Henry Kissinger, an esteemed German-born diplomat and statesman known for his transformative role in shaping U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War era, died at 100 on Wednesday. 

A statement released by Kissinger Associates said Kissinger died at his home in Connecticut.

Kissinger, born in Germany in 1923, became a towering figure in American politics and diplomacy and was praised by supporters as a brilliant strategist and condemned by critics as a master political manipulator.

He fled Nazi persecution with his family and settled in the United States in 1938. Educated at Harvard University, he went on to become an academic and a significant authority on international relations.

He served as national security advisor and secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, playing a pivotal role in shaping U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War era. His policy of détente aimed to ease tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union and engage China, altering the dynamics of international relations.

Kissinger played a crucial role in the Vietnam War, actively engaging in negotiations with North Vietnam and overseeing the Paris Peace Accords that facilitated the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. His strategies and choices during this period sparked controversy, drawing criticism for prolonged conflict and civilian casualties.

In 1973, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho for their efforts in negotiating the Vietnam ceasefire. However, Tho declined the prize, citing the absence of real peace.

Kissinger maintained his global influence well after leaving public life, evidenced most recently by his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in July. The Chinese leader greeted the former American diplomat who had celebrated his 100th birthday less than two months prior with deep respect.

‘The Chinese people never forget their old friends, and Sino-U.S. relations will always be linked with the name of Henry Kissinger,’ Xi said at the time.

Kissinger played a leading role in the normalization of diplomatic ties between the U.S. and China under Presidents Nixon and Ford.

By 1980, he told Time magazine, ‘The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.’

Kissinger is survived by his wife, Nancy, whom he married in 1974, and two children, David and Elizabeth, from his first marriage.

Fox News’ Adam Sabes contributed to this report. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing the House GOP majority for the first time in a marathon two-day session behind closed doors to discuss the U.S. government’s handling of COVID-19.

Fauci, the former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will be interviewed by the House Oversight Committee’s select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s taking place across two days on Jan. 8 and 9, with each day set to last seven hours without accounting for breaks, the committee announced on Thursday. 

Fauci also agreed to testify in a public hearing at a later date, the committee said. 

The immunologist was the most public-facing federal health official during the COVID-19 pandemic, under both the Trump and Biden administrations. President Biden ended up elevating Fauci to his top medical adviser, a position he left when he left his other role at the end of 2022.

He ended up taking a large share of blame for the negative impact of public health measures at the time, with his endorsement of lockdowns and school closures since being blamed for significant learning loss among students across the U.S.

Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said Fauci’s testimony was critical to his panel’s investigation of the ‘origin of COVID-19, coercive mandates, gain-of-function type research, scientific censorship, and more.’

‘It is time for Dr. Fauci to confront the facts and address the numerous controversies that have arisen during and after the pandemic,’ Wenstrup said in a statement. ‘Americans deserve trusted public health leaders who prioritize the well-being of our people over any personal or political goals.’

‘Thankfully, retirement from public service does not shield one from congressional oversight nor accountability to the American people. During Dr. Fauci’s upcoming testimonies, honesty is non-negotiable,’ he added.

Wenstrup and Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., began probing Fauci and the Biden administration in February, sending letters to Fauci and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines seeking information related to the theory that COVID-19 originated in a lab in Wuhan, China.

EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Tim Scott and two dozen GOP senators requested a classified assessment on the Biden administration’s plan to ‘deter’ Iranian aggression and prevent the ‘escalation of conflict’ in the Middle East.

Scott, R-S.C., penned a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday after the Biden administration’s move earlier this month to issue a waiver to provide Iran access to approximately $10 billion.

Scott and his 24 Senate colleagues said the Biden administration is lacking a ‘cohesive Iran strategy.’

Scott and the senators pointed out that Iranian proxies have increased their attacks against U.S. personnel in the region. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria have conducted more than 70 attacks against U.S. personnel since October 7.

‘United States forces have responded only three times,’ Scott and the senators wrote. ‘However, at the same time, your administration has inadvisably taken steps to unlock tens of billions of dollars for Iran to fund additional terrorist activities that directly threaten American lives.’

‘The decision to extend this waiver and allow Iran to convert Iraqi Dinars to Euros was signed the day after U.S. Central Command carried out its latest strike against facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other Iranian proxy groups in Eastern Syria, in response to their attacks against U.S. personnel,’ Scott and his Senate colleagues wrote. ‘Such timing signals to Iran that despite attacks on U.S. service members and out allies, it is business as normal on the economic front.’

