South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham sent a letter to each of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed a memo suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. 

‘In your letter, you claimed that the laptop story was ‘Russia trying to influence how Americans vote,’’ Graham’s letter read to former CIA directors Leon Panetta and Michael Hayden, former Director of National Intelligence [DNI] James Clapper and 48 others. 

‘I ask you to respond publicly to one simple question: if you knew then what you know now about the laptop, would you still have signed the October 19, 2020 letter?’ 

Graham, a Republican, has previously suggested yanking the security clearances of officials who signed the letter. 

Vice President-elect JD Vance pledged during the campaign that the incoming Trump administration would strip the clearances of all 51 signatories. 

Over the summer, Fox News Digital asked all 51 officials whether they regretted signing on to the now-debunked letter. 

‘No,’ Obama-era DNI James Clapper responded. 

Mark Zaid, an attorney representing seven of the signatories, said it was ‘patriotic’ for his clients to sign on to the letter. 

‘There continues to be by many a calculated or woefully ignorant interpretation of the October 2020 letter signed by fifty-one former intelligence officials concerning Hunter Biden’s laptop,’ Zaid said. 

Greg Treverton, a signatory who previously served as chair of the National Intelligence Council, defended the letter in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

‘This is very old news,’ Treverton said. ‘What we said was true, we were inferring from our experience, and it did look like a Russian operation. We didn’t, and couldn’t, of course, say it was a Russian operation. Enough said.’

The now-infamous letter had said their national security experience had made them ‘deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.’

‘If we are right,’ they added, ‘this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.’

Despite claims from former officials that the laptop had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, Fox News Digital reported that federal investigators with the Department of Justice knew in December 2019 that Hunter Biden’s laptop was ‘not manipulated in any way’ and contained ‘reliable evidence,’ but were ‘obstructed’ from seeing all available information, according to an IRS whistleblower involved in the probe – nearly a year before the former intelligence officials and President Joe Biden declared it was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

The laptop was introduced into evidence in a Delaware courtroom last week by prosecutor Derek Hines and handed to FBI agent Erika Jensen, who had earlier explained how the FBI authenticated the laptop and extracted data. In the gun trial, she testified about dozens of text messages, metadata, photos and short videos found on phones and iCloud accounts belonging to Hunter Biden. 

The Manhattan district attorney said a Bloomberg report on Tuesday morning claiming that Donald Trump’s sentencing for 34 criminal charges had been ‘adjourned’ was incorrect.

The wire was based on an automated schedule alert sent out by the court that stemmed from a court email from last week saying that all future dates had been stayed, according to the DA’s office.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg is still slated to file a recommendation to Judge Juan Merchan on how to proceed. 

Merchan can move to either delay Trump’s sentencing until after he leaves the White House, can dismiss the conviction outright, or can grant a sentence of unconditional discharge, which would leave the conviction intact but free Trump from any prison time, fines, or probation.

Trump was convicted in May by a Manhattan jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records, stemming from a case about payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, which could have landed him a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison. 

But the presidential race — and Trump’s victory — had thrown the timeline for court proceedings into a fog of uncertainty.

Merchan granted a request from prosecutors earlier this month to stay all deadlines associated with the New York case, including a planned sentencing date of Nov. 26, in wake of Trump’s election victory.

‘The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances,’ prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in their request, which he added  would allow for prosecutors to better evaluate the impact of his election as president.

Trump’s attorneys, who have pushed to vacate the charges against him completely, also backed the stay. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that presidents should enjoy presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for most actions taken as president, further complicating the path forward in the New York case.

The high court ruled that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from any actions taken within the scope of ‘core constitutional powers’ as commander-in-chief. 

A presumption of immunity also applies to other actions taken while holding office, they said.

It is not clear whether a president is to be afforded the same level of constitutional protection for state convictions, however, and the matter has never been tested in court.

Bragg’s office has insisted its case is focused solely on Trump’s personal behavior, not his actions as president. 

Trump, for his part, has repeatedly characterized the case as a politically motivated ‘witch hunt,’ a refrain frequently used by the president-elect in an attempt to discredit his critics, political opponents, and prosecutors at the state and federal level. 

