Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence are among those scheduled to appear at a rally at the state fairgrounds near Des Moines.
Former President Donald Trump, the leading GOP presidential candidate, will be notably absent. He has largely avoided any events that have him sharing the stage with his 2024 rivals.
DeSantis, seen as Trump’s chief challenger, has been on a blitz of campaign stops across early-voting states, including Iowa, in recent days as he marked his first week as an official candidate.
Pence, who has made frequent trips to Iowa over the past year, is not yet in the race but will launch his long-expected campaign at an event in Des Moines on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with his plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details before the official announcement.
Pence was the only White House hopeful participating in a morning motorcycle ride for charity that is a staple of Ernst’s annual “Roast and Ride” event.
In an interview he gave to Newsmax before the ride, Pence said he and his wife, Karen, have spent much time praying and reflecting on how to serve the country next.
“We’ve come to a decision. I thought that there’d be no better place to announce our decision than right here in the Hawkeye state,” he said.
The former vice president and former Indiana governor appeared with Ernst and a group of about 200 motorcyclists at a Harley-Davidson location in Des Moines. Pence wore jeans, boots and a leather vest with patches that said “Indiana” and messages supportive of the military.
He and Ernst stood in the back of a pickup truck and briefly addressed the riders before setting off.
“One of the reporters just asked me if we’re showing up more in Iowa what our lane would be. I said I’m more worried about the lane we’re going to be staying in today,” Pence said.
Pence, wearing a white motorcycle helmet and with a big grin, then rode off on a cobalt blue Harley Davidson. The group planned to ride to the fairgrounds for the rest of the event, featuring barbeque and speeches.
He participated in the ride once before, in 2017.
Other presidential hopefuls expected to appear at the rally later in the day include former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, author Vivek Ramaswamy and conservative talk radio host Larry Elder.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) On this date 40 years ago, the FBI and U.S. Marshals were encircling fugitive Gordon Kahl in rural Lawrence County, Arkansas.
A tax protestor who killed two U.S. Marshals in a shootout, Kahl would purportedly be classified as America’s first right-wing domestic terrorist by the FBI. The bureau certainly treated him as such on June 3, 1983, when agents poured thousands of rounds of ammunition into Kahl’s “safe house” before burning it to the ground with him inside.
But records and witnesses in the Kahl case tell a story that runs counter to the U.S. government’s narrative. Far from being a legitimate counterterrorism operation, a closer examination of the Kahl case reveals evidence suggesting that overzealous federal agents targeted the farmer over a paperwork issue, and then murdered and mutilated him after he defended himself and his family.
As the U.S. government views right-wing dissidents increasingly as terrorist threats 40 years later, Headline USA examines how Kahl started it all.
The Saga of Gordon Kahl
Born in North Dakota in 1920, Kahl served in the Pacific theater of World War II and was highly decorated—participating in 57 bombing missions and earning four Bronze Stars, a Silver Star, two Purple Hearts and a Presidential Unit Citation.
WW2 hero Gordon Kahl. PHOTO: Screenshot from the documentary “Death and Taxes.”
But upon his return to civilian life as a farmer in North Dakota, Kahl became concerned with what he perceived to be a country drifting into communism. He was particularly alarmed that federal tax dollars were funding abortions.
In 1969, Kahl wrote a letter to the IRS, informing agents that he would no longer be making payments to “the tithe collectors of the synagogue of Satan.”
The IRS ignored Kahl at first—the farmer didn’t “owe” any taxes—but took notice when he began appearing on public access television in the mid-1970s, urging others to follow him in resisting the income tax.
Kahl was convicted of willful failure to file federal income tax returns in 1976, and was sentenced to two years imprisonment in Midland, Texas. There, he suffered two heart attacks, while his fellow tax protestor, W.M. Rinehart, had a fatal heart attack in another jail.
Believing that the U.S. government purposely poisoned him and Rinehart, Kahl vowed to never again return to prison.
