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Hunter Biden Delivers Impassioned Speech on Capitol Hill Blasting ‘MAGA’ GOP: Full Remarks

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Hunter Biden accused “MAGA” Republicans of lying and blasted the “unrelenting Trump attack machine” in a passionate speech on Capitol Hill to set the record straight on his business dealings and personal finances after House GOP committee chairs refused his offer to testify before Congress in public. The chairs threatened him with contempt of Congress if he did not testify behind closed doors.

“Let me state as clearly as I can,” the President’s son stated unequivocally Wednesday morning, minutes after he was scheduled to testify (videos below). “My father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Burisma. Not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist.”

Republicans have been trying to use the Hunter Biden’s business dealings as an bridge to impeach President Joe Biden, but have been unable to provide any actual proof against the President of any criminal acts or impeachable offenses.

In his remarks, Hunter Biden acknowledged he had been “extremely irresponsible” with his finances. “But to suggest that is grounds for an impeachment inquiry is beyond the absurd. It’s shameless. There is no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business. Because it did not happen.”

And he accused House Republicans of lying: “They have lied over and over about every aspect of my personal and professional life. So much so that their lies have become the false facts believed by too many people.”

READ MORE: Watch These Republicans Try and Fail to Explain Why They Support GOP’s Biden Impeachment Inquiry

He began by saying, “I’m here today to make sure that the House committees’ illegitimate investigations of my family do not proceed on distortions, manipulated evidence, and lies.”

“And, I’m here today to acknowledge that I’ve made mistakes in my life, and wasted opportunities and privileges I was afforded. For that, I’m responsible. For that, I’m accountable. And for that, I’m making amends,” the President’s son defiantly declared in his six-minute remarks.

“But I’m also here today to correct how the MAGA right has portrayed me for their political purposes. I am first and foremost a son, a father, a brother, and a husband, from a loving and supportive family. I’m proud to have earned degrees from Georgetown University and Law School. I’m proud of my legal career and business career. I’m proud of my time serving on a dozen different boards of directors. And I’m proud of my efforts to forge global business relationships.”

“For six years, MAGA Republicans, including members of the House committees who are in a closed door session session right now, have impugned my character, invaded my privacy, attacked my wife, my children, my family, and my friends. They have ridiculed my struggle with addiction. They belittled my recovery, and they have tried to dehumanize me, all to embarrass and damage my father who has devoted his entire public life to service. For six years, I’ve been the target of the unrelenting Trump attack machine shouting, ‘Where’s Hunter?’ Well, here’s my answer: I am here.”

READ MORE: Clarence Thomas Vehemently Objects to LGBTQ Conversion Therapy Case Denial by SCOTUS

“During my battle with addiction, my parents were there for me. They literally saved my life. They helped me in ways that I will never be able to repay, and of course they would never expect me to.”

“And in the depths of my addiction, I was extremely irresponsible with my finances. But to suggest that is grounds for an impeachment inquiry is beyond the absurd. It’s shameless. There is no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business. Because it did not happen.”

Referring to the chairs of the House Committees on Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means, Hunter Biden declared: “James Comer, Jim Jordan, Jason Smith and their colleagues have distorted the facts. By cherry-picking lines from a bank statement, manipulating texts I sent, editing the testimony of my friends and former business partners, and misstating personal information that was stolen from me. There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing.”

“They have lied over and over about every aspect of my personal and professional life. So much so that their lies have become the false facts believed by too many people.”

“No matter how many times it is debunked, they continue to insist that my father’s support of Ukraine against Russia is the result of a non-existent bribe. They displayed naked photos of me during an Oversight hearing. And they have taken the light of my dad’s love, the light of my dad’s love for me, and it presented it as darkness.”

READ MORE: ‘Ballsy Move’: Experts Praise Special Counsel for Not Playing Trump’s ‘Stupid Reindeer Games’

“They have no shame. These same committee chairmen have engaged in unprecedented political interference, in what would have already been a five-year investigation of me. Yet, here I am, Mr. Chairman, taking up your offer, when you said, ‘We can bring these people in for depositions, or committee hearings, whichever they choose.’ Well, I’ve chosen I’m here to testify at a public hearing today to answer any of the committee’s legitimate questions. Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

 

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Trump Expected to Grant Clemency to Almost All J6 Criminals, Including Violent Felons

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January 20, 2025

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President Donald Trump is expected to grant “sweeping” pardons and sentence commutations to all or nearly all the approximately 1600 people convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection and assault on the U.S. Capitol — including those convicted of some of the most violent acts against law enforcement. Trump, who was also charged with crimes related to the insurrection and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, has called those serving prison time “hostages” and “political prisoners.”

Those convicted of violent crimes are expected to receive sentence commutations, which could mean lesser sentences or even release from prison.

ABC News’ Katherine Faulders also reports the actions would include “commuting the prison sentences of hundreds of his supporters who have been convicted of violent attacks against law enforcement, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.”

READ MORE: Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

Rather than look at each person on a case-by-case basis, Trump, according to The Washington Post, “would grant some form of clemency to virtually everyone prosecuted by the Justice Department, from the plotters imprisoned for seditious conspiracy and felons convicted of assaulting police officers to those who merely trespassed on the restricted grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.”

The U.S. Department of Justice “would also dismiss about 300 cases that have not yet gone to trial, including people charged with violent assaults, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss pending plans,” the Post added.

After the 2024 election, Trump had told TIME magazine, “I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were nonviolent, I think they’ve been greatly punished.”

READ MORE: Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

He also told NBC News’ Kristen Welker, and supporters at his rallies, he would act “on day one.”

