President-elect Trump promised there would be ‘all hell to pay’ if the hostages being held captive by Hamas are not released prior to when he takes office on Jan. 20. 

In a Truth Social post, Trump said nothing was being done to free those being held by the Iran-backed terror group since Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas attacked Israel and killed at least 1,200 people and kidnapped at least 250 others. 

At least seven of the hostages are Americans. 

‘Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East – But it’s all talk, and no action!’ Trump wrote. 

‘Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,’ Trump added. 

On Saturday, Hamas released a video of an Israeli-American hostage pleading for his release. 

The footage shows Edan Alexander, 20, covering his face and crying. He was abducted by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. 

Alexander explained that he had been a prisoner for over 420 days and delivered forced messages to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump. Netanyahu spoke with Alexander’s family and is determined ‘to take every action to bring them back home,’ his office said Monday. 

Trump said those responsible for taking the hostages ‘will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.’

More than a year after the attacks, a permanent cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas remains elusive. Israeli forces continue to conduct military operations in Gaza. 

A cease-fire deal between Israel and Lebanon was reached in November following a year of attacks targeting Israel’s north by Hezbollah. On Monday, Israel said Hezbollah broke the cease-fire by launching two projectiles. No one was harmed. 

‘We are determined to continue to enforce the cease-fire, and to respond to any violation by Hezbollah – minor or serious,’ Netanyahu said. 

The White House today defended President Biden’s declaration in May that ‘no one is above the law’ amid criticism of his sweeping pardon Sunday evening for son Hunter Biden following a yearslong legal saga revolving around two criminal cases. 

‘Yes,’ a White House official told Fox News Digital on Monday when asked if Biden still believes ‘no one is above the law’ after pardoning his son. ‘As he said in his statement, he has deep respect for our justice system. And as a wide range of legal experts have pointed out, this pardon is indisputably within his authority and warranted by the facts of the case.’

Biden posted a message to X back on May 31, one day after President-elect Donald Trump was found guilty in the Manhattan criminal trial in May, that ‘No one is above the law.’ 

Following his pardon of Hunter Biden from a gun case and a tax case, conservatives and others resurrected the post on social media, with Reps. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Eli Crane, R-Ariz., for example, quipping that the rule of law applies to all Americans, ‘Unless your last name is Biden.’

‘You’ve been lied to every step of the way by this Administration and the corrupt Biden family. This is just the latest in their long coverup scheme. They never play by the same rules they force on everyone else. Disgraceful,’ Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., declared in response to the old Biden post.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, posted, ‘This aged like fine milk.’

Biden’s May message that ‘no one is above the law’ came as his son was preparing for his first criminal trial in Delaware, where he was accused of illegally purchasing a firearm. He was also facing another trial regarding the failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. 

Biden was found guilty on June 11 of lying about his drug use when purchasing a firearm in 2018. He was found guilty on three charges: making a false statement in the purchase of a gun, making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a federally licensed gun dealer, and possession of a gun by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. Hunter Biden had an extensive and well-documented history with addiction, which was best captured in his 2021 memoir ‘Beautiful Things,’ which walked readers through his spirals with crack cocaine use. 

Hunter faced another trial regarding three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses regarding the failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes in a California court in September. As jury selection was about to kick off in Los Angeles federal court, Hunter entered a surprise guilty plea. 

Earlier this year, President Biden had publicly pledged at least twice that he would not pardon his son over the charges. 

‘Yes,’ President Biden told ABC News when asked if he would rule out pardoning Hunter ahead of his guilty verdict in the gun case. 

Days later, following a jury finding Hunter guilty in the firearm case, the president again said he would not pardon his son. 

‘I am not going to do anything,’ Biden said after Hunter was convicted. ‘I will abide by the jury’s decision.’

While conservatives lambasted Biden for pardoning his son after vowing he would not take that step, some attorneys came to Biden’s defense over the pardon, including Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder. 

Biden wrote in his statement announcing the pardon that the prosecution of his son was politically motivated.

‘It is clear that Hunter was treated differently,’ Biden wrote in his statement. 

‘The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.’

‘For my entire career I have followed a simple principle: just tell the American people the truth. They’ll be fair-minded. Here’s the truth: I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,’ the president added. 

Fox News Digital’s Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report. 

The Biden administration is unveiling a $725 million weapons package for Ukraine this afternoon, a U.S. official tells Fox News. 

The move comes less than two months before President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. 

