FIRST ON FOX – North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is spotlighting his opposition to President Biden’s energy policy as he runs for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

‘We should be selling energy to our allies instead of buying it from our enemies. But Joe Biden shut down our oil and gas production,’ Burgum charges in a new ad that was shared first with Fox News on Thursday.

And Burgum, a former software company CEO turned two-term governor of his native state, argues that ‘true energy independence will lower gas prices, unleash the economy, and strengthen national security. In North Dakota, we call that a no brainer.’

Burgum’s campaign tells Fox News that it will spend over $1.2 million to run the spot on TV and digital starting Thursday statewide in Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the first two contests in the GOP presidential nominating calendar.

Energy, the economy, and national security are the three crucial issues Burgum is spotlighting as he wages a dark horse campaign for the White House.

‘We’re running because we want to unleash the American economy and we want to improve every American life and the way we do that, of course, is to get our economy really rolling. To get our economy really rolling we’ve got to make sure we’ve got to make sure we’ve got an energy policy that’s 180 degrees different than the one we have under the Biden administration. When we fix energy policy, then we have an opportunity to really stabilize the world,’ Burgum argued in a Fox Digital interview as he launched his campaign.

And he charged that Biden’s energy policy is ’empowering dictators like Putin to invade Ukraine.’

Since taking office in 2021, Biden and his administration have pursued an aggressive climate agenda to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and boost green energy alternatives. 

Burgum, pointing to U.S. relations with China, emphasized in a Fox Business interview last week that ‘we’ve got to get our energy game on because that’s actually the way to have power. We are a superpower in energy and whoever’s the superpower in energy is going to rule the world.’ 

And taking to twitter last weekend, the governor argued that ‘the Biden administration wants to separate energy from national security – but that’s just not how things work. The world will become a much safer place when America regains true energy independence.’

While he’s anything but a household name outside of North Dakota, Burgum enters the 2024 presidential race as one of the wealthiest members of the Republican field, along with multi-millionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former President Donald Trump, who’s the commanding front-runner in the latest Republican primary polls as he makes his third straight White House run.

Asked how much of his own money he’ll invest in his 2024 campaign, Burgum wouldn’t give a dollar figure, but told Fox Digital earlier this month that ‘in every other venture that I’ve started, I’ve been willing to invest in myself and I wouldn’t ask donors to invest in this race if they didn’t know that I was investing in myself.’

Burgum appears to be holding to that promise – as his campaign says the new ad buy brings their spending to run spots to over $4 million.

Alex Soros, son of billionaire financier George Soros, huddled with high-ranking Democrats shortly after taking the reins of the powerful Open Society Foundations (OSF), continuing his long-running trend of privately meeting with influential politicians and publicly posting the encounters.

The meeting appears to be his first with federal lawmakers since he’s taken control of his father’s robust multibillion-dollar nonprofit network that injects vast sums into left-wing endeavors. 

On June 11, OSF announced Alex would take over the network after the elder Soros did not want to hand it to any of his children. George, however, ultimately said, ‘He’s earned it.’

Days after the announcement, Alex hosted a New York event featuring House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top Empire State Democrats, including Reps. Jerry Nadler and Gregory Meeks, according to an Instagram post. 

‘Back in a New York minute to host distinct members of the New York for hmp with [Rep. Hakeem Jeffries] and members of the New York house delegation, [Rep. Pat Ryan, Rep. Jerry Nadler, Rep. Gregory Meeks, Rep. Ritchie Torres] on their quest to take the back [sic] the 2024 majority! And always supporting the sneaker caucus!’ Alex wrote June 17.

Alex’s social media profiles have dozens of pictures of him and leading House and Senate Democrats since 2018. The two who appear the most are Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. Alex had at least nine meetings with Schumer, whom he referred to as his ‘good friend.’  

Alex had at least eight visits with Pelosi, calling her the ‘greatest Speaker of the House in American History!’ 

