: House Speaker Mike Johnson is calling on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to fire Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States after she allegedly organized a U.S. taxpayer-funded visit to a battleground state ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Fox News Digital has learned. 

Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, organized a tour of an American manufacturing site for Zelenskyy over the weekend in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state ahead of November’s election. 

Johnson, R-La., said that tour was led by a ‘top political surrogate’ for the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and ‘purposely excluded’ Republicans. Johnson called it clear ‘election interference.’ 

‘I demand that you immediately fire Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova,’ Johnson wrote in a letter to Zelenskyy exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital Wednesday. 

‘As you have said, Ukrainians have tried to avoid being ‘captured by American domestic politics,’ and ‘influencing the choices of the American people’ ahead of the November election,’ Johnson wrote. ‘Clearly, that objective was abandoned this week when Ambassador Markarova organized an event in which you toured an American manufacturing site.

‘The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because – on purpose – no Republicans were invited,’ Johnson continued, adding the tour was ‘clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.’ 

Johnson said the ‘shortsighted and intentionally political move has caused Republicans to lose trust in Ambassador Markarova’s ability to fairly and effectively serve as a diplomat in this country.’ 

‘She should be removed from her post immediately,’ he wrote.  

Johnson stressed that ‘all foreign nations should avoid opining on or interfering in American domestic politics.’ 

‘Support for ending Russia’s war against Ukraine continues to be bipartisan, but our relationship is unnecessarily tested and needlessly tarnished when the candidates at the top of the Republican presidential ticket are targeted in the media by officials in your government,’ Johnson wrote. 

‘These incidents cannot be repeated.’ 

Johnson thanked Zelenskyy for his ‘prompt attention to this matter.’ 

‘I trust you will take immediate action,’ Johnson said. 

Zelenskyy over the weekend visited a Pennsylvania ammunition factory alongside two Pentagon leaders — the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology and the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer. 

Zelenskyy also met with Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who was said to be on the short list to be considered as Harris’ running mate before she chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Zelenskyy recently participated in interviews and was critical of former President Trump and his running mate JD Vance, calling the Ohio senator ‘too radical.’

The House Oversight Committee is now investigating the Biden-Harris administration’s alleged use of taxpayer-funded resources to fly Zelenskyy to Pennsylvania ahead of the November presidential election. 

Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., announced the investigation Wednesday and is seeking records regarding the administration’s alleged ‘misuse of government resources’ to allow Zelenskyy to ‘interfere in the 2024 presidential election.’ 

‘The Committee seeks to determine whether the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to use a foreign leader to benefit Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign and, if so, necessarily committed an abuse of power,’ Comer wrote Wednesday in a letter to the White House, Justice Department and the Pentagon. 

Comer said his committee is investigating the circumstances that led to ‘justify’ the administration’s transport of Zelenskyy on a Department of the Air Force aircraft to Pennsylvania. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Pentagon, Justice Department and Harris campaign for comment. 

Some House Democrats are already looking at the possibility of investigating former President Donald Trump if they win the House majority in November.

Two top lawmakers, Reps. Richard Neal, D-Mass., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., did not rule out probing Trump if he wins the White House in November.

Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways & Means Committee who led the probe into Trump’s tax returns in the last Congress, told Fox News Digital it would be ‘hard to assess’ whether he would see himself resuscitating that effort, but he added that the Supreme Court’s recent decision expanding presidential immunity could change the calculus.

‘That would be speculative, but I certainly would not back away from the positions I’ve taken over the years on that issue,’ Neal said.

Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News Digital, ‘I’d rather look to the future than the past, but we’ll do our job.’

In a longer statement provided to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, Raskin accused Republicans of ignoring issues like gun violence and prescription drug costs.

‘Instead, for two years, House Republicans have used the gavel to pursue a laughingstock flop of an impeachment investigation to help their presidential nominee and personal cult leader, Donald Trump. Even worse, they have blocked and obstructed Democrats’ efforts to investigate the corruption of Donald Trump and his autocrat allies,’ Raskin said.

‘Investigating this endless corruption is critical for Congress to create legislative fixes to ensure government serves the people and to put an end to efforts to exploit the presidency and sell out our government to the highest bidder.’

