Security experts are sounding off about President Biden’s handling of classified materials, suggesting that the documents could have been more susceptible to leaks than those found in former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last year.

Under scrutiny from Republicans, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel Thursday to investigate the classified materials, which Biden claims were ‘inadvertently misplaced.’

The Justice Department escalated it to a special counsel investigation from a mere review after a second stash of classified documents was found inside the garage of Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home. The first documents were found inside the Washington, D.C., offices of the Penn Biden Center think tank. Garland tapped Robert Hur, a former U.S. attorney, to handle the investigation.

Charles Marino, the CEO of Sentinel Security and a former Homeland Security Department advisor who specializes in law enforcement, told Fox News Digital that Biden’s handling of the documents, compared to Trump’s, could have resulted in greater potential for ‘leakage.’

‘The storage of classified documents was not authorized at any of these locations, however there are several distinctions with respect to the potential ‘leakage’ of the information contained within the documents via controls that would have likely prevented or limited unauthorized access to the locations,’ Marino said.

Noting that Trump ‘had the power to declassify whereas Joe Biden as vice president did not,’ Marino suggested that Trump’s additional Secret Service protection granted the documents slightly more protection.

‘Former Presidents continue to receive Secret Service protection and deploy security technologies, whereas former Vice Presidents do not, beyond an initial six-month extension. This means there was no US government provided security at the residence in Wilmington, Delaware, or at the Biden-UPenn think tank office in Washington, D.C. for close to six years,’ he said. 

‘Former Presidents are eligible to continue to receive both secure communications and facilities. For example, former Presidents are eligible to request continuation of receiving the classified presidential daily briefings. Former Vice Presidents are not.’

Biden’s claim that he was unaware he possessed classified materials, according to Marino, also a former Secret Service special agent, adds to concern over how closely the documents at both locations were protected.

‘Not knowing that one is in possession of classified documents, as Biden has claimed, means that there were absolutely no additional measures to safeguard and protect the information,’ he said. ‘Former President Trump acknowledged such possession, took steps to secure them in one location (although still not in accordance with storage requirements for classified info), and is still granted additional security resources for deterrence and detection.’

Special counsel to the president Richard Sauber disclosed in a statement Saturday that five additional pages of documents with classified markings were found at Biden’s Delaware home Thursday evening, making a total of six classified documents retrieved from the house — in addition to the documents discovered in the garage.

Sauber explained that when Biden’s personal attorneys identified one classified document at Biden’s home on Wednesday, they stopped searching for additional documents because they lacked the security clearances necessary to view those materials.

The first batch of Biden classified documents was found at the Penn Biden Center Nov. 2, just before the 2022 midterm elections, and not revealed until Monday. A search of Biden’s garage at his Wilmington home was conducted on Dec. 20 and the remainder of the house was not searched until this week, when additional documents were discovered.

Bided answered a question Thursday from Fox News reporter Peter Doocy by claiming the classified documents were in a locked garage with his Corvette. ‘By the way, my Corvette’s in a locked garage, OK?’ the president said. ‘So it’s not like they’re sitting out in the street.’

Highlighting the fact that it is ‘risky and irresponsible to keep classified information in an improperly secured location,’ Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute, told Fox that Biden’s handling of the documents is ‘certainly concerning.’

‘The fact that President Biden continued to find classified documents as recently as this past week, even after having first identified this problem in early November and having identified more documents in December, is certainly concerning,’ Jaffer said. ‘At the same time, it is also extremely concerning that classified documents were found in former President Trump’s possession long after he had been asked to turn any such documents over, and after he had received a subpoena for such documents.’

‘While it still remains unclear why President Biden had such documents in his possession long after he left office and in insecure locations, at least thus far he has not claimed, as former President Trump has, that the documents were appropriately removed, either because they were personal documents — which they are not — or that they had been properly declassified, which there is no evidence yet that they had been,’ he added.

While there has been no confirmation of the information that was contained in the discovered documents, one was reportedly marked top secret, CNN reported this week based on a source familiar with the matter. The documents reportedly included intelligence memos and briefing documents on topics that included Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom, according to the source.

Biden’s lawyers say they discovered no documents at Biden’s residence in Rehoboth Beach and Sauber reiterated Saturday that the White House would cooperate with Hur’s investigation.

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

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this article.

