The elderly woman whom New York City Mayor Eric Adams compared to a plantation owner was born as her family fled the Holocaust.

A Thursday New York Times report revealed that housing activist Jeanie Dubnau, who was berated by Adams in a racial attack for questioning him about the Big Apple’s back-to-back rent increases, fled during the Holocaust to New York City with her family.

Dubnau, a molecular biologist, told reporters of her family’s journey fleeing Nazi Germany just before she was born and accused Adams of deflecting from her question because he did not have an answer.

‘It was a complete deflection from what I was saying, because he has no answer,’ she told the Times.

Dubnau said she was not trying to be disrespectful to Adams and that she had to shout her question because there was no microphone at the event.

‘I didn’t have a microphone,’ she said. ‘I had to speak loudly so that everyone could hear what I was saying.’

Fox News Digital asked Adams’ office for comment on the Times’ report and whether the mayor believed it was appropriate to make racial attacks on people asking questions about his policies.

Adams’ spokesperson Fabian Levy told Fox News Digital that the ‘community conversations were created as a space where we could discuss different issues.’

‘That’s why the mayor asked this individual to stand up, so she could speak her mind,’ Levy said. ‘To be clear, anyone who believes this mayor isn’t fighting for tenants hasn’t been paying attention.’

‘This administration has invested more money for housing than any in New York City history. We’re advancing comprehensive plans to build more homes, faster, and across the city, which is the only way to truly solve the affordability crisis,’ he continued. ‘And we’ve invested in efforts to protect tenants from eviction and expanded rental assistance.’

‘The Rent Guidelines Board is tasked with making difficult decisions based on hard data, and balancing the need to protect tenants with the need to provide small property owners — who have seen expenses go up by the most in two decades — with the revenue they need to make repairs and protect our housing stock,’ Levy added.

Adams’ attack on Dubnau came after the housing activist interjected during his comments at a community conversation town hall in Manhattan. Dubnau had interrupted his remarks and accused the mayor of raising New York City rent and supporting increases.

‘If you are going to ask a question, don’t point at me and don’t be disrespectful to me,’ Adams told the woman. ‘I’m the mayor of the city. Treat me with the respect I deserve to be treated. I’m speaking to you as an adult. Don’t stand in front like you treating someone that’s on the plantation that you own. Give me the respect I deserve and engage in the conversation up here in Washington Heights.’ 

‘Treat me with the same level of respect I treat you,’ Adams continued. ‘So, don’t be pointing at me, don’t be disrespectful to me. Speak with me as an adult because I’m a grown man. I walked into this room as a grown man, and I’ll walk out of this room as a grown man. I answered your question.’

Following his response to the woman, audience members and city officials briefly applauded Adams.

The mayor’s fierce comments came moments after his initial response to the woman. He noted that he owns a three-family home in Brooklyn but has never increased the rent on his tenants. Adams also sidestepped blame for rent increases, saying the New York City Rent Guidelines Board makes those decisions.

‘I think it was a three percent recommendation,’ he said. ‘I don’t control the board. I make appointments. They made the decision.’

On June 21, the Rent Guidelines Board announced recommendations paving the way for landlords to increase rents by 3% this year. The move impacts more than a million rent-stabilized apartments in the city.

Following the announcement, Adams commended the board’s decision.

‘Finding the right balance is never easy, but I believe the board has done so this year — as evidenced by affirmative votes from both tenant and public representatives,’ he said in a statement.

Fox News Digital’s Thomas Catenacci contributed reporting.

Former New York state Democrat Sen. Alessandra Biaggi took to social media Friday to discuss the pricey student loans she had amassed during law school, despite purchasing a $1.14 million home last summer.

‘In 2012, I graduated from Fordham Law School with $180,000 is student loan debt,’ Biaggi wrote in a tweet. ‘I’ve been paying loans for 11 years. Even paid two of them off completely.’

‘In 2023, my balance is $206,000,’ added Biaggi, who represented New York’s 34th district during her three-year tenure in the state Senate.

The remarks from Biaggi — who posed an unsuccessful primary challenge to former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., in the 2022 midterm elections — came nearly one year after it was reported that she and her husband had purchased and moved into a $1,137,500 home located in the state’s 17th Congressional District, which she had hoped to represent in Congress.

Biaggi, 36, and her husband, Nathaniel Koloc, puchased the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in an upscale suburban area in July 2022, the New York Post reported last year.

