Vance’s battleground state blitz mirrors plans of Harris, Walz
Republican vice presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) holds a campaign rally at Radford University on July 22, 2024 in Radford, Va. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The same week Vice President Kamala Harris and her newly minted running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are set to go on tour, hitting the battleground states in five days, vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance will be on their tail.
Vance will also conduct his own blitz in several of the battleground states, closely mirroring Harris’ campaign schedule for this week.
Vance, Harris and Walz will visit Pennsylvania on Tuesday — hours after Harris’ big running mate announcement.
The trio will visit Michigan and Wisconsin on Wednesday before that all head to North Carolina on Thursday.
Since being announced as former President Donanld Trump’s running mate three weeks ago, Vance has hit the ground running and has already made campaign stops in most of the battleground states.
But instead of holding traditional campaign events, Vance will use his events this week to speak to the media and is expected to use his time to attack Harris on several policy fronts, including immigration and the economy.
It’s likely Vance will also attack Walz — after the Ohio senator claimed Harris’ choice of Walz highlights how “radical” the vice president is.
“Obviously, the big news of the day is that Tim Walz has been nominated as the VP or is now the presumptive nominee, I should say, for Kamala Harris. My view on it is it just highlights how radical Kamala Harris is,” Vance said on Tuesday ahead of his rally in Pennsylvania.
Asked by ABC News if he had been in contact with Walz, Vance said he called Walz but the governor didn’t answer, so he left a voicemail.
“I didn’t get him, but I just said, ‘Look, congratulations. Look forward to a robust conversation and enjoy the ride,’ And maybe he’ll call me back, maybe he won’t,” Vance said.
In a Trump campaign fundraising email following Harris’ announcement, Vance wrote, “I HAVE THREE WORDS FOR TIM WALZ: Bring. It. On.” The email’s subject is “I will wipe the floor with Tim Walz.”
Vance has made it clear since being announced as Trump’s running mate that he would like to debate whoever the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee is.
“I really don’t care who it is,” Vance said of Harris’ running mate before the selection of Walz. “Certainly, I think we should debate. I’d love to have a robust debate. I expect that we will.”
Democrats are already pushing back against Vance’s upcoming visit to some of the battleground states, attacking him and Trump.
“JD Vance’s visit to our state will only serve as a reminder of Donald Trump’s long record of failures and broken promises,” Wisconsin Democratic Coordinated Campaign Rapid Response Director Kristi Johnston said in a statement on Monday.
(WASHINGTON) — After nearly two years of House Republicans vowing to investigate President Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings — while repeatedly falling short in substantiating their most significant claims — the House Judiciary, Oversight, and Ways and Means Committees on Monday released a nearly 300-page impeachment inquiry report filled with familiar allegations against the president, who has already announced he will not seek a second term.
The report, released on the first day of the Democratic National Convention and the morning of the day the president is slated to speak, rehashes many of the allegations Republicans previously made against President Biden while alleging that they have uncovered “impeachable conduct.”
However, the report does not recommend specific articles of impeachment; it instead says that the decision on the next steps will be left to the larger congressional body.
There appear to be no new bombshells in the report. The report details six so-called key findings alleging that the Biden family received $27 million from foreign entities using shell companies, $8 million in questionable loans, special treatment for Hunter Biden and White House obstruction of the impeachment inquiry into the president.
While the report is highly detailed and cites a wide array of documents and testimony, it provides few, if any, instances of Joe Biden himself being directly and knowingly involved in illegal or improper activities – mainly focusing on the actions of his son, Hunter Biden and his allies, and the president’s brother, Jim Biden.
The report appears to serve as a roadmap for House Republicans if they move to draft articles of impeachment for the House to then take up when Congress returns on Sept. 9.
It’s not clear yet what the next steps will be, including if articles of impeachment will even be drafted and formally introduced. If articles are introduced, one of the House committees — likely Judiciary led by Jim Jordan — would then hold a markup to pass the articles out of committee for House floor consideration. It’s not clear if Speaker Mike Johnson would hold an impeachment vote on the floor. Republicans have hesitated for months to move forward with impeaching Biden because they do not have enough votes to clear the measure, and many believe Biden’s actions do not merit impeachment.
Congress is only in session for three weeks in September and out on recess until after the November 2024 election. Notably, since Biden has dropped his reelection bid, House Republicans have already trained their sights on the new presumptive Democratic ticket, launching fresh investigations into both Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz.
One of the key allegations in the report says that James Biden and Hunter Biden received a total of nearly $8 million in loans from entertainment attorney Kevin Morris, who represented Hunter Biden; family friend Joey Langston; and car dealer John Hynansky.
The vast majority of the alleged loans — more than $6 million of it — came from Morris, who allegedly paid more than $1.9 million of Hunter Biden’s tax liabilities, helped the president’s son buy a new house in Venice, California, and hire security. But, the report added, “Mr. Morris’s wealth allowed him to cover these tax debts and other debts for Hunter Biden without regard to expectation of repayment.”
