Politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House voted Wednesday to censure California Rep. Adam Schiff for comments he made several years ago about investigations into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, rebuking the Democrat and frequent critic of the former president along party lines.

Schiff becomes the 25th House lawmaker to be censured. He was defiant ahead of the vote, saying he will wear the formal disapproval as a “badge of honor” and charging his GOP colleagues of doing the former president’s bidding.

When it was time for Schiff to come to the front of the chamber to be formally censured, immediately after the vote, the normally solemn ceremony turned into more of a celebratory atmosphere. Dozens of Democrats crowded to the front, clapping and cheering for Schiff and patting him on the back. They chanted “No!,” “Shame!” and “Adam! Adam!”

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., read the resolution out loud, as is tradition after a censure. But he only read part of the document before leaving the chamber as Democrats heckled and interrupted him.

“Censure all of us,” one Democrat yelled.

The revised resolution says Schiff held positions of power during Trump’s presidency and “abused this trust by saying there was evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.” Schiff was one of the most outspoken critics of the former president as both the Justice Department and the Republican-led House launched investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia in 2017. Both investigations concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election but neither found evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

“Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people,” the resolution said.

The censure itself carries no practical effect, except to provide a historic footnote that marks a lawmaker’s career. But the GOP resolution would also launch an ethics investigation into Schiff’s conduct.

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By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Further Federal Reserve rate increases are “a pretty good guess” of where the central bank is heading if the economy continues in its current direction, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in remarks on Wednesday to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

In response to a question late in a three-hour hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, Powell said he would not characterize the Fed’s decision last week to hold interest rates steady as a “pause,” and noted the fact that a majority of policymakers see two more quarter-point rate increases as likely by the end of the year.

“We didn’t use the word pause and I wouldn’t use it here today,” Powell said. The outlook for two more rate hikes by the end of the year, included in the Summary of Economic Projections released by the Fed last week, “is a pretty good guess of what will happen if the economy performs about as expected,” Powell said.

Right now that is characterized by modest growth but a still strong labor market and only stodgy progress on inflation.

As Powell spoke, comments from other Fed officials showed the contours of the debate emerging at the central bank over whether further rate increases will, in fact, be needed.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said at a Wall Street Journal forum that he felt the central bank was in a “wait and see” mode as further data come in.

“If you don’t see progress, that is an answer, if you do see progress, that is also an answer,” he said.

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic, meanwhile, became the first policymaker to suggest the Fed would need to wait at least past its July meeting to decide on further rate increases, because acting too fast at this point could “needlessly drain” strength from the economy when inflation may continue heading down with monetary policy where it is.

“If we simply press on with additional rate hikes, we could needlessly drain too much momentum from the economy,” Bostic said.

BANKING REGULATIONS IN FOCUS

The comments by Powell were his most explicit on the monetary policy outlook during a hearing dominated by questions from Republican lawmakers concerned that a string of bank failures in the spring would prompt the Fed to push back too hard on the financial sector with tougher capital and other rules.

“There are a number of proposals in the works. They have not been finalized,” Powell told lawmakers who questioned why the Fed might consider forcing banks to raise more capital while at the same time saying that the financial system was stable, and that the failure of institutions like Silicon Valley Bank was largely the result of poor management.

Any change of capital rules or other regulations “would need to be shown to be justified,” Powell said.

Powell said any changes “will take time,” and should not impact the industry in the near term. The proposals “are still to some extent in motion…It will take quite a while to decide what to do” and years after that to implement, he said.

Nominees to three Fed board positions faced similar queries in a separate hearing in the Senate.

On monetary policy Powell kept the focus on the central bank’s fight to lower inflation and said the process “has a long way to go.”

“Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year,” Powell told the House panel. “Nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high, and the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go.”

Though Fed officials held off on raising interest rates at their meeting last week, Powell called that an exercise in prudence, allowing time to gather more information before deciding on further rate increases that most Fed policymakers feel will be necessary by the end of the year.

