Politics

By Jeff Mason and Nandita Bose

(Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Wednesday said Republicans wanted to impeach him because they want to shut down the government, hours after the White House denounced plans to launch an impeachment inquiry against the president.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the inquiry a “political stunt” and said no evidence has been produced by Republicans against Biden as they investigate the business dealings of his son, Hunter Biden.

The inquiry is centered around whether Biden benefited from Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Biden said that when Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican lawmaker and staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, was first elected to the U.S. Congress, she said the first thing she wanted to do was impeach him.

“I don’t know quite why, but they just knew they wanted to impeach me,” Biden told donors at a fundraiser in Virginia. “Now, the best I can tell, they want to impeach me because they want to shut down the government.”

Biden said he does not focus on the impeachment inquiry. “I get up every day, not a joke, not focused on impeachment. I’ve got a job to do,” he said.

The White House has blamed Taylor Greene into pressuring House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in Washington, to order the impeachment inquiry.

McCarthy’s move sets the stage for months of divisive House hearings that could distract from lawmakers’ efforts to pass spending bills and avoid a government shutdown and could supercharge the 2024 presidential race, in which Trump hopes to avenge his 2020 election loss to Biden and win back the White House.

“This is an entire exercise of how to do this in an illegitimate way. … It is going after the president politically, not about the truth,” Jean-Pierre said.

She said Republicans have turned up no evidence that Biden did anything wrong “because the president didn’t do anything wrong.”

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Nandita Bose and Steve Holland; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Diane Craft and Leslie Adler)

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By Andrew Hay

(Reuters) -A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a ban on carrying guns in New Mexico’s largest city after the order by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham threw the state into the center of the U.S. gun-rights debate.

U.S. District Court Judge David Urias said the governor’s 30-day suspension of concealed and open firearm carry rights in Albuquerque and its surrounding county went against a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that people had a right to carry a gun outside their homes for self defense.

“They just want the right to carry their guns,” Urias, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said of plaintiffs requesting a temporary restraining order on parts of Lujan Grisham’s Sept. 8 emergency public health order.

The Democratic governor issued the suspension on firearm carry laws to create a “cooling-off period” for authorities to address solutions to the state’s high rates of gun crime after several children were shot dead in recent weeks.

“Over the past four days, I’ve seen more attention on resolving the crisis of gun violence than I have in the past four years,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement after Urias’ ruling.

Her order outraged gun-rights advocates and drew backlash from fellow Democrats and law enforcement officials who labeled it unconstitutional.

Gun control campaigners called the move courageous and Santa Fe’s Catholic Archbishop feared more value was being given to gun rights than the life of an 11-year-old boy killed last week in an apparent Albuquerque road rage incident.

In the days after the gun ban, Albuquerque’s mayor and Bernalillo County’s sheriff both called for a special session of the state’s legislature to deal with gun crime.

Mayor Tim Keller said he needed legislation to fix a broken criminal justice system, regulate assault weapons and provide addiction and mental health services, among other measures.

“Albuquerque families can’t afford political debates that distract us from fighting violent crime,” Keller wrote in a Tuesday letter to the governor.

Around 500 people die by guns each year in New Mexico, which ranks sixth among U.S. states for gun deaths per capita, according to gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety. Albuquerque is among the 10 most dangerous U.S. cities, based on FBI violent crime data.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay; additional reporting by Nate Raymond and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Stephen Coates and Diane Craft)

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By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will confront a fractured caucus on Wednesday, with his role as the top Republican in Congress under threat from the far right, despite giving hardline conservatives the impeachment inquiry they wanted.

McCarthy conceded to weeks of pressure from hardliners and allies of former President Donald Trump by launching a formal probe of Democratic President Joe Biden. The move sidestepped as many as 20 House of Representatives Republicans opposed to the action by avoiding a floor vote that would likely have failed.

“We cannot use impeachment as a political weapon against every president,” Republican Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska centrist, said in a statement.

But even after the announcement, hardline Representative Matt Gaetz again raised the possibility of ousting McCarthy under the terms of a deal he agreed to become speaker, which gave any one member the power to call a vote for his removal.