Embattled Congressman George Santos, R-N.Y., is refusing calls from constituents and fellow representatives to resign. But with a potential House Ethics Committee process that could take months, Santos is not going anywhere anytime soon. 

Santos has faced growing calls for his resignation since his resume was proven to be false after winning in the midterm elections, including from the Nassau GOP, which operates within Santos’ congressional district. It was the first major Republican group to call for his resignation.

Still, Santos has remained adamant he will not resign. 

On Tuesday, Democratic New York Reps. Ritchie Torres, whose district includes most of the south Bronx, and Dan Goldman, whose district includes part of Manhattan and Brooklyn, filed a formal complaint with the House Ethics Committee against Santos for allegedly violating the Ethics in Government Act. 

‘George Santos, by his own admission, is an outright fraud,’ Goldman tweeted Tuesday. ‘The House has an obligation to police itself and maintain the integrity of the institution.’

But should the Ethics Committee choose to open an investigation and recommend a penalty, that process takes months. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., isn’t doing anything about Santos and said he will even assign Santos to House committees.

‘I try to stick by the Constitution, and the voters elected him to serve,’ McCarthy said Thursday. ‘He’s going to have to build the trust here, and he’s going to have the opportunity to try to do that.’

There are three modes of discipline in the House: reprimand, censure and expulsion.

Former Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., was the last member censured by the House in late 2010.

The House has only expelled five members in history. The last was late Rep. Jim Traficant, D-Ohio, in 2002. 

Under the Constitution, expulsion requires a two-thirds vote of the House, and Republicans in the majority could table or kill a resolution to punish or expel Santos. 

Kevin McCarthy’s first week as House speaker revealed a strong bipartisan desire to take on China as scores of Democrats joined the GOP to pass two bills that indicate lawmakers from both parties are unhappy with how President Biden is dealing with America’s greatest strategic threat.

The GOP takeover of the House marks a new period of divided government, but the two China votes showed a unity of purpose between both parties rarely seen anymore.

On Tuesday, Republicans called up a resolution to create a select committee on strategic competition between the U.S. and ‘the Chinese Communist Party,’ a phrase that Republicans prefer far more than their Democratic colleagues. But as soon as debate started, it became clear Democrats would support it.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who for years has battled GOP leadership as the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, said he supported the idea of a new committee.

‘While I do have concerns here, after reading the resolution itself, I will be voting ‘yes,’’ McGovern said. ‘The Democratic Party has led the way in implementing efforts to monitor China’s compliance with international human rights and rule of law standards, and we will continue to do so here.’

McGovern said he worried the committee might be used to fuel Asian-American hatred, but he was assured by McCarthy on the House floor that he wants the committee to be a sober attempt to come to grips with the military, economic and strategic challenges that China poses.

‘You have my word and my commitment,’ McCarthy said. ‘This is not a partisan committee. This will be a bipartisan committee that is mindful of my desire, my wish, that we speak with one voice, that we focus on the challenges that we have.’

More than two-thirds of House Democrats voted with the GOP to establish the committee — 146 voted for it, and 65 voted against. It was a sharp bipartisan message to both China and the Biden administration, one that McCarthy punctuated by saying on the House floor, ‘There is a bipartisan consensus that the era of trusting communist China is over.’

Later in the week, McCarthy touted the bipartisan vote as a major accomplishment in this era of hyper-partisanship.

‘We passed a very bipartisan bill with 146 Democrats joining with us to create a new select committee on China,’ he said. McCarthy added that he spoke with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., about his desire for Democratic participation on the committee, particularly when it comes to the topic of keeping jobs in the U.S.

‘What I’m trying to accomplish is get members on both sides of the aisle, from all different perspectives, not just from a military, from financial, from agriculture and others, to bring those jobs back to America,’ McCarthy said.

On Thursday, a majority of Democrats again joined Republicans to vote for a bill that bans the Biden administration from selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to China, another embarrassing jab at Biden.

Last April, the Biden administration’s Energy Department announced nearly 1 million barrels of oil from the SPR would be sold to Unipec America, a U.S.-based Chinese company. Republicans argued on the floor it makes no sense to be aiding America’s most important strategic competitor with sales from the SPR.

