Hunter Biden’s criminal tax trial begins with jury selection in California
Jury selection in Hunter Biden’s criminal tax trial stemming from special counsel David Weiss’ yearslong investigation into the first son begins Thursday in California. United States District Court for the Central District of California Judge Mark Scarsi is presiding over the trial. Biden’s tax trial was set to begin in June, but his attorneys requested it be delayed to September, and Scarsi approved that request. HOUSE REPUBLICANS REFER HUNTER BIDEN, JAMES BIDEN FOR CRIMINAL PROSECUTION AMID IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY Weiss charged Hunter Biden with three felonies and six misdemeanors concerning $1.4 million in owed taxes that have since been paid. Weiss alleged a “four-year scheme” when the president’s son did not pay his federal income taxes while also filing false tax reports. Biden pleaded not guilty. In the indictment, Weiss alleged that Biden “engaged in a four-year scheme to not pay at least $1.4 million in self-assessed federal taxes he owed for tax years 2016 through 2019, from in or about January 2017 through in or about October 15, 2020, and to evade the assessment of taxes for tax year 2018 when he filed false returns in or about February 2020.” Weiss said that, in “furtherance of that scheme,” Biden “subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company, Owasco, PC by withdrawing millions” from the company “outside of the payroll and tax withholding process that it was designed to perform.” HUNTER BIDEN TAX TRIAL POSTPONED TO SEPTEMBER The special counsel alleged that Biden “spent millions of dollars on an extravagant lifestyle rather than paying his tax bills,” and that in 2018, he “stopped paying his outstanding and overdue taxes for tax year 2015.” Weiss alleged that Biden “willfully failed to pay his 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 taxes on time, despite having access to funds to pay some or all of these taxes,” and that he “willfully failed to file his 2017 and 2018 tax returns on time.” This is the second time Biden is on trial this year stemming from charges out of Weiss’ investigation. Biden was found guilty on all counts in Delaware after Weiss charged him with making a false statement during the purchase of a firearm; making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a licensed firearm dealer; and one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. A date has not yet been set for sentencing for those charges. With all counts combined, the total maximum prison time for the charges could be up to 25 years. Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release. President Biden has vowed not to pardon his son. Jury selection in California is expected to take place Thursday and Friday. Weiss and Biden’s defense attorneys are expected to deliver their opening arguments the following Monday.
Trump skips federal court hearing Thursday, pleads not guilty to charges in Jack Smith’s election case
Lawyers entered a not guilty plea on behalf of former President Trump in federal court in Washington, D.C., Thursday related to charges from special counsel Jack Smith’s new indictment after the Supreme Court ruled a president is immune from prosecution for official acts in office. Trump did not appear in court Thursday, but his lawyers entered a not guilty plea during the status hearing before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. According to a court filing obtained by Fox News, Trump signed an entry of not guilty plea. In the document, filed on Tuesday, Trump also waived his right to be present at his arraignment. TRUMP PLANS TO PLEAD NOT GUILTY TO JACK SMITH’S REVISED FEDERAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE CHARGES “I authorize my attorneys to enter a plea of not guilty on my behalf to each and every count of the superseding indictment, Doc. 226,” the document says. “I further state that I have received a copy of the superseding indictment and reviewed it with my counsel.” TRUMP INDICTED A SECOND TIME IN ELECTION SUBVERSION CASE BROUGHT BY SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH The case pertains to Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Last week, the former president was indicted and issued revised criminal charges by Smith, who alleges Trump pressured former Vice President Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes, in addition to mounting fake electors in key states that went to President Biden and to attest to Trump’s electoral victory. TRUMP UNLEASHES ON HARRIS, TALKING IMMIGRATION, CHINA IN EXCLUSIVE ‘LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN’ INTERVIEW The new indictment keeps the prior criminal charges but narrows and reframes the allegations against the Republican presidential nominee after a Supreme Court ruling that conferred broad immunity on former presidents. Specifically, the indictment has been changed to remove allegations involving Department of Justice officials and other government officials. It clarifies Trump’s role as a candidate and makes clear the allegations regarding his conversations with then-Vice President Pence in his ceremonial role as president of the Senate. The new indictment removes a section of the previous indictment that had accused Trump of trying to use the Justice Department to undo his 2020 loss. The Supreme Court recently ruled in a 6-3 decision that Trump was immune from prosecution for official White House acts. Trump has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. Those charges, to which Trump pleaded not guilty, remain. Smith alleges Trump participated in an effort to enlist slates of fake electors in key states won by Biden to attest that Trump had in fact won and that Trump pressured Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes. The special counsel’s office said the updated indictment, filed in federal court in Washington, was issued by a grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case. The new grand jury has only heard this new information. Sources familiar with the matter tell Fox News that discussions surrounding the superseding indictment will likely not speed things up, and it is unlikely it will go to trial before the November election. Fox News’ David Spunt and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Trump to skip federal court hearing Thursday, plead not guilty to charges in Jack Smith’s election case