Gaetz said the speaker could face multiple votes on motions to “vacate the chair” for failing to comply with a secret agreement that allowed him to become speaker in January.

“The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate, total compliance or remove you,” Gaetz said in a floor speech addressing McCarthy directly.

As Congress approaches a Sept. 1 deadline to avoid a government shutdown, House hardliners are now pressing McCarthy to avoid any short-term stopgap spending measure to keep federal agencies afloat that fails to include border security provisions and other conservative priorities.

Gaetz cited a long list of measures that said McCarthy had failed to bring forward, including a balanced budget, term limits, the full release of videotapes from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, and a subpoena of Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Representative Chip Roy, who helped lead negotiations that led to the hardliners’ January agreement with McCarthy, confirmed that the speaker had not moved forward on the items listed by Gaetz.

“We haven’t done that. Period. Full stop. We haven’t done what we agreed to do,” Roy told reporters.

But the Texas Republican shrugged off questions about McCarthy’s future as speaker, saying the focus now is on achieving hardline spending targets and pushing through measures to address the U.S. border with Mexico.

Another hardliner, Representative Clay Higgins, said the focus should be on passing appropriations bills that cut spending to a fiscal 2022 level of $1.47 trillion, $120 billion less than he agreed to with Biden in May. Centrist Republicans oppose cuts that sharp.

Asked specifically about a motion to oust McCarthy, Higgins said: “Let me say that my colleagues should have deep, deep reflection before they venture down that path.”

But McCarthy remains under hardline pressure not only to enact Republican appropriations bills with deep cuts but to force the lower spending levels on the Democratic-led Senate, which has begun moving forward its own spending legislation.

“We call on the speaker to be a historic, transformational speaker that for once stares down the White House, stares down the Senate, and stands strong for the American people, and says ‘No!’,” Republican Representative Bob Good said at a news conference.

While most hardliners have been unwilling to make open threats about McCarthy’s future, many have still made it clear how strongly disappointed they would be if he decided to avoid a government shutdown with support from House Democrats.

“It would be a sad day for the country if he does that,” said Representative Ralph Norman, a prominent member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus.

“The only way I know to describe it: a sad day for America.”

(Reporting by David Morgan; additional reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone and Stephen Coates)

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(Reuters) -U.S. House of Representatives Republicans will open an impeachment inquiry into Democratic President Joe Biden after months of investigations of his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Tuesday.

The inquiry is being cheered on by Donald Trump, who was twice impeached by the House – a historic first – when it was controlled by Democrats but acquitted by the Senate both times. Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in next year’s U.S. presidential election, has been charged in four separate criminal cases this year.

The White House dismisses the move as unsupported by evidence.

WHAT IS AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY?

The U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to impeach federal officials including the president for treason, bribery and “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” A president can be removed from office if the House approves articles of impeachment by a simple majority and the Senate votes by a two-thirds majority to convict after holding a trial.

An impeachment inquiry is a formal step that can precede a House vote on whether to approve articles of impeachment and eventually a trial in the Senate.

The House in 2019 voted for an impeachment inquiry into Trump before his first impeachment charging him with abusing his power as president by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings. It did not hold a full impeachment inquiry before bringing impeachment charges in the final weeks of Trump’s presidency following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Senate Republicans both times provided sufficient votes to acquit Trump.

WHAT ARE THE ALLEGATIONS?

Republicans allege that Biden’s son Hunter has profited in business dealings with foreign entities by arranging access to then-Vice President Biden. They also allege that the president himself has profited.

Separately, they also say that the Justice Department interfered with investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes. U.S. Special Counsel David Weiss, who is leading that investigation, denies that charge.

WHAT DO DEMOCRATS SAY?

The White House has denied the charges. Democrats say the congressional probes are baseless and politically motivated, arguing they are a distraction from the four criminal indictments against Trump.

“Republicans’ probe is a transparent effort to weaponize Congress to do Trump’s bidding,” Raskin said in a statement before McCarthy’s announcement.

White House spokesperson Ian Sams dismissed the move as “extreme politics at its worst.”

