Latest news with #politicalScandal
Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Hunter Biden doesn't know the meaning of shame
Even in an increasingly shameless age, Hunter Biden is pushing the envelope. For reasons perhaps known only to himself, the former first son has decided to return to the public eye to defend his father – further disgracing them both in the process. The younger Biden has spent a lifetime screwing up – and then landing on his feet, ostensibly because of his famous surname. He is alleged to have made millions as a lobbyist and for working on international business deals while Joe Biden served as a senator and then as vice-president. He is believed to have made another $1.5 million during his brief career as an artist, which coincidentally corresponded with his father's tenure in the Oval Office. And he avoided prison time, despite two criminal convictions, after President Biden went back on his word and pardoned him. That's to say nothing of the drugs or the women – or indeed the court testimony of his late brother's widow, who testified that Hunter had introduced her to crack cocaine. Now, the younger Biden seems to imagine we've forgotten all of this, apparently believing that he is the best man to launch a quixotic solo mission to rescue his family's honour. Instead, however, he's only showcased the Bidens' trademark delusion and entitlement. During an interview with Andrew Callaghan released earlier this week, Hunter blamed almost everyone but his father for the Democrats' stunning defeat in the 2024 presidential election. 'What right do you have to step on a man who's given 52 years of his f—ing life to the service of his country, and decide that you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full-page ad in f—ing The New York Times to undermine the president?,' he asked. As if Clooney, a long-time Democratic supporter, who wrote a column in July last year calling on Biden to stand down, had no right to take a view on whether the party's nominee would win the election. About his father's humiliating performance during his debate with Trump last year, Hunter produced the following excuse: '[Joe Biden] flew around the world ‒ basically the mileage that he could have flown around the world three times. He's 81 years old. He's tired as s—. They give him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on the stage, and he looks like he's a deer in the headlights, and it feeds into every f—ing story that anybody wants to tell.' The issue wasn't his father's disastrous performance, apparently, but the fact that Democrats refused to ignore it. During a separate conversation with former Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, Hunter claimed: ' We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party … We had the advantage of incumbency, we had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down.' That's the view out of Bidenworld, a land every bit as fanciful as Narnia, Oz, or Shangri-La. But it's more than fanciful. It's shameless. The instinct isn't to come clean as to what really happened, but to attack those who (belatedly) tried to expose the truth. Journalists like Jake Tapper – who Hunter appears to have a particular animus for – deserve criticism not for shining a light on the extent of the 46th president's decline and its cover-up, but for failing to do so earlier. And the public simply did not agree that Joe Biden's presidency was 'incredibly successful'. He was on track to lose to Trump well before his debate performance. Also, for the record, being 81 years old and 'tired as s—' isn't an excuse for Biden's meltdown, it's what was so concerning about it. It is only a little over six months since Joe Biden left the White House, having tarnished his legacy by clinging to power far longer than was appropriate and, yes, by bailing out his disgraceful son. It's said that time heals all wounds. Not in this case. Hunter Biden is picking at an open sore on the face of his party, and it's unlikely to recover until he returns to the wilderness for good.