Meanwhile, rank-and-file Democratic Reps. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said investigations could be warranted into Trump’s family and their business dealings even if the former president lost his re-election bid.

Both singled out his son-in-law and former White House adviser Jared Kushner, whose investment firm got a $2 billion investment commitment from a fund led by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. 

‘His family has some ongoing deals that we learned about after we went out of the majority that I think are worth visiting,’ Swalwell said. ‘The Kushners and the Saudi deal – I think people want some closure on that.’

He took a shot at the House GOP’s probes into the foreign business dealings of President Biden’s son, Hunter, adding, ‘If you tell me you’re interested in Hunter Biden, then you probably owe it to the country to be interested in what happened there.’

Goldman, an Oversight Committee member, told Fox News Digital, ‘I think if Trump wins, obviously that’ll be the principal purpose [of the committee], is to provide the checks and balances that Congress needs to check, and that Donald Trump especially requires.’

‘I think there are a lot of really important, substantive issues that the committee has not investigated this year that are not partisan, that we should be focused on,’ he said, adding, ‘But we also were frustrated this term that obvious, obvious concerns were not investigated.’

‘How did Jared Kushner get $2 billion from Mohammed bin Salman for an investment company in something that he had never done before…That’s a tremendous amount of money. There’s been no investigation into that.’

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt responded, saying, ‘Swalwell and Goldman should get a life. President Trump has endured two fake impeachments, four baseless witch-hunt indictments, and endless investigations into his businesses — all of which have failed because they are not based on facts but rather, they are fueled by the vitriolic Trump Derangement Syndrome that has taken over the Democrat Party.’

Raskin’s investigatory efforts into Trump during this Congress, as leader of the Oversight Committee’s Democratic minority, could also offer a possible preview of what Democrats’ probes could look like in a second Trump term.

Earlier this month, he and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., sent a letter to Trump demanding that the former president prove he did not take a ‘cash bribe’ from Egypt’s president in 2017. The letter was spurred by a Washington Post report that also alleged former Attorney General Bill Barr had blocked a probe into the matter.

Investigating Biden and his family has been a core focus of the committee under Chairman James Comer’s tenure. Comer, R-Ky., released a report recently accusing the president of having committed impeachable offenses – something the White House denies.

He denied that the intensity of his Biden probe could give Democrats cover to investigate Trump, however – insisting their inquiries into Trump were political.

‘If the Democrats want to waste taxpayer dollars and time investigating the Trump administration again for the second time, then that’s their prerogative. But we focused on waste, fraud and abuse and mismanagement by the federal government,’ Comer told Fox News Digital.

‘If Trump wins…They’re going to harass and obstruct every step of the way.’

Minnesota Gov. and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was blasted on social media this week for visiting the upscale Manhattan apartment of Alex Soros, the son of billionaire liberal mega donor George Soros.

‘Honored to host Governor @Tim_Walz at my home in New York City!’ Alex Soros, his dad’s successor at the multibillion-dollar Open Society Foundations (OSF), posted on X on Tuesday along with photos alongside Walz in front of the New York City skyline.

The post was widely panned by conservatives on social media who made the argument that Walz’s portrayal as a ‘rural’ moderate was compromised by standing next to one of the most prolific progressive families in the United States. 

‘All you need to know……’ Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham posted on X.

‘If you squint, you can see the strings on the marionette,’ former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy posted on X.

‘A post like this does nothing to help Kamala Harris & Tim Walz win — if anything, it hurts them,’ journalist Jerry Dunleavy posted on X. ‘So why would Soros post something like this? To publicly signal his power & influence within the next would-be presidential administration.’

‘Real working man’s salt of the earth aesthetic for ol Walzy,’ Daily Caller editor-in-chief Geoffrey Ingersoll posted on X. 

‘This guy goes around saying he’s a small town midwestern guy who understands the struggles of the middle class and then goes to hang out at the floating home in the sky of the world’s biggest billionaire nepo baby,’ digital strategist Greg Price wrote on X.

‘Nothing screams Midwestern folksy like a billionaire penthouse view of Manhattan,’ Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross posted on X.

‘George was better at this than his weird son,’ Daily Wire managing editor Brent Scher posted on X. ‘Why would you post this?’

