.

    “President Trump and House Republicans are committed to restoring law and order in our nation’s capital city. Under President Trump’s decisive leadership, crime in D.C. is now falling at an unprecedented rate,” Comer said in a statement announcing the markup.

    “The House Oversight Committee stands ready to back the president’s swift action by advancing comprehensive legislative reforms that empower District law enforcement and tackle the escalating juvenile crime crisis head-on. Every resident and visitor deserve to feel safe in our capital, and together with President Trump, the Committee will fulfill its constitutional duty to oversee District affairs and make D.C. safe again.”

    Among other things, it changes the mandatory minimum sentence guidelines when it comes to first- and second-degree murder, rape, first-degree sexual abuse, kidnapping, carjacking, and first-degree burglary.

    It would also lower the city’s definition of a youth from 25 to under 18, trying people that age as adults. Additionally, it would remove the discretion of judges to sentence youth offenders to sentences below the mandatory minimum.

    Comer said the legislation would ensure a safe and prosperous D.C., adding that other looming changes to the city’s Home Rule Act could include:

    • Establishing a uniform 60-day congressional review period for all D.C. Council legislation
    • Eliminating the ability of the D.C. Council to extend emergency laws in perpetuity
    • Providing a line-item veto of D.C. Acts in congressional resolutions of disapproval
    • Prohibiting D.C. Council from withdrawing legislation from the congressional review process and passing substantially similar laws to legislation that was successfully disapproved by Congress
    • Providing clear and concise expedited consideration procedures for resolutions of disapproval in both the House and Senate to avoid the window of congressional review closing before both chambers may act on the resolution

    WTOP’s Scott Gelman contributed to this report.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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  • House committee subpoenas Epstein’s estate for documents, including birthday book and contacts

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    House committee subpoenas Epstein’s estate for documents, including birthday book and contacts

    Updated: 4:41 PM EDT Aug 25, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the estate of the late Jeffrey Epstein on Monday as congressional lawmakers try to determine who was connected to the disgraced financier and whether prosecutors mishandled his case.The committee’s subpoena is the latest effort by both Republicans and Democrats to respond to public clamor for more disclosure in the investigation into Epstein, who was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. Lawmakers are trying to guide an investigation into who among Epstein’s high-powered social circle may have been aware of his sexual abuse of teenage girls, delving into a criminal case that has spurred conspiracy theories and roiled top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration.The subpoena, signed by Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, and dated Monday, demands that Epstein’s estate provide Congress with documents including a book that was compiled with notes from friends for his 50th birthday, his last will and testament, agreements he signed with prosecutors, his contact books, and his financial transactions and holdings.Comer wrote to the executors of Epstein’s estate that the committee “is reviewing the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death, the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials.”The Justice Department, trying to distance Trump and Epstein, last week began handing over to lawmakers documentation of the federal investigation into Epstein. It has also released transcripts of interviews conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend. But Democrats on the committee have not been satisfied with those efforts, saying that the some 33,000 pages of documents they’ve received are mostly already public.“DOJ’s limited disclosure raises more questions than answers and makes clear that the White House is not interested in justice for the victims or the truth,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.Pressure from lawmakers to release more information is likely to only grow when Congress returns to Washington next week.A bipartisan group of House members is attempting to maneuver around Republican leadership to hold a vote to pass legislation meant to require the Justice Department to release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.

    WASHINGTON —

    The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the estate of the late Jeffrey Epstein on Monday as congressional lawmakers try to determine who was connected to the disgraced financier and whether prosecutors mishandled his case.

    The committee’s subpoena is the latest effort by both Republicans and Democrats to respond to public clamor for more disclosure in the investigation into Epstein, who was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. Lawmakers are trying to guide an investigation into who among Epstein’s high-powered social circle may have been aware of his sexual abuse of teenage girls, delving into a criminal case that has spurred conspiracy theories and roiled top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration.

