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Pfizer Reaps Lots of of Hundreds of thousands in Income From Covid Vaccine

Pfizer Reaps Hundreds of Millions in Profits From Covid Vaccine

Several factors explain the inequality in Pfizer’s vaccine distribution.

The shot, which must be stored and transported at very low temperatures, is less practical for hard-to-reach parts of the world than other shots such as those from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson that can simply be refrigerated. Some poor countries were not hit badly by the virus initially, so their governments had less urgency to place orders for the Pfizer vaccine as far as they could afford to pay for the shots.

“Not everyone was interested in the vaccine or willing to take steps. As a result, talks will continue, including working with Covax beyond the original 40 million cans, ”said Ms. Castillo, Pfizer spokeswoman.

In India, where the virus is spiraling out of control, the Pfizer vaccine is not used. The company applied for an emergency permit there, but withdrew the application in February because the Indian Medicines Agency was unwilling to waive the requirement to conduct a local clinical trial. At the time, India’s coronavirus case numbers were manageable and vaccines made locally were considered sufficient.

Pfizer and the Government of India have since resumed talks. On Monday, Mr Bourla said the company would donate more than $ 70 million worth of drugs to India and is trying to expedite vaccine approval.

Pfizer has made public promises to run its business not only for the enrichment of shareholders but also for the betterment of society.

Mr. Bourla, who earned $ 21 million last year, was among the 181 leaders of large companies who signed a 2019 Business Roundtable pledge to focus on a range of “stakeholders” including workers, suppliers and local communities – not just investors.

The financial numbers Pfizer reported Tuesday underestimate how much money the vaccine will generate. Pfizer is splitting its vaccine sales with BioNTech, which will publish its own first quarter results next week. BioNTech announced in March that it had achieved sales of nearly 10 billion euros, or around 11.8 billion US dollars, based on the vaccine orders it had ordered at the time.

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Biden enterprise allies assist White Home woo non-public sector in local weather change push

Biden business allies help White House woo private sector in climate change push

President Joe Biden’s allies in business have helped the White House persuade the private sector to support the government’s climate change agenda.

Several business leaders working with the White House told CNBC that the effort is a huge departure from what they saw during the Trump administration.

For example, executives say they are less concerned about a tweet from the president when trying to push a new climate policy. Former President Donald Trump was known for targeting companies that appeared to oppose him on key issues.

“There is no longer any fear of the tweet, which I believe was a legitimate fear for many business leaders to speak up on these issues,” said Hugh Welsh, president of DSM North America, of which the group is CEO Climate Dialogue, said CNBC on Monday.

Biden has proposed a more aggressive climate policy than his predecessor. Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017 and, among other things, repealed the Obama-era regulations for methane gas, which could ultimately harm the environment. Biden reintroduced the US to the Paris Climate Agreement on his inauguration day.

Biden has also made tackling climate change a key part of his $ 2 trillion infrastructure plan. Biden’s proposal calls for a $ 174 billion investment in the electric vehicle market. It’s all part of the president’s goal to bring the country to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Tom Steyer, a billionaire who ran for president during the Democratic primary, is among several business leaders who have actively involved the White House and government leaders in their climate proposals.

Steyer spoke with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and White House climate advisor Gina McCarthy about the need to work with the private sector on what is likely to be one of the president’s most expensive initiatives, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Steyer spent millions to defeat Trump and has invested in climate change initiatives. He has a net worth of $ 1.4 billion, according to Forbes.

Steyer was also a speaker at Morgan Stanley’s annual climate change conference. Steyer told executives and investors at the meeting that they shouldn’t invest in fossil fuel companies to fight climate change.

This person declined to be called to discuss private matters. Morgan Stanley representatives have not returned requests for comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.

The Chamber of Commerce and the CEO Climate Dialogue have also engaged the White House in climate initiatives. The chamber rejects Biden’s plan to increase corporate taxes, but supports an infrastructure overhaul.

The CEO Climate Dialogue has nearly two dozen members, including companies from Wall Street and the energy sector. The organization aims to promote private sector use and a more market-oriented approach to secure net zero emissions by 2050.

