Heritage Foundation Files Emergency Court Motion To Get Biden–Hur Audio Tapes

 by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has filed an emergency motion in a Washington court seeking to accelerate the release of audio tapes of President Joe Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur, over which the White House recently asserted executive privilege.

The emergency motion, filed on May 17 at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to modify the court’s briefing schedule for three pending Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits that seek the audio recordings of roughly five hours of interviews that President Biden had with the special counsel in relation to a classified documents mishandling probe.

The motion seeks to speed up the court battle over the release of the tapes, with The Heritage Foundation arguing in the filing that President Biden’s assertion of executive privilege over the tapes on May 16 adds urgency to the FOIA lawsuits and that the Department of Justice (DOJ) didn’t need as much time to prepare its response to the FOIA requests as it previously claimed.

“The Department’s asserted time constraints were misleading,” The Heritage Foundation attorneys wrote in the motion. “The Department did not need the time to prepare a position and declarations it twice told the Court it did. A formal assertion of Executive Privilege is an extraordinary undertaking.”

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly has set a schedule for the FOIA lawsuits that gives the DOJ until May 31 to submit filings in support of withholding the tapes. It also allows various other filings to be made through July 29. In their emergency motion, Heritage Foundation attorneys asked that the schedule be modified to give the DOJ until May 27 to make their arguments and that the deadline for all other filings be set at July 1.

The tapes are at the center of a dispute between House Republicans and Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has defied a subpoena for them and faces contempt proceedings.

House Republicans have said that they want to obtain the recordings to verify Mr. Hur’s assertions that President Biden couldn’t recollect certain facts during the interview. They have alleged that a two-tiered justice system exists because Mr. Hur opted to not charge President Biden while former President Donald Trump faces multiple charges in connection with his own classified documents probe.

“At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the special counsel wrote in his 388-page report, which found that President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” when he was a private citizen after the end of his term as vice president during the Obama administration.

Mr. Hur, who faced criticism from Democrats and the White House for remarks on the president’s cognitive capacity in his report, didn’t recommend charges against President Biden, in part because of his ailing memory.

While Republicans have said that they want the tapes to verify Mr. Hur’s assertions, Democrats have argued that Republicans want to use the tapes in campaign ads to portray President Biden as a frail leader with a poor memory who’s too old to serve another term in the Oval Office.

Mr. Hur revealed in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in March that White House officials sought to soften his report’s characterizations of President Biden’s ailing memory.

More Details

President Biden on May 16 asserted executive privilege over the interview tapes, with the White House counsel’s office notifying House Republicans of the move just hours before they were expected to recommend holding Mr. Garland in contempt for refusing to hand them over.

Mr. Garland and White House Counsel Ed Siskel defended the executive privilege assertion as necessary because it could affect future investigations. In a May 15 letter to the president, Mr. Garland said that the “committee’s needs are plainly insufficient to outweigh the deleterious effects that the production of the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations in the future.”

President Biden’s counsel accused House Republicans of wanting the tapes to craft political attack ads.

“The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal—to chop them up, distort them, and use them for partisan political purposes,” Ed Siskel, President Biden’s counsel, wrote to Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) in a May 16 letter. “Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally-protected law enforcement materials from the Executive Branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.”

Still, the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Mr. Comer, and the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Mr. Jordan, both voted on May 16 to hold Mr. Garland in contempt of Congress despite President Biden’s executive privilege intervention.

In their court filing, Heritage Foundation attorneys argued that the fact that the House committees voted to recommend holding Mr. Garland in contempt “adds to the compelling and already extraordinary interest in the disclosure of the audio recording.”

The contempt measure would still need to pass the House before a referral is made to the DOJ, and it remains unclear whether House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) would bring a resolution to the floor.

Mr. Johnson has been critical of efforts to block the release of the tapes.

“President Biden is apparently afraid for the citizens of this country and everyone to hear those tapes,” he said at a press conference.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/conservative-group-files-emergency-court-motion-get-biden-hur-audio-tapes

Trump foreign policy advisers met Israeli PM Netanyahu, source says

 Three former U.S. foreign policy officials in Donald Trump's administration met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other public figures in Israel on Monday, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

The delegation was comprised of Robert O'Brien, who served as Trump's fourth and final national security adviser, as well as former Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates John Rakolta and former Ambassador to Switzerland Ed McMullen, said the person, who requested anonymity as the trip's itinerary was not public.

