Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., says President-elect Trump should not offer Hunter Biden a pardon after Biden pleaded guilty to federal tax charges in September. 

‘I don’t think he should pardon Hunter,’ Johnson said in an interview on NewsNation’s ‘Dan Abrams Live.’

‘I think we need to be very careful about having a dual system of justice where the powerful, or the sons and daughters of the powerful get off scot-free,’ he said.

Johnson and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have spearheaded the Senate GOP’s investigations into President Biden’s son and allegations of corruption surrounding the Biden family. He has often criticized the Biden administration’s Justice Department for purportedly treating Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes with kid gloves, all the while calling the various criminal investigations into Trump politically motivated.

While Johnson is opposed to letting Biden off the hook, he did suggest that Trump might commute or otherwise reduce the first son’s sentence as a show of good will and effort to unify the country.

‘I could see possibly commuting the sentence, reducing it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if President Trump would do that,’ he said. ‘I would not pardon Hunter. I would certainly not. I wouldn’t scream about commuting his sentence or reducing it in some way, shape or form.’

Hunter Biden was indicted on three felonies and six misdemeanor counts alleging he evaded paying at least $1.4 million in taxes while simultaneously spending money on ‘drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,’ according to the December 2023 indictment.

Prosecutors also allege the tax returns Hunter ultimately did file falsely claimed that things like prostitutes, strip club visits, porn website subscriptions and other personal expenses were actually deductible business expenses.

The aim, according to the indictment, was to ‘evade assessment of taxes to reduce the substantial tax liabilities’ that Hunter faced.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has been repeatedly asked whether President Biden might pardon his son before leaving office. Asked again on Thursday, Jean-Pierre said the president still had no intention of doing so.

‘We’ve been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no,’ she said.

Trump himself floated the idea of a pardon or commuted sentence for Biden in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt in October.

‘Will you pardon Hunter Biden,’ Hewitt asked the former and future president on Oct. 24. 

‘I wouldn’t take it off the books,’ Trump replied. ‘See, unlike Joe Biden, despite what they’ve done to me, where they’ve gone after me so viciously, despite what, and Hunter’s a bad boy. There’s no question about it. He’s been a bad boy. All you had to do is see the laptop from hell. But I happen to think it’s very bad for our country.’ 

Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report.

Special Counsel Jack Smith on Friday filed a motion to vacate all deadlines in the 2020 election interference case against President-elect Trump in Washington, D.C., a widely expected move, but one that stops short of dropping the case against him completely.

The filing from Smith was widely expected following Trump’s election to a second term, and is in keeping with longstanding Department of Justice policy against bringing criminal charges against a sitting president. 

While the case has not been officially dropped, it appears to be moving in that direction. Smith said Friday that his team plans to give an updated report on the official status of the case against Trump on Dec. 2. 

The news is likely a welcome relief for Trump, who vowed to fire Smith ‘within two seconds’ if re-elected — ridding him of both a yearlong legal foe and the criminal charges Trump faced following his loss in the 2020 election.

Smith was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his residence in Florida after leaving the White House in 2020.

Fox News reported earlier this week that the Department of Justice had been looking to wind down its criminal cases against Trump in Washington, D.C., and Florida, citing an Office of Legal Counsel memo that states it is against Department of Justice policy to investigate a sitting president for federal criminal charges and is a violation of the separation of powers doctrine. 

Smith had indicted Trump in D.C. earlier this year on charges stemming from the former president’s alleged efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.

He also brought federal charges against Trump in Florida for his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr told Fox News Digital earlier this week that Smith should immediately halt the federal cases in both D.C. and Florida, citing DOJ policy.

While Trump still faces state cases in Georgia and New York, Barr said this week that local prosecutors and judges need to move on from the ‘spectacle’ of prosecuting the president-elect.

‘Further maneuvering on these cases in the weeks ahead would serve no legitimate purpose and only distract the country and the incoming administration from the task at hand,’ Barr said. 

Next week, the presiding judge in the New York case is expected to announce whether the state will proceed with felony conviction proceedings against Trump in the final months before he takes office, or whether to apply claims of presidential immunity expanded by the Supreme Court earlier this year. 

On Friday, U.S. Department of Justice unsealed new charges detailing a thwarted murder-for-hire plot that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ordered against Donald Trump in the weeks leading up to the election, adding new pressure for the Biden administration to act.

According to a newly unsealed criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York, the IRGC ordered an Iranian asset in September to focus on ‘surveilling’ and putting together a plan to assassinate Trump before the Nov. 5 elections. 

Trump was briefed by U.S intelligence officials in September about threats from Iran to assassinate him, campaign officials confirmed.

Both President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Fox News in October that they considered any Iranian threats against Trump to be a ‘top-tier’ national security issue, and said any attempt by the IRGC to actually harm Trump would be met with kinetic military action equal to ‘an act of war.’