Powell and the nominees for three Fed Board seats testified over several hours on Wednesday, laying out a set of views that could broadly shape the economic conditions facing the country during what may be an era-defining political rematch next year between incumbent Democrat Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump.

Despite the consensus on lowering inflation, the Fed is at a point where opinions about the need for and timing of additional interest rate increases may start to diverge. As it was for past presidential incumbents, how that debate gets resolved could make the difference between a benign election-year economy and a corrosive one.

For Biden, the success or failure of Fed policy could mean a “soft landing” of continued economic growth, lower inflation and only modestly higher unemployment, or it could force him to campaign against a backdrop of increasing joblessness, stubbornly higher prices, and punishing interest rates for anyone trying to buy a home or car or finance a business.

The Fed at its meeting last week held its benchmark interest rate steady at level between 5% and 5.25%, but officials projected rates will have to increase another half percentage point by year’s end because inflation has been falling so slowly and remains more than double the Fed’s 2% target.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

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By Gabriella Borter

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (Reuters) – The day Alan Braid opened his abortion clinic for business in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last August, he looked out at a waiting room full of patients fresh off trips from Texas, some with suitcases in tow.

Several months later, Dr. Braid’s daughter Andrea Gallegos drew a similar crowd to the opening of their abortion clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, with patients arriving from far-flung states to end pregnancies.

The father-daughter duo had their lives disrupted when on June 24, 2022, a year ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and stripped away a nationwide right to abortion.

After the landmark ruling, 14 states banned most abortions. Dozens of clinics closed, forcing patients to travel thousands of miles to end pregnancies. These included clinics of Braid and Gallegos in San Antonio, Texas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Braid, an abortion provider since 1972, and Gallegos, manager of their clinics, decided to uproot their families in Texas to open the clinics in New Mexico and Illinois, two states where abortion remains legal.

After Roe, Reuters documented their days spent in airports and weeks living out of suitcases.

Braid, 78, had fewer afternoons watching his grandchildren play with the golf simulator in his garage, and Gallegos, 40, missed taking her children to karate practice.

Abortion has long been a politically divisive issue in the U.S., with abortion opponents concerned about preserving life from conception and abortion rights advocates standing for a woman’s bodily autonomy.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in October 2022 showed 56% of Americans support legal abortion in all or most cases.

Braid and Gallegos faced angry protesters outside their clinics, snubs from local contractors who oppose abortion and the logistical hurdles of opening businesses hundreds of miles away from their San Antonio homes.

The undertaking was one few others pursued.

Of the 27 new clinics that have opened in the past year in states with permissive abortion laws, six are operated by providers who moved from states that now ban abortion, according to data collected by Middlebury College economics professor Caitlin Myers. Two of those are Braid’s.

“I don’t think I ever really thought about quitting,” said Braid, who made national headlines when he defied Texas law in September 2021 by performing an abortion on a patient who was past six weeks pregnant.

“My motivation,” he said, “is to provide a safe place for women to come who have made the decision to terminate their pregnancy.”

DAUGHTER MOVING TO ILLINOIS

Gallegos was in high school when she stumbled upon an anti-abortion website that called her dad a murderer and listed his work address.

She had grown up in awe of her father’s obstetrics-gynecology work. Becoming aware of the risk he faced in choosing to provide abortions suddenly made that work seem even more important.

In 2020, she became executive administrator of Braid’s abortion clinics in San Antonio and Tulsa. She didn’t want the staff to know she was his daughter, but Braid could not wait to tell everyone.

“It was great having her aboard,” Braid said. “She’s very passionate.”

The last year has put Gallegos’ passion to the test.

In November, she launched the abortion clinic in Illinois, one of the states that has become a destination for people seeking to end pregnancies because of its protective laws and central location.

In Illinois, abortion is legal until a fetus can survive outside the womb, usually around 24 weeks of pregnancy, and later if the patient’s health is endangered.

