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☆ House Speaker McCarthy spoke with Musk about making Twitter 'fair on all sides'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) arrives to a meeting with the House Republican Steering Committee at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 11, 2023 in Washington, DC. Twitter CEO Elon Musk discussed how to make the social media site "fair on all sides" in a meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the lawmaker told reporters on Friday. "He wants to have a level playing field" and for everybody to have a voice, McCarthy said of the meeting in remarks reported by NBC News. On Friday, McCarthy also confirmed that Jeffries was in the Thursday meeting and that he had not previously met Musk. An aide to Jeffries told The Washington Post his encounter with Musk was only coincidental and happened as Musk was leaving his meeting with McCarthy.

A "small number" of classified documents were discovered last week at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home, according to two letters Pence’s counsel sent to the National Archives obtained by NBC News on Tuesday. Pence's team “immediately” secured the classified documents in a locked safe, Jacob said. The transfer was facilitated by Pence’s personal attorney, who has experience in handling classified documents and was involved with the Jan. 16 discovery. Pence spokesman Devin O’Malley later told NBC News that “no potential classified documents” were found at the offices of Pence’s organization Advancing American Freedom after Pence’s team searched the offices and the former vice president’s home in Indiana. In a statement Tuesday, Comer said Pence reached out to the panel about classified documents found at his Indiana residence.

☆ George Santos hints that $500k 'personal' loan to campaign wasn't his own money, raising campaign-finance violation concerns
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Joshua Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The amended filings reveal that a $500k "personal" loan to his 2022 campaign wasn't personally funded. Experts say the amended filings add to the mystery of Santos' questionable financial disclosures. The initial filing showed a box for "personal funds of the candidate" was checked on the entry for the hefty campaign loan, whereas the amended filing leaves that box empty. Campaign-finance experts told The New York Times that the revised filings only add to the mystery of Santos' financial disclosures. Brett G. Kappel, an elections lawyer who focuses on campaign finance and ethics, told The Times that the amended filings raise the possibility of illegality.

☆ House Republican heavyweights are tripping over each other to launch hearings on Biden's handling of the border
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Bryan Metzger | Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

House Republicans are fighting to be the first to bash Biden at border security-related hearings. Judiciary is rushing to hold a meeting next week, with Oversight scheduled to follow a week later. Republicans will hold the Biden Administration accountable for this ongoing humanitarian, national security, and public health crisis that has turned every town into a border town." Comer invited four border patrol agents to the Oversight hearing and sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas requesting documents on various border-related programs. Border security and immigration continue to be an area of key concern for Republicans in particular.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday defended the Justice Department's handling of separate special counsel investigations into classified documents linked to former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, saying it does not have different rules for Republicans and Democrats. In his first public remarks on the topic after even more classified documents were found at Biden's home in Delaware, Garland was asked whether he believed the Justice Department was handling the two probes fairly. Garland announced this month that Robert Hur, who was a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor, would serve as a special counsel in the Biden probe. Congressional Republicans have launched their own investigations into the Biden documents. Biden and Trump have had contrasting responses to the discovery of classified documents, which are supposed to be handed over to National Archives when presidents or vice presidents leave office.

☆ White House Doesn’t Commit to Cooperating With GOP Probes of Classified Biden Documents
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Andrew Restuccia | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The White House didn’t commit Monday to providing information to House Republicans investigating how classified material wound up in President Biden’s private home and former office as Mr. Biden’s team continued to face sharp questions about the episode. In a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.), White House counsel Stuart Delery said his office is reviewing Republicans’ requests for copies of documents that were found at Mr. Biden’s properties and internal communications about the issue. Mr. Delery said it was the White House’s goal to “accommodate legitimate oversight interests,” while also stressing the need to “protect the integrity and independence of law enforcement investigations.”

WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday that a search by the Justice Department of President Joe Biden's home on Friday had been carried out after a "voluntary, proactive offer" by his personal lawyers to the department. It was the latest in a string of discoveries of classified documents at Biden's Wilmington home and at a temporary office at the University of Pennsylvania. "This was a voluntary, proactive offer by the president's personal lawyers to DOJ to have access to the home," said White House spokesperson Ian Sams. Sams declined to provide more clarity on the exact content of the materials taken from the Wilmington house. Biden had been kept informed throughout this process, the White House said.

☆ White House tells House Republicans probing Biden documents that it will cooperate with 'legitimate oversight'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Rebecca-Shabad-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Rebecca Shabad | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON — The White House Counsel's Office said it is reviewing recent requests from a GOP committee chair related to Biden's handling of classified documents and signaled they plan to cooperate to an extent. Delery, however, suggested that there will be a limit to what the White House is willing to share with Congress. To that end, White House staff will reach out to Committee staff to arrange a time to discuss this matter." Delery acknowledged that the FBI conducted a "thorough, consensual search" of Biden's Wilmington residence on Friday after the president's lawyers offered to provide access to his home. Comer's probe is one of two major House Republican investigations into the Biden documents.

