The Ohio Supreme Court on Monday ordered a state panel back to work to fix language describing an August ballot proposal aimed at making it harder to amend the state’s constitution, after justices determined elements of the wording would mislead voters.

Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose immediately reconvened the Ohio Ballot Board for Tuesday afternoon.

Monday’s ruling was a partial victory for One Person One Vote, the campaign opposing Issue 1, which calls for raising the threshold for passing future constitutional amendments in Ohio from a simple majority to 60%. Amid loud protests, Statehouse Republicans advanced the issue and timed it to thwart an abortion rights issue in the works for this fall. That’s despite passing a law eliminating most August elections mere months earlier.

The high court ruled unanimously that the ballot board was wrong to describe the measure as increasing the standards to qualify ‘any’ constitutional amendment for the ballot. That’s because it imposes its steep new signature-gathering requirements only on citizen-initiated amendments, not on amendments advanced by the Ohio General Assembly. If passed, it would up the number of Ohio counties where ballot campaigns must gather names from 44 to all 88.

The ballot language also misdescribes the percentage of electors required in each county to qualify a citizen-led issue for the ballot. It’s 5% of those who voted in the last gubernatorial election, not 5% of all voters in that county.

Democrats pointed out the error to the ballot board, chaired by LaRose as state elections chief, but LaRose opted not to fix it in the moment. His fellow Republican, Attorney General Dave Yost, conceded to the mistake in court filings, but sought to minimize it as a mere technicality.

Justices disagreed, and ordered the ballot board to correct the error.

Where the court diverged was over whether it’s fair to say the proposal will be ‘elevating’ the standards for qualifying and passing future constitutional amendments in Ohio. One Person One Vote had argued that the term carries a positive connotation that could bias voters toward a ‘yes’ vote. They pushed for ‘raising’ or ‘heightening’ as more neutral verbs.

The Supreme Court’s four-member Republican majority ruled that ‘elevating’ could stay — on grounds that the other verbs suggested by opponents share overlapping definitions.

‘Distinguishing between them requires parsing minute differences in connotation,’ Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy wrote for the majority. ‘But such wordsmithing should be left to Secretary LaRose because it is not for this court to choose between words of the same meaning.’

The court’s three Democratic justices dissented, arguing that the phrasing doesn’t meet the required impartiality test.

‘Some might, not implausibly, call this restricting or curtailing or diminishing or limiting the power of the people to amend the Constitution,’ Justice Michael P. Donnelly wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Jennifer Brunner and Melody Stewart. ‘Instead, respondent Secretary of State Frank LaRose styles this as ‘elevating’ the standards to amend the Constitution. This word creates prejudice in favor of the measure.’

In a separate opinion, Brunner also argued that the measure places ‘onerous’ new requirements on citizen-led ballot initiatives that should be more clearly spelled out.

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy battled a CNN reporter on Capitol Hill on Monday and accused the network of ‘weaponizing’ the news when he was asked about former President Donald Trump’s indictment. 

When asked whether he supports Trump against Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe into how the former president handled classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, McCarthy pointed out that the reporter asking was from CNN. McCarthy said CNN employed two former intelligence officials – fired former deputy FBI chief Andrew McCabe and ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper – who Republicans have accused of abusing their positions.

When the reporter replied that McCarthy was talking about a ‘different set of facts,’ McCarthy turned the question around and asked how CNN could defend hiring McCabe and Clapper.

‘Are you prepared to defend your network, CNN?’ McCarthy said as they spoke over each other. ‘Even though your network hired Andrew McCabe, who was fired from the FBI for leaking classified documents, did you remove him from your network? No, you continue to put him on to give judgment against President Trump. You also hired Clapper …’

The CNN reporter interjected, ‘What steps is the House going to take in terms of, is there any effort to defund the FBI, any effort to defund the Department of Justice after what we’ve seen over the last couple of days?’

But McCarthy ignored the question and said Clapper had been one of dozens of former intelligence officials who signed onto a letter dismissing the New York Post’s October 2020 expose on Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian disinformation effort.

‘So, your network hires Clapper, who literally lied to the American public – one of 51 other individuals that had briefings and used it politically to tell the American public that a laptop was Russia collusion, even though it had all this information about the Biden administration,’ the speaker said.

‘Are you prepared to get rid of those people from your network? Because my concern as a policymaker is that when [you] weaponize government, and now you’re weaponizing networks, that is wrong,’ McCarthy continued. ‘I have a real problem that your network actually pays people who did classified information and then lied to the American public to try to influence a presidential election, and then you put them on your network to give an opinion.’

McCarthy, a Trump ally, said it was ‘a dark day’ for the country when Trump was indicted.

‘It is unconscionable for a president to indict the leading candidate opposing him. Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades,’ the speaker said in a statement last week. ‘I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.’

The former president was indicted on 37 criminal counts in relation to his handling of classified information and efforts to obstruct officials investigating the matter. He’s due in court in Miami on Tuesday.

Most Democrats planning to vote in the 2024 primary election want to see all candidates — including President Biden — go head-to-head on the debate stage before choosing a nominee to represent their party next fall.

