FIRST ON FOX: Former Vice President Mike Pence has met the requirements to qualify for the first Republican presidential nomination debate, his campaign tells Fox News.

Pence’s 2024 presidential campaign said on Monday that earlier in the day they crossed the 40,000-donor threshold – one of two criteria set by the Republican National Committee for GOP White House hopefuls to reach the debate stage. Pence had already passed the polling threshold mandated by the RNC. 

The former vice president’s political team said they reached out to inform the RNC that Pence had qualified and spotlighted that they were the first campaign to submit their numbers for the national party committee’s verification process. 

Fox News is hosting the debate, which will be held August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Pence becomes the eighth Republican presidential candidate to announce they’ve passed the thresholds to qualify for the debate. The other contenders who’ve already reached the criteria are former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and entrepreneur and best-selling author Vivek Ramaswamy.

Trump has yet to say if he’ll attend the first debate.

Pence’s campaign said they have 200 or more donors in 40 states, far higher than the 20-state threshold mandated by the RNC. They also highlighted that the former vice president – who launched his 2024 campaign in early June – reached the donor threshold in nine weeks, which was quicker than three of his rivals, Scott, Haley, and Ramaswamy.

And Pence’s team emphasized that they met the donor threshold without any giveaways or gimmicks. Burgum, a wealthy former software executive who’s been mostly self-funding his campaign, made headlines by offering $20 gift cards in return for one-dollar donations. The former vice president’s team also noted that they brought in less than half of their donors through digital outreach and said that events with the candidate and direct mail continue to be strengths for their campaign.

Pence has campaigned extensively in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina since launching his presidential bid. But his support in the latest Republican presidential primary polls stands in the single digits, far behind Trump, his former running mate, who remains the commanding front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination as he makes his third straight White House run. 

But Pence grabbed plenty of attention last week after the former president was indicted and arraigned in federal court on charges he attempted to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. Trump, over the weekend, turned up the volume on his attacks towards Pence after the former vice president sharpened his criticism of Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who temporarily disrupted congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory, which was overseen by Pence.

‘Mike Pence made quick and easy work of the donor threshold, and he’s looking forward to a substantive debate about the issues important to the American people. Hopefully, former President Trump has the courage to show up,’ Pence campaign spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement.

Pence had been saying for the past couple of weeks that he would qualify for the debate in time. And last week, in a conference call with donors in which reporters were invited to attend, Pence campaign manager Steve DaMaura highlighted that the campaign had topped 30,000 unique donors and was averaging over 1,000 new, unique donors per day in recent days.

A federal judge in Colorado on Monday temporarily blocked a state law that raised the legal age requirement for purchasing a firearm to 21.

Chief U.S. District Judge Phillip A. Brimmer ruled in favor of the gun rights group, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, who had filed a lawsuit against Gov. Jared Polis. 

The state law, SB23-169, was one of several sweeping gun reform measures approved by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Polis in the spring. It sought to prohibit people under the age of 21 from purchasing a gun, with exceptions for active members of the U.S. armed forces, peace officers, and people certified by the Peace Officer Standards and Training board. 

RMGO argued in their lawsuit that law was unconstitutional. The group said if people are allowed to vote when they turn 18, they should be allowed to purchase a gun. 

‘Since the day this legislation was introduced, we knew it was unconstitutional,’ said RMGO executive director Taylor Rhodes in a written statement. ‘Under the Golden Dome, at the unveiling of this proposal, RMGO warned the bill sponsors this would quickly be struck down by a federal judge. Today, our crystal ball became a reality.’ 

A spokesman for Gov. Polis’ office said federal law has for more than half a century required Coloradans to be 21 years old to purchase a pistol, but a loophole allowed kids under 21 to legally buy a rifle instead. 

‘This law closes that loophole and the Governor hopes that the courts agree with him that the law is fully consistent with our Second Amendment rights,’ the spokesperson said. 

‘The Governor is working towards his goal of making Colorado one of the ten safest states in the country – and the same age requirements for pistols and rifles would help support responsible gun ownership.’ 

The families of the 13 U.S. service members killed outside of Kabul’s airport during the military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan came before Congress together for the first time this week to seek answers about their loved ones’ deaths, nearly two years after the tragic day occurred.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., held a congressional forum with the Gold Star families on Monday, where for nearly 90 minutes Americans heard emotional testimony about how the grieving families felt mislead and betrayed by their own government.