Neither the White House nor the State Department immediately responded to Fox News’s request for comment on the nature of the threat from the IRGC, or how they planned to respond.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps., or IRGC, is a military and counterintelligence agency that was designated as a terrorist organization during Trump’s first term. 

Trump has been a target of the IRGC since January 2020, when as president he ordered the drone strike that killed the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani.

News of the thwarted attack on Trump comes after he survived two earlier and unrelated assassination attempts earlier this year while campaigning for a second term as president: The first, in July at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, and then in September, while golfing at one of his properties in Florida. 

The threats from Iran, detailed in the now-public criminal filings, prompted the Secret Service to beef up their security presence around the Trump campaign in recent months.

It is unclear whether, or how, Trump plans to further clamp down on security at his residences in the months before his inauguration.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday that there ‘are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran.’

‘We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security,’ he added.

In the criminal complaint, U.S. prosecutors said an unnamed official in the IRGC had asked the asset, Farhad Shakeri, to ‘focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.’

The Department of Justice said that Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to be living in Iran, ‘immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported in or about 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for a robbery conviction.’ Trump is referred to the filings as ‘Victim-4.’

‘According to Shakeri, during his meeting with IRGC Official-I on or about October 7, 2024, IRGC Official-I directed Shakeri to provide a plan within seven days to kill Victim-4. If Shakeri was unable to put forth a plan within that timeframe, IRGC Official-I continued, the IRGC would pause its plan to kill Victim-4 until after the U.S. Presidential elections, because IRGC Official-I assessed that Victim-4 would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate Victim-4,’ the documents said.

Federal prosecutors have also charged and arrested Carlisle Rivera, 49, of Brooklyn, New York, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, New York, ‘in connection with their alleged involvement’ in a plot to murder a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin in New York. 

The Department of Justice declined to respond to comment on the threats or the investigation. 

A meeting among Turkish officials erupted into a brawl as tensions flared amid disagreements over the cost of celebrations to honor the creation of the country, during a period of economic hardship. 

The Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Council allocated 69 million Turkish lira, the equivalent of $2 million, for a concert featuring singer Ebru Gündeş during the October 29 Republic Day celebration, according to media reports.

Another 71 million lira were set aside for a performance by the rock band Mor ve Ötesi, which fueled questions by critics.

Lawmakers exchanged heated words, with some arguing that others were out of touch with ordinary citizens, Newsweek reported. 

Video footage of the meeting shows lawmakers grabbing and shoving each other after the meeting had been adjourned. 

There were no reports of injuries or arrests. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was spotted on his daughter’s Instagram page this week shortly after he and Vice President Kamala Harris were defeated by President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance in Tuesday’s election.

‘The Earth keeps spinning and we live to fight another day,’ Walz’s daughter Hope posted on her Instagram story along with a photo of a somber Walz, wearing a sweatshirt and cargo pants, holding and petting his cat.

The video is the first sighting of Walz since he appeared at Harris’ concession speech on Wednesday at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

‘Thank you Vice President @KamalaHarris for putting your faith in me, and selecting me as your running mate,’ Walz posted on X this week. ‘Campaigning at your side was the honor and privilege of my life.’

Harris faced scrutiny even from some in her own party over her decision to name Walz, who many view as further to the left than she is, rather than a more moderate choice. Prominent Democrat Josh Shapiro, governor of the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania that Trump carried on Tuesday night, was viewed by some as a more practical choice.

‘One of the things that are top of mind is the choice of Tim Walz as vice presidential candidate,’ Harris-Walz surrogate Lindy Li told Fox News senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich at Howard University. ‘A lot of people are saying tonight that it should have been Josh Shapiro. Frankly, people have been saying that for months.’

Rob Bluey, president and executive editor of The Daily Signal, told Fox News Digital that Walz being added to the ticket was a significant error in judgment.

‘Historically, vice presidents have little impact on a presidential candidate’s fate,’ Bluey said. ‘But in the case of Tim Walz, it proved to be a disastrous decision that doomed Kamala Harris from the moment she made it. Not only was Walz ill-prepared for the national spotlight and media scrutiny, but Harris passed over several better options. Given how little Americans knew about Harris or her policy positions, they were right to question her judgment on this big decision.’

Walz was heavily criticized on the campaign trail over questions about his honesty regarding his military service, ties to China, response to the George Floyd riots in 2020, and policy agenda as governor that several Minnesotans who spoke to Fox News Digital described as radical.

‘The choice of Walz was only one of many disastrous mistakes but symptomatic of one larger problem — the Democratic Party leadership is too scared to say no to the hard-left progressive wing of the party,’ Julian Epstein, longtime Democratic operative and former chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital.