In addition to Netanyahu, members of the delegation were set to meet with Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and several other Israeli officials, the person said.

Among the main goals of the trip was to obtain a better understanding of Israel's complex domestic political situation, said the person familiar with the visit. Netanyahu's coalition is beset by internal disagreements, with many Israelis blaming his government for failing to prevent an Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

It was a rare case of Trump allies traveling abroad as part of an organized delegation to meet foreign officials. It took place amid strains between Israel and the Biden administration about Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza.

On Monday, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor in The Hague said he had requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his defense chief and three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders have dismissed allegations of war crimes, and representatives of both sides criticized the action. It was not immediately clear if the Monday meeting occurred before or after that announcement.

More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's seven-month-old assault on the Gaza Strip, say health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave. The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 others, of whom well over 100 are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

It was unclear what the delegation of Trump allies discussed with the Israelis. The person said the group was not acting at the former president's request and had no message to deliver to Israeli officials. But all serve as informal advisers to Trump, and the former president will likely receive a readout of the meetings, the person added.

TRUMP'S VIEWS

Trump has occasionally criticized Israel over its operation in Gaza, and he has faulted Netanyahu for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack. But Trump, the Republican candidate for president, consistently portrays himself as a more reliable ally to Israel than Democratic President Joe Biden, his rival in the Nov. 5 election.

The White House declined comment when asked about the meeting. The Israeli prime minister's office did not respond to a request for comment.

During Trump's 2017-2021 White House term, the U.S. moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a long-held conservative goal that delighted Israelis and infuriated Palestinians.

Rakolta, the former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, played a major role in the Abraham Accords, agreements signed during the Trump years, which normalized bilateral relations between Israel and both Bahrain and the UAE.

O'Brien has emerged as one of Trump's top foreign policy advisers, and he will likely play a significant role in a second Trump term should he return to office, according to several people with knowledge of their relationship.

Foreign officials have regularly talked with Trump or his advisers in recent months to get a better sense of his likely policies should he return to the White House.

British Foreign Minister David Cameron, for example, met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in April, where they discussed the war in Ukraine and the future of NATO.

Former senior officials traveling abroad to meet with foreign officials is relatively rare during moments of geopolitical turmoil, said Jeremi Suri, a presidential historian at the University of Texas.

Such meetings would be considered extremely sensitive, he said, as the U.S. government typically prefers that there only be one point of contact with a foreign counterpart.

"To go and meet with the leadership at this level, I have a hard time coming up with examples like that," he said.

The 1799 Logan Act permits Americans outside the government to meet foreign officials but it also limits their ability to negotiate U.S. disputes with foreign governments.

The delegation was engaged purely in fact-finding and relationship building and had no interest in getting involved in policy, the source said.

The Biden administration, while initially steadfast in its support, has expressed misgivings with elements of Israel's war strategy in recent months. This month Biden paused shipments of thousands of bombs to Israel in response to Israel's decision to expand its assault on the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.

That pause prompted Trump to accuse Biden of abandoning an ally.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-donald-trump-foreign-policy-172808904.html

US says it was 'unable' to provide Iran assistance after helicopter crash

 The United States on Monday said it had been unable, due largely to logistical reasons, to accept an Iranian request for assistance following a helicopter crash over the weekend that killed President Ebrahim Raisi, as Washington offered its condolences.

The rare request from Iran, which views the United States and Israel as its main adversaries, was disclosed by the State Department at a news briefing.

"We were asked for assistance by the Iranian government. We did make clear to them that we would offer assistance, as we would do in response to any request by a foreign government in this sort of situation," spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

"Ultimately, largely for logistical reasons, we were unable to provide that assistance," Miller said, without elaborating.

The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six other passengers and crew, was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.

Iran has still not provided any official word on the cause of the crash of the U.S.-made Bell 212 helicopter in mountains near the Azerbaijan border.

Asked whether he was concerned that Tehran might blame Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said: "The United States had no part to play in that crash."

"I can't speculate on what may have been the cause," he added.

The crash comes at a time of growing dissent within Iran over an array of political, social and economic crises. Iran's clerical rulers face international pressure over Tehran's disputed nuclear program and its deepening military ties with Russia during the war in Ukraine.

Still, Austin played down any U.S. concerns that the crash might have immediate security implications in the Middle East.

"I don't necessarily see any broader, regional security impact at this point," he said.

