President Biden and his family are huddling in secrecy this week at an exclusive home on the shores of Lake Tahoe in Nevada amid the special counsel investigation into his son Hunter.

According to the White House, the Bidens are renting the $18 million home of environmental activist, businessman and former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer at fair market value for a nine-day vacation following the president’s trip to Hawaii to survey damage from the recent devastating wildfires.

Biden is being joined on the vacation, which began Tuesday, by first lady Jill Biden, their daughter Ashley, son Hunter, his wife Melissa Cohen, their son Beau, and a number of grandchildren.

Its unclear whether the Bidens will be receiving any visitors during their stay as the future of Hunter’s legal troubles remains in limbo as special counsel Andrew Weiss’ investigation into the president’s son continues.

When asked if anyone was expected to pay any visits to the president or his family, a White House spokesperson told Fox New Digital that there had never been any visitor logs kept at the first family residences or lodgings during travel, and that they intended to continue following that precedent. 

The official also noted that the same policy was kept during former President Obama’s administration as well.

The misdemeanor tax charges against Hunter were dismissed by a federal judge in Delaware last week, an expected move after his ‘sweetheart’ plea deal fell through in July during his first court appearance in the case.

After the plea deal fell apart, Biden pleaded ‘not guilty’ as federal prosecutors confirmed he is still under federal investigation. He was expected to plead guilty to the two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of the plea deal to avoid jail time on the felony gun charge.

Attorney General Merrick Garland named Weiss special counsel in Hunter’s case earlier this month.

Weiss and Biden’s attorneys are still fighting over a diversion agreement concerning the felony charge that would allow him to avoid any jail time. Weiss has indicated he plans to potentially take Biden to trial in the future in either Washington, D.C., or California.

EXCLUSIVE: Democratic lawmakers in Georgia are coming to the defense of Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is facing an investigation into his role in the alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Speaking with Fox News Digital, three Democratic state senators attested to Jones’ character and willingness to work across the aisle for Georgians as lieutenant governor and as a state senator prior to his election, but would not take sides specifically on the expected special prosecutor that will be looking into his involvement in the Trump case.

‘I can’t speak to any investigation because it’s not my judgment to make, and I don’t know the details,’ state Sen. Josh McLaurin told Fox. ‘My experience with Lieutenant Governor Jones has just been serving in the Senate, where he has been straightforward in his communication and willingness to work with members of the minority party.’

State Den. Derek Mallow echoed McLaurin, telling Fox he ‘wholeheartedly’ believed in the separation of powers between the judiciary and legislative branches of the state government and wouldn’t comment on any pending legal matters, but stressed Jones’ willingness to work with Democratic members of the legislature.

‘For me personally I watched my city and county go to blows over lost negotiations and I met with the lieutenant governor after I introduced my study committee to ask him to allow the senate to study the issue,’ he said, referencing a specific piece of legislation. 

‘He not only agreed but allowed me to chair the committee. Even on issues we may disagree on I have never been silenced at the well or ignored for the opportunity to speak, and he has been straightforward on that and many other issues to me,’ he added.

State Sen. Freddie Powell Sims agreed, touting her ability to work with Jones to get things accomplished for the good of all Georgians, especially the citizens of her largely rural southwest district, but also wanted to avoid commenting on any ongoing legal processes.

‘Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones was a colleague, as well as a friend, prior to his election as lieutenant governor. We were always able to work together — in spite of political differences — for the good of all Georgians, especially matters that directly impacted District 12. As lieutenant governor, Burt Jones has continued to work with me based on the challenges and needs of District 12 constituents,’ she said.

‘He has always been a gentleman and committed family man. My conversations with the lieutenant governor have seldom involved political context or strategies, probably due to the vast differences that we exude. But those political differences never intervened when making certain that Georgians were cared for,’ she added.

Jones, seen as a likely front-runner in the race to replace current Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2026 election, was one of the 16 so-called ‘fake’ electors who claimed Trump won Georgia and attempted to conduct a secret meeting at the State Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, in an alleged effort to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state. Three of the 16 were indicted alongside Trump last week on allegations of forgery, false statements and impersonating a public officer, among other crimes.

