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--:-- Georgia Howe: A former business partner of Hunter Biden is set to testify before Congress in an ongoing corruption investigation. How much did the president know about his son's overseas business dealings and what was his role in the scandal? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, July 25th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: The Israeli parliament is receiving backlash after passing part of a judicial reform drastically limiting the power of the country's Supreme Court. What's next in Netanyahu's plan, and why is the U.S. asking the prime minister to slow down?
--:-- Georgia Howe: And after threats of legal action from the governor, a small California school district has reversed course on a state-approved curriculum they had originally rejected. This is a call out to parents to keep moving, keep getting involved, get on committees, keep showing up because you will make a difference. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Georgia Howe: In a major development, Hunter Biden's former best friend and business partner will reportedly testify to Congress that Hunter's father, President Joe Biden, took part in dozens of conversations with foreign business partners and investors.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, it seems every month there's a new development in this story. It's sort of in death by a thousand cuts. But this week, we're dealing with a major gash. According to a report from the New York Post, Devin Archer, the former best friend and business partner of Hunter Biden, will testify before Congress this week, offering new details into then-Vice President Joe Biden's alleged role in securing business for the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
--:-- Georgia Howe: According to the Post, Archer will go on the record saying that President Biden was not only aware of Hunter's business dealings, but actually took part in numerous phone conversations with his son and foreign business partners and investors over two dozen times. That testimony would totally contradict President Biden's own account of the story.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Remember, for years now, the president has insisted that he had no knowledge of his son's business dealings and was totally removed from the process. For example, here he is throughout the 2020 campaign. I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Mr. Vice President, how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings? I've never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings. Do you stand by your statement that you did not discuss any of your son's overseas business dealings? Yes, I stand by that statement.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, remember, House Republicans are currently investigating whether the Biden family used their power and influence to score foreign deals. According to Kentucky Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, the upcoming testimony will prove that, quote, Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he knew nothing about his son business dealings
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now the timing of President Biden alleged involvement is also significant. Tell us a little bit about that.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So some of these alleged calls took place at a time when Burisma the company employing Hunter, was under a corruption investigation by the Ukrainian government. In one email from November of 2015, a Burisma executive told Hunter he needed to use his influence to, quote, close down the corruption investigation. A month later, Archer alleges that Hunter put his father on a call with that executive, as well as the company's owner, telling then-Vice President Biden that they, quote, need our support.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That call took place just three days before Biden was set to visit Ukraine for a speech on the, quote, poison of cronyism, corruption, and kleptocracy. And then three months later, Biden famously threatened to withhold a billion dollars in U.S. aid to Ukraine, alleging that the man investigating Burisma was not actually trying to root out corruption.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: He then bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations that he'd used the threat of withholding those funds to force Ukraine's president to fire that prosecutor. I look at him, leave him in six hours. If the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money. Oh, son of a b****. You got fired.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The big question now becomes whether Archer will provide details of what President Biden said on those calls and just how much evidence he can provide to back up his claims.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, how have Republicans responded to this news? Well, GOP lawmakers in the House have been trying to get Archer to testify for months now, issuing three separate subpoenas in an effort to arrange a deposition. But Archer, to this point, has backed out of each, prompting frustration from the House Oversight Committee.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But obviously, they're happy that he's doing so now in such a public manner. As Committee Chair Comer put it, quote, We're looking forward very much to hearing from Devin Archer about all the times he's witnessed Joe Biden meeting with Hunter Biden's overseas business partners when he was vice president.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, more broadly, Republicans say that this is all further proof that Biden used his position as VP to score some of those lucrative business deals for his son. To that point, they note that just two months after Biden left his position as VP in 2016, Burisma cut Hunter's salary in half from $83,000 a month to $41,500.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The Republican states clear evidence that Hunter's role in the company was tied to his ability to secure access to his father while he was in power.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Hey, Tim. So what exactly did the Knesset accomplish yesterday?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, this is a first step. Netanyahu's coalition passed through the first of a few reforms to Israel's judiciary the prime minister has planned. He's had his eyes on court reform for a while. His first attempt came in March, but inspired so much backlash that he paused the reforms to give a chance to negotiators to lower the temperature. Monday's reform was pretty tame. It rescinded the Israeli Supreme Court's authority under what is known as the reasonableness standard.
--:-- Tim Pierce: The Standard has allowed the high court to block any legislation from the Knesset that the court deemed unreasonable. And lawmakers in Israel's right wing have complained for years that the authority is overbroad and arbitrary.
--:-- Georgia Howe: For example, the court invoked it in January to block Netanyahu from appointing an ally as finance minister in his government. The reform passed 64 to zero with unanimous support from Netanyahu's coalition. Opposition lawmakers walked out in protest without registering their votes. All right, so unanimous because of the walkout.
--:-- Tim Pierce: What comes next? Netanyahu's done he still has plenty more reforms he wants to get to but it looks like he moving more deliberately this time after the protests that shut down his plans in March Netanyahu's reforms, if passed, would be the largest overhaul of Israel's judiciary since the country was founded.