Under the Islamic Republic's constitution, a new presidential election must be held within 50 days.

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran scholar at the Brookings Institution think tank, said Khamenei and Iran's security services would seek to avoid any perception of vulnerability during the transition period.

"As a result, I'd expect a skittish, reactive Iran that may be more risk-averse in the near term but paradoxically more dangerous if it perceives itself on the defensive," Maloney said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-says-unable-iran-assistance-194308491.html

Health-tech startup Tempus AI files for a $100 million IPO

 Tempus AI, which provides data and analytics tools for precision medicine, filed on Monday with the SEC to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering.

Tempus is focused on unlocking the power of precision medicine through the practical application of artificial intelligence in healthcare, resulting in the creation of its Tempus Platform. The platform includes proprietary software and dedicated data pipelines that create a network of healthcare institutions through approximately 450 unique data connections across more than 2,000 healthcare institutions. This proprietary technology has allowed Tempus to amass what it considers to be one of the largest libraries of clinical and molecular oncology data in the world.

The Chicago, IL-based company was founded in 2015 and booked $562 million in revenue for the 12 months ended March 31, 2024. It plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol TEM. Tempus AI filed confidentially on September 1, 2021. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Allen & Company, BofA Securities, TD Cowen, Stifel, and William Blair are the joint bookrunners on the deal. No pricing terms were disclosed.

Relevant Profile: TEM

https://www.renaissancecapital.com/IPO-Center/News/104792/Health-tech-startup-Tempus-AI-files-for-a-$100-million-IPO

Court Ruling Means Cal. Schools Can Violate Students' Rights When Following Public Health Orders

 by Kristin Lang via The Epoch Times,

As we near the end of the school year, a new court ruling may have some parents rethinking whether they want to enroll their children in California’s public schools this fall.

Those of you living in Southern California will likely remember the case of Aidan Palicke. An academically-gifted Yorba Linda High School student and captain of the track team, Aidan was forced to take his exams outside in 40-degree weather wearing only a t-shirt. School officials singled out Aidan for wearing a formerly acceptable mesh face mask to school during the COVID era.

“I was freezing, and all of the other students were looking at me through the window,” Aidan told me.

“My fingers were in so much pain from the cold that it was hard to concentrate on my exam.”

Aidan said some teachers encouraged his fellow students to ridicule him for not conforming to the mid-year change in masking policy. Aidan said he was hauled into the principals’ office repeatedly, removed from campus, and ultimately forced into a home-based study program against his wishes.

Aidan’s family sued the Placentia Yorba Linda School District (PYLUSD) in March 2022, arguing that some PYLUSD board members colluded to change masking policy mid-year to punish “conservative” students or students whose parents were vocal in opposing various COVID measures at the school.

(L-R) Shari, Aidan, and Chris Palicke. (Courtesy of the Palicke Family)

According to evidence presented in court, confusion ensued across the school district as teachers and school officials selectively enforced this policy, allegedly allowing favored students to wear any mask, or no mask at all. Some school board members testified that they wanted to stop the chaos the new masking policy was creating but were blocked from voting on it by other members of the school board.

“After two years of litigation, an Orange County Superior Court judge who had been ruling in favor of the Palicke family and against dismissal suddenly reversed course and ruled that school officials were immune from liability for their admittedly illegal and abusive actions to students during the COVID era—setting a dangerous precedent,” said Rita Barnett-Rose, an attorney for the Palicke family during a press conference in Orange County on May 13.

“Specifically, Judge Deborah Servino determined that, even though the facts of the case undeniably showed that certain PYLUSD school officials violated their students’ constitutional and civil rights, they were nevertheless entitled to legislative immunity because they were enforcing public health orders.”

Judge Servino further ruled that because the school district has since withdrawn their mask mandate, and Aidan Palicke has already been forced out of the school district, all claims against school officials are “moot,” and Aidan is no longer entitled to be compensated for the harm inflicted on him.

At the PYLUSD board meeting on May 7, school board member Marilyn Anderson, a defendant in the case, announced to a smattering of applause, “The Palicke lawsuit, it’s not in the agenda anymore because it was dismissed by the judge!”

However, the Palicke family is getting some surprising and much-needed support from the new PYLUSD superintendent of schools, Alex Cherniss. In an open letter to the Palicke family on May 8, he called Ms. Anderson’s statement “abhorrent” and “shameful,” writing:

“Dear Mr. and Mrs. Palicke ...