    The subpoena, signed by Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the oversight committee, and dated Monday, demands that Epstein’s estate provide Congress with documents including a book that was compiled with notes from friends for his 50th birthday, his last will and testament, agreements he signed with prosecutors, his contact books, and his financial transactions and holdings.

    Comer wrote to the executors of Epstein’s estate that the committee “is reviewing the possible mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation of Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death, the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials.”

    The Justice Department, trying to distance Trump and Epstein, last week began handing over to lawmakers documentation of the federal investigation into Epstein. It has also released transcripts of interviews conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend. But Democrats on the committee have not been satisfied with those efforts, saying that the some 33,000 pages of documents they’ve received are mostly already public.

    “DOJ’s limited disclosure raises more questions than answers and makes clear that the White House is not interested in justice for the victims or the truth,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement.

    Pressure from lawmakers to release more information is likely to only grow when Congress returns to Washington next week.

    A bipartisan group of House members is attempting to maneuver around Republican leadership to hold a vote to pass legislation meant to require the Justice Department to release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.

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  • Congress targets Chinese influence in health tech. It could come with tradeoffs

    Congress targets Chinese influence in health tech. It could come with tradeoffs

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A California biotechnology company that helps doctors detect genetic causes for cancer is among those that could be cut out of the U.S. market over ties to China, underscoring the possible tradeoffs between health innovation and a largely bipartisan push in Congress to counter Beijing’s global influence.

    The competition between the world’s superpowers is hitting Complete Genomics, whose employees, some in white lab coats stitched with U.S. flag arm patches, spin samples in test tubes and huddle around computers in San Jose. Its founder and chief scientific officer said he’s frustrated that geopolitics is interfering with science.

    “It’s just a loss for the research and for the industry,” Radoje Drmanac said.

    The U.S. House this week overwhelmingly passed the BIOSECURE Act, which cites national security in preventing federal money from benefiting Complete Genomics and four other companies linked to China. They work with U.S. drugmakers to develop new medications or help doctors diagnose diseases.

    It is part of a sweeping package of bills aimed at countering China’s influence and power, especially in technology, that Congress largely backed this week. The biotech measure, which cleared the House with a 306-81 vote, now heads to the Senate.

    Supporters say the legislation is necessary to protect Americans’ health care data, reduce reliance on China in the medical supply chain and ensure the U.S. gains an edge in the biotech field, which both countries call crucial to their economy and security.

    Opponents say the bill, which would ban China-linked companies from working with firms that receive U.S. government money, would delay clinical trials and hinder development of new drugs, raise costs for medications and hurt innovation.

    Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican and the bill’s sponsor, said House approval was the first step in protecting Americans’ genetic data and reversing the trend of relying on Beijing for gene testing and basic medical supplies.

    “For too long, U.S. policy has failed to recognize the twin economic and national security threats posed by China’s domination of particular markets and supply chains,” he said.

    Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said it’s necessary to protect U.S. interests before these companies “become more embedded in the U.S. economy, university systems and federal contracting base.”

    Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., argued that the legislation, which he opposed, should not name specific companies without due process, saying, “If one of these five companies does not belong on the list, too bad, Congress doesn’t like you, and that’s that.”

    Drmanac of Complete Genomics, a subsidiary of China-based company MGI, said the privacy of Americans’ personal information is not a concern because his company’s instruments are only connected to local U.S. servers.

    The company also has argued that Congress should broadly apply data protection standards and requirements rather than targeting a small subset of companies.

    Some analysts see the issue as more about industry competition than protecting people’s personal information from the Chinese government.

    “You want to make sure that American pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology companies are on an even footing in terms of their ability to compete both inside the U.S. market and then also abroad,” said Andrew Reddie, a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the intersection of technology, politics and security and founded the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab.

    Complete Genomics is listed in the legislation along with BGI, MGI, WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics. MGI is a spinoff of BGI, a heavyweight genomics company based in China that offers genetic sequencing services for research purposes in the U.S.

