President Joe Biden
is out of the running for a second term, but Congress still wants answers about who’s been running the executive branch and the “cover-up” of Biden’s cognitive condition.
“We’ve identified the four people in the White House who we believe were the primary parties involved in the cover-up, three staffers as well as the [White House] physician,” House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer
, R-Ky., told The Daily Signal on Thursday, the day after Biden’s Oval Office address about not seeking reelection.
“The White House is doing what they do with all of our investigations, they’re obstructing, but there has clearly been a cover-up,” Comer added.
The oversight committee seeks interviews with Dr. Kevin O’Connor, physician to the president.
Earlier this month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she had talked with O’Connor, who told her that Biden had not been evaluated since February. Biden said in a call with Democrat governors
that he was just checked out by a doctor and everything was fine.
The committee subpoenaed three senior White House staffers for depositions: Annie Tomasini
, deputy White House chief of staff; Ashley Williams,
special assistant to the president and deputy director of Oval Office operations; and Anthony Bernal
, assistant to the president and senior adviser to first lady Jill Biden.
“We expect to interview those employees,” Comer told The Daily Signal.
In less than a month after Biden’s poor debate performance June 27 against challenger Donald Trump, many Democrats piled on to push Biden out of the presidential race. Most came close to admitting what many Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators have speculated about in questioning Biden’s cognitive capacity.
“The question remains, who’s been calling the shots? Is it Hunter Biden
?” Comer said, naming the president’s son, who recently was convicted on a gun charge and faces trial in the fall on tax charges. “Was it these three staffers?”
Comer added that Americans should know if there is a “shadow government.” He questioned what Vice President Kamala Harris
, who Biden endorsed to succeed him, knew regarding the president’s condition.
“Was Kamala in charge? Who was in charge? I don’t think Kamala is in charge. The only thing I know of Kamala being in charge of the southern border,” Comer joked.
An Axios story early this month named those top White House staffers as helping to “create a cocoon” around Biden.
“Some Biden aides believe those closest to the president have created a cocoon around him that initially seemed earnestly protective, but now appears potentially deceptive in the debate’s aftermath,” Axios reported
. “They particularly focus on Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini, the first lady’s top adviser Anthony Bernal, and longtime aide Ashley Williams, who joined the deputy chief of staff’s office when Tomasini ascended to the role earlier this year.”
The White House didn’t respond to multiple requests from The Daily Signal’s inquiry for this report by publication time. However, earlier this month, Ian Sams, a White House spokesman and senior adviser to the White House counsel’s office, issued statement after the initial subpoena
“Like everything Congressman Comer has done over the past year, these subpoenas are a baseless political stunt intended for him to get media attention instead of engage in legitimate oversight,” Sams said
in a public statement.
“His partisan attacks on the president have been discredited, and now he continues to debase the House by weaponizing subpoenas to get headlines instead of seeking information through the proper constitutional process,” Sams continued.
The legacy media largely has been complicit in trying to protect Biden from scrutiny over his mental faculties, Comer said.
“Joe Biden has been sick for a long time, and everyone knows, and when the media was trying to get him out of the race to put their hand-picked successor, Kamala, in the race, they admitted that he’s been sick for a long time,” the Kentucky Republican said. “I think a lot of the media knew he’s been sick for a long time, and they were part of the cover-up.”
The Democratic Party
ruling class’ bloodless coup of their own democratically elected presidential nominee, who also happens to be the nominal sitting president of the United States, is one of the most astonishing political developments of my lifetime.
Joe Biden, though clearly physically and mentally impaired, has sought the presidency for quite literally longer than I have been alive. Biden had been defiant ever since the June 27 presidential debate debacle that he was not going anywhere, despite overwhelming pressure from party elites and sycophantic media lap dogs demanding he do precisely that. He has a Lady Macbeth-like wife who craves power and he has a felonious son in desperate need of a presidential pardon.
Yet the coup succeeded. Biden became
the first incumbent president to not seek reelection after his first term since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968.
Biden made the much-anticipated announcement not with a solemn Oval Office address—that came three days later, and he didn’t even explain his decision. Rather, he issued a bedridden tweet—from a personal, not even official, account.
It’s the equivalent of divorcing your wife over text message. As if that weren’t crazy enough, the announcement came smack in the middle of a five-day period in which Biden was not publicly seen, and during which he apparently experienced an unspecified medical emergency. Suspicious much?