The one-story building with a blue roof in Carbondale has drawn patients from Missouri to Florida, Gallegos said. Braid, her father, is one of the doctors who work there.

She flies almost weekly to the new location, relying on video calls to see her husband and children, ages 4, 6 and 18, back in San Antonio.

On one trip Reuters joined, she sat for hours on a grounded plane in Oklahoma City as a tornado and hailstorm raged outside. The flight made it to St. Louis in the middle of the night, where she grabbed ramen from the hotel lobby and slept a few hours before driving to work in Carbondale the next morning.

In July, her family will leave Texas and move to Illinois. The transition is bittersweet. Seeing her old home packed up and having family and friends over for one last gathering made Gallegos emotional, but she feels the excitement building for the next chapter.

“I know now more than ever that this is exactly where I was supposed to be,” Gallegos said.

FATHER MOVES TO NEW MEXICO

In August, Braid handed an abortion pill to Caitlyn, a 19-year-old mother of two from Houston who had traveled to his Albuquerque clinic. The sound of drilling from ongoing renovations echoed as he gently explained how the pill would work.

Caitlyn, a restaurant hostess, teared up recalling how scared she had been on her flight to New Mexico, her first time leaving Texas. She had not told her mother where she was going because her mother opposed abortion. But Caitlyn was determined to not have a third child.

“It would just be way too much,” she said.

It was the clinic’s first week. An Oklahoma college student, five weeks pregnant, had driven nine hours overnight to make her appointment. A 32-year-old nurse from New Orleans was a day late because of flight delays.

To open the clinic, Braid and his staff had to obtain new medical licenses and move their families. During the building renovation, some contractors who opposed abortion refused to work with them, Braid said.

Anti-abortion activists resented that New Mexico had become a refuge for those seeking to end pregnancies. The state allows abortion throughout pregnancy.

“It’s definitely not what you’d want your state to be known for,” said George Sieber, 61, as he protested outside a nearby abortion clinic.

Like his daughter, Braid spent months commuting from San Antonio for work. But he, too, ultimately decided to leave Texas.

In May, Braid and his wife moved into their home in New Mexico. He plans to set up his golf simulator in the garage, to be ready for his grandchildren when they visit.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Additional reporting by Evelyn Hockstein; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Howard Goller)

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KENTFIELD, California/BEIJING (Reuters) – China hit back on Wednesday after U.S. President Joe Biden referred to President Xi Jinping as a “dictator,” saying the remarks were absurd and a provocation, in an unexpected spat immediately following efforts by both sides to lower tensions.

Biden’s comments came just a day after top U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing to stabilize bilateral relations that China says are at their lowest point since formal ties were established.

Attending a fundraiser in California, Biden said Xi was very embarrassed when a suspected Chinese spy balloon was blown off course over U.S. airspace early this year, making a personal comment on the Chinese leader when Blinken said on Monday the “chapter” should be closed.

“The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn’t know it was there,” Biden said.

“That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course,” Biden added.

Xi became China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong after securing a precedent-breaking third term as president in March and head of the Communist Party in October.

Biden also said China “has real economic difficulties.”

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Biden’s remarks were “extremely absurd” and “irresponsible”.

Expressing China’s strong dissatisfaction, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Biden’s comments seriously violated facts, diplomatic protocol and China’s political dignity.

“They’re an open political provocation,” she told a news conference.

Asked how aware Xi had been about the balloon’s movements, Mao reiterated China’s previous explanation that the passage of the balloon through U.S. airspace had been unintended and caused by circumstances beyond its control.

‘BIG MOUTH’

“Biden’s big mouth is a loose cannon,” said Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.

“Mutual trust is what China has been stressing, so Biden’s comments are very destructive and damaging,” Wu said, while adding that the remarks may not totally undo what Blinken had achieved on his China visit.

Blinken and Xi agreed in their meeting on Monday to stabilize the intense rivalry between Washington and Beijing so it did not veer into conflict.