This package will include anti-tank weapons, artillery, drones, munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and anti-personnel land mines to slow Russia’s advances in the Kursk region, the official said. 

Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have railed against the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion, and on the campaign trail, the former president said he would bring an end to the war before even entering office. 

However, Trump has yet to detail how he will do this. 

Vance made headlines earlier this year after he suggested that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized and for a demilitarized zone to be established, a proposal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flatly rejected. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine is urging NATO leaders gathering for a meeting in Brussels this week to invite the country to join the Western military alliance.  

‘We believe that the invitation should be extended at this stage,’ Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha recently said in a letter to NATO leaders, which was obtained by Reuters. 

‘It will become the Allies’ adequate response to Russia’s constant escalation of the war it has unleashed, the latest demonstration of which is the involvement of tens of thousands of North Korean troops and the use of Ukraine as a testing ground for new weapons,’ he added. 

Last Friday, Zelenskyy also used an interview on Sky News to up the public pressure for NATO leaders to extend his country a membership offer. 

‘If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,’ he reportedly said. 

Fox News’ Caitlin McFall and Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report. 

President Joe Biden faced mounting criticism Monday for his decision to issue a sweeping pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, with detractors not only citing the breadth of the pardon itself but also the degree to which it breaks with the president’s history of extolling the virtues of the judiciary as a bulwark against executive abuses of power.

In fact, Biden took aim at these very abuses during a speech in July, in which he warned of a ‘dangerous precedent’ created by the Supreme Court’s decision that expanded the view of presidential immunity. 

‘This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America,’ Biden said in July. ‘No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States.’

Biden’s remarks were a response to the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling that expanded the view of presidential immunity, and which he criticized as fundamentally changing the separation of powers.

‘With today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed,’ Biden said in July.

‘For all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do,’ he added.

In their decision, justices writing for the 4-3 Supreme Court majority said that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from any actions taken within the scope of ‘core constitutional powers’ of the office. 

A presumption of immunity also applies to other actions taken while holding office, they said.

Biden strenuously objected to that ruling, citing deep concerns over the risks of unchecked power in the executive branch — and the erosion of what he described as necessary parameters for a sitting president. 

The presidency, Biden said then, ‘is the most powerful office in the world. It’s an office that not only tests your judgment. But perhaps even more importantly, it’s an office that can test your character.’

‘You not only face moments where you need the courage to exercise the full power of the presidency,’ Biden said in his speech. ‘You also face moments where you need the wisdom to respect the limits of the power of the office of the presidency.’

Six months later, Biden is facing sharp criticism from some lawmakers and legal analysts for his decision to pardon Hunter, an about-face from his earlier promises, and a sweeping protection that covers any federal crimes Hunter Biden ‘has committed or may have committed’ from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024. 

In announcing the pardon, Biden criticized the unfair investigation and prosecution of his son, a process he said was ‘infected’ by politics and led to a ‘miscarriage of justice.’

‘No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,’ the president said in a statement Sunday.

But some critics also cited fears that Biden’s pardon could further erode the public’s view of the Justice Department — giving credence to Trump’s frequent complaints that the Department of Justice is a political apparatus capable of being ‘weaponized,’ rather than a department that strives to act independently and largely without political influence. 

Biden is ‘essentially endorsing Trump’s long-held opinion that the Department of Justice is politicized and isn’t acting impartially,’ longtime Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams told Fox News Digital of the pardon.

 Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

President-elect Trump picked businessman and philanthropist Warren A. Stephens to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James, who, in simple terms, is the country’s representative to the U.K.

‘Over the last 38 years, while serving as the president, chairman, and CEO of his company, Stephens Inc., Warren has built a wonderful financial services firm, while selflessly giving back to his community as a philanthropist,’ Trump said in a post on Truth Social. ‘Warren has always dreamed of serving the United States full-time. I am thrilled that he will now have that opportunity as the top Diplomat, representing the U.S.A. to one of America’s most cherished and beloved Allies.’

Trump then congratulated Stephens, his wife Harriet, their three children, Miles, John and Laura, and their six grandchildren.

The announcement comes as Trump continues to fill several positions in his administration.

According to the Stephens Inc. website, Trump’s pick serves as the chairman, president and CEO of the privately owned diversified financial services firm headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Stephens is a graduate of Washington and Lee University where he received a BA in economics. He later earned an MBA from Wake Forest University.

Under Stephens’ leadership, the company expanded into major U.S. markets and opened offices in London, U.K., and Frankfurt, Germany.

