The Democratic National Committee (DNC) paid legal fees for President Biden during the special counsel's probe into his possession of classified documents, with over $1.05 million paid to lawyers including Bob Bauer. The DNC emphasized not using grassroots donors' money for legal bills, contrasting it with Donald Trump's solicitation of legal fees from supporters and depleting various accounts. President Biden's campaign criticized Trump for similar actions. Former President Obama's lawyer Bob Bauer, married to White House adviser Anita Dunn, handled the legal services for President Biden.
The Democratic National Committee has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the pro-Robert Kennedy Jr. super PAC, American Values 2024, for failing to disclose $10 million in loans from a billionaire donor. The DNC alleges that the super PAC, supporting Kennedy's Independent presidential bid, violated federal law by not properly disclosing the loans and accused it of potential illegal coordination with the Kennedy campaign. This is part of Democrats' efforts to challenge Kennedy's candidacy as a spoiler for President Joe Biden, highlighting ties to major Republican donors.
President Biden's re-election campaign for the 2024 general election raised over $187 million in the first quarter of 2024, with $192 million in cash on hand, marking the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate at this point in the election cycle. The campaign had more than 1.1 million donors making over 1.9 million contributions, 96% of which were under $200. The campaign now boasts over 212,000 sustaining donors who have pledged more than $5.2 million in monthly contributions.
Between November 2022 and January 2023, approximately 25 to 30 classified government documents were discovered by President Joe Biden's attorneys in his former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., and in his personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware, dating to his time in the United States Senate and his vice presidency in the Obama administration. By June 2023, classified documents from Biden's Senate tenure were discovered in materials donated to the University of Delaware.On November 2, 2022, Biden's attorneys discovered the first set of classified documents in a locked closet at the Penn Biden Center; they reported them that day to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which retrieved them the next day. The classified documents included intelligence material and briefing memos on Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom. In coordination with the Justice Department (DOJ), Biden's attorneys discovered a second set of documents at Biden's home on December 20, followed by several more on January 9 and January 12, 2023. Biden's personal attorney said on January 21 that the Justice Department discovered six items containing classification markings during a consensual search of his home the previous day, some of which dated to his tenure in the Senate; investigators also seized some of Biden's handwritten notes from his vice presidency. On November 14, 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch Jr. to conduct an initial investigation. On January 12, 2023, Garland appointed Robert K. Hur as special counsel to investigate "possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records". The next day, the House Judiciary Committee opened a separate investigation into the documents. On February 8, 2024, the Justice Department released the report by special counsel Hur, which concluded that the "evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt", so "no criminal charges are warranted in this matter". For classified documents found in the Penn Biden Center and in the University of Delaware, Hur judged that they "could plausibly have been brought to these locations by mistake". For Afghanistan-related classified documents found in the garage of Biden's Delaware home, Hur stated that his investigation could not determine "why, how, or by whom" that material was kept. For Biden's handwritten notebooks found in Biden's Delaware home, which included classified content, Hur credited the possibility that Biden treated them as "personal property", given "historical practice" of the federal government allowing President Ronald Reagan to take home his diaries as "personal records" despite their classified content. While Hur found that Biden read out classified information from his notebooks to his ghostwriter, Hur judged that it was not proven that Biden knew that the information was classified. Hur also surmised that in a trial, "Biden would likely present himself to a jury ... as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" with "diminished faculties in advancing age".The report's comments on Biden's memory have sparked substantial political controversy, with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and New York magazine describing them as overshadowing the report's conclusion against charging Biden. During a press conference later that day, Biden criticized Hur's report for negatively assessing his mental state, describing it as "extraneous commentary", and stated "my memory's fine.". Biden also harshly criticized Hur for questioning him about the timing of his son Beau’s death, suggesting it was unnecessary. Other reports suggest that it was Biden himself that brought up Beau Biden in his testimony. The DOJ defended the report against criticism over inclusion of comments on Biden's memory, stating that the report and its public release fell well within DOJ guidelines.