Weeks ago, he publicized a photo with Vice President Kamala Harris, writing, ‘Great to recently catch up with Madame Vice President, [Kamala Harris]!’ 

Alex has enjoyed extensive access to the Biden White House and seems to be maintaining the direct line as he now steers one of the most prominent liberal foundations in America. After handing over control, George said they ‘think alike,’ but Alex noted he is ‘more political.’

Alex has visited the White House at least 17 times since 2021, according to a previous Fox News Digital review of visitor logs. His most recent visits included three meetings between Feb. 8-10, and the logs list Jon Finer, the principal deputy national security adviser; Jordan Finkelstein, special assistant to the president and the chief of staff for senior Biden adviser Anita Dunn; and Mariana Adame, the adviser to the counselor of the president, as those greeting Alex.

While those individuals are listed in the records, it remains unclear who he may have met with for the sessions. The documents can contain White House staff who book appointments, meet the guests and take them to other personnel, ultimately concealing the intended meeting host.

For instance, a White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital in January that two of Alex’s past visits were with Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff, who was not listed in the records. OSF did not answer previous questions on the nature of his meetings, and the White House did not respond to an inquiry. 

Alex has also donated millions to Democrats over the past several years, albeit far less than his father. Since the 2018 elections, Alex has poured more than $5 million into federal political coffers. Records show that his largest contribution was $2 million to the Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC during this time. 

Alex pushed over $700,000 into the Biden Victory Fund in 2020, putting him among its top donors. He’s provided hundreds of thousands in additional cash to the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund, Democratic National Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). He’s also given tens of thousands more to state Democratic parties and individual campaigns, many of which were maximum contributions. 

Alex, now 37 years old, attempted to differentiate himself from his father while in his 20s as a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley by launching the Alexander Soros Foundation.

‘If I don’t succeed, then I’m just another lazy deadbeat trust fund kid,’ he told The New York Times in 2012. The nonprofit has appeared to be more of an afterthought.

An OSF spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Alex’s meetings with Democratic lawmakers.

The Biden administration’s burdensome regulations have cost Americans about $10,000 per household, according to a new report, which noted that figure could skyrocket if President Biden is re-elected in 2024 and serves another four years.

Casey Mulligan, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, compares the regulatory records of President Biden and former Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama in a new study published by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.

As of the end of last year, according to the study, the Biden administration imposed new regulatory costs on American households and businesses at a pace that is surpassing that of the Obama administration during a comparable time period. Specifically, Mulligan writes that the Biden administration has so far been adding regulatory costs at a rate of $617 billion per year of rulemaking, not counting regulatory costs created by statutes and other non-rule regulatory actions.

Mulligan calculates that the added costs of these Biden-era rules finalized in 2021 and 2022 — including both their current and expected future costs — amount to about $9,600 per household. These costs are spread over time rather than concentrated in the first year that the rules take effect — and could spike significantly if Biden is re-elected.

If rulemaking and regulatory costs continue to accelerate at the same rate as they did during the Obama administration, the report states, ‘[T]he result after eight years [under Biden] would be a cumulative $7 trillion, which is almost $60,000 per household.’

Still, Biden has fewer regulations per year than Obama and Trump in almost every category, according to the report. However, the current administration has implemented some especially costly regulations, such as actions on student loans and vaccine mandates.

Overall, automobile fuel economy and emissions standards account for a third of the total regulatory costs, with health, labor, telecommunications and consumer finance regulations also comprising a significant chunk.

Unlike Biden, Trump oversaw large-scale deregulation, as the report notes.

‘The Trump administration’s agencies through four years reduced regulatory costs by almost $11,000 per household in present value,’ according to Mulligan, who notes that figure doesn’t include Operation Warp Speed to produce a COVID vaccine. ‘On an annual basis, President Trump was on net reducing regulatory costs (more than $300 billion per year of rulemaking) almost as fast as Presidents Obama and Biden were creating them ($600 billion per year of rulemaking).’

