The Daily Signal - Hunter Biden Probe Takes Surprising Turn, New York City Bans Tiktok, Kids Protected From Transgender Surgeries in North Carolina | Aug. 17

Starting point is 00:00:01 I'm Samantha Chiris. I'm Virginia Allen. And this is the Daily Signal top news for Thursday, August 17th. Here are today's headlines. North Carolina lawmakers have overridden a governor veto and voted to protect kids from gender procedure. Last month, North Carolina Democrat Governor Roy Cooper vetoed three bills backed by Republicans. The first bill prevents medical professionals from prescribing hormone therapy or puberty blockers to anyone under 18. The bill also prevents doctors from performing gender surgeries such as mastectomies on minors. When Cooper vetoed the bill in July, he said, we don't need politicians inflaming their political culture wars by making broad, uninformed decisions about an extremely small number of vulnerable children. The North Carolina governor also vetoed two other bills at the same time.

Starting point is 00:01:05 One bill that limits LGBTQ plus curriculum in early grades and another bill banning men in women's sports. But last night, the Republican majority in the North Carolina State Legislature overrode all three of the governor's vetoes. Director of Strategy at Family Policy Alliance, Meridian Baldouchi, said the North Carolina Legislature has sent a clear message. They take child safety seriously and will do what it takes to ensure kids are not in harm's way. New York City employees have to delete TikTok from their phones. New York City Hall confirmed to the Hill that all city employees have to remove the app from their government-issued devices within the next 30 days. The Big Apple is joining a number of other cities and states that have made similar decisions in an effort to prevent China from accessing user data on TikTok. Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have voiced concerns over TikTok and the Chinese Communist Party's access to user data.

Starting point is 00:02:05 TikTok's parent company BiteDance is headquartered in BATOck. Beijing and is subject to Chinese law that requires companies to make data available to the government. A city hall spokesperson said that while social media is great at connecting New Yorkers with one another and the city, we have to ensure we are always using these platforms in a secure manner. They added the NYC Cyber Command determined that the TikTok application poses a security threat to the city's technical networks and directed its removal from city-owned devices. A Georgia State GOP senator is calling for a special session in the state to review the actions of Fannie Willis. Willis is the Fulton County District Attorney who indicted former President Donald

Starting point is 00:02:53 Trump earlier this week on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Georgia State Senator Colton Moore wrote on Twitter this morning, I am officially calling for an emergency session to review the actions of Fannie Willis. America is under attack. I'm not going to sit back and watch as radical left prosecutors politically target political opponents. Moore told the Hill that Georgians don't want their tax dollars going to fund a political persecution. Moore says that if the district attorney is found to be doing some corrupt things, then she should be impeached. It is unclear if the special session will happen.

Starting point is 00:03:31 either Georgia Governor Brian Kemp would have to call the session or three-fifths of both the Georgia House and Senate would need to agree. Stay tuned. House Republicans probe into the business dealings of the Biden family took a surprising turn today. According to Just the News, the House Oversight Committee is asking for full access to the National Archives to Joe Biden's communications as vice president with his son Hunter

Starting point is 00:03:58 and his business partners. So here's what we know. Just the news is reporting that members of the House gained access to an email showing that a White House staffer communicated plans for a phone call with Ukraine's president and Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. This was back in 2016, and Hunter Biden was copied on that email. So here with us to explain a little bit more of what is happening in this situation is Kyle Brosnan, Chief Counsel of the Oversight Project here at the Heritage Foundation. Kyle, thanks for being back with us. So explain what we know about this email. Sure. So today, the House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer sent a letter to the National Archives seeking unredacted copies of a series of records that are in their possession. We know from the Hunter Biden laptop and other publicly available information that an aid for Joe Biden, when he was vice president, shared 10 emails containing Vice President Biden's

Starting point is 00:04:55 schedule to Hunter between May 18th and June 15th, 2016. And the letter points out from Chairman Comer that included in those communications was a scheduling letter, an update on the schedule saying that he was going to have a call with the president of Ukraine on May 27, 2016. And another issue that they brought up is the use of pseudonyms that Joe Biden used. And so the email containing the schedule is sent to a pseudonym Robert Peters. We also know from the Hunter-Biden laptop that Vice President Biden used other pseudonyms like Robin Ware or J.R.B. Ware. And so this is an escalation or a furtherance of the House Oversight's Committee's investigation into records from President Biden, from his time as vice president, to drill deeper into the connections between Joe and Hunter about Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine. So remember, last month, Devin Archer, Hunter Biden's former business associate sat for an interview with committee staff, where he said that Joe Biden got on the phone as many as 20 times with Hunter's business associates. And so this is sort of a furtherance of that investigation really drilling down into the level of communications between Joe and Hunter about Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine.

