The U.S. on Tuesday said Russia rejected a new and a ‘significant’ proposal that would have freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan.

‘This was a new proposal in recent weeks. It was a significant proposal,’ State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press conference. ‘And it was rejected by the Russians, but it does not, it will not deter us from continuing to do everything we can to try and bring both of them home.’

He added that the two American citizens should never have been arrested ‘in the first place,’ calling on the Russian government to immediately release them.

‘They never should have been arrested in the first place. They should be released immediately,’ Miller said. ‘But we have made a number of proposals, including a substantial one in recent weeks and we will continue to work every day to bring Evan and Paul Whelan home. There is no prior higher priority for the Secretary of State. There is no higher priority for the president.’

While the State Department declined to provide details of the proposal to free Gershkovich and Whelan, the proposal is confirmation that Washington is continuing to secure the release of the two American citizens.

The U.S. government has declared both Whelan and Gershkovich to be wrongfully detained.

Whelan was arrested in December 2018 on charges of espionage and spying for the U.S. government and sentenced to 16 years. 

He and the U.S. have denied the charges as the 53-year-old remains imprisoned at a labor camp in Russia’s Mordovia republic.

Whelan was arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service while staying in a hotel in the Moscow area. 

At the time, he had reportedly arrived in the Russian capital to attend a friend’s wedding and act as a travel guide for the groom’s family. However, Russian officials claimed that Whelan had met with an unnamed Russian citizen who gave the former Marine a USB drive containing classified material.

Gershkovich was detained on March 29 of this year during a reporting trip in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in Russia, and accused of being a spy. 

The U.S. has asserted that Russia’s allegations against the 32-year-old are ridiculous.

Coworkers and loved ones have described the American-born son of Soviet immigrants as a diligent reporter who is being used as a political pawn due to his high profile. 

EXCLUSIVE: President Biden’s re-election campaign is expected to raise more than $15 million this week as he travels across the nation for multiple high-profile and star-studded fundraising events, Fox News Digital has learned.

Two sources close to the campaign and familiar with the president’s fundraising efforts told Fox News Digital that the more $15 million will also include small-dollar donations.

The president attended a fundraising event in Boston, Mass. on Tuesday, which featured a concert by singer-songwriter James Taylor. Front-row tickets sold for $7,500 per seat. 

The president is expected to attend fundraising events in Washington D.C. on Thursday near the White House.

And on Friday, the president will travel to Los Angeles for a Hollywood fundraiser hosted by Steven Spielberg, Shona Rhimes, CEO of Paramount Pictures Jim Gianopulos, actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner, and others.

The Los Angeles event will be at the home of interior designer Michael Smith and his partner James Costos, who had served as former President Obama’s ambassador to Spain.

Top tickets for that event are said to be $930,000 each. 

Lenny Kravitz is expected to perform at the event. 

Barbara Streisand and a slew of other celebrities are expected to attend. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is also expected to attend the event.

The expected fundraising haul comes after the campaign’s strongest grassroots fundraising month since the president announced his re-election campaign, a Biden campaign official told Fox News Digital.

Campaign officials told Fox News Digital that in the third quarter, 97% of all donations were under $200 and the average grassroots contribution was $40.

The campaign announced in October that it raised more than $71 million in the third quarter of 2023. The campaign, as of October, also had nearly $91 million in cash on hand, with officials calling that figure ‘the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate in history at this point in the cycle.’

FIRST ON FOX: A super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president is taking aim at his GOP primary rival Nikki Haley, again comparing her to Hillary Clinton in a new seven-figure ad buy in Iowa — as the battle between the two candidates heats up and a day before the two go head-to-head in a presidential primary debate.

Fight Right, a political action committee backing DeSantis for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, says it has spent $1.54 million on the ad buy, which will go out on cable and broadcast in Iowa – where the first-in-the-nation caucuses will take place in January.

The ad cites past remarks from Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador during the Trump administration, in which she said that Clinton who inspired her to run for office.

It goes on to accuse her of supporting raising taxes and open borders ‘like Hillary’ before also citing recent remarks from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dinon, who urged ‘liberal’ Democrats to back Haley to give Republicans a choice other than former President Donald Trump.

‘Now the globalist Wall Street bankers who financed Hillary’s campaigns are funding Haley’s campaigns,’ the ad says.