While no breakthroughs were made during the first visit to China by a U.S. secretary of state for five years, both sides did agree to continue diplomatic engagement with more visits by U.S. officials in the coming weeks and months.

Biden said later on Tuesday that U.S. climate envoy John Kerry may go to China soon.

A day earlier, on Monday, Biden said he thought relations between the two countries were on the right path, and he indicated that progress was made during Blinken’s trip.

Chiming in from Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Biden’s comments contradicted the efforts of his secretary of state to ease tensions with Beijing, describing the remarks as “incomprehensible”.

“These are very contradictory manifestations of U.S. foreign policy, which speak of a large element of unpredictability,” Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

“However, that’s their business,” Peskov said. “We’ve our own bad relations with the United States of America and our very good relations with the People’s Republic of China.”

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; additional reporting by Ryan Woo, Ethan Wang and Albee Zhang in Beijing; Writing by Kanishka Singh; Editing by Stephen Coates & Simon Cameron-Moore)

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By Aram Roston and Joseph Tanfani

(Reuters) – After Ron DeSantis, an avid golfer, moved into the Florida governor’s mansion in 2019, workers installed a golf simulator worth tens of thousands of dollars in the private pool cabana so he could practice his game.

But DeSantis did not pay for the simulator. Neither did the state government. Instead, it was funded by a wealthy donor and prominent businessman, Morteza Hosseini, according to four sources familiar with the matter and state government records.

The donation, previously undisclosed, was never reported as a gift by DeSantis, the top rival to former President Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Florida mostly allows officials to receive gifts as long as they are disclosed and won’t influence their official work.

However, the golf simulator transaction appears to have been structured to avoid Florida’s rigorous ethical disclosure requirements, said two governance experts in Florida. A third expert characterized the donation as appropriate under state laws.

Florida state law requires public officials to file quarterly reports listing all gifts received with a value over $100. But DeSantis has never filed a gift disclosure in his four and half years in office, said Lynn Blais, administrator of the Florida Commission on Ethics. The commission oversees compliance by state officials with government ethics laws.

“In my mind, it subverts the principle of why we require gifts to be disclosed,” said Ben Wilcox, research director of Florida Integrity, a government watchdog group.

Hosseini, chief executive of Florida developer ICI Homes Residential Holdings and a close ally of DeSantis, said in a statement that the donation was “entirely permissible under Florida law.”

A spokesperson for DeSantis said: “As with all donations, it was accepted and coordinated by staff and approved by legal counsel. Donations to the residence and grounds have been received over many administrations. It will remain in the state’s possession for the use of first families, their guests, and staff as it is now.”

The golf simulator was technically donated to the Mansion Commission, a state agency that oversees the governor’s mansion, according to records related to the donation, including correspondence between DeSantis’ office and Hosseini. The records were received in a freedom-of-information request.

James Uthmeier, at the time DeSantis’ deputy general counsel, said in a Sept. 13, 2019, letter to Hosseini that the simulator would be considered “on loan” to the Mansion Commission for an “undisclosed term” and would be returned to Hosseini “immediately upon request,” the records said.

Uthmeier wrote that the loan was “permissible” according to state law and the Governor’s Ethics Code. Uthmeier, now DeSantis’ chief of staff, did not respond to a request for comment.

Reuters could not determine who structured the donation as a loan.

The simulator, like other items loaned to the mansion, is considered state property, according to the Florida law setting up the Mansion Commission. DeSantis, like other governors, cannot take items from the mansion after leaving office without the commission’s approval. Florida’s Department of Management Services, which oversees the commission, did not respond to a request for comment.

“It appears to me that would still be a gift,” since it was intended for DeSantis’ personal use, said Barbara Petersen, director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog group. Uthmeier’s letter appeared written to “give the governor cover” for not reporting it as a gift, she said.

