Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, filed an ethics complaint Friday against Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green after she displayed censured nude photos of the president’s son at a committee hearing Wednesday.

Lowell demanded the Office of Congressional Ethics ‘immediately’ examine Greene’s actions, which he called ‘abhorrent behavior that blatantly violates House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct’ in his message to the watchdog.

‘Now more than ever, the House has a duty to make loud and clear that it does not endorse, condone, or agree with her outrageous, undignified conduct and brazen violations of the standards of official conduct that do not reflect creditably on the House of Representatives,’ Lowell wrote in a letter, which The Hill first reported.

Lowell’s request stems from Greene holding up several graphic photos from Hunter Biden’s laptop during a committee hearing Wednesday where IRS whistleblowers alleged misconduct in investigations into the Biden family.

The House Oversight Committee interviewed two IRS whistleblowers — Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, whose identity was revealed during the hearing, and his IRS supervisor Gary Shapley — who alleged political misconduct throughout the Hunter Biden investigation 

Shapley previously blew the whistle on alleged political influence surrounding prosecutorial decisions throughout the years-long federal probe into President Biden’s son.

Ziegler testified Wednesday that Hunter Biden itemized a $10,000 deduction on his 2018 tax return for a supposed golf club membership that was actually a sex club membership and that Hunter Biden wrote off payments to prostitutes as business expenses.

Greene held up censored nude photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and addressed Ziegler. 

‘So, when Hunter Biden paid for this woman to do this with him, to travel across state lines from California to Washington, D.C., on June 15, this is a violation of the Mann Act. This was prostitution,’ Greene said.

‘This is evidence of Hunter Biden making sex — excuse me, this is my time – making pornography,’ she said, holding up another photo as Democrats objected.

One member interjected that showing the pictures was ‘unbecoming of this hearing,’ and another asked, ‘Should we be displaying this … in the committee?’

Ziegler, who identified himself as a gay Democrat with more than a dozen years serving within the IRS’ criminal investigative division, appeared for the first time publicly Wednesday, and Shapley testified to the House Ways and Means Committee last month.

The whistleblowers allege that officials at the Justice Department, FBI and IRS interfered in the investigation into Hunter Biden and that politics influenced decisions in the case.

Greene’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ethics complaint. 

Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis let loose on Vice President Kamala Harris for her speech Friday in Jacksonville, where she railed against the state’s education standards on teaching Black history.

‘Democrats like Kamala Harris have to lie about Florida’s educational standards to cover for their agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto children. Florida stands in their way, and we will continue to expose their agenda and their lies,’ DeSantis said in a statement on social media.

‘The Harris-Biden administration is obsessed with Florida…yet they ignore the chaos at the border, crime-infested cities, economic malaise, and the military recruitment crisis. Maybe if Biden’s granddaughter moved to Florida he’d actually visit her,’ he added, referencing President Biden’s refusal to acknowledge his seventh grandchild, Navy Joan Roberts, the estranged daughter of Hunter Biden.

Harris spoke Friday afternoon at the Ritz Theater and Museum in downtown Jacksonville, and, according to a Thursday statement on social media, will offer remarks critical of the Florida Department of Education’s decision to approve new standards for the teaching of certain aspects of Black history.

‘I’ll be on the ground in Florida tomorrow. We’re fighting back against attempts to gaslight us, cover up our history, and rewrite the horrors of slavery. [President Biden] and I will always stand up for fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to learn and teach America’s full history,’ Harris wrote.

The new standards for the Black history curriculum were approved by the department on Wednesday.

According to liberal outlet NBC News, the new standards include ‘teaching students that some Black people benefited from slavery because it taught them useful skills that could be used for their ‘personal benefit.”

The state’s 2022 ‘Stop WOKE Act’ required the changes be made.

President Biden and his son Hunter allegedly ‘coerced’ Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky to pay them millions of dollars in exchange for their help in getting the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company fired, according to allegations contained in an unclassified FBI document released Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Grassley said he had released the document so that the American people can ‘read this document for themselves without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats.’

The document is an FBI-generated FD-1023 form, which Grassley acquired through legally protected disclosures by Department of Justice whistleblowers, according to the senator’s office.

That document reflects the FBI’s interview with a ‘highly credible’ confidential human source (CHS) who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings over the course of several years, starting in 2015. At that time, Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma.

Biden has acknowledged that when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, and Hunter had a highly lucrative role on the board. The then-vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin were not fired.

The White House has denied the allegations.