Jones was excluded from the investigation that led to the indictments after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ordered District Attorney Fani Willis to drop him in July 2022 because she hosted a fundraiser for Democrat Charlie Bailey, who was running against Jones for lieutenant governor in the general election that November.

As a result of that order, Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Council Executive Director Pete Skandalakis decided to wait until an indictment was handed down before choosing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones. 

In an exclusive interview with Fox last week, Jones hit back at the targeting of him and his role in connection with Trump’s alleged effort to overturn the state’s election results, as well as the indictments brought against the former president and others.

‘I haven’t done anything wrong, and the people who are being indicted in Fulton County, I don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, either,’ Jones said. ‘They were expressing their opinions in a lot of cases, and for them to be charged and booked and fingerprinted, as if they’re common criminals is something that I just — it’s a little disturbing, to be honest with you.’

Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.

Two of former President Donald Trump’s co-defendants in the Georgia 2020 election meddling case turned themselves in to authorities Tuesday morning. 

Scott Hall, an Atlanta-based bail bondsman, and John Eastman, a former Trump attorney, were each booked at the Fulton County Jail, records show. Hall has been assigned a $10,000 bond for seven charges. Eastman accepted a $100,000 bond. 

The two men were indicted last week alongside Trump and 16 others, who are accused by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis of scheming to subvert the will of Georgia voters in a desperate bid to keep Joe Biden out of the White House. It was the fourth criminal case brought against the Republican former president.

Eastman, a former dean of Chapman University law school in Southern California, faces charges related to his advice to Trump on how the former president could overturn the 2020 election. 

Hall is accused of conspiring to unlawfully access voter data and ballot counting machines at the Coffee County Election office on Jan. 7, 2021. His seven charges include one count of violation of the Georgia RICO Act, two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud Georgia, and three felony counts related to his alleged actions in Coffee County. 

He was the author of a memo that argued Trump could stay in power if then-Vice President Mike Pence refused to certify the 2020 Electoral College results during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Eastman proposed that several contested states, including Georgia, put in place a slate of ‘alternate’ electors who would claim that Trump had won their states based on unproven allegations of fraud. 

Eastman said in a statement provided by his lawyers that he was surrendering Tuesday ‘to an indictment that should never have been brought.’ He lambasted the indictment for targeting ‘attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients’ and said each of the 19 defendants was entitled to rely on the advice of lawyers and past legal precedent to challenge the election results. 

Two other defendants, former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark and former Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer, have filed paperwork to transfer the case to federal court. Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows also did so last week, saying his actions were taken in service to his White House role.

TRUMP SAYS GEORGIA INDICTMENT COMES DURING ‘DARK PERIOD’ FOR US, VOWS TO FIX IT BY WINNING 

Judge Scott McAfee of the Fulton County Superior Court set bond for Trump at $200,000 after he was indicted on 13 counts last week as a result of Willis’ investigation. 

Trump will be processed Thursday in Fulton County, a source familiar told Fox News Digital. The source said this will take place Thursday afternoon, but the exact timing is unclear at this point.

The source said Trump will have his arraignment and first court appearance in September.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman, Brandon Gillespie and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

FIRST ON FOX: The Republican National Committee says it’s going ‘all in’ ahead of Wednesday’s first GOP presidential nomination debate to encourage voters to turn in ballots early.

The recently-launched ‘Bank Your Vote’ campaign seeks to motivate pre-Election Day balloting among Republicans ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The RNC effort aims to educate GOP voters on absentee voting, ballot collection and early in-person voting. 

The RNC ad blitz, shared first with Fox News Wednesday, includes a 30-second ad that will appear on the Rumble live stream of the debate, a Fox News-hosted showdown in Milwaukee.

The spot includes RNC chair Ronna McDaniel and other prominent Republicans encouraging GOP voters to cast ballots early next year.

‘When Republicans vote early, we win,’ McDaniel emphasized in the ad.

The RNC also spotlights that the ad includes a Bank Your Vote contest. ‘If you pledge to bank your vote at BankYourVote.com on Aug. 23, you will be entered to win a chance to attend a future Republican presidential primary debate,’ the national party committee notes.

The RNC will also have a Bank Your Vote booth at the Convention Partner Fair in Milwaukee Wednesday. The RNC says people attending the debate, vendors and volunteers stopping by the booth can sign up to pledge to bank their vote.  