Unlike Obama, who Mulligan notes ‘had virtually no deregulation in his first two years,’ Biden has already implemented meaningful deregulations. However, on net, Trump’s deregulation was more far-reaching.

‘President Trump showed that regulatory costs can be subtracted rather than perpetually added,’ the report states. ‘Four years of President Trump reduced regulatory costs by about $11,000 per household. Eight years would have saved a total of more than $21,000, which is a gap of $61,000 to $80,000 from the Biden trajectory.’

Mulligan describes his report as the first ‘to comprehensively quantify the costs missing from agency cost assessments,’ explaining that several studies have shown government agencies employ poor cost assessments and detailing how these agencies often impose large opportunity and resource costs without acknowledging them.

‘However, even if we ignore the large number of regulatory costs missing from the agency estimates, they show a meaningful gap too,’ Mulligan writes. ‘Eight years of President Trump would add only $561 to the average household’s cost (agency estimate), whereas eight years of Biden staying 15% ahead of the Obama administration would cost households almost $11,000 each on average. The stagnation of economic growth, declining worker productivity, and wages that fail to keep up with inflation could well be linked to the resurgence of regulatory burdens.’

The new report comes as Biden seeks to tout his economic policies heading into the 2024 presidential campaign.

On Wednesday, Biden delivered a speech in Chicago in which he condemned ‘trickle-down economics’ and promoted so-called ‘Bidenomics,’ arguing he’s steering the economy in the right direction with positive growth and low unemployment.

‘The economy that grows the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, instead of just the top down — when that happens, everyone does well,’ Biden said in a nearly 40-minute address. ‘This vision is a fundamental break from the economic theory that has failed the middle class for decades now. It’s called trickle-down economics.’

Economists disputed the notion that ‘Bidenomics’ benefits all Americans, telling Fox News Digital that massive spending and historically high inflation have marked the president’s economic policies since he entered office.

Meanwhile, a White House memo this week touted Biden’s economic agenda and accomplishments, which includes job growth, low unemployment and a major infrastructure plan.

‘Bidenomics is rooted in the simple idea that we need to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up—not the top down,’ the memo stated.

Biden tweeted Tuesday that he created more jobs in two years than previous administrations did in the entirety of their first terms — a point dismissed by critics as misleading due to lost jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite Biden’s confident tone, Americans have very little confidence in his ability to steer the U.S. economy, according to recent polling. As of late May, some 83% of voters say the economy is in only fair or poor shape. That stat is worse by 14 points than shortly after Biden entered office in April 2021, when just 69% thought the same. Critically, just 20% of Americans say they believe Biden’s policies are helping them.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.

The Biden administration’s internal analysis of its proposed power plant crackdown is based on overly rosy assumptions that experts argue vastly downplay how the regulations are projected to impact power grid reliability and costs.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulatory impact analysis (RIA) of its power plant plan produces a ‘remarkable underestimation’ of actual impacts, according to a report released this week by the Chamber of Commerce Global Energy Institute. The EPA created a questionable baseline scenario, failed to factor in projected electric vehicle growth and overestimated the development of carbon capture technology, the report showed.

‘What we really found out with our analysis is that EPA essentially looked at the different knobs and levers on their economic analysis of this and turned every one of them in a favorable direction to minimize the costs and amplify the benefits,’ report co-author Heath Knakmuhs, the Global Energy Institute’s vice president and policy counsel, told Fox News Digital in an interview.

‘If someone were to actually provide a real straight-laced sort of no-nonsense look at this, the costs would be far more significant, thereby essentially opening this up to being a more significant rulemaking.’

In May, the EPA unveiled the power plant regulations targeting fossil fuel-fired power plant emissions as part of the administration’s broader climate agenda. In its announcement, the agency said the plan ‘would avoid’ 617 million metric tons of carbon pollution through 2042 via new standards forcing plants to either utilize carbon capture technology or shut down. But it added the regulations would have a ‘negligible cost.’