Several called out President Biden and his top Cabinet officials by name, calling on them to resign. A father of one fallen U.S. Marine called on the president to ‘be a grown a– man.’

A Defense Department official said of the testimony later on Monday, ‘The Department of Defense expresses our deepest condolences to the Gold Star Families who lost loved ones during the tragic bombing at Abbey Gate. We are forever grateful for their service, sacrifice, and committed efforts during the evacuation operations. We also commend the historic and monumental efforts of all our service men and women who served honorably during the withdrawal period from Afghanistan.’

But several family members criticized the Biden administration and some even accused officials of lying about the circumstances of their loved one’s death.

‘We were told lies’

Kelly Barnett, mother of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, addressed the panel first and spoke for nearly 15 minutes, describing her pride in her hero Marine son, who had wanted to join the Corps from the age of 6.

Barnett broke down when describing her son’s fifth and final deployment to Afghanistan in 2021. She said they were made to ‘clean up the airport’ on the way out, to not ‘leave it dirty for the Taliban.’

She also accused Biden officials of lying to her about her son’s death – saying she was told he died immediately only for eyewitnesses to tell her he ‘lived for a little while.’

‘We were told lies, given incomplete reports, incorrect reports, total disrespect,’ Barnett said. ‘I was told to my face he died on impact. That’s not true. The only reason that I know this is because witnesses told me the truth. I was lied to and basically told to shut up.’

‘No illusion anyone will be prosecuted’

Another Gold Star mother who is seeking answers for the death of her son, Cpl. Hunter Lopez, said she was not surprised at how difficult it was for her to get to the bottom of what happened.

‘Our system is quick to identify those at fault in faraway countries but yet we are challenged to evaluate ourselves,’ she said.

‘I have no illusion that anyone will be prosecuted or terminated for ignoring intelligence or making bad decisions, not even for lying to all our Gold Star families,’ Alicia Lopez said. ‘This outcome is sad, but it is what we have to come to expect from a system that would prefer to hold secrets for decades and beyond until someone finally has the decency to unseal classified information that would bring solace to grieving families.’

Lopez added later, ‘My request is that those mistakes are owned up to, that my family and the other Gold Star families here … that we are made aware of who is accountable. We do not want a partial truth or a truth told in a book release or when information is declassified 20, 30 or 40 years from now.’

‘Avenge me’

Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui’s father, Steve Nikoui, accused Biden of using his Marine son ‘as a pawn so we can meet his Sept. 11th deadline and get the optics he wanted’ with regard to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago.

‘My life and that of my family’s has been on pause since the early morning of Aug. 26, 2021,’ the emotional father said. ‘The difference between the minutes of my life before that and the minutes that passed after that day are contrasted drastically.’

Closing out his remarks, Steve Nikoui told an anecdote of a game he and Kareem shared when he would return to his base.

‘I would be [at] the other end of the house far away, and I would wait to hear the door creak because of the hinge, the front door. And as soon as I heard that, I would yell as loud as I could his name, Kareem. And this was to pay homage to every father-son movie ever made. … I’d be like, ‘Avenge me!’ And, you know, and I would come and look at him, and he’d have the biggest smile,’ Nikou said.

‘And now all I hear is him in his soft voice, ‘Avenge me.’’

‘I started shaking’

Gold Star mom Cheryl Rex described having a visceral reaction to President Biden’s comments over her son’s death at the transfer ceremony when she received the body of her son, Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola.

‘Myself and the other families of our 13, we’re waiting for the [plane’s] arrival to the United States when Joe Biden, our elected president, entered the room. When he approached me, his words to me were, ‘My wife, Jill, and I know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a flag-draped coffin.’ My heart beat faster,’ Rex said.

‘I started shaking, knowing that their son died from cancer, and they were able to be by his side,’ she said.

Rex said she began ‘wondering how someone could honestly, I’m sorry, be so heartless to say he knew how I felt a little over 24 hours after learning of my son’s death.’

‘After this encounter, I have never had any personal correspondence nor has my son been honored or his name spoken by this commander in chief or his administration,’ she said.