Even if Trump’s convictions were to be upheld, the president-elect has myriad ways to appeal the case or get the charges against him dismissed before the Nov. 26 sentencing hearing — making it all but certain he will face no time behind bars.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to note that the Manhattan DA has confirmed the sentencing had not been adjourned.

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan for a short-term bill to kick the government funding debate into early next year is getting a rocky reception from various corners of the House GOP.

‘That’s not my preference at all,’ Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., President-elect Donald Trump’s former Interior secretary, told Fox News Digital. 

Zinke said a short-term bill that kicks the fiscal year (FY) 2025 government spending fight into early next year could impede Trump’s goal of immediately implementing his agenda in the first 100 days of the new administration. 

‘You’ve always heard the first 100 days is extremely important, and it is. But to be bogged down in the first 100 days dealing with the issues of last Congress, I think it unfortunately doesn’t provide the runway,’ Zinke said.

Johnson told ‘Fox News Sunday,’ ‘We’re running out of clock. Dec. 20 is the deadline. We’re still hopeful that we might be able to get that done, but if not, we’ll have a temporary measure, I think, that would go into the first part of next year and allow us the necessary time to get this done.’

He said a short-term extension of this year’s funding, called a continuing resolution (CR), would benefit Republicans by kicking the spending fight into a period when the GOP controls both Congress and the White House.

Other Trump allies, like Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., are also advocating for a short-term bill to give Republicans full control over this year’s fight.

However, several rank-and-file Republicans like Zinke suggested that dealing with the previous administration’s issues could hinder Trump’s aim of a productive first 100 days.

On the other side of the House GOP, hardliners who previously opposed a CR on principle signaled they would not budge this time, either.

‘I really have to read things before I say whether I’m going to vote on them or not,’ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital. ‘I have never really voted for any CR, so it’s hard for me to support in the first place.’

House and Senate negotiators have done little bicameral work to fund the government for the current fiscal year. Instead, congressional leaders chose to extend the previous deadline of Sept. 30 through late December.

It has caused frustration among some House Republicans who have pushed for Congress to fulfill its duties of setting new fiscal spending directives for FY 2025. 

‘We should have got our business done before,’ Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, told reporters on Monday evening.

Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., suggested kicking the debate into next year could hamper Trump’s ability ‘to hit the ground running,’ but saw little other choice left, given the short amount of time before the Dec. 20 deadline.

Others, like Zinke and Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, are still pushing for a full spending package addressing the current fiscal year’s spending.

‘The smartest thing that I believe that we can do as a conference would be to do an end-of-the year package to clean the entire decks for President Trump when he comes in,’ Miller said. 

‘If we were able to put an end-of-the-year package together and finish the appropriations process, which is our main job in Congress, then the president can get going in January with his agenda and his legislation.’

One senior GOP lawmaker pointed out that a partial government shutdown is a ‘high probability’ if Republicans can’t all get on board with a CR, assuming Democrats do not support one either.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, said when asked about Johnson’s tentative plan, ‘You know I’m not a fan of CRs in any form.’

A federal China commission released its sprawling yearly report to Congress on Tuesday, for the first time recommending lawmakers end China’s favored trade status and the provision that allows goods under $800 to enter the U.S. duty-free.  

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, established by Congress as a bipartisan entity to investigate and provide policy recommendations on China, is now directly advocating for Congress to end the Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) China has enjoyed since 2004.

The committee will pitch its 83 policy recommendations to lawmakers on Tuesday, along with a report on China’s military capabilities, its threats to U.S. allies in the region and how it is exploiting U.S. policy for its own advancement. 

‘For decades we have engaged in whack-a-mole policy working within international organizations and guidelines to address the increasing and ambitious efforts by China to skirt laws or take advantage of trade loopholes,’ commission chair Robin Cleveland said. 

‘In our hearing on the threats to American consumers this year we heard from administration and expert witnesses who were starkly clear: U.S. agencies do not know if the majority of packages coming from China include a baby toy painted with a toxic chemical—a counterfeit piece of clothing made with slave labor—or a pin head amount of fentanyl which is enough to kill the average citizen.’

‘While the administration has existing authority to shut down this flood of troubling products, we have a strong recommendation on legislative action that should strengthen safety and legal protections for consumers and manufacturers.’