The senators said that ‘money is fungible.’

‘Combined with the $10 billion waiver extension, the administration has provided Iran with access to roughly $16 billion in assets over the past four months; assets that can be used—now or in the future—to offset the cost of the Iranian regime’s increase in destabilizing activities across the region,’ they wrote.

But Scott and the senators are demanding the United States take action to prevent the war in Gaza from expanding.

‘A strong signal of deterrence—utilizing military, economic, and diplomatic tools—is needed if we want to stop the attacks against U.S. personnel and prevent the war in Gaza from expanding into a protracted regional conflict,’ they wrote. ‘Unfortunately, the administration’s military and economic responses to Iran and its proxies have not only been disproportionate, they appear to be completely disjointed.’ 

Scott and the senators requested a classified assessment from the State Department, Defense Department and the Treasury Department to break down the administration’s ‘plan to deter Iranian aggression and prevent the escalation of conflict in the Middle East.’

‘This assessment should include an estimation of how Iran has already leveraged—and could in the future leverage—against U.S. persons and interests the tens of billions in assets it now has access to due to your administration’s use of U.S. sanctions waivers and is to be provided in a member or staff-level briefing no later than December 7, 2023,’ they wrote.

Scott was joined by Republican Sens. Roger Wicker; Chuck Grassley; Mike Crapo; Thom Tillis; Kevin Cramer; Mike Braun; Ted Budd; J.D. Vance; Bill Cassidy; Pete Ricketts; Shelley Moore Capito; John Cornyn; Cynthia Lummis; Bill Hagerty; Marco Rubio; John Hoeven; Roger Marshall; Steve Daines; Ted Cruz; Tom Cotton; John Barrasso; Katie Britt; Joni Ernst; and Deb Fischer.

The letter comes after Scott and his Senate colleagues in August demanded answers from the Biden administration after it released approximately $6 billion in frozen assets to Iran in exchange for American prisoners. Administration officials have said that there is a ‘quiet’ agreement with Qatar to block Iran from accessing the assets, which should be designated for humanitarian aid. 

High-ranking political leaders in Russia paid respects to the late Henry Kissinger following the announcement of his death on Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke glowingly of the former U.S. politician in a statement released from The Kremlin on Thursday.

Putin praised the German-born American diplomat, academic and presidential adviser — who served as secretary of state for two presidents — as an ‘outstanding diplomat, a wise and far-sighted statesman.’

‘For many decades, he enjoyed a well-deserved reputation around the world,’ Putin said of Kissinger. ‘A pragmatic approach to foreign policy is inextricably linked with the name of Henry Kissinger, who at one time made it possible to achieve détente amid international tension, to forge the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to strengthening global security.’

‘Détente’ — French for ‘relaxation’ — refers to campaigns to ease tension between Western allies and the Soviet Union during the Cold War era.

Putin was joined by his presidential predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, in honoring the former secretary of state.

Medvedev commented on Kissinger’s passing on Thursday via social media.

‘Henry Kissinger has died,’ Medvedev said. ‘He has faithfully served his country for many years. At the same time, he was a pragmatist who took realities into consideration, and not just followed the U.S. foreign policy canons.’

He added, ‘Now, there aren’t even traces of the people like him in the U.S. Administration and the Western world. Rip’

Kissinger is survived by his wife, Nancy, whom he married in 1974, and two children, David and Elizabeth, from his first marriage.

Fox News Digital’s Adam Sabes contributed to this report.

House Republicans are expected to huddle behind closed doors Friday morning to discuss holding a vote formalizing an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, Fox News Digital has learned.

Three sources familiar with discussions said GOP leaders are strongly considering a House-wide vote to approve an investigation into Biden. 

The Friday morning meeting is expected to see chairmen of the three committees probing Biden and his family — Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky.; Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo. — to make their case to the House GOP Conference. 

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., directed the House to open an impeachment inquiry into Biden in September, but the White House has dismissed the probe as illegitimate without a formal vote on the matter. 

GOP leaders believe that holding a House-wide vote on formalizing the impeachment inquiry would make it harder for the Biden administration to resist House Republicans’ subpoenas and requests for information, one source explained.

And moderate Republicans have indicated they see enough need to investigate Biden to support Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., holding a vote on an inquiry.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., whose district is anchored in Miami, told Fox News Digital, ‘There’s plenty of smoke coming out of the White House which justifies an impeachment inquiry.’