‘A knife in the heart’

‘I can’t even begin to piece together the words that would convey to you the devastation that her murder has brought to our family,’ Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, told officials at the forum.

‘When your child is murdered, you feel like there is no justice, and you question your very existence,’ she said.

Shamblin had to pause at times during her testimony as she was overcome with emotion. Her tearful declaration that her daughter was a ‘bada– Marine’ earned an encouraging round of applause.

But among her most emotionally charged statements came a reaction to Biden officials lauding the evacuation as a success.

‘When our leaders, including the secretary of defense and our commander in chief, called this evacuation a success, as if there should be celebration, it is like a knife in the heart for our families and for the people [who] came back,’ Shamblin said. ‘I live [every] single day knowing that these deaths were preventable. My daughter could be with us today.’

A former FBI agent accused by U.S. prosecutors of working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch may now plead guilty to evading U.S. sanctions and money laundering after initially entering a not guilty plea.

U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rearden in Manhattan wrote in a brief order filed Monday that a change of plea hearing has been scheduled for August 15 for 54-year-old Charles McGonigal, Reuters reported. 

McGonigal, who retired in 2018, was the former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in New York and was involved in the probe into former President Trump’s ties to Russia.

The former FBI official previously pleaded not guilty to conspiring to violate and evade U.S. sanctions, money laundering, conspiring to commit money laundering and conspiring to violate federal law against doing business with sanctioned individuals in connection with his work for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Prosecutors arrested McGonigal in January for allegedly receiving concealed payments from Deripaska, the founder of Russian aluminum company Rusal, in exchange for investigating a rival oligarch and unsuccessfully pushing to lift U.S. sanctions on Deripaska in 2019. He has been free on a $500,000 bond since his arrest.

McGonigal was legally required to report his contact with foreign officials to the agency, but allegedly hid the ties and instead pursued business and overseas travel conflicting with his work.

The charges against McGonigal came as U.S. prosecutors increased efforts to enforce sanctions on Russian officials and monitor their alleged enablers because of Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

Deripaska was among two dozen Russian oligarchs and government officials blacklisted by the U.S. in 2018 over allegations Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Deripaska and the Kremlin have denied any meddling in the election.

McGonigal reportedly played a central role in the investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign’s connection to Russia.

While serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., McGonigal was reportedly one of the first bureau officials to learn former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos allegedly boasted that he knew Russians had information on then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, launching the Russian election interference probe.

Reuters and Fox News’ Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.

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Following Devon Archer’s bombshell congressional interview last week alleging President Biden’s deep involvement with Hunter Biden’s business dealings, a new light is being cast on his son’s longtime business partner who stands to know even more.

Eric Schwerin visited the Obama White House and then-Vice President Biden’s residence at least 36 times between 2009 and 2016, likely to make him the next target of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.

Schwerin was the founding partner and managing director of Hunter’s now-dissolved firm Rosemont Seneca Partners when he was appointed by then-President Obama to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, an independent U.S. government agency, in early 2015. 

‘Eric asked for one of these the day after the election in 2008,’ Hunter revealed about Schwerin’s appointment in an email on March 13, 2015.

Obama reappointed Schwerin to the commission in January 2017.

The number of Schwerin’s visits to the White House could be much higher than 36 if any of his meetings fell under its voluntary disclosure policy exception of ‘purely personal guests,’ due to his handling of the Biden family’s personal finances.

‘The White House will not release access records related to purely personal guests of the first and second families (i.e., visits that do not involve any official or political business)’ the Obama administration’s archived website says.

Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, who was married to the president’s son from 1993 to 2017, revealed in a memoir in June 2022 that Schwerin ‘managed almost every aspect of our financial life.’

Hunter also acknowledged that Schwerin was a ‘close confidant and counsel’ to his father in a February 2014 email thread with Schwerin, Fox News Digital previously reported.

Peter Schweizer, the president of Government Accountability Institute and an expert on Hunter’s business dealings, told ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that ‘If Devon Archer was the sort of business guy, the deal guy in how you structure this, Eric Schwerin was the money guy.’

One of Schwerin’s visits to the White House – in November 2010 – was a sit-down with Biden in the West Wing. Schwerin also visited Biden’s residence at least 15 times for various holiday receptions, including the Dec. 12 holiday reception in 2015 that came a couple of days after Biden’s infamous trip to Ukraine, where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if the country’s leaders did not fire their top prosecutor.