Climate Dialogue’s CEO Welsh told CNBC that the group had contacted the White House in Biden to improve relationships with corporate executives.

“The group was involved with Gina McCarthy and a few others to rebuild relationships with the White House after the last four years,” said Welsh.

Marty Durbin, president of the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute, told CNBC the group had contacted McCarthy and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

Durbin said the chamber was trying to encourage Granholm and members of Congress to fully fund climate-based research and development projects. The group has also tried to encourage the new administration to work with the private sector on green policy proposals.

“We need to figure out how we can enable the private sector to fund, use and commercialize these technologies. That is how we will see emissions reductions at the end of the day,” said Durbin.

Members of a fundraising group called Clean Energy for Biden also act as a bridge to the private sector. Dan Reicher, co-chair of the organization, told CNBC that he had prepared a spending proposal to increase energy production from the country’s dams.

The document, which was sent to the White House and approved by nearly a dozen organizations and trade associations, states that only 2,500 of the roughly 90,000 dams in the US generate electricity. The proposal is valued at over $ 60 billion over 10 years.

“If this $ 63.07 billion proposal is fully implemented over a 10-year period, around 500,000 well-paying jobs will be created, more than 32,000 kilometers of rivers restored to improve climate resilience, and more than 80 gigawatts of existing ones secure renewable hydropower and 23 gigawatts. ” Electricity storage “, it says in the proposal.

It also called on Biden to order the establishment of a committee to vote on dam improvements and regulatory issues.

According to Reicher, the draft was sent to Phil Giudice and David Hayes, two of Biden’s climate policy advisors and members of Congress, among others.

The Clean Energy for Biden group is evolving into 501 (c) (3) and 501 (c) (4) nonprofits, both of which are referred to as Clean Energy for America, Reicher added.

The Clean Energy for America website states that while Biden’s climate change agenda is supported, it will also “support candidates at the federal, state and local levels by fundraising, mobilizing the workforce for clean energy, and providing early resource availability.”

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F.B.I. Experiences Agent-Concerned Capturing at C.I.A. Headquarters

F.B.I. Reports Agent-Involved Shooting at C.I.A. Headquarters

A gunman was wounded in a shootout early Monday night involving an FBI agent at CIA headquarters outside Washington, the FBI said in a statement.

According to the FBI, the man got out of his vehicle, was “hired by police officers” and wounded around 6:00 pm. The man was taken to hospital following the episode previously reported on by NBC News. The hospital was not named.

“The FBI takes seriously any shooting incident involving our agents or task force members,” Samantha Shero, a public affairs officer with the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said in an email. “The review process is thorough and objective and is carried out as quickly as possible under the circumstances.”

A CIA spokesman said the agency’s headquarters remained secure and referred questions to the FBI, which released limited details. It wasn’t immediately clear whether agents or officers were injured.

The agency’s secure campus in Langley, Virginia has served the agency since 1961. The complex is closed to the general public and only accessible to those with security clearances or by special arrangement. The CIA website offers virtual tours of 32 locations in the complex, from the outdoor cryptos sculpture with an encoded message to a bust of former President George HW Bush, who served as CIA director from January 1976 to January 1977. The complex was named after him in 1999.

Only last month a lone driver rammed officers in the Capitol when heavy security measures were put in place after the January 6 riot subsided on the premises. One officer died and another was injured.

Monday’s episode at CIA headquarters mirrored a 1993 campus shootout when a Pakistani man killed two CIA employees who had stopped in traffic outside the agency’s headquarters. The man, Mir Aimal Kasi, who also wounded three others, later said he was angry about the CIA’s activities in Pakistan and other Islamic nations. He was executed by lethal injection in 2002 after years of evading law enforcement in Pakistan. Virginia has since abolished the death penalty.

