Month: February 2024

Mitch McConnell, 82, announced he will step down as Senate GOP leader in November. McConnell said he plans to serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, “from a different seat in the chamber.”

McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history, announced his decision Wednesday with prepared remarks which began: “One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter. So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

McConnell’s announcement is said to be unrelated to his health — he had a concussion from a fall last year, and two public episodes where his face briefly froze while he was speaking. Despite the concerns about his health, colleagues have said in recent months that they believe he has recovered and that McConnell was not impaired cognitively, but did have some additional physical limitations. McConnell said in his prepared remarks: “As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work. A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.” McConnell gave no specific reason for the timing of his decision, but cited the recent death of his wife’s youngest sister as prompting the decision: “The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer.”   He added:“I love the Senate. It has been my life. There may be more distinguished members of this body throughout our history, but I doubt there are any with more admiration for it,” but added, “Father Time remains undefeated. I am no longer the young man sitting in the back, hoping colleagues would remember my name. It is time for the next generation of leadership. I still have enough gas in the tank to thoroughly disappoint my critics and I intend to do so with all the enthusiasm which they have become accustomed.”

The Kentucky senator had been under increasing pressure from the wing of his party that has aligned firmly with former President Donald Trump. McConnell and Trump have been estranged since December 2020, when McConnell refused to abide Trump’s assertion that the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president was the product of fraud. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, McConnell assigned blame and responsibility to Trump and said that he should be held to account through the criminal justice system for his actions.

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On Wednesday, Hunter Biden testified before two GOP-led House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, telling lawmakers in a closed-door deposition that his father was not involved in his various business deals.

In a copy of his opening statement, Hunter Biden said his father was never involved in his business: “I am here today to provide the committees with the one incontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business. Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never.”

The two House committees have alleged that the Biden family, including the president, financially benefitted from Hunter Biden’s business dealing overseas, despite having direct evidence. The committees subpoenaed Hunter Biden and threatening him with contempt of Congress when he at first refused to testify in private, while he said he preferred to testify in public instead. After negotiations, Biden agreed to the private deposition voluntarily, arguing that his testimony was a “critical component” of their impeachment inquiry, which has centered around allegations that the president profited off of his family members’ foreign business dealings while he was vice president.

Hunter Biden said in his prepared statement: “For more than a year, your Committees have hunted me in your partisan political pursuit of my dad. You have trafficked in innuendo, distortion, and sensationalism — all the while ignoring the clear and convincing evidence staring you in the face. You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father because there isn’t any.” While Biden acknowledged he “squandered” opportunities afforded him during his addiction, he said that those “shortcomings are my own and not my father’s.”

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