House Republicans seek recordings of classified documents case interviews, in what Democrats call a ‘purely political’ move

Joe Biden asserted executive privilege to stop House Republicans obtaining recordings of his interviews with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s retention of classified information after his time as a senator and as vice-president to Barack Obama.

In a letter reported by the New York Times and other outlets on Thursday, the White House counsel, Edward Siskel, told the Republican chairs of the House judiciary and oversight committees: “The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal – to chop them up, distort them and use them for partisan political purposes.

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© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Jordan accuses White House of altering transcripts after Biden asserts executive privilege to block Republicans from accessing

Once again, a group of House Republicans is making a pilgrimage to the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s business fraud trial is taking place in a show of support for their party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Among the group is Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who on X shared a photo of himself outside the courtroom while echoing Trump’s instruction to the Proud Boys militia group in 2020 to “stand back and stand by”:

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© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

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© Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

The decision came after a scorching hearing in which lawmakers barraged EcoHealth Alliance’s president with claims of misrepresenting work with Chinese virologists.

© Ting Shen for The New York Times

While Congress says the social app is a security threat, critics of the law targeting it say it shows how out of step lawmakers are with young people.

© Kent Nishimura for The New York Times

A tiny group of lawmakers huddled in private about a year ago, aiming to keep the discussions away from TikTok lobbyists while bulletproofing a bill that could ban the app.

© Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

A new measure attempts to force the Senate’s hand on passing legislation to ban TikTok or mandate the app’s sale.

© Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Global digital rights advocates are watching to see if Congress acts, worried that other countries could follow suit with app bans of their own.

© Brian Stauffer

Lawmakers raising national security concerns and seeking to disconnect a major Chinese firm from U.S. pharmaceutical interests have rattled the biotech industry. The firm is deeply involved in development and manufacturing of crucial therapies for cancer, cystic fibrosis, H.I.V. and other illnesses.