    BGI Group called the bill “a false flag targeting companies under the premise of national security” and said, “We strictly follow rules and laws, and we have no access to Americans’ personal data in any of our work.”

    MGI said the bill would “serve only to stifle competition and foster a monopoly in DNA testing.”

    WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics work as contractors providing research, development and manufacturing services for U.S. drugmakers. Such services are considered crucial for American pharmaceutical companies to develop and make new drugs.

    WuXi AppTec said it and others in the industry are concerned about the bill’s impact on biotechnology innovation, drug development, patient care and health care costs. It urged the Senate not to move forward without addressing “these serious consequences.”

    In filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, dozens of U.S. biotech companies have flagged the BIOSECURE Act as a concern, saying it could have major effects on the pharmaceutical supply chain because of the industry’s extensive partnerships with Chinese companies.

    Drugmaker Eli Lilly says its third-party suppliers are “sometimes the sole global source for a component” but it has been working to move some development and manufacturing closer to home, which typically takes several years “due to scientific and regulatory complexity and the need to ensure process and product quality.”

    BIO, the largest advocacy group for U.S. biotech companies and research institutions, supports the bill, saying it reinforces the industry’s national security imperative.

    The bill, which gives U.S. companies eight years to break ties with Chinese firms, has provided “a reasonable timeframe” for the decoupling, group CEO John Crowley said.

    ___

    Daley reported from San Jose.

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  • Another Biden Impeachment Witness Blows Up In James Comer’s Face

    Another Biden Impeachment Witness Blows Up In James Comer’s Face

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    Rep. James Comer’s Biden impeachment investigation failure rolled on by featuring a witness who has never spoken or communicated with the President.

    House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said in a statement about Mervyn Yan’s testimony:

    Just like every other witness in Chairman Comer’s ‘clueless investigation’—that even House Republicans are calling a ‘parade of embarrassments’ and ‘a disaster’—Mervyn Yan testified to the Committee today that he has no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden and that, to his knowledge, President Biden was not involved in, did not profit from, and took no official actions in relation to his family’s business dealings.

    Further undercutting Republicans’ lies about President Biden, Mr. Yan testified that he never once did business with or had any personal or professional communication with President Biden.

    Chairman Comer’s allegations have been disproven time and again, as he ‘continues to embarrass himself and House Republicans.’ Yet, House Republicans have spent 13 months and millions of tax dollars in feckless pursuit of political revenge demanded by former President Donald Trump.

    According to Republican investigators, these transcribed interviews and depositions are supposed to be central to closing out 13 months of ‘clueless investigation’ into President Biden, and I think they are right: Every single witness called by House Republicans has refuted their increasingly desperate and outlandish efforts to smear President Biden. It is time to end this slapstick comedy of an investigation and instead focus on delivering for the American people.

    If my Republican colleagues are interested in a private citizen’s business with CEFC, then surely they must be distressed that an American President, Donald Trump, collected at least $150,000 from CEFC and more than $5.5 million from the Chinese government and Chinese state-owned enterprise while sitting in the Oval Office and presiding over the federal government.

    House Republicans have turned on Comer and called his investigation an embarrassment and a disaster. Since Rep. Comer can’t find an impeachable offense committed by the President, he has spent more than a year going down conspiracy rabbit holes and interviewing what seems like everyone in Hunter Biden’s life even if they have never met his father.

    James Comer has no case, and apparently no idea what he is doing. Rep. Comer seems to be hoping that can string together something that sounds ominous or infers an impeachable offense, but he’s got nothing, and this Biden impeachment investigation appears to be going nowhere.

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  • James Comer Has Another Big Failure On Biden Impeachment

    James Comer Has Another Big Failure On Biden Impeachment

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    George Bergès, the dealer who sold Hunter Biden’s art, confirmed in a transcribed interview that he has no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden.