The Democratic National Committee accuses Robert F Kennedy Jr's presidential campaign of acknowledging its role as a 'spoiler' in the November election, after a staffer associated with the campaign discussed campaign strategy in a video. The staffer outlined a strategy to reduce Biden's chances of winning by diverting electoral votes to Kennedy, aiming to send the decision to Congress where Trump would likely be chosen. RFK Jr has expressed concern about the 'weaponization of government' against Trump and vowed to appoint a special counsel for the January 6 events.
The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails stolen by one or more hackers operating under the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0" who are alleged to be Russian intelligence agency hackers, according to indictments carried out by the Mueller investigation. These emails were subsequently leaked by DCLeaks in June and July 2016 and by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, just before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. This collection included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members dating from January 2015 to May 2016. On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection. The emails and documents showed that the Democratic Party's national committee favored Clinton over her rival Bernie Sanders in the primaries. These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been cited as a potential contributing factor to her loss in the general election against Donald Trump.The leaks resulted in allegations of bias against Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign, in apparent contradiction with the DNC leadership's publicly stated neutrality, as several DNC operatives openly derided Sanders's campaign and discussed ways to advance Hillary Clinton's nomination. Later reveals included controversial DNC–Clinton agreements dated before the primary, regarding financial arrangements and control over policy and hiring decisions. The revelations prompted the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz before the 2016 Democratic National Convention. The DNC issued a formal apology to Bernie Sanders and his supporters "for the inexcusable remarks made over email" that did not reflect the DNC's "steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process." After the convention, DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned in the wake of the controversy.On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators that the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded Russia conducted operations during the 2016 U.S. election to prevent Hillary Clinton from winning the presidency. Multiple U.S intelligence agencies concluded people with direct ties to the Kremlin gave WikiLeaks hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. WikiLeaks did not reveal its source. Later Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, claimed that the source of the emails was not Russia or any other state.On July 13, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian military intelligence agents of a group known as Fancy Bear alleged to be responsible for the attack, who were behind the Guccifer 2.0 pseudonym which claimed responsibility.
Former President Donald Trump stressed the need to win back the White House and focus on key issues such as energy production, border security, inflation reduction, extending tax cuts, eliminating an electric vehicle mandate, protecting Israel, and preventing global war during a private speech to donors in Palm Beach, Florida. The event raised $50.5 million for Trump's campaign and related entities, surpassing President Biden's recent fundraising efforts. Biden criticized Trump for planning to extend tax cuts for the wealthy beyond 2025 in a video released after the event.
Aimee Harris, who stole Ashley Biden's diary and sold it to Project Veritas, received a one-month prison sentence and three months of home confinement after pleading guilty to conspiracy to transport stolen property. The court ordered her to forfeit $20,000 received for the diary. Harris and co-defendant Robert Kurlander tried to sell the diary to Donald Trump's campaign before approaching Project Veritas. FBI agents searched Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe's home as part of the investigation, but O'Keefe and Project Veritas were not charged. The diary, allegedly detailing Ms. Biden's substance addiction recovery, was not published by Project Veritas.
Former President Donald Trump encouraged liberal voters to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the presidential race, describing him as more left-leaning than Biden and a better choice. Trump suggested that Kennedy could take votes away from Biden, with Kennedy polling at 10% nationally. Kennedy, running as an independent, aims to draw support from both Trump and Biden. Trump baselessly predicted Kennedy's indictment by the Justice Department.
President Biden's reelection campaign to fight anti-abortion measures and restore Roe v Wade faces a challenge as allies of Trump plan to promote Independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr as a 'champion of choice' to draw votes from Biden. Trump's allies also aim to highlight high oil production under Biden to attract pro-environment progressives and criticize Biden's stance on Israel to sway voters in the key swing state of Michigan. Dark-money groups not affiliated with Trump's campaign will support these efforts.