“As an educational leader, I have spent years pushing back against uninformed and overly punitive Covid restrictions that truly damaged our kids. ...

“I found the actions taken by Ms. Marilyn Anderson at the Board of Education meeting last night to be abhorrent. ... Clearly, the announcement of a case dismissal in her board comments violated the Brown Act. ...

“I have no doubt that the purpose of her public statement ... was her way of gloating at the fact that your case was no longer relevant to her or to the school district. Her statement, and the subsequent applause at the expense of your son was truly shameful.”

I reached out to Marilyn Anderson for comment. As of the time this article was published, she had not responded.

The Palicke family is appealing the case despite having used up significant family savings in their quest to seek justice for their child. The Palickes are getting some financial support from non-profit Free Now Foundation, where, in full transparency, I work as editor-in-chief.

The Palicke family and attorneys at a press conference in Orange County, Calif., on May 13, 2024. (Courtesy of Judy Julin)

This week, at the press conference in Orange County, Aidan’s father Chris Palicke vowed to fight on.

“The granting of this motion [to dismiss] was appalling,” said Mr. Palicke. “This means that all schools in California are allowed to abuse and hurt children. We need to fight this and do what’s right not just for my family but for all children.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/court-ruling-means-california-schools-can-violate-students-rights-when-following-public

How Lawfare Turned Trump Into A Superhero

 by Frank Miele via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Last week, President Biden raised the white flag of surrender to Donald Trump when he offered to debate the presumptive GOP nominee in June and September.

No one saw this coming. Trump had been taunting Biden with his offer to debate “anytime, anywhere, any place,” but it was assumed that Biden and his handlers would shy away from the challenge, both because it represented a significant risk that Biden would implode onstage and also because it would give Trump bragging rights.

Naturally, Trump accepted Biden’s offer immediately, and then at nearly the speed of light, it was announced just minutes later that both candidates would debate on CNN on June 27 and on ABC on Sept. 10.

Until then, it was not even certain that debates would take place at all this year, let alone as early as June. Both candidates had grudges against the Commission on Presidential Debates, and the Democrats apparently thought they could avoid the risk of traditional debates as part of their plan to keep his opponent tied up in court throughout the campaign season.

But that scheme was proving to be an albatross. Despite their success at keeping Trump tied down in court, the results have proven less than optimal for Team Biden. The Georgia prosecution for election interference was undermined by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ predilection for highly paid boyfriends and cash-only getaways. The two federal prosecutions by Special Counsel Jack Smith have been stymied in one case by the Supreme Court of the United States doing its job and in the other by District Judge Aileen Cannon doing hers. Neither case has any realistic chance of going to trial before Election Day.

That leaves the New York State prosecution by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who accused Trump of recording legal expenses as legal expenses and claimed without evidence that the legal expenses were somehow fraudulently recorded to cover up some never-disclosed crime that the jury was meant to somehow intuit outside the court record.

After four weeks, we are close to a verdict in that case, and though there is a chance that the Democrat-heavy jury will return a guilty verdict, it seems increasingly unlikely. Star witness Michael Cohen was proven by the defense in cross-examination to be a self-serving, Trump-hating liar whose testimony, even if believed, didn’t prove that Trump committed any crime. I’m betting on a hung jury, with a reasonable chance for an outright acquittal, but even if Trump were convicted it is likely his poll numbers would rise once again.

Face it, the Democrats who threw everything they had at Donald Trump in four courthouses must have been shocked to see him emerging Rambo-like from the smoking wreckage of our justice system. But if they underestimated Trump, it is their own fault.

In fact, the persecution of Trump for his role as the leader of a populist political movement has so angered Republican and independent voters that instead of destroying him, his opponents have elevated him into a superhero – someone virtually impervious to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

If you don’t believe me – or the polls – then watch the video of Trump’s campaign rally in Wildwood, N.J., where he drew a huge crowd three weeks into his so-called “hush money” trial. That’s New Jersey, where no Republican has won the presidential race since Ronald Reagan! But in the most recent polling, Trump is only seven points behind Biden in a state that the Democrat won by 20 points in 2020.

Moreover, the seeming injustice of Trump being turned into a political martyr by his opponents has resonated with the black community. Minority voters and young voters are turning to Trump in part because they see him as the victim of a rigged system, just as many of them have been. If blacks and Hispanics propel Trump to victory, that will be further proof of his superpowers.

