Republicans in Congress sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray seeking information on the vetting of a former informant who has been accused of making false statements in regards to the Biden family and their business dealings.
Republicans want to know how Alexander Smirnov was vetted and how much he was paid. According to HuffPost, they also suggested that Smirnov's recent arrest was designed to protect President Joe Biden.
Smirnov was accused last month of fabricating a bribery allegation against President Biden.
According to reports, that allegation was boosted by Republicans despite the fact that they were warned by the Department of Justice that the claim was flimsy.
“Only after Mr. Smirnov reported that President Joe Biden accepted a bribe from a Ukrainian energy company in exchange for using his official position to oust the Ukrainian Prosecutor General did the FBI apparently take a hard look at this CHS [confidential human source],” House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) and House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote in their letter.
“This episode is just another example of how the FBI is motivated by politics,” Comer and Jordan wrote.
According to prosecutors, Smirnov made the bribery claim because he opposed Biden for the presidency.
“Although the FBI and Justice Department received Mr. Smirnov’s information in 2020, it was only after the FD-1023 was publicly released nearly three years later ― implicating President Biden and his family ― that the FBI apparently decided to conduct any review of Mr. Smirnov’s credibility as a CHS,” Comer and Jordan wrote.
As HuffPost points out, the Justice Department initially vouched for Smirnov, saying he was a years-long trusted FBI informant.
According to senior U.S. diplomatic officials, Biden's push for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor during his time as vice president was not done as a favor to his son.
Fox News host Steve Doocy came perilously close to having a revelation about the House Republican impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden appeared this week before the House Oversight and Judiciary committees for a closed-door deposition, where he told lawmakers he had never involved his father in his foreign business dealings. The "Fox & Friends" host was confused why Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who's leading the inquiry, did not appear to participate.
"The odd thing to me, speaking of Republicans, is James Comer, who ran that committee, he apparently left the hearing early and did not ask a single question," Doocy said. "How weird is that?"
The younger Biden dropped his demand to testify publicly after Republicans threatened to hold him in contempt, but Doocy could not fathom why Comer did not leap at the chance to question him.
"He's been calling for him to come in — 'We want Hunter Biden,'" Doocy said. "He didn't ask him a single question."
Republicans have been investigating the Biden family's business dealings for more than a year and, despite conducting dozens of interviews and combing through more than 100,000 documents, they have not produced any direct evidence of misconduct by the president.
An FBI informant who had told congressional investigators about an alleged bribery scheme involving the family has been charged with making up the story, and he admitted that he had been working with officials linked to Russian intelligence.
Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty to firearm charges in Delaware and failure to pay taxes charges in federal court.
Fraudsters stole more than $25,000 from the campaign of a prominent Republican congressional candidate in Texas — the latest in an epidemic of political campaign thefts, according to a Raw Story analysis of federal campaign records.
The campaign for Scott Armey, a Republican U.S. House candidate for Texas' 26th Congressional District, lost $25,013 through a “fraudulent transaction," according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
The fraudulent transaction took place on Feb. 9 and involved “media placement” from political media firm SRCP Media, the FEC filing indicated.
Scott Armey for Congress did not respond to Raw Story’s requests for comment.
Armey, a former judge and commissioner in Denton County, Texas, just north of Dallas, is once again running for the seat held by his father, former Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), from 1985 to 2003. Dick Armey served as House majority leader from 1995 to 2003.
Congressional primaries in Texas will be held March 5. Scott Armey faces a crowded Republican primary field, which includes Brandon Gill, the son-in-law of Republican author and provocateur Dinesh D’Souza.
Scott Armey for Congress raised $281,855 between October 1 and February 14, and had $94,294 cash on hand as of February 14, per FEC records.
Scott Armey previously lost his bid for the seat in a 2002 runoff against Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), who announced his retirement last year, according to the Dallas Morning News.
In a separate incident, thieves also hit a New York labor political action committee — the Mason Tenders District Council of New York and Long Island PAC.
The labor PAC reported 29 fraudulent Venmo and Uber transactions between July 19 and Sept. 6, according to recent disclosures to the FEC.
Total tab: $4,308.84.