According to the Post, 14 of the January 6 defendants have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. At least 379 were charged with assaulting police or the media — the vast majority of them have also been sentenced. 287 were charged with “less violent or nonviolent felonies.” Most of them have already been convicted. And 869 were charged with “misdemeanor counts such as trespassing or disorderly conduct.” The vast majority of them have also been sentenced.

Contrary to claims by many of Trump’s supporters, including lawmakers and those in the media, the January 6 attack was not “peaceful,” or nonviolent, and weapons were used in the attack.

“Participants carried weapons including firearms, chemical sprays, stun guns, axes, baseball bats, a sword and a hockey stick. A female rioter was shot and killed by police inside the Capitol, and one officer succumbed to two strokes that were partly attributed to the stress of the attack. Three people died as a result of medical emergencies suffered during the riot. Four police officers later died by suicide,” the Post reports.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Image by Tyler Merbler via Flickr and a CC license

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Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

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16 hours ago

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January 20, 2025

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During his presidential swearing-in inaugural ceremony, Donald Trump several times invoked God, while inexplicably not placing his hand on either of the two Bibles Melania Trump held at his side.

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump told the former presidents, lawmakers, and billionaires in attendance at the Capitol Rotunda. “We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God,” Trump also declared, adding, “We will not forget our God.”

Many, including the Deputy Chief of Staff to a Democratic U.S. Congressman, noted that Trump did not place his hand on the Bible. And while not a constitutional requirement, it was a striking anomaly.

READ MORE: Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

Also reporting Trump not being sworn in with a hand on the Bible, The New York Post noted, “Trump used both a family Bible and the so-called Lincoln Bible, which was sworn on by the 16th president in 1861 as well as Barack Obama in 2009 and 2013.”

“Instead,”the Post reported, “Trump stood with his left arm down by his side as he raised his right hand for the oath of office.”

Few presidents have skipped the hand-on-the-Bible portion of the swearing in.

President John Quincy Adams in 1825 reportedly used a law book instead of a Bible, according to PBS.

“In 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was hastily sworn in after the assassination of President Wil­liam McKinley,” notes Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “Roosevelt had rushed to Buffalo, where McKinley had been shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt took the Oath of Office at the home of a friend, and no Bible was used during the private ceremony.”

In 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, “believed it was best for a reeling nation to know that a president was in place immediately. As Johnson was preparing to take the oath of office aboard Air Force One, a Bible was not available. Kennedy’s personal Roman Catholic missal was found in his living quarters,” according to The Washington Post.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s DOGE About to Be Sued: Report

But this may be the first time a president has been sworn in with a Bible by his side yet without putting their hand on it.

Watch the video below or at this link.


READ MORE: ‘Fear Small Crowds?’: Trump and Team Mocked as ‘Snowflakes’ for Inauguration Move

 

Image via Reuters

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Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

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18 hours ago

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January 20, 2025

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Almost immediately after being sworn in as America’s 47th president, Donald Trump reportedly will sign 200 executive orders across a wide range of issues, despite, as critics note, having Republican majorities in the House and Senate, which could allow him to achieve many of his goals through legislation. Among those orders is one that would, in theory, end birthright citizenship — the constitutional right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil — for children born to undocumented parents.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1898 dealt with birthright citizenship, a guarantee of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which clearly states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The portion that reads, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” the Supreme Court ruled, meant children born in the U.S. to a parent or parents of diplomats of a foreign country.

Candidate Trump in 2015 said he wanted to end birthright citizenship.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s DOGE About to Be Sued: Report

“In August 2015, Donald Trump sat down to talk with then–Fox News host Bill O’Reilly about one of his central campaign promises: the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants. ‘Our country is going to hell,’ Trump said. ‘We have to start a process where we take back our country,'” Mother Jones reported last year.

“O’Reilly found the plan ridiculous. Such a colossal and expensive undertaking, the conservative host said, would take decades. Before then, the courts would stop sweeping raids. The idea, O’Reilly continued, was just ‘not going to happen.’ Perhaps the most obvious reason why, he said, was the 14th Amendment, which ‘says if you’re born here, you’re an American—and you can’t kick Americans out.’ O’Reilly almost screamed at one point: ‘If you’re born here, you’re an American—period! Period!'”

In 2018 he again said he would do so, with an executive order, that never materialized.

Now, it appears Trump will try to fulfill his decade-long wish.

“This executive order will ‘clarify’ the 14th Amendment, [an] incoming official said, such that ‘that on a prospective basis, the federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States,'” Semafor White House correspondent Shelby Talcott said.

READ MORE: ‘Fear Small Crowds?’: Trump and Team Mocked as ‘Snowflakes’ for Inauguration Move

“The incoming official,” The Washington Post adds, “did not provide details on how the administration planned to implement a change that scholars say would be illegal. Trump’s order would reinterpret the words ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to all people born on U.S. soil, and redefine the phrase to exclude babies born to parents illegally in the country.”

There are millions of Americans of all ages currently living in the U.S., (an estimated 5 million under the age of 18) who are children of undocumented parents. The claim, “on a prospective basis,” suggests Trump will try to deny any child born of undocumented parents, going forward, their right to citizenship.

Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis declared, “Birthright citizenship is part of the 14th Amendment and the president cannot write it out with his pen.”

Professor of Law Steve Vladeck noted, “Trump’s effort to restrict birthright citizenship by executive order is (1) unlawful; (2) predicated on conflating two entirely distinct legal arguments; and (3) doomed to fail in (even these) courts.”

Mother Jones’ Isabela Dias last year wrote if it were to happen, “It would be nothing short of seismic.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens FBI Office, Alleges ‘Corruption,’ Demands They ‘Preserve All Records’

 

Image via Reuters

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