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House set to vote on Biden impeachment inquiry
So far, it looks like the House GOP has the votes, with many of the Republicans who were skeptical six months ago – most from Biden-won districts – coming on board. While they are still concerned about potential backlash in their districts, the desire to force subpoenas and White House cooperation is changing their minds.
The pro-inquiry ranks got a boost on Friday when Hunter Biden was charged by a federal court for allegedly failing to pay millions in income taxes. The House has subpoenaed Biden to testify in a closed-door hearing on Wednesday. Biden agreed on the condition that the hearing be public, citing concerns that his statements would be taken out of context. The House refused, setting up the potential for a legal showdown if Biden fails to appear.
While there has not yet been any hard evidence of wrongdoing by the president himself, Republicans frequently point to a 2018 video, where President Biden speaks about withholding a loan until guarantee until a prominent Ukrainian official – with links to a Ukrainian gas company that Hunter is on the board of – was fired. Republicans need to build a bridge between Hunter Biden’s vices and their accusations that his father committed high crimes and misdemeanors. The GOP points to potential links between If they fail to do so, Republicans risk the inquiry appearing to be a form of revenge for the impeachments of Donald Trump, which could jeopardize Republicans in swing districts.
Hard Numbers: Hunter Biden in court, deadly Niger ambush, post-terror raids in Turkey, India questions journalists, cyber attacks target Kenya
3: President Joe Biden’s son Hunter President Joe Biden's son pleaded not guilty to three firearms charges in a Delaware federal court on Tuesday. The younger Biden was indicted last month on three counts related to possession of a firearm while using illegal drugs.
29: In one of the deadliest raids in Niger since soldiers staged a coup in July, a group of soldiers conducting operations against militants were ambushed by more than 100 insurgents. At least 29 soldiers were killed.
13,400: Following a terrorist attack in Ankara last week, Turkish authorities have dispatched some 13,400 security officers to carry out raids in 64 Turkish provinces to find suspects with ties to Kurdish militant groups and those who possess illegal weapons. Hundreds of people have been arrested.
30: Indian authorities are carrying out raids too. On Tuesday, police in Delhi raided the homes of several well-known journalists and authors at 30 separate locations as part of an investigation of news website NewsClick. Opposition critics say NewsClick is guilty only of criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP government. Authorities say they suspect the website is funded by China.
860 million: Kenya’s communications regulator says the country has experienced a record 860 million cyber attacks in the past year, and that “the frequency, sophistication and scale of cyber-threats” targeted at Kenya’s critical information infrastructure is surging. Makes you wonder how many daily attacks are directed at, say, the United States, China, Russia, or Ukraine.Hunter Biden's legal issues are an opportunity for GOP
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics.
Is President Biden's son Hunter a political liability for him?
This week, an extraordinary scene played out in a courtroom in Delaware as a judge rejected a plea deal that was negotiated by lawyers for President Biden's son Hunter over illegal possession of a firearm and tax evasion. Republicans have been criticizing the plea deal for weeks, saying it was far too lenient on the president's son, and reflected what they've called a two-tier justice system being pursued by federal law enforcement. One tier is attempting to prosecute former President Trump for mishandling classified documents and his role in trying to overturn the election results in 2020, and another that is giving the current president's son a slap on the wrist that would've provided him immunity from far more serious charges that he acted as an unregistered foreign agent.
The younger Biden has struggled with drug addiction and has been involved in what seems to be some very shady business deals, including serving in lucrative board positions for foreign companies, despite seemingly offering very little value other than his last name, and making significant sums of money selling his art to democratic donors and others trying to curry favor with the Biden administration. Despite this, President Biden has defended him and kept him close, even inviting him to the state dinner last month with Indian Prime Minister Modi. And though Biden sees no threat to his reelection campaign, Republicans see this as a massive opportunity to take one of Biden's biggest campaign assets, the appearance of his integrity, and turn it against him by painting Biden with a whiff of corruption, including unfounded allegations that he took bribes as vice president to interfere with an ongoing investigation in Ukraine.