    Jamie Raskin: There’s No Evidence Of A Presidential Offense

    House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA:

    Just like every other witness in this embarrassing slapstick investigation, George Bergès stated he had no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. Hunter Biden made art that Bergès sold in his gallery, and President Biden had no knowledge of or role in these art sales.

    It’s not illegal to buy and sell abstract art in America. If Chairman Comer doesn’t like Hunter Biden’s paintings or modern art in general, he doesn’t have to buy it. But Hunter Biden is allowed to create art and sell it. The GOP’s allegations of influence peddling and money laundering are unfounded and were, once again, totally refuted by today’s witness.

    If Chairman Comer seriously wants to stop corrupt foreign influence and violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, I encourage him to check out the millions of dollars Donald Trump raked in from foreign states and murderous monarchs. Alas, Chairman Comer blocked us from getting all the discovery to which we are entitled but we got enough to know that Trump was on the take big-time from foreign states, raking in huge spoils from the royals. Meantime, George Bergès confirmed today once again that Joe Biden was not involved in, and did not profit from, his family’s business operations. We should get back to work for the American people and drop this futile investigation. Art appreciation is subjective. But the facts of this investigation aren’t open to interpretation, Mr. Chairman. There is no evidence of a presidential offense.

    James Comer Has No Witnesses To Confirm Impeachable Offenses

    If President Biden supposedly took millions of dollars and had all of these business dealings, why is there no evidence or witnesses to prove what House Republicans are claiming?

    Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer  (R-KY) has less than nothing in terms of impeachment evidence. Each witness that comes forward tells the same story. President Biden had nothing to do with his son’s business dealings.

    It is easy to see why Comer doesn’t want to hold impeachment hearings. He has no witnesses or evidence that President Biden ever did anything wrong.

    There is not going to be much to the Biden impeachment hearings without evidence and witnesses.

    Each witness is a new failure for James Comer and House Republican efforts to impeach President Biden.

     

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  • Jamie Raskin Rips James Comer For Covering Up Evidence Of Trump's Lawlessness

    Jamie Raskin Rips James Comer For Covering Up Evidence Of Trump's Lawlessness

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    House Oversight Committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said that committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-KY) has used his legislative power to cover up Trump’s lawlessness.

    Jamie Raskin Unloads On James Comer

    Ranking Member Raskin said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA:

    Chairman Comer says it is ‘beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with Donald Trump,’ which is amusing because the masochistic obsession with Donald Trump obviously belongs to Chairman Comer and all the Republicans who have used their legislative power to cover up evidence of Trump’s lawlessness and to serve his demands for personal vengeance. Chairman Comer and his partisans still cannot think of anyone else in their party qualified to be president.

    They continue to promote Trump for president (or dictator) even after he was impeached for inciting a violent insurrection against the Constitution, even after he has been found to be a sexual assailant and defamer of his victim and even after it has become clear that he stole classified and top-secret government documents and refused to return them. The moment the Republicans drop Donald Trump, who is a clear and present threat to American constitutional democracy, I will be pleased to never mention his name again in a political context and simply allow the courts and his family to deal with him. Is the Chairman too obsessed to let Trump go?

    Meantime, Chairman Comer casually admits that Donald Trump was in business while president of the United States, which is precisely what is unlawful when it involves collection of millions of dollars from foreign governments and monarchs. Joe Biden, for his part has scrupulously adhered to the Foreign Emoluments Clause and the Domestic Emoluments Clause. After a year of his embarrassing wild goose chase, obsessively focused on President Biden’s son, a private citizen who never served in his father’s Administration, Comer cannot identify any wrongdoing by President Biden, let alone a single monetary payment he has received from a foreign government.

    Read the report about Trump’s systematic violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, Mr. Chairman, and if you are serious about fighting corruption, I would invite you to join us in passing legislation to make sure no Commander-in-Chief again flouts the Constitution to sell out American foreign policy for personal profit to Princes, Prime Ministers, Premiers and dictators.