The Post also noted that the house was a significant upgrade over Biaggi’s previous residence, a $691,006 condo in Pelham, New York, where she was registered to vote. 

Biaggi’s comments followed a decision from the Supreme Court to strike down President Biden’s student loan-forgiveness plan, with the high court concluding that the White House lacked the legal authorization to provide billions in federal loan forgiveness for borrowers, absent clear authorization from Congress.

The move by the Supreme Court will prevent more than 40 million low- and middle-income borrowers from receiving $10,000 in federal loan forgiveness under the Biden administration’s plan — and is a major defeat for the president on one of his key 2020 election campaign promises.

Several social media users were quick to point out that Biaggi should have paid off her student loans before purchasing the expensive home located in Bedford, New York.

‘You need Dave Ramsey, not Joe Biden,’ Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told Biaggi in a tweet. Ramsey is a prominent radio host who offers financial advice.

Responding to Biaggi, another user wrote: ‘You signed the loan agreement. Didn’t you read it?’

‘She could afford to buy a $1 million home but not pay off $180K of debt,’ Greg Price, communications director for the State Freedom Caucus Network, noted in a tweet.

Offering his perspective on the issue, retired marine and talk show host Jesse Kelly wrote in a tweet: ‘BREAKING: Woman spends more than she makes.’

Originally announced by Biden from the White House last August, the debt-forgiveness plan would have canceled $10,000 of federal student loan debt for certain borrowers making less than $125,000 per year, and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts cited former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in his majority opinion to help explain why President Biden’s student loan handout was unconstitutional.

On Friday, Roberts released the Supreme Court’s opinion blocking Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, one of the president’s major campaign promises.

In the opinion, Roberts cited then-Speaker Pelosi’s words saying the president did not have the power to cancel federal student loan debt.

‘As then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi explained: ‘People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not,’’ Roberts quoted Pelosi’s July 28, 2021, press conference. ‘‘He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.’’

‘Aside from reiterating its interpretation of the statute, the dissent offers little to rebut our conclusion that ‘indicators from our previous major questions cases are present’ here,’ Roberts wrote, citing Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concurring opinion.

Robert’s opinion comes as the Supreme Court hands down several high-profile cases going into the summer months.

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a harsh rebuke of Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in the case of a Christian web designer who the court ruled was not obligated to design websites for gay couples.

‘It is difficult to read the dissent and conclude we are looking at the same case,’ Gorsuch wrote in the 6-3 Supreme Court decision on Friday. That decision said web designer Lorie Smith was not legally required to design websites for gay marriages because doing so would violate her free speech rights and Christian beliefs, despite a Colorado law that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Gorsuch said Sotomayor’s dissent in the case ‘reimagines the facts’ from ‘top to bottom’ and fails to answer the fundamental question: ‘Can a State force someone who provides her own expressive services to abandon her conscience and speak its preferred message instead?’

‘In some places, the dissent gets so turned around about the facts that it opens fire on its own position,’ Gorsuch wrote. ‘For instance: While stressing that a Colorado company cannot refuse ‘the full and equal enjoyment of [its] services’ based on a customer’s protected status . . . the dissent assures us that a company selling creative services ‘to the public’ does have a right ‘to decide what messages to include or not to include . . .’ But if that is true, what are we even debating?’

Gorsuch wrote that rather than address the key aspects of the case, the dissent ‘spends much of its time adrift on a sea of hypotheticals about photographers, stationers, and others, asking if they too provide expressive services covered by the First Amendment.’

Friday’s decision reversed a lower court ruling that sided against Smith, who said the law infringed on her First Amendment rights by forcing her to promote messages that violate her deeply held faith.

The high court’s majority stated that ‘under Colorado’s logic, the government may compel anyone who speaks for pay on a given topic to accept all commissions on that same topic — no matter the message — if the topic somehow implicates a customer’s statutorily protected trait.’

Sotomayor dissented from the majority, along with Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. They called the ruling ‘a new license to discriminate’ and said the ‘symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status.’

‘The unattractive lesson of the majority opinion is this: What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is yours. The lesson of the history of public accommodations laws is altogether different. It is that in a free and democratic society, there can be no social castes,’ Sotomayor said.

The case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, drew national attention as it featured competing interests of the First Amendment right to free speech and non-discrimination against LGBTQ people.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed reporting.

Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. took aim at President Biden Friday over his ‘failure’ to unite Congress, insisting it led to the ‘predictable’ Supreme Court decision to strike down the president’s student loan forgiveness plan.

‘The unfortunate SCOTUS ruling striking down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program was the predictable result of Biden’s failure to bring Congress together on this issue of crucial importance to young Americans,’ Kennedy said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital.

‘President Biden knew his plan wouldn’t survive a legal challenge. His plan gave the appearance of action while accomplishing nothing. 

‘This is an issue of grave importance to our country. As president, I will galvanize public support to pressure Congress to put down their partisan positions and legislate meaningful relief to the tens of millions of Americans who are drowning in student debt.’

Kennedy said he would also ‘take steps to reduce education costs for students,’ suggesting that college could ‘be virtually free’ in the United States if government ‘devoted even a fraction of our military budget to higher education.’

‘When I was their age, a college education cost about one-seventh of what it is today. A young person could work their way through college and graduate debt-free,’ he said. ‘If we devoted even a fraction of our military budget to higher education, it could be virtually free to all (as it is in many other countries).

SUPREME COURT RULINGS LIKELY TO INTENSIFY CALLS FROM THE LEFT TO ‘PACK’ THE COURT

‘Funding higher education is not an entitlement program, it is an investment in America’s future, just as with infrastructure and environment. Let’s invest in America’s young people instead of in the forever wars.’

Kennedy’s remarks came a few hours after the high court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled that the White House lacked the legal authority to provide billions in federal loan forgiveness for borrowers, absent clear authorization from Congress.

The move by the Supreme Court will prevent more than 40 million low- and middle-income borrowers from receiving $10,000 in federal loan forgiveness under the Biden administration’s plan and is a major defeat for the president on one of his key 2020 election campaign promises.

Originally announced by Biden from the White House in August, the plan would have canceled $10,000 of federal student loan debt for certain borrowers making less than $125,000 per year and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.

While Kennedy expressed concern over the Supreme Court’s ruling, Republican presidential candidates like Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and former Vice President Mike Pence applauded the court’s decision.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Presidential candidate Nikki Haley faced criticism from a fellow GOP presidential candidate after calling for the impeachment of President Biden over whistleblower claims there was intentional federal interference in the probe targeting his son Hunter.

‘Somebody needs to do it,’ Haley told Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld when asked about Congress potentially seeking to impeach Biden over the allegations as he ramps up his campaign for re-election next cycle. ‘If the Justice Department’s not going to do it, Congress should do it. But somebody needs to do it. It smells bad all day long.

‘You’re not talking about just some guy that showed up and decided to say something,’ Haley added, suggesting the whistleblower was a credible source.

While the presidential candidate believes immediate action should be taken against Biden, GOP candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, also in the running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, said ‘impeachment should not be used as a political weapon.’

IRS Special Agent Gary Shapley Jr., supervisor of the Hunter Biden investigation at the IRS, revealed that during the investigation into the president’s son, ‘we weren’t allowed to ask about ‘the big guy,” referring to a prohibition on asking witnesses questions. 

Numerous reports suggest Hunter Biden referred to his father as ‘the big guy’ in communications.

Shapley also conveyed the information in testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee, where he noted Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors purposely chose not to obtain search warrants related to Hunter Biden.

‘While the whistleblower allegations are serious and must be investigated, impeachment should not be an option until the investigation shows corrupt action by the president,’ Hutchinson said in a press release Friday reacting to Haley’s statement. 

The Republican argued a ‘thorough investigation’ should be conducted before there are calls for impeachment.

‘Impeachment should not be used as a political weapon but reserved for serious wrongdoing,’ Hutchinson said. ‘The facts should determine what action, if any, Congress should take, and impeachment should not precede a thorough investigation.’ 

A spokesman for Haley’s campaign reiterated the former U.N. ambassador’s position. 

‘Nikki believes Congress needs to get to the bottom of whether Joe Biden committed crimes or other impeachable offenses since the Justice Department refuses to do it. That process starts with a congressional oversight investigation,’ said Haley spokesman Ken Farnaso.

Wyn Hornbuckle, deputy director of the Justice Department Office of Public Affairs, immediately denied Shapley’s shocking claims regarding the investigation.

‘As both the attorney general and U.S. Attorney David Weiss have said, U.S. Attorney Weiss has full authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when and whether to file charges as he deems appropriate,’ Hornbuckle said in a statement. ‘He needs no further approval to do so.’ 