This hard left opposes commonsense solutions that Gov. Shapiro supports — charter schools, for example. Or defeating terrorists rather than aping their talking points and positions, which allow them to stay in power and rearm for the next genocidal attack,’ Epstein continued. ‘It’s the hard-left progressive wing that looks first to welfare and redistribution rather than economic growth, and to cultural extremism on migration and gender deeply out of touch with the American electorate. Walz was a really bad choice for sure, but their choice was part of a deeper problem.’

Democratic governors and attorneys general alike have vowed resistance to the incoming Trump administration’s policies, just days after the election was called for the former president.

President-elect Trump has already begun his transition back into the White House, with one of his first major moves being the announcement of Susie Wiles as his chief of staff. 

Just recently, Trump also signaled to NBC News that mass deportations are not out of the question as one of his top priorities upon starting his term in January. 

In response, governors and attorneys general in Democratic states have also voiced their priorities in being on defense during Trump’s second term.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James — who has notably been vocal about her attempts to prosecute Trump — said Wednesday during a press conference that while they would honor the election results and would ‘work with anyone who wants to be a partner in achieving the goals of our administration in our state, that does not mean we’ll accept an agenda from Washington that strips away the rights that New Yorkers have long enjoyed.’

‘The safety and wellbeing of New Yorkers are my top priorities,’ Hochul said in a statement released shortly after. ‘I’m committed to working with anyone on policies that make our state stronger, safer and more livable — but my administration will also be prepared to protect New Yorkers’ fundamental freedoms from any potential threats.’

James echoed those same sentiments in the statement, saying she and her team had ‘been preparing for a potential second Trump Administration, and I am ready to do everything in my power to ensure our state and nation do not go backwards.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Hochul and James’ offices for comment. 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement released Wednesday that ‘our most vulnerable communities woke up to new uncertainty about their future, scared that their rights will no longer be protected.’ Pritzker said he would continue to uphold Illinois’ values, stating, ‘When that means working with the next presidential administration that is what I will do, and when that means standing up to it, I believe my record is clear on where I’ll be.’

Pritzker reiterated these same points during a press conference on Thursday, where he said that anyone who comes ‘for my people, you come through me.’ 

Fox News Digital reached out to Pritzker’s office for comment. 

Washington State Attorney General and incoming Gov. Bob Ferguson held a press conference on Thursday alongside incoming Attorney General Nick Brown, where Ferguson said his team had been preparing for a potential Trump presidency for months in advance. Ferguson said during the press conference that his team had reviewed Trump’s policies and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the latest iteration of a longstanding Heritage Foundation initiative to establish a conservative governing blueprint. 

Trump has repeatedly denied any involvement with the agenda, saying, ‘I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.’

‘The president has significant authority. That is the way our system works,’ Brionna Aho, Ferguson Communications Director, told Fox News Digital. ‘However, no one is above the law. Our office has successfully litigated against the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. When a president exceeds his authority and harms Washingtonians, the Washington State Attorney General’s Office is prepared to hold him accountable to the rule of law.’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday announced the state legislature would convene a special session ‘to safeguard California values and fundamental rights in the face of an incoming Trump administration.’ The session is expected to focus on ‘bolstering California legal resources to protect civil rights, reproductive freedom, climate action, and immigrant families’ ahead of Trump taking office, the statement read. 

‘We’ve been through this before, and we stand ready to defend your rights and protect California values,’ Bonta said in the statement. ‘We’re working closely with the Governor and the Legislature to shore up our defenses and ensure we have the resources we need to take on each fight as it comes.’

‘We will uphold the rights of all Californians. Between Project 2025 and President Elect Trump’s own statements, we know what to expect from a second Trump Administration,’ Bonta’s office told Fox News Digital Friday evening in a follow-up statement. ‘What happens next is up to the President Elect. If he doesn’t violate the law, and we hope he won’t, we won’t need to take action. But based on our experience with the first Trump Administration and the President Elect’s own words, we expect that won’t be the case and we will be prepared to respond.’

‘The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail,’ Karoline Leavitt, Trump-Vance Transition spokeswoman, told Fox News Digital in a statement. ‘He will deliver.’

Fresh off Tuesday’s red sweep, House Republicans have begun to renew the idea of ending China’s preferential trade status. 

They have begun to promote the idea of ending China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR). With Republicans seizing control of the White House and Senate, and being on track for a likely win in the House, the idea that was once considered a longshot now now become a likelihood. 

‘For too long, the Chinese Communist Party has taken advantage of America’s open hand with predatory economic practices that target the American economy, our workers, businesses, and our national security. We believe in free trade with free nations, but as the Committee recommended on a bipartisan basis, it is now time to reset our relationship with China by moving past PNTR to a trade relationship that reflects the threat we face from the CCP,’ a spokesperson for the House China Committee told Fox News Digital. 