    Republicans Are Covering Up Corruption While Chasing Biden Impeachment

    There remains zero evidence that President Biden did anything wrong, yet House Republicans led by Rep. Comer are continuing to chase a fact-free impeachment of the President while they turn a blind eye to the volumes of evidence of Trump’s crimes and impeachable offenses.

    What House Republicans are doing is worse than abusing their political power to go after a political opponent.

    House Republicans are attempting to obstruct investigations into and prosecutions of Donald Trump.

    Democrats were unable to get more evidence of foreign payments to Trump because Comer and others stopped forcing his accountants to comply with congressional subpoenas.

    House Republicans are obsessed with Trump, and they will do anything to see him back in the White House.

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  • Rep. Tim Burchett Claims Members Of Congress Have Been Blackmailed Over Jeffrey Epstein Information

    Rep. Tim Burchett Claims Members Of Congress Have Been Blackmailed Over Jeffrey Epstein Information

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    Opinion

    Screenshot: PalmBeachPost YouTube Video

    Representative Tim Burchett (R-TN) made a startling accusation on Thursday, claiming that he believes that members of Congress are “compromised” into not providing public information on notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein.

    Burchett’s comments came during a discussion with conservative political analyst Benny Johnson.

    The pair were discussing a letter the lawmaker had written to House Oversight & Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) requesting that he subpoena flight logs for Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane.

    Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) previously pushed to subpoena Epstein’s flight records, but that effort was squashed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL), who suggested that there was no public value in the information.

    Epstein, who was convicted of procuring for prostitution a girl below the age of 18 in 2008 and was facing sex trafficking charges until he died, according to authorities by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019, was known to have traveled by jet.

    The jet earned the nickname, “Lolita Express.”

    RELATED: Vivek Ramaswamy Gets Praise For Promise To Release Epstein Client List: ‘Every Candidate Should Commit To This’

    Have Members Of Congress Been Blackmailed Over Epstein Information?

    At one point during the interview, Burchett is asked in no uncertain terms whether he thinks the information on Epstein’s flight logs is so difficult to obtain due to members of Congress being “compromised.”

    In his questioning, Johnson leaves no room for ambiguity.

    “So you’re saying that right now … there are members of Congress who have been compromised by either special interests or the intelligence community to not give the American public information on Jeffrey Epstein?” Johnson asked.

    “I believe so,” Burchett replied. “One hundred percent.”

    Burchett goes on to slam “unelected bureaucrats” in the intelligence community who have, in his estimation, taken part in other efforts to keep information out of the public square.

    One only has to go back to the Hunter Biden laptop or COVID-19 censorship efforts to see such coverups in action.

    Johnson notes that “many (people) have speculated that Jeffrey Epstein was an intelligence asset” who would get famous individuals like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, or the Royal Family, in “compromising positions,” leading to his own personal wealth and power over those people.

    Burchett responded that he viewed Epstein as a “free agent” who would say, “Hey, I’ve got this guy and what will you give me to keep him under wraps?”

    RELATED: Joe Rogan: Epstein Kept That Painting Of Bill Clinton In A Dress To Let Him Know ‘I Got You B****’

    Who Else Has Been Compromised?

    Burchett and Johnson went into further detail about former President Clinton during their discussion of Epstein.

    Clinton had traveled on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” 26 separate times, according to a Fox News analysis, while other analyses of flight logs led to claims of fewer trips. Regardless, there is no denying he traveled on the plane.

    Doug Band, a former top aide to Clinton, made shocking allegations in a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair, including claims that the former president took a trip in 2003 to Epstein’s famed private island.

    Johnson contends that Epstein likely had an “enormous treasure trove of information on Bill Clinton,” and even referenced the oil painting kept by the sex trafficker.