‘And just like Hillary Clinton, Nikki Haley shouldn’t be president,’ it says – calling her ‘wrong for America like Hillary.’

‘With ‘Like Hillary,’ we’re cutting through the noise to expose the truth about Nikki Haley’s troubling track record,’ David Dewhirst, Chairman of Fight Right Inc.., said in a statement. ‘From tax hikes to open borders to ties with China, the parallels are striking. Fight Right is dedicated to bringing these facts to the forefront and empowering Iowa voters with the truth.’

The ad buy comes as Haley and DeSantis locked in a fierce battle for second place behind clear frontrunner former President Donald Trump. It’s the latest attempt to compare Haley to Clinton by her rivals. The Trump campaign has also pointed to the times Haley has said she was inspired by Clinton to run for office.

However, the comparison has also been fact-checked by multiple outlets for missing context, specifically that Haley has also stressed her ideological differences with the secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate. One of the clips used in the ad, in which Haley says Clinton was ‘the reason I got into politics’ omits her also saying that ‘I don’t agree with anything that [Clinton] has to say.’ 

She said that the inspiration from Clinton came because she had been given multiple reasons why she shouldn’t run but then heard Clinton speak.

‘Hillary Clinton was the keynote speaker on a leadership institute, and she said that when it comes to women running for office, there will be everybody that tells you why you shouldn’t but that’s all the reasons why we need you to do it, and I walked out of there thinking ‘That’s it. I’m running for office.’’ she told the New York Times in 2011.

Haley’s campaign has also pointed to past remarks in which she has criticized Clinton, including telling voters in 2016 that Clinton would be ‘disastrous’ as president and would be ‘absolutely worse’ than former President Barack Obama.

‘This is the sign of a desperate, losing candidate,’ Haley spokesperson Ken Farnaso told Fox News Digital. ‘As Ron DeSantis drops in the polls, Nikki Haley has surged into second place in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina because voters know she is the best candidate to take on Donald Trump and Joe Biden.’

Haley and DeSantis will be joined on the debate stage on Wednesday night in Alabama by entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former N.J. Gov. Chris Christie. Trump has again declined to attend the debate.

FIRST ON FOX: As vice president, Joe Biden used email aliases and private email addresses to communicate with son Hunter Biden and Hunter’s business associates hundreds of times, new records released by the House Ways & Means Committee revealed.

The committee obtained metadata from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that reveals Joe Biden used alias email accounts 327 times during a nine-year period — 2010 to 2019 — to correspond with his son, Hunter, and one of Hunter’s key business associates, Eric Schwerin, among others.

The majority of the email traffic took place while Biden was vice president.

The committee says 54 of the emails were ‘exclusively’ between Joe Biden and Schwerin, who the committee describes as ‘the architect of the Biden family’s shell companies.’

The email aliases used were ‘robinware456,’ ‘JRBware’ and ‘RobertLPeters.’

Earlier this year, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., revealed the existence of Biden’s email aliases. 

After Comer’s release of those aliases, Fox News Digital learned the whistleblowers, who are still employed as IRS investigators, ran a search for the Biden email aliases in email exchanges with Hunter Biden and Eric Schwerin. That search led to the revelation of the 327 exchanges. 

A source told Fox News Digital the whistleblowers could only access metadata for these exchanges. The source said accessing the content of the emails would require a search warrant. 

The whistleblowers turned over the results of the search to the committee after a closed-door meeting Tuesday, and the committee released the information Tuesday.

The data shows direct emails between Schwerin and Vice President Biden increased during times when the vice president traveled to Ukraine.

The committee said the data shows Joe Biden and Schwerin exchanged five emails in June 2014 before the vice president’s trip to Ukraine that month.

After that trip and before Biden’s November 2014 trip back to Ukraine, he and Schwerin emailed 27 times.

Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings in April 2014. 

Biden has acknowledged that when he was vice president he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings during the same period Hunter Biden held a highly lucrative role on the board, receiving thousands of dollars per month.

At the time, the vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.

Biden allies maintain the vice president pushed for Shokin’s firing due to concerns the Ukrainian prosecutor went easy on corruption and say his firing was the policy position of the U.S. and international community. 