Here are the top five most significant allegations in the FBI FD-1023 form:

‘Both’ Joe and Hunter Biden advised Burisma CEO to keep Hunter on the board

According to the document, Zlochevsky told the confidential human source that Hunter Biden ”was stupid, and his [Zlochevsky’s] dog was smarter.”

But Zlochevsky told the source that he ‘needed to keep Hunter Biden [on the board] ‘so everything will be okay.”

The source went on to ask ‘whether Hunter Biden or Joe Biden told Zlochevsky he should retain Hunter.’

‘Zlochevsky replied: ‘They both did,’’ the document said.

The source reiterated that this was a ‘mistake,’ and that Zlochevsky ‘should fire Hunter Biden and deal with Shokin’s investigation directly so that the matter’ would stay an issue in Ukraine and so that it would not ‘turn into some international matter,’ to which Zlochevsky stressed not to worry and said that ‘this thing will go away anyway.’

Hunter said he would help end criminal investigation into Burisma ‘through his dad’

Zlochevsky said that Burisma had ‘hired Hunter Biden ‘to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.’’

At the time, Biden was vice president and was overseeing U.S.-Ukraine policy.

Zlochevsky also told the source ‘something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, Hunter will take care of those issues through his dad.’

The Bidens ‘pushed’ Burisma CEO Zlochevsky to pay them

The form details a ‘2016/2017 telephone call’ the source had with Zlochevsky after the 2016 presidential election. Zlochevsky said he was ‘not happy Trump won the election.’

‘CHS asked Zlochevsky whether he was concerned about Burisma’s involvement with the Bidens,’ the form states. ‘Zlochevsky stated he didn’t want to pay the Bidens and he was ‘pushed to pay’ them.’

The source explained to the FBI agent taking notes that the Russian term Zlochevsky used to explain the payments was ‘poluchili.’ The form states that ‘literally translates to; ‘got it’ or ‘received it’ but is also used in ‘Russian criminal slang for being ‘forced or coerced to pay.’’

At that point, Shokin had already been fired. Zlochevsky said that ‘nobody would find out about his financial dealings with the Bidens.’

Burisma CEO did not pay ‘the Big Guy’ directly

The source warned Zlochevsky in a 2019 conversation that he ‘might have difficulty explaining suspicious wire transfers that may evidence any (illicit) payments to the Bidens.’

‘Zlochevsky responded he did not send any funds directly to the ‘Big Guy’ (which CHS understood was a reference to Joe Biden),’ the form states.

The form says that the confidential source asked Zlochevsky how many companies and bank accounts he controlled, to which he responded that it would ‘take them (investigators) 10 years to find the records (i.e., illicit payments to Joe Biden).’

Burisma CEO has audio recordings, text messages, wire transfer statements as ‘proof’ of arrangement

The source told Zlochevsky that he hoped he had ‘some back-up (proof) for your words (namely, that Zlochevsky was ‘forced’ to pay the Bidens).’

‘Zlochevsky replied he has many text messages and ‘recordings’ that show that he was coerced to make such payments,’ the form states. ‘CHS told Zlochevsky he should make certain that he should retain those recordings.’

The source said that Zlochevsky said he had ‘a total of 17 recordings’ involving the Bidens; ‘two of the recordings included Joe Biden, and the remaining 15 recordings only included Hunter Biden.’

The source said that those recordings ‘evidence Zlochevsky was somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure’ that Shokin would be fired.

The source said Zlochevsky also had ‘two documents (which CHS understood to be wire transfer statements, bank records, etc.), that evidence some payment(s) to the Bidens were made, presumably in exchange for Shokin’s firing.’

A former Republican legislative candidate who traveled to Washington for former President Donald Trump’s ‘Stop the Steal’ rally was arrested Friday and charged with federal crimes for his role in the U.S. Capitol riot, officials said.

Matthew Brackley, 39, of Waldoboro, Maine, entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and asked for the location of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office before shouting, ‘Let’s go,’ according to prosecutors.

He was arrested on felony charges including assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers and civil disorder, along with several misdemeanors. He made his initial court appearance on Friday.

It was not clear if Brackley had a lawyer, and he did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

Brackley tried unsuccessfully to unseat Democratic state Sen. Eloise Vitelli of Arrowsic last year. His campaign website described him as a Maine Maritime Academy graduate whose approach would be to have ‘respectful, thoughtful conversations on the issues.’

At the Capitol, prosecutors said, Brackley led a group that pushed through police officers several times before ultimately being dispersed by chemical spray and exiting.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack.