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E-Waste disavows inventory value days after $100 million New Jersey deli firm does identical

$100 million New Jersey deli company owner kills consulting deal with shareholder

Hometown deli, Paulsboro, NJ

Mike Calia | CNBC

Shell company E-Waste Corp. rejected its own sky-high market valuation of $ 106 million on Monday, three days after an identical move by the mysterious company that owns only one small deli in New Jersey.

The deli company Hometown International has multiple links with E-Waste, which has no actual business operations.

Both companies are thinly traded on the over-the-counter market at best.

The successive denials of their respective market capitalizations in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission came after more than two weeks of articles from CNBC setting out legal and regulatory issues relating to individuals and organizations related to Hometown International and E-Waste.

Maso Capital, a Hong Kong-based company, continues to seek to position both companies as vehicles for acquisition by privately held companies in order to be publicly traded in the US stock markets.

In its filing with the SEC on Monday, E-Waste’s management stated that it “is opposed to the price of its publicly listed shares in the OTC markets under the symbol” EWST. “

“Management has no basis for basing the company’s stock price on its earnings or assets,” it says in a language consistent with the filing made by Hometown International last Friday.

Last week, both Hometown International and E-Waste entered into advisory agreements on the same day with a North Carolina company controlled by the Hometown chairman’s father.

The moves quoting the “recent negative press” were praised by Maso Capital founder Manoj Jain. He said, “We look forward to both public companies moving forward with their stated acquisition plans.”

E-Waste raised $ 2.5 million last month from several institutional investors in a private placement offering, according to the announcement filed on Monday.

“Management announced that the proceeds from this private placement would be used for working capital and general corporate purposes to seek, investigate, and, if appropriate, operate a business combination with a private company whose business presents an opportunity for the company’s shareholders,” said the filing.

The filing was signed by E-Waste President John Rollo, whose company reported a net loss of nearly $ 58,000 for the past nine months in November.

66-year-old Rollo, a Grammy-awarded sound engineer, worked as a patient truck in a New Jersey hospital last year.

According to the OTC Markets Group, E-Waste’s share price closed at $ 8.50 per share on Monday with no business in the pink market.

With 12.5 million shares outstanding, E-Waste has a market capitalization of $ 106.25 million.

Hometown International’s stock, also traded on the Pink Market, closed at $ 13.40 per share, with just 2,866 of the nearly 7.8 million outstanding common shares trading in trading.

This share price gives the company a market capitalization of $ 97.85 million. That’s many times the combined revenue of just $ 35,000 in his hometown Deli in Paulsboro, New Jersey, for the past two years.

On April 21, OTC Markets Group downgraded Hometown International from the more prestigious OTCQB platform to its pink market due to “irregularities” in its public announcements. The stock also had a “buyers watch out” label affixed to it by OTC Markets, which CNBC told CNBC at the time that it was also reviewing E-Waste’s financial reports.

It remains unclear why anyone – either close to either company or not – would have paid a lot for both stocks in the past year, let alone updated them from their current valuations, given that they didn’t have any significant business.

Both companies have stated bluntly in their public statements that there is no guarantee that they can survive in their current condition.

E-waste was supposedly created to start an e-waste recycling business in 2012. However, these efforts have ceased and no revenue has been reported for years.

A key figure associated with both companies is Peter Coker Sr., the father of Hometown International Chairman Peter Coker Jr. The elder Coker is an investor in Hometown International.

Last year after a Macau, China-based company called Global Equity Limited bought 6 million restricted shares in E-Waste, a controlling interest, E-Waste’s registration and phone number were moved to Coker Sr.’s Carrboro office , North Carolina. and started paying $ 250 a month for a one-year lease there.

Global Equity is also the largest shareholder in Hometown International.

E-Waste began paying $ 2,500 per month to Tryon Capital from Coker Sr. under an advisory agreement last year.

And Coker Sr. has personally loaned E-Waste $ 255,000 at an annual rate of 8%, according to financial reports. Tryon Capital also raised an additional $ 15,000 per month from an advisory agreement with Hometown International.

These consultancy contracts were terminated last week after CNBC reviewed the agreements.