    Epstein kept a disturbing painting depicting Clinton wearing red high heels and a blue dress hanging in his Manhattan townhouse.

    Podcast host Joe Rogan suggested that the painting was kept there as a means to remind Clinton who had the real power.

    “That painting is like: ‘I got you, b****,” Rogan said. “You know he knows about it.”

    “Imagine if I knew some horrible dark secrets about you and you came over to my house and I have a giant painting of you,” he continued. “Right when you walk into the front door of you in a dress and I’m like, ‘Hey buddy.’”

    “Do you think that Jeffrey Epstein was killed because our intelligence agencies were upset that this all happened, were angry that somebody was able to get one over on Bill Clinton?” Johnson asked the Tennessee congressman.

    “I don’t know if it’s our intelligence agencies or not, but somebody of power,” Burchett replied. “You know … there’s always a diversion in these things. You always look at ‘A’ and it’s always ‘A plus three’, somebody further down that list would push out Clinton.”

    “Because Clinton’s just a boob,” he added.

    Burchett even began wading into the notorious Clinton death toll conspiracies, saying it’s openly discussed in a joking matter inside the congressional gym.

    “They (Democrat colleagues) laugh about it,” he said. “About people that have met their demise, that have been close to them (the Clinton’s).”

    What do you think about this? Let us know in the comments section.

    Tucker Carlson: Deep State Working To Keep Trump From Winning ‘Like When They Killed Kennedy’

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  • CNN's Jake Tapper Mocks Rep. James Comer's Hunter Biden Theory To His Face

    CNN's Jake Tapper Mocks Rep. James Comer's Hunter Biden Theory To His Face

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    Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has a new conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden, but he couldn’t get CNN’s Jake Tapper to take it seriously during an interview Friday.

    In fact, Tapper mocked the Kentucky congressman to his face.

    The president’s son was indicted Thursday on nine tax charges in California, and Comer, the House Oversight Committee chair, appeared on CNN the next day to discuss the matter.

    Although Biden could face serious time behind bars if convicted, Comer dubiously claimed the criminal charges were actually part of a cover-up designed to throw off his investigation into unproven allegations around the Biden family’s supposedly shady financial dealings.

    Comer said none of the crimes that Hunter Biden was accused of dealt with things his committee is investigating, and then suggested that special counsel David Weiss indicted the president’s son “to protect him from having to be deposed in the House Oversight Committee [next week].”

    Tapper’s eyebrows raised over that theory, and he couldn’t help but mock it to Comer directly.

    “He indicted him to protect him?” Tapper asked, before sarcastically adding, “The classic rubric, I got it.”

    Comer said the whole Biden story has been about a cover-up, but Tapper went back to Comer’s previous, somewhat contradictory statement.

    “That’s why [Weiss] indicted him, to protect him? To cover it up?” Tapper asked incredulously.

    Comer responded, “Look, you indict him on the least little thing, the gun charge and not paying taxes,” before Tapper pointed out why the theory sounded ridiculous.

    ″[Biden’s] facing like 17 additional years in prison! These are felonies!” Tapper said.

    “Yeah, but look at what he’s done! Anybody else in America would already be in prison,” Comer said.

    You can see their exchange — and Tapper’s reaction — in the video below.

    Tapper’s snark continued when he grilled Comer on why he won’t let Biden testify before his committee in public, an offer he made previously.

    “Why not just jump at the opportunity to grill Hunter Biden on national television?” Tapper asked. “Here’s your chance, you know? You’re the dog that caught the bus. Here it is!”

    Comer claimed his investigation wasn’t about politics or theater, to which Tapper chuckled.

    The CNN anchor’s reaction to Comer’s very dubious theory didn’t go unnoticed on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    Some commented that Comer probably wasn’t used to being fact-checked, since he tends to only do interviews with conservative media.

    One woman couldn’t help but take Comer’s theory that the indictment was good for Biden and apply it to former President Donald Trump.