Stephens has also served as chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) District Conduct Committee, and currently sits on the Board of Directors of Dillard’s Inc.

In terms of civic and community involvement, Stephens has chaired the board for the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts; the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts Foundation Board; the Episcopal Collegiate School Foundation Board; and served on the Board of Directors for the Central Arkansas Boys and Girls Club, among other things.

The Senate will have to confirm Stephens’ position.

President Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, late Sunday evening, sparing him from being sentenced in a pair of separate court cases in which he was found guilty of illegally purchasing a gun and failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes — convictions the president claimed were politically motivated and a ‘miscarriage of justice.’

A review of Hunter Biden’s yearslong legal saga, however, shows another story, and those involved in the prosecutions are making sure that side of the story is told in the aftermath of the president’s decision. 

‘There was none and never has been any evidence of vindictive or selective prosecution in this case,’ special prosecutor David Weiss said in a court filing following the pardoning. 

Two IRS whistleblowers who sounded the alarm on Hunter Biden’s tax issues also slammed the decision to pardon Hunter Biden, saying, ‘No amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President’s son off the hook for multiple felonies.’

‘President Biden has the power to put his thumb on the scales of justice for his son, but at least he had to do it with a pardon explicitly for all the world to see rather than his political appointees doing it secretly behind the scenes. Either way it is a sad day for law abiding taxpayers to witness this special privilege for the powerful,’ IRS whistleblowers Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joe Ziegler said in a statement Sunday evening. 

‘No amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President’s son off the hook for multiple felonies. We did our duty, told the truth, and followed the law. Anyone reading the President’s excuses now should remember that Hunter Biden admitted to his tax crimes in federal court, that Hunter Biden’s attorneys have targeted us for our lawful whistleblower disclosures, and that we are suing one of those attorneys for smearing us with false accusations,’ they continued, referring to their $20 million defamation lawsuit against Hunter Biden’s high-profile attorney Abbe Lowell in September for claiming the IRS investigators illegally leaked Hunter Biden’s private tax information.

The guilty plea, guilty verdict and the president’s pardoning caps off a yearslong legal saga for the first son and his family, with the cases stretching back to 2018 and notably featured the IRS whistleblowers who sounded the alarm on Hunter Biden’s tax issues. 

Hunter Biden was found guilty in the gun case in June, with a jury of his peers determining he made a false statement in the purchase of a gun, made a false statement related to information required to be kept by a federally licensed gun dealer, and possession of a gun by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. 

He has a well-documented history of drug abuse, which was most notably documented in his 2021 memoir, ‘Beautiful Things,’ which walked readers through his previous need to smoke crack cocaine every 20 minutes, how his addiction was so prolific that he referred to himself as a ‘crack daddy’ to drug dealers, and anecdotes revolving around drug deals, such as a Washington, D.C., crack dealer Biden nicknamed ‘Bicycles.’

In the tax case, Hunter faced another trial regarding three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses regarding the failure to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes. As jury selection was about to kick off in Los Angeles federal court in September, Hunter entered a surprise guilty plea. 

The tax case investigation originally kicked off in 2018, when the U.S. attorney in Delaware opened a probe into Hunter Biden’s finances. The first son initially notified the public that he was under investigation one month after his dad won the presidential election over President-elect Donald Trump in 2020. 

​​’I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs,’ Hunter Biden said in a statement released in December of 2020. ‘I take this matter very seriously, but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisers.’

After President Biden took control of the Oval Office, his administration retained David Weiss, a Trump-appointed Republican charged with overseeing the investigation into Hunter Biden in his capacity as U.S. attorney for Delaware. The Biden administration had gutted all Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys under the Trump administration, except for two individuals: Weiss, and Special Counsel John Durham, who investigated the origins of the Russia probe surrounding the 2016 election. 

Last year, Hunter Biden was in the midst of hashing out a plea agreement to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as well as a pretrial diversion agreement regarding a separate felony charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. The plea agreement unraveled in Delaware court, however, and heightened his legal woes. 

Weeks later, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel, broadening the scope of the investigation into Hunter Biden. With the plea deal officially at an impasse, Weiss subsequently charged Hunter Biden in September of last year for the gun charges, and brought forth the nine tax-related charges against Hunter Biden in December of 2023 in California court. 

‘The appointment of Mr. Weiss reinforces for the American people the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,’ Garland said in the announcement of Weiss as special prosecutor. ‘I am confident that Mr. Weiss will carry out his responsibility in an evenhanded and urgent manner and in accordance with the highest traditions of this department.’