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

Republicans have pointed to a U.S. government document in which an informant refers to the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors, saying: “it cost 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden,” referring to alleged payments to two members of the Biden family.

Devon Archer, an associate of Hunter Biden, said in an interview with congressional investigators in July that he was not aware of any such payments.

The Burisma head said he did not have any contact with Joe Biden or his staff, and that Biden did not help him or the company while he was vice president, according to a transcript of an interview released by Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

Archer also told congressional investigators that Hunter Biden put his father on the phone with foreign investors or associates “maybe 20 times” over the course of about 10 years.

Archer said Hunter Biden sought to create “an illusion of access to his father,” but that those conversations did not involve any business dealings, and he was not aware of any wrongdoing by the elder Biden.

DOES THE HOUSE HAVE THE VOTES?

McCarthy was facing mounting pressure from hardline members of his party’s right flank. Representative Matt Gaetz had suggested McCarthy’s position as speaker was at risk if he did not support impeachment, while Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had said she will not vote to fund the government without a vote on the impeachment inquiry.

McCarthy’s decision to launch one without first calling a vote avoided a test of his narrow 222-212 majority, not all of whom supported the move.

WHAT WILL THE SENATE DO?

Under the Constitution, after the House votes to impeach an official, the Senate holds a trial. Removal of the official requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and head of its Judiciary Committee, has said that if the House votes to impeach Biden, the Senate would have no choice but to take it up.

The Senate is unlikely to convict Biden, where his Democratic Party holds the majority and some Republicans have said they have no appetite for an impeachment trial.

No president has been removed from office by the Senate following an impeachment.

WHAT OTHER LEGAL TROUBLES DOES HUNTER BIDEN FACE?

Weiss has said prosecutors will seek to indict Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges by Sept. 29. Investigators have been probing him since 2019.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers had negotiated a plea deal that would have allowed him to plead guilty to not paying taxes on $1.5 million in income between 2017 and 2018 and entered into a separate deferred prosecution argument for illegally owning a firearm while using drugs, but the arrangement collapsed over the summer.

The criminal prosecution could mean Hunter Biden may face a trial while his father is campaigning for reelection.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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By Richard Cowan and Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday launched an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, propelling Congress toward a long-shot effort to remove the Democratic president following two impeachments of former President Donald Trump.

McCarthy’s move sets the stage for months of divisive House of Representatives hearings that could distract from lawmakers’ efforts to avoid a government shutdown and could supercharge the 2024 presidential race, in which Trump hopes to avenge his 2020 election loss to Biden and win back the White House.

Republicans, who now narrowly control the House, have accused Biden of profiting while he served as vice president from 2009 to 2017 from his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business ventures. But a 2020 Senate investigation and several months of digging by House Republicans this year have failed to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by Biden.

“We will go where the evidence takes us,” McCarthy said.

Biden previously had mocked Republicans over a possible impeachment and the White House said they have no basis to do so.

“Extreme politics at its worst,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams wrote on social media.

The inquiry will focus on Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, which Republicans have been probing since before they took their current House majority this year. Indeed, Trump’s first impeachment was prompted by his requests to Ukraine to probe them as he braced for an election challenge by Biden.

No U.S. president has ever been removed from office by impeachment, but the procedure – once a rarity – has become commonplace.

Many in McCarthy’s party were infuriated when the House, then controlled by Democrats, impeached Trump in 2019 and 2021, though he was acquitted both times in the Senate. Some hardline Republicans had said they would try to remove McCarthy as the leader of the House if he did not move ahead with an impeachment effort against Biden.

FEDERAL PROBE OF HUNTER

Republicans have been investigating Hunter Biden’s business activities for years, and a federal prosecutor is also pursuing criminal tax and firearms charges.

McCarthy said Republicans have turned up evidence of phone calls, money transfers and other activity that “paints a picture of a culture of corruption” in Biden’s family. He did not cite any evidence of misconduct by Biden himself.

McCarthy said he moved to enhance investigators’ ability to get information, not reach a pre-determined outcome. “That’s all we’re doing. America needs the answers,” he told reporters.