“These charges were the result of a stolen credit card and identity theft,” Kris Kohler, assistant director for the PAC told Raw Story via email. “The committee does not know the perpetrator(s) of the theft and the fraud or if any criminal or civil action has been taken against the perpetrator(s). The committee worked diligently to resolve this circumstance and has duly reported to the FEC all associated transactions.”
The PAC, which reported to the FEC expenditures of more than $2.8 million between Jan. 1, 2023 and Jan. 31, 2024, “has influenced government to approve literally tens of billions of dollars worth of unionized construction work throughout New York City and Long Island,” according to its website.
The PAC previously reported $339.93 refunded from “fraudulent charge(s)” between June 27 and July 12 at the Diplomat Canteen in Florida and Industry Kitchen in New York, according to an FEC filing.
Political committee theft epidemic
This is hardly the first time thieves ripped off political fundraising committees.
Over the past year, Raw Story reported that scammers stole millions of donor dollars combined from dozens of political campaign committees — which have experienced varying levels of success in recouping the stolen funds.
Most recently, the Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest PAC reported $14,156.25 in fraud over the course of December, Raw Story reported.
A thief nabbed a $3,000 check sent by a political committee led by former House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The July 2023 check intended for a photographer was “stolen during the USPS mail process and fraudulently cashed,” Raw Story reported.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s political action committee reported theft of nearly $4,700 due to fraudulent checks in December, and the Oregon Republican Party was the victim of a fake check scam last summer.
Last year, the FEC questioned the campaign of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) about the fraudulent use of her campaign credit card by far-right agitator Milo Yiannopoulos, who purchased a 2024 campaign website domain for rapper-turned-2020 presidential candidate Ye, formerly Kanye West, using Greene’s donor dollars, Raw Story reported.
In May, Raw Story reported that the Managed Funds Association PAC was targeted more than 20 times between Jan. 1 and March 31, 2023, initially losing $147,000 in fraudulent check payments, although it appeared to have since recouped the money, according to filings with the FEC.
The Retired Americans PAC, a super PAC that supports Democrats, recouped more than $150,000 it lost in late 2022 after paying fraudulent bills sent to the committee, according to an April 21 letter to the Federal Election Commission, Raw Story reported.
The FBI got involved when Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) was the victim of a cybertheft incident in late 2022 that initially cost his campaign $690,000.
Last year, the Minnesota Democratic Party experienced check fraud. In November 2022, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s campaign fell victim to check fraud worth $10,085, Raw Story reported, and President Joe Biden’s 2020 Democratic presidential campaign committee lost at least $71,000, according to Business Insider.
One-time Democratic presidential candidate and congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and West are among others who reported money stolen from their political accounts.
The political action committees of Google, National Association of Manufacturers, Consumer Technology Association, National Air Traffic Controllers Association, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, MoveOn.org, and law firms Akerman LLP and Blank Rome LLP have also experienced theft of various kinds, ranging from cyber theft to forgeries and check tampering, according to Business Insider.
President Joe Biden's son Hunter testified to House Republicans this week that he thanked God not to be a member of a family that would do something "crazy" like install a daughter-in-law as chairperson of their political party.
"No, he has not, thank God," Biden testified. "And I don't think that anyone in my family would be crazy enough to want to be the chairperson of the DNC."
Biden's answers were prompted by questions from Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) who appeared at Wednesday's deposition in his capacity as a member of the Judiciary committee.
Swalwell kicked off the session by repeatedly quizzing Rep. James Comer — among Republicans leading the charge in an increasingly unlikely presidential impeachment effort — as to when the deposition transcript would be released.
A good time later, Swalwell got the opportunity to pitch questions to the president's son, the transcript shows.
Swalwell did not name Donald Trump, but the former president's reported actions were a common theme among his line of inquiry.
"[President Joe Biden has] never operated a hotel where foreign nationals spent millions at that hotel while he was in office?" Swalwell asked Hunter of his father.
"Anyone in your family ever strike a multibillion dollar deal with the Saudi Government," asked Swalwell, this time referencing Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner, "while your father was in office?"
Former US president Donald Trump was in a federal court in Florida on Friday for a hearing to set a date for his trial on charges of mishandling classified documents.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the charges, has asked District Judge Aileen Cannon to move the scheduled start date for Trump's trial from the current May 20 to July 8.
The 77-year-old Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has said it should not be held until after the November election.
