“Soon they will return and be reunited with their families for the first time in many years,” the statement said.
The move means that there are no other Americans wrongfully detained in China, according to news reports.
Texas-based Swidan spent over a decade in a Chinese prison after being accused of drug-related offenses, which he continues to deny.
Li was captured by the government upon a trip to China and accused of espionage. A naturalized citizen, Li, too, maintained his innocence.
Like Swindan, Leung worked as an American businessman, but he had a permanent residency in Hong Kong. He was sentenced to life in prison for espionage in 2023.
The administration has been engaged in an ongoing effort to bring Americans home from around the world who the administration says were being wrongfully detained.
A key informant for House Republicans' impeachment case against President Joe Biden has been indicted again, reported NBC News — this time on 10 charges of tax fraud.
According to the report, federal prosecutors said that Alexander Smirnov received more than $2 million in income from "multiple sources in 2020, 2021, and 2022” and bought “a $1.4 million Las Vegas condominium, a Bentley, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of clothes, jewelry and accessories for himself and [a] Domestic Partner purchased at high-end retailers in Los Angeles and Las Vegas" — all while concealing this money from the IRS.
Smirnov denied the allegations, with his legal team saying in a statement he "intends to vigorously fight these allegations."
This comes after, earlier this year, Smirnov was indicted on charges of lying to the FBI about Biden and his son Hunter — a massive blow to GOP efforts to build an impeachment case against the president. Special counsel David Weiss, who was in charge of the criminal investigation against Hunter Biden that led to convictions on tax and gun crimes, also brought the charges against Smirnov. Prosecutors said Smirnov claimed some of his information came from "officials associated with Russian intelligence."
Before that indictment, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) claimed that Smirnov's testimony was the "heart" of the case for impeaching Biden.
The GOP for years has pursued a theory that Biden laundered international bribes through the overseas business dealings of his son, although the impeachment inquiry started after the GOP took control of the House in 2022 failed to find any compelling evidence that the president was involved in his son's projects or engaged in illegal activity through them.
Ultimately, Republicans couldn't muster the votes from their caucus to pass articles of impeachment against Biden, and settled for releasing a report insinuating Biden engaged in wrongdoing, that even some pro-Trump influencers dismissed.
In the final weeks of President Joe Biden's administration, his Department of Health and Human Services is proposing a new rule for Medicare and Medicaid recipients that will likely touch off a tense confrontation with HHS secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra is now proposing that weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy be covered by Medicare and Medicaid. He said the rule is necessary to fight the ongoing obesity epidemic in the United States by making it easier for Americans to have access to proven medical solutions.
"[The proposal is] a game changer. It helps us recognize that obesity is with us,” Becerra told the Post. “It’s severe. It’s damaging our country’s health. It’s damaging our economy."
The active ingredient in those drugs, semaglutide, has been proven to be effective at helping patients achieve significant weight loss, which helps head off chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease.
In addition to allowing older Americans on Medicare to access the drugs, Becerra's proposal would make it more accessible for low-income Americans who qualify for Medicaid to get semaglutide injections as well. It would also make it more difficult for private insurers who provide Medicare Advantage plans to deny coverage to patients through the tactic of prior authorization.
"We really need to use every tool we’ve got in the toolbox... to try to keep America healthy,” Becerra said. “We should let science drive us to where we’ll go.”
Biden's HHS will officially enter the proposal into the federal register on Tuesday, which doesn't require any action from President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration to go into effect. However, RFK Jr. is likely to be against it given his public positions against vaccines — particularly weekly injections like Ozempic and Wegovy. RFK Jr. has said he would use his position atop America's public health agencies to encourage healthy eating and regular exercise (something former First Lady Michelle Obama also did as the GOP almost unilaterally opposed it).
"They’re counting on selling [Ozempic and Wegovy] to Americans because we’re so stupid and so... addicted to drugs," Kennedy said in October.
Even though President Joe Biden has pledged to peacefully handing the reins of power to President-elect Donald Trump on January 20th, he's still aiming to make sure his successor won't be able to easily undo his signature legislative accomplishments.