    Related…

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  • Jake Tapper Mocks Rep. James Comer To His Face

    Jake Tapper Mocks Rep. James Comer To His Face

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    Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) has a new conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden, but he couldn’t get CNN’s Jake Tapper to take it seriously during an interview Friday.

    In fact, Tapper mocked the Kentucky congressman to his face.

    The president’s son was indicted Thursday on nine tax charges in California, and Comer, the House Oversight Committee chair, appeared on CNN the next day to discuss the matter.

    Although Biden could face serious time behind bars if convicted, Comer dubiously claimed the criminal charges were actually part of a cover-up designed to throw off his investigation into unproven allegations around the Biden family’s supposedly shady financial dealings.

    Comer said none of the crimes that Hunter Biden was accused of dealt with things his committee is investigating, and then suggested that special counsel David Weiss indicted the president’s son “to protect him from having to be deposed in the House Oversight Committee [next week].”

    Tapper’s eyebrows raised over that theory, and he couldn’t help but mock it to Comer directly.

    “He indicted him to protect him?” Tapper asked, before sarcastically adding, “The classic rubric, I got it.”

    Comer said the whole Biden story has been about a cover-up, but Tapper went back to Comer’s previous, somewhat contradictory statement.

    “That’s why [Weiss] indicted him, to protect him? To cover it up?” Tapper asked incredulously.

    Comer responded, “Look, you indict him on the least little thing, the gun charge and not paying taxes,” before Tapper pointed out why the theory sounded ridiculous.

    ″[Biden’s] facing like 17 additional years in prison! These are felonies!” Tapper said.

    “Yeah, but look at what he’s done! Anybody else in America would already be in prison,” Comer said.

    You can see their exchange — and Tapper’s reaction — in the video below.

    Tapper’s snark continued when he grilled Comer on why he won’t let Biden testify before his committee in public, an offer he made previously.

    “Why not just jump at the opportunity to grill Hunter Biden on national television?” Tapper asked. “Here’s your chance, you know? You’re the dog that caught the bus. Here it is!”

    Comer claimed his investigation wasn’t about politics or theater, to which Tapper chuckled.

    The CNN anchor’s reaction to Comer’s very dubious theory didn’t go unnoticed on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    Some commented that Comer probably wasn’t used to being fact-checked, since he tends to only do interviews with conservative media.

    One woman couldn’t help but take Comer’s theory that the indictment was good for Biden and apply it to former President Donald Trump.

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  • Some GOP Show Love To Marijuana

    Some GOP Show Love To Marijuana

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    Traditionally, the GOP has been the nemesis of expanded marijuana legalization. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been proud of preventing national movement. They party also has been quick to blame cannabis use for everything including mass shooting and the fentanyl crisis.  But over the last couple of years, a few Republican champions have emerged and it is a bit startling.

    RELATED: Marijuana Can Make Your Holidays Better

    The cannabis industry held its breathe with the election of the Biden/Harris ticket.  Vice President Harris had been a foe and there was fear about what would happen when they entered office. The reality is nothing happened. Despite Biden’s promise of helping, it took 3 years for him to consider cannabis rescheduling. He has refused to nudge Congress to support federal legalization and Harris has remains out of site.

    Photo by FatCamera/Getty Images

    In a surprise to most, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, came out in support of the taxation and regulation of recreational cannabis.  DC is overseen by Congress and has been begging for statehood for generations. Currently, they still have the federal elected overseeing how parts of the city are run. In 2014, Nearly two-thirds of D.C. voters favored legalizing recreational marijuana for in a 2014 ballot initiative. In the District, the possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana is decriminalized for residents 21 years or older for recreational or medical use, according to the district’s marijuana laws.  Comer is very open to following the voter wishes.