☆ House GOP's 'all-star' oversight panel features 13 election deniers, 10 impeach-Biden-world advocates, and 3 congressional subpoena dodgers
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

House Republican leaders have stocked the oversight panel with partisan bomb-throwers. Many of the new panelists voted to overturn the 2020 election and defied Jan. 6 investigators. Retired Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who chaired the House Oversight Committee last session, asserted that this new cast of characters were getting into it for the wrong reasons. "The personal vendettas these committees pursue are not a legitimate use of the oversight power. "These are basically the people who own Kevin McCarthy at this point," Bardella told Insider at the Facts First event.

☆ Hunter Biden had access to dad's Corvette that was stored in garage where classified docs were found, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Pictures of Hunter Biden in his dad's Corvette raise questions about his access to classified documents. They are dated to 2017, when classified documents may have been in the Biden garage, it said. The four images, whose metadata the outlet said it examined, appear to show Hunter Biden in the driver's seat of his father's Corvette in July 2017. Revelations about classified documents pose a political headache for the Biden White House. The Republican Party has long targeted Hunter Biden for some of his past business dealings, and allegations of influence peddling.

☆ There's a simple reason Biden didn't keep visitor logs at the Delaware home where he held classified documents — it's not an official residence
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The White House said there are no visitor logs for Joe Biden's Delaware home. Biden is facing criticism after classified documents from his time as VP were found there. It is not standard for visitor logs to be kept at a president's private residence, the WH said. The White house counsel office said that it is not standard for presidents to keep visitor logs at private residences. Visitor logs are kept at the White House.

"Like every President across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal," the White House Counsel's office said in a statement. The Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting current and past presidents and their families, does not "independently maintain our own visitor logs because it’s a private residence," agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, James Comer,on Sunday demanded visitor logs for Democrat Biden's house in Wilmington after classified documents were found in his office and garage there. Democrats have unsuccessfully sought visitor logs for Trump's Florida home for years. Biden restored the tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the Trump administration ended doing that, the White House counsel noted in Monday's statement.

The White House and U.S. Secret Service said Monday they do not maintain visitor logs for President Joe Biden’s personal home in Wilmington, Del., a day after a top House Republican called for their release. “Like every President across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement. The White House acknowledged on Saturday that more pages with classified markings were discovered at Biden's Delaware home than had been previously disclosed. On Saturday, the White House said additional pages marked classified from the Obama administration were found at Biden’s Wilmington residence, in addition to the two batches that were previously disclosed earlier in the week. In a Sunday interview with CNN”s “State of the Union,” Comer was pressed why his committee was focused on Biden’s documents but not Trump’s.

☆ GOP Rep. looking into Biden's mishandling of classified docs said he won't do the same for Trump
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The new GOP oversight chair is looking into Biden's mishandling of classified documents. Speaking to CNN, he said: "We just want equal treatment here, with respect to how both former President Trump and current President Biden are being treated with the document issue." Comer asked why Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was searched by the FBI and why Biden's home wasn't, saying: "it's not fair." Asked if seeking more information of Trump would be a priority, Comer said: "That will not be a priority." Indicating the clip, Jake Tapper asked him: "Do you only care about classified documents being mishandled when Democrats do the mishandling?"

☆ House GOP Seeks Biden Residence Visitor Logs as Classified-Document Saga Continues
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( Daniella Cheslow | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Republicans want to see visitor logs from the home of President Biden, who was at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Sunday. House Republicans are seeking two years of visitor logs from President Biden’s Delaware home as part of a push for more details about documents marked as classified that were found in Mr. Biden’s home and at a Washington office he used after his vice presidency. “Given the serious national security implications, the White House must provide the Wilmington residence’s visitor log,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R., Ky.) wrote in a Sunday letter to White House chief of staff Ron Klain .

☆ Santos to be removed from U.S. Congress if he broke campaign finance laws, committee chairman says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Representative George Santos, who lied about much of his resume and life story, will be removed from Congress if found to have broken campaign finance laws, fellow Republican and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Sunday. Now, if he broke campaign finance laws, then he will be removed from Congress." House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he will leave Santos' fate to the Ethics Committee and voters. "It is one thing for a candidate such as Mr. Santos to induce voters to support him based on a web of lies," Goldman wrote in his letter. "But it is altogether something else if the top levels of Republican leadership knew about Mr. Santos' lies during the campaign and chose to be complicit."

☆ House Oversight chair calls for release of visitor logs from Biden’s Delaware home
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Julie-Tsirkin-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Julie Tsirkin | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., on Sunday asked for the release of visitors logs from President Joe Biden’s home in Delaware in a letter to White House chief of staff Ron Klain. “Given the serious national security implications, the White House must provide the Wilmington residence’s visitor log,” Comer wrote in the letter to Klain. The former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida was searched by the FBI last year after multiple attempts to obtain classified documents. The president is cooperating with the Justice Department and National Archives amid the discovery of the classified documents, she said. "He showed no interest in investigating the far more serious situation with about 100 classified documents at Mar-a-Lago with evidence in the public domain of obstruction.