Kahl had a warrant issued for his arrest for a parole violation soon after his release from prison. But law enforcement agencies sat on the warrant for about two years, until February 1983.
It’s still not clear why the government decided to enforce the warrant when it did. Some have suggested that overzealous U.S. Marshals wanted to make a high-profile arrest, while the more conspiratorial-minded think there was a plan at the highest levels of the DOJ to make an example out of Kahl.
Author Pat Shannan, who wrote extensively about the Kahl case, told Headline USA he thinks the decision to enforce the warrant was a combination of the two.
Shannan explained that the government had been spying on Kahl for more than a year prior to 1983. But he said the presence of an ambitious new U.S. Marshal—the prior Marshal got along well with Kahl, and declined to arrest him over what amounted to a paperwork issue—was likely the impetus for what came next.
And what came next was a shootout that captured national attention.
On Feb. 13, 1983, Kahl and several family members and friends were leaving a community meeting about the farming crisis—about three farms per day were closing in North Dakota at the time, due in large part to skyrocketing interest rates that left farmers unable to obtain loans.
Exiting the sleepy town of Medina, North Dakota, the Kahls spotted flashing lights from a police road block about a mile ahead. They tried turning around to find another route, but an unmarked Dodge Ram pulled up behind them to prevent their escape.
Gordon Kahl, his son Yorie Kahl and their friend Scott Faul left their vehicles with Ruger Mini-14 rifles in hand, while wife Joan Kahl hunkered down inside one of the cars. Several U.S. Marshals and local police arrived on the scene, and a standoff ensued.
Footage of the aftermath of the infamous February 1983 shootout between tax protestors and U.S. Marshals. PHOTO: Screenshot from the documentary “Death and Taxes.”
After several minutes, what sounded like a gunshot sounded through the North Dakota plains, sparking a gunfight. Who shot first is still in dispute—though, as former Medina Police Chief Darrell Graf pointed out, this question is legally a moot point, as law enforcement had the right to fire once the Kahls pointed their rifles at the officers.
In any event, Yorie was hit twice. Gordon claimed credit for killing two U.S. Marshals in return, and for wounding Medina police officer Steve Schnabel.
After fleeing the scene and dropping his son, Yorie, off at the hospital, the elder Kahl and Faul were on the lam. Hiding that night inside an abandoned barn, Kahl planned to make way for Arkansas, while Faul stayed behind and decided to surrender to authorities.
Kahl’s escape added to his legend.
A heavy fog settled on the Medina area as Kahl travelled on backroads to evade detection, which prompted some in the Patriot Movement to believe Kahl had help from the Big Man upstairs.
“It was not unlike the divine protection George Washington experienced in New York in 1776, when his surrounded troops escaped across the East River,” Shannan, who spoke to Headline USA for this story, said of Kahl’s escape.
Kahl made it to Arkansas, receiving shelter in the homes of various patriot compadres throughout the state.
But aided by its shadowy network of informants, the FBI’s dragnet was closing in on him.
On June 3, 1983, the FBI finally tracked down Kahl to a “safe house” owned by Leonard and Norma Ginter in rural Lawrence County.
Accounts vary about what happened that day.
According to the U.S. government, a local sheriff and a U.S. Marshal entered the home to arrest Kahl. Another shootout ensued, with Kahl and the sheriff hitting each other simultaneously.
After that, the sheriff allegedly stumbled out of the house and notified the other agents and officers that he shot Kahl. Worried that Kahl may have survived, FBI agents and U.S. Marshals fired thousands of rounds into the house, poured diesel fuel down its chimney and ignited a fire—supposedly out of fear that Kahl could have been hiding in a non-existent labyrinth of tunnels beneath the structure.
Forensic evidence and witnesses tell a story that runs counter to government’s narrative.
For starters, then-Medina Police Chief Darrel Graf said he overheard U.S. Marshals and FBI agents arguing the day after the shootout about who would get the privilege of killing Kahl once they found him.