"A fair trial cannot be held until after the 2024 Presidential election is concluded," he said in a court filing.
But if the judge does insist on setting a date, Trump said a trial should begin on August 12.
Lawyers for the former president have sought repeatedly to delay his various court cases until after the November election, when Trump could potentially have the federal charges against him dropped if he wins.
Trump pleaded not guilty in June to charges of unlawfully retaining national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements.
He kept the classified files -- which included records from the Pentagon, CIA and National Security Agency -- unsecured at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and thwarted official efforts to retrieve them, according to the indictment.
Trump also faces federal charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
That trial had been scheduled to begin in Washington next week, but has been put on hold while the Supreme Court hears Trump's claim that as a former president he is immune from prosecution.
Trump has lodged a similar presidential immunity claim with Cannon, the Florida judge, and she could potentially freeze the documents case pending a decision from the nation's highest court on the immunity bid.
The Supreme Court has scheduled arguments in the high-stakes immunity case for the week of April 22, and is expected to issue a ruling before the end of June.
The question of whether a former president is immune from prosecution is an untested one in American jurisprudence because until Trump, an ex-president had never been charged with a crime.
A three-judge appeals court panel ruled earlier this month that a former president has no immunity from prosecution for actions taken while in the White House.
Trump also faces 2020 election interference charges in Georgia, and is scheduled to go on trial in New York on March 25 on state charges of falsifying business records by paying pre-election hush money to a porn star.
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) revealed that even some Republican lawmakers agreed with Hunter Biden that Jared Kushner was probably more worthy of investigation than him.
President Joe Biden's son testified for more than six hours this week in a closed-door deposition, where he denied his father's involvement in his foreign business dealings and then, Goldman told MSNBC's "Morning Joe," offered a comparison of what he's accused of doing as a private citizen and the actions Donald Trump's son-in-law took while serving as a White House official.
"When Hunter Biden asked the Republican members of Congress, 'Do you have any problem with that?' there were a couple who said yes," Goldman said. "It is not in the transcript, but they said yes. Others were nodding, because he did a very good job of confronting them with the difference between what he did, which was dealing in international business with non-government officials, non-government entities, versus Jared Kushner, who received $2 billion from the Saudi Arabian government right after he was the point person on Middle East policy for the Trump administration, and after the advisory board of the Saudi government's investment arm recommended not investing in him because he had never done what he was starting to do."
"The contrast is so stark because it is so obvious that what Jared Kushner did deserves investigation, and what Hunter Biden did, at this point, is just purely punitive and purely attacking someone who has made mistakes and admitted to that, but who is not a public official and never has been," Goldman added. "It's purely being done right now just to provide election fodder for Donald Trump."
House Republicans continue to press forward with an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, but even conservative media outlets are growing impatient and increasingly skeptical.
The inquiry has failed to turn up any evidence connecting the president to his son's business dealings, and Hunter Biden told lawmakers in a closed-door deposition that his father had no involvement whatsoever, and Fox News and Newsmax hosts have pressed Republicans to prove their allegations.
"You've had Neil Cavuto and some Fox News hosts even over the last couple weeks who have said, 'There's nothing there – when are you going to prove it?'" said "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough. "Even when Sean Hannity is throwing softballs to [House Oversight chairman James] Comer, he said, 'Are you going to prove the Joe Biden crime family blah blah blah blah?' After Comer was whispered in the ear by Arnold the pig, says, 'I sure hope so.'"
"This has been going on for a long time," Scarborough added. "Again, people think we're just – we're not making this up, they are. It's just ridiculous, they look stupid. That's what you're hearing from these Newsmax and Fox Business and Fox News hosts. When they start asking if your attacks on Joe Biden are too off point, you know there's something wrong."
That skepticism should be a leading indicator that the impeachment inquiry had failed to dent the president politically, said co-host Willie Geist.
"Yeah, when you've lost Newsmax, you've got a problem," Geist said. "OAN is next to fall. Steve Doocy from 'Fox and Friends' has been talking about this, as well. If something is there, it is long past time to show us the evidence. Even [Thursday], Chairman Comer comes out with his, 'Well, there's a lot of smoke here, we need now a public hearing.' If he had the evidence, believe me, he would have presented it by now. He doesn't have it."
