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    White House won’t confirm new book saying Biden adviser called White people ‘incredibly racist’

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    FIRST ON FOX: The White House would not confirm an excerpt from a new book saying one of President Biden’s 2020 campaign advisers called White people “incredibly racist.”

    Fox News Digital exclusively obtained the excerpt from the upcoming book “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future” by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin. They write that one of the president’s advisers made the claim in relation to Biden’s decision about making now-Vice President Kamala Harris his running mate.

    “In the reckoning of one close adviser to Biden, Harris was ‘in many ways the safest, most obvious choice,’” the book reads. “But to call her merely a Goldilocks pick, this person says, would be to underrate the gumption Biden showed in putting her on the ticket.”

    BIDEN’S WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISER CALLED ‘SQUAD’ MEMBERS ‘F—ING IDIOTS’: BOOK

    The White House would not confirm an excerpt from a new book saying one of President Biden’s 2020 campaign advisers called White people “incredibly racist.” (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

    “Harris had scored the best in campaign polling among all the Black women considered for the job, but the data had not suggested she would be a risk-free choice,” the book continues.

    “You know, white women are incredibly racist. As are white men,” the adviser said, according to the book. “None of it was safe. It was a risky thing to do. But it was the safest of choices we had.”

    When pressed by Fox News Digital about the book excerpt, the White House would not confirm the adviser’s words.

    “We respect that there will be no shortage of books written about the administration containing a wide variety of claims,” a White House spokesperson said. “We don’t plan to engage in confirmations or denials when it comes to the specifics of those claims.”

    Press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a briefing at the White House, April 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

    The new book also revealed that a key adviser to Biden, Office of Public Engagement director and senior adviser Cedric Richmond, referred to “Squad” Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., as “f—ing morons” while speaking to a friend.

    According to the book, Richmond was the most vocal of Biden’s advisers who were preparing for a progressive party mutiny, blasting the Democrats’ left wing for misreading the 2020 campaign results and not being political savvy in a phone call to a Louisiana ally after his appointment was announced.

    Richmond had been targeted by the progressive activist group the Sunrise Movement over his fossil fuel industry ties and was not too happy with Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and the other “Squad” members, going so far as to call them “f—ing idiots.”

    Counselor to the President Steve Ricchetti also had words for “the Squad,” albeit less harsh than Richmond, telling a Capitol Hill Biden ally that the “problem with the left is they don’t understand that they lost.”

    Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during the daily briefing at the White House on Nov. 5, 2021. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)

    Ricchetti’s remarks came as progressives targeted both Democrats and Republicans over the COVID stimulus bills, viewing them as not giving enough money to citizens and criticizing the lack of funds going to state governments.

    The new excerpt also comes as White House press secretary Jen Psaki eyes her exit from behind the podium to spend more time with her kids and transition to her upcoming MSNBC gig.

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    Deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will be taking up the mantle as Biden’s spokesperson, but the pick comes with some baggage.

    A clip recently re-emerged online of Jean-Pierre calling Fox News “racist” during the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, as have old tweets of the incoming press secretary claiming the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election was stolen.

    January 6 Committee formally requests testimony from GOP representatives

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    The House Select Committee on January 6 requested interviews with three Republican congressmen on Monday, saying the trio have information regarding efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election.

    The three Republicans are Reps Andy Biggs of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Ronny Jackson of Texas. The Select Committee says each of the three congressmen communicated with former President Donald Trump about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. They also spoke with Trump about planning rallies and protests in the lead-up to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the committee.

    MEADOWS WAS WARNED OF POSSIBLE JAN. 6 VIOLENCE, OFFICIAL TESTIFIES

    “The Select Committee has learned that several of our colleagues have information relevant to our investigation into the facts, circumstances, and causes of January 6th,” committee chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and vice chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a statement. “We urge our colleagues to join the hundreds of individuals who have shared information with the Select Committee to get to the bottom of what happened on January 6th.”