‘Vice President Biden appears to have treated Air Force Two like a corporate jet, traveling to Ukraine and Mexico to advance Hunter Biden’s business interests,’ Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith said. ‘Evidence from today’s documents show right around the time of international trips like those to Ukraine, Joe Biden was emailing his son and his son’s business partner from private email accounts using aliases while vice president.’

Smith, R-Mo., is leading the impeachment inquiry against President Biden alongside House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.

The chairmen are investigating any foreign money received by the Biden family, whether President Biden was involved in his family’s foreign business dealings and steps allegedly taken by the Biden administration to ‘slow, hamper, or otherwise impede the criminal investigation into the President’s son, Hunter Biden, which involves funds received by the Biden family from foreign sources.’

The White House has blasted the House impeachment inquiry against the president as baseless, maintaining the president was never in business with his son and never spoke to his son about his business dealings. 

The Justice Department and individual DOJ officials have denied whistleblower allegations that suggest politics played a role in prosecutorial decisions throughout the Hunter Biden probe.

Hunter Biden has been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee and is expected to appear for a deposition Dec. 13. House Republicans have promised to release the transcript of Hunter Biden’s deposition and have vowed to schedule a public hearing so the president’s son can testify publicly before the American people as his attorney requested. 

Former President Donald Trump blasted U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry in a Fox News town hall event for his climate activism and told the audience that the former Democratic presidential candidate ‘has to be stopped.’

‘I see John Kerry all over the place talking about [how] we have to get rid of our coal plants,’ Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity. 

‘And yet China is building one coal plant a week, massive coal plants, and they’re doing it just automatically. And John Kerry wants us to stop doing anything we can. We have a country, we have to fire up our factories. Wind is not going to fire up our factories.’

Moments later, when discussing American energy independence, Trump said, ‘Our country can be rich again. John Kerry has to be stopped. He’s destroying our country.’

‘This guy, I mean, think of it,’ Trump continued. ‘He goes all over the world in a private jet, by the way. He goes all over the world talking to these people about getting rid of coal plants. They all laugh at him. They, you know, treat him with respect. He’s gone. They say, what an idiot. What a jerk. And then they go ahead and they build their coal plants.’

Kerry has been widely criticized by conservatives for using a private jet while railing against the effects of climate change.

Additionally, Kerry has been slammed by conservatives for several controversial comments related to how he would like the United States to address climate change including a recent statement where he called for a halt in new coal power plant production.

‘The first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants,’ Kerry said at a climate change summit in Dubai.

Kerry has also previously dismissed concerns that tens of thousands of coal workers in America could lose their jobs if his policies are carried out describing that notion as a ‘false narrative.’

At the same conference in Dubai, Kerry pledged to slash emissions from AC units, refrigerators to fight climate change.

Fox News Digital reached out to Kerry’s office for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Former President Trump joined Fox News’ ‘Hannity’ on Tuesday night for a town hall discussion on the GOP presidential primary, President Biden, dictatorships, and more.

Trump joined Hannity in Davenport, Iowa, for the town hall, one day before the fourth GOP presidential primary debate in Alabama on Wednesday.

Here are the top moments from Trump’s ‘Hannity’ town hall on Tuesday night.

TRUMP SAYS BIDEN WON’T BE THE NOMINEE

Trump predicted President Biden ultimately wouldn’t be the Democrats’ nominee for president in 2024.

The topic arose when Sean Hannity asked Trump about the criticism facing Biden from his fellow Democrats, as well as noted that he seemed to be ‘struggling cognitively.’

‘I personally don’t think he makes it, okay? I haven’t said that. I’m saving it for this big town hall. I’ve never really said that. I personally don’t think he makes it,’ Trump answered, to cheers from the audience.

‘I think he’s in bad shape physically,’ he added before joking about a previous instance in which Biden said he’d like to take Trump to the ‘back of the barn.’

Trump joked that Biden would ‘fall over’ if he simply blew on him.

‘I personally don’t think he makes it physically. I watched him at the beach. He wasn’t able to lift a beach chair, which is meant for children to lift. And mentally I would say he is possibly equally as bad, and maybe even worse,’ Trump added.

‘DICTATOR’ FOR ‘DAY ONE’

The former president turned some heads with some of his comments during the town hall, most notably with his comments to Hannity’s question asking Trump to pledge to ‘never abuse power as retribution against anybody.’