However, the Global Energy Institute report Wednesday showed that, in its RIA released alongside the regulations, the EPA packed the vast majority of the plan’s projected emissions reductions into a ‘baseline scenario.’ That means the agency’s emissions reductions, and costs accompanying those reductions, would occur without the EPA plan, according to the RIA.

‘There is a massive claim of emission reductions occurring without the rule at all,’ Knakmuhs told Fox News Digital. ‘Essentially, they take the use of the Inflation Reduction Act that was signed into law last August, and they give a very rosy outlook of how that act is going to transform the electric system in all the ways that actually, in many ways, would negate the need for this rule.’

For example, the RIA states that, under a baseline scenario without the EPA’s proposed regulations, power sector emissions are expected to plummet 80% below 2005 levels by 2040. With the regulations, though, the agency assumes emissions will decline 81%, a meager 1% difference compared to the baseline scenario.

‘Why is this important? Because the completely unrealistic baseline assumptions change the entire cost-benefit equation. When agency mandates are met even without the rule, the forecasted compliance costs on utilities and the resultant economic impacts on families and businesses effectively disappear,’ the Global Energy Institute report states.

The EPA’s RIA projects the impacts its plan would have on consumer electricity prices based on its baseline. It concludes the regulations would increase prices 0% nationwide through 2040. Industry groups and experts have loudly rejected the notion that such emissions reductions could take place without significant cost impacts. 

Further, the baseline scenario substantially deviates from projections made by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the nonpartisan statistics office within the Department of Energy. The EIA’s 2023 forecast, which factors in Inflation Reduction Act provisions, says natural gas prices will increase to $3.94 per million Btu in 2040, 97% higher than what EPA says the price will be in its baseline.

‘It’s reliability at the end of the day because they’re essentially modeling and ignoring this huge gap between where the supply will end up under this rule and where the demand will be underneath this and other rules,’ said Knakmuhs.

Dan Byers, the Global Energy Institute’s vice president for policy who co-authored the report, said he was concerned about the actual cost and reliability impacts of the EPA’s plan but added the Biden administration may be trying to avoid legal scrutiny with its baseline projections. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2022 that a similar Obama-era rule limiting power plant emissions under the Clean Air Act was unconstitutional since Congress never granted the EPA the explicit power to issue such regulations.

‘If it goes to the courts and folks say, ‘Look, this is a really big deal. This is a transformative rule. We’re not sure about your authorities here,’ EPA can say, ‘It’s not transformative at all. It hardly does anything,” Byers told Fox News Digital.

‘The reason we did this report is to shed some light on it and, hopefully, EPA — we’re really calling on EPA to do a sensitivity analysis. Can you run the numbers using EIA forecasts of gas prices and closures and emissions?’ he said. ‘Or at least respond and defend why it is you think that all this stuff will happen in the baseline.’

In addition, in their report, Byers and Knakmuhs noted the EPA neglects to factor in added electricity demand expected to be created by its own regulations, forcing increased consumer adoption of electric vehicles. 

And they found the agency also relies too heavily on carbon capture technology which is being used at just one facility in the world, the Boundary Dam Power Station in Canada. Although the Chamber of Commerce has advocated for carbon capture, the report states the technology is still unproven at scale.

‘EPA will closely evaluate the Chamber’s report and will consider and respond to the report along with other comments received during the public comment period for the proposed rules, which remains open until August 8, 2023,’ an EPA spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

Hunter Biden is expected to be deposed Thursday as part of the civil lawsuit brought by Delaware computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, Fox News has learned.

Mac Isaac filed a lawsuit against Biden in October 2022 in Delaware for defamation. In March, Biden filed a countersuit alleging Mac Isaac illicitly distributed Biden’s personal data and accused him of six counts of invasion of privacy.

In 2020, Mac Isaac said a man who he believed to be Biden dropped off three laptops at his store in April 2019, only one of which was salvageable. While repairing the laptop, Mac Isaac said he discovered disturbing material.