They will begin their work without a vote from the full House, as was held before Trump’s first impeachment. Such a vote is not required, but can add legitimacy to the effort.

It was not clear whether McCarthy had the support of enough of his narrow 222-212 majority for a vote to have succeeded.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney, one of the party’s more moderate voices, said he was comfortable with the move.

“The fact that the White House has been singularly silent and has coddled Hunter Biden suggests that an inquiry is not inappropriate,” Romney told reporters.

Democrats blasted the inquiry as an effort to shift attention from Republicans’ own struggles to govern, as well as the legal woes of Trump, who faces four separate criminal indictments while running for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination to face Biden.

“This impeachment is Kevin McCarthy’s shiny new object to distract the public from the fact that the GOP can’t even pass bills to fund the government,” Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal said.

Several hardline Republicans have said they would not vote for spending bills to keep the government funded without an impeachment inquiry. If Congress does not pass those spending bills by the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, large swaths of the U.S. government would have to shut down.

One Republicans who had previously been skeptical of the impeachment push, Representative Ken Buck, said McCarthy’s decision to allow the Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees to pursue an impeachment inquiry would prevent the entire chamber from being paralyzed. “The House should be focusing on spending instead,” he said.

Any effort to remove Biden from office would be unlikely to succeed. Even if the House votes to impeach Biden it would almost certainly fail in a subsequent trial in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required to convict.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called the impeachment inquiry “absurd.”

Trump is the only U.S. president to have been impeached twice. In 2019, the House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he asked Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son on unsubstantiated corruption accusations.

In 2021, the House impeached Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

He was acquitted both times in the Senate. Trump denied wrongdoing and portrayed both efforts as a political “witch hunt.” He has pressed Republicans to impeach Biden.

Aside from Trump, only two other presidents have been impeached: Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 as he faced an impeachment vote.

“The bar for impeachment seems to get lower and lower every year,” said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Public opinion polling has shown many Americans believe Hunter Biden has received special treatment. An August Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 49% of respondents said it was “believable” that Hunter Biden’s legal problems were independent of his father’s service as president.

(Additional reporting by Moira Warburton, Jason Lange and David Morgan; writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Will Dunham, Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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(Reuters) – Two Democratic and two Republican U.S. senators on Tuesday introduced legislation to ban the use of artificial intelligence that creates content that falsely depicts candidates in political advertisements to influence federal elections. 

Authorities around the world are grappling with how to regulate and legislate on issues related to artificial intelligence as services such as ChatGPT gain traction.

Experts say the proliferation of AI tools could make it far easier to, for instance, conduct mass hacking campaigns or create fake profiles on social media to spread false information and propaganda.

Democrats Amy Klobuchar, chair of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration; and Chris Coons, who leads the judiciary committee’s subcommittee on intellectual property, alongside Republicans Josh Hawley of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on privacy; and Susan Collins, vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, called for action in a joint release.

“This bill would … prohibit the distribution of materially deceptive AI-generated audio, images, or video relating to federal candidates in political ads or certain issue ads to influence a federal election or fundraise,” it said.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Richard Chang)

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By Richard Cowan and Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday launched an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, propelling Congress toward a long-shot effort to remove the Democratic president that follows two impeachments of former President Donald Trump.

McCarthy’s move sets the stage for months of divisive House of Representatives hearings that could distract from lawmakers’ efforts to avoid a government shutdown and could supercharge the 2024 presidential race, in which Trump hopes to avenge his 2020 election loss to Biden and win back the White House.

White House spokesperson Ian Sams said Republicans have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.

“Extreme politics at its worst,” Sams wrote on social media.

Republicans, who now narrowly control the House, have accused Biden of profiting while he served as vice president from 2009 to 2017 from his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business ventures, though they have not presented substantiation.

“We will go where the evidence takes us,” McCarthy said.

Biden previously had mocked Republicans over a possible impeachment. No U.S. president has ever been removed from office by impeachment, but the procedure – once a rarity – has become commonplace.

Many in McCarthy’s party were infuriated when the House, then controlled by Democrats, impeached Trump in 2019 and 2021, though he was acquitted both times in the Senate. Some hardline Republicans had said they would try to remove McCarthy as the leader of the House if he did not move ahead with an impeachment effort against Biden.