In 2000, Congress voted to grant China permanent normal trade relations. The designation fundamentally changed China-U.S. trade relations: U.S. consumers gained access to low-priced Chinese imports, and between 2001 and 2021, the value of goods imported from China quadrupled to $500 billion.

Critics of PNTR say it allowed companies to outsource their manufacturing to China – and that renewed tensions with Beijing could lead to supply chain issues. 

Proponents of PNTR say that removing that status would cause inflation, allowing further tariffs on billions’ worth of Chinese goods. 

President-elect Donald Trump has already proposed an across-the-board 60% tariff on all Chinese goods and end China’s favored trade status. 

Repealing PNTR would automatically reset the tariffs on Chinese goods to higher levels. 

Trump could enact much of his trade agenda on goods he deems to be an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to national security or the U.S. economy. 

The GOP’s platform unveiled in July called for an ending of PNTR. In September, Fox News Digital first reported that a group of Republican senators put forth a bill to end China’s PNTR and increase tariffs on many of its goods up to 100%. 

Over five years, the bill would increase tariffs by 100% on imports deemed ‘strategic’ to national security by the Biden administration in an effort to force the growth of the domestic market for national security-related goods. 

It would boost tariffs on non-strategic goods by a minimum of 35%. 

China is widely expected to respond with tariffs on U.S.-imported goods. China buys tens of billions of dollars’ worth of agricultural products, primarily soybeans, each year. 

The bill, led by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and cosponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., would also grant the president the authority to institute further tariffs, quotas and bans on specific Chinese goods. It would end ‘de minimis treatment’ for China, or the value threshold below which imports are not subject to customs duties. 

The revenue generated, according to the bill, would go toward farmers and manufacturers injured by potential Chinese retaliation, the purchase of key munitions important to a Pacific conflict, and paying down the debt.

Fox News’ Liz Elkind contributed to this report. 

Qatar has agreed to kick Hamas out of the country after a request from the Biden administration and failed repeated attempts to get the terror group to release the remaining hostages its militants kidnapped from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023

The move came after Hamas repeatedly rejected hostage release proposals. 

A U.S. official told Fox News Qatar has been ‘invaluable’ in negotiating the release of nearly 200 hostages but that Hamas’ presence in Doha is no longer viable or acceptable.

Hamas refused proposals to release even ‘a small number of hostages’ during recent meetings in Cairo after the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who masterminded the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. 

Sinwar was killed in Gaza by Israeli forces in October.  

In August, Hamas terrorists killed six hostages, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, as Israel Defense Forces closed in for a rescue attempt in the tunnels deep below Gaza’s Rafah.

Negotiations to pause the war between Israel and Hamas have stalled, with Israeli officials saying the release of the hostages was a top priority.

The Justice Department has charged several top Hamas leaders in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Fox News Digital has reached out to Qatar’s embassy in Washington, D.C.

 In addition to its presence in Turkey, Arab media reported in June that Hamas was considering moving its headquarters to Iraq. The group already has a political office in Baghdad. 

Iran’s Foreign Ministry dismissed a report released by the Department of Justice on Friday stating that it thwarted an Iranian plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.

A criminal complaint filed in a New York City federal court stated that an unnamed official in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps told Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran, to ‘focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.’

‘Shakeri has informed law enforcement that he was tasked on Oct. 7, 2024, with providing a plan to kill President-elect Donald J. Trump,’ it added.

On Saturday, spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei ‘categorically dismissed allegations that Iran was involved in attempts to assassinate former and current US officials,’ according to the foreign ministry. 

Baghaei, who described the report as ‘completely baseless and rejected,’ said Iran has been accused of similar scenarios in the past that have been ‘firmly denied and proven false.’

He said that repeating these types of claims ‘is a malicious conspiracy orchestrated by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles, aimed at further complicating the issues between the US and Iran.’

Baghaei concluded by saying Iran ‘remains committed’ to using ‘all legitimate and legal means’ at domestic and international levels to ‘restore the rights of the Iranian nation.’

Shakeri, who remains at large and is believed to be living in Iran, ‘immigrated to the United States as a child and was deported in or about 2008 after serving 14 years in prison for a robbery conviction,’ according to the DOJ.

Shakeri is also accused of tasking two New York men, 49-year-old Carlisle Rivera and 36-year-old Jonathon Loadholt, with surveilling and killing an American of Iranian origin — who ‘is an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime’ — for $100,000. 

The person, who identified herself as journalist Masih Alinejad, lives in America and has also been targeted by the Iranian government, the DOJ report said.

‘We will not stand for the Iranian regime’s attempts to endanger the American people and America’s national security,’ Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Shakeri, Rivera and Loadholt face charges of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and money laundering conspiracy, which carry maximum penalties of 10 to 20 years in prison. 

Prosecutors said Shakeri has also been charged with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and sanctions against the Government of Iran, which each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

Fox News’ Greg Norman and David Spunt contributed to this report.