The Financial Times recently reported that both Biden and his Cabinet are working at breakneck pace to spend down tens of billions of dollars in projects that have already been approved by Congress before the Trump administration can claw it back or spend it elsewhere. Domestically, this includes $39 billion in incentives for semiconductor manufacturing plants throughout the U.S. as part of the CHIPS and Science Act, which is fueling approximately 115,000 manufacturing jobs in multiple states.
Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said her agency is instructing employees to work overtime and through the weekends to make sure the CHIPS and Science Act funds are out the door before Trump's inauguration less than two months from now. This apparently also included one-on-one calls to tech executives in an effort to fast-track several deals currently in the works.
"The CHIPS team has announced preliminary agreements with two dozen companies for CHIPS awards, and over the next two months, plans to announce preliminary agreements for all $39 billion of that funding, and is well on its way towards securing final agreements for many of those entities [where] preliminary awards were announced," an unnamed White House official told the Financial Times.
One of Biden's most significant legislative achievements was the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which Earthjustice referred to as "the largest climate spending bill ever." One major component of that law was the appropriation of $369 billion in clean energy subsidies, which Trump campaigned on repealing. Biden climate advisor John Podesta told the Times that if Trump tries to undo the IRA, he may face unexpected resistance from Republican state governments.
"Many Republicans, especially governors, know all this activity is a good thing for their districts, states and for their economies," Podesta said.
Another big chunk of unspent money Biden is aiming to get out the door is $7 billion in military assistance to Ukraine that has yet to get to Kiev. Biden is aiming to fast-track that money before Trump gets into office, under the assumption that the president-elect will allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to conquer contested territory in Eastern Ukraine without putting up a fight.
The U.S. has already approved Ukraine's use of long-range weapons to strike at Russian targets, and is sending anti-personnel mines to the Ukrainian military to use against Russia along with the larger anti-tank mines it's already been deploying. Biden believes Kiev will be in a stronger negotiating position with Moscow if it has more weaponry at its disposal when Trump is inaugurated.
Finally, Biden is urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to make the most of the Democratic majority's final months to speed through his last remaining judicial nominees. Schumer recently took advantage of several Republicans' absence in the chamber to hold votes on several nominees that had been held up, getting those judges confirmed to lifetime positions while Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and JD Vance (R-Ohio) were with Trump at a launch of a SpaceX flight.
"We've been working with [Senate Democrats] very, very closely to get as many of the president's nominees confirmed because he believes that he wants to leave a lasting impact on the judiciary," a White House official said.
Click here to read the Times' report in full (subscription required).
President-elect Donald Trump's threats of revenge against "enemies from within" could prove unachievable if President Joe Biden takes unprecedented and immediate action, a legal expert argued Wednesday.
Attorney Paul Rosenzweig, a longtime critic of the president-elect, argued for the Atlantic that Biden might be able to protect some of the people Trump is most likely to target by preemptively issuing pardons.
"The risk of retribution is very real," wrote Rosenzweig. "One hallmark of Trump’s recently completed campaign was his regular calls for vengeance against his enemies."
During his campaign, Trump suggested that former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and former Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley should be executed or otherwise sent to face gunfire, Rosenzwieg noted.
But Biden could frustrate any attempt to exact revenge by issuing pardons for the most at-risk people such as Adam Kinzinger and military leaders such as Jim Mattis, H. R. McMaster, and William McRaven, Rosenzweig argued.
Presidents have basically unlimited power to do this, Rosenzweig said.
Trump, indeed, pardoned many people in his first term who were prosecuted for obstructing investigations into his own conduct, and has repeatedly floated the idea of pardoning the Jan. 6 insurrectionists in his second term, the attorney noted.
Rosenzweig argued it was unlikely any of those perceived enemies would be found guilty in a court of law but a pardon would shut that down the process before it began.
Ultimately, Rosenzweig concluded, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have a duty to those who spoke out against the Republican presidential nominee.
"[They] have a moral and ethical obligation to do what they can to protect those who have taken a great risk trying to stop Trump," he wrote.
