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dd another name to the list of Biden family business associates who met with President Biden during his vice presidency. Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion and mayor of Kyiv since 2014, was a “core shareholder” and active participant in a Hunter Biden-chaired subsidiary of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, according to emails and an associate with direct knowledge who spoke with The Post. Klitschko’s little-known links to the first son — including through the subsidiary, Burisma Geothermal — opens a new angle in the impeachment inquiry into alleged Biden family corruption and makes the mayor of Ukraine’s capital,...

WASHINGTON – So that’s why she had no time for our questions! White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre took a break from her duties as President Biden’s top spokesman to model three outfits for a fawning profile in Vogue’s latest issue — drawing sharp criticism from reporters in the capital. ... “It’s sad that a magazine that purports to be practicing journalism is profiling a press secretary that’s gone out of her way to deliberately silence members of the press corps,” said one veteran White House reporter. “We shouldn’t be rewarding those who actively obfuscate facts and seek to undermine...

WASHINGTON — President Biden is asking Congress to approve another $20.6 billion to support Ukraine in its war against Russia, despite mounting public opposition — more than five times the $3.9 billion he wants for US border security, migrant processing and anti-fentanyl efforts. The new funding requests were announced Thursday ahead of an anticipated budget showdown in late September, when House GOP conservatives are expected to demand cuts in exchange for avoiding a partial government shutdown. At least some of the border-related funds would help sponsor care for migrants released at the US-Mexico frontier following New York City Mayor Eric...

WASHINGTON — “Tiger King” star Joe Exotic has filed to appear on his first state ballot against President Biden in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary, The Post has learned. The 60-year-old former private zoo owner, who is campaigning from federal prison, sent a $500 check on Monday to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office in order to appear on the Centennial State’s Super Tuesday ballot. Exotic, whose real last name is Maldonado, told The Post that he hopes to appeal to rural and libertarian-minded Democrats in the state — with unusual campaign pledges including requiring all federal candidates to spend...

WASHINGTON — President Biden failed to list free vacations at the homes of businesspeople on his annual financial disclosure form this week — drawing a rebuke from ethicists and Republicans amid an ongoing political firestorm over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ similar non-reporting of free trips from a businessman. Biden enjoyed three beach getaways at the homes of the wealthy and politically connected owners during the past-year reporting period. In two instances, Biden is known not to have paid the owner and in the third case it’s suspected the president did not pay. Ethics experts Walter Shaub, who led the...

WASHINGTON — A top Chinese official emailed a late-night diatribe to an aide to Rep. Chris Smith last week, slamming Smith’s “absurd” House-passed bill against state-sponsored organ harvesting and ridiculing Congress for “lies” and “baseless hype” about both the gruesome practice and the related ongoing Uyghur genocide. The email arrived at 9:49 p.m. on March 28 from a Gmail account registered to Zhou Zheng, the Chinese embassy in Washington’s chief of section for congressional affairs, and was written in a post-happy hour tone. “We did call [the embassy] to make sure it was real,” Smith (R-NJ) told The Post. Zhou...

WASHINGTON — Thursday’s indictment of former President Donald Trump has set a precedent enabling Republican prosecutors to seek criminal charges against President Biden, conservative legal experts told The Post Friday. “All bets are off. You can expect grand jury indictments of leftist politicians like Biden, [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer as surely as night follows day,” said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative legal group Judicial Watch. “You can be sure that there are prosecutors across Florida and Texas right now who are looking for a state law hook into the Biden family,” he...

WASHINGTON — In a striking apparent Freudian slip, President Biden told Greek Orthodox leader “Father Alex” Karloutsos Wednesday that “I’m gonna ruin your reputation by talking” at a White House event. The 80-year-old president made the bizarre remark to Karloutsos, vicar general of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, at a celebration of Greek independence also attended by actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson. Karloutsos, 77, reportedly attended an infamous April 16, 2015, dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano with then-VP Biden, his son Hunter Biden and international business associates from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

“Tiger King” Joe Exotic — unable to find a president willing to release him from prison — says he’s running for the job himself as a Libertarian in 2024 and that he wants former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) to be his running mate. The eccentric former Oklahoma private zoo owner, convicted of hiring a hit man to kill animal rights activist Carole Baskin, has big ideas for US policy — including assassinating Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Exotic told The Post in a phone interview from his federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, that he’d...

Give me your tired, your poor, your smuggled masses. New York City’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office is “fully booked through October 2032” for appointments to process migrants released at the southern border, according to an official document exclusively reviewed by The Post — making the Big Apple the ideal destination for migrants with dubious asylum claims and causing a massive headache to those with valid ones. The backlog means that migrants may have to wait almost a decade just to enter the immigration court process — which is beset by further delays stretching out years, sources said. “If...