While DeSantis is known for his political fundraising prowess, the disclosure of the golf simulator shows that he benefited personally from at least one significant donation from a staunch ally in the Florida business community.

Hosseini and his firm have contributed more than $240,000 to DeSantis’ campaigns, finance records show. The developer has been a close adviser for DeSantis, who appointed him to the board of trustees of the University of Florida. Hosseini now serves as the board’s chairman. His company is one of Florida’s largest home builders.

In his statement to Reuters, Hosseini said that the simulator “was provided to the residence gym, as things have been in the past, for the use of the family, guests, and staff, during this and subsequent administrations.”

“WE SHOWED HIM HOW TO USE IT”

The simulator was manufactured by aboutGOLF, according to one of the workers who installed it. The device can allow DeSantis to play a “virtual” golf round with a high-resolution widescreen that gives precise video of courses played by professionals, and a computer that calculates what the golf ball would do after each real swing.

An aboutGOLF representative said the company’s management declined to comment.

The simulator was fitted in DeSantis’s cabana months after the Washington Post reported that then-president Trump had installed a high-end golf simulator in the White House, replacing a model used by his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Trump paid for his own golf simulator, according to the Washington Post. DeSantis, however, does not have comparable wealth, state disclosure records show. DeSantis sold his own home in Florida for less than $500,000 shortly after moving into the governor’s mansion, and his most recent financial disclosure, filed in December 2021, says his net worth was $319,987, including his retirement funds.

The records show that law enforcement cleared two “Golf Simulator Installers” to do work in the governor’s mansion after the pair were cleared in a June 2019 background check, less than six months after DeSantis, a former congressman, became governor.

One of the installers, Ronald Watson, told Reuters that he and a colleague traveled to the state capital of Tallahassee from Ohio to install the device, which he said was shipped by truck and took up one wall of the governor’s cabana.

Watson did not remember the specific “package” but said it was a “widescreen” – a flat-screen version of the company’s products. An aboutGOLF list of products says those models start at $46,500.

Watson said he met DeSantis briefly after the installation. “We showed him how to use it, and he left right after that,” Watson said.

The simulator was included in an inventory of donations to the mansion since 1957 that was also provided to Reuters in response to its public records request.

Wilcox, of Florida Integrity, said he believes the simulator should have been disclosed as a gift. “It may not have broken Florida ethics laws, but it’s against the whole principle of the gift disclosure requirement.”

Caroline Klancke, executive director of the nonpartisan Florida Ethics Institute, disagreed. The gift disclosure rule probably wouldn’t apply in this case under a strict reading of rules around donating to state agencies, she said.

Because it was directed to the mansion commission, the donation “could fall within a loophole or exemption” in the gifts law, she said. She noted that the law also prohibits certain people, including lobbyists and state vendors, from making any gifts. Generally, though, the goal of the law is transparency for the public, she said.

The list of items donated to the mansion in 2019 also includes a treadmill at the cabana. According to the list, the “acquisition cost” of both the treadmill and the golf simulator are listed as $1. Reuters could not determine who donated the treadmill.

(Editing by Jason Szep)

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By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday defended the central bank’s review of bank regulatory and capital rules from skeptical Republican lawmakers concerned that a string of bank failures in the spring would prompt the Fed to push back too hard on the financial sector.

“There are a number of proposals in the works. They have not been finalized,” Powell told members of the House Financial Services Committee, who questioned why the Fed might consider forcing banks to raise more capital while at the same time saying that the financial system was stable, and that the failure of institutions like Silicon Valley Bank was largely the result of poor management.

Any change of capital rules or other regulations “would need to be shown to be justified,” Powell said.

Though the appearance was one of Powell’s regular twice-yearly monetary policy updates to Congress, the hearing was dominated by questions from the panel’s Republican majority about a review of bank supervision and regulation launched by Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr after the failure of SVB and other institutions.

Powell said any changes “will take time,” and should not impact the industry in the near term. The proposals “are still to some extent in motion…It will take quite a while to decide what to do” and years after that to implement, he said.