According to White House visitor logs, Schwerin attended the reception along with Hunter, Archer and Sebastian Momtazi, an associate who worked in Rosemont Seneca’s New York City office with Archer. Archer, who was also on the Burisma board with Hunter, and Momtazi both had Burisma.com email addresses, according to emails previously reviewed by Fox News Digital.

On March 2, 2012, Schwerin met with Hunter and former Colombia President Andrés Pastrana Arango at Vice President Biden’s Naval Observatory residence, according to an entry in Hunter’s personal calendar previously reported by the New York Post. 

Later the same day, Hunter, whose Rosemont Seneca had entered a contract months earlier with OAS, a Brazilian construction company with Colombian interests, scheduled a lunch at Café Milano with Arango and Juan Esteban Orduz, the president of Colombian Coffee Federation, the Post reported.

In April 2015, one month after his initial appointment in the U.S. government, Schwerin visited Vice President Biden’s residence for what the visitor logs labeled a ‘meeting.’

The visitor log for April 15 does not list who he met with or whether Vice President Biden was present, but the timing will likely spark some questions from Republicans on the House Oversight Committee due to the meeting taking place one day before Vice President Biden’s infamous dinner at Café Milano with multiple business associates of Hunter, including top Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi. 

Schwerin also appears to have been present at the Café Milano dinner.

Archer confirmed last week that Vice President Biden showed up at the upscale Georgetown restaurant on April 16 and ‘had dinner’ with several of Hunter’s business associates including ‘Vadym P. from Burisma,’ blowing the lid off the narrative that the Biden campaign and Biden White House repeatedly pushed denying then-Vice President Biden attended the dinner.

Schwerin also visited with several of Biden’s aides throughout the tenure of the Obama-Biden administration, including his first documented visit at the Obama White House in late 2009 with Evan Ryan, who is married to Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken and is currently serving as the White House cabinet secretary. 

She was also in frequent communication with Hunter and Schwerin throughout the administration about White House events, including the Mexico State Dinner and the annual ‘Easter Egg Roll’ in 2010.

‘OVP has 250 tix to the Easter Egg Roll and your Mom has an additional 200. Family, etc is coming out of your Mom’s allotment,’ Schwerin said in the email to Hunter, referring to Ryan. ‘Evan is handling your Dad’s and we can pass on names to her for outreach purposes. Let’s discuss. I don’t think we have 50 spots, but if we had 20 or so names we’d probably be fine.’

In 2016, Schwerin met with Steve Ricchetti, who was Biden’s chief of staff at the time and is currently White House counselor, at least twice in room 272 on Feb. 29 and room 276 on Aug. 17 at the Old Executive Office Building.

In one September 2015 email, Schwerin tells Hunter to look at his ‘text about Slim and Azcaraga scheduling,’ appearing to refer to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and Emilio Azcarraga, another billionaire in Mexico running Televisa, a mass media and entertainment company.

‘I can work it with Steve R if you want,’ Schwerin said, referring to Ricchetti. ‘Timing would be interesting and I can discuss with you offline if you want more. Will probably take awhile to coordinate schedules but can’t imagine it would be until October if we started process now.’

Hunter arranged a video conference the following month with his father and Carlos Slim, whom Hunter was seeking to do business with at the time on Oct. 30, 2015.

Less than a month after the video conference, Slim and a couple of Hunter’s business associates attended a meeting with then-Vice President Biden, Hunter and Hunter’s business partner and family friend Jeff Cooper at the vice presidential residence at Number One Observatory Circle, Washington, D.C., according to photos dated Nov. 19, 2015 and published by The Daily Mail.

Schwerin also met with Anne Marie Person, who served as a general assistant at Rosemont Seneca until 2014 before joining Biden’s office, at least three times between February and June 2016, a Fox News Digital review found. 

According to White House visitor logs, Schwerin met Person in Vice President Biden’s ‘West Wi[ng]’ office on Feb. 24, April 8, and June 9. It is unclear if Biden was present for the meetings. Person was also the point of contact for a West Wing tour Schwerin took in August 2015.