“The Marshal argued, ‘He killed two of ours, so we get to kill him.’ The FBI agent replied, ‘If you kill him, the public won’t go for it. It will look like revenge. If we kill him, it will look like another gun battle,’” Graf wrote in his book, It’s All About Power: A True and Accurate Eyewitness Account of the Shootout Between Gordon Kahl and U.S. Marshals.
“I stood up from behind my desk and told them to calm down and think about what they were saying. It got very quiet in the room at that point. It was obvious to me that Gordon Kahl was a dead man! Simply arresting Gordon was not part of the Fed’s game plan.”
Leonard Ginter, who was present at the June 3 siege of Kahl’s safe house, also thought federal agents murdered Kahl, as well as the local sheriff. Ginter said he heard a single shot from within the home, followed by five or six others in rapid succession.
An autopsy showed that Kahl was shot a single time, from a downward angle in the back of the skull. Some skin on his charred body remained intact, suggesting to some that he was in a prone position when he was shot.
This led Ginter and others to believe that the U.S. Marshal murdered Kahl execution-style, killed the local sheriff to eliminate any witnesses, and then conflagrated the home to destroy the remaining evidence.
Yet more evidence of this was discovered weeks later, when Kahl supporters were walking through the concrete shell of the burnt-out home. While doing this, someone discovered Kahl’s severed foot—contradicting the U.S. government’s claims that Kahl’s hands and feet were disintegrated in the fire.
Shannan told Headline USA that he believes the U.S. Marshal initially thought he had killed the wrong person—and cut off the person’s limbs to get rid of fingerprints and other identifying markers. Supporting this theory is the fact that a nearby neighbor, Bill Wade, who closely resembled Kahl, was initially reported to be dead after the siege.
Regardless of whether the U.S. government purposely murdered Kahl, his supporters certainly thought that to be the case.
Backlash
Kahl’s death sparked a right-wing backlash that spiraled out of control.
A legitimately terroristic group known as The Order was formed later in 1983, going on to assassinate a Jewish radio host and rob millions of dollars from banks with the goal of funding a right-wing insurgency. The group’s leader, Bob Matthews—whom the FBI also killed and conflagrated in December 1984—cited Kahl’s murder in a declaration of war he drafted against the federal government.
The Order, in turn, served to bolster the FBI’s domestic terrorism resources. The bureau eventually launched an undercover operation called Patriot Conspiracy, or PATCON, which was involved in Ruby Ridge, Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing.
And today, the same counterterrorism apparatus is used to target militias, election protestors, activist parents and other right-wing or libertarian dissidents.
All this began with Kahl. According to former Medina Police Chief Darrel Graf, the FBI classified the tax-protesting farmer’s case as the first ever instance of right-wing domestic terrorism.
“I happened to be in a fire-fighting school in Nevada [in 2004], and part of the class entailed putting out oil fires set by terrorists. We’re talking about groups like the Earth Liberation Front,” Graf said on a podcast several years ago.
“Well, at any rate, they gave us a handout. In this handout, according to the FBI, the first right-wing terrorist act on the United States was in 1983 in Medina, North Dakota.
“And I about came unhooked.”
Meanwhile, Kahl’s son Yorie and friend Scott Faul are still imprisoned.
Yorie Kahl is still in prison over the 1983 shootout with U.S. Marshals. PHOTO: Screenshot from the documentary “Death and Taxes.”
Yorie’s presumptive release date was February of this year, but he has continuously been denied parole—apparently because he hasn’t shown remorse. Faul faces a similar situation, though he recently filed a writ of habeas corpus over the matter.
Shannan said he unfortunately believes that the U.S. government will keep Yorie and Scott imprisoned for the rest of their lives.
“It’s a Satanic sacrifice,” he said. “It’s absolutely Satanic.”
(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) A Utah committee has responded to allegations “vulgarity and violence” contained in the pages of the King James Bible are reason enough for its removal from some Davis School District younger grade library shelves.