It's clear that House Republicans are simply trying to create doubt about Biden going into the election, Geist said, regardless of whether there's any evidence of corruption, and Scarborough capped off that point.
"He's saying there's smoke," Scarborough said. "The smoke is coming from their lies. They tell lies and go, there's smoke there – there must be fire. But there's not."
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Donald Trump said Thursday during a visit to the Texas-Mexico border that Gov. Greg Abbott is “absolutely” on his short list of potential vice presidential candidates for his 2024 run.
During a joint interview with Abbott on Fox News, the former president was asked by host Sean Hannity whether Abbott was under consideration for the position. Trump responded that Abbott is “a spectacular man” and he was honored when Abbott endorsed him for president last year.
“And he’s done a great job,” Trump said. “Yeah, certainly he would be somebody that I would very much consider.”
“So he’s on the list?” Hannity said.
“Absolutely, he is,” Trump replied, as Abbott looked on.
Hannity then asked if there was anyone else on the short list, and Trump named U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina who was recently an opponent in the GOP primary for president. Scott has since endorsed Trump, and Trump called him an “unbelievable” campaign surrogate.
Abbott has not always embraced Trump as much as some other statewide officials like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who twice chaired Trump’s campaign in Texas.
Trump and his allies have also shown occasional signs of frustration with Abbott over the years. Last May, Trump questioned on his Truth Social platform why Abbott was not speaking out about the Texas House’s impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a top Trump ally in Texas.
But Abbott and Trump have previously found ways to shore up their relationship at election time. Trump gave Abbott an early and crucial endorsement in his contested primary for reelection in 2022, and Abbott appeared at a Trump rally in the Houston area weeks before the primary, which the governor easily won.
Abbott has in recent years generated national attention for his aggressive policies related to the border and immigration. He has pushed Texas to use state funds to build border barriers, continuing one of Trump’s signature policies. Abbott has spent billions of state dollars on border enforcement, enlisting the Texas National Guard and Department of Public Safety troopers to police the region. He’s also spent millions of dollars busing migrants to cities led by Democrats. And he’s confronted the Biden administration’s border authority by blocking Border Patrol access to a boat ramp in a public park along the Rio Grande.
Trump visited that park with Abbott on Thursday to call attention to President Joe Biden’s handling of immigration. While there, he praised Abbott’s border security efforts.
Trump also praised Abbott’s deployment of concertina wire along the Rio Grande and efforts to arrest migrants who cross the border illegally.
"He really stepped it up," Trump said of the governor. "It's been amazing."
The two men spent much of Thursday together, touring Texas’ border with Mexico in Eagle Pass and discussing Abbott’s border security efforts. During his brief address to reporters afterwards, Trump praised Abbott.
“This is an incredible operation,” Trump said.
At one point, Trump mentioned that multiple Republicans in the U.S. Senate are vying for his support to replace outgoing minority leader Mitch McConnell. Even though Abbott is not a U.S. senator — and the position is not selected by presidential candidates — Trump joked that he might choose Abbott.
“I’d rather be governor of Texas,” Abbott retorted.
“I think you’re doing well,” Trump said. “I want to keep you in Texas.”
Democrats, meanwhile, have blasted Abbott’s border policies as political opportunism that dehumanizes migrants and wastes state resources that could be better spent on other priorities.
Biden was also at the Texas-Mexico border on Thursday. From Brownsville, he called out Trump — and asked him to push Congress to pass significant immigration legislation.
"Instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I'll join you, in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill,” he said. “We can do it together."
Joe Biden and Donald Trump traded blame for America's immigration crisis as they made dueling visits to the US-Mexican border Thursday, putting the hot-button issue at the heart of their race for the White House in November.
In near-simultaneous speeches in Texas, Republican former president Trump called the record numbers of border crossings a "Joe Biden invasion" -- while the Democratic incumbent urged his rival to stop "playing politics" with proposed migration reforms.
The split-screen moment highlighted what could be a make-or-break issue in the presidential election less than eight months away, with polls showing most voters blame Biden for the unprecedented number of illegal entries.
Hoping his long history of anti-immigration rhetoric can deliver an extraordinary White House comeback, 77-year-old Trump painted a dark picture of Americans "kidnapped", "raped" and "savagely murdered" by migrants.
