Special Counsel David Weiss is expected to appear for a transcribed interview before the House Judiciary Committee next month, a source familiar with the situation told Fox News. 

Weiss is set to appear for his transcribed interview behind closed doors on Nov. 7, the source said. 

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has been negotiating with the Justice Department to have Weiss and other federal prosecutors involved in the Hunter Biden investigation to testify before his committee for months. He initially requested Weiss meet with the committee on Oct. 11. 

The DOJ initially offered Weiss for public testimony back in July. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped Weiss in August to serve as special counsel with jurisdiction over the Hunter Biden investigation and any other issues that have come up, or may come up, related to that probe.

Weiss, the U.S. attorney for Delaware, has been leading the Hunter Biden investigation since 2018. His appointment as special counsel came amid allegations that politics had influenced or hampered prosecutorial decisions in the years-long investigation into the president’s son. 

In his first move as special counsel, Weiss charged Hunter Biden with making a false statement in the purchase of a firearm; making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a federal firearms licensed dealer; and one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

The president’s son pleaded not guilty to all charges earlier this month. 

Weiss has said the investigation into the president’s son is ongoing. 

Weiss’ interview comes amid House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry against President Biden. 

The status of the impeachment inquiry is unclear, however, after the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as House speaker. Jordan is currently the Republican nominee for speaker, and is expected to hold a third vote for the post on Friday. 

The Pentagon announced that there have been more than 270 reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena, known as UAPs or UFOs, reported to the U.S. government in the past eight months.

According to the unclassified report released Tuesday by the Department of Defense, since Aug. 31, 2022 to April 30, 2023, there were 274 new reports made to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which leads the government’s efforts documenting and analyzing reports of UFOs/UAPs. 

Many of the reports it receives are made by members of the military and commercial pilots, the DOD noted.

The agency also began looking into 17 sightings that happened between 2019 and 2022 that hadn’t been included in earlier reports. 

As of April 30, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office had received 801 UFO reports.

The DOD noted that while UFOs/UAPs in airspace pose as a ‘potential hazard,’ none of the cases were in the direct path of a plane or in an ‘unsafe proximity’ to military aircraft. 

The report also noted that none of the UFO reports have been confirmed as being foreign in origin, but the possibility is being investigated.

The report from All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is delivered yearly to Congress.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a press release that service personnel’s safety remains ‘paramount’ during their investigations of UFOs.

‘The safety of our service personnel, our bases and installations, and the protection of U.S. operations security on land, in the skies, seas, and space are paramount,’ Ryder said. ‘We take reports of incursions into our designated space, land, sea, or airspaces seriously and examine each one.’

Several of the eight House Republicans who voted to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., indicated they have no regrets for the move that has led to two weeks without a speaker.

Fox News Digital reached out to the eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy from the speakership via Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz’s motion to vacate, asking if they felt responsible for the possible Democrat-backed deal to expand the interim speaker’s power.

Gaetz has since blasted the potential expansion of Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry’s powers in the wake of his motion to vacate as making the interim speaker the ‘speaker light.’

‘I am against ‘speaker light,’ I am against Bud Light,’ Gaetz told reporters Thursday. ‘I believe it is a constitutional desecration not to elect a speaker of the House. We need to stay here until we elect a speaker.’

Arizona Republican Rep. Eli Crane told Fox News Digital that the ‘only things’ he feels ‘responsible for are representing the voices of the people who sent me here and reversing the course of this Conference so that we can get on a track towards fiscal responsibility and draining the Swamp.’

‘The American people want a speaker who will be honest and represent them, not business as usual in Washington,’ said Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. ‘It is disgraceful for a number of elected officials, many of them in safe GOP districts, to support a plan to empower Democrats.’

‘Voting against the will of your constituents is the definition of the swamp,’ Mace continued. ‘We hope the American people see who is standing with them and who is standing with Washington.’

Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana said, ‘Bringing forward a resolution to grant additional power to a Speaker that is unelected is an attempt by the D.C. Cartel to dismiss the voice of the American people and sets a dangerous precedent.’

‘I will not support a resolution that would delay the process of selecting a Speaker and empower someone that was appointed by Kevin McCarthy and not elected by the Republican Conference,’ Rosendale added. ‘That’s why I am urging my colleagues to go back into Conference and work to nominate a candidate immediately, so we can get back to doing the work the American people elected a Republican majority to do.’

The office of Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., did not provide comment on the potential expansion of McHenry’s powers.

Gaetz’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. Neither did GOP Reps. Bob Good of Virginia, Andy Biggs of Arizona, or Tim Burchett of Tennessee.

It’s unclear whether House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan will hold a third vote on his nomination to be speaker of the House of Representatives. Jordan said Thrusday he would back a move to empower McHenry until January, Fox News Digital previously reported.