Approximately 100 of them have been convicted by juries or judges after trials, and more than 600 have pleaded guilty.

Over 570 riot defendants have been sentenced, with more than half receiving prison terms ranging from three days to 18 years.

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President Biden has overruled the Pentagon and chosen Adm. Lisa Franchetti to lead the Navy, making her the first woman, if she’s confirmed, to be a Pentagon service chief and the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Biden’s decision goes against the recommendation of his Pentagon chief, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who recommended the president select Adm. Samuel Paparo, the current commander of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, according to multiple reports.

In a statement on Friday, Biden noted how Franchetti is an unprecedented choice for such a high-level military post due to her sex, adding that she’s the second woman ever to achieve the rank of four-star admiral in the Navy.

‘As our next chief of naval operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti will bring 38 years of dedicated service to our nation as a commissioned officer, including in her current role of vice chief of naval operations,’ Biden continued. ‘Throughout her career, Admiral Franchetti has demonstrated extensive expertise in both the operational and policy arenas.’

During her tenure, Franchetti has commanded two aircraft carrier strike groups in the Pacific and served as the commander of U.S. Naval Forces Korea, deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting development, and director for strategy, plans, and policy of the Joint Staff. As head of 6th Fleet, she oversaw the Navy’s response to Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s use of chemical weapons.

Despite having a different recommendation, Austin praised Biden’s selection, saying, ‘I’m very proud that Admiral Franchetti has been nominated to be the first woman chief of naval operations and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where she will continue to inspire all of us.’

Biden nominated Austin’s preferred choice, Paparo, to be the commander of Indo-Pacific Command. Meanwhile, the president also tapped Vice Adm. James Kilby to be the vice chief of the Navy and Vice Adm. Stephen Koehler to head the Pacific Fleet.

Franchetti will likely join several other general and flag officers whose confirmations are being held up by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala, in protest of a Defense Department policy that pays for travel when a service member or their dependents leave the state to get an abortion. Biden slammed Tuberville’s protest in his statement.

‘What Senator Tuberville is doing is not only wrong — it is dangerous,’ said Biden. ‘In this moment of rapidly evolving security environments and intense competition, he is risking our ability to ensure that the United States Armed Forces remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. And his Republican colleagues in the Senate know it.’

Franchetti marks another first for the Biden administration’s Pentagon, which has had the first Black secretary of defense and the first female Army secretary.

Biden has also nominated Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If Brown is confirmed to serve along with Austin at the top, it would mark the first time the Pentagon’s two most senior leaders are Black men.

The White House has argued diversity gives the U.S. a ‘strategic advantage,’ while Republican critics have expressed concern that the Biden administration is more concerned about being ‘woke’ than ensuring the military’s effectiveness.

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin and Liz Friden contributed to this report.

The Biden administration filed a brief late Friday, asking the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling and reinstate the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) which would transport natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia.

In the brief, filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the Department of the Interior, the federal government argued a recent 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that stayed the MVP project violated federal statute. The Fiscal Responsibility Act, the bipartisan debt limit bill President Biden signed in early June, fast-tracked federal permits for the MVP and shifted judicial review jurisdiction away from the 4th Circuit.

‘Whatever benefit respondents or the court of appeals might believe would be gained by having the agencies again reconsider the challenged actions, Congress has determined that further reconsideration is unwarranted and has prioritized MVP’s ‘timely’ completion over interests addressed by any other federal statutes,’ the filing stated.

‘That judgment is for Congress alone,’ it continued.

The filing is the latest in a string of briefs filed in the case urging the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court ruling. 

On July 14, the pipeline’s developer asked the Supreme Court to vacate the stay issued by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court then set a deadline of early next week for plaintiffs, a coalition of environmental groups, to respond.

Since then, fossil fuel industry groups, a bicameral group of lawmakers, counsel for the House of Representatives, and a major labor union representing workers on the MVP project have called on the Supreme Court to vacate the lower court stay.

‘The Fourth Circuit judges are not supreme rulers and lawful orders issued by the legislative and executive branches must be followed,’ GOP Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. ‘Congress was well within its power to restart the Mountain Valley Pipeline construction and usher in a new era of energy independence for the region.’ 

‘Instead of halting the pipeline, I urge the Supreme Court to plug up the ludicrous activism seeping out of the lower court so American families can enjoy lower energy costs, substantial land royalties, and most importantly – law and order in America,’ he continued.

