Latest news with #ex-Biden
News18
5 days ago
- Politics
- News18
Trump Epstein Claims Hoax? Epstein Grand Jury Release US News Epstein Files
In a sensational new claim, former U.S. President Donald Trump alleged that documents related to Jeffrey Epstein have been doctored by ex-Biden administration officials. In an interview on the conservative network Real America's Voice, Trump stated—without offering any evidence—that the files were manipulated for political a closer look reveals that many of these documents, including names of several high-profile figures like Trump himself and prominent Democrats, have been publicly available for years. The accusations have reignited the Epstein debate, stirring political tensions and online conspiracy what's true, what's political noise, and what are the facts? This video breaks it all down. News18 Mobile App -
New York Post
17-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
JD Vance eviscerates NYT for article on ‘fixing' immigration written by Biden official
Vice President JD Vance gleefully ridiculed the New York Times over a recent New York Times opinion piece from an ex-Biden administration official — who pitched a plan to fix the US immigration system. While delivering remarks in West Pittston, Pa., Wednesday, Vance read the headline of the op-ed, 'I Was One of Biden's Border Advisers. Here's How to Fix Our Immigration System,' drawing laughter from the crowd. 'What would he know about fixing our immigration system? It was the Biden administration that broke our immigration system,' Vance chided with a grin. 'So we've been having a little fun around the office.' Vice President J.D. Vance ripped the New York Times for a recent opinion piece titled, 'I Was One of Biden's Border Advisers. Here's How to Fix Our Immigration System.' AFP via Getty Images The VP spoofed the headline, quipping, 'I was Humpty Dumpty. Here's how to sit on a wall.' The vice president then read off a spoof headline. 'The Department of Homeland Security their take on this was 'I was Humpty Dumpty. Here's how to sit on a wall,'' he quipped.
Fox News
16-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Loyal Jill Biden aide's deposition date comes with no sign if he'll appear
A former top White House advisor to ex-first lady Jill Biden was subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. Anthony Bernal, former assistant to the president and senior advisor to the first lady, was compelled for a July 16 closed-door deposition after missing a previously agreed-upon interview date late last month. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer's subpoena letter to Bernal read: "The Committee seeks information about your assessment of and relationship with former President Biden to explore whether the time has come for Congress to revisit potential legislation to address the oversight of presidents' fitness to serve pursuant to its authority under Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment or to propose changes to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment itself." While the deposition is moving forward Wednesday morning, it's not guaranteed Bernal will show up until he's seen in the corridors of the House office building where the meeting is taking place. Comer, R-Ky., is investigating allegations that Biden's former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president's full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back against those claims. "Original Sin," a book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson, positions Bernal as a fiercely protective aide who was dubbed the leader of the "loyalty police" by other former Biden staffers. His LinkedIn page lists him as currently working as Jill Biden's chief of staff in the Transition Office of Former President Joe Biden. Bernal was originally slated to appear last month for a voluntary transcribed interview, but he and his lawyers backtracked after the Trump administration announced it was waiving executive privilege rights for him and several other former White House staffers. If he appears, he will be the fourth ex-Biden aide to sit down with House GOP investigators. Longtime Biden advisor Ashley Williams appeared for a nearly six-hour transcribed interview on Friday, following a brief sit-down by former Biden physician Kevin O'Connor. O'Connor, like Bernal, appeared under subpoena. His closed-door deposition lasted less than 30 minutes, with the doctor invoking the Fifth Amendment on all questions outside his name. O'Connor's lawyers said he did so out of concern for doctor-patient confidentiality. Comer, however, accused him of covering for the octogenarian former president.