This is at least the second time that Walz has hung out with Alex Soros in the last month. Photos circulated on social media in August during the DNC showed Soros, his new fiancée, Huma Abedin, and Walz hanging out in Chicago.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris-Walz campaign and the Soros Open Society Foundation for comment but did not receive a response. 

Walz has been widely touted by various media outlets as a VP choice who will help Harris win rural voters in Middle America while George Soros is one of the most polarizing progressive figures in American politics, often criticized by Republicans for implementing a far-left agenda with his vast fortune.

The Justice Department (DOJ) has sided with the United Nations in defending in court its relief agency for Palestinians after some workers were found to have likely been involved in the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) fired at least nine of its employees in August after finding that they likely participated in the Hamas slaughter of 1,200 people, including more than 30 Americans. 

Victims of the massacre and their families sued UNRWA in a New York federal court, accusing the group and the individuals involved of aiding and abetting Hamas ‘in the commission of international torts.’

The United Nations (U.N.) says the lawsuit should be dismissed, claiming the charter between the U.S. and the U.N. gives the group and its subsidiaries diplomatic immunity. ‘Since the U.N. has not waived immunity in this instance, its subsidiary, UNRWA, continues to enjoy absolute immunity from prosecution, and the lawsuit should be dismissed,’ the U.N. stated in response. 

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York filed a brief in July supporting that argument, saying, ‘In light of the United Nations’ immunity, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the United Nations.’

The brief notes that ‘the United States acknowledges and deplores the profound losses suffered on October 7,’ and that ‘the United States takes no position on the factual allegations in the complaint.’

‘The United Nations is absolutely immune from suit and legal process absent an express waiver of immunity,’ Williams said, citing the Charter of the United Nations, to which the United States acceded in 1945, that says the U.N. ‘shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the fulfilment [sic] of its purposes.’

Similarly, the individual defendants in the lawsuit also enjoy immunity from suit as U.N. employees, the brief said.

Among other things, the DOJ’s brief says that the victims’ lawsuit alleges that UNRWA ‘knowingly provided monetary and material support to Hamas to build its ‘terror infrastructure’ leading up to the Oct. 7 attacks, facilitated the construction of Hamas command and control centers, permitted weapons storage in UNRWA facilities, concealed rocket and rocket-launching materials on UNRWA premises, and that that UNRWA chose Hamas-approved textbooks for its schools that were used to indoctrinate children against Israel.’

The suit also alleges UNRWA ‘knew several local staff were affiliated with Hamas and paid staff ‘in a fashion calculated to further enrich Hamas,’ according to Williams’ brief.

Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, said that DOJ’s brief outlining the scope of UNRWA’s immunity ‘makes a lot of assumptions’ and exhibits a ‘lack of appetite on behalf of the executive branch to go after supporters of terror.’

‘There are also multiple technical arguments to be made here that UNRWA is not actually immune,’ Goldfeder said in a statement on X, directed at the Justice Department. 

‘The treaties above are not self-executing; it is only an affiliated organization and was never itself designated under the International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945,’ he continued. ‘It saddens me that you chose to simply assume that UNRWA’s positions are correct, instead of engaging on any of these points.’ 

‘Perhaps the most egregious assumption you accept is the idea that the claims made by the plaintiffs against all the individual defendants here relate to actions undertaken or omissions made by them in the performance of their official function,’ Goldfeder said.

‘To be clear… [the complaint is] chock-full of allegations that these defendants aided and abetted Hamas, and that they did so consciously, voluntarily, and culpably.’ 

‘Is it, pray tell, your contention that all of those actions were what UNRWA was supposed to be doing?’ Goldfeder questioned on the social media platform.

Goldfeder continued in an interview with Fox News Digital, arguing, ‘The basic premise of what makes it so absolutely crazy is this – the U.N. is claiming that immunity from civil suits for invading a country and massacring its citizens is necessary for the exercise of its functions. And again, the Biden-Harris administration just filed that they agree. So the point is, if you think that immunity for mass murder is necessary for the U.N. to function, maybe it’s time to rethink the U.N. entirely.’

Anne Bayefsky, president of Human Rights Voices and Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, says that the practical effect of DOJ’s position is ‘unaccountabillity’ for UNRWA.  

