The vice president’s expressions of concern for Palestinian suffering marked a shift in emphasis from the president’s statements as she moved to establish herself as the leader of her party.
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 post Biden Isn’t Running Again, but House Investigates Who’s Running Government appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign smashed all kinds of records in the first 48 hours, and the momentum—and record-breaking—hasn’t flagged since. The grassroots is energized. Small donors are swarming to her. Big donors are flocking to her and the whole tenor of this fight to save our democracy has been infused with hope and enthusiasm and plain-old fun.
The money continues to pour in—more than $130 million by mid-week primarily from small donors. That more than doubled the $96 million cash on hand the Biden-Harris campaign had at the end of June.
Where some of that money is coming from is even fun—all those campaign Zoom calls, each of which has broken previous participant and money records. It started with Win with Black Women on Sunday, with 44,000 participants and $1.6 million raised. Then on Monday, Win With Black Men built on that with over 40,000 participants, netting about $1.3 million.
On Thursday night, “White Women: Answer the Call” literally broke Zoom with 164,000 participants handing over more than $2 million in just an hour. Not to be outdone, White Dudes for Harris, who “aren’t going to sit around and let the MAGA crowd bully other white guys into voting for a hateful and divisive ideology” will have their call next Monday.
Since Sunday, more than 100,000 people have signed up to volunteer for the Harris campaign, and more than 2,000 people applied for campaign jobs by Wednesday. That includes 6,600 new sign-ups in Florida, 3,000 in Michigan, 4,000 in Pennsylvania, more than 1,300 in Arizona, and more than 1,000 in Wisconsin, ready to start knocking on doors this weekend.
Speaking of Wisconsin, Harris had her first rally there on Tuesday, and the response from attendees was so huge, it had to be moved to a larger venue.
Voter registrations spiked 700% on Vote.org in the first 48 hours of the campaign, led by a massive surge in young voters.
Harris got three more big endorsements, from Democratic congressional leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer on Tuesday, and the week was capped off by the most exciting endorsement (after President Joe Biden’s) from former president and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama.
More national labor groups pledged their support to Harris, including “educators, construction workers, health care professionals, farmworkers, postal workers, service and public employees, as well as workers in communications, hospitality, nursing, transportation, utility and manufacturing,” a campaign press release said.
And finally, she still doesn’t have any criminal convictions.
Raised on Daily Kos: $587,143, but you can make that bigger!
WASHINGTON — The FBI said former President Donald Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet during an assassination attempt on July 13, as the agency moved Friday to clarify what happened after nearly two weeks of confusion and conflicting accounts.
In a statement issued Friday evening, the FBI said “what struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”
The statement came two days after FBI Director Christopher Wray said during congressional testimony that it was not clear whether Trump’s injuries were caused by a bullet or shrapnel.
The FBI has reportedly confirmed former President Donald Trump was indeed shot by a bullet, ending speculation about what exactly bloodied Trump’s ear.
The agency told Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich in a statement on Friday afternoon, “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the statement read. The statement was also posted by Fox’s Bret Baier.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.