Simultaneous to the investigations into Hunter Biden’s tax dealings and gun purchase scrutiny, IRS whistleblowers sounded the alarm that they gathered evidence Hunter Biden had allegedly committed ‘felony and misdemeanor tax charges.’ The whistleblowers were identified as IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler and his supervisor Gary Shapley. 

The whistleblowers told Congress last year that prosecutorial decisions made throughout the federal investigation into the president’s son were allegedly impacted by politics, claiming the Justice Department and IRS handled its probe of Hunter Biden’s finances with kid gloves. 

Ziegler said he felt the investigation into Hunter Biden was ‘handcuffed’ and that the DOJ and Weiss slow-walked the investigation, while underscoring that he is a Democrat and worked to remove any personal political bias. 

‘I’m a Democrat. In the last presidential election, I actually did not vote,’ Ziegler told CBS News last year. ‘I thought it would be irresponsible of me to do so because I didn’t wanna show bias one way or the other.’

The whistleblowers said the tax discrepancies stretched back to 2014 and related to Hunter Biden’s employment with Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas firm. Fox Digital first reported in 2020 that Hunter Biden did not report ‘approximately $400,000’ in income he collected from his position on the board of Burisma Holdings when he joined in 2014. 

Weiss’ charges against Hunter Biden ultimately only focused on his failure to pay taxes between 2016 and 2020. However, the president’s pardon of his son shields him from prosecution for offenses between 2014 and 2024. 

After the whistleblowers’ attorney sent a letter to lawmakers in April of last year indicating they wished to ‘make a protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress’ over claims the Biden admin was allegedly mishandling the matter, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., subpoenaed the FBI to turn over materials related to a ‘criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.’

Comer did ultimately receive documents related to President Biden’s alleged ‘criminal scheme,’ known as the FD-1023 document, but slammed the materials as essentially useless as they were reportedly overwhelmingly redacted. 

Meanwhile, the House Ways and Means Committee interviewed the IRS whistleblowers and released transcripts of their interviews last year showing claims the Biden administration slow-walked the investigation and claiming the DOJ refused to appoint Weiss special counsel status. The DOJ denied the claims. 

Shapley claimed the agency obtained a message from WhatsApp dated July 30, 2017, from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, CEO of Harvest Fund Management, where the president’s son allegedly threatened his business associate by leveraging his father’s political clout.

‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,’ Hunter Biden allegedly wrote. The message was sent after Biden’s term as vice president under the Obama administration, and before he was elected president in 2020.  

‘And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction,’ the message continues. ‘I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.’

The White House has repeatedly denied the president had any business dealings with his son. 

As the investigations and whistleblower claims mounted, House Republicans opened an impeachment inquiry into Biden, with the House Oversight Committee, House Judiciary Committee and House Ways and Means Committee releasing a lengthy report in August that Biden engaged in ‘impeachable conduct’ and ‘defrauded the United States to enrich his family.’ 

Republicans said there was ‘overwhelming evidence’ that Biden participated in a ‘conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family’ to the tune of more than $27 million from foreign individuals or entities since 2014.

The inquiry has fizzled in recent months, as the presidential election took center stage on the national level. 

Biden declared in his statement Sunday evening that the prosecution of Hunter was a ‘miscarriage of justice,’ apparently bolstering his reasoning for the pardon after he said at least twice he would not pardon his son. 

‘From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ Biden said in his statement announcing the pardon. 

‘It is clear that Hunter was treated differently. The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases,’ he continued. 

‘I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice – and once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.’ 

Similar to his dad, Hunter Biden released a statement Sunday arguing the investigations and prosecutions were politically motivated.  

​​’I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,’ Hunter Biden said in a statement to Fox News. ‘Despite all of this, I have maintained my sobriety for more than five years because of my deep faith and the unwavering love and support of my family and friends.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Weiss’s office for comment, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman, Greg Wehner, and Charles Creitz contributed to this report. 

A former longtime friend and business partner of Hunter Biden reveals the blueprint he would like the Trump Department of Justice to implement after President Biden announced on Sunday that he was giving his son a full pardon.

Devon Archer, who served on Ukrainian energy company Burisma’s board alongside Hunter, says he is looking ahead to the future and is optimistic about the Trump DOJ. When Fox News Digital asked Archer about the elder Biden’s pardon, he sidestepped addressing the pardon and instead called for the Trump DOJ to be ‘an impartial institution again.’