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., whose district was narrowly won by Biden in 2020, is also supportive of opening a formal impeachment inquiry. 

‘Since the administration has started stonewalling in the last couple of weeks, we need the impeachment inquiry to compel them to provide information. Ultimately, this is what voters need to know come next November, and the inquiry will get information,’ Bacon told Fox News Digital.

The vote would just affirm House GOP support for investigating Biden and would not in itself see the president impeached.

A Republican lawmaker told Fox News Digital they believe there is enough support for such a measure to pass. 

A second GOP lawmaker stressed that no decision has been made and that the formal impeachment inquiry vote was still in a ‘discussion’ phase. 

At their weekly press conference on Wednesday, GOP leaders along with Comer, Jordan and Smith laid out their case for investigating the president and his family, accusing them of profiting off of his time as vice president.

‘This impeachment inquiry, led by the chairmen here today, James Comer, Jim Jordan and Jason Smith, continues to provide the American people the answers they both demand and deserve. They have found over $10 million from China, Russia, Ukraine and Romania funneled through a corrupt influence-peddling scheme to line the pockets of the Biden crime family,’ GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said.

Biden and his allies have denied any wrongdoing. The White House panned the inquiry as a ‘baseless fishing expedition’ in a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday.

‘This is yet another sad attempt by extreme House Republicans to try to distract from their own chaos and dysfunction, including whether to expel their own member and how they are yet again on a path to shut down the government,’ White House spokesman Ian Sams said.

‘Their baseless fishing expedition targeting the President has been going on for an entire year and, over and over again, their allegations of wrongdoing by President Biden have been thoroughly debunked. House Republicans have already proven this is an illegitimate exercise not rooted in facts and the truth but only in a political desire to smear the President with lies, and the American people see right through it.’

The speaker’s office did not return a request for comment.

The White House is not seeking to place conditions on U.S. military assistance to Israel, the White House clarified this week, despite President Biden suggesting days earlier that the U.S. would consider doing so.

Several Democrats have pushed conditions as the civilian death toll in Gaza from Israel’s war against Hamas climbed but national security adviser Jake Sullivan told lawmakers on Tuesday that the White House is not seeking any conditionality.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who was among a group of about a dozen senators who met privately with Sullivan on Tuesday, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Sullivan ‘made it clear that the White House is not asking for any conditionality in aid. So I want to leave that very clear.’

Last week, Biden told reporters that conditioning military aid to Israel was a ‘worthwhile thought’ and suggested that had he intervened in negotiations by doing so, it would have been more difficult to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Sullivan’s clarification is the second time this week that the White House has appeared to walk back Biden’s comment on possibly conditioning future Israel military aid.

On Monday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was directly asked if Biden was considering conditioning aid and what the president meant by a ‘worthwhile thought.’

‘What he also said, right after acknowledging that it was ‘a worthwhile thought,’ was that the approach he has chosen to take so far has produced results and outcomes,’ Kirby said.

He added: ‘The approach that we’re taking with Israel and, quite frankly, with our partners in the region is working. It’s getting aid to people that need it. It’s getting a pause in the fighting. It’s getting hostages out. It’s getting Americans out.’

During the virtual meeting, Sullivan shared how the Biden administration would continue sending aid and assistance to Israel after its current cease-fire agreement ends with Hamas in Gaza.

The meeting was held via a teleconference in which Sullivan was at the White House and senators were in a classified room on Capitol Hill.

After the meeting, Van Hollen was joined by two other senators – Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I. – in asking President Biden to share his position and views publicly

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country intends to continue its ground offensive from northern to southern Gaza when the current cease-fire ends.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Republican senators are up in arms over an effort by Democrats to subpoena billionaire Harlan Crow and conservative activist Leonard Leo over their ties to luxury travel and gifts accepted by Supreme Court justices. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to subpoena the conservatives after consideration of several judicial nominees. Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in his opening remarks the subpoenas are ‘key pieces of our legislative effort to establish an effective code of conduct’ for the Supreme Court. 

‘I don’t buy anything you just said,’ Ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., replied. ‘Let’s just be real blunt and direct: This is garbage.’ 

Democrats have long sought to cross-examine Crow, a Republican megadonor, and Leo, the vice president of the Federal Society, as part of an ethics probe into allegations that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito failed to disclose luxury vacations paid for by the conservatives, their friends. 

