Former Biden counselor Steve Ricchetti to testify before GOP-led panel amid probe into Biden’s mental fitness
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(WASHINGTON) — Steve Ricchetti, who served as a counselor to former President Joe Biden, is set to appear for a closed-door interview with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Wednesday as its chairman, Republican Rep. James Comer, continues his investigation into the former president’s mental fitness while in office.
Ricchetti is likely to appear voluntarily. The committee did not issue a subpoena for his testimony.
The House panel has requested interviews with several former Biden officials as part of their probe into the former president’s mental capacity while in office. Ricchetti is the latest of several former Biden administration officials who have appeared before the committee.
Last week, former Chief of Staff Ron Klain cooperated with the committee for several hours.
However, several other aides have not been willing to engage with the committee and invoked the Fifth Amendment, including Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the former physician to Joe Biden, and Annie Tomasini, who served as the deputy chief of staff to Biden.
Biden himself rejected reports of cognitive decline during an appearance on ABC’s “The View” in early May.
“They are wrong. There’s nothing to sustain that,” Biden said at the time.
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(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to strike the name of gay rights activist Harvey Milk from one of its ships, orchestrating the change as Pride month celebrations take place.
A defense official said the timing of the decision was intentional.
The order was first reported by Military.com and confirmed by ABC News.
The USNS Harvey Milk is one of several ships named after prominent civil rights leaders and activists. A new name has not been announced.
Milk was one of the first openly gay men elected to public office in the United States after winning a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was assassinated a year later.
Before his death, Milk was credited with encouraging his friend and artist Gilbert Baker, a U.S. Army veteran to create the Pride flag. Milk was played by Sean Penn in the 2008 biographical film “Milk.”
Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan did not immediately respond to requests for comment from ABC News.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump shared on social media the “peace letter” from first lady Melania Trump that was hand delivered to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday.
The first lady writes “it is time” to protect children and future generations worldwide.
“Every child shares the same quiet dreams in their heart, whether born randomly into a nation’s rustic countryside or a magnificent city-center. They dream of love, possibility, and safety from danger,” Melania Trump’s letter begins.
The first lady states that all children are born innocent, regardless of their nationality, political views or beliefs.
“A simple yet profound concept, Mr. Putin, as I am sure you agree, is that each generation’s descendants begin their lives with a purity — an innocence which stands above geography, government, and ideology,” she said.
“In today’s world, some children are forced to carry a quiet laughter, untouched by the darkness around them — a silent defiance against the forces that can potentially claim their future,” she continued.
The first lady tells the Russian president that protecting children “will do more than serve Russia alone” and “will serve humanity itself.”
“Such a bold idea transcends all human division, and you, Mr. Putin, are fit to implement this vision with a stroke of the pen today,” she concludes.
“It is time,” she signs off.
The physical letter was first obtained by Fox News Digital.
(WASHINGTON) — Facing uproar in his MAGA base over the Jeffrey Epstein files, President Donald Trump has called for Attorney General Pam Bondi “to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval” related to the case.
Bondi responded on social media Thursday evening, saying, “We are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
It’s not immediately clear the extent of the administration’s request to unseal the transcripts, which would be subject to the approval of a federal judge in the Southern District of New York, where Epstein was charged before he died by suicide in 2019.
This change of course comes after the Justice Department and the FBI released a memo earlier this month stating no evidence was found that Epstein kept a “client list” of associates or that he blackmailed any prominent individuals. The memo concluded no investigation into uncharged third party was warranted.
The brief memo put out by the DOJ and FBI last week stoked furor among Trump’s diehard supporters after years of prominent right-wing figures pushing accusations about Epstein and the “deep state” that’s protecting elites.
Trump’s since sought various ways to put out the political firestorm, coming to Bondi’s defense while also saying she should release what she deems “credible.”
In Trump’s call for Bondi to produce the grand jury testimony, he said it was a “SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats,” and that it “should end, right now!”
Shifting from his previous statement of calling the Epstein files a “hoax” and those Republican supporters who are questioning his administration’s handling of it as “stupid” and “foolish.”
Trump, in a phone interview with “Just the News” on Real America’s Voice on Wednesday night, alleged without providing evidence that Democrats and former officials doctored files relating to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.
The comments came when Trump was asked if he wanted one prosecutor to look into the broad subject of political prosecution.
“Well, I think it’s in the case of Epstein, they’ve already looked at it, and they are looking at it, and I think all they have to do is put out anything credible,” Trump said.
“But you know, that was run by the Biden administration for four years. I can imagine what they put into files, just like they did with the others,” Trump continued. “I mean, the Steele dossier was a total fake, right? It took two years to figure that out for the people, and all of the things that you mentioned were fake.”
“So I would imagine if they were run by Chris Wray and they were run by Comey, and because it was actually even before that administration, they’ve been running these files, and so much of the things that we found were fake with me,” Trump said. Despite Trump’s claims that Democrats “put” things in the files, many documents relating to Epstein, including those that mention Trump and several prominent Democrats, have been public for years.
And the White House on Thursday shut down the idea of appointing a special prosecutor in the Epstein case.
“The idea was floated from someone in the media to the president. The president would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That’s how he feels,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the briefing.
Asked to clarify what part of the Epstein saga is a “hoax” as Trump claimed, Leavitt only continued to criticize Democrats.
“The president is referring to the fact that Democrats have now seized on this as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, which is an asinine suggestion for any Democrat to make,” she said. “The Democrats had control of this building, the White House, for four years, and they didn’t do a dang thing when it came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes.”
Epstein was arrested in 2019 and died in prison by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges while Trump was president.
“Some of the naive Republicans fall right into line, like they always do,” the president said on “Just the News.” Calls for transparency on Epstein came from several Republicans on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. And Trump’s own former vice president, Mike Pence, called for the administration to “release all of the files” regarding the Epstein investigation.
Leavitt on Thursday defended the administration’s handling of the Epstein files and attempted to distance Trump from further decision-making on the case.
Leavitt said it would be up to the Justice Department and Bondi to release any other “credible” evidence.
“In terms of redactions or grand jury seals, those are questions for the Department of Justice. Those are also questions for the judges who have that information under a seal. And that would have to be requested and judge would have to approve it. That’s out of the president’s control,” she said when asked why they wouldn’t release the files, with sensitive information redacted, in order to provide more transparency.