FEDERAL PROBE OF HUNTER

Republicans have been investigating Hunter Biden’s business activities for years, and a federal prosecutor is also pursuing criminal tax and firearms charges against the president’s son.

McCarthy said Republicans have turned up evidence of phone calls, money transfers and other activity that “paints a picture of a culture of corruption” in Biden’s family. He did not cite any evidence of misconduct by Biden himself.

The impeachment inquiry could give Republican lawmakers more power to get information from the Biden administration and other sources as they seek evidence of possible financial misconduct. They will begin their work without a vote from the full House, as was held before Trump’s first impeachment in 2019. Such a vote is not required, but can add legitimacy to the effort.

It was not clear whether McCarthy had the support of enough of his narrow 222-212 majority for a vote on an inquiry to have succeeded, as just five dissenters could have blocked it. Some more moderate members had begun to voice support for the idea, including Representative Nancy Mace.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney, one of the party’s more moderate voices, said he was comfortable with the move.

“The fact that the White House has been singularly silent and has coddled Hunter Biden suggests that an inquiry is not inappropriate,” Romney told reporters.

Democrats blasted the inquiry as a partisan effort to shift attention from Republicans’ own struggles to govern, as well as the legal woes of Trump, who faces four separate criminal indictments while running for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination to face Biden.

“This impeachment is Kevin McCarthy’s shiny new object to distract the public from the fact that the GOP can’t even pass bills to fund the government,” Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal said.

Several hardline Republicans have said they will not vote for spending bills to keep the government funded without an impeachment inquiry. If Congress does not pass those spending bills by the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, large swaths of the U.S. government would have to shut down.

Any effort to remove Biden from office would be unlikely to succeed. Even if the House votes to impeach Biden – an uncertain prospect, given the Republican party’s narrow majority – it would almost certainly fail in a subsequent trial in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds vote is required to convict.

Trump is the only U.S. president to have been impeached twice. In 2019, the House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he asked Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son on unsubstantiated corruption accusations.

In 2021, the House impeached Trump on a charge of inciting an insurrection following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

He was acquitted both times in the Senate. Trump denied wrongdoing and portrayed both efforts as a political “witch hunt.” He has pressed Republicans to impeach Biden.

Aside from Trump, only two other presidents have been impeached: Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868. Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 as he faced an impeachment vote.

“The bar for impeachment seems to get lower and lower every year,” said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski.

Public opinion polling has shown many Americans believe Hunter Biden has received special treatment. An August Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 49% of respondents said it was “believable” that Hunter Biden’s legal problems were independent of his father’s service as president.

(Additional reporting by Moira Warburton, Jason Lange and David Morgan; writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Will Dunham, Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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(Reuters) – U.S. House of Representatives Republicans will open an impeachment inquiry into Democratic President Joe Biden after months of investigations of his son Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Tuesday.

The inquiry is being cheered on by Donald Trump, who was twice impeached by the House – a historic first – when it was controlled by Democrats but acquitted by the Senate both times. Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in next year’s U.S. presidential election, has been charged in four separate criminal cases this year.

The White House dismisses the move as unsupported by evidence.

WHAT IS AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY?

The U.S. Constitution empowers Congress to impeach federal officials including the president for treason, bribery and “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” A president can be removed from office if the House approves articles of impeachment by a simple majority and the Senate votes by a two-thirds majority to convict after holding a trial.

An impeachment inquiry is a formal step that can precede a House vote on whether to approve articles of impeachment and eventually a trial in the Senate.

The House in 2019 voted for an impeachment inquiry into Trump before his first impeachment charging him with abusing his power as president by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden’s business dealings. It did not hold a full impeachment inquiry before bringing impeachment charges in the final weeks of Trump’s presidency following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

Senate Republicans both times provided sufficient votes to acquit Trump.

WHAT ARE THE ALLEGATIONS?

Republicans allege that Biden’s son Hunter has profited in business dealings with foreign entities by arranging access to then-Vice President Biden. They also allege that the president himself has profited.