The customer did not return for the laptop within 90 days, and Mac Isaac could not get in touch with him. Mac Isaac said he first searched the emails by keyword in June or July 2019.

According to Mac Isaac’s account, the FBI first made a forensic copy of the laptop, then returned weeks later with a subpoena and confiscated it. 

Mac Isaac, was subpoenaed in December 2019 to testify before the U.S. District Court in Delaware.

The FBI’s property receipt for the laptop, first obtained by Fox News Digital in 2020, had a ‘Case ID’ section, which was filled in with a handwritten number: 272D-BA-3065729.

The number ‘272’ is the FBI’s classification for money laundering, while ‘272D’ refers to ‘Money Laundering, Unknown SUA [Specified Unlawful Activity]—White Collar Crime Program,’ according to FBI documents. One government official described ‘272D’ as ‘transnational or blanket.’

Biden’s expected deposition comes just days after the Justice Department announced that he would enter a plea agreement stemming from U.S. attorney for Delaware David Weiss’ years-long investigation into his tax affairs.

Biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a deal that is expected to keep him out of prison. The president’s son also agreed to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement with regard to a separate charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. The plea agreement is expected to keep Biden out of prison.

Biden is expected to make his first court appearance on July 26.

Meanwhile, as for the laptop, an IRS whistleblower who testified before the House Ways and Means Committee said federal investigators knew in December 2019 that Biden’s laptop was ‘not manipulated in any way’ and contained ‘reliable evidence,’ but were ‘obstructed’ from seeing all available information — nearly a year before former intelligence officials and Joe Biden himself declared the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

The whistleblower, Gary Shapley Jr., who was the supervisor of the investigation at the IRS, said that ‘at every stage’ of the Biden probe, decisions were made that ‘had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation.’

Shapley testified that the investigation, codenamed ‘Sportsman,’ was opened in November 2018 as an ‘offshoot’ of an IRS investigation into a ‘foreign-based amateur online pornography platform.’ Testimony released by the committee did not include any further explanation of how the pornography outlet and Biden were linked.

The investigation had previously been believed to have been predicated, in part, by suspicious foreign transactions.

Nearly a year later, in October 2019, Shapely said the ‘FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime.’

‘The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID,’ Shapely said. ‘When the FBI took possession of the device in December 2019, they notified the IRS that it likely contained evidence of tax crimes.’

New York City is caring for more migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. than longtime homeless residents for the first time as the migrant crisis reaches a tipping point in the Big Apple, city officials announced Wednesday.

There are currently over 50,000 migrants under the care of New York City, Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said during a briefing, a number she called ‘unsustainable’ as it surpasses the number of unhoused New Yorkers in its shelter system.

‘You see from today’s numbers that we have reached a tipping point,’ Williams-Isom said. ‘We now have more asylum seekers in our care than longtime New Yorkers … who were in our existing DHS system.’

‘We all are facing a humanitarian crisis right here in the five boroughs,’ she said, and called on federal partners to help in the form of financial aid and national coordination.

Since Spring 2022, more than 81,200 asylum seekers – most entering the U.S. from the southern border – poured into New York City’s intake system, according to the deputy mayor.

Last week, an additional 2,500 came under the city’s care, Williams-Isom said.

Over the course of the crisis, the city has opened 176 sites and 12 Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers to support the wave of migrants.

Williams-Isom also announced that the city is extending the contracts of 10 navigation sites, including the addition of an eleventh site – a cost of $2.3 million.

As New York City officials struggle to house tens of thousands of asylum seekers, they have begun to bus some migrants to the suburbs.

Earlier this month, Mayor Eric Adams caught backlash for suggesting housing migrants in private residences in the city.

Adams, a Democrat, had also announced that he is suing 30 New York counties over local executive orders intended to stop the city from housing migrants in their towns.

Fox News’ Cortney O’Brien and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.