"If that means a further diminution of legal norms, that is unfortunate, but it is not Biden’s fault; the cause is Trump’s odious plans and those who support them."
Democrats and pundits have offered a multitude of explanations to try to explain Vice President Kamala Harris' loss to President-elect Donald Trump this week. But one political data expert is offering a different take on why so many voters rejected Harris.
In a Saturday essay for the Guardian, Ben Davis — who worked on the data side of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vermont) 2020 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination — argued that all of the current explanations for Trump's rout are incomplete. He noted that while the prevailing consensus is that Trump had the better economic message and Democrats were too focused on identity politics, Harris' campaign was actually laser-focused on kitchen-table issues while identity was rarely discussed.
Rather, Davis opined that President Joe Biden's decision to quietly sunset pandemic-era safety net programs may have been what stuck out the most in voters' memories of Biden's economic oversight. He wrote that when programs that helped prevent Americans from being evicted, provided them with direct financial assistance and granted them other emergency benefits colored voters' perceptions of the economy more than anything else. And when they were suddenly taken away, it paved the way to Trump's eventual victory.
"The massive, almost overnight expansion of the social safety net and its rapid, almost overnight rollback are materially one of the biggest policy changes in American history," Davis wrote. "For a brief period, and for the first time in history, Americans had a robust safety net: strong protections for workers and tenants, extremely generous unemployment benefits, rent control and direct cash transfers from the American government."
Davis went on to explain how, despite the ongoing mass death and isolation associated with the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, "Americans briefly experienced the freedom of social democracy." He noted that laid-off workers "had enough liquid money to plan long term and make spending decisions for their own pleasure rather than just to survive," and that pandemic-era safety nets allowed them "to look for the jobs they wanted rather than feel stuck in the jobs they had."
"At the end of Trump’s term, the American standard of living and the amount of economic security and freedom Americans had was higher than when it started, and, with the loss of this expanded welfare state, it was worse when Biden left office, despite his real policy wins for workers and unions," Davis wrote. "This is why voters view Trump as a better shepherd of the economy."
In the first weeks after Covid-19 was designated as a global pandemic, millions of American workers lost their jobs after businesses shut down due to the public health emergency. Congress passed several emergency measures aimed at helping workers like the eviction moratorium, extended unemployment assistance and an expansion of the child tax credit, among other things that Trump signed into law. But Davis observed that Biden had no "political pathway" to justify keeping these programs in place after ending the federal Covid-19 emergency, meaning many Americans were stripped of safety nets they had grown accustomed to.
"[T]he material reality is that when Trump left office, this safety net existed, and by the time of the 2024 election, it had evaporated," David wrote. "How could Democrats have countered this? One way was by making it a central issue, fighting publicly and openly to keep these protections and messaging heavily and constantly that Republicans were taking them away while Biden fought for them. An enormous body of research has established that social programs, when implemented, are difficult and highly unpopular to take away. These were universal programs, beneficial at all income levels."
"The political miscalculation the Biden administration made was that, lacking the political ability to implement these policies permanently, it was best to have them expire quietly and avoid the public backlash of gutting welfare programs and the black mark of taking a public political loss," he added. "This was a grave miscalculation."
Democrats are suddenly panicked about the prospect of replacing U.S. Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor before Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Senators have been actively discussing replacements for the 70-year-old justice, if she could be persuaded to retire before president Joe Biden leaves office, and former Democratic lawmaker Bakari Sellers floated one intriguing possibility on CNN.
"I think that is a good plan and it is something that should happen," Sellers said. "Justice Sotomayor a has been more than able justice. I know she may be having personal issues that she contends with while serving on the bench, but I don't want justice Sotomayor to be another Ruth Bader Ginsburg in terms of staying too long. What does this mean for the dynamic of the court? The court to 6-3. If we are able to replace it with a Biden justice it will still be 6-3. The possibility of justice Sotomayor having to resign or retire in the next four years is extremely high. You couple that with [Samuel] Alito and Clarence Thomas, that means you go from a 6-3 court to 7-2 court in terms of conservative versus liberal."