ABC4 Utah reports the original complaint that sparked the move was filed by an unknown person in March. It came on the heels of a statewide law passed in 2022 that allowed residents to challenge any books found in school libraries.
As of March, the law was used 81 times with Davis County having removed 33 books for material found to contain sex, vulgarity, and violence, the report sets out.
A book removal request can be made on the district’s website, however, the complainant must set out their reasoning.
For example, the request for the Bible’s review argued it included 49 pages of scripture that could be deemed inappropriate under the law, including instances of murder, sex, and incest.
Davis County School District Communications Director Christopher Williams said Thursday while the committee didn’t find that the book contained “sensitive material as defined in Utah Code 76-10-1227, 76-10-1201 or 76-10-1203,” some vulgarity and violence was deemed to be age-inappropriate for younger readers.
The Bible will remain on high school library shelves.
Williams said the Bible is not taught as part of district curriculum and is being removed from about “7-8” elementary and junior high schools.
Williams noted the appeal has already been filed by someone who wants the Bible retained at all age levels. That appeal will be heard by a three-member committee from the Davis School District Board of Education, which will then forward the issue to the full board for a final decision.
School is currently not in session in Davis County and will not resume until August 17.
Williams told ABC4: “It is a process. Anyone who requests a book to be reviewed has to have standing. We don’t jump to conclusions, we go through the entire process. We don’t blow off one request because we think it’s silly.
“This has been very time-consuming. We have 15 committees that have been established for this purpose.”
The committee hopes to finish the review within 60 days, and it is not clear how many schools have a copy of the Bible in the district.
If found in violation of the law, the Bible will be removed from all schools in the district — as was the case with 33 previous publications that have been excised from public viewing.
King James Version (KJV), also called Authorized Version or King James Bible, an English translation of the Bible, was first published in 1611 under the auspices of King James I of England.
The translation had a marked influence on English literary style and was generally accepted as the standard English Bible from the mid-17th to the early 20th century.
(Headline USA) The Good Book is being treated like a bad book in Utah.
A parent convinced a suburban district that some Bible verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children.
The 72,000-student Davis School District north of Salt Lake City removed the Bible from its elementary and middle schools while keeping it in high schools after a committee reviewed the scripture in response to a parental complaint. The district has removed other titles, including Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” and John Green’s “Looking for Alaska,” following a 2022 state law requiring districts to include parents in decisions over what constitutes “sensitive material.”
On Friday, a complaint was submitted about the signature scripture of the predominant faith in Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church. District spokesperson Chris Williams confirmed that someone filed a review request for the Book of Mormon but would not say what reasons were listed. Citing a school board privacy policy, he also would not say whether it was from the same person who complained about the Bible.
Representatives for the church declined to comment on the challenge. Members of the faith also read the Bible.
Williams said the district doesn’t differentiate between requests to review books and doesn’t consider whether complaints may be submitted as satire. The reviews are handled by a committee made up of teachers, parents and administrators in the largely conservative community.
The committee published its decision about the Bible in an online database of review requests and did not elaborate on its reasoning or which passages it found overly violent or vulgar.
Because of the district’s privacy policy, it’s unknown who made the request for the Bible to be banned from Davis schools or if they are affiliated with any larger group.
A copy of the complaint obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through a public records request shows that the parent noted the Bible contains instances of incest, prostitution and rape. The complaint derided a “bad faith process” and said the district was “ceding our children’s education, First Amendment Rights, and library access” to Parents United.
“Utah Parents United left off one of the most sex-ridden books around: The Bible,” the parent’s complaint, dated Dec. 11, said. It later went on to add, “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible (under state law) has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”
The review committee determined the Bible didn’t qualify under Utah’s definition of what’s pornographic or indecent, which is why it remains in high schools, Williams said. The committee can make its own decisions under the new 2022 state law and has applied different standards based on students’ ages in response to multiple challenges, he said.
An unnamed party filed an appeal on Wednesday.