CNN
a day ago
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Trump's latest bid to end Epstein storm: Weaponizing the federal government
Donald Trump's bid to smother the uproar over accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein shows that he's already achieved one goal his critics most feared from his second presidency. The Justice Department and the head of the US intelligence community are now openly operating as fully weaponized tools to pursue the president's personal political needs in a degradation of a governing system meant to be an antidote to king-like patronage. This new dynamic underpinned a wild Oval Office press appearance by Trump on Tuesday, his latest attempt to put out the Epstein fire that had only the now-familiar effect of feeding the flames. The extent of the president's capture of two key agencies that are vital to keeping Americans safe was revealed when a reporter asked a question about his administration's refusal to open all files related to the Epstein case. The president pivoted to a tirade against Barack Obama, accusing the former president of staging a treasonous coup against him — basing his assault on a convenient and misleading memo about Russia's 2016 election meddling that was released last week by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The Justice Department has also been activated, yet again, to give Trump cover. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Tuesday that he will take the highly unusual move of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell — who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for carrying out a yearslong scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse underage girls — to ask what she knows but hasn't so far told. Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. 'I don't know anything about it,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday. This seems a stretch, since Blanche is Trump's former personal lawyer and plans to speak with a prisoner who has a clear incentive to offer testimony that could help a president who has the power to let her out of prison. Other new developments in the deepening Epstein intrigue Tuesday only underscored the president's failed attempts to extinguish it. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he does not plan to allow votes on any measures related to the Epstein matter until September, effectively bringing forward a summer recess to postpone consideration of a bipartisan measure demanding transparency and the release of files on the Epstein case. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee is expected to subpoena Maxwell as 'expeditiously as possible,' a committee source told CNN. And CNN's KFile on Tuesday reported new details about Trump's relationship with Epstein, including photos taken at the future president's 1993 wedding to Marla Maples. The pictures pre-date any of Epstein's known legal issues, and the White House described them as out-of-context frame grabs of videos and pictures to 'disgustingly infer something nefarious.' Trump's aim in the Oval Office was clear. He was cooking up a new slate of programing — featuring his favorite targets, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others — for the MAGA media machine, hoping to replace days of coverage of his administration's missteps. But there was also a more sinister aspect to his comments. Even though Gabbard's claims are easily disproved, the president implied that he was serious about training the power of the US government on his political foes. 'It's time to start — after what they did to me and — whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people,' Trump said. 'Obama's been caught directly … his orders are on the paper. The papers are signed, the papers came right out of their office.' Obama has not been 'caught directly.' Gabbard's memo, which included newly declassified documents, claimed that the administration hatched a 'treasonous conspiracy' that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump. Gabbard, who has a political incentive to repair her relationship with the president, highlighted intelligence findings that the Russians did not change election results in 2016 through attacks on voting systems. But the Obama administration never said that this happened, focusing instead of cyberattacks on Democratic campaign officials and other online disruption efforts. Gabbard appears to be arguing that since there was no successful hacking of election machines, there was no election meddling, and that therefore the whole saga was invented by the Obama team to keep Trump out of power. Obama's office rebutted what it called the White House's latest example of 'nonsense and misinformation,' calling it bizarre, ridiculous and 'a weak attempt at distraction.' But in Trump's looking-glass world, that statement was taken as evidence of guilt. 'It's the art of deflection coming from former President Obama, as well as his friends who are still in Congress today,' Gabbard said on Fox News in an interview with the president's daughter-in-law Lara Trump. As he often does, Trump seemed to project offenses of which he was accused, with far more evidence, onto his opponents. 'What they did to this country in 2016 … but going up all the way to 2020 and the election — they tried to rig the election and they got caught,' he said. The president's furious tirade again revealed his frenetic mindset over a situation he repeatedly tries to fix but keeps worsening. The episode started because some MAGA fans are angry that Trump and his team have not lived up to vows to release all Epstein files after promising to do so during the campaign. This means they've become, in the eyes of some base activists, the 'deep state' they once decried. The FBI and Justice Department issued a memo this month saying there was no evidence for a conspiracy theory that Epstein left a list of famous clients or that he was murdered in prison rather than taking his own life in 2019. Trump is deeply frustrated his supporters won't accept this. 