‘America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve is meant for true energy supply disruptions, like those caused by hurricanes and natural disasters, not to help China,’ said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. ‘Draining our strategic reserves for political purposes and selling portions of it to China is a significant threat to our national security.’

Democrats favored the bill 113-97, and it easily passed the House.

It’s not immediately clear whether the Democrat-led Senate will take up the bill to block SPR sales to China, but the House vote shows there’s a real chance of it passing if were to hit the Senate floor. Senate passage would force the White House to decide how to handle a bill backed by so much support from Democrats.

For now, though, bipartisan support for a sober look at how the U.S. is stacking up against China has left the White House with little choice but to welcome this newfound possibility of bipartisan work on China.

‘Many of our efforts we have been pursuing are bipartisan, underscoring the alignment at home on the key issue,’ White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. ‘And we look forward to the committee getting stood up, and we’ll continue to work with Democrats and Republicans in Congress … on this issue.’

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy confirmed Thursday that three left-wing Democrats he long said would be booted from their committees should he be elected to the body’s top spot would in fact not be retaining their posts.

According to McCarthy, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., will not be returning to the House Intelligence Committee, while far-left Squad member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., will not be returning to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The reasons for their removal spans back a number of years and involve a wide range of criticisms Republicans had, until now, been unable to act upon because of Democrats’ House majority.

McCarthy’s focus on Schiff stemmed from his role in the investigation of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and whether it colluded with Russia to propel him to victory over Hillary Clinton.

Schiff has been accused of lying about details of the alleged ties between Trump and Russia, and was mocked once the dossier compiled by former British intelligence author Christopher Steele detailing the alleged ties, which Schiff heavily promoted at the time, was found by an investigation to contain false information.

Schiff was also accused of exaggerating the details of the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which was at the center of the former president’s first impeachment trial.

‘You have Adam Schiff, who lied to the American public time and again — we will not allow him to be on the Intel Committee,’ McCarthy said during an appearance on Fox News in November.

Swalwell has been sharply criticized over his ties to a suspected Chinese spy named Fang Fang, or Christine Fang, which surfaced in a 2020 report from Axios. According to the report, Fang was part of an expansive Chinese spying operation that targeted politicians to gain proximity to political power and helped him fundraise during his 2014 run for Congress.

Later reports revealed that Swalwell had intimate relations with the suspected spy, but he cut ties with her after the FBI alerted him to concerns over her activities. She subsequently left the country in 2015.

During a Thursday press conference, McCarthy referenced a briefing he said he received from the FBI regarding Swalwell’s run in with the suspected spy.

‘If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,’ McCarthy told reporters, referring to the report on Swalwell as ‘troubling.’

‘He cannot get a security clearance in the private sector,’ he added. ‘So would you like to give him a government clearance?’

McCarthy’s concern over Omar stems from her past comments, condemned as antisemitic, that were sharply critical of the Israel. Omar was forced to apologize in 2019 over a tweet suggesting a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group was paying members of Congress to support the nation.

‘It’s all about the Benjamins, baby,’ she wrote in the tweet. 

Omar has also been criticized for comparing the U.S. and Israel to terrorist groups, accused Israel of terrorism and war crimes, and minimized the actions of the 9/11 hijackers.

‘We watch antisemitism grow, not just on our campuses, but we watched it grow In the halls of Congress,’ McCarthy told the Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2022 leadership meeting in Las Vegas in November, referencing Omar.

‘I promised you last year that as speaker she will no longer be on Foreign Affairs, and I’m keeping that promise,’ he said to cheers.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Friday that the Big Apple is at its ‘breaking point’ as record numbers of migrants continue to arrive. 

The leader submitted an emergency mutual aid request to New York State for immediate help this weekend to shelter the asylum seekers. 

‘We are at our breaking point. Based off our projections, we anticipate being unable to continue sheltering arriving asylum seekers on our own and have submitted an emergency mutual aid request to the State of New York beginning this weekend,’ he said in a statement. ‘This type of request, reserved only for dire emergencies, asks the state for support to shelter arriving asylum seekers as the city faces an immediate need for additional capacity. Our initial request is for shelter to accommodate 500 asylum seekers, but, as New York City continues to see numbers balloon, this estimate will increase as well.’

The city reportedly received more than 3,100 asylum seekers in the past week, with 835 arriving last Thursday alone. 

That marks the arrival in a single day since the influx began.