Jordan lost support on the second ballot Wednesday — winning only 199 votes after getting only 200 in the first ballot Tuesday.

He needed 217 to become speaker, and could afford few Republican defections. Fox News was told he was expected to lose further votes in a ballot on Thursday.

Jordan’s team had said they intended to keep going with a third vote, with supporters optimistic that he could gain support. However, there had also been other potential candidates emerging from the wings amid the stalemate.

Republicans had held a closed-door meeting Thursday morning amid escalating tensions within the House GOP, with several of Jordan’s critics stating that they had gotten credible threats because they did not vote for him for speaker. Jordan has repeatedly condemned those threats.

The House of Representatives will soon recess after a third speaker’s vote was put on hold on Thursday.

Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw and Brooke Singman contributed reporting.

The House of Representatives is expected to convene for a third round of votes on Friday as Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, struggles to reach the 217-member threshold needed to win the speaker’s gavel.

House lawmakers got a notice on Thursday evening that no more votes would be expected that day after hours spent in limbo waiting for Jordan to decide if and how to move forward. The notice said the House would convene at 10 a.m. on Friday.

Jordan’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital that the Ohio conservative intends to hold a vote around that time.

Even if he loses again, Jordan ally Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, indicated that Jordan would keep fighting on Saturday and Sunday.

‘We’ve heard from our colleagues and the American people. Additional votes are expected through the weekend,’ Davidson wrote on social media.

Jordan’s path to the speakership remains uncertain — he fell 17 votes short of the necessary number needed to win on Tuesday, and the number increased to 18 during the second round vote on Wednesday.

Late on Thursday afternoon, Jordan met with some of the 20-plus lawmakers opposing his bid for speaker.

They were largely silent when leaving the meeting room. The lawmakers who did speak to reporters indicated their minds were unchanged. 

‘Not trying to change our minds, trying to change his mind. Our mind is set,’ Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., said when asked if the meeting was about getting them to flip. 

House Republicans began the day with a closed-door conference meeting as reports swirled that Jordan did not intend to hold a third-round vote, and instead would support a plan to grant temporary powers to interim Speaker Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., to pass legislation through early January. 

Jordan would have remained speaker-designate for that time being, the reports, which were confirmed to Fox News Digital by two sources, said. 

But conservatives in the conference quickly balked at the plan. Some called it unconstitutional, pointing out that the speaker pro tempore role explicitly only allows them to oversee elections, while others complained it would give Jordan an unfair leg up in the speaker’s race by keeping him as speaker-designate.

Some Republicans emerged from the meeting, which lasted nearly four hours, insisting to reporters that the McHenry proposal was dead in the water. 

‘It’s not going to happen,’ Donalds told reporters. ‘I think that is the decision as I understand it. And I think even Patrick, to his credit and to his fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, we cannot just drop powers in the lap of somebody. We have to elect a speaker.’

Moderates like Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Pa., and Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., insisted the proposal still had legs.

Jordan largely ignored reporters’ questions through the day, including queries on whether he supported empowering McHenry.

FIRST ON FOX: GOP Indiana Rep. Jim Banks called for House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, to lose her gavel for voting against GOP speaker nominee Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Banks caught up with Fox News Digital Thursday after Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., set the House to recess amid Jordan’s speakership push.

The Indiana congressman said there were ‘a lot of emotions’ in the GOP conference meeting Thursday and that Republicans ‘have a duty’ to the American people to elect a House speaker.

Banks also called the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., ‘a big mistake’ and that Republican holdouts ‘need to come to their senses’ and vote for Jordan.

‘Some of them are leaders,’ Banks said of the holdouts. ‘The chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee voted against Jim Jordan.

‘Why? Because Jim Jordan is a fiscal conservative who understands that we need to save our country by addressing the debt and deficit spending. And she controls the Appropriations Committee. She should lose her gavel for it.’

Banks said Granger ‘shouldn’t be the chairwoman of the committee’ if she is not backing the GOP majority’s choice for speaker, adding it’s ‘really disappointing.’

‘But that’s where we are right now,’ Banks said. ‘So, it’s time to put petty differences aside and elect a Republican speaker of the House, not a Democrat speaker of the House.’

Banks said he hopes the steering committee, which handles all House committee assignments, including chair positions, will ‘take a look at’ removing Granger.

The Indiana Republican noted that the steering committee ‘isn’t populated until there’s a speaker,’ and he hopes ‘there will be a large conversation in our conference about those who betrayed the Republican majority.’

Granger’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for a response to Banks’ comments Thursday evening.

His comments come as Jordan continues his quest for the speaker’s gavel.

The House will reconvene Friday at 10 a.m.

Jordan, the Republican nominee for speaker, spent much of the day talking with holdouts following a second failed vote to win the top job in the House.

Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed reporting.

Houses stormed on Shabbat, children murdered in their beds, breakfast still on the table. The world changed, yet again, on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel to murder as many civilians as possible.  