‘Except for day one,’ Trump said. ‘I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.’

Hannity said ‘that’s not retribution,’ with Trump quipping back, ‘I love this guy, he says, ‘you’re not going to be a dictator are you?”

‘I said, ‘No, no, no, other than day one,’ Trump said.

‘We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling,’ Trump said. ‘After that, I’m not a dictator.’

Hannity said that it sounded like what Trump was saying was that he would go back to his first-term policies, to which the former president agreed.

Trump’s comments come after multiple media outlets claimed a second term for the former president would result in a ‘dictatorship.’

Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez blasted Trump over the comments, saying in a release, ‘Donald Trump has been telling us exactly what he will do if he’s reelected and tonight he said he will be a dictator on day one.’

‘Americans should believe him,’ she said.

‘TALKING POINTS’: TRUMP RESPONDS TO BIDEN

Trump mocked President Biden for his claim that he wouldn’t be running for re-election if Trump wasn’t in the race.

‘Well, I think somebody gave him a talking point. They thought that would sound good,’ Trump said as the crowd laughed.

‘You know, I just found out that Democrats are funding Nikki Haley’s campaign. I hear that Democrats are contributing to Ron DeSanctus’, or Ron DeSanctimonious, to Ron DeSanctus’ campaign. And then you hear the talking points. That’s the only thing they’re good at, cheating on elections and great talking points,’ Trump added.

Biden made the statement earlier in the day to a group of supporters at a Boston fundraiser, saying, ‘If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. But we cannot let him win for the sake of the country.’

‘I’M GOING TO WIN IOWA’

Trump came out swinging in his town hall, but one of the biggest moments of the night was the former president calling his shot in the Hawkeye State.

The former president declared to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he would ‘win Iowa.’

Trump touted the ‘hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes and tariffs’ from China and ‘gave the farmers $28 billion.’

‘That’s why I say I’m going to win Iowa,’ Trump said, eliciting cheers from the Hawkeye State crowd.

‘My people say, ‘Please sir, don’t keep saying you’re going to win Iowa, you sound so, really, horrible, crass’ — someone said ‘crass,” Trump continued.

‘I said, ‘But it’s true. We’re going to win Iowa,” the former president continued.

Trump noted again that he ‘gave the farmers $28 billion’ and that he ‘got it from China’ during his administration.

‘Who else could do that? Who else would be able to do it, number one, who else would think about it?’ Trump asked, adding that he told farmers to ‘buy more land’ and ‘bigger tractors.’

BLASTING BIDEN’S ‘MAGA’ CRITICISM

Trump’s town hall began with him torching Biden over his criticism of his MAGA movement.

‘You know, I see Biden talking about, ‘Oh, MAGA! MAGA!’ MAGA means Make America Great Again. That’s what it means. And that’s what people want,’ Trump said to cheers from the crowd.

‘They want to see our country be great again. Right now we’re not a great country. We’re a country in decline. We are a declining country,’ he added.

The Biden campaign has ramped up its criticism of Trump as polls consistently show him trailing the former president.

He has frequently blasted the the MAGA movement as ‘extremist,’ and attempted to tie other conservative Republicans into that criticism.

The Israeli military has assembled several large pumps it could use to flood the Hamas tunnels beneath the Gaza Strip with seawater, driving out terrorists hiding there, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. officials.

Construction of five large seawater pumps was completed in November about one mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp. Each pump is capable of drawing water from the Mediterranean Sea and can move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour, which would flood the tunnels within weeks, the report said.

Israel has not yet committed to the plan, and it is unclear whether it would attempt to flood the tunnels while there are still hostages, including Americans, held by Hamas. The Palestinian terror group took some 240 people captive during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and brought them back to the Gaza Strip. 

According to the report, Israel has identified about 800 tunnels beneath Gaza that Hamas has used to move fighters, store weapons and plan terror attacks on Israel. However, Israeli officials believe the tunnel network is much larger.

By flooding the tunnels over several weeks, Israel would enable Hamas terrorists and potentially hostages to move out, the outlet reported, citing a source familiar with the plan. 