"Joe Biden is responsible for this invasion," Trump raged during his speech in Eagle Pass, Texas, speaking alongside the state's hardline Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
The choice of Eagle Pass was symbolic, as Abbott has taken military control of an area there along the Rio Grande river that marks the border, sparking a standoff with the US federal government.
- 'Playing politics' -
Meanwhile Biden -- making just his second border trip since taking office in 2021 -- met border patrol agents and other law enforcement officials in Brownsville, Texas, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the east of Trump.
Migration is 81-year-old Biden's biggest political weak spot apart from his age, with Republicans blaming Biden's policies favoring the right to asylum for the flow of migrants.
But Biden is trying to turn the issue back on Trump by accusing him of sabotaging efforts to pass a bipartisan immigration bill that would give border forces more staff and money.
"Here's what I would say to Mr Trump," Biden said. "Instead of playing politics with this issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation -- join me."
Dressed in a jacket and baseball cap, Biden earlier walked with border patrol agents along the river, where a boat, trailer and other vehicles were gathered.
Biden was accompanied by his immigration chief Alejandro Mayorkas -- who was impeached by Republicans just over two weeks ago in a sign of how divisive the issue has become.
Again the choice of location was significant: migrant crossings around Brownsville dipped by nearly a quarter in January, thanks partly to the Biden administration's cooperation with Mexico.
- 'Unhinged' -
But more than 2.4 million migrants crossed the southern US border in 2023 alone, largely from Central America and Venezuela as they flee poverty, violence and disasters exacerbated by climate change.
For hard-right populist Trump, an anti-immigration stance has been central to his political identity for years, and he has pledged the biggest ever US deportation program if he returns to the White House.
Trump spent much of his 2017-2021 time in office pledging to complete a wall along the Mexican border, only a small part of which was built, although numbers of crossings were lower during his term.
This time around he has stepped up his rhetoric, accusing migrants of "poisoning the blood of our country", in comments that Biden said were reminiscent of the Nazis.
Trump's campaign described the current border as a "crime scene" and said the former president would "outline his plan to put America first and secure the border immediately upon taking office."
Biden's campaign described Trump's speech as "unhinged."
Polls show the issue is a weakness for Biden's bid for a second term, with a survey by US broadcaster NBC showing Trump leading Biden by 30 points on the issue of immigration.
Biden insisted earlier this week that he hadn't deliberately planned the clash of schedules with Trump, the man he beat in the 2020 election, saying he didn't know his opponent was also going.
Texas emergency crews were struggling Thursday to contain the largest wildfire in the US state's history, with the blaze killing at least two people and scorching a million acres as it raged out of control.
The Texas A&M Forest Service said five major fires, fueled by an unseasonably hot winter and ferocious winds, were actively burning across the state's northern area known as the Texas panhandle.
The largest, the Smokehouse Creek Fire, started on Monday, grew to a record 1,075,000 acres (435,000 hectares) in size, and was just three percent contained, the forest service said.
With Smokehouse Creek merging with another blaze, it has now become the state's largest-ever wildfire, surpassing the East Amarillo Complex disaster that torched 907,000 acres in 2006.
A 44-year-old truck driver died in an Oklahoma City hospital on Thursday, having been rescued near her smoke-engulfed truck in Smokehouse Creek on Tuesday, according to several local media, citing a Texas public safety department official.
While preventive evacuations were ordered across multiple localities, the body of an 83-year-old woman was found in the city of Stinnett, a Hutchinson County emergency services spokesperson told ABC News.
She also said about 20 structures in Stinnett had been razed by the fire.
A 120-year-old Texas ranch said it lost 80 percent of its 32,000-acre property near the area of the largest fire.
"The loss of livestock, crops, and wildlife, as well as ranch fencing and other infrastructure throughout our property as well as other ranches and homes across the region is, we believe, unparalleled in our history," the managers of Turkey Track Ranch said in a statement posted on its website.
Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday issued a disaster declaration for 60 Texas counties, a move that frees up resources to battle the fires.
President Joe Biden, while visiting the southern border, told reporters that 500 federal personnel were working on fire suppression in Texas.