The former South Carolina state legislator then suggested Vice President Kamala Harris as a possible replacement for Sotomayor, although he admitted that would rile up Republicans.
"I hope that Joe Biden makes the next 10 weeks as consequential as he can," Sellers said. "I don't care about drawing outside the lines of what Republicans may think about it, this is within your purview, you can do it and you should do it. One more thing, you have a of a vice president who has a legal pedigree to sit on the Supreme Court and let Republicans go crazy, ape, at even mentioning that option."
Host John Berman raised his eyebrows in surprise and conservative commentator Shermichael Singleton laughed and shook his head.
"Are you floating this, 7:39 a.m. on the East Coast, did Bakari Sellers just float vice president Kamala Harris as a potential Supreme Court nominee?" Berman asked.
"Not only am I floating it, I want to stir up everything," Sellers said. "I want people's heads to explode so we go into the weekend just knowing the chaos has not ended."
Singleton admitted the idea was audacious, but he's not sure that Biden has the political capital to make it work.
"It's an idea that I have not heard anyone mention," he said. "Best of luck getting around Mitch McConnell, who is one of the most surgical individuals to ever lead or be in the minority position of the United States Senate. I think if Democrats were to attempt to nominate the vice president or anybody else, I think Mitch will do everything he can within the confines of the Senate rules to give the incoming president the opportunity to make every single nomination and ultimately confirm those nominations."
Berman recalled that Republican pushed through Amy Coney Barrett's nomination in the weeks before the 2020 election, and he surmised that Democrats could potentially do the same thing with their waning majority.
"It can be done quickly, we saw it happen with Amy Coney Barrett," Sellers said. "It would take a lot of maneuvering by [Senate majority leader] Chuck Schumer and get Joe Manchin on board and [Kyrsten] Sinema on board."
"I respect Chuck Schumer, but Chuck Schumer is no Mitch McConnell," Singleton said. "I just don't see it happening. Could Mitch do something like this? Yes, but Chuck, I would not hold my breath."
A former top Justice Department official indicted in the Georgia election scheme defended Donald Trump against the need for a pardon.
Jeffrey Clark, who has pleaded not guilty to violating the state’s racketeering law and attempting to make false statements, pushed back Friday morning against a column by the National Review's executive editor Mark Antonio Wright, who argued that president Joe Biden should pardon the president-elect for the crimes he allegedly committed.
"He should do this not because Trump is entirely blameless for the circumstances surrounding his indictments that have been leveled against him," Wright wrote. "He's not blameless, especially in the Mar-a-Lago classified-documents case, where the publicly available evidence shows that Trump, at a minimum, negligent and, at maximum, absolutely complicit in ignoring the statutes governing the handling of classified information and, possibly, those concerning the obstruction of justice."
"The constellation of charges surrounding Trump's actions on and before Jan. 6, 2021, are more opaque, not because Trump's actions were not mendacious, self-serving and contemptible, but because I'm not certain that Trump's plan crossed the line," Wright added.
Clark, who's named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the special counsel's election interference case against Trump and is seen as a leading candidate to lead the Department of Justice in the next administration, argued that pardons were unnecessary because the criminal cases were "a mockery of the law and of justice."
"The National Review calls for Biden to pardon Trump," Clark posted on X Friday. "They say Biden should do that even though Trump is guilty in the Mar-a-Lago documents case brought by Jack Smith. They’re oh so magnanimous and full of rectitude. No, National Review, you continue to be out to lunch. The Mar-a-Lago documents case was always a mockery of the law and of justice. Moreover, the case is currently under an order of dismissal. So why on earth would Trump need a pardon for it?"
"Also, Jack Smith has leaked that his days are numbered and the case won’t proceed past January 20, 2025," he added. "Why is our most famous 'conservative' magazine so clueless?"
A stand-up comedian clashed with a Republican strategist Thursday night in a heated debate on CNN over the Biden administration's handling of Abbey Gate in Afghanistan.