A spokesperson for the Office of Harlan Crow slammed the approved subpoenas as ‘unlawful and partisan’ after the committee vote. 

‘The Judiciary Committee Democrats’ violation of the Committee’s own rules to issue an invalid subpoena further demonstrates the unlawful and partisan nature of this investigation,’ the spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘Despite the unenforceability of the subpoena, Mr. Crow remains willing to engage with the Committee in good faith, just as he has consistently done throughout this process. Mr. Crow offered extensive information responsive to the Committee’s requests despite his strong objections to its necessity and legality. So far, Committee Democrats have been dismissive of Mr. Crow’s good faith offer and unwilling to engage in constructive dialogue,’ Crow’s office continued.  

‘Committee Democrats have made intrusive demands of a private citizen that far exceed any reasonable standard and to this date have not explained why this request is necessary to craft legislation, particularly now that the Committee has completed its work on ethics legislation. Still, Mr. Crow maintains his readiness to discuss the matter further with the Committee.’

Thursday’s vote comes weeks after the Supreme Court issued a new ‘Code of Conduct’ in response to months of heightened scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers and news reports. Durbin said the self-imposed ethics code ‘falls far short’ and urged Congress to impose more rigorous standards on the high court. 

Republicans have panned Democrat-sponsored legislation, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency (SCERT) Act, as a ‘court-killing machine’ that would ‘destroy the legitimacy of the conservative court.’ They argue that federal judges are already bound to an ethics code, including Supreme Court justices, and that an act of Congress on the judiciary would unconstitutionally infringe on a separate and co-equal branch of government. 

Ahead of the hearing, GOP senators introduced more than 170 amendments in what Durbin told reporters was an attempt to delay the subpoenas. 

‘It’s an indication that they’re determined to delay any opportunity to serve a subpoena on Leonard Leo and others who are engaged in this,’ Durbin said. ‘I just think they are afraid, very afraid that there was information that could be controversial and harmful.’ 

But Republicans lambasted the Democrat-led effort as political theater. ‘I call it subpoena palooza,’ Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told reporters outside the hearing room. 

Graham challenged Democrats, saying that if they were serious about the allegations against Thomas and Alito, they would bring the SCERT Act up for a vote. ‘Why hasn’t the majority leader brought up the bill that all of y’all voted for to fix this problem?’ he demanded, later supplying that Democrats won’t advance the bill because it lacks enough support to pass in the Senate. 

‘I don’t know who’s driving the train on your side, but you’re driving the committee off into a ditch,’ Graham added, calling the subpoena vote a ‘joke.’ 

Fox News’ Tyler Olson, Fox News Digital’s Cameron Cawthorne and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is taking aim at Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry for jetting off to lead the U.S. delegation at the annual United Nations conference in Dubai.

In a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday, Ernst accused Kerry and the Biden administration of hypocrisy for flying on airplanes to attend the U.N.’s COP28 summit where delegates are expected to condemn fossil fuels and push green energy alternatives. Kerry is leading the U.S. delegation which includes Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House clean energy czar John Podesta, among other senior officials.

‘Once again, the Biden administration exposes the hypocrisy of their own radical green fantasy,’ Ernst told Fox News Digital. ‘Joe Biden’s Climate Czar is jetting off again emitting the greenhouse gases he warns against, wasting taxpayer dollars, and undermining U.S. strength on the world stage. While the Biden administration’s weakness has caused chaos across the globe, President Biden doubles down on combating climate change instead of terrorism.’

‘Just another area where he allows China, the world’s largest polluter, to eat our lunch in lip service to the radical green wing of his own party,’ she said. ‘Make no mistake, virtue signaling is no virtue, and Americans have had enough of an administration with their head in the clouds. It’s time for Biden bureaucrats to face the facts, as terrorists threaten the safety and security of Americans, fossil fuels are not the enemy.’

COP28 kicked off on Thursday and is slated to take place over the next two weeks through Dec. 12. Ahead of the summit, U.N. officials led by Secretary General António Guterres have raised the alarm about the risks posed by global warming and the summit is expected to garner agreements to curb fossil fuel reliance in the coming years.

During remarks on Thursday, Guterres said global warming should ‘send shivers down the spines of world leaders’ and added that the world is living through ‘climate collapse in real time.’ His comments came shortly after the World Meteorological Organization declared 2023 the warmest year ever recorded in an announcement as the conference began and a day after Kerry outlined his ambitious goals for the summit.