Separately, they also say that the Justice Department interfered with investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes. U.S. Special Counsel David Weiss, who is leading that investigation, denies that charge.

WHAT DO DEMOCRATS SAY?

The White House has denied the charges. Democrats say the congressional probes are baseless and politically motivated, arguing they are a distraction from the four criminal indictments against Trump.

“Republicans’ probe is a transparent effort to weaponize Congress to do Trump’s bidding,” Raskin said in a statement before McCarthy’s announcement.

White House spokesperson Ian Sams dismissed the move as “extreme politics at its worst.”

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

Republicans have pointed to a U.S. government document in which an informant refers to the head of Burisma, a Ukrainian company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors, saying: “it cost 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden,” referring to alleged payments to two members of the Biden family.

Devon Archer, an associate of Hunter Biden, said in an interview with congressional investigators in July that he was not aware of any such payments.

The Burisma head said he did not have any contact with Joe Biden or his staff, and that Biden did not help him or the company while he was vice president, according to a transcript of an interview released by Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

Archer also told congressional investigators that Hunter Biden put his father on the phone with foreign investors or associates “maybe 20 times” over the course of about 10 years.

Archer said Hunter Biden sought to create “an illusion of access to his father,” but that those conversations did not involve any business dealings, and he was not aware of any wrongdoing by the elder Biden.

DOES THE HOUSE HAVE THE VOTES?

McCarthy was facing mounting pressure from hardline members of his party’s right flank. Representative Matt Gaetz had suggested McCarthy’s position as speaker was at risk if he did not support impeachment, while Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had said she will not vote to fund the government without a vote on the impeachment inquiry.

McCarthy’s decision to launch one without first calling a vote avoided a test of his narrow 222-212 majority, not all of whom supported the move.

WHAT WILL THE SENATE DO?

Under the Constitution, after the House votes to impeach an official, the Senate holds a trial. Removal of the official requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and head of its Judiciary Committee, has said that if the House votes to impeach Biden, the Senate would have no choice but to take it up.

The Senate is unlikely to convict Biden, where his Democratic Party holds the majority and some Republicans have said they have no appetite for an impeachment trial.

No president has been removed from office by the Senate following an impeachment.

WHAT OTHER LEGAL TROUBLES DOES HUNTER BIDEN FACE?

Weiss has said prosecutors will seek to indict Hunter Biden on tax and gun charges by Sept. 29. Investigators have been probing him since 2019.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers had negotiated a plea deal that would have allowed him to plead guilty to not paying taxes on $1.5 million in income between 2017 and 2018 and entered into a separate deferred prosecution argument for illegally owning a firearm while using drugs, but the arrangement collapsed over the summer.

The criminal prosecution could mean Hunter Biden may face a trial while his father is campaigning for reelection.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump on Monday asked the federal judge presiding over his election subversion case in Washington to recuse herself, saying her past public statements about the former president and his connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol call into question whether she can be fair.

The recusal motion from Trump’s lawyers takes aim at U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama and has stood out as one of the toughest punishers of Jan. 6 defendants. The request is a long shot given the high threshold for recusal and because the decision on whether to recuse belongs to Chutkan, who is unlikely to see cause to step aside from the case.

Even so, the request that she give up the high-stakes trial marks the latest flashpoint in already delicate relations between the defense team and the judge, who has repeatedly cautioned against inflammatory public comments from Trump.

Chutkan ordered the prosecutor’s team to file any opposition to Trump’s recusal bid by Thursday.

Chutkan last month scheduled the trial for March 4, 2024, over the vigorous objections of defense lawyers who said that would not give them enough time to prepare. The case in Washington, charging Trump in a four-count indictment with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, is one of four criminal cases confronting the former president as he seeks reelection to the White House.

Federal judges are supposed to step aside in cases where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Other bases for recusal include a personal bias against one of the parties. Trump’s lawyers say Chutkan’s comments in cases against Jan. 6 rioters show she has “already formed an opinion about President Trump’s guilt” and many of the allegations that underpin the indictment against him.

