A former top White House advisor to ex-first lady Jill Biden was subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

Anthony Bernal, former assistant to the president and senior advisor to the first lady, was compelled for a July 16 closed-door deposition after missing a previously agreed-upon interview date late last month.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer’s subpoena letter to Bernal read: ‘The Committee seeks information about your assessment of and relationship with former President Biden to explore whether the time has come for Congress to revisit potential legislation to address the oversight of presidents’ fitness to serve pursuant to its authority under Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment or to propose changes to the Twenty-Fifth Amendment itself.’

While the deposition is moving forward Wednesday morning, it’s not guaranteed Bernal will show up until he’s seen in the corridors of the House office building where the meeting is taking place.

Comer, R-Ky., is investigating allegations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back against those claims.

‘Original Sin,’ a book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson, positions Bernal as a fiercely protective aide who was dubbed the leader of the ‘loyalty police’ by other former Biden staffers.

His LinkedIn page lists him as currently working as Jill Biden’s chief of staff in the Transition Office of Former President Joe Biden.

Bernal was originally slated to appear last month for a voluntary transcribed interview, but he and his lawyers backtracked after the Trump administration announced it was waiving executive privilege rights for him and several other former White House staffers.

If he appears, he will be the fourth ex-Biden aide to sit down with House GOP investigators.

Longtime Biden advisor Ashley Williams appeared for a nearly six-hour transcribed interview on Friday, following a brief sit-down by former Biden physician Kevin O’Connor.

O’Connor, like Bernal, appeared under subpoena. His closed-door deposition lasted less than 30 minutes, with the doctor invoking the Fifth Amendment on all questions outside his name.

O’Connor’s lawyers said he did so out of concern for doctor-patient confidentiality. Comer, however, accused him of covering for the octogenarian former president. 

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday issued his latest threat against the U.S. and ‘its dog on a leash, the Zionist regime [Israel]’ as nations urge nuclear negotiations but eye sanctions options. 

‘The fact that our nation is ready to face the power of the United States and its dog on a leash, the Zionist regime, is very praiseworthy,’ Khamenei said in comments translated by Reuters to state TV. 

Khamenei went on to claim that last month’s attack on the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar was just the beginning of what Tehran could throw at Washington and warned that ‘an even bigger blow could be inflicted on the U.S. and others.’

While the U.S. has assessed that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back by up to two years following its strikes on the Fordow atomic site in June – which followed a series of strikes issued by Israel on Tehran’s nuclear and military sectors – much of Iran’s missile capabilities remain intact. 

It is unclear the exact extent that Iran’s missile and drone program was degraded after the Israeli strikes targeted its stockpiles and launching capabilities, but security experts have warned Tehran’s missile and drone programs remain a ‘significant’ threat.

Israel has estimated that even after its strikes, Iran likely still possesses some 1,500 medium-range ballistic missiles and 50% of its launching capabilities, reported Bill Roggio, senior fellow and editor of Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) ‘Long War Journal.’

Similarly, Iranian expert Behnam Ben Taleblu told Fox News Digital that ‘Post strikes, the program still exists and, despite being handicapped, poses a significant regional threat.’

‘This is especially true at shorter distances since Iran’s single-stage solid fuel short-range ballistic are much more precise,’ Ben Taleblu, senior director of the FDD’s Iran program, said. ‘This means that in another iteration of an Israel-Iran-America conflict, the chances of retaliatory strike on U.S. regional bases remains high.’ 

Khamenei’s threats followed similar warnings by other top Iranian officials as western nations mull reinforcing snapback sanctions if Washington is unable to make headway on nuclear negotiations ‘by the end of the summer.’ 

President Donald Trump has said he is committed to continuing talks with Iran to avoid further military action, but on Tuesday evening, he told reporters he’s ‘in no rush to talk’ despite the ever-looming deadline for when a deal needs to be reached. 

Security experts have told Fox News Digital that snapback sanctions pose their own risk as the measure could prompt Iran to withdraw from the world’s largest nuclear agreement – the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which some 190 nations have signed on to.

‘A sustainable and verifiable diplomatic solution that addresses the security interests of the international community is essential,’ the German Foreign Ministry confirmed for Fox News Digital this week. ‘If such a solution is not achieved by the end of the summer, the snapback mechanism will remain an option for the E3.