‘Three months ago, I spoke directly to New Yorkers about the crisis of asylum seekers that has driven our shelter system to record levels and strained our city. On that day, I said we would surpass the highest number of people in recorded history in our city’s shelter system and that every day after we would set a new record,’ Adams said. ‘We are now seeing more people arrive than we have ever seen — averaging over 400 people each day this last week, with 835 asylum seekers arriving on one single day alone, the largest single-day arrival we’ve seen to date. All this is pushing New York City to the brink.’

Since the spring of 2022, he noted that the city had taken in around 40,000 asylum seekers, opening 74 emergency shelters and four humanitarian relief centers.

‘The absence of sorely needed federal immigration reform should not mean that this humanitarian crisis falls only on the shoulders of cities,’ Adams added. ‘We need support and aid from our federal and state partners and look forward to working together to meet this crisis head-on.’

According to Politico, Adams said the cost to handle the asylum seekers is approaching $2 billion, and called the lack of a federal response to the crisis ‘inhumane’ and ‘irresponsible.’

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s time in charge of the gavel is off to a running start as Republicans in the chamber shook off the intra-party fighting that marked the start of January — and scored a productive first week in the majority.

The start of 2023 was a rocky one for the Republicans as, despite taking the chamber, a feud over who should be speaker dragged on for days and became a national political spectacle — and one that was relished by the Democratic minority.

But with McCarthy elected speaker at the end of last week, Republicans looked to shift into gear this week, beginning first with an ambitious new rules package on day one.

That package, which ultimately passed, overhauled operations in the chamber and took aim at measures put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. The package abolished proxy voting — requiring members to vote in-person- and re-opened the House Gallery.

The package also included a return to a ‘Cut-As-You-Go’ policy that says legislation cannot be considered if it increases mandatory spending over a 5- or 10-year period. This ‘CUTGO’ policy requires bills that call for new spending to find offsetting spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.

Other measures included a lower threshold to force a vote on the speaker, and a more transparent and slower process for considering legislation — members are now given at least 72 hours to review legislation before it hits the floor.  The package brings back the so-called Holman Rule, which allows members to chop specific agencies or even the salaries of specific federal employees when appropriations bills are being considered. The chamber also passed a bill repealing funding marked last year for the Internal Revenue Service, potentially thwarting the hiring of tens of thousands of additional employees for the agency.

A day later, Republicans established two select committees. The first was a select committee on the strategic competition with China. The second was to establish a subcommittee on ‘the Weaponization of the Federal Government as a select investigative subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary.’

The latter is expected to investigate not only how the executive branch has gathered information on citizens, but how it has worked with other bodies – including private sector companies – to ‘facilitate action against American citizens.’

The resolution states that the committee will investigate how the executive branch agencies ‘collect, compile, analyze, use, or disseminate information about citizens of the United States, including any unconstitutional, illegal, or unethical activities committed against citizens of the United States.’ It will also have subpoena power.

On Wednesday, Republicans turned to the issue of abortion, passing a bipartisan resolution condemning violence against pro-life centers and a bill to bar healthcare providers from ‘failing to exercise the proper degree of care in the case of a child who survives an abortion or attempted abortion.’

On Thursday, the chamber passed a bill to block the Energy Department sending oil from the U.S. emergency stockpile to China — a bill which also saw bipartisan support with 113 Democrats voting in favor. All bills passed by the House require approval from the Senate — which is controlled by Democrats — and signature by President Biden.

Republicans still have a lot on their agenda. Multiple bills related to the crisis at the southern border were introduced this week, with Republicans also introducing an impeachment resolution against Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and bills to resume and fund border wall construction.

Meanwhile, McCarthy said in an interview this week that he intends to block three top Democrats — Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — from sitting on the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees respectively.

He also said he was open to resolutions that could expunge impeachments of former President Donald Trump, although he noted that there were other priorities on which the caucus was focused.

‘Our first priority is to get our economy back on track, secure our borders, make our streets safe again, give parents the opportunity to have a say in their education, and actually hold government accountable. But I understand why individuals want to do it, and we’d look at it,’ McCarthy said.

Fox News’ Peter Kasperowicz, Brooke Singman and Kyle Morris contributed to this report.
 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a religious liberty case that seeks to make it easier for workers to bring employment discrimination claims when their religious beliefs are not accommodated.