    “The Select Committee is seeking information from members of Congress, including those who participated in meetings at the White House and had direct conversations with President Trump leading up to and during the attack on the Capitol and those who were involved in the planning and coordination of rallies on and before January 6th,” the statement continued.

    The offices of Biggs, Brooks and Jackson did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

    FEDERAL JUDGE SAYS TRUMP ‘LIKELY VIOLATED’ FEDERAL OBSTRUCTION STATUTE 

    Rep. Andy Biggs speaks during the House Judiciary Committee markup of the articles of impeachment against President Trump on Dec. 11, 2019. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Image)

    The requests come weeks after former first daughter and White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump testified before the committee. Her husband, former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, also testified. They are the highest-level Trump administration officials to cooperate with the committee so far.

    The committee is tasked with investigating the events that led to the pro-Trump storming of the U.S. Capitol in early 2021. Members have sought testimony more recently to shine a light on a 7.5-hour gap in White House phone records on Jan. 6.

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    The gap ran from 11:17 a.m. ET to 6:54 p.m. ET on the day of the riots, essentially encompassing the event. 

    The committee has already recommended that the House of Representatives hold two former Trump officials, Daniel Scavino Jr. and Peter Navarro, in contempt of Congress.

    Neither man has cooperated with calls to testify.

    Thompson has argued the men should face criminal charges for continuing to dodge testimony.

    “They’re not fooling anybody. They are obligated to comply with our investigation. They have refused to do so. And that’s a crime,” Thompson said in March.

    Bill Maher: The ‘left-wing media’ buried the Hunter Biden scandal because ‘it wasn’t part of their narrative’

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    “Real Time” host Bill Maher blasted the “left-wing media” for failing to report on the Hunter Biden scandal during the 2020 presidential election. 

    During his panel discussion on Friday night, Maher offered a history lesson about how in the “John Adams day” the country had “different newspapers for different parties” and what “brought it home to me” was how The Washington Post as well as The New York Times authenticated the laptop the New York Post first reported on nearly two years ago. 

    HUNTER BIDEN SAGA: WASHINGTON POST AUTHENTICATES LAPTOP AFTER DISMISSING ‘FAKE’ SCANDAL IN 2020

    “I remember reading about this a couple of years ago, the New York Post came across… Hunter Biden’s computer, which he apparently left at a computer repair store. I didn’t even know they existed. And if anyone should not leave his computer with other people, it would be Hunter Biden just for the personal stuff,” Maher said. “But it also had stuff about how, you know, c’mon, he’s a ne’er-do-well. I’m sorry, Hunter Biden, but you are… You made a living being ne’er-do-well who was taking money just because you were the vice president’s son and you had influence.” 

    “He got, I think $4.8, yes, million from Chinese energy companies to sit on the board and consult. Yeah, that was his passion in life,” Maher quipped. His exploration, hooker exploration, was his passion.”

    The New York Times and The Washington Post both verified Hunter Biden’s laptop after dismissing the New York Post’s bombshell reporting during the 2020 presidential election. (Getty images  |  New York Post)

    Maher continued, “So the New York Post got a hold of what was in the computer. And, you know, because the New York Post is a Republican paper, and The New York Times and The Washington Post are the Democratic paper[s]…  And the Republican paper, Twitter… canceled their account! They can’t even report on this story. And now two years later, The New York Times and The Washington Post have come around and say, ‘Okay, there was something there.'”

    HUNTER BIDEN: MSNBC, ABC, CBS SIDESTEP AUTHENTICATED LAPTOP THEY DISMISSED IN 2020 WHILE ADDRESSING DOJ PROBE

    The HBO star conceded that the laptop story should have been taken with a “giant thing of salt” since the New York Post retrieved it from Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, but “not two years.” 

    “It looks like the left-wing media just buried the story because it wasn’t part of their narrative and that’s why people don’t trust the media,” Maher said. 