The commission also identified an urgent need for AI advancement in the U.S., calling on Congress to establish and fund a ‘Manhattan Project-like program’ to acquire Artificial General Intelligence (AG) capability, defined as systems that would ‘surpass the sharpest human minds at every task.’ 

The prospect of eliminating PNTR, which allowed low-cost Chinese goods to flood U.S. markets throughout the 2000s by giving the CCP the same trade benefits as U.S. allies, faces increasingly likely odds with Republican control of the House and Senate.

Eliminating it would grant the president authority to assess and review whether greater tariffs are needed. President-elect Trump has vowed to drastically increase tariffs on Chinese-made goods. 

The report found that Chinese goods increasingly evade regulatory inspection and tariffs by coming in shipments valued under $800, taking advantage of the ‘de minimus’ exemption in tariff law. 

Eliminating ‘de minimus’ on e-commerce shipments would require Customs and Border Patrol to institute far greater oversight over small-dollar shipments, prompting a request for more resources in Congress. But the report found these shipments are often used to sneak fentanyl into the U.S. 

The U.S. has brought in around $4 million in Chinese goods shipped under ‘de minimus’ per day this year, up from $3 million last year. 

Congress should also consider legislation to eliminate federal tax expenditures for investments in Chinese companies that are on the Commerce Department’s trade blacklist known as the Entity List, per the report. 

Such legislation could eliminate the preferential capital gains tax rate, the carried interest loophole or capital loss carry-forward provisions for companies that are believed to run afoul of U.S. interests or suspected to be stealing intellectual property.  

The report also recommended the U.S. bolster its export controls to deny China access to critical dual-use goods and technologies and ban imports of certain technologies controlled by Chinese entities, like autonomous humanoid robots and energy infrastructure products. 

It urged Congress to direct the administration to create an outbound investment office to oversee dollars flowing to investments in countries of concern and to amend laws to allow the Consumer Product Safety Commission mandatory recall authority over Chinese products. 

Throughout the year, China has increasingly tried to crack down on dissent and ‘sanctions proof’ its economy, in preparation for a future of potential military or economic warfare with the West, the report noted. It conducted violent attacks on Philippine personnel operating within their own exclusive zone, tried to influence Taiwan’s democratic elections and incurred into Taiwanese air space over 2,300 times. 

It launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile test into the South Pacific in more than 40 years. 

Trump has begun to fill out his Cabinet with China hawks. On the campaign trail this year, Trump has proposed a 10% tariff on all U.S. imports and 60% on Chinese-made products.

If Trump successfully raises tariffs to 60%, it could reduce China’s exports by $200 billion and cause a one percentage point drag on GDP, said Zhu Baoliang, a former chief economist at China’s economic planning agency, at a Citigroup conference. 

Last year, China exported about $500 billion worth of goods to the U.S., about 15% of all of its exports. 

Donald Trump’s sentencing for 34 criminal charges in the state of New York was abruptly adjourned by the court Tuesday without explanation, giving the presiding judge additional time to weigh how to proceed. 

The delayed sentencing came on the same day that District Attorney Alvin Bragg was slated to file a recommendation to Judge Juan Merchan on how to proceed.

Trump was convicted in May by a Manhattan jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records, stemming from a case about payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, which could have landed him a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison. 

But the presidential race — and Trump’s victory — had thrown the timeline for court proceedings into a fog of uncertainty.

The presiding judge in the New York case, Judge Juan Merchan, granted a request from prosecutors earlier this month to stay all deadlines associated with the New York case, including a planned sentencing date of Nov. 26, in wake of Trump’s election victory.

‘The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances,’ prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in their request, which he added  would allow for prosecutors to better evaluate the impact of his election as president.

Trump’s attorneys, who have pushed to vacate the charges against him completely, also backed the stay. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that presidents should enjoy presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for most actions taken as president, further complicating the path forward in the New York case.

The high court ruled that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from any actions taken within the scope of ‘core constitutional powers’ as commander-in-chief. 

A presumption of immunity also applies to other actions taken while holding office, they said.