In late November, E-Waste Hometown International issued a $ 150,000 bond at a rate of at least 6% per annum. This emerges from an SEC filing. This notice indicates that Hometown International loaned this amount to the Shell company.

The promissory note was recognized by Paul Morina, CEO of Hometown International, who is the director of Paulsboro High School, whose prestigious wrestling team he also coaches.

Hometown deli, Paulsboro, NJ

Mike Calia | CNBC

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Biden, in Reversal, Raises Refugee Cap to 62,500 in Subsequent 6 Months

Biden, in Reversal, Raises Refugee Cap to 62,500 in Next 6 Months

President Biden turned on Monday and said he would allow up to 62,500 refugees to enter the United States over the next six months, removing the sharp limits that former President Donald J. Trump had placed on those seeking refuge before war, violence or nature seek disasters.

“This erases the historically low number set by the previous administration of 15,000 that does not reflect America’s values ​​as a nation that welcomes and supports refugees,” Biden said in a White House statement.

The action came about two weeks after Mr Biden announced he would keep Mr Trump’s line of 15,000 refugees. The announcement was widely condemned by Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill and refugee lawyers who accused the president of failing to keep an election promise to admit the needy.

White House officials had insisted that Mr Biden’s intentions were misunderstood in mid-April. However, his decision to raise the refugee limit to 62,500 suggests that he felt pressure to act.

In his statement, Mr Biden admitted that the government is unlikely to relocate 62,500 refugees as the agencies suffered budget and staff cuts during Mr Trump’s tenure. Mr Biden did not say whether the government had already managed to take in the 15,000 refugees admitted by his predecessor.

“The sad truth is we won’t get 62,500 approvals this year,” he said. “We are working quickly to reverse the damage suffered over the past four years. It will take time, but this work is already under way. “

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Large combat brewing, Kevin Brady says

Big fight brewing, Kevin Brady says

Rep. Kevin Brady, who was the best Republican in the House of Representatives during the Trump administration, suggested Monday that President Joe Biden’s proposals to raise interest rates for businesses and the rich are not beginners.

“I’m not sure we should compromise by making America dramatically less competitive than our global competitors,” Brady said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

The Texas Republican, who is retiring at the end of that term after more than two decades in Congress, predicted that “there will be a real battle over these tax hikes,” and advocated a “different approach to what we do for Bidens Pay for infrastructure “plan.

Biden unveiled the second part of his multi-billion dollar plan to overhaul the U.S. economy after the devastating coronavirus pandemic last week. The packages aim to make huge investments in infrastructure, childcare and a range of other projects, partly paid for by raising the highest income tax rate to 39.6% and increasing the corporate tax rate to 28%.

Biden’s proposals would reverse some key elements of the 2017 tax cut bill that Brady, then chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, helped shape. The $ 1.5 trillion legislation that cut taxes on businesses and individuals became a major achievement of former President Donald Trump’s tenure.

Brady said Republicans and Democrats in Congress could “absolutely compromise” on an infrastructure plan that “has always been a bipartisan issue.”

But “we shouldn’t fund the infrastructure on the backs of American workers,” Brady said.

He suggested that lawmakers should instead seek to “reclaim” some of the wasted money in the budget and put a number of tax rules that were previously used on infrastructure but captured by other issues back into their original purpose.

Brady also suggested looking for private sources of capital to raise infrastructure funds.

“There are several ways we can go about this to drive infrastructure funding,” said Brady.

But Brady seemed to reject the prospect of taxing the rich, arguing that the tax code was already “extremely advanced”.

The Biden administration has urged Republicans to weigh up and come up with their own proposals, while stressing that “inaction is not an option”. But many Republicans have accused the White House of using the rhetoric of unity while governing like partisans. Biden signed a $ 1.9 trillion Covid Relief Bill in March with no GOP support.

Democrats have a narrow majority in both houses of the bitterly polarized Congress. The Senate is split between 50 and 50 between the two parties, giving Vice President Kamala Harris the casting vote.