'We had the Greatest Six Months of any President in the History of our Country, and all the Fake News wants to talk about is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax!' he wrote on Truth Social, after news channels spent all afternoon showing footage of his latest diatribe. It's impossible for outsiders to know whether the Epstein controversy is the result of a true cover-up or is one of the classic political screw-ups that often make Washington scandals worse. But after blasting supporters who worry about the Epstein case as 'weaklings,' and now going after Obama in his latest attempt at moving the goalposts, it's Trump who is now making it impossible not to ask the question: Why is he so desperate for this to go away? The second arm of the Trump pincer movement to try to put the Epstein saga in the past came from the Justice Department. Only two weeks ago, the FBI and the DOJ declared in their memo that 'we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.' Yet on Tuesday morning, Blanche announced that he'd test that proposition by visiting Maxwell. 'Justice demands courage,' Blanche wrote on X, insisting that 'no lead is off limits.' In a statement posted by Attorney General Pam Bondi on social media, Blanche added that if Maxwell 'has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.' The latest gambit may just be an attempt to create a splash that MAGA activists concerned with the case might accept as transparency. But it is fraught with political and even legal risks for the Justice Department. And like Trump's previous attempts to douse the scandal, it seems already to have failed in its primary objective. 'Seems like a massive cope,' far-right activist Laura Loomer, said in a text to CNN. 'Why didn't they ask to meet with her before the memo was released on 4th of July weekend when they essentially said the case would be closed? Seems like this should have already taken place,' Loomer said. The possibility that the approach to Maxwell is motivated by more than a political public relations exercise must also be considered. She has an incentive to offer the White House what it wants — information that could put the focus of the spotlight on somebody else. 'There is every reason to think she would give false testimony,' Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor, told CNN's Erin Burnett. 'She has no fear of giving false testimony because otherwise she is going to be spending until she's 75 years old in prison. The only other choice is if she maybe gives the kind of testimony she thinks the White House wants to hear, then she maybe can get off.' The idea that Maxwell is holding something back belies both the recent Justice Department memo and a wide-ranging prosecution against her that started with charges during the first Trump administration and ended in a conviction and a 20-year prison sentence during the Biden administration. An obvious approach for Maxwell's lawyers would be to seek to secure concessions, perhaps a shortening or a commutation of her sentence, in return for information she might provide. Jeremy Saland, a former Manhattan prosecutor, paraphrased what her counsel might request on 'CNN News Central' on Tuesday: 'Get me my out. Give me an opportunity.' Still, if Maxwell did have information implicating others in Epstein's alleged crimes, it's unclear why she did not offer it during her own prosecution, when she might have been able to save herself. Of course, by the time she was found guilty in 2021, Epstein was gone, and the value of testimony she might have been able to provide against him as a cooperating witness was moot. Six years after his death, however, the political implications of the hideous crimes of which he was accused are growing uncontrollably.
CNN
a day ago
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Trump's latest bid to end Epstein storm: Weaponizing the federal government
Donald Trump's bid to smother the uproar over accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein shows that he's already achieved one goal his critics most feared from his second presidency. The Justice Department and the head of the US intelligence community are now openly operating as fully weaponized tools to pursue the president's personal political needs in a degradation of a governing system meant to be an antidote to king-like patronage. This new dynamic underpinned a wild Oval Office press appearance by Trump on Tuesday, his latest attempt to put out the Epstein fire that had only the now-familiar effect of feeding the flames. The extent of the president's capture of two key agencies that are vital to keeping Americans safe was revealed when a reporter asked a question about his administration's refusal to open all files related to the Epstein case. The president pivoted to a tirade against Barack Obama, accusing the former president of staging a treasonous coup against him — basing his assault on a convenient and misleading memo about Russia's 2016 election meddling that was released last week by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. The Justice Department has also been activated, yet again, to give Trump cover. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Tuesday that he will take the highly unusual move of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell — who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for carrying out a yearslong scheme with Epstein to groom and sexually abuse underage girls — to ask what she knows but hasn't so far told. Epstein died in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. 'I don't know anything about it,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday. This seems a stretch, since Blanche is Trump's former personal lawyer and plans to speak with a prisoner who has a clear incentive to offer testimony that could help a president who has the power to let her out of prison. Other new developments in the deepening Epstein intrigue Tuesday only underscored the president's failed attempts to extinguish it. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he does not plan to allow votes on any measures related to the Epstein matter until September, effectively bringing forward a summer recess to postpone consideration of a bipartisan measure demanding transparency and the release of files on the Epstein case. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee is expected to subpoena Maxwell as 'expeditiously as possible,' a committee source told CNN. And CNN's KFile on Tuesday reported new details about Trump's relationship with Epstein, including photos taken at the future president's 1993 wedding to Marla Maples. The pictures pre-date any of Epstein's known legal issues, and the White House described them as out-of-context frame grabs of videos and pictures to 'disgustingly infer something nefarious.' Trump's aim in the Oval Office was clear. He was cooking up a new slate of programing — featuring his favorite targets, including Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others — for the MAGA media machine, hoping to replace days of coverage of his administration's missteps. But there was also a more sinister aspect to his comments. Even though Gabbard's claims are easily disproved, the president implied that he was serious about training the power of the US government on his political foes. 'It's time to start — after what they did to me and — whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people,' Trump said. 'Obama's been caught directly … his orders are on the paper. The papers are signed, the papers came right out of their office.' Obama has not been 'caught directly.' Gabbard's memo, which included newly declassified documents, claimed that the administration hatched a 'treasonous conspiracy' that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump. Gabbard, who has a political incentive to repair her relationship with the president, highlighted intelligence findings that the Russians did not change election results in 2016 through attacks on voting systems. But the Obama administration never said that this happened, focusing instead of cyberattacks on Democratic campaign officials and other online disruption efforts. Gabbard appears to be arguing that since there was no successful hacking of election machines, there was no election meddling, and that therefore the whole saga was invented by the Obama team to keep Trump out of power. Obama's office rebutted what it called the White House's latest example of 'nonsense and misinformation,' calling it bizarre, ridiculous and 'a weak attempt at distraction.' But in Trump's looking-glass world, that statement was taken as evidence of guilt. 'It's the art of deflection coming from former President Obama, as well as his friends who are still in Congress today,' Gabbard said on Fox News in an interview with the president's daughter-in-law Lara Trump. As he often does, Trump seemed to project offenses of which he was accused, with far more evidence, onto his opponents. 'What they did to this country in 2016 … but going up all the way to 2020 and the election — they tried to rig the election and they got caught,' he said. The president's furious tirade again revealed his frenetic mindset over a situation he repeatedly tries to fix but keeps worsening. The episode started because some MAGA fans are angry that Trump and his team have not lived up to vows to release all Epstein files after promising to do so during the campaign. This means they've become, in the eyes of some base activists, the 'deep state' they once decried. The FBI and Justice Department issued a memo this month saying there was no evidence for a conspiracy theory that Epstein left a list of famous clients or that he was murdered in prison rather than taking his own life in 2019. Trump is deeply frustrated his supporters won't accept this. 'We had the Greatest Six Months of any President in the History of our Country, and all the Fake News wants to talk about is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax!' he wrote on Truth Social, after news channels spent all afternoon showing footage of his latest diatribe. It's impossible for outsiders to know whether the Epstein controversy is the result of a true cover-up or is one of the classic political screw-ups that often make Washington scandals worse. But after blasting supporters who worry about the Epstein case as 'weaklings,' and now going after Obama in his latest attempt at moving the goalposts, it's Trump who is now making it impossible not to ask the question: Why is he so desperate for this to go away? The second arm of the Trump pincer movement to try to put the Epstein saga in the past came from the Justice Department. Only two weeks ago, the FBI and the DOJ declared in their memo that 'we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.' Yet on Tuesday morning, Blanche announced that he'd test that proposition by visiting Maxwell. 'Justice demands courage,' Blanche wrote on X, insisting that 'no lead is off limits.' In a statement posted by Attorney General Pam Bondi on social media, Blanche added that if Maxwell 'has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.' The latest gambit may just be an attempt to create a splash that MAGA activists concerned with the case might accept as transparency. But it is fraught with political and even legal risks for the Justice Department. And like Trump's previous attempts to douse the scandal, it seems already to have failed in its primary objective. 'Seems like a massive cope,' far-right activist Laura Loomer, said in a text to CNN. 'Why didn't they ask to meet with her before the memo was released on 4th of July weekend when they essentially said the case would be closed? Seems like this should have already taken place,' Loomer said. The possibility that the approach to Maxwell is motivated by more than a political public relations exercise must also be considered. She has an incentive to offer the White House what it wants — information that could put the focus of the spotlight on somebody else. 'There is every reason to think she would give false testimony,' Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor, told CNN's Erin Burnett. 