‘We are not sure how successful pumping will be since nobody knows the details of the tunnels and the ground around them,’ the source said. ‘It’s impossible to know if that will be effective because we don’t know how seawater will drain in tunnels no one has been in before.’

The Wall Street Journal said an Israel Defense Forces official declined to comment on the flooding plan, but said: ‘The IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas’s terror capabilities in various ways, using different military and technological tools.’

U.S. officials were informed of the plan last month, the Wall Street Journal reported, but the U.S. does not know how close Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is to executing the plan. 

Israel has committed to continuing its war effort until Hamas is eradicated in Gaza. The Israeli military said it launched its 10,000th airstrike against the terror group in the Gaza Strip late Sunday.

Israel has vowed to do everything it can to protect civilians as it targets Hamas and its network of tunnels. Many of the 10,000 airstrikes have been aimed at destroying Hamas’ underground labyrinth.

The IDF says it has struck over 400 separate Hamas targets since the cease-fire agreement collapsed on Friday. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Sunday that Hamas was to blame for the end of the cease-fire, because they did not release ‘additional women and children that we know that they are holding, and they’re refusing to let go.’

‘Our policy is clear — we will forcefully strike any threat posed against our territory,’ IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a statement.

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Senior House Republicans are laying out their case for why and how the U.S. can support Ukraine amid increasingly dire warnings for Congress to approve more funds to uphold Kyiv’s defense against Russia’s brutal invasion. 

A 28-page report is being sent within the House GOP conference outlining a ‘proposed plan for victory in Ukraine.’ It calls for a three-pronged approach to success, according to a copy obtained by Fox News Digital: Getting ‘critical weapons to Ukraine at the speed of relevance,’ tighter sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies, and ‘transferring frozen Russian sovereign assets to Ukraine.’

‘This will take congressional Republican pressure, which has been the key to unlocking every new needed weapon system to Ukraine since the start of the war,’ the memo said. ‘This strategy will ensure Ukraine is able to make the needed advances on the battlefield to force Putin to the negotiating table. If Ukraine doesn’t negotiate from a position of strength, there can be no lasting peace.’

The report was led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas; House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala.; and Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio. 

Ukrainian officials are visiting Capitol Hill on Tuesday, a day after the White House’s Office of Management and Budget wrote a letter to congressional leaders warning that Ukraine will suffer serious losses if new U.S. aid is not approved this year.

But a growing number of conservatives, mainly in the House, are increasingly skeptical of the continued flow of aid to Ukraine. 

The state of Ukraine funding in Congress is currently in limbo amid GOP-driven conversations about pairing it with U.S. border security and asylum reforms – many proposals of which have been deemed nonstarters by Democrats.

The Senate is expected to tee up a vote on Biden’s $106 billion supplemental aid request for Ukraine and Israel, but Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has already signaled he’s opposed to putting that package on the House floor. 

But the Tuesday memo argues that continuing to provide aid to Ukraine is boosting the U.S. economy and preventing a larger conflict down the line, such as if Putin attacks a NATO ally. 

The report also frames the ongoing issues in Ukraine as the fault of President Biden, stating, ‘Biden is mishandling the worst war in Europe since World War II. His weakness failed to deter Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, continues to prolong the war, and risks inviting further aggression from America’s adversaries.’

At the same time, it appears to tackle conservative skeptics’ concerns about having proper oversight of the aid dollars and whether European allies are paying their fair share.

‘As of November 2023, the Inspectors General of the DoD, State, and USAID have not identified any significant diversion, theft, or misuse of U.S. assistance to Ukraine,’ the lawmakers wrote, noting, ‘There are 96 ongoing or planned audits and reports by the IGs of more than 20 different agencies, as well as the Government Accountability Office (GAO), to monitor, audit, and evaluate activities related to the Ukraine response. 39 have been completed.’

They also refuted the claim that the U.S. is dealt a bigger financial burden than its allies – when measured as a percentage of GDP, 29 countries have given more aid to Ukraine than the U.S., according to the report.

It also included charts and graphs demonstrating that combined foreign aid to Ukraine is greater than the U.S. contributions by a margin of 55% to 45%. 

The report also stressed Russia’s budding alliances with China and Iran, and argued that upholding Ukraine against Moscow now would serve to deter Beijing and Tehran as well. 