‘I look forward to the Trump Administration restoring the Justice Department to an institution that reflects the founding principles of justice and adheres to federal laws akin to its inception on July 1, 1870,’ Archer told Fox News Digital. 

‘The DOJ needs to be an impartial institution again rather than being driven by personal or political agendas as witnessed in recent years,’ he continued.

Archer has faced his own legal troubles related to his criminal conviction for his alleged role in defrauding a Native American tribe. A federal judge sentenced Archer to prison in 2018 for allegedly defrauding the tribe by fraudulently issuing $60 million in tribal bonds after he was convicted by a jury. 

However, his conviction was thrown out in late 2018 by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams in Manhattan because she was ‘left with an unwavering concern that Archer is innocent of the crimes charged,’ according to Reuters.

Archer’s conviction would then be reinstated by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals a month before the 2020 election and he received a one-year and one-day prison sentence in February 2022.

Despite the sentence, Archer’s lawyer, Matthew Schwartz, has maintained his innocence and said they intended to file a series of appeals, which has delayed Archer serving his sentence.

‘Mr. Archer is obviously disappointed with today’s sentence, and intends to appeal. It is unfortunate that the judge, who has previously expressed concern that Mr. Archer is innocent of the crimes charged and reiterated that belief today, felt that she was constrained not to act on her independent assessment of the evidence,’ Schwartz said in February 2022.

President Biden announced on Sunday that he had pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, after the first son was convicted in two separate federal cases earlier this year.

The announcement was made by the White House on Sunday night. The pardon applies to offenses against the U.S. that Hunter Biden ‘has committed or may have committed’ from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024. This decade-long window covers Hunter’s Burisma tenure, among several other shady foreign business dealings.

‘Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,’ Biden wrote in a statement. ‘From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.’

Hunter Biden’s pardon has incensed Republicans who have alleged for years that Hunter Biden’s business dealings while his father was vice president were not legitimate. 

Archer spoke before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee last year and detailed the business connections between Joe and Hunter Biden. 

Archer said Biden was put on the phone to sell ‘the brand,’ according to a transcript of the hearing. These phone calls included a dinner in Paris with a French energy company and in China with Jonathan Li of BHR Partners, a state-backed private equity firm.

Archer also testified that there was value in adding Hunter Biden to Burisma’s board as ‘the brand,’ a source previously told Fox News Digital. The argument was that then-Vice President Joe Biden brought the most value. Archer also stated that Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, would have gone under if not for ‘the brand.’

The president, his 2020 campaign staff and top White House aides previously claimed at least 20 times that Biden ‘never discussed’ his son Hunter’s business dealings with him, which Archer’s testimony directly contradicted. 

Democrats have maintained that Hunter Biden did nothing wrong with his businesses and the president defended his son in his Sunday statement.

‘Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form,’ Biden said. ‘Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.’

Biden also referenced his son’s battle with addiction and blamed ‘raw politics’ for the unraveling of Hunter’s plea deal.

‘There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,’ the 82-year-old father wrote. ‘In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.’

‘I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision,’ Biden’s statement concluded.

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report

Democrat senators are scheduled to hold an internal leadership election to fill their top posts in the chamber less than two months after losing the Senate majority to Republicans in the 2024 election.

The election is expected to take place on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning, with a focus on who will fill the No. 3 position held by a retiring longtime lawmaker.

Last month’s election cost Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a job he has long held: Senate majority leader. But it will only amount to a demotion for Schumer, who will assume the position of Senate minority leader in 2025.

Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is also expected to remain the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber as minority whip, a position he has held for nearly two decades.

However, the third ranking Democrat, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., did not seek re-election this cycle, leaving her policy and communications committee chair position up for grabs.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., were reportedly both competing for the No. 3 position in the chamber. However, Axios reported Monday that the Minnesota Democrat is in line to fill the coveted leadership post.

Booker will reportedly take on the No. 4 position in the Senate, though it is unclear as to what that will entail, according to an Axios report ahead of the leadership election.

Booker spent the campaign season making himself known around the country with appearances in Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina and Wisconsin, per the New Jersey Globe. 

Senate Republicans recently held leadership elections as they gear up for their six-seat majority in the chamber next Congress. 

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., was elected via secret ballot in November to serve as Senate majority leader in the 119th Congress, replacing Schumer in the No. 1 position in the chamber.