Not only did Hamas commit unspeakable atrocities against Israelis, but against other foreigners who had the misfortune of being in the worst place at the worst time; Americans were murdered, and more are being held hostage in Gaza, a fate, perhaps worse than death. 

That the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s biggest state sponsor of terror, has a relationship with Hamas, a State Department designated Foreign Terror Organization since 1997, cannot be disputed. Hamas and Iran want to eliminate the Jewish state and its people. For Hamas and Iran, there is no solution which involves two states — there is only one, a final solution. Sound familiar? 

If, or more likely when, it is determined that Iran was involved in the attack, what recourse have the grief-stricken loved ones in the United States, other than cursing Iran, Hamas, and all its benefactors and sympathizers (including college students, administrators, and professors) around the world? The old-fashioned, American kind: filing suit. 

A constellation of U.S. laws allows the surviving family members of terror victims to sue nations that took part in the acts of terror either directly, or by providing financial backing and other assistance. Arguably, the most high-profile example is the 9/11 victims’ lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, still winding its way through the courts. 

An alphabet soup of Acts — The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), The Antiterrorism Act (ATA) and Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) — have whittled away foreign sovereign immunity protections in favor of victims of terror attacks and their anguished survivors. It would be no different in a new lawsuit against Iran — should there be enough evidence linking it to the Hamas massacre.  

Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine which generally prevents citizens from suing the government without its consent, preventing governments from being subjected to constant lawsuits over their actions. Like everything else in the law, there are exceptions. Laws have been passed that allow citizens to sue the government, and in this case, foreign governments. 

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act confirms that generally, foreign nations enjoy sovereign immunity, but there are specific exceptions, including terrorism. One hundred and seventeen families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 successfully sued Libya under FSIA.   

The Antiterrorism Act also allows aggrieved terror victims or their survivors to sue in U.S. district court and recover three times the damages. The ATA was expanded in 2016 — over then-President Barack Obama’s veto — by the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act.  

JASTA’s goal was to make it easier for 9/11 victims and their families to sue Saudi Arabia for its role in that world-changing act of terror, so that a nation who simply ‘aids and abets’ or conspires with terrorists can face liability. JASTA is not limited to 9/11 claims against Saudi Arabia; it could apply against Iran in this current context. 

While these cases are among the most legally complex, they can also force the executive branch to walk a diplomatic tightrope. JASTA was one of Obama’s few vetoes, and the only one to be overwhelmingly overridden by Congress.  

Why oppose a law aimed at making it easier to penalize nations that help terrorists terrorize? Fear of diplomatic and economic consequences (i.e., Saudi Arabia not investing in the U.S. for fear of its assets being seized in a terrorism lawsuit).  

Because of this concern, JASTA allows for a federal court to stay proceedings if the U.S. is engaged in ‘good faith’ discussions with a foreign state concerning resolution of claims. While this pause may not be granted for more than six months at a time, the government can ask for additional six-month periods, which could effectively delay justice indefinitely. 

On June 21, 2023, bipartisan legislation was introduced, Ensuring Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, a bill billed to close loopholes in JASTA by making what Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn calls ‘minor technical edits’ to ensure that sponsors of terrorism are held accountable. Currently, the bill is still in committee, but there could be a push to fast track this relief, given the new world order that has emerged since October 7, 2023. 

While there remain concerns about the chilling effect JASTA could have on foreign investment and diplomacy, should we really care about whether we continue to do business with countries whose values and interests are so opposed to ours? Should the potential of more foreign investment from questionable actors be paramount to providing financial redress to the families of terror victims?  

Sovereign immunity is a legal doctrine which generally prevents citizens from suing the government without its consent, preventing governments from being subjected to constant lawsuits over their actions. Like everything else in the law, there are exceptions. Laws have been passed that allow citizens to sue the government, and in this case, foreign governments. 

As for a chilling effect on diplomacy, we cannot do enough to turn a hostile country’s hate to love, or even to like. There would be no end to the sacrifices and concessions the U.S. would have to make for Iran to be an ally instead of an adversary. Diplomacy — like easing sanctions, allowing economic growth, releasing prisoners and $6 billion in aid to Iran has gotten us nowhere but to the brink of a second front opening in this new war with another Iran-backed Foreign Terrorist Organization, Hezbollah. 

Justice for the bereft family members of terror victims is never swift or guaranteed. If Iran is eventually sued by surviving families of this attack, there will be motions, disputes over the densely written statutes, dispositive legal questions with which appellate courts will grapple, and the list goes on. Multi-figure judgments will not bring back what these families lost, but it at least gives them the chance to exact the only legal revenge they have.  

An undeniable pall has been cast over every day, especially on Shabbat, in America and abroad, with no true remedy for the families but time. But these nations who sponsor terror ought to pay as big a price as possible. 