The Democrats’ decision to coup their own president is a curious one on the political merits.
Hold aside the galling hypocrisy of the purported party of “democracy” trying to remove former President Donald Trump
from the ballot under an outlandish constitutional theory while simultaneously attempting to bankrupt, prosecute, and incarcerate him on equally spurious grounds.
Hold aside the self-proclaimed party of “democracy” feigning ignorance over how its overheated rhetoric laid the seeds for their political opponent’s recent near-assassination and its continuing to depict that opponent as an existential threat to the American constitutional order.
And hold aside that purportedly “democratic” party deposing its own presumptive elected nominee—a stark reversal from its presidential primary, when party pooh-bahs worked hard to shut out all viable competition. Somewhere in Minnesota, Dean Phillips would like a word.
Hold all that aside. Because even on its own terms, the coup of Biden for cackler-in-chief Kamala Harris
is going to spectacularly backfire on the Democrats.
Already, Democrats and the corporate media have been working hard to “define” Harris for the American people. At times, this has included some rather dubious retconning, such as magically pretending she wasn’t the Biden administration’s appointed “border czar.” (She was.) But the even bigger problem for Democrats is that Harris is not an unknown commodity. On the contrary, she is a very well-known commodity—one who just happens to be about as popular with the American public as venereal disease.
Harris’ current average approval rating is under 38%, and an NBC News poll last June found her to be the single least popular vice president in American history—only 32% of Americans had a positive view of her, putting her 17 points underwater.
Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign was an absolute dud, self-imploding well before the first primary votes were cast. And as recently as a month or two ago, Democratic elites were openly discussing whether she could still be dropped as Biden’s 2024 running mate
. Funny how quickly one can go from weakest link to great savior of “Our Democracy.”
Practically, the path to winning 270 Electoral College votes still runs through the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. It is frankly bizarre for Democrats to swap out the man who talks ceaselessly about his hardscrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania, upbringing for a Californian who boasts the most left-wing voting record of any presidential nominee in modern history.
Do Democrats really think Harris’ support for the Green New Deal and a national fracking ban will play well in the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania, or in the auto factories of Detroit? Will white working- and middle-class voters concerned about skyrocketing crime look favorably upon Harris’ enthusiastic support for the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots, which racked up $2 billion worth of property damage?
It’s not that Uncle Joe, seemingly about to keel over and die at any moment, found himself in much better political shape. But in addition to the gross hypocrisy of their coup that has dealt yet another fatal blow to their specious claim to “defend democracy,” Democrats have also set themselves up for political failure. They would have been better off trying to limp across the finish line with their grievously wounded incumbent of a nominee rather than changing horses midrace.
The 14 million people who voted for Biden in the Democratic primaries ought to be livid. Rust Belt voters ought to be bemused. But Trump and running mate JD Vance ought to be ecstatic.
In the days since Kamala Harris stepped into the role of the Democratic party’s presumptive presidential nominee, the names of several white men, some of
A newly resurfaced memo put out by Vice President Kamala Harris’
2020 presidential campaign outlines her plan to “fundamentally transform” the criminal justice system by reducing penalties for criminals.
In 2019, Harris promised to end cash bail, get rid of court-ordered fines, expunge the records of some felons, discontinue federal mandatory minimum sentences and to place greater federal scrutiny on local police departments, according to a memo resurfaced Thursday by the Washington Free Beacon.
While Harris has previously supported weakening law enforcement, her campaign is preparing to present her to voters as a law and order candidate in contrast to former President Donald Trump
, CNN reported.
“It is long past time to re-envision public safety by strengthening and supporting our communities and drastically limiting the number of people we expose to our criminal justice system,” the memo reads. “As president, Kamala will fundamentally transform how we approach public safety.”
Nearly 60% of Americans surveyed in January, including roughly half of Democrats
, said that the president and Congress should make addressing crime a priority, according to the Pew Research Center. A similar proportion of registered voters, 61%, told Pew in April that the criminal justice system is not tough enough on criminals.
“Excessive cash bail disproportionately harms people from low-income communities and communities of color,” Harris’ 2019 memo reads. She characterized cash bail systems as “criminalizing poverty” and vowed to end them.