The Senate filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold for most laws to pass, is preventing Democrats from pushing most of their agenda through Congress. However, the rules for the budget vote stipulate that some bills – like the Covid Aid Act in March – can only be passed by a simple majority, and Democrats have more options to take advantage of this option before the 2022 midterm elections.

Many Democratic lawmakers are pushing for the Senate to end the filibuster – a move Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Warned, would result in a “100 car pile” in the chamber. But also some moderate Democrats, like the Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, and the Senator from Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, have spoken out against a reform of the filibuster.

Manchin and other moderate Democrats, oversized influence in a divided Congress, also expressed concern about the trillion dollar spending proposed by the Biden administration.

McConnell accused the Democrats on Monday of destroying the limited bipartisanism that led Congress to quickly pass several Covid stimulus packages last year.

Democrats “just can’t resist spreading the pandemic and using it as a rationale for additional spending,” McConnell said in a note at the University of Louisville.

“They want the corporate rate to be the highest in the world,” added McConnell. “We will not check the 2017 tax bill again.”

When asked Monday about his prediction of how the battle on Capitol Hill will play out, Brady said, “This is by no means a deal.”

“These are dramatic tax hikes that are having a real impact on jobs here in America. I think this will sabotage job recovery, it will boost jobs overseas,” he said.

Just increasing the corporate tax rate “will make America nearly dead in the last competition and will create jobs overseas. I’m not sure we should compromise by making America dramatically less competitive than our global competitors.”

“I think there will be a real battle over these tax hikes and I expect that at some point we will find a middle ground, both in terms of infrastructure and in terms of the way we pay for them.” “Said Brady.

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Swiss Billionaire Quietly Turns into Influential Pressure Amongst Democrats

Swiss Billionaire Quietly Becomes Influential Force Among Democrats

These types of spending – which are usually handled through nonprofit groups that don’t need to disclose much information about their finances, including their donors – have been welcomed by conservatives after regulatory changes and court rulings, particularly those of the Supreme Court, eased campaign spending restrictions were made in 2010 in the Citizens United case.

While progressives and election guards denounced the developments as too powerful for wealthy interests, democratic donors and activists increasingly used dark money. During the 2020 election cycle, Democratic-affiliated groups spent more than $ 514 million on such funds, compared to approximately $ 200 million spent by Republican-affiliated groups, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Some of the groups funded by the Mr. Wyss Foundations played a key role in this shift, although the relatively limited disclosure requirements for these types of groups make it impossible to definitively determine how they spent funds from the Wyss Foundations.

Mr. Wyss and his advisors have developed a “strategic, evidence-based, metric-driven and results-oriented approach to building a political infrastructure,” said Rob Stein, a democratic strategist.

Mr. Stein, who founded the influential Democracy Alliance Club of Big Liberal Donors in 2005 and recruited Mr. Wyss to join, added that “unlike most affluent political donors right and left,” Mr. Wyss and his team “know how is going to achieve measurable, sustainable effects. “

85-year-old Wyss was born in Bern, visited the USA for the first time in 1958 as an exchange student and was enthusiastic about the American national parks and public areas. After getting rich and running the Swiss-based medical device manufacturer Synthes, he began donating his fortune through a network of foundations to promote nature conservation, environmental protection and other issues.

The foundations gradually increased their donations for other Democrat-backed causes, including abortion rights and minimum wage increases, and eventually for groups more directly involved in partisan debates, especially after the election of Mr Trump.

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FBI opens civil rights probe into police taking pictures

FBI opens civil rights probe into police shooting

Protesters march the evening after family members were shown body camera footage of an assistant sheriff who shot and killed black suspect Andrew Brown Jr. on April 26, 2021 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Jonathan Drake | Reuters

The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed Tuesday that it will investigate the murder of Andrew Brown Jr., a black man who died after police shot him while being arrested in North Carolina last week.

The announcement comes a day after Brown’s family lawyers, who were shown a 20-second video of his arrest, said the 42-year-old was shot in the back of the head while his hands were on the wheel.

According to an autopsy performed at his family’s request, Brown was shot a total of five times, including four times in the right arm.