    (HBO)

    Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang agreed, pointing to polling that showed trust in media “falls very sharply along party lines” where 69% of Democrats say they still trust the media while just 15% of Republicans and 36% of independents say the same. 

    “This is part of the erosion of institutional trust, where one side feels like the media is on their side,” Yang said. “And it does seem like this Hunter Biden laptop story did get buried because of the timing. I mean, it was coming out during the height of the election in 2020. And they did not want that out in the mainstream.”

    CNN legal analyst Laura Coates attempted to offer a more nuanced rationale to downplay the media’s culpability. Notably, Coates’ network was caught spiking the Hunter Biden laptop story as it broke according to recordings obtained by Project Veritas released in December 2020. 

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    “I think it can also be about the idea of you know, one, the priorities that the media has about what stories to put forward. And sometimes it’s tied to obviously what is in the national zeitgeist,” Coates said. “Other times, it’s according to what actually is there to report on? What is the new information that’s going to better inform the population? And of course, here we are in the world, as you well know, where not only do we have different slants for different media they are suggesting, but also you’ve got people who want these silos. They just want echo chambers. We used to say things like… ‘You’re preaching to the choir.’ Well, now it’s, ‘Why aren’t you preaching to the choir? It’s all I’m here for.’ So you preach to as a member of the choir.” 

    “And so you’ve got to balance the idea – this is a consumer-driven business at times more than it can be an information-driven business, which of course, tells a lot about where we are as a society,” the CNN star added.

    Hunter Biden: MSNBC, ABC, CBS sidestep authenticated laptop they dismissed in 2020 while addressing DOJ probe

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    The legacy media is finally shedding light on the growing scandal plaguing Hunter Biden, but the way the five liberal networks address (or don’t address) his laptop they all dismissed during the 2020 presidential election is rather suspect. 

    CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC all reported this week how the years-long DOJ probe into Hunter Biden’s finances is “heating up” as witnesses continue to give their testimony. President Biden’s son is being investigated for potentially violating tax and foreign lobbying laws as well as alleged money laundering. 

    HUNTER BIDEN SAGA: WASHINGTON POST AUTHENTICATES LAPTOP AFTER DISMISSING ‘FAKE’ SCANDAL IN 2020

    The five networks, along with the rest of the legacy media, infamously downplayed the bombshell report from the New York Post in the final weeks leading up to the 2020 election that put a spotlight on Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings overseas based on damning emails that emerged from his laptop. At the time, the five networks either disregarded the scandal as right-wing conspiracy theories or the result of a “Russian disinformation” campaign. 

    The legacy media dismissed the bombshell reporting from the New York Post about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 presidential election.  (Getty images  |  New York Post)

    This week, The Washington Post published a bombshell report about Hunter Biden’s multimillion-dollar deal with a Chinese energy company, which has been swept up in the DOJ’s investigation. As part of its reporting, the Post was able to authenticate the contents of the laptop. 

    CNN and MSNBC spent far more time covering former President Trump’s remarks this week urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to look for “answers” regarding Hunter Biden’s business dealings, particularly in Russia than the Hunter Biden scandal itself, which received zero coverage on their primetime shows Wednesday and Thursday night, according to Grabien transcripts. 

    CNN SAYS GIULIANI ‘TRIED TO GENERATE MEDIA ATTENTION’ WITH HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP IN 2020 AS NETWORK SPIKED STORY

    While MSNBC did briefly address Washington Post’s reporting about the president son and his ties to the Chinese energy company, it completely ignored how the Post authenticated the controversial laptop. 

    The Peacock network was not alone. Neither ABC nor CBS mentioned that the laptop they previously dismissed has now been verified on their morning and evening newscasts, according to transcripts.  

    Photo credit: Getty Images

    After overlooking the laptop on Wednesday evening and completely ignoring Hunter Biden the next morning, NBC finally addressed the laptop on “NBC Nightly News.”