The Bible has long found itself on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books and was temporarily pulled off shelves last year in school districts in Texas and Missouri.
Among other things, the changes would ban openly carrying firearms and prohibit selling more than three handguns within 30 days to any one person.
Other provisions include expanding Connecticut’s current assault weapon ban to include some other similar weapons; stiffening penalties for possession of large-capacity magazines; expanding safe-storage rules; and adding some domestic violence crimes to the list of disqualifications for having a gun.
The measure passed the Senate 24-11, following a 96-51 House vote last week. Democrats control both chambers.
Nationwide, Democratic-led states have enacted new laws to restrict semiautomatic weapons and expand background checks and waiting periods to buy guns.
In Connecticut, Republican lawmakers have complained that majority Democrats are punishing law-abiding gun owners, not targeting criminals who commit gun violence.
Bargaining over toughening work requirements for food stamps became the focal point for the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., up until the end. Negotiators from both sides made clear, publicly and privately, that it was the biggest area of disagreement and almost led to the talks breaking down several times.
In the end, Democrats accepted new requirements for some able-bodied recipients in exchange for food aid. Republicans agreed to drop some work requirements for veterans, homeless people and others.
The federal aid program provides monthly funds to allow low-income individuals and families to buy groceries.
By 2025, new requirements will apply to able-bodied adults from age 49 to 54 without dependents — an increase of five years. Those individuals will be required to work or attend training programs for at least 80 hours a month if they want to receive more than three months of SNAP benefits within a three-year period.
Republicans have tried for decades to expand work requirements for these government assistance programs, arguing they result in more people returning to the workforce.
“We’re going to return these programs to being a life vest, not a lifestyle. A hand up, not a handout and that has always been the American way,” Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the vice chair of the House Republican conference, told reporters.
The White House countered that Republican proposition by getting GOP lawmakers to waive the work requirements for new groups — veterans, individuals who are homeless or facing housing instability and youth aging out of foster care — to balance out the number of people who would now be facing these new restrictions.
Several dozen Democrats in the House and a handful in the Senate voted against the compromise, arguing that the bill allowed for Republican hostage-taking and could open the door for future cuts to these government programs in the next several months.
Some of the most conservative Republicans in Congress have criticized the plan for being “weak” and are itching to make these programs responsible.
“In this bill, we have temporary work requirements, but we’ve added permanent new exceptions,” said Texas Rep. Keith Self, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus that overwhelmingly rejected the bill. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is a sleight of hand.”
The RNC also detailed the criteria that will be used for candidates to qualify for the debate stage, including a pledge to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee. That requirement could keep some candidates off the stage, including President Donald Trump, who hasn’t committed to supporting the nominee if he doesn’t emerge from the primary. Trump also has questioned why he would participate since he holds a commanding lead in GOP primary polls.
The debate will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which also will be the site of the party’s nominating convention next year. It’s a nod to the importance of the battleground state, which is likely to be key to a presidential victory again in 2024.
“The RNC is committed to putting on a fair, neutral, and transparent primary process and the qualifying criteria set forth will put our party and eventual nominee in the best position to take back the White House come November 2024,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said.
The list of candidates vying to face President Joe Biden next year has been growing. In addition to Trump, the field includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Other candidates expected to get into the contest soon include former Vice President Mike Pence, ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
The debate stage can provide the largest audience yet for many presidential hopefuls, but it also can trip up candidates. Already, there have been questions about which candidates will take part and what rules the RNC would impose in order to participate.
Trump has said so far that he wouldn’t promise to support the nominee if someone else wins the nomination, telling radio host Hugh Hewitt, “It would have to depend on who the nominee was.”
Christie, who plans to launch his campaign in New Hampshire next week, has said he would never support Trump as the party’s 2024 nominee, as he did in 2016. “No way,” he told Axios in March. Advisers did not immediately respond to questions about how Christie would handle the pledge, given his opposition to Trump.