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Former Republican Sen. Lowell P. Weicker died Wednesday at the age of 92.

Weicker, who also served as governor of Connecticut from 1991 to 1995, passed away at a hospital in Middletown, Conn., after a short illness, according to a family statement.

The Republican was first elected to Connecticut’s General Assembly in 1962. He was later elected to the U.S. Senate, serving from 1971 to 1989.

Weicker served on the Senate’s special committee on Watergate in 1973. Weicker was one of three Republicans represented on the seven-person committee.

A brash politician, Weicker did not shy away from criticizing President Richard Nixon.

‘More and more, events were making it clear that the Nixon White House was a cauldron of corruption,’ Weicker wrote in his memoir, ‘Maverick: A Life in Politics’. ‘And even as disclosures kept coming, more and more national leaders were acting as though nothing especially unusual had happened.’

Weicker, who was considered a Rockefeller Republican by some conservatives, broke with his party on major social issues of his day, such as abortion and school prayer. 

As senator, he sponsored the Protection and Advocacy for the Mentally Ill Act and introduced legislation that would become the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act. As governor of Connecticut, Weicker fought against income tax increases but eventually relented, which helped fix Connecticut’s $963 million deficit.

‘It is with great sadness that we learn the news of the passing of former Governor Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.,’ Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont tweeted on Wednesday. ‘I am directing U.S. and state flags lowered in his honor effective immediately.’

Lamont had previously described Weicker as a genuine friend.

‘I think he was just incredibly genuine, a little unfiltered,’ Lamont told The Associated Press in 2021. ‘And we sort of miss that in this day and age with the teleprompter.’

In a statement, Weicker’s family said he was ‘the center of our universe.’

‘In nearly four decades of public service, he used his position to protect the Constitution of the United States and to improve the lives of people who had no power advocating for education, health care and research, civil rights and equal opportunity,’ the statement read.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Voters in Wisconsin are torn on who to support in the GOP race for president, with former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis neck and neck in the hotly contested White House race, a recently released poll shows.

The Marquette University Law School Poll, which was conducted from June 8 to June 13 and released Wednesday, shows Trump narrowly leading DeSantis 31% to 30%, well within the poll’s margin of error of +/-4.3 percentage points.

Following DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence picked up six percent support in the poll, South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott received five percent support, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley received three percent support, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy picked up three percent support.

Asked who they would vote for if the only two options in the Republican presidential primary were DeSantis and Trump, respondents to the survey chose DeSantis over Trump 57% to 41%. Forced to choose between the two prominent Republicans, those whose first choice is someone other than DeSantis or Trump selected DeSantis by 74% to Trump’s 25%.

Sixty-eight percent of Republicans and independents who lean Republican said they view Trump favorably, followed by DeSantis at 67%, Pence at 52%, and Haley at 32%.

Despite the large swath of support for both Trump and DeSantis in the Badger State, both would lose in a hypothetical matchup against the incumbent president. In both cases, however, four percent of respondents either declined to choose or were undecided.

If the election were held today, with DeSantis being the Republican nominee against President Biden, it would be a pretty close race. Forty-nine percent said they would vote for Biden, with 47% saying the same for DeSantis.

As for an election rematch between Trump and Biden in 2024, a victory for Republicans is more bleak, according to the poll results. Fifty-two percent of respondents said they would vote for Biden, compared to 43% who said the same for Trump.

The poll also showed that Biden still leads both of his Democratic challengers, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and author Marianne Williamson, in the race for the White House. Among Democratic voters and independents who lean Democratic, the incumbent president received a 97% favorability rating. Kennedy and Williamson received a combined 60% favorability rating.

The Marquette University Law School Poll outlined above was compiled using the responses of 913 Wisconsin registered voters. The sample includes 419 Republicans and independents who lean Republican and were asked about their preferences in the Republican presidential primary, with a margin of error of +/-6.5 percentage points. The Democratic primary preference was asked of 453 Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, with a margin of error of +/-6 percentage points.