‘We continue to coordinate closely with our E3 partners on this issue,’ the ministry added in reference to the European nations that signed the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which are France, Germany and the U.K.

President Donald Trump fielded questions about late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case on Tuesday, saying at one point that he supported Attorney General Pam Bondi releasing ‘credible’ files from it.

‘She’s handled it very well, and it’s going to be up to her, whatever she thinks is credible she should release,’ Trump told reporters.

Trump claimed former FBI Director James Comey, former President Barack Obama and former President Joe Biden ‘made up’ some of the files, but no evidence has surfaced that supports that accusation.

The president’s remarks came after the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI’s decision to close their review of Eptsein’s case without disclosing any new information about it to the public sparked fury among the MAGA base.

When she first took office in February, Bondi told Fox News she had a ‘truckload’ of information about the case and did nothing to quell conspiracies about a supposed nonpublic list of sexual predators associated with Epstein.

However, the DOJ and FBI shared a memo last week saying the agencies found no list and uncovered no new people whom they could bring charges against. The revelation was met with intense backlash from a faction of Trump supporters, which Trump and DOJ leadership have since been struggling to quell.

Later on Tuesday, Trump told reporters no credible information was left to release to the public.

‘He’s dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don’t understand what the interest or what the fascination is. I really don’t, and the credible information’s been given,’ Trump said of Epstein’s case files.

Trump added, ‘It’s pretty boring stuff. It’s sordid, but it’s boring.’

Bondi also faced numerous questions from reporters on Tuesday during an event about fentanyl. The attorney general repeatedly said she did not want to address off-topic questions but at one point did say she stood by the DOJ and FBI memo.

‘Today our memo speaks for itself, and we will get back to you about anything else,’ Bondi said.

She also declined to talk about ‘personnel matters’ when asked about FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s status. Bongino was ‘enraged’ by the memo rollout and considered resigning, sources told Fox News Digital last week.

A top aide to former first lady Jill Biden refused to answer GOP investigators’ questions on Wednesday as the House Oversight Committee probes whether senior ex-White House aides covered up signs of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline.

Anthony Bernal, former assistant to the president and senior advisor to the first lady, was compelled for a July 16 closed-door deposition after missing a previously agreed-upon interview date late last month.

His scheduled sit-down came and went quickly, however. Bernal apparently pleaded the Fifth Amendment to the questions asked by House staffers, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., quickly confirmed Bernal invoked his right against self-incrimination in comments to reporters alongside committee member Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., who was also present.

Both criticized Bernal and his lawyer for arguing the Fifth Amendment was not an admission of guilt, and Comer told reporters ‘all options are on the table’ when asked whether the former president himself should be brought in.

‘We’re gonna continue our investigation. I think that the American people are concerned,’ Comer said.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is investigating allegations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back against those claims.

In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, Biden affirmed he ‘made every decision’ on his own.

‘Original Sin,’ a book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson, positions Bernal as a fiercely protective aide who was dubbed the leader of the ‘loyalty police’ by other former Biden staffers.

His LinkedIn page lists him as currently working as Jill Biden’s chief of staff in the Transition Office of Former President Joe Biden.

Bernal was originally slated to appear last month for a voluntary transcribed interview, but he and his lawyers backtracked after the Trump administration announced it was waiving executive privilege rights for him and several other former White House staffers.

‘Now that the White House has waived executive privilege, it’s abundantly clear that Anthony Bernal – Jill Biden’s so-called ‘work husband’ – never intended to be transparent about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and the ensuing cover-up,’ Comer said in late June.

He’s now the second former Biden administration staffer to invoke the Fifth Amendment after ex-White House physician Kevin O’Connor did so last week.

O’Connor’s deposition lasted less than 30 minutes, with the doctor refusing to answer any questions after his name.

But O’Connor’s lawyers argued at the time that it was not an admission of guilt. Rather, they were concerned the scope of the committee’s questioning could force him to violate patient-doctor confidentiality, risking his standing as a physician.

A House Oversight Committee aide pushed back: ‘Doctor-patient objection would have meant he would have stayed and answered questions that didn’t implicate such privilege. Instead, he took the Fifth to all and any potential questions.’

Two other former Biden White House staffers appeared for voluntary transcribed interviews already.

Another, former deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini, was also subpoenaed to appear this Friday.

Late-night dramatics and surprise defections capped off the push to advance President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package through procedural hurdles.

But Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package is not over the finish line yet, as lawmakers are set to begin an hourslong stretch of debate over the bill Wednesday morning. Both sides of the aisle will be allotted five hours of debate, but Republicans are likely to use little of their time compared to Democrats, who will try to drag out the process as long as possible.

At stake are clawbacks that would yank back congressionally approved funding for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting, which Senate Democrats, and some Republicans, have admonished.

The president’s rescissions package proposed cutting just shy of $8 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS.

Republicans have broadly lauded the targets, arguing that they are scraping back funding for ‘woke’ programs that do little more than to gird the government’s spending addiction.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., charged that the cuts in question were ‘just a piece of a larger Republican puzzle.’ 

He said the goal was using more rescissions packages, the president’s impoundment authority and smaller, pocket rescissions ‘that will pave the way for deeper and more serious spending cuts on things like healthcare, food assistance, energy, and so many other areas – and other democratic safeguards will no longer be around.’

‘They are eliminating Democrats from the process – there’s no discussion, no argument, and there’s no safeguards to help the average American,’ he said. ‘It’s just the billionaires running rampant, and we’re getting what they want.’

Before the vote, Senate Republican leaders agreed to carve out $400 million in cuts in global HIV and AIDS prevention funding that leaders hoped would win over holdouts. But it didn’t work for all.

A trio of Senate Republicans defected – Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. – forcing Vice President JD Vance to cast his sixth and seventh tie-breaking votes of the year to keep the package alive.

He will likely be needed again later Wednesday to pass the bill, once lawmakers complete another vote-a-rama, where both sides of the aisle can offer unlimited amendments to the bill. 

Murkowski argued on the Senate floor that the rescissions package was effectively usurping Congress’ duty to legislate.

‘We’re lawmakers, we should be legislating,’ she said. ‘What we’re getting now is a direction from the White House and being told, ‘This is the priority we want you to execute on it. We’ll be back with you with another round.’ I don’t accept that.’

Collins contended that lawmakers actually knew little about how or where the clawbacks would come from, and accused the Office of Management and Budget of not painting a clearer picture on the issue.

‘I recognize the need to reduce excessive spending and I have supported rescissions in our appropriations bills many times, including the 70 rescissions that were included in the year-long funding bill that we are currently operating under,’ she said in a statement. ‘But to carry out our constitutional responsibility, we should know exactly what programs are affected and the consequences of rescissions.’

The Supreme Court’s decision to temporarily allow mass layoffs at the Education Department marked the latest in a string of rulings from the high court green-lighting the president’s plans to scale down the size of the federal workforce.

Permitting the termination of about 1,400 Education Department employees is one of several instances of the Supreme Court showing significant deference to Trump’s power over the executive branch. In other cases, the high court has preliminarily approved of Trump’s executive order calling for sweeping federal job cuts and shown an openness to the president diminishing the independence of some agencies.

Often these decisions, issued on an emergency basis at the request of the Trump administration, have come with little explanation. The high court did not, for example, spell out why it allowed Trump to carry out mass layoffs at the Education Department. But the move advances the president’s long-term efforts to dismantle the department, for now.

South Texas College law professor Joshua Blackman said the plaintiffs’ argument that Congress needs to approve such a drastic change to an agency did not appear persuasive to the high court.

‘I think they’re basically saying, ‘We don’t think this is trying to restructure the agency,’’ Blackman told Fox News Digital. ‘Justices Jackson and Sotomayor sort of made that point in the dissent, but I don’t think it’s resonating with the majority.’

Blackman noted that even though these shadow docket decisions are temporary while the lawsuits proceed in the lower courts, they have lasting power. Litigation can take two or three years, and employees who lose their jobs are likely not waiting around for that long to return to the government, he said. 

He also said those employees are not ‘in theory, at least,’ suffering irreparable harm because ‘reinstatements with back pay is an option.’ Irreparable harm is a criterion judges consider before issuing emergency orders.

Another Trump-friendly ruling

Last week, the Supreme Court temporarily reversed Judge Susan Illston’s order blocking the administration from acting on Trump’s executive order to reduce the workforce.

‘The President has the authority to seek changes to executive branch agencies, but he must do so in lawful ways and, in the case of large-scale reorganizations, with the cooperation of the legislative branch,’ Illston, a Clinton-appointed judge based in California, wrote.