Person is the sister of Francis ‘Fran’ Person, a longtime Biden aide who left the White House a few months after his sister joined Biden’s office in May 2014. He served as an advisor to Biden between 2009 and 2014, when he traveled to 49 of the 50 countries Biden visited, including China. 

FOX Business previously reported on Fran’s ties to Hunter and Schwerin and that Rosemont Seneca had a financial stake in a company run by Fran and a Chinese executive with ties to officials at some of the highest levels of the Communist Party of China.

In 2017, Schwerin emailed Hunter a breakdown of all his financial stakes, which included an equity stake in multiple Washington, D.C.-based affiliates of the China-based Harves Century Group. 

Person previously claimed that ‘Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca Advisors or any affiliate or associate have never held any equity in any Harves affiliated company,’ despite multiple emails from Hunter and Schwerin contradicting this claim. The Harves website was taken down, and Fran deleted his Linkedin shortly after previous reporting.

When Fran unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2016, then-Vice President Biden attended multiple fundraisers for him while Hunter and Schwerin were simultaneously working behind the scenes to solicit donations for his campaign and secure business deals for his company in China, Fox News previously reported. 

Both Person siblings kept in frequent contact with Hunter and Schwerin during their Obama-Biden administration roles using their government emails.

In addition to Person and Ricchetti, Schwerin made three other visits with staffers from Vice President Biden’s office in 2016. Schwerin met with John McGrail, who was a counselor to Biden, on July 15 and Sept. 9 at the White House. 

He also met with Kaitlyn Demers, who was serving as an associate counsel in Biden’s office in 2016, on June 28. She was serving as a special assistant to President Biden and then-chief of staff Ron Klain until last August.

Fox News Digital previously reported about Schwerin’s cozy relationship with Biden’s office when he was vice president.

In 2015, Schwerin worked closely with Kate Bedingfield, who was serving as Biden’s communications director and who recently left the Biden administration in the same role to join CNN, in trying to quash a Bloomberg News story about Hunter, according to emails published in March.

Emails also showed that Schwerin fielded book deal requests for the elder Biden and worked on his tax returns, as well as managed bill payments between the father and son duo.

‘Sorry – too much indecision and I was dealing all afternoon with JRB’s taxes (but solved a big issue – so it was all worth it),’ Schwerin wrote in an email to Hunter on April 9, 2010, referring to the elder Biden, whose full name is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

‘Your Dad’s Delaware tax refund check came today,’ Schwerin told Hunter in an email on June 10, 2010. ‘I am depositing it in his account and writing a check in that amount back to you since he owes it to you. Don’t think I need to run it by him, but if you want to go ahead.  If not, I will deposit tomorrow.’

‘Your Dad just called me (about his mortgage) and mentioned he’d be out a lot soon and not really back until Labor Day so it dawned on me it might be a good time (also he could use some positive news about his future earnings potential!),’ Schwerin wrote on July 6, 2010.

On Dec. 9, 2016, Schwerin demanded Hunter refill his bank account in order to pay for an array of forthcoming autopay bills, including an AT&T bill in the amount of $190 for ‘JRB.’

Hunter has previously claimed that he and his father shared a bank account.

Schwerin also served with Hunter for several years on the board of advisers for the Philadelphia-based project development firm ABD Group.

Fox News Digital previously reported that John Nevergole, the co-founder and current CEO of ABD Group, was tapped earlier this year to serve another term on President Biden’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA), which advises the president on African engagement through the Department of Commerce.

Nevergole previously worked as a senior adviser to Rosemont Seneca and strategized with him on brokering multiple business deals in Western Africa while Biden was vice president.

Schwerin and Hunter were also instrumental in helping President Biden’s current campaign co-chair, Democratic Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, fundraise for his successful 2010 Senate bid, using their network of in-state and out-of-state business associates to contribute to Coons’ campaign, Fox News Digital reported in April.

In addition to managing the finances for the Bidens, Schwerin was instrumental in the planning process for Biden’s life after the Obama administration, including the Biden Institute and library at the University of Delaware. 

Schwerin was copied on dozens of emails discussing Biden’s future after the Obama administration and was in communication with Biden’s sister and longtime campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens, in July 2016, telling Hunter, Owens, longtime Biden confidante Ted Kaufman, and Delaware’s now-chief deputy attorney general Alexander Mackler that he and Hunter had a meeting with multiple University of Delaware officials, Fox News Digital reported in February.