Republicans are hoping to neutralize the charges being leveled against former President Trump in state and federal courtrooms and paint the FBI and federal law enforcement as deeply politicized. Republicans don't have to prove a thing for this tactic to be successful. With the amount of confusing information about what President Biden did and didn't do that will come out in congressional hearings and a likely impeachment inquiry later this year, it will be enough for even normal independent voters to start asking questions about the politicization of federal law enforcement, what Biden did and didn't do, and ultimately discredit the Department of Justice with a large segment of the most partisan Republican voters. These issues are not top of mind for voters this year. The economy is. But they do show how brutal and ugly the 2024 campaign season is going to be.
- Hunter Biden's crimes won't impact 2024 election ›
- Hard Numbers: Japan’s gaijin population grows, Fed bumps up rates again, Hunter Biden’s plea goes bust, India plays games with new tax, Italian grandmas enforce order ›
- Hard Numbers: Hunter Biden cops to charges, Brazilians bust shark fin racket, Pakistan and India face off on home grass, Aussies worry about China ›
Hunter Biden's crimes won't impact 2024 election
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Will Hunter Biden's tax crimes impact Joe Biden's reelection in 2024?
No, I don't think it will, but certainly it is impacting the continued erosion of US democratic institutions. I mean, this will be used by the GOP to say that, "There's differential treatment between the Biden crime family and the Trump crime family." My personal belief is that these are not equivalent, and I'll be talking about that later in the week. But what that means is the DOJ and the FBI are going to be seen as increasingly politicized as organizations. That's really unfortunate for the US, but it doesn't have much impact on 2024.
How will the EU's AI Act look in practice?
This is an effort by the regulatory superpower, the EU, which doesn't have a lot of big tech companies, and it doesn't have a lot of heavy security or military industrial complex, but it does have technocrats in Brussels, and Margrethe Vestager in particular in charge of competition, riding herd on this, wants to make sure that the EU is the one that gets to set the rules. And they are working really hard on the Americans in the transatlantic conversations with their own Member States to see that it is not going to be a hub and spoke model where individual departments get to regulate, but instead where the EU as a whole sets the rules. Having said that, this is early days and nothing is going to be actually rolled out for a year or two, minimum, absolute minimum, which means this is still a space driven by the tech companies.
Finally, how will the US respond to a possible China-Cuba military training facility?
Well, they won't like it, and maybe they'll try to disrupt it, though they already have all sorts of sanctions on Cuba. So, it's not like you can do much to the Cubans economically. And if the Cubans as a sovereign country want to do business with the Chinese, that includes military engagement, yeah, they're not a democracy, so it doesn't represent the interests of the people, but neither is the UAE or Qatar or Saudi Arabia, and the Americans have bases there. And also, keep in mind, US military capabilities and surveillance on China, a hell of a lot greater in China's backyard than China's abilities on the United States. At the end of the day, it's kind of open competition and the Americans are going to have to compete harder and continue to be stronger. And the CHIPS Act has done that. Maybe we'll see more of that in other areas, too.
Hard Numbers: Hunter Biden cops to charges, Brazilians bust shark fin racket, Pakistan and India face off on home grass, Aussies worry about China
2: Hunter Biden — perhaps you’ve heard of him! — will plead guilty to two federal charges, and neither of them has anything to do with Ukraine, China, laptops, or any of the other things that Republicans have been hammering him about since 2020. The president’s son will cop to charges of tax evasion and illegal firearms possession, following a five-year probe that began during the Trump presidency.
28.7: Brazilian authorities have taken a megalodon-sized bite out of crime, confiscating a record 28.7 tons of illegally fished shark fins that were destined for delicacy diners in Asia. Investigators said as many as 11,000 sharks were killed in order to harvest the fins. Brazil is one of dozens of countries that ban “shark finning,” in which poachers slice off the fins at sea and discard the dying carcass in open water.
9: For the first time in nine years, Pakistan’s national football team will play against India in India. Home matches between the two are rare, given decades of geopolitical tensions. Neither is a star at football, but the match could pave the way for the first Pakistan-India cricket face-off in India since 2012 at this fall’s ICC Cricket World Cup. That would be a much bigger deal: a smackdown summit featuring two of the sport’s superpowers.
75: Some 75% of Australians polled believe that China will be a military threat to their country over the next two decades. It’s worth wondering whether Australia’s dependence on trade with China — by far its largest commercial partner — makes that outcome more likely, or less.What We’re Watching: Domestic & foreign policy implications, lame-duck maneuvers, Trump 2.0?, a Lake of doubts
Probe payback incoming?