‘Regardless of the empty protestations to the contrary, the practical effect of the DOJ position is to contribute to unaccountability for UNRWA and its employees despite their demonstrable connections to Hamas and heinous behavior on multiple fronts,’ Bayefsky said. 

‘Legally-speaking immunity applies here when employees act within the boundaries of their official capacities. So is the DOJ now arguing that aiding and abetting an officially-designated terrorist organization is just UNRWA doing its job?’ she added.

UNRWA and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. 

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned Americans against re-electing former President Trump.

‘What I’d say in a respectful way to Americans is: I don’t think you realize that the rest of the world is watching because we’ve got skin in the game,’ Khan reportedly said in an interview with Politico. 

‘What happens in America is the metronome… that sets the beat of what happens across the globe,’ Khan, who is in his third term as mayor of London, told the outlet while in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly. ‘It sets the beat for how other politicians behave in an election campaign.’

Khan, a left-leaning Labour Party member, claimed that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and rhetoric about women and immigrants are dangerous, according to Politico. He encouraged Americans to consider Trump’s first term. 

Compared to other United Kingdom leaders, such as Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Politico said Khan could more boldly support Vice President Kamala Harris as president of the United States. Starmer became the first Labour Party member to address their annual conference as prime minister in 15 years this week, the Washington Post reported. His speech referenced a need for ‘joy’ – a catchphrase promoted by the Harris campaign. 

Khan, who has been engaged in public feuds with Trump in the past and has outwardly called the Republican presidential nominee a racist, a sexist and a homophobe, categorized the upcoming American election as one of significant importance. Trump has also been critical of Khan, describing the mayor in 2019 as a ‘stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London.’ 

‘Make sure you’re registered to vote and make sure you vote,’ Khan told Politico this week. ‘Because the election that happens on Nov. 5, in my view, is the most important election in my lifetime.’ 

Politico also asked Khan about some of the worst unrest the United Kingdom had seen in years following the mass knife attack in Southport this summer. 

The mayor argued that British and American politicians should focus on responding to issues surrounding health care, housing and education, ‘not to play on people’s fears.’ 

‘The oldest trick in the book is to blame the other,’ Khan said. ‘The oldest trick in the book is to pick on one community and one minority, manufacture a situation where they’re blamed for the problems.’

London was gripped with mass protests, arson and rioting in response to three young girls being stabbed to death during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Southport neighborhood. Authorities blamed speculation online suggesting the attacker was a migrant Islamic extremist as driving ‘far-right’ protests and violent clashes with the police. Nearly 1,000 people were arrested, reports say. 

The July 29 knife attack left eight other children and two adults seriously injured. Authorities later identified the assailant as Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, a 17-year-old born in Cardiff to parents from Rwanda, the BBC reported. He is facing three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. 

In the interview, Khan also defended Starmer, who has been mired in controversies in his first three months in office involving accepting donor gifts, slashing winter fuel allowances for retirees and low approval ratings. 

‘It has been tough. Of course, it’s tough. Running things is tough, but I’d rather Keir Starmer make those tough calls, tough decisions, to be straight with the British people now, rather than having things being covered up and buried away,’ Khan told Politico. ‘And that means sometimes making decisions that in the short term are unpopular, but leading to medium-term, long-term benefits.’

Iran’s recent hack of the Trump campaign is an ‘explicit tipping of the scales’ in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, according to one former national security official.

Last week, the U.S. revealed Iranian hackers had obtained information on the Trump campaign and tried to distribute it to people linked to the Biden campaign and media organizations since June. 

‘It’s no surprise, right?’ Robert Greenway, former head of Middle East policy on the National Security Council, told Fox News Digital. ‘Iran perceives the return of Donald Trump and his policies, which brought them to the brink of financial collapse, as an existential threat.’ 

Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Iran deal meant to stave off a nuclear Iran in exchange for softening of sanctions. Republicans argued the deal did not have enough enforcement. 

After Biden rolled back sanctions on Iran, Greenway argued, the regime went from 500 centrifuges needed to make a nuclear bomb to 7,000. It went from 5% enriched uranium to 60% (90% is needed for a nuclear weapon.) It went from exporting 400,000 barrels of oil per day in 2019 under the Trump administration’s harsh sanctions to 1.7 million barrels per day today. 