Razom for Ukraine, a U.S. group pushing for continued support, told Fox News Digital they were supportive of the proposals in the GOP lawmakers’ report.

‘Chairmen McCaul, Turner, and Rogers make the crystal clear case for U.S. assistance to finally help Ukraine prevail over Putin’s invasion. This plan outlines how the U.S. can provide the aid and military capability needed to help Ukraine win – not just survive,’ a top official in the group said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.

EXCLUSIVE: A top conservative group affiliated with the Heritage Foundation is pushing Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to keep President Biden’s $106 billion supplemental aid request from coming to the House floor. 

‘Please do not undermine the gains that have been made on behalf of the American people by substituting one corrupt, unaffordable end-of-year deal for another. Hold firm to the convictions you and I and the American people share in common,’ Heritage Action President Dr. Kevin Roberts wrote to Johnson.

He was particularly critical of the roughly $61 billion requested for Ukraine, a topic that has become a lightning rod within the GOP.

The package would include funding for Israel, Ukraine, the U.S. border, and humanitarian efforts, among other items. Republicans in both the House and Senate have warned that such a package would fail on its own.

‘It is no surprise that President Biden and Senate Democrats would pursue such a reckless, aimless and feckless course. Sadly, it is also not surprising that a small number of Republican senators would join them. However, it is alarming to read reports that congressional Republicans are actively courting this supplemental spending package,’ Roberts wrote.

On the House side, Johnson has made clear that he does not want to put the $106 billion package on the floor – he passed the roughly $14 billion in Israel aid as a standalone bill, with the money taken from the IRS, and has called for pairing the Ukraine aid with stricter border security measures and asylum laws.

Ukrainian officials are visiting Capitol Hill on Tuesday as the situation for Kyiv’s fight against Russia threatens to grow dire without more U.S. aid. It comes after the White House’s Office of Management and Budget wrote a letter to congressional leaders warning that Ukraine will suffer serious losses if new U.S. aid is not approved this year. 

Johnson responded to that letter on Tuesday morning that ‘supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws.’

But conservatives, including a growing number within the House and Senate GOP, are skeptical of the continued flow of foreign aid without confidence that the war has an end point. 

Roberts accused Biden’s funding request for Ukraine of being overbroad, criticizing U.S. aims to help rebuild its war-ravaged economy.

‘The House of Representatives should strongly oppose aid to Ukraine when the European Union, which lags far behind the United States in its military assistance to Ukraine, should be required to fund greater levels of aid for Ukraine,’ he wrote.

‘Additionally, any military funding for Ukraine should include a publicly available accounting of how the U.S. contribution so far has been used in Ukraine,’ he continued. ‘It should also be debated and considered on its own merits and be legitimately paid for, and not cloaked in so-called ‘emergency’ accounting gimmicks or combined with other funding provisions.’

‘Furthermore, aid for Ukraine should not be provided until the administration provides a plan that defines the end goal in Ukraine, describes the expected U.S. commitment to achieve that goal, addresses the effects of the presidential drawdown authority on U.S. capabilities, and assures further commitments from our European partners. None of this will be included in the Senate’s supplemental package.’

He also reminded Johnson of conservative calls to pair any Ukraine aid with the House GOP’s H.R. 2 border and illegal immigration bill, something the Democrat-dominated White House and Senate have panned as a nonstarter.

Roberts met with Johnson to talk about the aims in the letter on Monday afternoon, Fox News Digital was told. A source familiar with their discussion categorized it as productive. 

House Republicans said the Justice Department deviated from ‘standard processes’ and gave Hunter Biden ‘special treatment’ in its years-long federal investigation into him.

The House GOP’s findings are laid out in an interim staff report released Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee, House Ways & Means Committee, and the House Oversight Committee.

The chairmen of those panels – Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Jason Smith R-Mo., and James Comer, R-Ky. – are leading the impeachment inquiry against President Biden. The chairmen are investigating any foreign money received by the Biden family, whether President Biden was involved in his family’s foreign business dealings, and steps allegedly taken by the Biden administration to ‘slow, hamper, or otherwise impede the criminal investigation into the President’s son, Hunter Biden, which involves funds received by the Biden family from foreign sources.’

The investigation began after two IRS whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, came forward this spring and told Congress that the Justice Department ‘had impeded, delayed, and obstructed the criminal investigation of the President’s son, Hunter Biden.’