Robert Hunter Biden (born February 4, 1970) is an American attorney and businessman. Biden has also worked as a hedge fund principal and a venture capital and private equity fund investor. He formerly worked as a banker, a lobbyist, and a legal representative for lobbying firms.Biden is the second son of U.S. President Joe Biden and his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden. In 1972, when Biden was two years old, a car crash killed his mother, who was driving, and his one-year-old sister, Naomi, and seriously injured both him and his older brother, Beau. In his memoir, Beautiful Things, Biden wrote of his struggles with drug and alcohol abuse, which escalated after Beau's 2015 death from brain cancer. He was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve shortly after his commissioning, due to a failed drug test.Biden was a founding board member of BHR Partners, a Chinese investment company, in 2013. He served on the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the largest private natural gas producers in Ukraine, from 2014 until his term expired in April 2019. Since early 2019, Hunter and his father have been the subjects of allegations of corrupt activities concerning Ukraine. The accusations concern Hunter Biden's business dealings in Ukraine and Joe Biden's anti-corruption efforts there.The New York Post published an article in October 2020 about a laptop computer that had belonged to Hunter Biden. The laptop supposedly contained about 129,000 emails and other materials, but the Post provided no evidence of the chain of custody or authenticity of the device. Other media outlets declined to publish the story, because of that lack of provenance. In March 2022, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that some of the emails found on the computer were authentic. Some of the Bidens' detractors have said that the laptop contents exposed corruption by Hunter's father but no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Joe Biden has been found. Subsequently, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hunter Biden had abandoned his Apple laptop computer in a repair shop in Delaware in 2019, but that files circulating online were "purportedly" from the laptop rather than confirmed to be.Biden's tax affairs have been under federal criminal investigation since late 2018. On July 26, 2023, Biden pled not guilty to tax charges for filing two years of his tax returns late. This is a reversal of his prior, guilty plea on June 20, 2023. At that time, he had also admitted to "illegally owning a gun while a drug user" because he knowingly denied drug use when applying for a gun purchase permit. On September 14, 2023, Biden was indicted by a special counsel in Delaware on three federal firearms-related charges, in particular possessing an unloaded pistol for 11 days. On December 7, 2023, the special counsel indicted Biden on nine additional counts, all tax-related charges including tax evasion. On January 11, 2024, Biden pleaded not guilty to all tax evasion charges in a Los Angeles federal courthouse. He is scheduled to face trial on June 20, 2024.
In the trial involving former President Donald Trump's alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, Trump's lawyers mistakenly subpoenaed a Brooklyn man named Jeremy Rosenberg instead of the intended Manhattan investigator. Rosenberg humorously responded that he had no files to provide and kept the $15 sent for mailing documents. The prosecutor confirmed the error and stated that the wrong person had been served. The trial, facing Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records, is set for jury selection on April 15.
The Senate Special Committee on Aging released a report detailing cases of elderly scam victims facing large tax bills on stolen money, including victims from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Utah, and California. Victims were hit by both thieves and the federal government, leaving them financially devastated. Chairman Bob Casey (D-Pa) oversaw the investigation, which highlighted cases like Larry, a retiree who lost $765,000 to scammers and owed over $220,000 in taxes. The report also mentions the case of Frances Sharples, a former White House scientist from Maryland scammed out of $655,000 and paying over $100,000 in taxes.
Concerns arise among Democrats about the impact of third-party candidates on President Biden's re-election bid in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. The DNC is establishing a committee led by Democratic operative Lis Smith to combat third-party efforts through communication strategies, opposition research, and legal actions. Joe Trippi, a veteran Democratic strategist, emphasizes the significant threat that third-party candidates pose in potentially aiding Trump's return to the White House. Matt Corridoni, another Democratic campaign staffer, highlights the importance of voter education and ensuring all candidates adhere to the rules. Meanwhile, there are discussions about the potential influence of a third-party presidential ticket and the need for Democratic unity to prevent Trump's victory
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