The report suggests Morris’ financial assistance “creates the perception, at the very least, there was an unspoken quid pro quo or unlawful campaign contribution for which Mr. Morris would erase Hunter Biden’s IRS troubles—and by extension, help the Biden campaign rid itself of a serious liability—and receive some benefit in return.”
But the report does not provide any direct evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden himself in relation to this financial assistance.
Notably, multiple previous associates of Hunter Biden told the Oversight Committee over the course of the investigation that President Biden had no involvement with Hunter’s business dealings. Rob Walker, a longtime business associate of Hunter Biden, said in a closed-door interview in January that President Biden “was never involved” in Hunter Biden’s business dealings. “To be clear, President Biden — while in office or as a private citizen — was never involved in any of the business activities we pursued. Any statement to the contrary is simply false,” Walker said in his opening statement.
The report also claims the White House obstructed the Committees’ investigation into President Biden’s alleged retention of classified documents by preventing White House officials from testifying, erroneously asserting executive privilege and limiting access to materials from the National Archives.
Biden’s alleged retention of classified documents was independently investigated by Special Counsel Robert Hur, who recommended against charging Biden. While Hur says he found evidence that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified information,” he determined that charges were not warranted because “evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Hur’s decision to not recommend charges against Biden relied in part on his finding that Biden would come off as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” to a jury, a statement the president has slammed.
The report sharply criticized the White House for asserting executive privilege over the audio of Biden’s interview with Hur, arguing that the recording itself was necessary to understand Biden’s “mental state” and overall culpability. The DOJ defended its decision not to turn over the recordings by arguing the audio was “cumulative” and releasing them would harm “the evenhanded administration of justice” by preventing future cooperation from witnesses.
In June, House Republicans voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress over his failure to turn over the audio recordings, though the DOJ declined to prosecute Garland due to a longstanding policy against prosecuting an attorney general. A Republican-led effort to hold Garland in inherent contempt for his failure to turn over the audio tapes, which would have led to Garland being fined $10,000 per day until he complied with a congressional subpoena, failed in July.
(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors in New York are taking no position on former President Donald Trump’s request to delay sentencing of his “hush money” conviction until after the November election.
Instead, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a letter Monday it would defer to Judge Juan Merchan.
Trump is currently scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18 after a jury convicted him of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Trump had originally been scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, but Merchan said last month he would rule on Trump’s immunity claim on Sept. 16 and impose sentencing two days later.
Trump has argued the recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity should render some evidence inadmissible and, therefore, throw out the conviction.
Prosecutors said they would leave it to the judge to decide whether Trump should be allowed to exhaust his appeals prior to sentencing.
“The People are prepared to appear for sentencing on any future date the Court sets,” the letter said. “The People are also mindful that significant public safety and logistical steps by multiple agencies are necessary to prepare for court appearances in this matter.”
In asking for a delay last week, Trump’s lawyers questioned whether sentencing should take place after the start of early voting, arguing that the timing harms the integrity of the proceedings.
“Finally, setting aside naked election-interference objectives, there is no valid countervailing reason for the Court to keep the current sentencing date on the calendar. There is no basis for continuing to rush,” defense lawyers wrote.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, accusing the social media giant of unlawfully collecting and retaining data from children in violation of United States privacy laws.
The civil consumer protection complaint filed Friday in federal court in California accuses TikTok of collecting a “wide variety” of personal information from children who created accounts on the app dating back to 2019 through the present day.
The department further alleges that even when children created accounts in TikTok’s designated “Kids Mode,” the company still unlawfully collected and retained children’s email addresses and other personal information without notifying or getting consent from parents.
The alleged privacy violations “have resulted in millions of children under 13 using the regular TikTok app, subjecting them to extensive data collection and allowing them to interact with adult users and access adult content,” the department said in a release announcing the lawsuit.
“The Department is deeply concerned that TikTok has continued to collect and retain children’s personal information despite a court order barring such conduct,” acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said in a statement. “With this action, the Department seeks to ensure that TikTok honors its obligation to protect children’s privacy rights and parents’ efforts to protect their children.”
A TikTok spokesperson disputed the allegations, saying many “relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed.”
“We are proud of our efforts to protect children, and we will continue to update and improve the platform,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “To that end, we offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screentime limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors.”
The lawsuit against the company was widely expected after the Federal Trade Commission in June announced it had referred a complaint to the DOJ following an investigation of TikTok and ByteDance’s alleged violations under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
TikTok said at the time it disagreed with the FTC’s allegations, which it argued were either inaccurate or outdated policy practices the company had already addressed.
The lawsuit also comes just days after the Justice Department argued in court filings that TikTok poses a unique threat to U.S. national security as it sought to defend a newly passed law that would require the company to sell its American-based operations or risk an all-out ban. The company has sued to block enforcement of the law before it takes effect in January, arguing it is unconstitutional and would violate its more than 170 million American users’ First Amendment rights.