Hutchinson, also a Trump critic, said Friday he plans to be on the debate stage. But he criticized the RNC for requiring the “loyalty oath,” saying the pledge should be only that a participant won’t run as a third-party candidate.
“The RNC should have minimal criteria for the debates in the early stages of this campaign,” Hutchinson said. “More choices are better.”
To participate in the Aug. 23 debate in Milwaukee, candidates must have received campaign contributions from 40,000 unique donors — a relatively high number aimed at winnowing the field.
Among other debate criteria, participants also must receive at least 1% support in three national polls or 1% in two national polls and 1% in early state polls from two separate states. Those states are Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. The polls must meet certain requirements to be recognized by the RNC.
Candidates also must sign a pledge agreeing not to participate in any non-RNC-sanctioned debate during the election cycle.
The RNC said criteria for future debates may include higher thresholds for polling and fundraising. Future dates have not been set.
This picket sign encapsulates two inconvenient truths about the trans movement:
First, trans activists too often conclude that a little boy who prefers the library to the basketball court is, deep down, a lass trapped in a lad’s body. Hence, the former must be liberated from the latter.
Likewise, a “tomboy,” who favors blue jeans and flannel shirts over pastel skirts and floral blouses. The trans crowd would decide that she is a “he” who needs their help to make that condition permanent.
So, such kids must be channeled into pronoun reassignment, gender counseling, and— before long—puberty-blocking-hormone shots.
In the most extreme cases, “gender-affirming care” (today’s most fraudulent euphemism) prescribes that penises get sliced away and breasts get lopped off.
But what if such children are just unconventional, late bloomers, or simply passing through pre-teen phases? Perhaps they will reach puberty and become—respectively—more masculine, more feminine and then, heterosexual?
Alternatively, what if they determine at pubescence that they are homosexual and then blossom into perfectly happy gay men and lesbian women?
This extreme movement spurns such personal development and steers little boys and girls onto the trans track.
Now, here is that picket sign’s second inconvenient truth: Transgenderism is the new homophobia.
Maturing into a man who hungers for men or a woman who thirsts for women is not enough for the transgender radicals. An entire industry has erupted to push and pull children past growing up either straight or gay, and, instead, transitioning permanently to the opposite sex. Too often, this treacherous path’s final stops are chemical intervention and genital-mutilation surgery.
This is how the transgender movement cancels potential gay people and corrals them into switching sexes.
This is terrifying and outrageous. It is homophobia turbocharged with syringes and scalpels.
“Part of the trans epidemic is that kids did not feel and do not feel like it’s OK to be gay,” recovering transgender clinician Jamie Reed told TRIGGERnometry on YouTube. “They tell us it’s almost better to be trans.” And trans evangelists reinforce such thoughts.
What if gay adults you know had experienced what prospectively gay children endure today? Imagine that your gay friend Robert, who lives happily with Kevin, instead had gotten carved years ago into a woman named Roberta.
And picture Amanda, who married Janet in 2018. What if she had become Adam, ever since school counselors cornered her, persuaded her to take testosterone shots, and then directed her to a doctor who amputated her breasts—with neither her parents’ knowledge nor permission?
No wonder conservative commentor Dave Rubin, who is gay, told Fox News’s Dana Perino on May 22: “There is no group out there that is more anti-gay than the trans movement.”
Adam Zivo recently observed in Canada’s National Post that “in many cases, pediatric gender identity services amount to conversion therapy for homosexual children. Young, gay children, particularly effeminate boys and masculine girls, are being pressured into falsely identifying as transgender, thereby ‘transing away the gay.’”
Some conservative religious groups have tried to “pray the gay away,” thus enraging gay-rights groups. Today’s trans movement picks up where these fundamentalists left off.
Trans activists cannot leave young, potential homosexuals alone and let them grow up in peace and eventually become heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual. Instead, they too frequently prey upon them; speed them past possible lives as gay, bi or straight people; and inject and sculpt them into the other sex.
These transgender homophobes have taken conversion therapy well beyond faith. They have replaced prayers with needles and Bibles with knives.