Comedian Pete Dominick blasted a clip of Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), a veteran, saying the Biden administration was "out of touch with America."
"Pulling us out of Afghanistan in a haphazard way that cost American lives and ultimately really impacted our foreign policy was a mistake," said Moulton earlier in the day. "And we should be able to admit that. And we as Democrats should be willing to fix it."
Dominick shook his head, reacting to the clip, and said he held an event earlier in the night for veterans, and said he "loved how people just tuned in to caring about veterans during the pull-out."
Dominick said Biden had the courage to do what no other president had before him — including former President Barack Obama. He noted that while 13 U.S. service members died in the attack, thousands of other veterans died as a result of Republican policies and wars in the Middle East.
Fellow panelist Scott Jennings, a senior political commentator who served as special assistant to former President George W. Bush, noted that Biden was in "really good shape" before Abbey Gate, "if you look at the arc." Biden's approval rating dipped under 40 percent after August 2021 as did Vice President Kamala Harris.
"And they lived there until the end of the presidency," he said.
That's when the discussion became heated.
When Dominick asked, "Why?" Jennings shot back that Biden had campaigned on the idea the "adults were back in charge."
"And that was the opposite of that," he said.
Dominick tried to talk over him and say the adults were, in fact, back in charge, and called Trump a "child."
When Jennings tried to accuse the Biden administration of not giving the soldiers' families the "time of day," Dominick shouted, "Bulls--- dude!"
Dominick returned fire and referenced reporting that Trump once called service members "suckers and losers."
"He did! He absolutely did!" shouted Dominick.
"I know you're super emotional," said Jennings — which Dominick admitted, saying he was "terrified" — "I'm telling you the political reality is that they made that decision —"
But Dominick butted in again.
"It doesn't matter! When you don't admit Donald Trump hates veterans. You don't admit it!" he shouted back.
As Jennings cracked a smile, host Abby Phillip tried to regain control of the panel.
"You're still campaigning," retorted Jennings. "It's over brother."
The two clashed again later in the segment, as Dominick questioned Republican assertions that Biden's pull-out in Afghanistan was the "pivot point."
"Are you kidding me?" he railed.
Jennings doubled down with a jab at the comedian.
"I mean I can read a chart. I can read a poll. I guess you can't," Jennings said.
"Ugh! Your petty insults are so weak dude! You have no idea — like I don't even understand if you hear yourself talking," said Dominick, as Jennings started to chuckle. "You can laugh all you want but like I can't read a chart? Like it's so tacky. It's so uninteresting and unconvincing."
As Jennings kept laughing, Dominick continued, "That is so condescending."
The chair of the Democratic National Committee has had it with the President Joe Biden blame game, he made clear Thursday.
"This is straight up BS," Jaime Harrison wrote on X Thursday afternoon. "Biden was the most-pro worker President of my lifetime."
Harrison was responding to the bitter condemnation Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) hurled at the Democratic Party after President-elect Donald Trump trounced Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
Sanders argued on Nov. 6 in a public statement that the Democratic Party had abandoned working-class, Latino and Black voters who struggle to make ends meet as liberal leaders kowtowed to wealthy donors and blew cash on over-paid experts.
"Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?" Sanders asked.
"Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not."
On Thursday, Harrison — a former coal lobbyist who earned millions representing business entities such as Walmart — defended Biden's reputation as a working American's president and Harris' policy platform as progressive.
"[Biden] saved Union pensions, created millions of good paying jobs and even marched in a picket line," wrote Harrison. "Some of [Harris'] plans would have fundamentally transformed the quality of life and closed the racial wealth gap for working people across this country.
"There are a lot of post election takes and this one ain’t a good one."
Sanders is not alone in his frustration that Harris — a former prosecutor running against a convicted felon who has urged for violence against protesters, women, immigrants, political enemies and the press — was unable to claim the White House for her party.
Democrat Andrew Yang argued Biden should have stepped aside before primary season began, which he argued would have given Harris more time to mount her campaign.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) said he would "absolutely" continue to pursue an investigation into President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, despite Donald Trump's re-election.