It is not clear whether a president is to be afforded the same level of constitutional protection for state convictions, however as the matter has never been tested in court.

Bragg’s office has insisted its case is focused solely on Trump’s personal behavior, not his actions as president. 

Trump, for his part, has repeatedly characterized the case as a politically motivated ‘witch hunt,’ a refrain frequently used by the president-elect in an attempt to discredit his critics, political opponents, and prosecutors at the state and federal level. 

Even if Trump’s convictions were to be upheld, the president-elect has myriad ways to appeal the case or get the charges against him dismissed before the Nov. 26 sentencing hearing — making it all but certain he will face no time behind bars.

President Biden was not pictured among other world leaders in the traditional ‘family photo’ at the final Group of 20 summit of his presidency on Monday.

Biden arrived along with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after photographers had already finished with the other smiling leaders, who had been positioned on a riser. A senior Biden official said the president did not participate because of ‘logistical issues.’ 

‘Due to logistical issues, they took the family photo early before all the leaders had arrived. So a number of leaders weren’t actually there when they took the photo,’ the official said. 

The official emphasized Biden missed the photo because of bad timing, not because he wanted to avoid taking a picture with some of the U.S.’ top rivals, including Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov or Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Biden’s absence left Jinping front and center among the rows of leaders poised against blue skies and blue water in Rio de Janeiro.

Lavrov stood in the back row, less visible.

Biden and Trudeau arrived together at the designated spot for the photo, standing and looking about for a time. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also did not join in the group photo, a set piece of such summits.

Notably, Biden did not arrive via the red carpet ramp used by other world leaders. Instead, he was seen taking a sharp right turn on his way to the gathering, declining to use the ramp which led to the entrance of the building. 

The official said the president did not use the ramp ‘due to security concerns.’ 

‘Several leaders from high threat — from countries that face high threats did not take the open ramp and instead took a different red carpet route,’ the official said. 

The G-20 summit is a gathering of leaders from the world’s largest economies, who meet to discuss efforts to combat hunger and poverty. In remarks at the summit Monday, Biden called on those present to increase investments in the World Bank, provide debt relief to struggling countries and end conflicts around the world that have contributed to starvation, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said regulators under President Biden should quit doing their jobs to allow President-elect Trump a ‘fresh slate’ when he takes office in January. 

In a letter to Biden on Sunday, Scott said Americans ‘across the country rejected your administration’s radical economic agenda and delivered President Trump and the incoming Congress a clear mandate to usher in a new era of government.’ 

‘Given this mandate,’ Scott wrote, ‘it is incumbent upon you and your administration to ensure that President Trump can implement the agenda the American people voted for by allowing him to take office on January 20th with a fresh slate.’ 

‘To ensure an orderly transition, federal financial and housing regulators should suspend any rulemaking and nomination related activities,’ Scott said. 

As the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Scott said he is calling on the agencies overseen by the committee to ‘cease all rulemaking, including the finalization of any pending or proposed regulations or guidance, and to comply with federal record retention laws and preserve all agency documents, records, and communications.’ He also demanded that all pending nominations within the committee’s purview be withdrawn. 

‘I will not vote for, or advance, any nominees put forth in front of the Committee by your administration,’ Scott wrote. ‘Next Congress I look forward to confirming President Trump’s nominees who will bring about economic opportunity to all Americans.’ 

Copied on the letter were Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell. 

In addition to focusing on the Trump transition, Scott, who was elected as the incoming chair of the Senate Republican campaign committee last week, has taken on a role of looking to increase the GOP majority in the 2026 elections. 

After his fellow GOP lawmakers in the Senate chose him to chair the National Republican Senatorial Committee over the next two years, Scott told reporters that his ‘passion’ is to make sure that Trump ‘does not have two years with a Republican majority in the Senate, he has four years in control.’ Scott told Fox News Digital that ‘what we’re going to do is defend the seats that we have and expand the map so that we can increase the majority brought to us by the Trump victory.’

Republicans won back control of the Senate in this month’s elections, ending four years of majority control by the Democrats. It is expected that once a mandated state recount is completed in the Senate contest in Pennsylvania – where GOP challenger Dave McCormick leads Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by roughly 17,000 votes – the Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate come January.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.