‘They’ve made a tremendous amount of money. They have had doors opened by the U.S. administration.’

Reports also suggest renewed activity in two nuclear weaponization sites in Iran – Sanjarian and Golab Dareh.

But another Middle East expert shrugged off the incidents, suggesting it could have been as simple as a Trump campaign staffer inadvertently clicking on a phishing scam. 

‘The Iranians carry out a bunch of cyberattacks all the time,’ said Aaron Stein, president of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. 

‘I think this one might be as explained as simply as somebody was silly enough to click on probably an obvious cyber phishing and it would expose the campaign to potential embarrassment if somebody ultimately chooses to publish the documents.’

‘I don’t know if [the Iranians] have a favorite in the race,’ Stein said. ‘There have been numerous investigations that the Iranians continue to try and actively plot… to take revenge for the killing of [Iranian General] Qassem Soleimani in the Trump administration.’ 

‘But the Iran nuclear deal is dead. I don’t think anybody is going back to it. I ultimately think the approach to Iran would be more or less the same. Trump might be a little more bellicose, but I think in a practical sense, it’ll be more or less the same.’ 

‘The Islamic Republic is indeed seeking to sow discord of the West,’ Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iranian expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said of the campaign hack. ‘But we cannot be ignorant of the empirical record.’

‘The reason the Islamic Republic in 2020 was trying to drive voter turnout on the left, the reason in 2018 and 2019 accounts tied to the Islamic Republic were trying to spoof and amplify methods tied to the progressive left. The reason they tried to hack the Trump campaign very recently, their reason, still the Islamic Republic seeks the assassination of former President Donald Trump, is that Trump was exceptionally successful in his maximum pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic,’ he said. 

Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian was in New York City, where he struck a less combative tone at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. 

‘We don’t wish to be the cause of instability in the region,’ he told the crowd. ‘We don’t want war… We want to live in peace.’ 

‘We know more than anyone else that if a larger war were to erupt in the Middle East, it will not benefit anyone throughout the world. It is Israel that seeks to create this wider conflict,’ he insisted. 

Pezeshkian was elected on a promise that he could convince the West to lift sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Taleblue predicted that Pezeshkian would take to New York to ‘prime the press to deliver talking points, that they are indeed interested in nuclear talks, but again, really, they’ll only use nuclear talks as a human shield against real pressure.’

‘They will probably try to successfully exploit a permissive environment to sell more oil to China, to generate more revenue to fund its drone program, its missile program and its nuclear program… under patronage from Russia and China.’ 

China fired a missile into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday following a speech on the international stage by President Biden, in which he called for security in the region.

The Ministry of Defense of the People’s Republic of China announced that its military had launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday morning.

The missile, which carried a dummy warhead and was not targeting any nation, fell into the ocean without incident. The People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force claims that the launch was part of its routine military training calendar.

Just hours prior, Biden made his final address to the United Nations in New York City, running through a series of security concerns for the international body.

Biden specifically noted the threat posed against Western interests by China and urged efforts for peace.

‘We also need to uphold our principles as we seek to responsibly manage the competition with China so it does not veer into conflict,’ he said. ‘We stand ready to cooperate on urgent challenges for the good of our people and the people everywhere.’

‘We recently resumed cooperation with China to stop the flow of deadly synthetic narcotics,’ Biden continued. ‘I appreciate the collaboration. It matters for the people in my country and many others around the world.’

Biden specifically referenced the need to combat the forces of ‘military coercion’ being applied to Taiwan and others in the region.

‘On matters of conviction, the United States is unabashed, pushing back against unfair economic competition and against military coercion of other nations in the South China Sea, in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Straits, in protecting our most advanced technologies so they cannot be used against us or any of our partners,’ the president said.

A U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that they were given some notice before the launch.

‘We monitored the PRC ICBM test launch that occurred earlier today,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘The PRC did give some advance notification of the ICBM test. This is a step in the right direction to reducing the risks of misperception and miscalculation.’

‘It also is a step toward facilitating a more regularized bilateral notification arrangement for ballistic missile and space launches—which the USG has previously proposed to the PRC—and represents a common sense confidence-building measure,’ they added.