Brown was killed by Elizabeth City Sheriff’s MPs while trying to serve drug-related search and arrest warrants. Seven of the MPs involved in the arrest have been given paid leave, the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office said.

“The FBI Charlotte Field Office has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the police death of Andrew Brown Jr.,” an FBI spokesman said. “The agents will work closely with the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to determine if federal law has been violated.”

The spokesman declined to comment further, saying the investigation was still ongoing.

Brown was killed Wednesday, the day after a jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd.

Floyd’s death in custody reinvigorated the movement against police brutality against blacks. The Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation into Floyd’s murder, in addition to a sample or exercise investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Wednesday an investigation into the pattern or practice. On Monday, Garland said the DOJ would conduct a similar investigation by the Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky, which was criticized for the death of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was killed in her apartment last year after police entered with an arrest warrant and fired 32 bullets.

Attorneys for Brown’s family have condemned his murder and called for more footage to be released. Authorities have stated that they have asked a judge to allow the video to be published.

Based on what they’ve seen, Brown’s family has said that the police seem lacking a justification for using lethal force.

“There was no time in the 20 seconds we saw him threaten officers in any way,” Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, a lawyer, told a press conference after watching the video, Associated Press reported.

Khalil Ferebee, Brown’s son, told reporters after watching the video that his father was “executed” while trying to save his own life.

Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten has asked for patience while the investigation continues.

“This tragic incident was quick and over in less than 30 seconds, and body cameras are shaky and sometimes difficult to read,” Wooten said Monday, according to NBC News.

It’s not clear how long the FBI’s investigation into Brown’s death will continue. William Barr, the attorney general under former President Donald Trump, announced the civil rights investigation into Floyd’s assassination in May 2020. Garland said the investigation was still ongoing last week but did not provide any further updates.

The civil rights investigation into Brown and Floyd’s murders will investigate whether federal law was violated during these particular arrests. In contrast, sample or practice examinations examine whether police authorities routinely violate civil rights laws.

Under Trump, sample or exercise exams have been largely curtailed, although Garland has shown some willingness to revise them.

While the Congressional Research Service found that the Justice Department has opened three such investigations per year in the past, Garland opened two this month. The research service found that around a third of sample or practical studies lead to significant reforms.

In addition to the FBI investigation, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is also investigating Brown’s murder.

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How the A.T.F., Key to Biden’s Gun Plan, Turned an N.R.A. ‘Whipping Boy’

How the A.T.F., Key to Biden’s Gun Plan, Became an N.R.A. ‘Whipping Boy’

The mere presence of a permanent leader like Mr Chipman has the potential to be transformative, former agency officials said.

“I’ve never been the president’s man, and being the president’s person means people are less likely to push back against you,” said Mr. Brandon, the former interim director. “It gives you a lot more road credit.”

Mr. Chipman served as a special agent during a 22-year ATF career that ended in 2010, first in the hectic Detroit office, then in stations on the Interstate 95 corridor, the country’s largest illegal firearms canal, and in the headquarters of the office. There, he told The Trace website, he observed “the disastrous drawbacks of the gun lobby’s efforts to prevent the ATF from modernizing”.

Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona Congressman who became a gun control activist after being seriously wounded in an assassination attempt, pushed for Mr. Chipman’s hiring along with other gun security groups in mid-November, shortly after Biden was elected, according to several people with knowledge the situation.

But for weeks after the inauguration, the White House and its Senate allies paused, in part to save gun-friendly Democrats like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin III from a tough vote as they focused on the pandemic and spending.

The shootings that killed 18 people in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado in mid-March changed that.

Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Giffords wrote to Mr. Biden asking him to meet with her to discuss Mr. Chipman. By this point, Mr. Biden’s chief of staff Ron Klain had thrown his support behind Mr. Chipman, and Mr. Biden later said to Ms. Giffords that he was ready to fight for the nomination, according to an administrative officer with knowledge of the exchange.

Almost immediately, the NRA announced plans to spend $ 2 million to defeat Mr. Chipman and cut a complaint against Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine.