☆ House Speaker says Democrats should cap spending to avoid U.S. debt default
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Sunday he believes Democrats would agree to cap government spending to avoid a U.S. debt default and he wants to discuss the idea with President Joe Biden. Republicans now in control of the House have threatened to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand spending cuts from Biden's Democrats, who control the U.S. Senate. McCarthy pointed to the Trump-era agreement by U.S. lawmakers' in 2019 to suspend the statutory debt limit on Treasury Department borrowing until a later date as evidence that such compromise is possible. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Sunday he hoped debt default could be avoided but put the onus on Democrats to agree to spending cuts. Congress created the debt ceiling in 1917 to give the government greater borrowing flexibility, and must approve each increase to ensure that the United States meets its debt obligations and avoids a catastrophic default.

☆ Republicans want Biden home visitor logs - but not Trump's
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( Doina Chiacu | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Republicans have sought to compare the Biden documents case with that of former President Donald Trump, who faces a federal criminal probe of how he handled classified documents after he left the White House. Comer said he would not seek visitor logs for Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, where more than 100 classified documents were found in an FBI search. There is no legal requirement that U.S. presidents disclose visitors at their home or at the White House. The Biden administration reinstated disclosures of official guests to the White House and released its first batch of records in May 2021. TRUMP VS. BIDEN DOCUMENT ISSUESRepublicans in the U.S. House of Representatives launched an investigation on Friday into the Justice Department's handling of improperly stored classified documents possessed by Biden.

☆ Santos will be removed from Congress if he broke campaign-finance laws, committee chairman says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - U.S. Representative George Santos, who lied about much of his resume and life story, will be removed from Congress if found to have broken campaign finance laws, fellow Republican and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Sunday. "It's not up to me or any other member of Congress to determine whether he can be kicked out for lying. Now, if he broke campaign finance laws, then he will be removed from Congress." At least six of his fellow Republican representatives from New York have joined the calls for him to step down. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said he will leave Santos' fate to the Ethics Committee and voters.

☆ House Oversight Committee chair urges spending cuts to avoid U.S. debt default
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said on Sunday he hoped a U.S. debt default could be avoided but put the onus on Democrats to agree to spending cuts being pushed by his fellow Republicans. We hope that the Senate, House - Democrats and Republicans - will agree to spending cuts. Republicans now in control of the House of Representatives have threatened to use the debt ceiling as leverage to demand spending cuts from Democrats, who control the U.S. Senate, and the Biden administration. We campaigned on the fact that we were going to be serious about spending cuts," Comer said in an interview with CNN's "State of the Union." Congress created the debt ceiling in 1917 to give the government greater borrowing flexibility, and must approve each increase to ensure that the United States meets its debt obligations and avoids a catastrophic default.

☆ George Santos is a 'bad guy' who's told 'pretty despicable' lies, GOP House oversight chair says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( Taylor Ardrey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Rep. James Comer called George Santos "a bad guy" who told "pretty despicable" lies. Speaking with CNN, Comer expressed that he has not introduced himself to Santos due to his alleged falsehoods. Rep. Santos has been under fire after reports exposed misrepresentations of his background. Recent reports have uncovered that Santos may have shared a slew of alleged misrepresentations about his background, including his employment, religious background, and education. He's going to be under strict ethics investigation, not necessarily for lying, but for his campaign finance potential violations," Comer told CNN.

Aides previously found another batch of classified documents at his residence, and at a Washington think tank he was associated with. Earlier on Friday, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer wrote to the White House asking whether Hunter Biden had access to classified documents found at the president's private residence. In addition to examining Biden's handling of classified documents, Republicans are preparing to probe Hunter Biden's past business dealings in Ukraine. Republicans have sought to compare the investigation of Biden's handling of classified documents to the ongoing probe into how Trump handled classified documents after his presidency. The White House said Biden's attorneys found a small number of classified documents and turned them over after discovery.

The White House said some material was found in a locked garage at Biden's home and an adjacent room, and pledged to cooperate. "People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously," he added. Biden's attorneys said they have found fewer than a dozen classified documents and turned over the relevant papers after finding them. Trump resisted doing so until an August FBI search turned up about 100 classified documents, raising questions about whether Trump or his staff obstructed the investigation. "People know I take classified documents, classified material seriously," Biden told reporters on Thursday.

Aides had previously found another batch of classified documents at his residence, as well as at a Washington think tank he was associated with. The Justice Department on Thursday announced it was appointing a special prosecutor to oversee the Biden documents inquiry. In addition to examining Biden's handling of classified documents, Republicans are preparing to probe Hunter Biden's past business dealings in Ukraine. Republicans have sought to compare the investigation of Biden's handling of classified documents to the ongoing probe into how Trump handled classified documents after his presidency. The White House said Biden's attorneys found a small number of classified documents and turned them over after discovery.

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