‘It’s safe to say that there literally will be hundreds of initiatives that will be announced, many of them coming from the United States but also many coming from other parts of the world, and I think it’s going to be a very exciting presentation of a global effort that is taking place, even though it’s not happening fast enough or big enough yet,’ the U.S. climate czar told reporters Wednesday.

‘What is very clear to us — and we will be pushing this the next two weeks that we are here negotiating — we have to move faster,’ Kerry added. ‘We have to be much more seized of this issue all around the planet. There’s too much business as usual still.’

The summit comes one year after COP27, last year’s U.N. climate summit in the luxurious resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, that Kerry, President Biden and hundreds of other U.S. government officials attended. 

Following that summit, Ernst and fellow Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., asked the Government Accountability Office to determine and disclose the total carbon footprint of the trip. However, the agency released a report in June stating it couldn’t fulfill the request because the State Department, which houses Kerry’s climate office, hasn’t created a mechanism for tracking such information.

In December 2021, Biden signed an executive order to require federal agencies to track and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from travel.

‘Joe Biden and his officials say they are addressing an ‘existential’ crisis by participating in climate conferences, all while traveling on private jets to and from the conferences,’ Cotton said at the time. ‘The Biden administration should instead focus its efforts on American energy production — or at the very least, let American taxpayers know about the private travel they are paying for.’

In his role as special presidential envoy for climate, Kerry regularly travels around the world, attending high-profile climate summits and diplomatic engagements in an effort to push a global transition from fossil fuels to green energy alternatives.

He has also received criticism for his use of a private jet owned by his family. According to flight tracking data obtained by Fox News Digital in July 2022, a Gulfstream GIV-SP jet owned by Kerry’s family made a total of 48 trips that lasted more than 60 hours and emitted an estimated 715,886 pounds, or 325 metric tons, of carbon over the course of the Biden administration’s first 18 months.

However, one month after the Fox News Digital report that highlighted the jet’s extensive carbon footprint, and after lawmakers blasted Kerry for apparent hypocrisy, the Gulfstream jet was sold to an energy-focused hedge fund in New York City. Whitney Smith, a State Department spokesperson, confirmed the sale in a statement earlier this year and said Kerry travels commercially in his current role.

Kerry’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Congressional hardliners on the left and right are uniting in opposition to talks of saving a controversial surveillance tool of the U.S. government by linking it to an annual must-pass military and defense bill. 

The House of Representatives is no stranger to public division, but it’s rare for issues to unite progressives and conservatives like this. 

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) has been both credited with preventing terror attacks on U.S. soil and accused of being a vehicle for spying on U.S. citizens. 

It lets the government keep tabs on specific foreign nationals outside the country without first obtaining a warrant to do so, even if the party on the other side of those communications is an American on U.S. soil.

The program expires at the end of this year if not reauthorized. Multiple sources told Fox News Digital that congressional leaders are discussing punting that fight until early 2024 by attaching a temporary extension of FISA to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The NDAA is an annual bill laying out priorities for the Pentagon and other U.S. defense programs.

Freedom Caucus Policy Chair Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital that he believes that combining the two would ensure the least conservative of each was passed.

‘They want to use clean FISA, which I oppose. But a thirty- to sixty-day extension of FISA while we negotiate reforms, not the end of the world if it’s standalone, right? Because then it’s kind of staying on its own merit. I can vote no, maybe it passes,’ Roy explained.

‘But if you take FISA and you add it to the NDAA, and we know that the NDAA is going to be stripped of our fixes on our side on abortion tourism, transgender surgeries, DEI, critical race theory…you’re using the fear of the security of this country under FISA collection of data, and you’re using that extension to pass a crap NDAA bill,’ Roy continued.

Critics of FISA on both the right and have claimed it encroaches on Americans’ civil liberties, specifically if the FBI conducts warrantless surveillance on communications between Americans and foreign nationals.

A letter objecting to combining the measures was signed by more than 50 lawmakers on Wednesday, led by Reps. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, along with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.

‘A temporary extension would be entirely unnecessary, and it would be an inexcusable violation of the public’s trust to quietly greenlight an authority that has been flagrantly abused,’ the letter addressed to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said.

‘If Section 702 is to be reauthorized for even a single day, it must be through standalone legislation subject to robust, open debate and amendment.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson’s office to confirm the discussions but did not immediately hear back.