The committee also notes there will be absentee request forms for all 56 states and territories, with laws and fact sheets about each state and territory’s absentee rules.

The RNC showcases that it’s hosting over 400 debate watch parties in all 50 states, where people attending will be encouraged to sign up online and pledge to bank their vote early.

‘To ensure that Biden is a one-term president, that Republicans expand our majority in the House and that we take back the Senate, Republican voters from across the country need to bank their vote ahead of Election Day in 2024. The RNC will be leading the Bank Your Vote charge this cycle, and we’re proud to partner with so many Republican leaders from across the ecosystem to bank and protect Republican votes,’ McDaniel said in a statement.

Former President Donald Trump, who appears in the new RNC ad, released a video last month encouraging Republicans to vote early, backing the RNC’s effort.

For over 2½ years, Trump has repeatedly spotlighted unproven claims that massive fraud in early and absentee voting led to the 2020 presidential election being stolen.

But since launching his 2024 presidential campaign last November, Trump has appeared to slowly embrace efforts to encourage Republicans to vote early in person or cast an early absentee ballot.

During a recent Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, Trump said he would encourage Republicans to vote early. But he also claimed people make ‘phony ballots’ and charged ‘a lot of bad things happen to those ballots.’

Due in part to Trump’s rhetoric, Democrats have enjoyed a sizable early voting advantage the past couple of years over Republicans.

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Election Project in November, 33.3% of early votes in the 2022 midterm elections came from registered Republicans in states that report such information. That was up from 30.5% during the 2020 presidential election. Democrats voted early at about the same rate — 40.6% in 2022 and 40.8% in 2020.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN—When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis takes the debate stage Wednesday night, he’ll remind voters of his ‘proven conservative record’ and pitch his ‘vision to reverse America’s decline.’ 

DeSantis, who will stand center stage at Wednesday night’s Fox News-hosted debate in Milwaukee, is the highest-polling candidate participating in the showdown.

And his campaign is prepared for attacks from the Republican candidates standing alongside him.

‘Gov. DeSantis will be the number one target on the stage,’ DeSantis’ Deputy Campaign Manager David Polyansky told Fox News Digital.

The Republican National Committee stated that ‘qualified candidates will be placed on stage according to polling, with the highest polling candidate in the center.’

In the center of the stage, alongside DeSantis, will stand biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. On either side of DeSantis and Ramaswamy will be former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina will stand in the number five and six positions, with former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum standing on the wings of the debate stage. 

Polyansky added that DeSantis will ‘receive the most incoming from many, if not all, of the candidates on the stage—and off—because they recognize it is a two-person race.’

Former President Donald Trump is currently the leading the 2024 GOP presidential primary field but has chosen not to attend the debate Wednesday night, pointing to his large lead, with DeSantis standing in second place in most polls.

But DeSantis will use Wednesday’s debate as an opportunity to share his vision for the future of America with the Republican electorate.

‘DeSantis in particular has a chance to explain to GOP voters why he deserves to be their nominee based on his proven conservative record and vision to reverse America’s decline,’ Polyansky told Fox News Digital. ‘And also why he feels that nobody is going to be handed this nomination.’

‘You are going to have to show up on the debate stage and make your pitch to Republican voters,’ he said. ‘Through all of the noise, this remains a two-person race.’

DeSantis, during an interview with Fox News Digital over the weekend, said his debate strategy includes ‘defending’ himself, but ‘more importantly showing why we are the leader to get this country turned around.’

Fox News is hosting the first GOP presidential primary debate on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. The debate begins at 9 p.m. ET. Rumble is the online live-streaming partner and Young America’s Foundation is also a partner in the first debate.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took to social media late Tuesday evening to swipe his Democratic competition, highlighting the small crowd that showed up to a recent campaign event.

‘Wow, Six people showed up in San Antonio,’ Cruz wrote on X, responding to a post from Democratic challenger Rep. Colin Allred, one of eleven candidates running in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Texas on March 5, 2024.

In the initial post, Allred shared four photos at what appears to be a small tropical-themed bar during a stop on his Lone Star Listening Tour. The photos included the lawmaker taking a selfie with a supporter and another photo of about a dozen people, although some of those in the photo could be employees of the bar.