Lawyers are expected to enter a not guilty plea on behalf of former President Trump in federal court in Washington, D.C., Thursday related to charges from special counsel Jack Smith’s new indictment after the Supreme Court ruled a president is immune from prosecution for official acts in office. Trump will not appear in court Thursday, but his lawyers are expected to enter a not guilty plea during the status hearing before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. According to a court filing obtained by Fox News, Trump signed an entry of not guilty plea. In the document, filed on Tuesday, Trump also waived his right to be present at his arraignment. TRUMP PLANS TO PLEAD NOT GUILTY TO JACK SMITH’S REVISED FEDERAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE CHARGES “I authorize my attorneys to enter a plea of not guilty on my behalf to each and every count of the superseding indictment, Doc. 226,” the document says. “I further state that I have received a copy of the superseding indictment and reviewed it with my counsel.” TRUMP INDICTED A SECOND TIME IN ELECTION SUBVERSION CASE BROUGHT BY SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH The case pertains to Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Last week, the former president was indicted and issued revised criminal charges by Smith, who alleges Trump pressured former Vice President Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes, in addition to mounting fake electors in key states that went to President Biden and to attest to Trump’s electoral victory. TRUMP UNLEASHES ON HARRIS, TALKING IMMIGRATION, CHINA IN EXCLUSIVE ‘LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN’ INTERVIEW The new indictment keeps the prior criminal charges but narrows and reframes the allegations against the Republican presidential nominee after a Supreme Court ruling that conferred broad immunity on former presidents. Specifically, the indictment has been changed to remove allegations involving Department of Justice officials and other government officials. It clarifies Trump’s role as a candidate and makes clear the allegations regarding his conversations with then-Vice President Pence in his ceremonial role as president of the Senate. The new indictment removes a section of the previous indictment that had accused Trump of trying to use the Justice Department to undo his 2020 loss. The Supreme Court recently ruled in a 6-3 decision that Trump was immune from prosecution for official White House acts. Trump has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. Those charges, to which Trump pleaded not guilty, remain. Smith alleges Trump participated in an effort to enlist slates of fake electors in key states won by Biden to attest that Trump had in fact won and that Trump pressured Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes. The special counsel’s office said the updated indictment, filed in federal court in Washington, was issued by a grand jury that had not previously heard evidence in the case. The new grand jury has only heard this new information. Sources familiar with the matter tell Fox News that discussions surrounding the superseding indictment will likely not speed things up, and it is unlikely it will go to trial before the November election. Fox News’ David Spunt and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Southern border crisis helped spur massive spike in crossings from Canada as well: expert
Diverting resources to combat the flow of migrants at the southern border helped contribute to a surge in new crossings at the northern border, one expert argues. “The southern border always gets the attention and, therefore, gets the resources and the money, and the northern border then has vast areas that are just wide open,” Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital. “During Biden, because of the numbers of crossings on the southern border, they pull resources from the northern border to go deal with the southern border, leaving even fewer to guard the northern border.” The comments come after a report on CBS 19 detailed the plight of a northern border sector that has seen more apprehensions this fiscal year than the previous 13 combined. According to the report, the Swanton Border Sector has recorded roughly 15,000 apprehensions in the first 10 months of fiscal 2024, the largest volume ever recorded and more than 14,000 more than 2021, the first year President Biden was in office. NORTHERN BORDER SECTOR GETS SLAMMED WITH MORE APPREHENSIONS THAN PREVIOUS 13 YEARS COMBINED But the sector, which covers 295 miles of the Canadian border and covers all of Vermont and parts of New York and New Hampshire, isn’t the only place the northern border has seen a surge in traffic, with the Canadian border overall setting a record of 190,000 encounters in fiscal 2023 and more than 162,000 so far in the current fiscal year. The report also noted that roughly 1,100 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) have been encountered at the northern border between 2021 and 2023, which is more than half of the more than 1,700 apprehended at the border nationwide. According to Ries, the northern border naturally represents a challenge for the U.S. Border Patrol, which is more than double the number of miles as the southern border with Mexico. The northern border also presents unique challenges to agents, including maritime crossings throughout the Great Lakes region. Those issues have only gotten more challenging under Biden, Ries argued, noting that the administration’s permissive immigration policies have offered an incentive to cross and have also led to a need for more resources to be pulled from the north to the Mexican border. WATCH: RESIDENTS ALONG THE BORDER TRUST TRUMP OVER HARRIS ON BORDER SECURITY “We’ve got [an] open border right now and the world knows they can get in,” Ries said, noting that migrants from different places will use different crossings, depending on the situation. “Smugglers adapt, traffickers adapt, and that’s why we’re seeing these numbers,” Ries said. According to the CBS 19 report, migrants have attempted to enter the country illegally via the northern border from 85 different countries, a number that is also an increase over recent years. When reached for comment on the report by Fox News Digital on Tuesday, a White House spokesperson said Biden has “worked to find bipartisan solutions to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system. Congressional Republicans have failed to act, twice voting against the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security agreement in decades.” TEXAS RESIDENTS AFFECTED BY BORDER SECURITY UNDER BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN EXPRESS FEAR OF FUTURE ATTACK “President Biden announced actions in June that have significantly reduced encounters at the Southern border and the Department of Homeland Security recently announced changes designed to enhance our ability to remove individuals encountered along our Northern border,” the spokesperson added. But Ries expects numbers to continue to climb as long as Biden remains in office, noting that the administration’s decision to restart the controversial CHNV parole program that was previously shut down over concerns of fraud will only add to the burden faced at the northern border. “If people are incentivized to try to get here now, while Biden is still in power, then they’re going to, and we’re going to see numbers increase,” Ries said. The White House did not immediately respond to a follow-up request for comment. Get the latest updates on the ongoing border crisis from the Fox News Digital immigration hub.