    “People familiar with the federal investigation of Hunter Biden, which he himself disclosed a year and a half ago, say it is broader than he first described it with a growing number of witnesses called before a grand jury,” NBC News correspondent Pete Williams said. “It began as an examination of whether he paid all the taxes he should have on income from his work for foreign companies, including Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company. This email from a former business partner, for example, found on a laptop Biden used, said he failed to disclose $400,000 paid by the Ukrainian company.”

    “That laptop which he took to a Delaware shop to get repaired but never reclaimed was seized by the FBI, but not before Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani got a copy of its hard drive, which he shared with congressional Republicans,” Williams added. 

    MSNBC’S ANDREA MITCHELL SAYS HUNTER BIDEN SAGA HAS ‘A LOT OF SMOKE’ BUT CALLS IT ‘TRUMP CONSPIRACY THEORIES’

    CNN briefly addressed the legitimacy of Hunter Biden’s laptop while at the same time downplaying it on its poorly-watched morning program “New Day.”

    “So there’s a lot of issues that the Justice Department is looking into including, of course, this laptop that on the right-wing, has featured a lot of stories by about Hunter Biden,” CNN correspondent Evan Pérez told anchor Brianna Keilar on Wednesday. “We know the FBI has possession of it and that they believe it is his laptop, that the contents of it are his. The question of whether this is relevant to the investigation, we don’t know.”

    FILE – Then Vice President-elect, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., left, stands with his son Hunter during a re-enactment of the Senate oath ceremony in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 6, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

    Moments later, CNN White House correspondent John Harwood rushed to defend President Biden, baselessly claiming there was “zero evidence” that Hunter Biden’s father is connected to the alleged corruption.

    “It seems pretty clear that Hunter Biden was trading on his father’s name to make a lot of money, he’s had a difficult life, but until someone makes a nexus between what Hunter Biden has done and official activities of Vice President Biden or President Biden, it’s a not-pretty picture, but it’s not really of much public import in terms of the policy of the United States or the administration of the government,” Harwood told Keilar.

    CNN was previously caught spiking the Hunter Biden laptop story in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election, according to recordings released by Project Veritas in December 2020. 

    WAPO COLUMNIST RIPS MEDIA DISMISSAL OF HUNTER BIDEN: WE AREN’T TRUSTED BECAUSE WE AREN’T ENTIRELY TRUSTWORTHY

    “Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden,” CNN political director David Chalian said during a conference call on Oct. 14, the same day the New York Post published its first story on Hunter Biden’s emails. Chalian later insisted the report was “giving its marching orders” to the “right-wing echo chamber about what to talk about today.”

    “The Trump media, you know, moves immediately from — OK, well, never mind — the [Michael Flynn] unmasking was, you know, found to be completely nonsensical to the latest alleged scandal and expects everybody to just follow suit,” then-CNN president Jeff Zucker told his staff on Oct. 16. “So, I don’t think that we should be repeating unsubstantiated smears just because the right-wing media suggests that we should.”

    Former CNN president Jeff Zucker, CNN political director David Chalian and Hunter Biden. 

    Apparently such messaging was received by CNN talent like Jake Tapper, who dismissed the allegations against Hunter Biden as “too disgusting” to repeat on-air during the 2020 election and said the “right wing is going crazy.” 

    CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter suggested the Hunter Biden scandal was “manufactured” and a product of pro-Trump “whataboutism.” 

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    “For all we know, these emails were made up, or maybe some are real and some are fakes, we don’t know,” Stelter told his viewers at the time. “But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine.”

    The latest reporting came days after The New York Times published its own report about the DOJ’s investigation into Hunter Biden, which also authenticated his laptop. 

    Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report. 

    Democrats leaned on false WaPo ‘find the fraud’ quote in impeachment hearings

    Democrats leaned on a quote falsely attributed to former President Donald Trump to paint him as pushing for election officials to manufacture evidence of election fraud during Senate impeachment proceedings in February.