“Although Judge Chutkan may genuinely intend to give President Trump a fair trial — and may believe that she can do so — her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings, regardless of outcome,” the defense team wrote. “The public will reasonably and understandably question whether Judge Chutkan arrived at all of her decisions in this matter impartially, or in fulfillment of her prior negative statements regarding President Trump.”

Chutkan has often handed down prison sentences in Jan. 6 cases that are harsher than Justice Department prosecutors recommended. The judge also previously ruled against Trump in a separate Jan. 6 case, refusing his request to block the release of documents to the U.S. House’s Jan. 6 committee by asserting executive privilege.

Trump’s lawyers quoted from remarks Chutkan made in a 2022 sentencing hearing for Christine Priola, a Jan. 6 defendant from Ohio who pleaded guilty to obstructing Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory — one of the same charges Trump is facing.

“The people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”

Trump’s attorneys said that comment suggests she believed at the time that Trump should be charged.

“Public statements of this sort create a perception of prejudgment incompatible with our justice system. In a case this widely watched, of such monumental significance, the public must have the utmost confidence that the Court will administer justice neutrally and dispassionately,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

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By Jack Queen

(Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump is barred from returning to the White House, say some opponents who argue his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack amounts to supporting an “insurrection” as defined by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Here’s a look at the legal theory and its long-shot chances of blocking the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination from the November 2024 ballot.

HOW COULD TRUMP BE DISQUALIFIED?

Some legal experts say Trump’s Jan. 6 actions disqualify him for the presidency. They cite his fiery speech to supporters who then stormed the Capitol in a failed bid to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s election.

They cite Section 3 of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment, which bars government officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.

Advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a lawsuit in Colorado on Sept. 6 seeking to bar the state’s top election official from placing Trump on the ballot in the November 2024 election, citing Section 3.

More lawsuits against state election officials could follow, inviting a legal melee across all 50 states over a largely untested legal question with potentially broad implications for who is permitted to hold federal office.

HAS TRUMP BEEN CONVICTED OF INCITING INSURRECTION?

The House of Representatives in Trump’s second impeachment charged him with inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, but Senate Republicans narrowly sustained enough votes to acquit him.

He is now awaiting trial on four criminal indictments, including two related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat, which he falsely claims was the result of fraud.

Trump has not been charged with insurrection or rebellion.

Some legal experts say efforts to disqualify Trump could set a troubling precedent that would empower state election officials to unilaterally disqualify candidates based on their own interpretations of “insurrection or rebellion.”

Disqualifying candidates based on crimes they have not been convicted of, or even charged with, could run afoul of their rights to due process and equal protection, which are also enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

HOW WOULD DISQUALIFICATION WORK?

Section 3 has no clear enforcement mechanism. Some legal scholars say it would require an act of Congress to put it into effect. Others say state election officials are bound to apply it when considering candidates for the ballot and can be compelled to do so by court order.

Voters and groups representing them would need to persuade secretaries of state across the 50 states – many of them elected Republicans and Trump allies – to determine Trump is disqualified or to persuade judges to bar them from putting Trump on the ballot.

For the maneuver to succeed, its proponents would need to persuade officials in enough Republican-leaning states to block Trump from the ballot that he would be denied the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory.

Those efforts would almost certainly draw legal challenges from Republicans.

HAS IT EVER BEEN DONE BEFORE?

Section 3 was used to disqualify numerous people from office following the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War but has since been almost entirely dormant.

In September 2022, however, the same advocacy group that sued to keep Trump off the ballot in Colorado persuaded a New Mexico judge to remove a county commissioner from office over his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

COULD IT WORK?

The effort faces long odds. It would require persuading or forcing election officials to keep Trump off the ballot in states governed by his Republican allies.

It could also invite a legal battle of epic proportions, which would ultimately be decided by a U.S. Supreme Court dominated by a 6-3 conservative majority including three Trump appointees.

HAS THE 14TH AMENDMENT BEEN IN THE NEWS LATELY?

During a showdown with House Republicans over the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, Biden in May floated the idea of using Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt limit, but he never carried out that threat.

There were also legal questions about how successful that maneuver would have been.

(Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

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