President Biden used a CPAP machine Tuesday night while sleeping, explaining visible marks on his face when he was talking to reporters on Wednesday.

White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News that Biden has sleep apnea, as previously disclosed.

‘Since 2008, the President has disclosed his history with sleep apnea in thorough medical reports. He used a CPAP machine last night, which is common for people with that history,’ Bates said.

FIRST ON FOX: Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray this week regarding officers who were seen kneeling before Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters in 2020.

Several FBI officers were photographed kneeling during a June 4, 2020, demonstration in Washington, D.C. The protests during summer 2020 often turned into violent riots across the country in outrage over the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Some agents who kneeled reportedly received commendations from FBI executive management, Gaetz claimed in his letter, and the Florida congressman demanded to know whether their support for the demonstrators contributed to their career advancement.  

‘Many FBI personnel we were trusting to be on the front lines were photographed kneeling in surrender to people who at times were violent,’ Gaetz told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Gaetz says one of the kneeling agents appears to be Washington field office assistant special agent in charge Sarah Linden.

Gaetz said he heard from a whistleblower and other information that ‘people were rewarded for this at [the] FBI with plum personnel opportunities and promotions and advancements.’

‘To climb the ladder in federal employment, you shouldn’t have to shimmy up the woke totem pole,’ Gaetz added, asking Wray ‘about how various personnel engaged in these acts of supplication were then given plum professional opportunities.’

Gaetz said the ‘FBI’s behavior is demoralizing’ to law enforcement from the local to the federal levels and that ‘it showcases a real misunderstanding of the purpose of law enforcement.’

‘The purpose of law enforcement is to keep people safe, not to engage in politics,’ Gaetz said. ‘And for the last several years, we’ve seen the FBI more interested in virtue signaling and political activity than in just the nuts and bolts in evaluating the facts and the law.’

The Florida Republican named Linden in his letter to Wray, telling Fox News Digital he sent the letter to get ‘confirmation’ that the whistleblower information he received was correct.

‘And Sarah Linden, we understand, now is leading the criminal division of the Washington field office,’ Gaetz said. ‘And if that’s the case, we want to know that that was a decision based on merit, not a decision solely as a consequence of a political performance.’

When asked about his confidence level that the agent wearing sunglasses and a surgical mask in the picture was Linden, Gaetz said: ‘That’s why we’ve asked the question.’

‘We have reason to believe that’s who it is and that’s what we are seeking to confirm,’ Gaetz said.

Gaetz said he did not know the identities of the other kneeling agents, but that ‘we’ll see if their careers got an otherwise unwarranted updraft as a consequence.’

The Florida Republican added that the ‘Biden administration seeks to reward those who participate in these virtue signals rather than doing their job.’

‘Wasn’t it the Biden administration that wanted to have the intricacies of nuclear energy handled by the suitcase-stealing weirdo?’ he added, referring to embattled former senior Department of Energy official Sam Brinton.

In the letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, Gaetz noted the 2020 ‘coordinated’ summer riots that caused ‘millions of dollars in property damage’ as well as the May 29, 2020, altercation where ‘violent protestors threw rocks, urine, and alcohol at United States Secret Service Agents, injuring over 60 of them.’

‘Some protestors also scaled the barriers to the White House and Department of the Treasury complex,’ Gaetz wrote.

‘This shameful and unprecedented violence took place over several days, and included the arson attack on St. John’s Episcopal Church adjacent to the White House. During these events, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) personnel were quite literally ‘on the line’ defending our nation’s Capitol in an attack that has not been surpassed since in either its scope or violence.’

‘Perhaps in an effort to placate the mob, on June 4, 2020, at least six alleged FBI agents were filmed kneeling in supplication,’ Gaetz wrote. He claimed that Linden appeared to be ‘expressing her support for these seditious riots that caused so much destruction.’

Gaetz gave Wray a July 7 deadline to respond to his questions.

The FBI did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.