Trump signed an executive order after he took office announcing a sweeping ‘reduction in force’ initiative. To carry out Trump’s order, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management sent a directive to the heads of government agencies in February to craft plans to eliminate jobs.

‘Agencies should focus on the maximum elimination of functions that are not statutorily mandated while driving the highest-quality, most efficient delivery of their statutorily required functions,’ the memo said.

A group of labor organizations and nonprofits sued, arguing a mass reorganization of government required congressional approval.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against them by pausing Illston’s injunction. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan sided with the conservative majority, which found that the executive order and memo are lawful. The majority noted that the decision is not a reflection of the justices’ opinions on agency-specific firings and that those should be examined as a separate matter.

Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, told ‘Fox & Friends’ the high court was sending a ‘clear’ message about judicial overreach.

‘This is another shot across the bow to lower courts that they’ve got to knock this off,’ Turley said. ‘They’ve got to stop with these injunctions. This is six months of delay. It could’ve been much longer, and the court is signaling, ‘We’re going to be on you very quickly if you continue to do these types of orders.”

Pending layoffs

The decision empowered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to lay off more than 1,300 State Department workers.

Since Trump took office, tens of thousands of federal employees have accepted buyout offers from the administration or been let go. But many other layoffs are still wrapped up in lawsuits.

Some firing decisions remain pending because of district court judges’ orders. In some cases, the Trump administration has argued that the Supreme Court’s recent move to do away with universal injunctions is reason enough for those judges to reverse course.

In one lawsuit, Democratic-led states sued over Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.’s move to terminate about 10,000 employees. Judge Melissa DuBose, a Biden appointee based in Rhode Island, sided with the states and blocked the terminations. The judge must now decide if her injunction is at odds with the Supreme Court’s new ruling on universal injunctions.

Humphrey’s Executor

The government downsizing coincides with the president’s controversial decision to fire several watchdogs and members of independent agencies without cause.

In May, the Supreme Court sided with Trump on two of the firings, fueling speculation that the high court is aiming to overturn a 90-year precedent set in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.

That decision found that President Franklin D. Roosevelt could not fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission without a reason, such as neglect of job duties or malfeasance, because it conflicted with a law Congress passed that established the commission.

In Trump’s case, the Supreme Court temporarily approved two firings involving the heads of the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board. The high court’s order was unsigned but indicated that the three liberal justices dissented.

‘Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President… he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents,’ the order read.

The Supreme Court’s decision was a boon to Trump’s implementation of the unitary executive theory, a legal concept that emphasizes presidential control. However, the order included a cautionary note that the Supreme Court’s finding was cursory and that no final decisions had been made about independent boards.

Kagan tore into the majority for letting Trump move forward with the firings.

‘Not since the 1950s (or even before) has a President, without a legitimate reason, tried to remove an officer from a classic independent agency – a multi member, bipartisan commission exercising regulatory power whose governing statute contains a for-cause provision,’ Kagan wrote.

Other similar lawsuits, including one brought by two fired Democratic-appointed FTC commissioners, are still pending, and the Supreme Court has not yet weighed in on them.

A former top White House advisor to ex-first lady Jill Biden was subpoenaed to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

Anthony Bernal, former assistant to the president and senior advisor to the first lady, was compelled for a July 16 closed-door deposition after missing a previously agreed-upon interview date late last month.

He arrived on Capitol Hill for his sworn deposition just before 10 a.m. on Wednesday, saying nothing to reporters on his way inside.

‘We look forward to asking some very important questions I think everyone in America is interested in – who was authorizing the use of the autopen, and whether or not Joe Biden was mentally fit to make decisions,’ House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters on his way inside minutes after Bernal’s arrival.

Comer said he was confident Bernal would comply with the committee. ‘I fully expect Anthony Bernal to answer question,’ he said.

Comer, R-Ky., is investigating allegations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back against those claims.

‘Original Sin,’ a book by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson, positions Bernal as a fiercely protective aide who was dubbed the leader of the ‘loyalty police’ by other former Biden staffers.

His LinkedIn page lists him as currently working as Jill Biden’s chief of staff in the Transition Office of Former President Joe Biden.

Bernal was originally slated to appear last month for a voluntary transcribed interview, but he and his lawyers backtracked after the Trump administration announced it was waiving executive privilege rights for him and several other former White House staffers.