After being on the unhappy side of a raft of Democrat-led House investigations the last few years, incoming GOP House leaders are itching to launch a number of their own. Subjects may include the Biden administration’s clunky withdrawal from Afghanistan, the origins of the COVID-19 virus, the alleged politicization of the Justice Department, and of course, the GOP’s favorite target, Hunter Biden. What about impeachment? The Dems did it twice to Donald Trump. Could Republicans return the favor? Likely incoming House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says the GOP would never pursue it for “political purposes.”
Will foreign policy change under a GOP House?
The biggest immediate issue will be Ukraine, where McCarthy will try to balance the views of establishment GOP Russia hawks against those of MAGA members who want to limit aid to Kyiv. McCarthy’s already pledged to scrap what he calls a “blank check” policy and to scrutinize more closely the content and aims of US aid to Kyiv. Also, expect an even harder line against China, focusing on Beijing’s trade and industrial policies, its role in the opioid crisis, and a sharper focus on the activities of Chinese students, companies, and investors in the US. In principle, whacking China is a rare bipartisan winner.
Can outgoing Dems beat the clock?
If Democrats lose their House majority, they still control the chamber for two months of a lame-duck session before the 118th Congress begins. Expect action on two Biden administration priorities. First, Dems might try to pass a big Ukraine spending package to lock in funds for Kyiv before the GOP takeover. Second, Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling so the government can borrow more to pay its bills and avoid default. If there's no agreement, House Republicans might use the debt limit as leverage to force Biden to accept painful entitlement cuts.
Trump teases 2024 announcement
We’re officially on Trump watch. On Monday, the former president told an Ohio crowd to expect a “very big announcement” from his Mar-a-Lago home next Tuesday, and there isn’t much mystery about what he means. The big looming question is whether other viable challengers for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination will emerge, how Trump will respond to them, and how they will respond to him. In 2016, Trump’s Republican opponents tried many tactics to take him down while protecting their opportunities to win over his supporters. Will Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis succeed where Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio failed?
Raising (doubts in) Arizona
The gubernatorial race in the Grand Canyon State is too close to call, but Republican hopeful and new MAGA icon Kari Lake is already crying fraud. Lake — who's losing by two percentage points as of 6 a.m. EST — said in a fiery speech that it felt "like Groundhog Day," a reference to the 2020 presidential election that she insists was stolen from Donald Trump. If elected, Lake, a former TV anchor and anti-immigration hawk, might opt to not certify a Democratic victory in the 2024 presidential election, especially if Trump picks her as VP ...FCC wants to change Section 230 regulating tech companies & censorship
Nicholas Thompson, editor-in-chief of WIRED, shares his perspective on technology news in Tech In (a little over) 60 Seconds:
What is the deal with Twitter and Facebook censoring a New York Post story on Hunter Biden?
The New York Post ran a story on Hunter Biden. It may have been entirely false. It may have been hacked. Both of those things are problems. But the complicated thing is when the story ran, nobody at Facebook and nobody at Twitter knew whether it was false or whether it had been hacked. The two companies responded in different ways. Facebook said, we're just going to down-rank it. Twitter initially said, "we just won't let it be shared." Twitter then backtracked. Basically, there is a really hard problem of what you do with false information and what you do with hacked information. Neither company has totally clear policies and both got caught in the slipstream.
Was the censoring of the New York Post story the catalyst for the FCC's public statements to rewrite Section 230?
Yes, absolutely. So Section 230 is the very important Internet law that allows the tech companies to filter content on their platforms. It essentially says, hey, if you run a platform, whether it's Facebook, Twitter or a Web site comments, you are not responsible for comments and for content that other people post there. And not only that, you have the ability to within certain limits, censor, change, edit the content out there without becoming a publisher and becoming liable. So that is partly what has allowed the tech companies to do what they do. It's allowed them to thrive and it's also allowed them to have policies policing misinformation or false statements on their platforms. So, Donald Trump got very mad at it, and so Ajit Pai, the head of the FCC, said, "hey, we're going to look at Section 230 and interpret it." In my opinion, that's garbage. Section 230 may be a bad law. It may be bad that the tech companies filter content on their platforms, whatever. I don't see how the FCC has the authority to deal with that. It is a law that gets interpreted by the courts. So, Congress can change the law, or the courts can change the interpretation of the law. I don't see why the FCC has authority, but who knows? It's just my guess, Ajit Pai is trying to please Donald Trump.