"I directed my team to do everything possible to help protect the people in the communities threatened by these fires," Biden said, promising federal support to Texas and neighboring Oklahoma while also slamming those who deny climate change.
"I love some of my Neanderthal friends who still think there's no climate change," he said.
Cities across the United States and Canada saw record temperatures in February, with some experiencing summer-like heat. An El Nino weather pattern is at play, in addition to climate change, according to experts.
Lawmakers in Alabama passed legislation Thursday to protect health workers at IVF clinics from legal liability after the southern US state's supreme court ruled frozen embryos are children, in an issue that has threatened to become an election flashpoint.
Bills "to provide civil and criminal immunity" to people and entities providing such care in case an embryo is damaged or destroyed cleared both Republican-controlled chambers, the legislature's official webpage showed.
The conservative state's Republican governor, Kay Ivey, who has also voiced support for protecting in vitro fertilization, is expected to sign the legislation into law.
The move comes after a wave of Republicans including likely presidential candidate Donald Trump distanced themselves from the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, wary of its political repercussions.
Democrats led by President Joe Biden have made the preservation of reproductive rights a central part of their 2024 election campaign, as women in conservative states that have strict abortion bans have at times faced problems accessing emergency care for life-threatening pregnancies.
The conservative-majority US Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in 2022, paving the way for states to wade in on questions of how personhood is defined.
Earlier this month, the Alabama Supreme Court sided with plaintiffs in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by three couples against a fertility clinic after a patient entered a cryogenic nursery and dropped several frozen embryos, destroying them.
A lower court ruled the frozen embryos could not be considered a "person" or "child" and dismissed the claim, but the top court disagreed, in a 7-2 decision sprinkled with quotes from the Bible.
Fertility clinics throughout the state quickly announced they were pausing IVF treatments in light of the new legal risks.
- Temporary fix? -
The Alabama Supreme Court's decision had pointed to a 2018 update to state's constitution that "acknowledges, declares, and affirms that it is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life" -- meaning legislation may only provide a temporary fix without a state constitution amendment.
Alabama Democrats proposed such an amendment "to provide that an extrauterine embryo is not an 'unborn life' or 'unborn child,'" but the amendment remains pending.
Representative Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, said on social media that "it looks like the plan is to go back in time, give temporary immunity, and try to forget that this ever happened."
"Meanwhile, use the next year or so to try and figure out all of the messy issues associated with personhood and defining what life is and when it begins."
The Alabama IVF controversy is just the latest downstream effect of the US Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade, the case dating from 1973 that protected the right to an abortion.
A group of Texas women who were unable to terminate pregnancies despite in some cases life-threatening complications sued the state to clarify the health exemptions in its strict abortion ban, arguing they had proven to be unworkable in practice.
Texas resident Kate Cox was forced to leave the state to have an emergency abortion amid a drawn out legal battle seeking permission to end her risky pregnancy.
Nearly a year since U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on espionage charges, his parents are counting on a "very personal" promise from President Joe Biden to bring him home.
The US government has declared that Gershkovich, who categorically denies the spying accusations, is wrongfully detained, and negotiations are underway to swap him in a prisoner exchange.
"He made a very personal, very strong commitment to do whatever it takes to bring Evan home and that has been tremendous for us," Evan's father Mikhail Gershkovich told AFP in an interview this week, describing meeting Biden last April.
Efforts to free Gershkovich, 32, who was detained in March 2023 while on a reporting trip in the Urals, have been further complicated since the death in prison earlier this month of Russia's opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who, his team says, was also part of a prisoner exchange plan under discussion.
President Vladimir Putin has indicated that he could be ready to swap Gershkovich for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian national serving life in prison in Germany for the murder of a separatist commander in a Berlin park in 2019, but Western officials would not divulge any details of the talks.
Meanwhile, Evan's parents, Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union, spend their days trying to maintain hope through anguish and pain.
"We have no other choice. We need to be strong, strong for Evan," his mother Ella Milman told AFP.
- 'Navigating between two worlds' -
Ella and Mikhail, now in their sixties, raised Evan and his older sister Danielle, 34, speaking Russian at home, eating Russian food, watching Soviet cartoons and knowing not to whistle inside the house because that brings bad luck.
"We were navigating between two worlds," Danielle said in her apartment in Philadelphia. "It's that feeling when you go to school and you're in America and you come home and it's somewhere else."