Ending cash bail has led to a backlash in some major cities, with New Yorkers in February 2022 overwhelmingly supporting tightening bail laws following an increase in crime, the New York Post reported. The Texas Organizing Project, a George Soros-backed nonprofit that opposes cash bail, bonded out a man who allegedly went on to murder six people and shoot three others in December 2023.
“In addition, we need to eliminate court fees and fees associated with diversion, treatment, or community supervision that make it harder for individuals to reintegrate into society,” Harris’ memo continued.
The memo no longer appears on Harris’ campaign website, though it remains on the vice president’s Medium page.
Harris also promised to automatically remove “offenses that are not serious or violent” from criminals’ records after five years, according to the memo. The memo does not define what a “serious” offense is.
She also supported restoring voting rights
to all those who have served criminal records, per the memo, and advocated for more federal oversight of local police departments, citing alleged “racial profiling” and “excessive force.”
The now-Vice President proposed a “National Police Systems Review Board” that “would collect data and review police shootings
and other cases of severe misconduct,” according to the memo. She also promised to provide the Department of Justice with resources to provide grants to fund greater scrutiny of officers who shoot suspects, and pledged to reinstate an executive order restricting the sale of certain military equipment to police departments.
Harris’ support for weakening law enforcement extends beyond one campaign memo.
In 2020, she praised the defund the police movement during a radio interview for “rightly” calling out the amount of money spent on police departments, CNN reported. Harris also lauded Los Angeles for cutting its police department’s budget by $150 million, according to the NYP.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
A Mississippi congressman downplayed how his bill would affect
former President Donald Trump’s safety.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., introduced the Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act in April, which would revoke Secret Service protection
for those sentenced following conviction for a federal or state felony with a prison term.
After Trump was shot at a campaign rally
on July 13 in Pennsylvania, Thompson said that even if the bill passed, it would not affect Trump.
“My bill would not have affected the Secret Service’s presence during this tragic event. It aims to clarify lines of authority when a protectee is sentenced to prison and is in the custody of another law enforcement agency,” the congressman said in a statement to the Mississippi Free Press. “That does not apply to the former president.”
Thompson’s less-than-200-word bill states that if the convicted felon’s offense is “punishable for a term of imprisonment of at least one year,” regardless of the actual sentence, the person’s Secret Service protection is terminated.
In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts. The former president was convicted for allegedly falsifying business records in violation of New York Penal Law §175.10, the penalty for which can be up to four years in jail.
Trump is yet to be sentenced, and it is unlikely he will receive jail time. But because the law he allegedly violated is punishable by imprisonment for at least one year, regardless of his sentence, he would lose his Secret Service detail after sentencing.
If Thompson’s bill passes, Trump would be denied a Secret Service detail
for life, even if he is reelected president in November.
Thompson’s press secretary did not respond to The Daily Signal’s question
about whether the Democrat intended to mislead the public about how his bill would affect Trump.
Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney said in a now-deleted tweet that the bill “would only have applied to the Secret Service detail of someone who is *incarcerated* …”
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, set the record straight, informing Cheney that “the termination of Secret Service protection in Mr. Thompson’s bill does not require incarceration.”
Cheney corrected himself, admitting that Thompson’s claims were misleading: “Though Thompson has *said* the bill is meant to terminate USSS [U.S. Secret Service] protection for incarcerated felons, the language of the bill goes further than that.”
Upon fair responses from @chiproytx
and @RepThomasMassie
and others, deleting this earlier tweet. Though Thompson has *said* the bill is meant to terminate USSS protection for incarcerated felons, the language of the bill goes further than that. pic.twitter.com/LSFirc9IAo
The House Freedom Caucus urged House leadership to remove Thompson from the task force now investigating the Trump assassination attempt because of his sponsorship of a bill that would have placed Trump in even graver danger at his Pennsylvania rally.
“In April, Rep. Bennie Thompson launched an effort with other radical progressive Democrats
to deny Secret Service protection to President Trump—legislation that he continues to defend even after the attempted assassination on July 13,” the Freedom Caucus said in a statement.
“We therefore urge the removal of Rep. Thompson as the ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security,” the caucus continued. “Similarly, his actions should invalidate Rep. Thompson from serving on the task force to investigate the attempted assassination of President Trump. Americans cannot trust that he will be an unbiased arbiter of the facts in the effort to get to the bottom of the greatest failure of the Secret Service in more than three decades.”