The whistleblower came out after Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and a separate charge for possessing a firearm while acting as an unlawful user and addict of a controlled substance.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

A top adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has admitted to using his personal email account to skirt Freedom of Information Act requests and went so far as to delete some emails during the pandemic, according to records obtained by House lawmakers investigating the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.

The emails were revealed Thursday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which claimed Dr. David Morens, whose tenure with the NIAID spans roughly 25 years, may have broken the law.

In an email exchange between Morens and Bloomberg reporter Jason Gale, Morens made clear that he had to receive approval from the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services to talk about the ‘origins’ of COVID-19.

‘Sometimes they are touchy about certain issues and say no. For many months, I have not been approved to talk about the ‘origins’ on the record,’ Morens wrote in the email, which was first published by The Intercept.

‘But today, to my total surprise, my boss Tony [Fauci] actually ASKED me to speak to the National Geographic on the record about origins. I interpret this to mean that our government is lightening up[,] but that Tony doesn’t want his fingerprints on origin stories,’ he added in the July 29, 2021, email to Gale.

In other emails, Morens expressed concern over what was sent to his work email and what was sent to his personal email, informing those on the email chain that they did not need to worry and that he would ‘delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times.’

‘As you know, I try to always communicate on gmail because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly,’ Morens wrote in a September 2021 email, which was sent at the time to many scientists involved in the debate over the origins of COVID. ‘Stuff sent to my gmail gets to my phone … but not my NIH computer.’

‘Don’t worry, just send to any of my addresses, and I will delete anything I don’t want to see in the New York Times,’ he added in the email.

In a Sept. 7, 2021, email, EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak wrote to Morens about previous reporting from The Intercept on coronavirus research in Chinese labs, saying, ‘The lab leakers are already stirring up bulls–t lines of attack that will bring more negative publicity our way — which is what this is about — a way to line up the [gain-of-function] attack on Fauci, or the ‘risky research’ attack on all of us.’

‘Do not rule out suing these a–holes for slander,’ Morens replied, referencing the report.

Earlier this month, it was revealed by the Government Accountability Office that EcoHealth Alliance had sent more than $2 million in subgrants from NIH and the US Agency for International Development to the Wuhan Institute of Virology between 2014 and 2021.

Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, who serves as chair of the subcommittee, sent a letter Thursday to Morens about the documents the House lawmakers had obtained. IN the letter, Wenstrup told Morens the documents obtained by the committee ‘suggest that you may have used your personal e-mail to avoid transparency and the Freedom of Infor mation Act (FOIA), potentially intentionally deleted federal records, and acted in your official capacity to disparage your fellow scientists, including by encouraging litigation against them.’

In the letter, the committee also said that the email about Fauci not wanting any ‘fingerprints’ on the matter raises ‘concerns that you may have knowledge or information suggesting Dr. Anthony Fauci … wished to influence the COVID-19 origins narrative without his ‘fingerprints.’’

‘This is all very troubling and raises serious questions,’ Wenstrup wrote to Morens.

The select subcommittee has requested that Morens produce a number of additional records, some from his personal device, and to sit for an interview.

Residents of Austin, Texas, and crime victims’ families are speaking out after District Attorney Jose Garza signed off on a plea deal for a woman for her part in a murder-for-hire plot that targeted her in-laws.

Jaclyn Alexa Edison was sentenced last week in Travis County, Texas, to 10 years probation after pleading guilty to conspiracy to attempt to commit capital murder by hiring two hit men who ultimately killed her then-husband’s father. The boyfriend’s mother survived.

Edison’s husband, Nicolas Shaughnessy, and the two hit men accepted plea deals of 35 years in prison. The victims’ families said that deal was too lenient, but Austin Police Retired Officers Association President Dennis Farris told Fox News Digital that Edison should have faced the same punishment as the others.

‘She should have gotten the same thing they got,’ Farris said. ‘They literally are just as guilty, she’s just as guilty as the person who pulled the trigger.’

Edison, who was 19 years old at the time of the crime, was offered ‘deferred adjudication,’ which means she accepted responsibility for the crime but the conviction was not placed on her record. The lawyer for the surviving victim said he has never seen a similar outcome.

‘In the close to half a century that I’ve worked with criminal law as a prosecutor and a defense attorney … I have never seen anything like this,’ attorney Steve Brittain told KXAN-TV. ‘I can’t put it together in my mind, and I just don’t understand it.’