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., introduced a bill Thursday to reallocate the $6 billion in Iranian funds to Israeli defense amid Israel’s war against Hamas.

The bill seeks to take the $6 billion, which was released to Iran in September as part of a negotiation for the release of five American prisoners, and put it into an account for Israel to use in its fight against Iran-backed Hamas. 

‘As the Iranian-backed terror group Hamas continues its barbaric attacks against the Israeli people, the United States must stand firmly by our biggest ally in the Middle East,’ Daines said in a statement. ‘The United States must not only restrict Iran’s access to Biden’s $6 billion ransom payment but also repurpose those funds to help Israel recover from these horrific actions.’

The bill also proposes that frozen Iranian assets beyond the initial $6 billion cannot be unfrozen or utilized until the president confirms to Congress that hostilities between Hamas, other Iranian-backed groups, and Israel have ceased; until full compensation has been provided to Israel for damages caused by attacks; or until Iran is actively participating in an internationally agreed mechanism to compensate Israel for determined amounts owed.

Republican lawmakers in the upper chamber have been ramping up their efforts to introduce bills pertaining to the Iranian assets this week.

Nearly 20 GOP senators are calling on the Biden administration to freeze the funds that were released to a Qatar account in exchange for five American prisoners last month.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., led a group of GOP senators on Tuesday, urging the administration to ‘limit Iran’s ability to provide support to Hamas.’

Meanwhile, Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and John Kennedy, R-La., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., linked arms to introduce legislation to also freeze the assets. 

BIDEN ISSUES CRYPTIC WARNING TO IRAN AFTER ADMIN DENIES COUNTRY WAS INVOLVED IN HAMAS ATTACK: ‘BE CAREFUL’

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, also unveiled legislation Tuesday that would handicap the Treasury and State Department’s ability to relax U.S. sanctions on Iranian assets and direct the Treasury secretary to examine Iranian assets around the world currently restricted by U.S. sanctions and provide that information to Congress.

In the House, China Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., led a bipartisan group of nearly 100 House lawmakers last Wednesday to urge President Biden to refreeze the $6 billion as well. 

The U.S. has a ‘quiet agreement’ with Qatar to block Iran from accessing the $6 billion amid Hamas’ terror attacks on Israel that began Oct. 7, sources familiar with the move told Fox News last week.

A Biden administration official has resigned from the State Department, citing President Biden’s announcement of material support for Israel. The official said he ‘cannot work’ as the U.S. helps Israel in its war against the Hamas terrorist group.

Josh Paul, who worked for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, where he was responsible for transferring arms to key American allies, posted his resignation letter on social media. In it, he said ‘continued lethal assistance to Israel’ prompted his decision to leave.

‘Today I informed my colleagues that I have resigned from the State Department, due to a policy disagreement concerning our continued lethal assistance to Israel,’ Paul wrote on LinkedIn.

He added: ‘I cannot work in support of a set of major policy decisions, including rushing more arms to one side of the conflict, that I believe to be shortsighted, destructive, unjust, and contradictory to the very values that we publicly espouse.’

In the lengthy statement, Paul condemned Hamas’ brutal attack on Israeli civilians, but said Israel’s ‘response’ in seeking to eliminate Hamas was too far.

‘Let me be clear: Hamas’ attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities,’ he wrote. ‘I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people — and is not in the long term American interest.’

His decision came as Biden announced the U.S. would be supplying weapons and munitions to Israel, its closest ally in the Middle East. Biden also said the U.S. stands unequivocally with Israel and its right to defend itself following Hamas’ ruthless assault on Oct. 7 that left more than 1,400 Israelis dead. It was the worst terror attack in the country’s history.

‘When I came to the Bureau, the U.S. Government entity most responsible for the transfer and provision of arms to partners and allies, I knew it was not without its moral complexity and moral compromises, and I made myself a promise that I would stay for as long as I felt the harm I might do would be outweighed by the good I could do,’ Paul wrote. ‘In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact. I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued — indeed, expanded and expedited — provision of lethal arms to Israel — I have reached the end of that bargain.’

He added: ‘We cannot be both against occupation and for it. We cannot be both for freedom and against it. And we cannot be for a better world while contributing to one that is materially worse.’

‘This Administration’s response — and much of Congress’ as well — is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia,’ Paul continued in the statement. ‘That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security nor peace.’

Later in the statement, Paul said the U.S., as a ‘third party,’ should not take a side in the conflict and suggested that Israel had committed ‘gross violations of human rights.’

Biden’s stance on the conflict includes wholly supporting Israel while ensuring aid is given to civilians caught in the crossfire. On Wednesday, he announced $100 million in humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The president said the aid would be cut off if it fell into the hands of Hamas.

According to his LinkedIn, Paul has worked at the State Department since April 2012.