Reschenthaler led a group of seven fellow representatives and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va, in filing a brief in support of the MVP project’s permits.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who also played a role in securing the pipeline in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, filed his own amicus brief in the case Tuesday.

‘We cannot let this continue any longer,’ Manchin said. ‘It’s a shame when members of Congress have to ask the Supreme Court to intervene to maintain the credibility of the laws that we have passed and the President has signed, but I am confident that the Court will uphold our laws and allow construction of MVP to resume.’

According to Equitrans Midstream, the pipeline’s developer, MVP will transport about 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas from West Virginia to consumers in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic. The pipeline is projected to generate $40 million in new tax revenue for West Virginia, $10 million in new tax revenue for Virginia and up to $250 million in royalties for West Virginia landowners.

An Elias Law Group suit filed Thursday seeks to reinstate Wisconsin voters’ ability to deposit absentee ballots in drop boxes.The practice was barred by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s conservative majority last year, though the ruling may be reversed once newly elected Janet Protasiewicz ascends to the bench, handing liberals a majority.‘By restricting Wisconsin voters’ options for returning their absentee ballots and having those ballots properly counted, the Drop Box Prohibition severely burdens the right to vote,’ the lawsuit argues.

A new lawsuit filed in Wisconsin by a national Democratic law firm seeks to once again allow voters to return absentee ballots in drop boxes, a practice that was barred by the state Supreme Court last year following criticism by former President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit filed Thursday by the Elias Law Group comes less than two weeks before the Wisconsin Supreme Court flips from a conservative to liberal majority. Election law challenges like this one are among many issues the new liberal-controlled court is expected to rule on in the coming months.

The rules for voting in Wisconsin are of heightened interest given its place as one of a handful of battleground presidential states. Four of the past six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than a percentage point, including the past two.

The 4-3 conservative majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in July 2022, just months before the midterm election, banned the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, which exploded in popularity in 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, who won Wisconsin in 2016 but lost it in 2020, has falsely alleged that absentee voting in the state is rife with fraud.

His defeat in Wisconsin has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, numerous lawsuits and a review by a conservative group.

The state Supreme Court, in its ruling last year, said that the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which oversees elections in the state, did not have the authority to tell election clerks that drop boxes could be placed throughout their communities. The court limited drop boxes only to election clerks’ offices.

‘By restricting Wisconsin voters’ options for returning their absentee ballots and having those ballots properly counted, the Drop Box Prohibition severely burdens the right to vote,’ the lawsuit said in arguing that last year’s ruling should be overturned. ‘Without the opportunity to drop off their absentee ballots at drop boxes, voters must instead rely on the U.S. Postal Service — and its unsecured mailboxes — to deliver their absentee ballot and simply hope that the ballot arrives by election day.’

Supporters of the drop boxes have argued that they are a better option than mailing ballots because they go directly to the clerks and can’t be lost or delayed in transit.

The lawsuit also seeks to undo a requirement that a witness sign absentee ballots and that any problems with absentee ballots be corrected by the voter no later than 8 p.m. on Election Day. It argues that absentee voting is a right and not a privilege and that state law not recognizing that violates the Wisconsin Constitution.

The lawsuit was filed against the Wisconsin Elections Commission by two liberal-leaning organizations, Priorities USA and the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans, as well as a Dane County resident. It will start in Dane County circuit court, but could make its way to the state Supreme Court which will have a 4-3 liberal majority starting Aug. 1.

Spokespersons for the elections commission and the state Department of Justice, which typically represents the commission, both declined to comment on the lawsuit.

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FIRST ON FOX: The Democrat tech billionaire who helped rehab Jeffrey Epstein’s image and visited his island has poured thousands in donations into several vulnerable Senate races across the country.

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman recently gave the maximum donations of $6,600 each to the campaigns of Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., and Bob Casey, D-Pa., according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.

All three races are considered battlegrounds going into Election Day 2024. 

News of the donations come after the Wall Street Journal reported in May that Hoffman visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island, called Little St. James, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, on at least one occasion in 2014.

Hoffman and the now-deceased convicted pedophile were planning to return to the island in November 2014, and then travel to Boston, the report said. It’s unclear what the intent was for those planned trips, but the report also revealed Hoffman was planning to stay at Epstein’s luxury Manhattan townhouse in December 2014 after a late arrival in New York City.

Hoffman also sent the maximum $6,600 donation on June 14 to the campaign of California Democrat Will Rollins, who is again trying to grab a congressional seat after a narrow loss during the 2022 elections, Fox News Digital reported Tuesday. 