A USA Today/Suffolk University survey found that among the 80% of Democrats pushing for primary debates to be held this cycle, 72% are supporting Biden for another term.

‘The decision not to debate is ignoring the 82% of women, 84% of union households, 86% of independents, and 90% of young voters who are not only planning to vote in their state’s Democratic primary or caucus next year but also would like to see a series of Democratic primary debates,’ David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center, said alongside the polling results. 

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced there would be no debates before the Democrat presidential primary election, despite concerns over the strength of Biden’s reelection campaign.

When asked who they want to see as the nominee in 2024, 58% of Democrats said they’d like to see Biden on the ticket, while 15% are rooting for Robert F. Kennedy to represent the party. Marianne Williamson was the choice candidate to 6% of Democratic respondents, while 21% remain undecided.

While historically incumbent presidents don’t participate in primary debates, Biden’s Democrat challenger Marianne Williamson urged the DNC to break away from the norms and hold a debate for the ‘fate of our democracy.’

‘The people have a right to hear from other candidates with other ideas. This is not a time in our history for people to acquiesce to any form of control over things that will affect our lives and the lives of our children,’ Williamson wrote in a Newsweek oped. The Democratic Party must allow President Biden to debate his opponents. The fate of our democracy is at stake, and only more democracy can save it.’

Biden’s other competitor RFK Jr. also invited the president to debate.

‘I look forward to engaging him in debates and town hall meetings, in a primary election that is honest, civil, and transparent. I invite him into a new era of respectful dialog in these times of division,’ Kennedy wrote in a Twitter post.

The USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.7 percentage points, surveyed 293 registered Democratic voters from June 5th through 7th.

Sen. Chuck Grassley said Monday that the Burisma executive who allegedly paid Joe Biden and Hunter Biden kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them as an ‘insurance policy,’ citing the FBI FD-1023 form that the bureau briefed congressional lawmakers on. 

Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed from the Senate floor Monday what was said to be a redacted reference in the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions.

Fox News Digital exclusively reported on the contents of the form last week. The FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI’s interview with a ‘highly credible’ confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Fox News Digital has not seen the form, which is redacted, but it was described by several sources who are aware of its contents.

Grassley said the FD-1023 has a redacted reference that the Burisma executive possesses fifteen audio recordings of phone calls between himself and Hunter Biden.

According to Grassley, the FD-1023 also states that the executive possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between himself and then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Grassley, from the Senate floor, slammed the FBI for not complying with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena, saying Congress ‘still lacks a full and complete picture with respect to what that document really says.’

‘That’s why it’s important that the document be made public without unnecessary redactions for the American people to see,’ he said. ‘Let me assist for purposes of transparency.’

‘The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them,’ Grassley continued. ’17 total recordings.’

‘According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden,’ Grassley said. ‘According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden.’

Grassley said the recordings were ‘allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot.’

‘The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,’ Grassley said.

Grassley demanded answers on ‘what, if anything has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?’

‘The Justice Department and FBI must show their work,’ Grassley said. ‘They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt.’

The FBI brought the document to Capitol Hill last week after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer subpoenaed it last month. The FBI briefed Comer and committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on the form in a SCIF on Capitol Hill, but did not turn over the document. Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress. 

The FBI made a further accommodation and later brought the form to a secure setting on Capitol Hill for all Oversight Committee members to view, but the document is still not in the committee’s possession. 

A source familiar told Fox News Digital on Monday that the FBI did not redact the section of the FD-1023 referencing the audio recordings when showing the document to solely to Comer and Raskin, but did so for the full committee briefing. The source said Grassley and Comer had already seen the form, even prior to the FBI sharing it with Congress.

Fox News Digital was exclusively briefed on the contents of the form last week. 

Sources told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source told the FBI that the Burisma executive was speaking with the confidential source to ‘get advice on the best way to go forward’ in 2015 and 2016 in gaining U.S. oil rights and getting involved with a U.S. oil company. 

According to the FD-1023 form, the confidential human source said the Burisma executive discussed Hunter’s role on the board. The confidential human source questioned why the Burisma executive needed his or her advice in acquiring access to U.S. oil if he had Hunter Biden on the board. The Burisma executive answered by referring to Hunter Biden as ‘dumb.’

The Burisma executive explained to the confidential source that Burisma had to ‘pay the Bidens’ because Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma, and explained how difficult it would be to enter the U.S. market in the midst of that investigation.

The confidential source further detailed that conversation, suggesting to the Burisma executive that he ‘pay the Bidens $50,000 each,’ to which the Burisma executive replied, it is ‘not $50,000,’ it is ‘$5 million.’

‘$5 million for one Biden, $5 million for the other Biden,’ the Burisma executive told the confidential human source, according to a source familiar with the document.

A source familiar said according to the document, the $5 million payments appeared to reference a kind of ‘retainer’ Burisma intended to pay the Bidens to deal with a number of issues, including the investigation led by Shokin. Another source referred to the arrangement as a ‘pay-to-play’ scheme. 