Gay people should be blowing the whistle more loudly than anyone else to stop this monstrous movement that is erasing homosexuals more thoroughly than any preacher ever did.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The FBI whistleblower who raised the alarm about the bureau’s failure to investigate an alleged bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden is a “highly credible” informant who reportedly had been used in several investigations by the Obama administration and the FBI.
This new revelation, first published by Fox News, directly debunks several claims from Democrat officials who dismissed the Republican-led allegations against Biden when he served as President Hussein Barack Obama’s vice president.
Citing a source close to the investigation, Fox News reported that the confidential human source has been used for “at least several years” before an FBI file was created detailing the criminal plot.
The whistleblower brought their concerns to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., accusing the FBI of ignoring an FD-1023 informant file that reportedly detailed a criminal scheme involving a foreign national and Biden. The identify of the foreign national remains unknown.
“We know the FBI has very serious allegations against then-Vice President Biden. The question is what did they do with it. Did they investigate the leads or sweep it under the rug?” a spokesperson for Grassley’s office told Fox News in response to the report. “This is exactly why we need transparency into the document and what the FBI did with it? That’s what Sen. Grassley has sought from the start.”
The file, dated June 30, 2020, and detailing a criminal plot worth $5 million, has become the subject of a political fight between congressional Republicans and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who has refused on several occasions to release the document to the House Oversight Committee.
Wray’s inexplicable refusal has led Comer to prepare contempt of Congress charges against the embattled FBI director.
In response to the looming contempt charges, Wray attempted to appease Comer by allowing him and Democrats to review the document behind closed doors. However, both Comer and Grassley rejected the offer, insisting that the file should be made public.
“Today, FBI Director Wray confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 form alleging then-Vice President Biden engaged in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national,” Comer said on Wednesday in response to the offer. “However, Director Wray did not commit to producing the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee.”
Both Comer and Grassley have defended their congressional oversight authority in seeking the document.
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A patriotic moment at U.S. Capitol turned sour when the Rushbrook Children’s Choir was unexpectedly prohibited by Capitol Police from delivering their moving rendition of the American national anthem.
During their performance of The Star-Spangled Banner, the angelic voices of the young singers were abruptly silenced by a Capitol tour guide, acting on the demands of law enforcement officials who ludicrously claimed that singing the anthem might offend someone.
The Rushbrook Children’s Choir had traveled to the nation’s capital on May 26 for a scheduled tour and were anxiously waiting to share their patriotic songs on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, before they were abruptly stopped, as reported by the Gateway Pundit
The unfortunate interruption unfolded before the children’s own eyes and left both the young performers and the children shocked in disbelief. In a video recorded by a bystander, the disappointment on their faces was noticeable, even prompting an empathetic “Aww” from the observer.
The incident spread rapidly across Twitter, igniting several fired-up responses from individuals who perceive the claims that the national anthem could offend individuals as ridiculous.
Among those expressing their dismay was Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a conservative firebrand for free speech, who called the indictment “HORRIBLE!” in a tweet on Friday. “Why were children stopped from singing THE NATIONAL ANTHEM in our Capitol? This is a grave violation of their free speech rights. Capitol Police have no business deciding what speech is ok!” a fed-up Jackson said.
Jackson’s response was echoed by Blaze TV host Chad Prather, who said, “Are you kidding me??? US Capitol Police ordered CHILDREN to stop singing the national anthem. The police said it could offend people and start issues. Ridiculous.”
Former NYPD Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik demanded swift action from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and from “every member of Congress,” seemingly highlighting the importance of rectifying this disturbing incident.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., defended the children’s performance, saying the national anthem “sung by children is not offense,” also adding that “it’s needed more.” In a follow-up tweet, Greene revealed that the choir director for the children’s choir contacted her office to confirm that the young singers were forced by police to stop singing.
“I’m thankful for Capitol Police because most of them agree with kids singing the National Anthem,” the Georgia lawmaker added.