Edison and her now ex-husband were accused of hiring Arieon Smith and Johnny Leon in 2018 to kill Shaughnessy’s adopted parents who owned Gallerie Jewelers in Austin in a scheme they hoped would net them their $2 million life insurance policy.

Ted Shaughnessy was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in a hallway of his home after his wife, Corey Shaughnessy, returned fire at the hit men until she ran out of ammunition and hid in a closet to call 911, authorities said.

‘You can withdraw money from the bank to pay to have your in-laws killed, and this district attorney is going to let you basically walk away,’ Farris said. ‘I mean this is just insane.’

While part of Edison’s probation says she must check in to the Travis County Jail for two days each year on the anniversary of the murder as part of her probation, Farris told Fox News Digital that’s a slap on the wrist and that she will probably end up spending less than two days in jail based on the way the jails credit time served based on the time of day you clock in.

Garza, who was backed by a PAC linked to billionaire George Soros, has been criticized for years for what the families of crime victims say is a soft-on-crime approach that stems from adherence to progressive politics and ‘reimagining’ the justice system.

One of those family members is Nicholas Kantor, whose brother, Doug, was an innocent bystander when he was shot and killed in 2021 when two rival gangs of teenagers opened fire on each other in downtown Austin in one of the worst mass shootings in the city’s history. Two years later, Nicholas Kantor says Garza’s office has yet to deliver justice for his family and has even impeded progress toward that goal.

Kantor told Fox News Digital in response to news of Edison’s probation sentence that people need to ask themselves how they would feel if Edison had killed their mother or their father.

‘Would you feel contentment that the DA provided you with justice and peace of mind to settle your heart?’ Kantor said.

‘This is about the future of the justice system, if we continue to stand idle through deals and decisions like this without any protests and outrage, that this will become the new normal,’ Kantor added. ‘And while today it may be somebody else’s broken heart, tomorrow it could very well be yours.’

Garza ran on a platform of prosecuting police officers and has already gone after several of them, including the indictment of over 20 Austin police officers for their roles in subduing a Black Lives Matter riot in the wake of George Floyd’s death. He also worked to convict Army Sgt. Daniel Perry to 25 years in prison for shooting an armed Black Lives Matter protester who approached his car with a raised AK-47 style weapon. 

‘This is a sweetheart deal,’ Farris said. ‘Do you think he would offer or make a deal with the police officers he’s charged? Things are getting worse in Travis County because we are refusing to put people in jail for the worst crimes they commit.’

Garza’s office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson are raising new questions about a 2020 FBI briefing in which the agency said the senators’ investigation into Hunter Biden was advancing Russian disinformation at a time the FBI was looking into some of the same allegations.

‘The more we learn about what the FBI was up to in the summer of 2020, the more questions we have about what was done with information related to the Hunter Biden investigation,’ Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital this week. He called the briefing ‘totally unnecessary’ and said it was a ‘clear effort to discredit our oversight.’

‘Was there a broader effort by federal law enforcement to improperly silence or sideline anything critical of the Biden family in the run-up to the 2020 election?’ Grassley asked. ‘The timeline that is emerging does not paint a picture of an apolitical FBI, and the bureau has a duty to explain itself, which it has so far failed to do.’

The two senators opened an investigation into Hunter Biden’s finances, specifically his role on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. At the time of the FBI briefing, the senators were finalizing their report that would be released in September 2020.

On Aug. 6, 2020, the FBI provided a briefing to Grassley and Johnson ‘on behalf of the FBI and intelligence community,’ a briefing the senators have repeatedly said was given ‘because of pressure’ from Democrats ‘to falsely attack’ their investigation.

The two senators say that, in August 2020, FBI officials initiated a scheme to downplay derogatory information on Hunter Biden for the purpose of shutting down investigative activity relating to his potential criminal exposure by labeling it ‘disinformation.’ 

The senators also noted that whistleblowers have alleged that local FBI leadership ‘instructed employees not to look at the Hunter Biden laptop immediately after the FBI had obtained it.’

But the briefing took place as the Justice Department’s federal investigation into Hunter Biden was well underway. By December 2019, the FBI had obtained the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden and knew material on the laptop was ‘not manipulated’ and contained ‘reliable’ evidence.

Johnson told Fox News Digital the mixed messages from the FBI are problematic. 

‘As troubling as Biden family corruption is — and the extent to which it comprises American foreign policy — there is a much larger story of corruption to be uncovered,’ he said this week.