    RELATED: California or New York, Which Has The Biggest Marijuana Mess

    Also, Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) reintroduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) 2.0 Act, signaling a renewed effort to end federal marijuana prohibition in states where it is legal. And it is being driven by Republicans.  Co-sponsored by Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Brian Mast (R-FL), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Troy Carter (D-LA), it goes beyond decriminalizing state cannabis programs by proposing a federal tax-and-regulate framework for the cannabis industry.

    You also have Rep Nancy Mace (R-SC) has lead efforts for SAFE Banking and more and has worked across the aisle to support the cannabis industry.

    While this is a good sign, it doesn’t mean it has full throttle support from the GOP. Ohio is a a hot mess as Republicans feel voters were confused when 70% voted and passed recreational marijuana, they are now working to gut it.  They can learn from Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who told Florida voters who doesn’t care 70% voted for cannabis, he knows better.

    There is a saying about politics make strange bedfellows, I guess marijuana makes odd cannabis buddies.

     

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    Terry Hacienda

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  • James Comer’s Biden corruption claim a “desperate” distraction: White House

    James Comer’s Biden corruption claim a “desperate” distraction: White House

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    House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s revelation of a supposedly “shady” payment to President Joe Biden is a “desperate” distraction from House GOP chaos, according to a White House spokesperson.

    Comer, who is leading the Republican impeachment inquiry into Biden, released what he suggested was evidence proving Biden’s corruption on Friday, sharing an image of a $200,000 check sent to the president by his brother James Biden in 2018.

    The oversight chair said that court documents showed James Biden had received “shady” loans totaling $600,000 from a failing hospital firm based on claims that his family name would “open doors” and could help secure a “large investment from the Middle East.”

    The payment was “troubling,” Comer said, in part due to a $200,000 loan payment being sent to James Biden on the same day that the check was written to his brother, the then-future president.

    House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is pictured during a hearing in Washington, D.C. on September 28, 2023. Comer released evidence of a supposedly “shady” 2018 loan repayment to President Joe Biden from his brother James Biden on Friday.
    Drew Angerer

    However, the check made out to Joe Biden also clearly indicated that the money was sent as a “loan repayment”—a fact that was highlighted a short time later by Ian Sams, the White House spokesman for oversight and investigations, in a post to X, formerly Twitter.

    Sams argued that Comer’s release of the check image was intended to distract from the continuing inability of Republicans to select a new House speaker after ousting former speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this month.

    “Jamie Comer is pretty desperate to try to distract from Republicans’ speaker mess,” Sams wrote. “It’s a loan repayment from when President Biden loaned his brother money. When he was out of office in 2018, no less. It’s right there on the check!”

    Sams went on to say that Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, who filed the motion that ousted McCarthy earlier this month, was “right” while previously accusing House GOP leadership of engaging in “failure theater.”

    Newsweek reached out for comment to Comer’s office via email on Friday evening.

    Comer acknowledged that Biden, who was neither in office nor a candidate for office in 2018, may have received the money as a personal loan repayment in a video announcing that Republicans had “found some” evidence of corruption.

    “Even if this was a personal loan repayment, it’s still troubling that Joe Biden’s ability to be paid back by his brother depended on the success of his family’s shady financial dealings,” Comer said.

    The oversight chair insisted that the president “must answer” questions about the transaction.

    “Does he have documents proving he lent such a large sum of money to his brother and what were the terms of such financial arrangement?” said Comer.

    According to a September 2022 Wall Street Journal article on James Biden settling a lawsuit over not repaying his $600,000 loan from now-bankrupt hospital firm Americore, the president’s brother never delivered on his promise to help the firm by securing a Middle East investment.

    While Comer and other Republicans pushing for Joe Biden’s impeachment have argued that they have a large amount of evidence for the president’s corruption, they have yet to publicly produce any evidence that proves Biden committed a crime.

    Meanwhile, the House remains rudderless following GOP infighting that saw Representative Jim Jordan‘s bid for speaker go down in flames on Friday after three consecutive rounds of failed votes this week.