He also said Bexar County, the state’s fourth-most populous county that encompasses San Antonio, was ‘ready to fire Ted Cruz.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Sen. Cruz’s office and Rep. Allred’s office for additional comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Allred, a former undrafted free agent for the Tennessee Titans, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018.

He initially defeated then-incumbent Pete Sessions, who switched congressional districts and was later re-elected to the House. The Democrat was then re-elected two other times.

Allred easily won re-election in 2022 — garnering 116,005 votes to his opponent’s 61,494 — and is looking to use his support to win the Democratic primary to challenge Cruz in the general election in Nov. 2024.

He launched a bid to move into the upper chamber of Congress in May of this year.

‘I’m running for U.S. Senate because Texans deserve a Senator whose team is Texas. Ted Cruz only cares about himself,’ Allred said in a post announcing his candidacy.

Some Democrats have considered Cruz’s Senate seat particularly vulnerable as the senator was a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, who was twice-impeached and faces four federal investigations over his role in the Capitol protest on Jan. 6, 2021, his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, his alleged election interference in Georgia, and over allegedly falsifying business records in New York.

Cruz, a 2016 presidential candidate, most recently won re-election in Nov. 2018, when he defeated former Rep. Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke went on to lose a bid for the presidency and for Texas Governor.

–>

EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans from New York are criticizing the Biden administration for considering plea deals for alleged orchestrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

‘The 9/11 conspirators should be punished to the fullest extent of the law for the pain they inflicted on America,’ Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a former NYPD detective, told Fox News Digital Monday.

‘Offering plea deals to these terrorists is a slap in the face to the families who lost loved ones.’

More than 2,000 relatives of those killed 9/11 appealed to President Biden in a letter Monday urging him to block any plea agreement between his Justice Department and five defendants, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the attacks. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

It comes after the Pentagon informed several relatives of victims it is considering accepting guilty pleas from the defendants in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table in each of their cases, according to CBS News.

‘Khalid Sheikh Mohammed orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, personally pitching the plan to Osama Bin Laden. It is beyond the pale that the Biden administration is proposing a plea deal that would let him and other 9/11 perpetrators, who murdered nearly 3,000 innocent lives, avoid the justice they deserve,’ Rep. Mike Lawler told Fox News Digital. 

‘We owe it to the victims and their families to deliver justice, and that should mean the death penalty for these murderers.’

Rep. Nick LaLota, a U.S. Navy veteran, argued the reported plea deal is unjustly favorable to those accused of plotting the terror attacks. 

‘If the only thing the 9/11 mastermind and his accomplices are offering for a lesser sentence is merely accepting responsibility for murdering 3,000 people, the Justice Department is wrongfully denying [victims’] families of the maximum accountability they deserve,’ he told Fox News Digital.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Pentagon for a response to the lawmakers’ comments.

No plea agreement is in place at the moment. The cases have dragged on for years due to questions about controversial methods — such as waterboarding — used to obtain evidence from them and other Guantánamo Bay detainees.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in 2001 when two hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center in New York City. A third slammed into the Pentagon just outside of Washington, D.C., and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. More than 2,700 people died in Manhattan alone. 

Parents protesting against progressive school policies that aim to keep children’s gender identity a secret clashed with counterprotesters who support the policy in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon, leading the police department to declare an unlawful assembly.

Nonetheless, the rally of nearly 200 people – organized by the group behind the Instagram handle ‘Leave Our Kids Alone’ – continued as the LAPD reportedly began making arrests among the smaller group of unruly counterprotesters. Officers created a barrier to keep the groups separated.

According to reports, an officer at the scene told KTLA5 that certain crowd members pushed officers and threw objects at them, leading to two arrests.

The school policy protesters chanted slogans like ‘Stand up, fight back’ and ‘Leave our kids alone.’

The group, made up of mostly parents in the Los Angeles Unified School District, hit the streets to advocate for parental notification policies that require schools to notify parents if their children identify as transgender, use different pronouns or try to identify as a gender different to how they were born.

Protesters carried a large banner that read, ‘Cali parents do not co-parent with Newsom,’ a jab at California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent battle with local school districts in Temecula and Chino Hills over state-sponsored curriculums.