‘The complicity of federal law enforcement and the unequal application of justice is a true threat to our democracy,’ Johnson added. ‘Because the partisan corruption spans Democrat and Republican administrations, one has to wonder, ‘How is it being orchestrated and sustained?’’

The FBI has told Fox News the bureau had no comment when asked why the briefing was delivered to Grassley and Johnson in August 2020 and whether the FBI sought to downplay and discredit derogatory information about Hunter Biden.

Grassley and Johnson in September 2020 released their Hunter Biden report, which said Obama administration officials ‘knew’ that Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma was ‘problematic’ and that it interfered ‘in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine.’

Hunter Biden joined Burisma in April 2014 and reportedly connected the firm with consulting firm Blue Star Strategies to help the natural gas company fight corruption charges in Ukraine. During the time Hunter Biden was on the board of the company, Joe Biden was vice president and running U.S.-Ukraine relations and policy for the Obama administration.

Grassley and Johnson’s 2020 report also revealed U.S. Treasury Department records that ‘show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals.’

Grassley and Johnson said they received records that Hunter Biden ‘sent thousands of dollars’ to people who have ‘either been involved in transactions consistent with possible human trafficking, an association with the adult entertainment industry or potential association with prostitution.’

IRS whistleblowers involved in the IRS’ investigation into Hunter Biden have corroborated the information contained in the Senate report, which also found millions of dollars in ‘questionable financial transactions’ between Hunter Biden and his associates and people with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

On the other side of the Capitol, the House Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees have demanded transcribed interviews from more than a dozen Justice Department, IRS, FBI and Secret Service officials regarding allegations of politics influencing prosecutorial decisions in the Hunter Biden investigation.

The House Oversight Committee is  investigating the Biden family’s business dealings. That investigation has further revealed that the Biden family and its business associates created more than 20 companies and received more than $10 million from foreign nationals while Joe Biden served as vice president.

Committee Chairman James Comer said some of these payments could indicate attempts by the Biden family to ‘peddle influence’ and said the family appeared to take steps to ‘conceal the source and total amount received from the foreign companies.’

The White House continues to insist President Biden was ‘never in business’ with his son.

The DOJ last week announced that Hunter Biden will plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax and one charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. The plea deal is likely to prevent Hunter Biden from having to serve prison time.

House lawmakers are urging federal agencies to quickly and aggressively adopt artificial intelligence technology, at a time when the push from civil rights and industry groups for new AI regulations is still waiting to get off the ground.

The House Appropriations Committee, led by Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, released several spending bills this week that encourage the government to incorporate AI into everything from national security functions to routine office work to the detection of pests and diseases in crops. Several of those priorities are not just encouraged but would get millions of dollars in new funding under the legislation still being considered by the committee.

And while comprehensive AI regulations are likely still months away and are unlikely to be developed this year, lawmakers seem keen on making sure the government is deploying AI where it can. The bills are backed by the GOP majority, and Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., the vice chair of the Congressional Artificial Intelligence Caucus, said agencies shouldn’t have to wait to start using AI.

‘We should support federal agencies harnessing the power and benefits of AI, as it has proven itself to be a powerful tool and will continue to be an invaluable asset for our federal agencies,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘The Departments of Energy and Defense, for example, have been leveraging AI for technical projects to enhance precision and accomplish tasks beyond human capabilities.’

Beyer added that he is ‘encouraged’ by commitments some agencies have made to ensure AI is used ethically, such as those made by the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies.

In the spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security, language is included that would fund AI and machine learning capabilities to help review cargo shipments at U.S. ports and for port inspections.

‘As the Committee has previously noted, delays in the integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and autonomy into the program require CBP Officers to manually review thousands of images to hunt for anomalies,’ according to report language on the bill. ‘Automation decreases the chance that narcotics and other contraband will be missed and increases the interdiction of narcotics that move through the nation’s [ports of entry].’

The bill encourages DHS to use ‘commercial, off-the-shelf artificial intelligence capabilities’ to improve government efforts to catch travelers and cargo that should not be allowed to enter the United States. It also calls on DHS to explore using AI to enforce the border, to help ensure the right illegal immigrants are removed, and at the Transportation Security Agency.

The committee’s bill to fund the Defense Department warns that the Pentagon is not moving fast enough to adopt AI technologies.