‘The whistleblowers, who came forward only after IRS leadership failed to address their concerns, noted several deviations by Justice Department officials ‘from the normal process that provided preferential treatment, in this case to Hunter Biden,’’ the report states.

The report points to Shapley and Ziegler’s claims that the Justice Department ‘allowed the statute of limitations on certain charges against Hunter Biden to lapse, prohibited line investigators from referring to or asking about President Biden during witness interviews, withheld evidence from line investigators, excluded the investigative team from meetings with defense counsel, and tipped off defense counsel about pending search warrants.’

As part of the investigation, the committees have heard testimony from nearly a dozen DOJ officials, including Special Counsel David Weiss, who is leading the Hunter Biden probe, and have obtained ‘hundreds of pages of documents.’ 

‘The testimony and documents received by the committees to date corroborates many of the allegations made by IRS whistleblowers,’ the report states.

The committees found that the Justice Department and FBI ‘afforded special treatment’ to Hunter Biden. The report cites witness testimony, which revealed that there was a ‘delicate approach used’ during the Hunter Biden case. Those officials described the probe as ‘sensitive’ or ‘significant.’

‘Evidence shows Department officials slow-walked the investigation, informed defense counsel of future investigative actions, prevented line investigators from taking otherwise ordinary investigative steps, and even allowed the statute of limitations to expire on the most serious potential charges,’ the report states. ‘These unusual – and oftentimes in the view of witnesses, unprecedented – tactics conflicted with standard operating procedures and ultimately had the effect of benefiting Hunter Biden.’

The report also points to testimony which revealed Weiss, when serving as just U.S. attorney for Delaware, ‘did not have ‘ultimate authority’ over the Hunter Biden case.’ Weiss did testify during a transcribed interview that he was initially denied when requesting special prosecutor status, but ‘From my mind, it’s a sequencing event,’ Weiss said. ‘It’s not a denial in any way, shape or form.’

He added: ‘That’s the way I interpreted it.’

Attorney General Merrick Garland, in August 2023, appointed Weiss as special counsel.

The report states that there is ‘no question that without the brave IRS whistleblowers, it is likely that the Biden Justice Department would have never acted on Hunter Biden’s misconduct.’

‘When forced to act, the Biden Justice Department worked closely with Hunter Biden’s counsel to craft an unprecedented plea deal that was so biased in the direction of Hunter Biden it fell apart in open court,’ the report states. ‘When a federal judge rejected the Department’s attempt to push through a sweetheart plea deal and quietly end the five-year investigation of Hunter Biden, Attorney General Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel and refused to answer questions about the case on the basis of the existence of an ‘ongoing investigation.’’

The report adds: ‘Using the ‘ongoing investigation’ as a veil to shield its misconduct, the Biden Justice Department unilaterally limited the scope of witness testimony and document productions to Congress, severely curtailing the Committees’ ability to gather information.’

House Republicans said in their report that even amid these ‘troubling findings,’ there is ‘more information that the Justice Department is keeping from the Committees.’

‘The Justice Department has still not fully complied with requests for relevant documents, and it has impeded the Committees’ investigation by baselessly preventing two Tax Division officials – Senior Litigation Counsel Mark Daly and Trial Attorney Jack Morgan – from testifying, despite subpoenas compelling their testimony,’ the report states. ‘These documents and this testimony are necessary for the Committees to complete our inquiry.’

The report says the Justice Department’s ‘blatant disregard for the Committees’ constitutionally prescribed oversight responsibilities is yet another stain that the Biden Administration has placed on the Justice Department’s once-venerated reputation.’

House Republicans admitted that their investigation is ‘far from complete,’ but vowed to ‘continue to gather evidence to determine whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden for consideration by the full House of Representatives.’

The White House has blasted the House impeachment inquiry against the president as baseless.

The Justice Department, and individual DOJ officials, have denied whistleblower allegations that suggest politics played a role in prosecutorial decisions throughout the Hunter Biden probe.

Hunter Biden has been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee and is expected to appear for a deposition on Dec. 13. House Republicans have promised to release the transcript of Hunter Biden’s deposition and have vowed to schedule a public hearing so the president’s son can testify publicly before the American people, as his attorney requested.