Nominees to three Fed board positions faced similar queries in a separate hearing in the Senate.

On monetary policy Powell kept the focus on the central bank’s fight to lower inflation and said the process “has a long way to go.”

“Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year,” Powell said in remarks to the House panel. “Nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high, and the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go.”

Though Fed officials held off on raising interest rates at their meeting last week, Powell called that an exercise in prudence, allowing time to gather more information before deciding on further rate increases that Fed policymakers feel will be necessary by the end of the year.

Powell and nominees for three Fed Board seats testified over several hours on Wednesday, laying out a set of views that could broadly shape the economic conditions facing the country during what may be an era-defining political rematch next year between incumbent Democrat Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump.

Despite the consensus on lowering inflation, the Fed is at a point where opinions about the need for and timing of additional interest rate increases may start to diverge. As it was for past presidential incumbents, how that debate gets resolved could make the difference between a benign election-year economy and a corrosive one.

For Biden, the success or failure of Fed policy could mean a “soft landing” of continued economic growth, lower inflation and only modestly higher unemployment, or it could force him to campaign against a backdrop of increasing joblessness, stubbornly higher prices, and punishing interest rates for anyone trying to buy a home or car or finance a business.

The Fed at its meeting last week held its benchmark interest rate steady at between 5% and 5.25%, but officials projected rates will have to increase another half percentage point by year’s end because inflation has been falling so slowly and remains more than double the Fed’s 2% target.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

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By Sarah N. Lynch, Jeff Mason and Tom Hals

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes and to enter into an agreement that could avert a conviction on a gun-related charge, according to a court filing on Tuesday.

The news sparked accusations of favorable treatment for the Democratic president’s son from former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who for years have attacked both Bidens.

Their accusations of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden relating to Ukraine and China prompted the investigation by David Weiss – the U.S. attorney in Delaware appointed by Trump – that led to the charges. The two misdemeanor tax charges were Hunter Biden’s first.

The younger Biden has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, consultant to foreign companies, investment banker and artist, and has publicly detailed his struggles with substance abuse.

The announcement by the Justice Department comes as President Biden is in the middle of a re-election campaign that may pit him again against Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024. As president, Trump asked Chinese and Ukrainian authorities to investigate Hunter Biden’s activities in their countries.

According to court filings, Hunter Biden received taxable income of more than $1.5 million in 2017 and in 2018 but did not pay income tax those years despite owing in excess of $100,000.

He is also charged with unlawfully owning a firearm from roughly Oct. 12 to Oct 23, 2018 when he was using and addicted to a controlled substance, the Justice Department said. For that charge, he entered a pretrial diversion agreement, an alternative to prosecution that is sometimes used to allow defendants to avoid prison time or a criminal conviction.

“It is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved,” his attorney, Christopher Clark, said in a statement. “I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”

Weiss said the investigation is ongoing, a standard statement in such announcements.

The White House on Tuesday declined to comment on the charges or the deal.

“The President and First Lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment,” spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.

Hunter Biden is likely to face a sentencing range of 12-18 months for the tax charges, about half of which could be spent inside a prison cell, according to sentencing expert Tess Lopez.

But the odds he will get sentenced to prison are low, based on the tax loss amount, his status as a first-time offender and his willingness to accept responsibility for his actions.

“He’s not going to prison,” said Michael Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor who now chairs the white-collar practice at the law firm Cole Schotz. “He is facing prison time, but whether or not practically and realistically he goes is very different.”

REPUBLICANS SEE ‘SLAP ON THE WRIST’

Hunter Biden disclosed in December 2020 that Weiss’s office was investigating his tax affairs. He denied wrongdoing.

He described in a 2021 memoir dealing with substance abuse issues in his life, including crack cocaine use and alcoholism. He was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine, sources said at the time.

The Weiss inquiry initially examined potential violations of tax and money laundering laws in foreign business dealings, principally in China, sources told Reuters.