    A Washington Post story that has since been corrected claimed that Trump told Georgia elections investigator Frances Watson to “find the fraud” in the state, which he lost narrowly to Joe Biden, and that she would be a “national hero” if she did. 

    WASHINGTON POST PANNED FOR MASSIVE CORRECTION TO TRUMP-GEORGIA ELECTION STORY: ‘SO, THEY MADE UP QUOTES’

    Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., repeated the now-corrected quotes while encouraging senators to convict Trump in the Senate impeachment trial on Feb. 10.

    “Trump urged him, ‘Find the fraud,’ and claimed the official would be a national hero if he did. Let’s call this what it is. He was asking the official to say there was evidence of fraud when there wasn’t any,” Dean said, referring to Watson as a “he” when she should have said “she.”

    President Donald Trump speaks in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 9, 2018, at the start of a meeting with military leaders. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
    (Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

    In addition, the Georgia secretary of state’s office launched an investigation into Trump’s phone calls to state election officials before the second attempt to impeach him in February, ABC7 reported.

    However, a newly emerged recording of the Dec. 23 call found Trump didn’t use those words. Instead, Trump said she would be “praised” when the “right answer comes out” and encouraged her to closely examine mail-in ballots in Fulton County, the heavily blue and most populated county in the state.

    The Post published a lengthy correction to its story: “Correction: Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia secretary of state released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator. The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so. Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her that she had ‘the most important job in the country right now.’ A story about the recording can be found here. The headline and text of this story have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump.”

    ABC, NBC, CBS IGNORE PORTLAND VIOLENCE, CHAOS DURING EVENING NEWSCASTS

    CNN also reported on the call citing an unnamed source and waited until Monday afternoon to correct its story, after initially stating Trump said “national hero” and “find the fraud” in its opening paragraph. 

    While news outlets often cite sources who paraphrase conversations they participated in or overheard, using quotes indicates to the reader a subject said those exact words.

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    Fox News’ David Rutz contributed to this report.

    Biden reportedly warned family about business dealings before election: ‘For Christ’s sake, watch yourself’

    President Biden, before the presidential election, reportedly told his family to “watch yourself” about their business dealings, Politico reported, as their various financial entanglements came under scrutiny.

    “For Christ’s sake, watch yourself,” the then-candidate told his brother Frank Biden about his potential business activity, according to Politico. “Don’t get sucked into something that would, first of all, hurt you.”

    Biden had pledged in October 2019 that if elected to be the president, “No one in my family will have an office in the White House, will sit in on meetings as if they are a Cabinet member, will, in fact, have any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or a foreign country,” according to USA Today. 

    But the activities of his son Hunter Biden became a major issue in the closing days of the presidential campaign. And even after the election, as of late December, Hunter Biden owned a 10% stake in a Chinese private equity firm.

    Hunter Biden introduces his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, during the World Food Program USA’s 2016 McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony at the Organization of American States on April 12, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (Kris Connor/WireImage)

    BIDEN’S BROTHER PROMOTED RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESIDEN IN AD FOR FLORIDA LAW FIRM: REPORT

    Biden in December said “I’m confident,” that Hunter Biden has done nothing wrong, amid a Department of Justice probe into his tax affairs. Biden’s vowed to stay out of that probe. 

    Also during the campaign, former business associate Tony Bobulinski alleged that Biden brother Jim Biden was allegedly in the know on Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

    Bobulinski told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson he raised concerns in 2017 to Jim Biden about Joe Biden’s alleged ties to a possible joint venture with a Chinese energy firm.

    Bobulinski, a retired lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, was the CEO of SinoHawk Holdings, which he said was the partnership between the CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming and the two Biden family members.

    “I remember saying, ‘How are you guys getting away with this?’ ‘Aren’t you concerned?’” he told Carlson.