Obviously, the Biden campaign has been well aware of the collapse of their party’s blue wall of Democratic prosecutions, and with Hunter Biden going on trial in two separate federal cases in June, it was time to change the narrative. That’s why Biden blinked and unceremoniously agreed to debate Trump practically immediately.

We learned two things from that development. One is predictable: It is a rule of thumb that the candidate who is most anxious to debate is the one who is losing. Joe Biden seems to fit the bill.

But the other lesson surprised some White House watchers. By agreeing to a primetime debate where he will have to respond to difficult questions without a teleprompter, President Biden showed himself for once to be making decisions on his own. It seems unlikely that his so-called handlers would have allowed their candidate to put himself in harm’s way, so the probable explanation is that Biden went rogue.

And so now, for once, the American public will be able to see the president thinking on his feet, and can assess whether he has his full faculties or not. But standing next to Donald Trump, who is on target to escape his scheduled martyrdom, it’s going to be hard for Joe Biden to look like anything except an afterthought.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/how-lawfare-turned-trump-superhero

ATS: Vicore, Endeavor therapies show promise in IPF

 Two experimental therapies from Vicore Pharma and Endeavor BioMedicines that could provide new ways of treating idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) have shown encouraging results in mid-stage clinical trials.

Vicore’s buloxibutid is an angiotensin II type 2 receptor agonist (ATRAG), while Endeavor’s ENV-101 is a Hedgehog (Hh) signalling pathway inhibitor.

Both are trying to improve on current standard-of-care therapies for IPF that may slow the decline of lung function, but do not stop or reverse it, and new data reported at the American Thoracic Society (ATS) 2024 congress provides evidence they may be able to achieve that goal.

The phase 2a trial of buloxibutid showed significantly improved lung function over 36 weeks of follow-up, with an average forced vital capacity (FVC) increase of 216 mL from baseline, reversing the 180 mL decline over that period that would typically be observed in untreated IPF patients.

The drug – taken orally twice a day – was also safe and well-tolerated over 36 weeks of treatment, with no drug-related serious adverse events and good gastrointestinal tolerability, which is an important finding as the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is highly expressed and active in the GI tract due to its pivotal role in the intake and excretion of fluid and electrolytes.

The improvement in FVC – the amount of air that can be expelled in a breath – was backed up by improvements in biomarkers that suggest the drug is working as expected. There was an increase in plasma MMP-13 (also known as collagenase-3), an enzyme that can break down fibrotic lesions, and a decrease in the profibrotic cytokine TGFβ1 over the 36-week period.

Vicore is now moving ahead with a phase 2b trial that will look at FVC changes over 52 weeks and is due to start before the end of the year.

Endeavor, meanwhile,  presented data from another phase 2a trial, showing that ENV-101 achieved a statistically significant increase in total lung capacity (TLC) – the volume of air in the lungs upon the maximum effort of inspiration – above baseline at 12 weeks.

There was an average 200 mL improvement at that time point with the once-daily oral drug, compared to a decrease of 56 mL in a group treated with placebo. Moreover, there was a 1.9% mean improvement in percent predicted FVC from baseline with ENV-101 compared to a decline of 1.3% in the placebo group

The Hh pathway is usually involved in wound healing, but is thought to be abnormally activated in IPF and PPF, causing the build-up of scar tissue in the lungs.

Armed with the new results, Endeavor is now planning to start the WHISTLE-PF trial of the drug, which will include a phased 2b cohort of IPF patients and a phase 2 progressive pulmonary fibrosis (PPF) group.

If the data is backed up in later studies, both drugs have a chance of offering a disease-modifying approach to IPF, which is currently treated with drugs like bronchodilators that can only slow progression and attempt to alleviate symptoms.

Other potentially disease-modifying IPF drugs coming through the industry pipeline include Boehringer Ingelheim’s phosphodiesterase 4B (PDE4B) inhibitor BI 1015550, United Therapeutics’ prostacyclin mimetic treprostinil, and Bristol-Myers Squibb’s LPA1 antagonist BMS-986278 – all of which are in phase 3 testing.

Although IPF is considered a rare disease, there are still around 100,000 people with the condition in the US alone, with up to 20 people per 100,000 affected globally. Meanwhile, the market for IPF drugs was valued at more than $4 billion in 2020, but this is expected to double by the end of the decade.

https://pharmaphorum.com/news/ats-vicore-endeavor-therapies-show-promise-ipf