There is no other way to put it: Joe Biden lied. Over and over.

After repeatedly promising, pledging, vowing not to pardon his son Hunter, the President of the United States did exactly that.

The move amounted to a devastating vote of no confidence in his own Justice Department, matching Donald Trump’s own denunciations of that very department.

Trump, who also pardoned several political allies during his first term, was quick to react on Truth Social:

‘Does the pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J-6 hostages, who have now been imprisoned for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of Justice!’

And prominent Republicans are calling Biden a liar, with ample justification.

I think most people assumed that a father wouldn’t let his son go to jail. And if the president had explained it in those terms, he might have garnered some public sympathy. But he did not.

You know how the president often talks about ‘my word as a Biden’? I mistakenly assumed that he wouldn’t promise again and again not to pardon his son or commute his sentence if he had thought there was any possibility he would get Hunter off the legal hook. 

But what is anyone going to do? He leaves office next month, his political career is over and the story will quickly fade.

Biden sounded very much like Trump as he accused the DOJ, which he had long defended, of treating his son unfairly – swinging the political door wide open for the president-elect to retaliate against Justice, in part by naming longtime confidant Kash Patel to run the FBI.

Biden said his son had been ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and he blamed  political pressure on the special counsel named in the case.

‘No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been 5-1/2 years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.’

But that bolsters the Trump argument that he too was singled out for selective prosecution by the DOJ – and will be in a position to do something about it.

Hunter put out his own statement after the Sunday pardon: ‘I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.’

The feeble attempts by some in the media and in Democratic politics to defend Biden are just sad, because they only tell half the story.

Let’s say Hunter Biden was in fact singled out for prosecution, that the case would have been routinely disposed of if his last name was Jones. (Hunter had already been convicted in one case and pleaded guilty in another to tax and gun-related charges.)

But as Hunter admitted in one email, it was his last name, when his father was vice president, that enabled him to land all those buckraking contracts from around the world. It’s why the Ukrainian energy giant Burisma hired him, why he was able to get money from China. 

Hunter had no expertise in any of these areas. What he had was a connection to a powerful father.

The pardon is so sweeping that it covers everything Hunter may have done from Jan. 1, 2004 through Sunday – which could be a way of his father protecting himself as well.

Karine Jean-Pierre also told reporters on several occasions that Biden would not pardon Hunter.

Hunter Biden on Sunday night released a statement noting his recovery from addiction and his sobriety:

‘I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport.’

Mark Halperin argues that Biden put his son in jeopardy by running for president, knowing the full range of Hunter’s addiction problems – and lied about Hunter not getting money from China and not helping his business clients (even if he just made small talk at a couple of group meetings).

Meanwhile, Trump’s choice of Kash Patel for the FBI (who would replace his own appointee, Chris Wray, who replaced the fired Jim Comey) has sparked a media backlash.

One thing no one can argue is that Patel lacks experience. He has been chief of staff at the Pentagon and a deputy assistant to the president. In fact, he was a national security prosecutor in the Obama Justice Department, before Trump got into politics.

But on Steve Bannon’s podcast last year, Patel said: ‘Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you, whether it’s criminally or civilly.’ 

Patel has also said that on day one he’d shut down the FBI headquarters in Washington – ironically named for J. Edgar Hoover – and turn it into a museum on the ‘deep state.’ Its 7,000 employees would be dispersed around the country.

One thing Biden never did was put any family members on the government payroll, as Trump did in naming Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, to top White House positions in the first term.

Now Trump is continuing that tradition by naming Charles Kushner, Jared’s father, as ambassador to France.

The elder Kushner had already served a couple of years in prison for a scheme that involved hiring a prostitute and sending the tape to his sister. But at least he had paid his dues when Trump later pardoned him, sparking Jared’s interest in prison reform.

Trump also picked Massad Boulos – the father of Tiffany Trump’s husband – as White House adviser on Arab and Middle East affairs. All in the family.

One thing the press does is refer to Trump nominees as ‘loyalists,’ as if that’s a dirty word. Sunday’s Washington Post had a headline describing ‘loyalist Kash Patel.’

But while Biden named an inner circle of aides who had been with him as long as four decades, they were not dismissed as loyalists. That’s because the media agree that these were the good guys. And who can forget former AG Eric Holder describing himself as Barack Obama’s ‘wingman.’

The Hunter pardon has set in motion a potential cycle of both presidents using the DOJ and FBI for purely partisan ends, and Joe Biden bears full responsibility for that.