Biden has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of his son’s business dealings.

The news of Schwerin’s frequent trips to the Obama White House comes days after Archer spoke with the House Oversight Committee, alleging that the elder Biden sat in on more than two dozen business calls with his son as vice president.

Schwerin is not accused of any crime but has faced pressure from House Republicans to provide documents relating to his business dealings with the first family.

More than a dozen House Republicans sent a letter to Schwerin in April 2022 inquiring about an email regarding funds from a tax refund check that Schwerin apparently transferred to Hunter from his father’s account.

‘An email obtained by Committee Republicans shows that in 2010, while serving as president of Hunter Biden’s company, you received then-Vice President Biden’s tax refund check and facilitated the transfer of that amount to Hunter because now-President Biden owed money to his son,’ the letter stated. ‘This raises questions about how much money President Biden owed his son and what role his son played in managing the President’s finances. Committee Republicans request additional information regarding this transaction and any other instances of President Biden owing money to his son, Hunter.’

‘If President Biden and Hunter are sharing funds or if President Biden is in debt to his son—the American people deserve to know it especially in light of the millions of dollars Hunter’s businesses have received from countries adversarial to U.S. interests,’ the letter read.

Schwerin and the White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

Schwerin made headlines earlier this year after classified documents were discovered at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence and his former office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

Fox News Digital found that in March 2010, Biden’s vice presidential office expressed concerns to Schwerin in an email about the University of Delaware’s terms for the ‘deed of gift’ for his Senate papers ‘due to the political sensitivities’ that could arise from releasing the papers to the public. 

Biden has repeatedly defended not releasing his Senate papers to the public. Under a revised agreement with the university, they will not be released until two years after he retires from public life, or unless he gives express consent.

A Gold Star mom sobbed before members of Congress on Monday as she accused the Biden administration of lying to her about the circumstances of her Marine son’s death in Afghanistan in August 2021. 

Kelly Barnett, whose son Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, was one of 13 U.S. servicemembers killed by a suicide bomber in Kabul during the military’s evacuation two summers ago, was the first of several relatives to speak at a Congressional forum held by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. It’s the first time the relatives of all 13 fallen troops are together to speak at a public event. 

‘I’m going to be brave and in tell you about my kid. He’s an amazing kid. And I want you to know that I am not a victim. We’re not victims. We’re parents to some mighty heroes. I want you to know that,’ Barnett said. 

She said her son’s concern about the controversial withdrawal ‘began the moment that he landed’ there for his final deployment. He saw ‘chaos, no communication, lack of leadership,’ she said. 

Barnett’s voice, full of emotion, broke when she said her son was told to ‘clean up the airport’ because ‘we can’t leave it dirty for the Taliban.’

‘What kind of disrespect? What kind of hatred for our military? What kind of mess? Confusion. Deceit. Lost. Angry. Sad. Heartbroken and disgusted. These are the feelings that the service members felt. And are still feeling. These are the feelings I’m feeling,’ she cried.

The families of the fallen were subsequently ‘told lies, given incomplete reports, incorrect reports, total disrespect,’ the grieving mother said.

‘I was told to my face, he died on impact. That’s not true. The only reason that I know this is because witnesses told me the truth,’ Barnett claimed. ‘I was lied to and basically told to shut up.’

‘He lived for a little while…he was giving out his ammo. He tied a tourniquet at around his leg. I don’t understand the reasoning of that lie. It makes no sense other than the fact that, did they really even do an investigation? Did they talk to witnesses? I don’t know.’

Taylor’s father Darren Hoover later angrily called on President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Mark Milley to resign. 

To Biden directly, Hoover said, ‘Be a grown a** man. Admit to your mistakes. Learn from them so that this doesn’t happen ever, ever again.’

‘You all need to resign immediately. Our sons, daughters have more integrity in their little toes than every one of them combined,’ he added.

A Defense Department spokesperson’s statement on the Gold Star families’ testimony said, ‘The Department of Defense expresses our deepest condolences to the Gold Star Families who lost loved ones during the tragic bombing at Abbey Gate. We are forever grateful for their service, sacrifice, and committed efforts during the evacuation operations. We also commend the historic and monumental efforts of all our service men and women who served honorably during the withdrawal period from Afghanistan.’