New York Post
11-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Third Biden aide Ashley Williams hauled in for questioning on ex-prez's mental decline
WASHINGTON — Former President Joe Biden's deputy director of Oval Office operations became the third former staffer to testify Friday in front of the House Oversight Committee as they investigate the 46th commander-in-chief's cognitive decline and possible abuses of the presidential autopen. Special assistant Ashley Williams — who declined to answer reporter questions — was the third Biden ally to appear in front of the committee, giving nearly six hours of closed-door testimony about her time serving as a close aide to the ex-president. 'She's cooperating, otherwise we would've been done,' said Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), a staunch Biden defender who said she 'absolutely' wasn't questioning the 82-year-old's cognitive acuity and was the only lawmaker who appeared for Williams' testimony. The Republican-led probe intends to uncover who had the authority in the Biden White House to authorize executive orders and pardons with the president's signature via an autopen, a mechanical device used at least since the Truman administration to approve official documents. 5 Special assistant Ashley Williams — who declined to answer any reporters' questions — was the third Biden ally to appear in front of the committee. AP Before Williams appeared in front of the committee, the Trump White House pulled back her shield of executive privilege, a move that required the ex-Biden aide to provide 'unrestricted testimony' on the former president's cognitive health. In a shocking development earlier this week, Biden's former physician exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when faced with the committee's probing. Dr. Kevin O'Connor refused to answer any questions from the panel of representatives and staff — even inquiries that fell outside doctor-patient privilege. 5 'This is unprecedented, and I think that this adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover-up,' House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told reporters after Biden's personal physician pled the Fifth and departed. AP House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) later revealed that two of the key questions that O'Connor declined to answer were: 'Were you ever told to lie about the president's health?' and 'Did you ever believe President Biden was unfit to execute his duties?' Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as former President Obama's physician and authored the book 'Transforming Presidential Healthcare,' told The Post that neither of those questions would violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which protects the privacy of medical records. It 'doesn't sound like that's specific health information that they're seeking,' Kuhlman said. The only fact O'Connor was willing to disclose was his name, opting instead to read a prepared statement invoking his right against self-incrimination for all other questions. 5 'I am not a lawyer, and I must follow my lawyer's advice in this matter,' ex-White House Dr. Kevin O'Connor told Oversight panel members. REUTERS 'I am not a lawyer, and I must follow my lawyer's advice in this matter,' the doctor told Oversight panel members. O'Connor was represented by attorney David Schertler, who represented former National Institutes of Health official Dr. Anthony Fauci last year before a subcommittee investigating the origins of COVID-19. 'This is unprecedented, and I think that this adds more fuel to the fire that there was a cover-up,' Comer told reporters after the O'Connor hearing wrapped up. 5 Ex-Biden aide Neera Tanden testified for five hours, also without the protections of executive authority. The Washington Post via Getty Images 'It's clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden's cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O'Connor, Biden's physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment,' Comer added in a statement later that day. The next Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday of next week will feature Anthony Bernal, first lady Jill Biden's top aide and 'work husband,' who was subpoenaed for testimony after refusing to appear voluntarily. Because Bernal was deposed, he will only have two options for each line of inquiry: provide the committee with an answer, or plead the Fifth like O'Connor. 5 Before Williams appeared in front of the committee, the Trump White House pulled back her shield of executive privilege. The NY Post Bernal will not be able to skip any questions, which he would have been able to do if he'd come in front of the committee of his own free will. Ex-Biden aide Neera Tanden testified to the Oversight Committee for five hours on June 24, also without the protections of executive privilege. After her hearing, Tanden told reporters that there was 'absolutely not' a conspiracy to conceal Biden's eroding mental acuity.
