Hunter’s big day in Congress

Hunter Biden, the Biden family’s Mr. Worldwide, spent much of today behind closed doors in the Capitol for a deposition in front of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. The younger Biden accused Republicans on the committee of peddling lies and operating on the “false premise” that his father, President Joe Biden, had any involvement with his foreign business dealings, a focal point of the GOP’s impeachment inquiry.

“I did not involve my father in my business,” Hunter said. “Never.” 

The first son has been on an image rehab tour, recently sitting down with Axios to discuss how his continued sobriety is essential in the “fight for the future of democracy.” Today’s deposition was a substantial departure from Biden’s previous Capitol Hill trip. Then, he teamed up with Representative Eric Swalwell to host a defiant press conference outside, which prompted some Republicans to consider holding him in contempt of Congress. 

This go around, counsels for both parties’ Judiciary and Oversight Committees had the opportunity to question Hunter. Representative Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican on the Oversight Committee, sat in on the deposition and told me that she “could clearly see a man who is going to die on the hill he has made. There are elaborate details to cover his tracks and keep his father’s hands clean.”

The Democrats in the room predictably defended Hunter. The Oversight Committee’s ranking member, Representative Jamie Raskin, called the ordeal “a rather embarrassing spectacle.”

McClain found Raskin’s complaints unconvincing: “Interviewing Hunter is an important step in this process, but this process is not over because of one person. Every time we peel back a layer in this investigation we uncover five new layers. The culture of corruption runs deep in the Biden family.” 

Representative Jake LaTurner, another Oversight Republican, raised a fundamental question regarding Hunter’s business affairs: would he have been paid to sit on the board of major energy companies if his father weren’t the vice president? 

“Most Americans wouldn’t trust Hunter Biden to walk their dog, much less pay him millions for his ‘business expertise,’” LaTurner mused. 

Other Republican lawmakers in the room noted to me that they were impressed by Hunter’s composure, noting that “he’s got a very prepared answer for everything.” But despite his polish, Hunter didn’t win any new fans across the aisle today. Longtime GOP Oversight hawk, Darrell Issa, had a simple takeaway: “I don’t believe Hunter Biden.”

While the House saw most of the action, some of their counterparts on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee are likewise eager to sound off on the Biden family. Senator Ted Cruz, Texas’s former solicitor general, thinks Hunter is guilty of perjury following his remarks today. “The Biden Crime Family’s business was to sell access to Joe Biden. When Hunter denied these allegations under oath, he added another crime to his rap sheet: perjury,” Cruz said. 

The rules of House depositions dictate that their contents are supposed to remain behind closed doors, which of course rarely happens. But, it does allow for those in the room to control the storylines as they see fit. Representative Kelly Armstrong, told The Spectator, “I want a live hearing.” He is far from alone.

-Matthew Foldi

On our radar

IN IT TO LOSE IT Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley said she intends to stay in the 2024 GOP presidential primary until at least Super Tuesday. She lost Tuesday night’s Michigan’s primary by forty-one points to former president Donald Trump.

OPEN BORDERS TRAGEDY A two-year-old in Maryland was reportedly to have been illed by an illegal immigrant and member of the El Salvador-based MS-13 gang. ICE lodged two immigration detainers against the suspect after prior arrests, but they were not honored by Montgomery County police under the county’s sanctuary policy.

‘IT WAS SPECULATION’ A former law partner of Fulton County prosecutor Nathan Wade distanced himself from text messages in which he told a member of Trump’s defense team that Wade’s relationship with DA Fani Willis started in 2019. “I do not have knowledge of it starting or when it started,” Wade’s former partner testified. 

McConnell stepping down as Senate GOP leader

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he is stepping down from his leadership position at the end of November, ending his seventeen-year run as the head of the Senate GOP. McConnell is the longest-serving Senate party leader in history and the second-longest serving Senator of those currently in office, behind Republican colleague Chuck Grassley. 

“To serve Kentucky in the Senate has been the honor of my life. To lead my Republican colleagues has been my highest privilege. But one of life’s most under-appreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McDonnell said in remarks given on the Senate floor. “So, I stand before you today, Mr. President and my colleagues, to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

McConnell will leave behind an increasingly fractured caucus as some members of the Senate GOP have called for him to step aside in recent weeks, particularly over his support for a bipartisan immigration reform package and a supplemental foreign assistance bill. His maneuvering to get those bills passed has also angered his colleagues on the House side. McConnell acknowledged these ideological fissures in his resignation speech: “Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults, misunderstanding politics is not one of them.” 

Indeed, no one could accuse McConnell of not being an effective political tactician; the Pelosi of the right, if you will. His leadership will certainly be remembered for some of his major accomplishments, namely, reshaping the federal judiciary with the assistance of President Donald Trump. McConnell managed to get three Supreme Court justices confirmed, tilting the court to conservatives for likely decades to come, and pushed through 234 federal judges. McConnell also stopped a Democrat-led voting rights bill that would federalize election and long opposed campaign finance reform proposals that gave government and union bosses more control over political donations. On a more local level, McConnell helped build up the Republican Party into an effective political machine in Kentucky, a state long dominated by moderate southern Democrats, and made it a priority on Capitol Hill to protect the lucrative Kentucky tobacco and coal industries.

McConnell was emotional in the aftermath of one of his few big failures — a last-minute “no” vote from Senator John McCain that killed an Obamacare repeal — perhaps, in part, retribution for McConnell’s repeated rejection of McCain’s efforts to regulate Big Tobacco.  

“This is clearly a disappointing moment,” McConnell said at the time. 

In addition to the political questions surrounding his tenure, McConnell has also appeared to struggle with his health and the inevitable drawbacks of aging. He turned eighty-two last week and, about a year ago, was hospitalized with a concussion after a major fall at a fundraising event. He subsequently had several concerning incidents where he froze for long periods of time while speaking to the media. Nonetheless, McConnell said he is going to finish out his term, which ends in January 2027. 

“I still have enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm which they have become accustomed,” McConnell asserted. 

–Amber Duke

Immigration leapfrogs to top of voters’ minds

Our nation’s porous border ranks as Americans’ top concern for the first time since 2019, Gallup polling reveals. 

The number of Americans who name immigration as “the most important problem facing the US” surged from 20 percent to 28 percent in the last month alone, surpassing “government” for the top spot.

Both President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump will be visiting the Mexican border tomorrow. Biden is headed to Brownsville, Texas, “to make sure he puts his message out there to the American people,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Trump, meanwhile, will visit Eagle Pass.

“Biden, speaking in New York on Monday, said he had planned to head to the border on Thursday and didn’t know ‘my good friend apparently is going,’ too,” reports the AP. “The White House announcement of the trip came after Trump’s plan to visit the border had been reported. The president declined to say whether he would meet with migrants on the trip.”

Congress has been deadlocked when it comes to doing something about the immigration crisis. Meanwhile, House Republicans report, “under Biden, more illegal immigrants have entered through the southern border than the population of thirty-six states.”

–Teresa Mull

From the site

Amber Duke: ‘Uncommitted’ votes steal the show in Michigan
Freddy Gray: Nikki Haley knows she can’t win