    He claims that Jim Biden chuckled. “‘Plausible deniability.’ He said it directly to me in a cabana at the Peninsula Hotel,” Bobulinski said.

    Jim Biden refused to answer questions from Fox News during late October on the Biden family’s business dealings. 

    Tony Bobulinski, a former associate of Hunter Biden, talks with reporters before the presidential debate, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, in Nashville. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

    Now that President Biden is in office, a Biden-connected law firm is under scrutiny for an ad that it ran on Inauguration Day.

    Frank Biden is a senior adviser to the Florida-based Berman Law Group. And according to CNBC, he appeared in an ad in the Daily Business Review, a Florida publication, promoting a lawsuit against sugar cane companies. According to CNBC, the ad included quotes referencing Frank Biden’s relationship with President Biden. 

    During the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic, Berman Law Group also often referenced Frank Biden’s role as a senior adviser while discussing a class-action lawsuit against China for starting the coronavirus pandemic. 

    HUNTER BIDEN STILL OWNS 10% STAKE IN CHINESE PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM, BUSINESS RECORDS SHOW

    Frank Biden told CNBC that he “never used my brother to obtain clients for my firm… Social justice is something I have been involved in for years.”

    Next up on the Biden family controversies may be the confirmation hearing for Biden attorney general nominee Merrick Garland. 

    In this Jan. 7, 2021, file photo, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for attorney general, Judge Merrick Garland, speaks during an event at The Queen Theater in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

    Garland is a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with an excellent reputation and was previously former President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. He’s likely to be eventually confirmed. 

    But first, he’ll likely face a slew of questions from Republican senators during his confirmation hearing asking whether he’ll stay out of the way of an ongoing Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

    “Americans deserve to know that this investigation will not be hampered in any way by the change in administrations, and the attorney general nominee should make this point clear,” a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News. “So yes, you can expect that Sen. Grassley will be asking about his role in this investigation.”

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    “It is very likely the topic is raised,” a spokesperson for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also on the Judiciary Committee, told Fox News.

    Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is also on the Judiciary Committee. He expressed confidence that Garland would run an aboveboard Justice Department. 

    “Judge Garland’s extensive legal experience makes him well-suited to lead the Department of Justice, and I appreciated his commitment to keep politics out of the Justice Department. That is my number one criterion for who should be the next Head of the Department of Justice as Attorney General,” Cornyn said. “I think both sides should support a depoliticized Justice Department, and that’s what I hope Judge Garland, once confirmed, will deliver.”

    Fox News’ Alex Pappas, Ronn Blitzer, Yael Halon, Peter Hasson and Marisa Schultz contributed to this report. 

    GOP Sen. Lankford apologizes to Black constituents for efforts to contest election

    Republican Sen. James Lankford, Okla., wrote a letter Thursday apologizing to Black constituents for not realizing how his efforts to contest election results would be perceived. 

    In a letter addressed to “My friends in North Tulsa,” the senator said he deeply regrets his “blindness” to how his election challenges could be perceived by the Black community– as a “direct attack on their right to vote.” 

    Last month Lankford announced he would take part in an effort led by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to vote against the Electoral College results and call for a 10-day audit to assess voter fraud.

    He backed down from contesting after rioters stormed the Capitol last week. 

    HOT MIC CATCHES MOMENT STAFFER TELLS LANKFORD THAT ‘PROTESTERS ARE IN THE BUILDING’ 

    “It was never my intention to disenfranchise any voter or state,” the senator wrote. “It was my intention to resolve any outstanding questions before the inauguration on Jan. 20.” 

    “But my action of asking for more election information caused a firestorm of suspicion among many of my friends, particularly among Black communities around the state,” he said, adding that he was “completely blindsided” by the response. 

    “What I did not realize was all of the national conversation about states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, was seen as casting doubt on the validity of votes coming out of predominantly Black communities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit,” he wrote.