--:-- Georgia Howe: He wants to change how members of the Supreme Court are selected and give the Knesset authority to override judicial decisions, among other reforms. Somewhat ironically, there's a push building to have the Supreme Court step in to block the Knesset's reforms. That could put the country into uncharted territory with the Knesset pitted against the judiciary and no clear process out.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Right. Now, you said Netanyahu was being more careful here to avoid the backlash you received last time around. How successful has he been with that?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, he at least got something passed this time. But the protesters are out in force again. Thousands of Israelis have been protesting for the past few weeks over this latest reform push. On Monday, executives from 150 leading Israeli businesses joined the protest by calling for a general strike ahead of the vote.
--:-- Tim Pierce: And in a move that's been particularly concerning to Netanyahu's allies, thousands of military reservists have said they'll drop out if the reforms aren't stopped. Some of the prime minister's coalition members have said the reservist actions amount to a military coup.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Netanyahu suggested something similar in a speech last week when he said the deciding hand in a democracy isn't that which holds a weapon, but the hand that places the ballot in the ballot box.
--:-- Tim Pierce: Here in the U.S., President Biden has urged Netanyahu to not rush the reforms. Why is Biden interested in Israel's internal politics?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, that's not entirely clear. Biden's message seems to be that Israel has a lot more pressing issues to worry about than judicial reform, and Netanyahu's reforms are too divisive.
--:-- Tim Pierce: But Biden and Netanyahu have had a rocky relationship since Biden took office. For example, the two leaders appear to be at odds over a potential revival of the Iran nuclear deal.
--:-- Georgia Howe: We'll see how far Netanyahu gets with these reforms.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: So, Amanda, we left off last week with the Temecula Valley Unified School Board voting 3-2 against this state-approved curriculum, largely because they found it to be too sexualized for elementary kids. But by Friday, the board reversed course and they approved the curriculum.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So what happened?
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Well, numerous school board members have said this approval happened essentially because if they didn't quickly greenlight the state-backed books, the district would be open to legal action. Specifically, they worried they would be in violation of California's Williams Act, which mandates students have equal access to instructional materials and quality teachers.
--:-- Georgia Howe: But there were certainly other factors at play here. As we covered last week, Governor Newsom vowed to purchase the then-rejected books and bill the district with a $1.6 million invoice, and that would be in addition to that $1.5 million fine.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Newsom has also bragged about a civil rights investigation launched by the state's attorney general back in June into why the board rejected the curriculum.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I spoke to Jen Wiersma, one of the trustees who initially voted against the curriculum, and here's what she told me about the pivot.
--:-- Jen Wiersma: I think there was a combination of things that forced us to the table at this point. There just was collusion in the entire process that went from the governor office to the attorney general out to our Riverside County Board of Ed And we felt boxed in
--:-- Georgia Howe: School board president Joseph Komrosky relayed similar pressures when discussing the recent curriculum approval. He said Newsom, AG Rob Bonta, and state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Thurmond are, quote, salivating for the board to make a mistake.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Kamrosky added that he acted to, quote, avoid litigation. So this curriculum was adopted on Friday after an emergency meeting was called. How did that meeting go down? What happened?
--:-- Georgia Howe: Well, four of the five school board members were able to attend on such short notice, and they eventually voted unanimously to approve the curriculum.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: However, the most controversial materials, A chapter for fourth graders on Harvey Milk and other LGBT-related content has been pushed to the end of the school year and will likely be completely removed and replaced.
--:-- Jen Wiersma: The story is that we did a 180 flip, and that's not the case. What we decided to do is take in the curriculum and basically rewrite a fourth grade module and will include LGBT people because you need to as per the FAIR Act. But it will move into a realm that is less controversial.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And we're going to work the best we can to ask for modifications and work to provide the community with a standard that they're more comfortable with within the material.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Now, Governor Newsom is really at the center of this battle. How has he reacted to them changing their mind on this?
--:-- Georgia Howe: The governor's response has been more of the same. Following Friday's vote, he again went after these board members who initially voted against the curriculum.
--:-- Governor Gavin Newsom: The vote exposed their true motives, adding that this was never about parental rights, but about, and this is a quote, extremists desire to control information and censor the materials used to teach our children.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: He also suggested the board members are demagogues who whitewash history, censor books, and perpetuate prejudice, and said because of the school board members, quote, antics, Temecula has a civil rights investigation to answer for.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I asked Wiersma about these attacks from Newsom.
--:-- Jen Wiersma: The governor's statements are outrageous. It has been a surreal thing for me to live through this with the amount of threats and intimidation, you know, the bullying that's gone on, whether it's monetarily through a fine or a lawsuit and the name calling, it's egregious.
--:-- Georgia Howe: There's no other way around it. And if you're looking at someone who wants to run for the president of the United States, people better step back and question this because local authority is the way our founders set up this country.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Well, a really difficult position the school district is in.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Amanda, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Amanda Prestigiacomo: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Another story we're tracking this week. Carly Russell, the nursing student who claimed that she was kidnapped in Alabama while checking on a toddler on the side of the road, admitted to law enforcement that she made up the whole story.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Her attorney provided a statement to law enforcement this week, which stated, quote, There was no kidnapping. Carly did not see a baby on the side of the road and apologizes for her actions.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with more news you need to know.