Starting point is 00:06:16 Are the archives going to give the House Oversight Committee the access that they're asking for? That remains to be seen. Typically, the National Archives are one of the more responsive branches from my experience on the Hill. This committee, I believe, has jurisdiction, authorizing jurisdiction over the National Archives. And so they have an extra jurisdictional hook as well to obtain that information. But, you know, it remains to be seen. the Biden administration has obstructed Congress on a number of fronts throughout this Congress. And so that remains to be seen.

Starting point is 00:06:51 But if history and practice or any indication the National Archives does tend to be quite responsive to Congress. So why is this a big deal that Hunter Biden was copied on the email? I mean, is this common that maybe family members are copied on various emails that have to do with schedules of the president? Could be just for awareness or maybe there was a scheduling? conflict and Hunter Biden needed to know so that, you know, things that were on the schedule could be moved around with his dad or whatnot. Could there just be sort of a simple explanation to this? I mean, there always can be, right, if you apply Occam's razor to things, but I think there's, you know, based on what we've seen from the House Oversight Committee, what they've released

Starting point is 00:07:31 thus far, is that, you know, and also the sort of the shifting narrative from the president and his allies, you know, if you recall when Joe Biden was running for president, he emphatically stated that he had no communications with his son about his business practices. And then the White House changed their tune to subtly say that he was never in business with his son. And now, you know, he's being told that, you know, he was indeed on the phone with Hunter's Business Associates as many as 20 times, but, you know, they were talking about the weather and those communications didn't matter.

Starting point is 00:08:05 So the goalposts from the Bidens and their allies is continuously moving. And so these records are, you know, they're in the National Archives, they're public records. Some of them have been released under FOIA or the presidential records equivalent, but they're heavily redacted. And so what this letter is seeking today is to lift some of those redactions. The letter specifically targets a set of documents that are publicly redacted. So it's easily identified, one easily digestible, a universe of documents that they've identified. It should be easy to pull, lift the redactions, and submit them. to Congress. And so we'll see what's behind those redactions.

Starting point is 00:08:43 Yeah. Finally, Kyle, I want to ask you about where things stand with special counsel, David Weiss. So last week we learned that David Weiss was being appointed to special counsel on this investigation into Hunter Biden. Have we learned anything new over the past week regarding that? Are there any updates we should be aware of on that front? Nothing really new on that point. There was some filings in Delaware. So I think the last time I was on, I mentioned that they had dismissed the tax charges in Delaware, which is a prerequisite to potentially bring felony charges elsewhere. And then there were a series of filings between the government and Hunter Biden's counsel. Between then, you know, saying a disagreement about the validity of the

Starting point is 00:09:23 diversion agreement for the guns. Hunter Biden's attorneys are asserting that that agreement is still binding, where the government is saying it's not. And so the judge will have to decide there. But, you know, we're sort of seeing the one of the downsides of naming a special counsel is sort of this fail of secrecy is is put upon the entire situation it's another grounds for Congress to be obstructed the Justice Department did send a letter to Chairman Jordan basically rescinding Weiss's offer to to testify in in September or October as I as I predicted and so Congress is still going to have another uphill battle and getting information out of mr. Weiss's office well Kyle thank you so much

Starting point is 00:10:02 for your expertise and thanks for the work of the Heritage Foundation Oversight Project and for your continued updates on this. Thank you. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to The Daily Signals Top News. If you haven't had the chance, be sure to check out our morning show right here in this podcast feed where we interview lawmakers, experts,

Starting point is 00:10:21 and of course leading conservative voices. Tomorrow morning, I'm looking forward to bringing you all a conversation from the Iowa State Fair with Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird. We discuss something called Proposition 12 out of California that poses a great threat to Iowa farmers and also discuss the work that is being done in Iowa to protect the unborn.

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Starting point is 00:10:58 for my conversation with Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinco. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheris. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.

The Daily Signal - Hunter Biden Probe Takes Surprising Turn, New York City Bans Tiktok, Kids Protected From Transgender Surgeries in North Carolina | Aug. 17

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