'She has no fear of giving false testimony because otherwise she is going to be spending until she's 75 years old in prison. The only other choice is if she maybe gives the kind of testimony she thinks the White House wants to hear, then she maybe can get off.' The idea that Maxwell is holding something back belies both the recent Justice Department memo and a wide-ranging prosecution against her that started with charges during the first Trump administration and ended in a conviction and a 20-year prison sentence during the Biden administration. An obvious approach for Maxwell's lawyers would be to seek to secure concessions, perhaps a shortening or a commutation of her sentence, in return for information she might provide. Jeremy Saland, a former Manhattan prosecutor, paraphrased what her counsel might request on 'CNN News Central' on Tuesday: 'Get me my out. Give me an opportunity.' Still, if Maxwell did have information implicating others in Epstein's alleged crimes, it's unclear why she did not offer it during her own prosecution, when she might have been able to save herself. Of course, by the time she was found guilty in 2021, Epstein was gone, and the value of testimony she might have been able to provide against him as a cooperating witness was moot. Six years after his death, however, the political implications of the hideous crimes of which he was accused are growing uncontrollably.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Democratic Senator has eviscerated the president for trying to blame her party for a mess entirely of his own making.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar slammed President Donald Trump for blaming Democrats for the mess he created with the Epstein files with a hilarious comparison. 'The president blaming Democrats for this disaster is like that CEO that got caught on camera blaming Coldplay,' the Minnesota Democrat said Sunday in an interview with CNN. 'This is his making.' Klobuchar was, of course, referring to this week's viral scandal surrounding tech company Astronomer's CEO Andy Byron and HR chief Christin Cabot, whose secret romance was spectacularly betrayed to their respective spouses after the pair were caught on a Jumbotron camera canoodling at the British band's Massachusetts concert Wednesday night.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Tory fury as ex-Reform chairman says he liked anti-Semitic post about Robert Jenrick 'by accident'
Kemi Badenoch has accused former Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf of intentionally liking an anti-Semitic online post about one of her party members. The extraordinary accusation came yesterday after Mr Yusuf's X account 'liked' a post attacking Robert Jenrick and his Jewish wife and children. After the like emerged, Mr Yusuf issued an apology and said a member of his team had done it 'accidentally'. But shortly after sharing the apology, Tory justice spokesman Mr Jenrick accused the Reform UK politician of 'bull****' and demanded he be sacked from Nigel Farage 's party. In a statement on X, Mr Jenrick said: 'You've spent the last 48 hours calling me a 'traitor' for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers' names on. But we're meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife and family was liked 'accidentally' by 'one of the team'.' He added: 'You must think we're all thick. No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. 'You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet could see the likes exposed you. Reform should give you the boot.' In response, Conservative leader Mrs Badenoch then wrote: 'Well said, Rob. Well said indeed.' The offending statement – posted by an account called British Racial Chauvinism with the username Enoch-Is-Right – made discriminatory statements against Jewish people and those from other minority backgrounds. It stated: 'Reminder that Jenrick is a traitorous Zogbot with a Jewish wife and family.' Then, using unfounded racist stereotypes and offensive language, the tweet claimed that Mr Jenrick had 'imported' people from a particular background to 'rape our women and children'. A video showing that Mr Yusuf's account had liked the post began circulating on social media, prompting demands for Reform to suspend him and launch an investigation into his conduct. In his apology, Mr Yusuf wrote: 'One of the team who posts to my X account accidentally pressed like on an awful anti-Semitic tweet today. I apologise for this'. He went on to explain language in the post was 'equally racist against me', proving that liking the post was 'not intentional'. He added: 'The amount of anti-Semitism and racism on this platform is spiralling out of control. I hope that changes soon.' Mr Yusuf resigned as chairman of Reform UK last month after almost a year in the role. His resignation came shortly after he tweeted that Reform MP Sarah Pochin had asked a 'dumb' question after she challenged Keir Starmer to ban the burka at Prime Minister's Questions. In his resignation message, he said working for Reform UK was not 'a good use of my time'. Some 48 hours later, Mr Yusuf returned to the party to head its Doge team – inspired by Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency in the US. Shortly afterwards, party leader Mr Farage admitted that Mr Yusuf, who is Muslim, had been subject to 'racial abuse' on X. Also unconvinced by the apology and explanation, Tory MP Jack Rankin wrote on X yesterday: 'When people tell you who they are, believe them. Zia Yusuf's mask has slipped and [he] must be sacked.' A spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: 'This was a very concerning social media post and it is right that Zia Yusuf has distanced himself from it. We hope his office will be reviewing how this happened and ensuring it will not happen again. 'We will be keeping a close eye on this going forward.' Conservative sources have noted that Mr Yusuf's language towards Mr Jenrick has become increasingly aggressive in recent days, having been ramped up in light of the Afghanistan data breach revelations. In one of his posts on X, Mr Yusuf accused Mr Jenrick of lying, stating: 'You're a traitor to your country.'