The investigation headed by Weiss began as early as 2018, according to U.S. media reports. Weiss was asked to stay on in the role, after Trump left the White House and President Biden began, to continue the probe.

The probe followed accusations of influence peddling against Hunter Biden by Trump and others, as well as Trump’s efforts to get Ukrainian officials to investigate the son of the man he saw as his likely 2020 presidential challenger. Those efforts, including a suspension of congressionally approved military aid for Ukraine, led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Republicans on Tuesday roundly criticized the deal as being favorable to the president’s son.

Representative James Comer, the Republican chair of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, which has been leading House Republicans’ investigations into Biden’s family, called the plea deal “a slap on the wrist” and said it would not deter his panel’s work.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight panel, accused Republicans in a statement of “wailing about the work” of a Trump-appointed attorney.

“This development reflects the Justice Department’s continued institutional independence in following the evidence of actual crimes and enforcing the rule of law even in the face of constant criticism and heckling by my GOP colleagues who think that the system of justice should only follow their partisan wishes,” Raskin said about the charges.

Trump, who was recently indicted on federal criminal charges that he unlawfully kept national-security documents when he left office, also criticized the deal.

“Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN!” he said on his Truth Social platform.

President Biden has two surviving children, Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley Biden. His son Beau Biden died in 2015 of cancer and his daughter Naomi Biden died as an infant after a car accident that also killed Joe Biden’s first wife.

Hunter Biden appears to be the first child of a sitting president to be indicted, according to Aaron Crawford, who specializes in presidential history at the University of Tennessee.

Crawford said the family of several presidents were ensnared in scandals, including George H.W. Bush’s son Neil, who directed a failed savings and loan, and Richard Nixon’s brother Don, who was rescued from business failures by wealthy businessman Howard Hughes.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Jeff Mason in Washington and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Susan Heavey, Moira Warburton and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)

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By Susan Heavey, Sarah N. Lynch and Jacqueline Thomsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has set an initial trial date of Aug. 14 in Florida on former President Donald Trump’s federal charges of willful retention of classified government records and obstruction of justice, according to a court order on Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, promised a speedy trial after a 37-count indictment charging Trump with willfully retaining classified government records and obstructing justice.

The date, if it holds, would put Trump on trial nine days ahead of the first Republican presidential debate scheduled for Aug. 23.

But the complexities of handling highly classified evidence, the degree to which Trump’s legal team challenges the government’s pretrial motions, and the way the judge manages the schedule could all lead to a trial that is anything but swift, legal experts say.

A spokesperson for Smith’s office declined to comment, while Trump’s lawyers did not immediately return requests for comment.

The latest order came after a U.S. judge on Monday ordered Trump’s defense lawyers not to release evidence in the classified documents case to the media or the public, according to a court filing.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart also put strict conditions on Trump’s access to the materials.

Trump was arraigned in federal court in Miami last Tuesday, during which he pleaded not guilty to charges he unlawfully kept national-security documents when he left office and lied to officials who sought to recover them.

Cannon’s order setting a tentative Aug. 14 trial is considered standard.

However, the case will need to proceed under a strict and meticulous set of rules set forth in a law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA): a law that aims to protect classified evidence and manage how such records can be disclosed.

Cannon previously directed Trump’s defense attorneys to start the process of seeking security clearances so they can review the evidence, as required by CIPA.

However, the government customarily files a motion with the court under CIPA that leads to the parties discussing the pretrial schedule – a step that has not yet happened in the case.

“It seems like a tight schedule to me, and courts are sometimes surprised at the ways in which classified information can slow a case down because of both the procedural law and the security measures involved,” said David Aaron, a former federal prosecutor who is now with the law firm Perkins Coie.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Jacqueline Thomsen and Sarah N. Lynch; Writing by by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jonathan Oatis)

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By Sarah N. Lynch, Jeff Mason and Tom Hals

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes and to enter into an agreement that could enable him to avoid a conviction on a gun-related charge, according to a court filing on Tuesday.