Yearning to understand the birthplace of his parents, Evan moved to Russia in 2017 to work for the English-language newspaper The Moscow Times. His mother was excited for him, but his father had his doubts, seeing how freedoms were shrinking under Putin.
In Russia, Evan flourished as a reporter, covering politics, but also seeking out less obvious stories, such as efforts to preserve a disappearing indigenous language in a Russian province or dying fish in a Siberian river. After a stint at AFP in Moscow, Evan was hired by the Wall Street Journal.
In September 2018, Ella and Danielle visited Evan in Moscow. The city had just hosted the 2018 World Cup and Evan was eager to show them the dynamic, modern capital with a rich social and cultural scene.
"We saw everything through his eyes," Ella said. "It was amazing. I told him I left this country and you love this country -- and what a change. And I was happy for him."
Several years later, the country that Evan loved turned on him.
- 'There is my brother' -
Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He is the first Western journalist accused of spying since the Soviet era. The Russian government has not provided any evidence to support the charges against him and no date has yet been set for his trial.
For Ella, Mikhail and Danielle life has been filled with advocacy work, writing weekly letters to him -- and waiting.
At Moscow's Lefortovo prison, the reporter shares a small cell with another inmate. He gets an hour-long walk in a small prison yard every day, tries to stay fit through exercise and relies on fruit and vegetables sent by friends to supplement the meager prison diet.
In May, Evan's parents traveled to Moscow and were able to talk to him briefly in prison and then in court.
The joy that Ella felt was quickly overshadowed by the pain of having to leave him there. "When I saw him being led out in those handcuffs -- hard to take," Ella said.
Last week, a Moscow court again extended Evan's arrest pending trial, as he looked out wearily from a glass defendant's cage. Painful as they are, these court proceedings at least provide his family a chance to lay eyes on him.
"It's unexpected moments when you find happiness," said Danielle. "Just seeing his little mannerisms, just seeing: oh, there is my brother."
In his letters Evan tries to stay optimistic and full of humor, discussing artificial intelligence with his father and with his mother -- the notoriously long classic Russian novels he passes his days reading.
"He is doing the best under those very hard circumstances," Ella said.
Danielle, who works as a university administrator, dreams of going on a family vacation when Evan returns home. She has warned him that she will "crush the air out of his lungs" when she sees him.
"For me it's devastating to know how much he's missed, how much time he's lost, and I miss him more and more every day," Danielle said. "And it's just unacceptable for him to be there a day longer as an innocent person. We just want him home as soon as possible."
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped Donald Trump for hurling childish taunts and lying about his own record on immigration during a visit to the border.
President Joe Biden and Trump each delivered remarks on immigration policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, and while the current president called for bipartisan cooperation to address the issue, the "Morning Joe" host highlighted the ex-president's coarse, incoherent and insulting statements read off a printout.
"First of all, Donald Trump can't even speak in complete sentences," Scarborough said. "He's throwing out taunts about governors. again, like he is a child, like he is a 5-year-old. I guess, I don't know, people that vote for him like petulant little brats. I don't know why. They don't let their kids act like petulant little brat, but maybe they think they want a president who's a petulant little brat."
"Then he says things were better in 2020 than 2016," Scarborough added. "As we said, it is a complete lie. Illegal border crossings were at a 50-year low under Barack Obama and Joe Biden in 2016. When Donald Trump got into office, that's when the border crisis really exploded."
Co-host Willie Geist agreed, saying the former president was no longer an outsider but had an administrative record of his own to compare to Biden – and he said the numbers undercut his claims.
"Donald Trump is no longer a blank slate," Geist said. "This is not 2016. If there is a crisis at the border, he had four years as president to do something about it. He controlled Washington for the first two years, both houses of Congress – didn't build the wall he promised, didn't do any of these things, which speaks to the idea that, of course, he wants to keep this issue alive, wants to keep it up in the air."
"That is why he has directed his lieutenants in the House of Representatives not to sign onto this bipartisan legislation," Geist added. "If they do, it gets at the problem. It begins to resolve, it gets better. He believes that works in the favor of Joe Biden. We saw it again [Thursday], the contrasting styles. One man who now actually wants to work with Republicans to get something done on the border."