    “After decades of fighting for voting rights, many Black friends in Oklahoma saw this as a direct attack on their right to vote, for their vote to matter, and even a belief that their votes made an election in our country illegitimate,” he continued.

    Lankford noted the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, pointing to areas of improvement since the tragedy but noting “opportunity and investment gaps remain.” 

    Between May 31 and June 1, 1921, mobs of armed White residents attacked Black Tulsans and their businesses in the Greenwood District, which at the time was the wealthiest Black community in the country. The death toll is not clear, but historians believe as many as 300 may have been murdered.

    LANKFORD INSISTS LINGERING QUESTIONS ABOUT 2020 ELECTION ‘NEED TO BE ANSWERED’

    “There is also too little cultural understanding between people of different races in the communities of Oklahoma, which is something I was reminded of just last week,” Lanford said.  

    Several Black leaders in Tulsa have called for Lankford’s expulsion or removal from the 1921 Race Massacre Centennial Committee due to his efforts to contest election results this week. Lankford said at the time that after speaking with Black leaders he’d come to understand why his efforts could be seen as Black voter disenfranchisement. 

    “I was shocked [when Black friends] said to me, ‘This was about keeping African Americans from voting.’ My comment to them was, ‘That never crossed my mind. Why would I do that? Why would I think that?’” he told Tulsa World. 

    “I’ve had some time now to visit with them and to hear them out, and I understand where they’re coming from,” Lankford said.

    “Some people caught me and said, ‘Let me describe it to you this way’ — and they were spot on with this — ‘You hear the president say, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania are problems. We hear the president say, Atlanta, Detroit and Philadelphia are problems.’

    “And I said, ‘You’re exactly correct. I hear what you’re saying now.’”

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    “I can assure you, my intent to give a voice to Oklahomans who had questions was never also an intent to diminish the voice of any Black American. I should have recognized how what I said and what I did could be interpreted by many of you,” he concluded in his letter. “I deeply regret my blindness to that perception, and for that I am sorry.”

    Schumer calls for everyone inside Capitol during riots to be placed on no-fly list

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has called on the administration to place those inside the Capitol during last week’s riots on the no-fly list, claiming that some desired to return to Washington or commit violence elsewhere.

    “We are concerned about these people getting back on airplanes and doing more violence,” he said during a press conference in New York City.

    He added that “the insurrectionists who breached the U.S. Capitol fall under the definition of threats to the homeland and should be immediately added to the TSA [Transportation Security Administration] no-fly list.”

    “We are calling on the authorities — the FBI, the TSA — any of those who were inside the Capitol should be placed on the no-fly list and not be allowed to fly.”

    CAPITOL HILL RIOTS LEAVE DEMS SPLIT OVER DOMESTIC TERRORISM LAW AND CRIMINALIZING DISSENT

    In a statement Monday, TSA said it was beefing up law enforcment’s presence at three major airports in the D.C. area. The agency clarified that it was screening travelers and that those on no fly-lists would not receive boarding passes.

    Schumer’s briefing came after President Trump criticized Big Tech companies earlier in the day, suggesting they were creating anger in the country.

    “I think that big tech is doing a horrible thing for our country and to our country,” he told the press, apparently referring to restrictions on his account and others. 

    “And I believe it’s going to be a catastrophic mistake for them. They’re dividing and divisive, and they’re showing something that I’ve been predicting for a long time … But I think big tech has made a terrible mistake, and very, very bad for our country. And that’s leading others to do the same thing, and it causes a lot of problems and a lot of danger.”

    When asked about his role in last week’s violence, Trump appeared to defend a speech he gave on the national mall just before rioters stormed the Capitol. 

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    At his press conference, Schumer suggested Trump was blaming others and engaging in a “pathological technique used by the worst of the dictators.”