WASHINGTON — A Saudi appeals court has increased the prison sentence of US citizen Saad Almadi over a series of political tweets from 16 years to 19 years in a “middle finger” to President Biden, his son tells The Post. A State Department official told Ibrahim Almadi of the latest blow handed down by the Saudi judicial system after the White House publicly condemned the elder Almadi’s treatment. “It’s not a slap in the face, it’s a middle finger,” Ibrahim told The Post, noting that his septuagenarian father has “lost more than 80 pounds” since his arrest in November 2019...

WASHINGTON — President Biden welcomed former President Bill Clinton back to “Congress” Thursday — during an event that was actually at the White House. The 80-year-old Biden gushed, “I’m so happy to be able to welcome my president back to the United States Congress — back to the United States Capitol, and he’s promised me that I’ll be able to sit at my desk tomorrow.” The cringeworthy moment occurred in the White House East Room as Clinton, 76, celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act. ... Biden has referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as...

MEXICO CITY — President Biden understated the number of deaths caused by fentanyl Monday when raising the issue with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — after critics blasted Biden for not paying enough attention to the deadly scourge. Biden said that fentanyl has killed “100,000” Americans, when official data actually link the potent synthetic opioid to about 196,000 US deaths in 2018-2021 alone. The toll in 2022 is feared to be even worse than the 71,000 fentanyl deaths in 2021, potentially putting US fatalities over five years close to 300,000 as the drug is increasingly mixed into non-opioid drugs...

President Biden claimed Friday that his uncle Frank Biden won the Purple Heart for his actions during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II — but there’s no evidence of the award and key details of the story are chronologically impossible. The 80-year-old commander-in-chief has a habit of sharing false or embellished personal anecdotes to build a connection with his audiences and told his latest apparent tall tale during largely unscripted remarks to veterans in Delaware. “My dad, when I got elected vice president [in 2008], he said, ‘Joey, Uncle Frank fought in the Battle of the Bulge.’...

They’re making a list and checking it twice. President Biden is facing an outcry from the White House press corps for the “petty” exclusion of journalists from the traditional presidential media Christmas parties. In a seeming break from Biden’s pledge to restore “civility” to public life, a number of journalists — many believing themselves excluded for “naughty” rather than “nice” coverage — didn’t get invites to the glam soirees on Dec. 8 for TV teams and on Dec. 13 for other press. The holiday fests are prized perks of the beat for media that cover the White House because attendees...

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday refused to answer a question about whether he pressed Chinese President Xi Jinping on fentanyl exports and the origins of COVID-19 when they met this week — as House Republicans prepare to investigate the Biden family’s extensive financial links to Beijing. The two issues claimed about as many American lives in recent years as all of the nation’s wars combined, but a White House readout didn’t mention either topic after Biden’s three-hour Monday meeting with Xi in Bali, Indonesia. “President Biden, is it true that you did not mention fentanyl or COVID origins to...

The White House doesn’t use a secret Facebook portal to request the removal of alleged “misinformation,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday when asked about a bombshell report laying out how government officials get tech firms to manipulate online speech — despite her predecessor Jen Psaki saying last year the White House was “flagging” Facebook posts it didn’t like. When pressed by The Post, Jean-Pierre said firmly that “no,” the White House does not use the recently exposed portal to request the removal of Facebook or Instagram posts. The Intercept on Monday revealed the existence of the apparently still-active portal...

WASHINGTON — A top House Republican’s little-known past job working with Democrats to change US elections and choose presidents by popular vote threatens to upend his bid to rise in the GOP ranks, The Post has learned. The three-way House Republican whip race between Reps. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) is expected to be the only contested GOP leadership vote and will be settled by secret ballot about a week after the Nov. 8 midterm elections, which Republicans are favored to win. Emmer, who is regarded as the most moderate option, is overseeing House GOP...

WASHINGTON — White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain violated the Hatch Act and was warned not to do so again, according to a document obtained by The Post. The Office of Special Counsel said in a letter dated Wednesday that Klain, a prolific Twitter user, ran afoul of the law restricting the political activities of certain officials by retweeting a message urging people to purchase “Democrats Deliver” merchandise. Ana Galindo-Marrone, chief of the Hatch Act Unit at the OSC, described the official assessment of Klain’s infraction in a letter to the America First Legal Foundation, a pro-Donald Trump group...

WASHINGTON — Marijuana activists joined by well-known rappers plan to engage in “civil disobedience” outside the White House and Democratic National Committee offices Monday to push President Biden to honor his campaign pledge to free “everyone” in prison for marijuana after he issued limited clemency this month. The activists say Biden’s Oct. 6 mass pardon of about 6,500 people charged federally with pot possession was “misleading” because it didn’t free any of the roughly 2,700 people in federal prison for marijuana dealing. “There’s quite a bit of outrage, actually, in the cannabis community about what just went down,” said Adam...