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Biden adviser's brutal two-word verdict after Karine Jean-Pierre's ‘Broken White House' defection
Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is taking loads of incoming fire from former colleagues of all stripes after she announced that she'd left the Democratic Party and has a book coming out in which she reportedly urges Americans to move beyond the current two-party political system. One particularly nasty comment came from a former Biden adviser, who called the ex-Biden spokesperson 'kinda dumb.' Jean-Pierre, who served as then-president Joe Biden's mouthpiece from May 2022 until the end of his term this past January, is set to come out with her White House memoir, titled Independent: A Look Inside a Broken White House, Outside the Party Lines, this October. The book's publisher Hachette, calls it a 'groundbreaking, revelatory assessment of America's broken two-party system' and states that the former flack will take readers 'through the three weeks that led to Biden's abandoning his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision.' It did not take long for the knives to come out for the 50-year-old, whose experience in government was limited to a stint as a regional political director in the Obama administration's political affairs shop before she joined the Biden administration's press operation. Perhaps the harshest criticism came from Tim Wu, the Columbia University law professor who served as Special Assistant to the President for Technology and Competition Policy from 2021 to 2023. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) which Wu deleted shortly after posting, he slammed Jean-Pierre, a Columbia graduate who has lectured at the university's School of International and Public Affairs, as lacking the smarts for her former gig. 'From WH policy staff perspective, the real problem with Karine Jean-Pierre was that she was kinda dumb,' he wrote. 'No interest in understanding harder topics. Just gave random incoherent answers on policy,' Wu added. The legal expert's assessment of the former White House spokesperson's abilities and limitations is consistent with the view shared by former White House officials who spoke to The Independent on condition of anonymity during her time as press secretary. In hushed tones, members of Jean-Pierre's own staff routinely characterized her —their boss — as ill-prepared and unqualified compared with her predecessor, Jen Psaki, citing Psaki's prior experience as an Obama-era State Department spokesperson and as White House Communications Director. They said Jean-Pierre's ascent to fill Psaki's shoes after she decamped for a job at MSNBC was in no small part due to the perceived benefits of elevating the first Black, female and LGBT+ person to the press secretary role, as well as her closeness with then-first lady Jill Biden's chief of staff, Anthony Bernal. While Jean-Pierre did spend more than a year as Psaki's principal deputy and gained experience behind the iconic White House lectern delivering briefings in her stead on occasion, once she took over the top job it quickly became clear that she was nowhere near as polished or as fleet of rhetorical foot as her predecessor. Nowhere was the gulf between the two Biden spokespersons as evident as when it came to the foreign policy matters that dominated much of the Biden administration's attention, leading Biden to enlist Pentagon spokesperson and retired Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby to speak on national security matters, ostensibly as part of the National Security Council communications team. Jean-Pierre is understood to have bristled at Kirby;s presence in the James Brady briefing room, seeing him as a rival who undermined her authority as the president's spokesperson. Attempts by Dunn and others to entice her to step away from her post — including by arranging for her to be offered a seven-figure salary to run the reproductive rights PAC called EMILY's List — failed as she stubbornly remained in her post. She reportedly threatened to enlist high-profile Black activists such as Rev. Al Sharpton, her former MSNBC colleague, to raise the alarm if she were pushed out. Others who worked with Jean-Pierre described her as incurious and unwilling to prep for briefings to the point where she would rely heavily on a binder full of briefing notes but would always appear as she was reading them for the first time when answering questions — because she often was. And in the wake of her book announcement, the criticisms have grown sharper and harsher. One ex-official said Jean-Pierre's leadership in the press shop was nonexistent. 'She didn't know how to manage a team, didn't know how to shape or deliver a message, and often created more problems than she solved,' they said, according to Axios. The ex-official also told the outlet that Jean-Pierre routinely 'had meltdowns' whenever she participated in an interview that veered off of the narrow set of topics she'd been notified of in advance. Another agreed, saying that Jean-Pierre required 'coddling' that distracted her team from 'actual matters of substance' on a regular basis. As for her book, another ex-White House staffer called the book project a 'bizarre cash grab' and slammed Jean-Pierre for having 'have enjoyed the perks of extreme proximity to power — which ... bestows the name recognition needed to sell books off your name' while trying to position herself as an outsider to sell books. They added that the hypocrisy displayed was 'as breathtaking as it is desperate.'