‘Capabilities such as automation, artificial intelligence, and other novel business practices – which are readily adopted by the private sector – are often ignored or under-utilized across the Department’s business operations,’ the report said. ‘This bill takes aggressive steps to address this issue.’

Among other things, the bill wants DOD to explore how to use AI to ‘significantly reduce or eliminate manual processes across the department,’ and says that effort justifies a $1 billion cut to the civilian defense workforce.

The bill also wants DOD to report on how it can measure its efforts to adopt AI, and to take on more student interns with AI experience.

The spending bill funding Congress itself wants legislative staff to explore how AI might be used to create closed captioning services for hearings, and how else AI might be used to improve House operations.

House lawmakers also see a need for AI at the Department of Agriculture. Among other things, the bill adds more money for AI in an agricultural research program run by the U.S. and Israel, proposes the use of AI and machine learning to detect pests and diseases in crops, and supports ongoing work to use AI for ‘precision agriculture and food system security.’

The effort to expand the government’s use of AI comes despite the pressure that has been building on Congress to quickly impose a regulatory framework around this emerging and already widely used technology. Lawmakers in the House and Senate have held several hearings on the issue, which have raised ideas that include a new federal agency to regulate AI and an AI commission.

But despite the urgency, Congress continues to move slowly. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week that he still wanted to take several months to take input, and implied that an AI regulatory plan might not be passed by Congress until next year.

‘Later this fall, I will convene the top minds in artificial intelligence here in Congress for a series of AI Insight Forums to lay down a new foundation for AI policy,’ he said last week.

The full committee is expected to take up these and other spending bills in the coming months – Republicans have made it clear they want to move funding bills for fiscal year 2024 on time this year, which means finishing by the summer.

The United Nations General Assembly is poised to approve a global framework this fall on ammunition management that could be dangerously vague and impact domestic policies in the United States, some Second Amendment advocates warn. 

In early June, the U.N.’s Open-Ended Working Group on Conventional Ammunition, also called the OEWG, completed its development of a new global framework.

The National Rifle Association and the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturer’s Institute attended each of the OEWG’s meetings, pushing to water down certain aspects of the international plan. 

‘It is going to the General Assembly in September. It’s basically a forgone conclusion,’ James Baranowski, the NRA director of international affairs, told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s the way of the U.N. It’s a game of chess, not checkers.’

The General Assembly passed a resolution in February 2022 establishing the OEWG to address the accumulation of stockpiles in surplus, which issued a final report this month.

The framework can be used for leverage in the political arena if gun control advocates claim it is a standard for international law, Baranowski said. 

‘It could have been a much worse document to start the framework,’ Baranowski said. ‘That said, it is never going away. It is a living document that will be modified. We are going to have to fight this every year.’

The 15 objectives of the global framework establish standards and guidelines for international cooperation in ammunition management, Adedeji Ebo, director of the U.N. Office of Disarmament Affairs, said June 9, when the working group adopted the framework. 

‘The adoption of the set of political commitments is a tremendous achievement, which, I have no doubt, will be endorsed by the 78th Session of the U.N. General Assembly,’ Ebo said during his remarks. 

The framework’s objectives aim to curb the transporting of small arms into conflict zones, preventing unplanned explosions at munition sites and recognizing the increased role of women in ammunition management, Ebo noted.

With a push by the Second Amendment organizations, the working group watered down some terms and deleted from drafts references to the ‘individual’ end users of ammunition, Baranowski said. So, at least for now, the framework only applies to governments, not individual ammunition owners.

Still, the OEWG’s final report doesn’t fully define key terms such as ‘stockpile,’ and ‘end users.’ And under the broad definition, even a 25-round box could constitute a stockpile, Baranowski contends. 

‘You see ‘stockpile’ and ‘end user.’ A stockpile could be a million rounds in a government stockpile or it could be a box of 25 rounds at a local police station,’ Baranowski said. ‘It is limited to governments as it is currently written. We argued to confine it. But we think, eventually, that language will be removed. There was an effort to include individual end users.’

The United Nations did not respond to inquiries for this story.

But the U.N.’s Ebo called the framework a ‘ray of hope for the disarmament community and the peoples of the world who have long suffered from the scourge of war and armed violence exacerbated by the mismanagement and illicit flows of conventional ammunition.’

‘The elaboration of the global framework is truly a milestone in our collective efforts towards durable peace, security and sustainable development,’ Ebo added. 

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