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Biden says not instructed upfront, Trump defends lawyer

Biden says not told in advance, Trump defends lawyer

New York police officers are investigating the building that houses former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani after the FBI issued a search warrant on Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment in New York City in April, USA, issued 28, 2021.

Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

President Joe Biden said he was not given advance notice of the FBI’s execution of search warrants on the home and office of Rudy Giuliani, one of former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers.

“I give you my word, I was not informed,” Biden previously told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin in an interview that aired Thursday.

“I found out about it last night when the rest of the world found out, my word about it,” Biden said of the raids early Wednesday in which FBI agents seized electronic equipment from the former New York City Mayor and former federal attorney.

“Little did I know this was on the way.”

Biden also underlined that he had not been briefed on the Giuliani probe – which focuses on their business in Ukraine – or any other criminal investigation by the Ministry of Justice. The department is known to be investigating the tax affairs of Biden’s son Hunter.

“I made a promise not to interfere, order, or attempt to stop the Justice Department’s investigation in any way,” Biden said

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, US President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, wipes his sweat during a press conference on the results of the 2020 US presidential election on November 19, 2020 at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Washington, USA from the face.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

“I’m not asking for information. This is the Justice Department’s independent judgment,” said the president.

Biden beat Trump for his efforts to get the Justice Department to investigate certain people and issues, and for his repeated criticism of the Department’s investigation against people connected to Trump, including his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, his former Campaign chairman Paul Manafort and GOP agent Roger Stein.

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“This last administration politicized the Justice Department so heavily, so many [prosecutors]”So many left because that’s not the role – that’s not the role of a president saying who should be prosecuted, when to prosecute, who should not be prosecuted,” Biden said.

“That is not the role of the president. The Justice Department is the advocate of the people, not the advocate of the president.”

For months after Biden’s loss to Trump in the 2020 election, Giuliani falsely claimed that Biden only won because of widespread electoral fraud. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, said there was no evidence of such extensive fraud that resulted in Trump’s loss.

During an interview with Fox Business on Thursday, Trump condemned the raid on Giuliani’s property, calling it “a very, very unfair situation.”

“He just loves this country. And they raid his apartment, it’s so unfair and so double – like a double standard, as if I’ve never seen anyone,” said Trump.

“Rudy is a patriot who loves this country and I don’t know what they’re looking for, what they’re doing.”

Craig Melvin interviews President Joe Biden TODAY.

Source: TODAY

The investigation of Giuliani by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York – a law firm he once ran – began when Trump was president and while his hand-picked attorneys general ran the Department of Justice, which oversees U.S. law firms.

Trump himself is facing a serious criminal investigation by the Manhattan prosecutor.

The New York Times reported in December that Giuliani had spoken to then-President Trump about a preventive pardon that would have protected the attorney from federal criminal prosecution. “Not true,” Giuliani told CNBC after the report was released.

Giuliani retweeted a tweet Thursday from John Cardillo, the so-called establishment Republicans who did not publicly defend Giuliani, blew up and called them “feckless cucks”.

On Wednesday, Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello accused the so-called “Biden Justice Department” of “corrupt double standards” harshly treating its Republican clients while investigating the alleged “blatant crimes of senior Democrats like Biden, Hunter Biden and the former secretary ignored by state Hillary Clinton.

“You didn’t see Hunter Biden’s house being searched by the FBI,” said Costello, a former senior US attorney general at SDNY. Decades ago, Costello had overseen criminal cases there using search warrants and early morning raids by FBI agents.

“This Justice Department behavior, enabled by compliant media and challenging the constitutional rights of everyone involved in or defending former President Donald J. Trump, is becoming the rule rather than the exception.”

In 2019, Giuliani made efforts to gather harmful information about Hunter Biden’s business relationships in Ukraine as part of a strategy to harm Joe Biden’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for president.

Trump was indicted later that year after pressuring the President of Ukraine to announce an investigation into the Bidens. Trump was acquitted by the GOP-controlled Senate.