Fox News Digital also reported this week that the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee authorized by the Biden campaign, received a whopping $699,600.00 donation from Hoffman on April 26 and a maximum donation of $6,600 went directly to Biden’s campaign.

Hoffman recently made headlines in June after Biden attended a fundraiser the billionaire hosted on behalf of the Biden Victory Fund at the private residence of Shannon Hunt-Scott and Kevin Scott in Los Gatos, California.

Hoffman told The Journal in May it ‘gnaws at’ him that his association with Epstein ‘helped his reputation, and thus delayed justice for his survivors.’ 

‘My last interaction with Epstein was in 2015. Still, by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice,’ Hoffman said in 2019. ‘For this, I am deeply regretful.’

The 2015 interaction was when he invited Epstein to a Silicon Valley dinner with tech industry leaders.

In September that same year, Hoffman attended a state dinner hosted by then-Vice President Biden at the White House in honor of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Fox News Digital has previously reported that Hoffman’s money also goes into nontraditional groups that aren’t mandated to report their funding and often operate in the shadows. He was forced to issue an apology in 2018 for funding a group that falsely tried to give an impression that the Russian government was supporting Alabama Republican Roy Moore in a 2017 special Senate election.

Biden has benefited from Hoffman’s lavish spending on campaign contributions, donating $1.5 million to a super PAC that supported Biden’s candidacy in the 2020 election as well as the maximum individual dollar amount allowed to Biden’s campaign, according to FEC records.

Such spending can come with certain perks – such as access. According to White House visitor logs, Hoffman visited the White House five times last year. One of the visits appears to have been for the state dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron. The other four trips were for meetings with Madeline Strasser, who at the time advised then-White House chief of staff Ron Klain; Kimberly Lang, who at the time was the executive assistant to Biden’s national security adviser; and Jordan Finkelstein, a special assistant to Biden and chief of staff to the president’s senior adviser.

Hoffman and the campaigns for Tester, Rosen, and Casey did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

Fox News’ Joe Schoffstall, Aaron Kliegman and Brandon Gillespie contributed to this report.

President Biden stumbled over his words Thursday during a speech at the Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, where he took credit for low unemployment and decreasing inflation.

The president approached the podium with pep in his step to address a crowd of union supporters about the apparent successes of ‘Bidenomics’ — perhaps too much so as he spoke energetically but seemed to trip over his words.

‘I often say, and I mean this sincerely, Wall Street — good folks down there — but they didn’t build the middle class. They didn’t build America. The middle class was built by the middle class,’ Biden said, fumbling his oft-repeated line that the middle class built the American economy and ‘unions built the middle class.’

The president spoke quickly, assuring his audience in one breath that he’s a ‘capitalist’ while disparaging the ‘trickle-down’ policies of Republican presidents with another.

‘I watched my dad growing up, and not a whole lot of benefit trickled down on his kitchen table as a consequence of trickle-down economics,’ Biden said. Then he became incoherent.

‘To what everyone from Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal has become my change, my different philosophy, they, I don’t think they started off trying to be complimentary because they started calling it ‘Bidenomics,’’ the president said. ‘And our plan is working, Bidenomics.’

It’s not immediately clear what the president intended to say. The White House did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

However, the president in recent weeks has embraced the media-coined term as a catch-all descriptor for his economic policies. Despite polls showing voters aren’t convinced the economy is improving, Biden delivered a full-throated defense of Bidenomics, claiming credit for 13 million new jobs created since he assumed office.

‘Unemployment is below 4%, the longest stretch of unemployment below 4% in the last 50 years,’ Biden said.

‘Unemployment’s down, but to the surprise of a lot of economists, so is inflation,’ he added. ‘You got to cut wages for hard-working folks? You got to have unemployment up in order for inflation to come down? Well, guess what, I never bought that.’

Biden also said his policies have slashed the federal deficit by $1.7 trillion, that the Inflation Reduction Act made the ‘largest investment to combat climate’ anywhere in the world (at a $368 billion price tag), and he promised that building green infrastructure would lead to more good-paying union jobs.

Republicans fired back at some of these claims, with the RNC observing on Twitter that prices rose 16.6% since Biden took office and inflation has yet to meet the Federal Reserve’s target rate. Biden took office in January 2021 with inflation just over 1%, which rose to 9.1% by June 2022 and has since dropped to under 4%.

Fact-checkers have also pushed back on the president. In June, Biden made the same claim about cutting the deficit by $1.7 trillion, which The Washington Post rated ‘highly misleading’ as others also scrutinized the claim.