The court will review Groff v. DeJoy, which concerns Gerald Groff, a Christian mailman who says he was wrongfully discriminated against by the U.S. Postal Service after he refused to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays, which he considers to be the Sabbath — a day of worship and rest where work is prohibited.

Groff was employed as an auxiliary mailman in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, from 2012 to 2019. In 2013, USPS contracted with Amazon to deliver packages and workers were required to take Sunday shifts for weekend deliveries. 

Initially he was able to work out an arrangement with his supervisors to transfer to another branch that did not deliver on Sundays. When that branch also began Sunday deliveries, Groff was permitted to miss his shifts provided he could find someone to cover for him. However, Groff was frequently unable to do so and missed over two dozen assigned Sunday shifts. 

Believing that he would be fired for missing Sunday shifts, Groff resigned from his job in 2019. He then obtained representation from the conservative First Liberty Institute, Baker Botts LLP, the Church State Council, and the Independence Law Center, and filed a federal lawsuit against the Postal Service. 

Groff contends USPS could have accommodated his beliefs by scheduling shifts so that he didn’t have to work on Sundays. But the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals held in May 2022 that USPS would suffer an undue hardship if it took further action to accommodate Groff.

Federal law generally prohibits employers from firing workers for their religious practices unless an employer can show that their employee’s practices cannot ‘reasonably’ be accommodated without ‘undue hardship.’ In its 1977 Trans World Airlines v. Hardison opinion, the Supreme Court said an ‘undue hardship’ is imposed on employers whenever the cost of the accommodation is more than a trivial or minimal cost. 

The 3rd Circuit decision said USPS had already provided Groff with a reasonable accommodation and that anything more would place an undue hardship on the post office and Groff’s co-workers. 

Groff wants the Supreme Court to revisit the ‘undue burden’ standard, arguing that it should be easier for employees to bring religious discrimination lawsuits under Title VII. 

‘No American should be forced to choose between their religion and their job,’ said First Liberty senior counsel Stephanie Taub in an August 2022 statement after filing a petition for the Supreme Court to hear Groff’s case. ‘We are asking the Court to overturn a poorly-reasoned case from the 1970s that tips the balance in favor of corporations and the government over the religious rights of employees.’

‘Observing the Sabbath day is critical to many faiths—a day ordained by God.  No one should be forced to violate the Sabbath to hold a job,’ added Randall Wenger of the Independence Law Center.

The case will be heard by a 6-3 majority of Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, who are generally favorable to religious liberty claims. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas have previously indicated a willingness to revisit the court’s 1977 ‘undue burden’ standard. 

A third batch of classified documents was found at President Biden’s residence in Wilmington, Delaware, the president’s attorneys announced Saturday.

Special counsel to the president Richard Sauber disclosed in a statement that five additional pages of documents with classified markings were found at Biden’s home Thursday evening, making a total of six classified documents retrieved from there.

Sauber explained that when Biden’s personal attorneys identified one classified document at Biden’s home on Wednesday, they ‘immediately’ stopped searching for additional documents because they lacked the security clearances necessary to view those materials. 

‘Because I have a security clearance, I went to Wilmington Thursday evening to facilitate providing the document the President’s personal counsel found on Wednesday to the Justice Department,’ Sauber said. ‘While I was transferring it to the DOJ officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages. The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them.’

Additional classified documents were found in Biden’s garage and at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. The discoveries have led to accusations from Republicans that Biden ‘mishandled’ classified materials in the same way that former President Donald Trump was accused of doing, although Democrats dispute this comparison. 

Last year, the FBI executed a search and seizure at Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago and retrieved approximately 300 documents with classified markings – some ‘top secret’ – which the former president had not turned over to the National Archives, as required by law. At the time, Biden had said Trump had been ‘irresponsible.’ Trump’s handling of classified documents is being investigated by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland after the former president announced his candidacy for the White House in 2024. 

On Monday, the Biden White House revealed for the first time that on Nov. 2, 2022, the president’s personal lawyers were packing files from his old office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global engagement, a think tank founded in 2018 by the University of Pennsylvania, when they discovered documents with classified markings in a ‘locked closet’ dated from the time Biden served as vice-president under President Obama. The classified materials were immediately turned over to the National Archives, the White House said. 