    He added that Trump’s statements were further evidence for his ongoing demand that the president be removed from office before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

    Secret Service investigating death threats against Pence

    The U.S. Secret Service is investigating death threats against Vice President Mike Pence made by pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood, Fox News has learned.

    Wood, who was banned from Twitter last week, is suspected of writing a now-deleted post on Parler: “Get the firing squads ready. Pence goes FIRST.”

    Vice President Mike Pence listens after reading the final certification of Electoral College votes cast in November’s presidential election during a joint session of Congress after working through the night, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 7. 
    (AP)

    “We are aware of the comments and take all threats against our protectees seriously,” a Secret Service spokesman told Fox News on Saturday.

    The Secret Service and other federal agencies also are investigating others seen on a video inside the U.S. Capitol yelling “Hang Pence.”

    The threats to the vice president come days after a pro-Trump group stormed the U.S. Capitol to protest the formal certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Lawmakers, staff members and others hid under tables and evacuated as the rioters roamed the halls of the Capitol, bearing pro-Trump flags and pounding on doors.

    ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER CONDEMNS TRUMP AS ‘WORST PRESIDENT EVER’ AFTER CAPITOL RIOT

    A source close to Pence told Fox News on Wednesday that while Pence was sheltering in “hardened rooms” in the Capitol, President Trump did not reach out to him to check on his status or condemn those who said the vice president “should be executed.”

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    Later in the week the hashtag “Hang Mike Pence” was trending on Twitter. A Twitter spokesperson told Fox News on Saturday that the company had “blocked the phrase and other variations of it from trending.”

    Fox News’ David Spunt and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Jim Jordan: Dems changed states’ election rules in ‘unconstitutional fashion’

    House and Senate Republicans will present “evidence” Wednesday of Democrats unconstitutionally going around key state legislatures in the 2020 presidential election, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told “Fox & Friends.”

    The House Judiciary Committee ranking member said the effort to object to certifying the results of a victory for President-elect Joe Biden over President Trump is the “only remedy left” by the Constitution.

    “We know that five states, some of the five key states that were critical in this election, changed their election law in an unconstitutional fashion,” Jordan, who is expected to receive the Medal of Freedom from Trump next week, told co-host Brian Kilmeade.

    ELECTORAL COLLEGE OBJECTIONS IN CONGRESS: WHAT TO KNOW

    He said they plan to debate Arizona first, pointing to how an Obama-appointed judge extended the registration date 18 days despite state law in “an end-run around the Constitution.”

    That is the template Democrats used “in state after state because they knew under the real rules, the rules that the legislature, according to the Constitution is supposed to set, they knew they couldn’t win and they’ve been trying and trying,” Jordan said.

    At least 100 House Republicans and 13 Senate Republicans, with Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, leading the way, are joining Jordan in the effort, while demonstrations are planned in Washington, D.C., and Trump is expected to address crowds at 11 a.m.

    “Democrats never wanted to talk about it. We’ve asked for an investigation for nine weeks, so today’s the day that the founders gave to Congress, the ultimate day of significance, and we’re going to have that debate on the House floor,” Jordan said.

    TRUMP PRESSURES PENCE AHEAD OF ELECTORAL COLLEGE CERTIFICATION: ‘THIS IS A TIME FOR EXTREME COURAGE’

    “We put out a report in September that let the world know this is what Democrats are doing. … We had the hearings in the summer where they brought in the postmaster general and attacked him. So they were planning this, this was the Democrats’ strategy, and there were times when the Trump campaign did go to court and try to stop it, but they went to Democrat judges, Democrat secretaries of state, Democrat governors, sometimes it was Democrat county clerks who unilaterally changed the law, so they just did it and they did it in an unconstitutional fashion.”

    Although not all Republican representatives are supporting the effort, Jordan said his job is to convince them and the American people when the joint session convenes Wednesday afternoon. 

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    “This is about that debate today in convincing our colleagues that they should not certify those elections from those states,” he said.