Sources familiar told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source believes that the $5 million payment to Joe Biden and the $5 million payment to Hunter Biden occurred, based on his or her conversations with the Burisma executive. 

The confidential source said the Burisma executive told him he ‘paid’ the Bidens in such a manner ‘through so many different bank accounts’ that investigators would not be able to ‘unravel this for at least 10 years.’

The document then makes reference to ‘the Big Guy,’ which, has been said to be a reference to Joe Biden.

The Burisma executive told the confidential source that he ‘didn’t pay the Big Guy directly.’ 

Sources said the Burisma executive appears to be at a ‘very, very high level’ of the company. One source familiar suggested the confidential source could be referring to the head of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, but said the name of the Burisma executive is redacted in the document.

Biden has acknowledged that when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, and at the time, Hunter had a highly-lucrative role on the board receiving thousands of dollars per month. The then-vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.

The confidential source, according to the sources familiar with the FD-1023 form, told the Burisma executive he should ‘get away’ from the Bidens and said the executive should ‘not want to be involved’ with them.

A source familiar with the document told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source goes on to detail a later conversation with the Burisma executive following the 2016 presidential election. The confidential source asked the Burisma executive if he was ‘upset’ that Donald Trump won.

The source said the Burisma executive told the confidential source that he was ‘an oracle,’ referring to his or her advice to ‘get away’ from the Bidens due to fears of potential investigations into their dealings. 

The White House has maintained that President Biden has never been involved in his son’s business dealings and has never discussed them with him. And it has noted that removing Shokin was administration policy at the time.

Hunter Biden is currently under federal investigations for his ‘tax affairs.’ The investigation began in 2018 and was prompted by suspicious foreign transactions. 

The White House declined to comment, pointing to a statement by Joe Biden Thursday calling the allegations ‘a bunch of malarky.’

Two criminal counts were filed Monday against an Indiana state legislator who was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after state police say he crashed his pickup truck through an interstate highway guardrail and drove away.

The prosecutor in southern Indiana’s Jackson County filed misdemeanor charges of driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident against Republican Rep. Jim Lucas of Seymour in connection with the May 31 crash at the interchange of Interstate 65 and Indiana 11, court records show.

Police said officers stopped Lucas, 58, walking near where they found the badly damaged truck, which has a state legislator license plate, parked behind a Seymour carpet store nearly 3 miles from the crash at the interchange of Interstate 65 and Indiana 11.

A state trooper’s affidavit said Lucas smelled of alcohol, failed a field sobriety exam and had a blood-alcohol level of 0.097% on a portable breath test device more than an hour after the crash. The state’s legal limit to drive is 0.08%. Police said a blood test was conducted at a Seymour hospital but that result was not included in court documents filed Monday.

No defense attorney for Lucas was immediately listed in court records. Lucas has not responded to voicemail messages left on his cellphone, and his legislative office hasn’t commented on the arrest.

Lucas, who was first elected to the Legislature in 2012, is a prominent supporter of legalizing marijuana and loosening state gun laws. He has faced controversy several times for what critics called racist social media posts.

Lucas’ pickup truck was found with major front-end damage and three flat tires, two of which had been worn down to the metal wheel rims, police reports said.

Lucas told a state trooper that he drove away from the crash scene to get help and that he parked behind the business because he didn’t want to leave an oil leak in its front parking lot, the affidavit said.

When asked what caused the crash, Lucas told the trooper, ‘I thought I saw a deer, how’s that?’

The lawmaker said he swerved to miss the animal, losing control of his truck, which veered off Indiana 11, down a hill at the interchange with I-65, through a guardrail and across traffic lanes to hit the median guardrail, the police affidavit said.

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The Biden administration has taken steps to mitigate efforts by China to potentially spy on the United States following confirmed reports that Beijing has an intelligence base in Cuba. 

‘We’re confident that we can continue to protect our nation’s secrets in this hemisphere and beyond and that we can continue to defend the country appropriately,’ White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Monday. 

Administration officials confirmed on Sunday that China is working to ramp up its spying capabilities in Cuba. China has had a spy base on the island, which is 90 miles off of South Florida, since at least 2019, officials have said. 

The Wall Street Journal first reported Thursday that China and Cuba have reached a secret agreement for China to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, allowing Chinese intelligence services to ‘scoop up electronic communications throughout the southeastern U.S., where many military bases are located, and monitor U.S. ship traffic.’ 

The report, citing officials familiar with the matter, said that China had agreed to pay Cuba several billion dollars to allow it to build the eavesdropping station. The report says U.S. officials described the intelligence on the plans as ‘convincing.’ 

The Biden administration initially said the report was ‘not accurate’ before confirming the news. 

‘The sensitive nature of this information is such that we simply couldn’t go into more detail,’ Kirby said before criticizing those who leaked the news to the media. 

An anonymous official said the Biden administration said China was looking to expand its overseas logistics, including sites spanning the Atlantic Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and the Indo-Pacific. 

The news of the spy base comes weeks after White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with his Chinese counterpart in Vienna last month to relay that the administration wanted to improve communications with Chinese officials.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw and Tara Prindiville contributed to this report.