On Nov. 4, the National Archives inspector general informed the Department of Justice of the discovery and Garland appointed U.S. Attorney John Lausch to begin an initial investigation. 

Then in December, Biden’s personal attorney Robert Bauer informed Lausch that a second set of documents had been found in the garage of Biden’s private home in Wilmington, Del. Those documents were also turned over to DOJ. 

On Wednesday, Biden’s attorneys found one more classified document at his Wilmington residence, and Sauber discovered the five latest documents on Thursday. That same day, Garland tapped Robert K. Hur, a former U.S. attorney, to serve as special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified materials. 

‘I am confident that Mr. Hur will carry out his responsibility in an even-handed and urgent manner and in accordance with the highest traditions of this department,’ Garland stated.

Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee will conduct its own investigation under the leadership of Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. 

‘We are conducting oversight of the Justice Department’s actions with respect to former Vice President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, including the apparently unauthorized possession of classified material at a Washington, D.C., private office and in the garage of his Wilmington, Delaware, residence,’ Jordan and Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote in a letter sent Friday to Garland.

‘On January 12, 2023, you appointed Robert Hur as Special Counsel to investigate these matters,’ they wrote. ‘The circumstances of this appointment raise fundamental oversight questions that the Committee routinely examines. We expect your complete cooperation with our inquiry.’

Sauber emphasized that Biden’s lawyers have ‘acted immediately and voluntarily’ to turn over all classified materials to the Justice Department. 

‘We have now publicly released specific details about the documents identified, how they were identified, and where they were found. The appointment of the Special Counsel in this matter this week means we will now refer specific questions to the Special Counsel’s office moving forward,’ Sauber said. 

‘As I said Thursday, the White House will cooperate with the newly-appointed Special Counsel,’ he added.  

Fox News’ Kelly Laco contributed to this report.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson acknowledges that his two trips this week to Iowa — the state whose caucuses for a half century have kicked off the GOP presidential nominating calendar — are a sign that he’s seriously considering a White House run.

‘Going to Iowa probably does send some signals that your serious about looking at 2024,’ Hutchinson, who just completed serving eight years as governor, told Fox News.

Hutchinson was interviewed during his Thursday-Friday swing to the Hawkeye State, where he attended Gov. Kim Reynolds second inaugural, and also met with other GOP leaders to help celebrate Republican victories in Iowa in November’s midterm elections. Hutchinson was also in Iowa on Monday, when he addressed a GOP legislative breakfast.

The term-limited governor was succeeded Tuesday by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as the former White House press secretary during then-President Trump’s administration and the daughter of former longtime Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was inaugurated.

Hutchinson said his trips this week ‘give me an opportunity to listen to Iowans and their leaders about the challenges they face and also solutions that they’re looking at.’

The conservative former governor argued that President Biden’s ‘failed polices’ have exacerbated the ‘border crisis and fentanyl that hits Iowa.’ And he also pointed high interest rates, which he blames on what he calls ‘Biden’s economic failures.’

Hutchinson called the reception he received from Iowans ‘very welcoming,’ and he highlighted the ‘connections between an ag state like Arkansas and Iowa, and all that we share together in terms of issues that we face — many of the same values are shared by the communities here. So there’s a real connection.’

His trips this week to Iowa follow a Nov. 16 stop, when he addressed the Westside Conservative Club in Des Moines. He also paid two visits last year to New Hampshire, which holds the second contest in the Republican Party’s presidential nominating calendar. His trips included an April trip to headline the ‘Politics and Eggs’ speaking series at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, a must-stop for White House hopefuls. He’s also traveled to South Carolina, which votes third in the Republican schedule.

A former federal attorney turned two-term congressman who served as Drug Enforcement Administration administrator and Department of Homeland Security undersecretary during then-President George W. Bush’s administration, Hutchinson touts that he’s a ‘consistent conservative.’

Hutchinson, who steered the National Governors Association last year, has been mulling a 2024 White House run for months. He said in a Fox News Digital interview last summer that he wants a role in helping to shape the future of the GOP and ‘that might lead to a presidential campaign down the road.’ 

Asked about his timeline, Hutchinson said this week that ‘I don’t think we have to set an artificial time frame.’ But pointing to the likelihood of presidential forums in the early voting states as early as April and debates possibly starting in July, he added that ‘there is a practical time frame that you look at.’