SEBI employees call for chief Madhabi Puri Buch’s resignation over alleged ‘toxic’ work culture
SEBI’s management has rejected these claims of a “toxic” work culture, which were raised in the employees’ complaint letters to the Union Finance Ministry.
How Trump, or Kamala, could win, as all sides zero in on the debate
No one knows who’s going to win this election. The polls are so tight in the top battleground states, with Donald Trump or Kamala Harris leading by a point or two – a statistical tie – that a small number of voters or even the weather could make the difference. There is a sense that Kamala’s crusade has stalled. She got no bump from the Democratic convention, perhaps because her joy-filled, vibes-based campaign had already soared during her first month as the nominee. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s approval rating has jumped to 48 percent, the highest of his presidency. Some pundits are crediting an improvement in the economy, but that’s not it. It’s because the president is largely out of the line of fire now that he’s stepped aside. TRUMP, KAMALA AIMING FOR THE MIDDLE WITH VARYING DEGREES OF SUCCESS So the media have begun beating the drums for next Tuesday’s ABC debate, which may be the only such encounter between the two. If Trump can be disciplined and saddle Harris with the unpopular Biden record, he’ll win. If Harris can hold her own against a former president and deflect his attacks, she will have closed the stature gap. And of course the airwaves will be flooded with partisans saying their candidate annihilated the other candidate. In an interesting thought experiment, the New York Times had two columnists – both anti-Trump conservatives – write opposing pieces looking back on a Trump or Harris victory. David Brooks, who is friendly with Biden, said the Trump camp “had one job: to define Kamala Harris as an elite San Francisco liberal before she could define herself as a middle-class moderate. The Trump campaign did next to nothing. All they needed was to play the 2019 clips of Harris sounding like a wokester cliché, but they couldn’t even come up with an argument… “This mistake could have been fatal for the Republicans, because Trump is the 46 percent man. That’s roughly the share of the popular vote he won in 2016 and 2020. He was never going to ride a majority wave to victory in 2024, so it would have been helpful to take his opponent down a few points. “And yet this is the pattern with Trump. He seems to do everything possible to sabotage his own campaigns, but still does surprisingly well in elections.” WHY KAMALA HARRIS AND DANA BASH GET A MIXED GRADE IN VP’S FIRST MEDIA SIT DOWN That’s in part because Trump does 2 or 3 percent better, based on the last two elections, than his preelection polling. And the pundits should get that by now. Though Trump could be “jerkish,” says Brooks, the fastest-growing states are mostly governed by Republicans, including Florida, Texas, Idaho and Montana. What’s more, “the Democrats dominate the media, the universities, the cultural institutions and government. Even the big corporations, headquartered in places like New York and San Francisco, are trending blue… “This is what the educated elites always do. They promise to do stuff for us, but they end up serving only themselves.” And in my view, that’s always been the secret to Trump’s success: Playing on the resentments of those mostly less educated voters who feel the game is rigged against them. It’s the thing about Trump loyalists that top journalists, who tend to move in the same circles as the Dems – note the revolving door with MSNBC – least understand. That’s why they have been too quick to dismiss Trump voters as yahoos, racists, xenophobes and deplorables. And it’s why MAGA voters have been willing to overlook Jan. 6, indictments and even his softening stance on abortion. Trump has the right enemies. Ross Douthat analyzes the hypothetical Harris victory, saying that the menu of liberal orthodoxy – what Ezra Klein has called the “everything bagel” spirit – has become the most powerful ideology in America: “You can wander from an Ivy League faculty lounge to a corporate human resources department to a Hollywood gathering to a magazine editorial meeting and feel as though you inhabit a single-party state.” The vice president mostly followed “a Marie Kondo strategy, applying the life-changing magic of tidying up to the Democratic platform. She didn’t offer a comprehensive moderate agenda or seek out a Sister Souljah confrontation with some left-wing interest group. Instead she offered a form of progressive minimalism… “Her convention speech was especially Kondo-ist: Short, sparse, and nonspecific about virtually everything except restoring Roe v. Wade, protecting middle-class entitlements and keeping Trump out of the Oval