The federal charges against Hunter Biden resulted from an investigation by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in the Democratic president’s home state of Delaware, who was appointed by Republican then-President Donald Trump.

Hunter Biden, 53, for years has been the focus of unrelenting attacks by Trump and his Republican allies, who have accused him of wrongdoing relating to Ukraine and China, among other matters. The president’s son has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, investment banker and artist, and has publicly detailed his struggles with substance abuse.

According to court filings, Hunter Biden received taxable income in excess of $1.5 million in 2017 and 2018, but he did not pay income tax those years despite owing in excess of $100,000. The two counts are misdemeanors.

His attorney, Christopher Clark, said the government would file a firearm charge against his client that would be subject to a pretrial diversion agreement, an alternative to prosecution that is sometimes used to allow defendants to avoid prison time or a criminal conviction.

“It is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved,” Clark said. “I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”

Hunter Biden disclosed in December 2020 that Weiss’s office was investigating his tax affairs. He denied wrongdoing.

He described in a 2021 memoir dealing with substance abuse issues in his life, including crack cocaine use and alcoholism. He was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine, sources said at the time.

President Biden has long expressed support and pride in his son for overcoming his addiction.

The White House on Tuesday declined to comment further.

“The President and First Lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment,” spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.

The Weiss inquiry initially examined potential violations of tax and money laundering laws in foreign business dealings, principally in China, sources told Reuters. The investigation headed by Weiss began as early as 2018, according to U.S. media reports.

A senior Republican congressman, James Comer, in 2022 accused the U.S. Treasury Department of withholding financial “suspicious activity reports” to shield Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Comer, chair of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, which has been leading House Republicans’ investigations into Biden’s family, called the plea deal “a slap on the wrist” and said it would not deter his panel’s work.

Trump, who was recently indicted on federal criminal charges that he unlawfully kept national-security documents when he left office, also criticized the deal.

“Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN!” he said on his social media platform.

President Biden has two surviving children, Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley Biden. His son Beau Biden died in 2015 of cancer and his daughter Naomi Biden died as an infant after a car accident that also killed Joe Biden’s first wife.

Hunter Biden appears to be the first child of a sitting president to be indicted, according to Aaron Crawford, who specializes in presidential history at the University of Tennessee.

Crawford said the family of several presidents were ensnared in scandals, including George H.W. Bush’s son Neil, who directed a failed savings and loan, and Richard Nixon’s brother Don, who was rescued from business failures by wealthy businessman Howard Hughes.

(This story has been refiled to add the dropped word ‘son’ in the headline)

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Jeff Mason, Trevor Hunnicutt and Susan Heavey in Washington and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Additional reporting by Moira Warburton; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)

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(Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Monday criticized Republican U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville for holding up some 200 Pentagon nominees over a Defense Department abortion policy.

“It’s just bizarre. I don’t remember it happening before, and I’ve been around,” Biden said of the actions of Tuberville at a fundraiser for wealthy donors in California’s Silicon Valley.

Tuberville, a former football coach from Alabama, began blocking confirmations to senior Pentagon posts in March to protest a Defense Department policy enacted last year that provides paid leave and reimburses costs for service members who travel to get an abortion.

The Alabama senator has called the policy a violation of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using federal taxpayer funds for abortion services.

Earlier this month, the White House slammed the lawmaker. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called his actions “shameful” and accused him of endangering national security.

Jean-Pierre said the senator’s blockade on the nominees was hurting military families and risking “our military readiness by depriving our armed forces of leadership.”

The Alabama senator is blocking what is usually a speedy process to confirm Pentagon nominees. If he persists, the U.S. Senate would have to consider each nominee in a longer process that takes up valuable floor time.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in May said the holdup as endangering national security and called the block “irresponsible.”

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Los Gatos, California, and Nandita Bose in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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