He is the fourth ex-Biden aide to sit down with House GOP investigators.

Longtime Biden advisor Ashley Williams appeared for a nearly six-hour transcribed interview on Friday, following a brief sit-down by former Biden physician Kevin O’Connor.

O’Connor, like Bernal, appeared under subpoena. His closed-door deposition lasted less than 30 minutes, with the doctor invoking the Fifth Amendment on all questions outside his name.

O’Connor’s lawyers said he did so out of concern for doctor-patient confidentiality. Comer, however, accused him of covering for the octogenarian former president. 

Pro-Trump legal advocacy nonprofit America First Legal (AFL) is calling on the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to begin requiring proof of citizenship for all federal voter registration applicants after the president’s effort to do so by executive order was blocked by the courts. 

AFL filed a petition on Wednesday with the EAC, calling on the agency to amend the national voter registration form to require applicants to provide any one of the following documents proving U.S. citizenship: a U.S. passport, birth certificate, consular report of birth abroad, certificate of naturalization, certificate of citizenship, state-issued REAL-ID compliant license, or other reliable government-issued identification. 

The move follows a March executive order issued by President Donald Trump, titled ‘Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,’ which sought to compel the EAC to begin requiring a proof of citizenship requirement on the national voter registration form, in addition to other provisions pertaining to the prohibition of non-citizen voting. 

Trump’s move has been slammed by critics who have argued that it is already illegal for non-U.S. citizens to vote in federal elections. However, a hopeful voter does not need to provide any proof of citizenship and can just self-attest.

The portion of Trump’s March executive order calling on the EAC to amend the national voter registration form and require all states to comply and use it was ultimately blocked by multiple federal judges following lawsuits that challenged Trump’s authority.

In AFL’s petition to the EAC, the group argues that even though the legal challenges and their resulting temporary injunctions from federal judges are still being adjudicated, the injunctions ‘are based entirely on separation of powers principles,’ which leaves the EAC with room ‘to take commonsense election integrity measures on its own volition.’

‘The executive order used spending powers to have the EAC ensure state election officers were enforcing the law by requiring proof of citizenship,’ Vice President of America first Legal, Daniel Epstein, further clarified to Fox News Digital. ‘What we are doing is forcing a change in the forms EAC distributes and we have the ability to enforce in court.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the EAC for comment but did not receive a response.

In his first week as head of President Donald Trump’s U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Scott Kupor issued new guidance to executive agency directors cracking down on religious discrimination in the federal workforce.

The memo, obtained by Fox News Digital, encourages the use of telework, flexible schedules and leave options to meet ‘reasonable’ religious needs while maintaining efficient agency operations.

The new guidance instructs the heads and acting heads of executive agencies and departments that they must make certain religious accommodations for workers, such as abstaining from work during specific times or participating in religious observances or practices.

Kupor cited Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 2022 Supreme Court decision Groff v. DeJoy, which he said clarified that employers are required to demonstrate substantial increased costs to deny a reasonable religious accommodation request.

He wrote that agencies are encouraged to ‘adopt a generous approach to approving religious accommodations, prioritizing employee needs while maintaining operational efficiency.’

‘Further, Federal agencies must adhere to the requirements of Title VII and the Groff clarification of the ‘undue hardship’ standard when addressing religious accommodation requests,’ Kupor wrote.

He said that religious accommodations could include telework, religious compensatory time off, flexible work schedules and various other forms of paid and unpaid time off.

Kupor cited an executive order signed by Trump in May that made it a top priority to ensure that all executive agencies ‘honor and enforce the Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty’ and end ‘any form of religious discrimination by the Federal Government.’

Trump wrote in the executive order that ‘it shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce the historic and robust protections for religious liberty enshrined in Federal law.’

Kupor said that in addition to the president’s guidance, ‘it is in the interest of the Federal government to recruit and retain highly-qualified employees of faith.’

‘Religious liberty is foundational,’ Kupor said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘No federal employee should be forced to choose between their faith and their federal service,’ he said. ‘This guidance ensures agencies meet their legal obligations and treat these requests with the seriousness they deserve.’

In a statement sent to Fox News Digital, OPM clarified that ‘even as agencies enforce in-person work requirements,’ this memo reaffirms that ‘reasonable religious accommodations are protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and must be provided consistent with law.’