Analysis: The Clock Is Ticking for Vivek Ramaswamy’s Campaign to Make a Move

Vivek Ramaswamy is currently polling fourth among Republican presidential candidates and, with the Iowa caucus fast approaching, will need to rapidly make up ground for a strong early showing. Yet in early primary contests where candidates are spending big on political advertising, his campaign is so far keeping its powder dry.

The businessman has spent significantly less on political advertisements than his chief political rivals, and has only reserved just over $100,000 on future ad buys, a figure dwarfed by the campaigns of Trump, DeSantis and Haley. While his campaign has instead opted for local engagement in the key early nominating states, Republican operatives in Iowa and New Hampshire warn that time is running out for a major push.

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Impeachment Inquiry Sharpens Focus on Millions in Loans to Biden Family

There are red flags aplenty: Loan repayments between Joe Biden and his brother; millions in promissory notes between Hunter Biden and a Democrat-donating Hollywood lawyer; and debt deals from Ukraine to China. 

As the House impeachment inquiry heats up, investigators are increasingly focused on a trail of red ink that has become a recurring theme in evidence chronicling the first family’s finances.

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Whistleblowers: Biden’s Veterans Affairs Nominee Failed to Address Data Breaches

President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department has been accused by at least one whistleblower of being involved in serious data security breaches, resulting in demands from watchdog groups for more information about the allegations before the Senate votes on whether to confirm her.

The nominee, Tanya Bradsher, currently serves as Veterans Affairs chief of staff. She was nominated to the position of deputy secretary by Biden in April.

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FBI Harbored Biden Allegations Since 2017, Through Impeachment, Election, Lawmaker Says

If House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer’s sleuthing turns out to be right, the FBI harbored a deep, dark secret through the first Trump impeachment, the Hunter Biden laptop saga and the 2020 election fury. The secret: that a validated and well-paid informant raised concerns all the way back in 2017 that Joe Biden was involved in a $5 million bribery scheme involving Ukraine.

The question emerging now is did America’s most famous crime-fighting agency deep-six the allegation or dismiss it as “Russian disinformation” without thoroughly probing it.

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Congress Probing if FBI Used ‘Russian Disinformation’ Claim to Shut Down Biden Inquiries

The FBI travels to Capitol Hill on Monday to show House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer a confidential informant memo from summer 2020 alleging that Joe Biden was involved in a foreign bribery scheme, but the contents won’t be a surprise to Republicans. Both Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley have already read the memo.

The larger question for Teams Comer and Grassley is whether the FBI sidelined the allegation of a $5 million bribery involving U.S. policy – which came from a confidential human source with a trusted track record – during the height of the 2020 election.

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Senator Grassley: A ‘Triad’ of Media, FBI, and Democrats Tried to Thwart Investigation into the Biden Family’s Corrupt Business Dealings

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee’s first hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) detailed how a “triad” of partisan media, FBI, and Democrats used disinformation from a Russian agent to smear their investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

In addition to Grassley, the committee on Thursday heard from Senator Ron Johnson (R- Wis.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former FBI agent Thomas Baker, Professor Jonathan Turley, and former FBI agent Nicole Parker.

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The FBI Has a Sexual Misconduct Problem, Whistleblowers Reveal

Hundreds of FBI employees avoided discipline for sexual misconduct by retiring or resigning amid investigations from 2004 to 2020, according to Department of Justice records obtained by Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Whistleblower documents revealed that 665 FBI employees, including 45 senior executives, left their jobs following investigations into alleged sexual misconduct before they could be disciplined, according to Grassley. Higher ranking officials were subjected to less severe penalties than other staff, according to the documents.

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Democrat Running for Grassley’s Iowa GOP Senate Seat Removed from Primary for Lacking Signatures

An Iowa judge ruled has ruled that Democratic candidate and former Rep. Abby Finkenauer cannot run in her party’s June 7 primary to unseat seven-term incumbent GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley.

Polk County district Judge Scott Beattie said late on Sunday that Finkenauer lacked the valid signatures she needed on her nominating petition. The judge said Finkenauer failed to submit a petition with enough signatures after two Republicans challenged her signature collection.

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Watchdog Group Helps Uncover Potential Conflicts of Interest in Veterans Affairs Administration

After a watchdog group and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) pushed the Veterans Affairs Officer of the Inspector General (VA-OIG) to look into a possible conflict of interest, that OIG this week released a report saying that one VA official may have broken rules regarding conflicts of interest. 

The potential conflict of interest centers around executive director of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) Charmain Bogue and her husband’s business dealings. 

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Biden White House Stonewalls Two Key Senators in Inquiry into President’s Use of Private Email

The White House failed to meet a deadline last month to provide information to two key Republican senators concerning Joe Biden’s use of a private email account as vice president to send government information to his son Hunter Biden.

Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republicans on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and the Senate Judiciary Committee respectively, asked White House Counsel Dana Ann Remus in a July 30 letter to answer whether Biden used one or more private email accounts as vice president, whether he is using any today as president and whether government-related emails in the private accounts were preserved as required by the Federal Records Act.

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Top Republicans Seem Open to Some Kind of Gun Control

Congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden have vowed to act on gun control in the aftermath of two mass shootings that left 18 people dead, but despite their majorities in Congress, Democrats’ proposed bills would be extraordinarily unlikely to overcome a Republican Senate filibuster.

Partisan gridlock on guns is nothing new. No major gun control legislation has passed in over 25 years, when Congress passed a 10-year assault weapons ban under former President Bill Clinton. But despite the constant stalemates, some Republicans have offered alternative plans, meaning that the possibility of some form of bipartisan gun legislation may still exist.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey said Tuesday that while he did not think the two bills passed by the House would overcome a filibuster, there was still opportunity for compromise.

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Grassley Explains Why He Doesn’t Want To See Trump’s Tax Returns

by Nick Givas   Sen. Chuck Grassley explained why he wasn’t interested in seeing President Donald Trump’s personal tax returns, on “Fox & Friends” Monday. “Listen, you’re asking me as chairman of the Finance Committee, we would have an opportunity to see [Trump’s tax returns] too. I don’t want to see them,” he said. “I am not going to request them and you’re asking me in regard to Trump. I want to tell you that I look at this not from the point of view of Trump, but what is legitimate for Congress to do looking at people’s tax returns,” the Iowa Republican continued. “It’s not to know who the tax returns are. It’s supposed to serve a legislative purpose.” Grassely also said there should be an expectation of privacy with regard to personal tax information and expressed concerns about weaponizing the IRS to neutralize political enemies. “In fact the privacy of your tax returns are guaranteed by Section 6103,” he continued. “We want to make sure that what [former President Lyndon B. Johnson] did, what [former President Richard] Nixon did or what [former President Barack] Obama did — going after conservative organizations, that the IRS is not used for political purposes. But if you…

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Commentary: Kavanaugh Is Right; We Now Have Good Reason to Fear for the Future

by Jeffery Rendall   If the United States republic ultimately burns to ashes people will likely remember yesterday, September 27, 2018, as the beginning of the end. Or, in the alternative, if the political system somehow reforms itself citizens may look back fondly on that date as the reemergence of truth and due process. The country’s end of it all — or a possible new birth — were at stake as Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a “hearing” into Ford’s allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her sometime in the summer of 1982. I use the term “hearing” loosely because what transpired was more like a cage match (in two parts) than a high-level exchange between professional adults. These people represent (some of) our states? Lord help us. The behavior of the minority Democrats during the first three hours (when Blasey Ford testified) was so disgraceful and compromised as to call into question the legitimacy of the entire government. Instead of probing Ford with inquiries regarding the enormous holes in her recollections the ten Democrat senators used the majority of their time to lavishly bathe Ford in tributes, complimenting the witness…

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Calls for New FBI Probe of Kavanaugh Have No Precedent

by Fred Lucas   An FBI inquiry into a California woman’s allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh would be highly unusual, but wouldn’t necessarily delay a Senate vote on confirmation, legal experts said. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor of clinical psychology at Palo Alto University in California, alleges that Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her when the two were teenagers in suburban Maryland in the early 1980s. The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to reconvene Monday to hear from both Ford, 51, and Kavanaugh, 53, a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia since 2006. But Tuesday night, Ford’s lawyer asked for an FBI investigation into the matter before Ford would talk to the committee. “Dr. Ford’s request is in reverse order,” Michael J. Clark, a former 22-year FBI agent, told The Daily Signal. “If she does not come forward for a Senate hearing, the Senate is chasing its tail.” Clark, who lectures in the criminal justice department of the University of New Haven, said the Senate then could decide to ask the FBI to look at the matter further. “She should testify so senators can determine if she is credible,” Clark said.…

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Supreme Court Nominee Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Hearings to Begin September 4

Brett Kavanaugh

by Fred Lucas   The confirmation hearings for federal appeals court Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to become the next Supreme Court justice will begin on Sept. 4 and last three to four days, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, announced Friday. Grassley’s announcement comes as Senate Democrats sought to further stall the hearings, demanding more documents on Kavanaugh’s service in President George W. Bush’s White House and as a lawyer on independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. “As I said after his nomination, Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most respected jurists in the country and one of the most qualified nominees ever to be considered by the Senate for a seat on our highest court,” said Grassley in a statement. Kavanaugh has served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2006. President Donald Trump nominated him July 9 to fill the vacancy of the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Grassley continued: My team has already reviewed every page of the over 4,800 pages of judicial opinions Judge Kavanaugh wrote, over 6,400 pages of opinions he joined, more than 125,000 pages of records produced…

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