Voters also have their doubts; Biden had a 60% disapproval rating on the economy in Fox News’ June poll, which was a 7% improvement from the prior year.

But the president’s argument is whatever progress there has been in his first term needs to be continued as he campaigns for a second. 

‘I’m not here to declare victory. We got a long way to go in the economy,’ Biden said. ‘I’m here to say we have more work to do. We have a plan that’s turning things around pretty quickly. Bidenomics is just another way of saying ‘restore the American dream.’’

Fox News’ Lawrence Richard and Patrick Hauf contributed to this report.

Republican Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach is pushing forward in a legal bid to prevent sex changes from being listed on state driver’s licenses.Five transgender Kansans represented by the state’s ACLU chapter requested to intervene in the lawsuit. Kobach opposes the motion.‘It’s a pretty cut-and-dried case,’ Kobach said to reporters.

The Republican attorney general in Kansas is working to keep transgender people from intervening in his state-court lawsuit against changing the sex listings on their state driver’s licenses. His efforts already will block further changes until at least November.

Attorney General Kris Kobach, his legal team and lawyers for the Kansas Department of Revenue were in court Thursday to set a schedule for the lawsuit. The department’s motor vehicles division issues driver’s licenses and has changed the sex listing for more than 900 people during the past four years.

Kobach argues that changing driver’s licenses to reflect transgender people’s gender identities violates a state law rolling back transgender rights that took effect July 1. He sued two top Department of Revenue officials earlier this month after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly announced that the changes would continue despite the new state law.

Five transgender Kansas residents represented by the state’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter are asking District Judge Teresa Watson to allow them intervene in the lawsuit. Kobach said Thursday he is opposing their request, and Watson plans to rule on it after an Aug. 16 hearing.

Earlier this month, Watson granted Kobach’s request to block driver’s license changes while his lawsuit moves forward. Both Kobach’s office and the Department of Revenue’s attorneys agreed it should stay in place at least until another hearing, now set for Nov. 1.

During Thursday’s hearing in Shawnee County, home to the state capital of Topeka, Kobach unsuccessfully pushed Watson to move ahead with a full trial of his lawsuit as early as next month.

‘It’s a pretty cut-and-dried case,’ Kobach told reporters. ‘The statute means what it says. They have a different interpretation of the statute.’

Because of Kobach’s lawsuit, Kansas is among only a few states not allowing transgender residents to change their driver’s licenses, along with Montana, Oklahoma and Tennessee. In a separate federal court case, Kobach also is trying to stop changes in the sex listings on Kansas birth certificates.

The new Kansas law defines male and female based on a person’s sex assigned at birth and says those definitions apply to any other state law or regulation, ending legal recognition of transgender people’s gender identities. Kobach contends it requires Kansas to undo past changes in its records. The Republican-controlled Legislature enacted the law over Kelly’s veto.

ACLU attorneys argue that the new law violates transgender people’s rights under the Kansas Constitution, including their rights to privacy and bodily autonomy.

‘When we’re trying to make this about something very simple like statutory interpretation, what we’re doing is ignoring the reality that transgender Kansans are going to face every single day in this state,’ Sharon Brett, the ACLU of Kansas’ legal director, said after the hearing.

In interviews, transgender Kansas residents have said having a driver’s license with a sex listing that doesn’t match their gender identity complicates getting through airport security, dealing with a traffic stop or even using a credit card. They also have said interactions with others out them publicly as transgender — and potentially jeopardize their safety.

In a court filing, Kathryn Redman, a 62-year-old Kansas City-area resident, said that before she changed her Kansas driver’s license in 2021, she was subjected to ‘invasive pat downs in the genital area of my body’ before getting on flights.

‘I frequently received rude comments and I was always uncomfortable in public settings where showing my license was required,’ she said.

Kobach said after Thursday’s hearing that the transgender people’s legal claims are premature because Watson hasn’t ruled on whether driver’s license changes violate the new state law. He said he sees the first task as considering the new law’s meaning.

‘There will be more than adequate time for constitutional questions to be considered,’ he said.

The Department of Revenue’s attorneys have argued that the new law conflicts with an older law specifically dealing with driver’s licenses and that the agency remains bound to follow the older one. The department supports allowing the transgender people to intervene in the case.

‘We’re not in a position as the Department of Revenue to appropriately address those concerns,’ Pedro Irigonegaray, one of the attorneys, said after Thursday’s hearing.

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