During a Thursday interview on Newsmax, host Shaun Kraisman noted that the federal cases against Trump were expected to be dropped after he won the election.
"But let's reverse course here and your investigation into President Biden's son Hunter Biden," the host said. "You are leading an investigation. Are you continuing that?"
"Absolutely," Comer insisted. "We want to hold people accountable. I mean, we've done the investigation."
"We've proven that the Bidens took tens of millions of dollars from our enemies around the world, and according to the Irish whistleblowers, they never paid a penny of taxes on it," he continued. "Hunter Biden is supposed to, you know, have to face his guilty plea, and there are other charges that haven't been held in court against Hunter Biden."
"I mean, the list goes on and on and on of crimes this Biden family committed."
Kraisman seemed surprised: "So Chairman, really quick, so you're going to pursue more charges against Hunter Biden?"
Recriminations are going on behind the scenes between aides to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as they try to work out whether there is blame to be assigned for Donald Trump's victory on Tuesday night, CNNWhite House correspondent Kayla Tausche told Anderson Cooper.
In particular, she said, there are arguments over whether it was really the best move to force Biden out of the race in the summer, or whether it was in fact his unpopularity casting a shadow over the whole race to begin with.
"There has been some friction between the two of them, as Joe Biden, who believes he's done a good job as president, believes he deserves more of the credit and where they have successes that she shouldn't have been taking the credit, and there's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking between aides in Joe Biden world."
Ultimately, she continued, "They believe she was a flawed candidate, and believe Joe Biden, maybe he could have pulled the blue wall if he remained the candidate. There's also some finger-pointing at former President [Barack] Obama and Nancy Pelosi, who urged Joe Biden to step aside in favor of other candidates."
There is plenty of speculation on the other side too, though, she added.
"There's this reckoning over the president's deep unpopularity, and they didn't truly grasp how the electorate was truly feeling about the agenda."
President Joe Biden is getting some encouragement from legendary gymnast Simone Biles to use his last days in the White House wisely.
In a tweet posted on Wednesday afternoon, the seven-time Olympic gold medalist asked Biden to make the most of his lame-duck period, though she notably didn't give him any specific instructions.
"Mr. Biden, I need you to stand up, straighten your back and make some things shake before your departure," Biles tweeted, before concluding with: "xoxo the women in America," with a blue heart emoji.
As the lame-duck president, Biden still controls the executive branch of the federal government for the next 75 days until Jan. 20, 2025, when President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. And as the outgoing president, all cabinet secretaries of all federal agencies still report to Biden until next January.
While Biden would still need Congress to pass legislation for him to sign into law between now and Jan. 20, Biden still has the power of the pen to sign executive orders that will be in place until Trump takes the oath of office. While Trump has the power to undo executive orders, Biden can still make efforts to frustrate Trump's attempts to reshape the federal government, as he did by strengthening protections for federal workers this spring.
One key component of Project 2025 — which Republicans are now admitting is the Trump agenda — is the gutting of the federal civil service via an executive order known as "Schedule F," which Trump signed in 2020 and Biden promptly rescinded after taking office. That executive order removed protections for federal workers and would allow a president to drastically increase the number of direct presidential appointees from approximately 5,000 to more than 54,000. But in April, Biden announced that he had announced new protections for federal workers "from political interference," perhaps to head off a potential new Schedule F executive order.
"Day in and day out, career civil servants provide the expertise and continuity necessary for our democracy to function. They provide Americans with life-saving and life-changing services and put opportunity within reach for millions," he stated. "That’s why since taking office, I have worked to strengthen, empower, and rebuild our career workforce. This rule is a step toward combatting corruption and partisan interference to ensure civil servants are able to focus on the most important task at hand: delivering for the American people."
And as the Supreme Court decided in July, presidents are effectively above all laws provided they categorize any potential crime as an "official act." Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor even warned that the immunity ruling would mean that presidents could assassinate political opponents without fear of prosecution, provided they refer to it as an "official act."
"Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency," Sotomayor wrote in her official dissent. "Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."