‘The decisions would need to be made early in the second quarter or sometime in the first quarter,’ he emphasized. ‘I’m not setting an artificial timeframe — I’m wanting to make sure that if I did become a candidate that there would be the kind of financial support that’s needed.’

‘You measure the response to our vision and your message for America as well as making sure that you can be a strong candidate if you did jump in. That’s what I’m doing now,’ he explained.

Former President Donald Trump is already in the GOP presidential nomination race, and there’s a strong possibility that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former South Carolina governor turned former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also end up running for the Republican nomination.

Asked how someone like Hutchinson could compete with bigger names larger war chests, the former governor said ‘you’ve got to work hard and that’s what’s attractive about a place like Iowa. They like to look you in the eye and make a decision. It’s a land of retail politics, which I’m accustomed to. It’s getting to know people and their challenges and presenting your case to them. That’s the beauty of American democracy.’

And Hutchinson emphasized that his decision on running won’t be dependent on any other actual or potential presidential candidate.

‘We’ll make our own decision,’ he said.

Republican lawmakers and gun rights groups blasted the Biden administration over a new rule that tightens regulations on pistol stabilizing braces.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives (ATF) finalized a new regulation Friday that will treat guns with stabilizing accessories like short-barreled rifles, which require a federal license to own under the National Firearms Act. 

The move is part of a comprehensive gun crime strategy President Biden announced in April 2021, in response to the massacre at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where a gunman using a stabilizing brace killed 10 people. A stabilizing brace was also used in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that left nine people dead in 2019.

Announcing the rule, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that stabilizing brace accessories, which were designed to help disabled combat veterans enjoy recreational shooting, transform pistols into short-barreled rifles. 

‘Keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the Department’s highest priorities,’ Garland said. ‘Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to heightened requirements. Today’s rule makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers, and individuals cannot evade these important public safety protections simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles.’

‘Certain so-called stabilizing braces are designed to just attach to pistols, essentially converting them into short-barreled rifles to be fired from the shoulder,’ said ATF Director Steven Dettelbach. ‘Therefore, they must be treated in the same way under the statute.’

Second Amendment advocates were apoplectic over new requirements for gun owners to register existing pistols equipped with stabilizing braces with the government within 120 days, else they must remove the brace or surrender the firearm to ATF. 

‘The Biden administration chose to shred the Constitution today,’ the National Rifle Association said. 

‘Joe Biden is an enemy of our Second Amendment,’ the group added.

Gun Owners of America, which bills itself as the only ‘no-compromise’ gun lobby in Washington, D.C., vowed to file a lawsuit challenging Biden’s new ATF regulation.

‘This admin continues to find ways to attack gun owners. We will continue to work with our industry partners to amplify the disapproving voices in the firearms industry and [Gun Owners Foundation], our sister legal arm, will be filing suit in the near future,’ said Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America. 

‘Pres. Biden just initiated the largest federal gun registration scheme in our nation’s history w/o even the passage of a new law. GOA is actively working with Congress to pass a resolution blocking this rule under the Congressional Review Act,’ added the organization’s director of federal affairs, Aidan Johnston. 

Their cause was taken up by Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who in June 2021 wrote a letter signed by 140 lawmakers expressing opposition to the proposed rule on stabilizing braces.

‘This rule jeopardizes the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners and disabled combat veterans, which is why I led Members of Congress in opposition,’ Hudson said. ‘I will continue to fight against the ATF’s unconstitutional overreach that could turn millions of citizens into felons.’

ATF, however, says that its new rule does not affect stabilizing braces intended for disabled persons.

Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo also condemned the ATF rule. ‘The ATF’s announced rule on pistol braces today is nothing short of a massive executive branch-imposed gun registration and confiscation scheme,’ Crapo tweeted. ‘This is an unacceptable attack on the Second Amendment and law-abiding Americans.’

Gun control advocates praised the new regulation. Everytown for Gun Safety cheered the ATF’s move, saying gunmakers had exploited loopholes in the law to make firearms more deadly.

The rule will go into effect next week, at which point gun owners who own a pistol stabilizing brace will need to register the weapon with ATF or remove the accessory. 

Officials estimated about 3 million stabilizing braces are currently in circulation in the U.S.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.