‘This is not about gay or trans people,’ one speaker said at the rally. ‘This is about the public school education telling me, you as a parent, what they’re going to teach our children. … I’m never given anything before school starts.’

Another protester said, ‘We’re all here today not because we have anything against the gay and lesbian community or families. On the contrary, I feel that everyone should be free to live their lives as they wish … but that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re seeing an agenda shoved down our throats that goes against our God-given parents’ values, morals and traditions.’

Proponents of keeping students’ gender identity private argue it protects them from backlash from unaccepting families.

Earlier this month, State Attorney General Rob Bonta said he would investigate whether the Chino Valley Unified School District, roughly 30 miles southeast of L.A., had infringed upon students’ civil rights by implementing a parental notification policy.

The Murrieta Valley School Board in Riverside County followed suit and received criticism from Bonta, who branded the mandate as a ‘a forced outing policy.’

But parents in several California school districts have been pushing back against the state’s school agenda, which often champions diversity studies and curricula that involve gender identity. Last week, Newsom unveiled a new ‘family agenda’ that promotes ‘educational freedom’ by eliminating ‘political censorship’ in classrooms.

On Monday, several hundred people protested at the state capitol against several controversial bills, one of which would allow children as young as 12 to self-admit themselves into residential mental health programs if signed into law. Critics call it the ‘state-sanctioned kidnapping’ bill.

MILWAUKEE, Wis. — Sen. Tim Scott said he has the ‘power of persuasion’ and will present himself on the debate stage as the ‘only competent, qualified’ candidate to run the country, telling Fox News Digital he will put forth ‘commonsense solutions from a conservative platform.’

Scott, R-S.C., in an interview with Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the first Republican presidential primary debate of the 2024 election cycle, laid out his plan for Wednesday night.

‘I have to make sure that the American people know that I am the candidate that has the power of persuasion,’ Scott said. ‘And when there is a contrast opportunity on the stage, you should present yourself as the only competent, qualified asset out there.’

Scott said if elected, he will ‘focus on restoring hope, creating opportunities and protecting the America that we love.’

‘For me, protecting America means backing the blue. The Democrats wanted to defund the police; we want to re-fund the police,’ he said. ‘We’re gonna focus on closing the southern border… and finally, you have to stand toe-to-toe with China and protect America.’ 

Scott told Fox News Digital that there are a number of threats facing the nation.

‘The greatest threat to us domestically is this culture of grievance that feels like quicksand sucking us all in,’ he said. ‘And it comes with a drug of victimhood and then narcotic of despair.’

Scott said the greatest ‘national threat’ is the ‘open southern border.’

‘Closing that southern border will save American lives he said. ‘And long-term – the greatest existential threat facing America is China.’ 

Scott, who sits on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Digital that China is ‘spying on our kids, buying our farm lands, and stealing our intellectual property to compete against us.’

‘As commander in chief, it’s really not about the strength of China or President Xi – it is about the weakness of President Biden,’ he said.

Scott told Fox News Digital that ‘as the next president of the United States, I would focus on decoupling our economies so that we’re more independent in the crucial areas of medicine, microchips and minerals.’

‘If we do that, we will find ourselves more resilient and more able to withstand this threat that’s looming that is China,’ Scott said. ‘We also need to invest more resources for our military.’

‘Having the resources, the capabilities and the equipment so that when our men and women go into the theater of war, they come home safe – that should be the primary responsibility of the president of the United States,’ he said.

Scott said he can deliver and address all issues facing the nation – citing his experience in the Senate and his record.

‘I can tell you that with me on the top of the ticket – the good news is – we’ll have a red wave,’ he said. ‘We’ll control the Senate for the first time in years, we’ll expand our majority in the House.’ 

He added: ‘And that red wave will give us the margin necessary to simply focus on commonsense solutions from a conservative platform.’

Ahead of Wednesday night’s debate, Scott told Fox News Digital he will spend the day with his family, specifically his mother, Miss Frances. A campaign official told Fox News Digital the senator will also spend time in prayer in the book of Proverbs and devotionals, and will also set aside some time to go to the gym.

Fox News is hosting the first GOP presidential primary debate on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. The debate begins at 9 p.m. ET. Rumble is the online live-streaming partner and Young America’s Foundation is also a partner in the first debate.