Office. The interest groups got oblique gestures, not shout-outs and promises.” And then there was the media strategy – a grand total of one interview, with CNN – and the dropping of past left-wing positions that frustrated Republicans as well. So how did she win? By liberating her party from laundry-list liberalism. SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF ON THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES “When being a Democrat just means being pro-choice and anti-Trump, it’s a lot more relaxing and, yes, joyful,” Douthat says. And Trump supporters “complained that he was too undisciplined — which is to say, too much himself — to drive a consistent anti-Harris message.” Both columnists rely on assumptions that may or may not happen. Which is why the 2024 contest remains impossible to forecast. Strip everything else away and you have Trump outperforming his polling and the make-or-break debate. Most debates don’t live up to the advance hype. This one really could decide who gets to run as the “change” candidate – a former president or incumbent veep – and moves into the Oval Office.
6 dead, 3 injured due to heavy rain, landslides in Nagaland; Rs 4 lakh ex-gratia announced
Nagaland Deputy CM Zeliang said that the State Government has directed the Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA) to release ex-gratia for the families of the deceased and injured immediately through the respective District Disaster Management Authority (DDMAS).
Kolkata doctor rape-murder case: Victim’s parents make SHOCKING revelation, say ‘police tried to…’
The parents of the deceased Kolkata trainee doctor, who was brutally raped and murdered at RG Kar medical college on August 9, has made a shocking revelation.
‘Resume work, leave…’: IMA chief Asokan to protesting doctors amid rising uproar over Kolkata rape and murder case
In a statement, he said the rape and murder of the trainee postgraduate woman doctor at the West Bengal government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has moved the nation’s conscience.
Trump rips ‘border czar’ Harris in Fox town hall: ‘Worst border in the history of the world’
Former President Donald Trump blasted VP Kamala Harris on immigration in a Fox News Town Hall making the case that “she was in charge of the border” as illegal immigration surged to record levels in recent years. “They want open borders,” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a town hall event on Wednesday night. “She wants open borders. Now she’s all of a sudden said, oh, I think we’re closing the borders. She was the border czar, whether you like it or not, but even if you don’t want to use that term. She was in charge of the border.” “It’s the worst border in the history of the world, not just here. There’s never been a country that allowed 21 million people to come in over a three-year period. There’s never been. And 21 million people, many of whom are from prisons, many of whom are murderers and drug dealers and child traffickers.” Trump continued, “And, by the way, women traffickers, you know, women trafficking is the biggest, and they’re traffickers in women. And they’re coming in now and they’re putting them in our Social Security accounts, and they’re putting them in Medicare. And just one thing, if you take a look, take a look. Over the last week, I said this was going to happen. And it’s happening because these people are tougher than our criminals are, our criminals are nice people by comparison.” TRUMP OUTPERFORMING 2020 SUPPORT AMONG HISPANICS, WHO PREFER HIM ON IMMIGRATION, POLL SHOWS Trump said that “more terrorists have come into the United States in the last three years,” “And I think probably 50 years. There’s never been anything like it. These people are so bad. They’re so dangerous. What they’ve done to our country is they’re destroying our country, and we can’t let this happen.” TRUMP UNLEASHES ON HARRIS, TALKING IMMIGRATION, CHINA IN EXCLUSIVE ‘LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN’ INTERVIEW Trump explained that “most people don’t know that you have that many countries” that are “emptying out their prisons and jails” into the United States. “They’re emptying out their mental institutions and insane asylums. They’re emptying out the sickest people, and they’re emptying all into the United States.” Immigration is the second most important issue to voters, behind the economy, heading into the 2024 election, according to recent Fox News polling. Polling also shows that Trump leads Harris on the immigration issue where he beats Harris by 14 points in a Fox News Poll, 16 points in Marist’s poll, 18 points in Marquette University’s poll, and 13 points in the Wall Street Journal’s poll; all conducted after Biden stood down from re-election. Fox News Digital’s Remy Numa contributed to this report