FIRST ON FOX: A powerful House committee is escalating its probe into the Biden administration for alleged collusion with gun control activists.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is demanding that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the federal agency responsible for enforcing gun laws, hand over documents detailing Biden aides’ communications with Everytown for Gun Safety, an influential gun control group founded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg.

Comer’s panel has argued that a now-defunct Biden office may have collaborated with Everytown to help facilitate its lawsuit with the city of Chicago against the gunmaker Glock Inc. 

«These records will inform the Committee as to whether the Biden Administration and Everytown colluded to attack private gun manufacturing companies through lawfare to circumvent Second Amendment rights,» Comer wrote in a letter Wednesday to the ATF that was reviewed by Fox News Digital.

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Chicago’s lawsuit, listing Everytown’s legal arm as the plaintiff’s counsel, was filed in March 2024 and alleges Glock sold pistols that the firearms manufacturer knew could be easily modified to fire like machine guns. 

«Glock knows that it takes little effort to convert its pistols into illegal machine guns and that criminals frequently do so,» the lawsuit alleged. «Glock also knows it could fix the problem, but has chosen not to, putting profits over public safety and violating the law.»

In the letter, Comer cited a 2023 meeting between the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention (WHOGVP) and representatives from Glock, during which Biden officials pressed the gun manufacturer to modify its pistol designs. 

When Chicago sued Glock three months later, John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, wrote on X, «Federal officials recently contacted Glock to discuss implementing new ways to modify Glock pistols to make it harder for Glock switches to be installed. Rather than help, Glock has falsely insisted there is nothing they can do.» 

Comer argues Feinblatt «appears to have had insider information regarding the WHOGVP’s private meeting with Glock, which raises questions about whether the Biden Administration colluded with Everytown to initiate their lawsuit against Glock,» according to the letter.

The lawsuit is still moving through the court system, with a Cook County judge denying Glock’s motion to dismiss the case in September 2025.

Members of Everytown for Gun Safety rally outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on May 26, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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The Kentucky lawmaker has also highlighted close ties between the Biden White House and Everytown. The letter notes that Biden aide Rob Wilcox worked at Everytown for eight years prior to his employment with the WHOGVP. 

Biden also headlined Everytown action fund’s annual training conference, known as Gun Sense University, in June 2024, during which he reiterated his support for a nationwide ban on so-called assault weapons.

Wednesday’s letter comes after the GOP-led panel asked the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in April for communications between the Biden White House and Everytown. 

House Oversight Republicans previously subpoenaed the Biden ATF and Everytown for all communications related to their «potential collaboration efforts,» but neither party complied with the request.

President Joe Biden speaks about gun safety at Everytown’s Gun Sense University at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., on June 11, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP)

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Comer has also argued that the committee’s probe will help lawmakers evaluate whether new legislation is needed to combat officials violating recordkeeping requirements or using their roles to leak private information to politically aligned third parties.

A spokesperson for the ATF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Una cumbre de reconciliación en Riad entre los países del Golfo e Irán el día después de la guerra: es la última evolución de relieve en el Medio Oriente mientras los coloquios técnicos entre Washington y Teherán proseguirán el 29 o 30 de junio en Suiza -como anunció el secretario norteamericano de Estado, Marco Rubio- y la Agencia Internacional de Energía Atómica (AIEA) confirma las inspecciones a los sitios iraníes, desmentidas por los ayatolas.

De acuerdo con un diplomático familiarizado con los preparativos que habló con la prensa internacional, se espera que la capital saudí acoja una cumbre en una fecha aún por determinar, con el objetivo de restablecer y fortalecer las relaciones entre las naciones del Golfo, Irán y posiblemente otros vecinos de la región.

Esta cumbre se llevará a cabo independientemente de las negociaciones que actualmente se desarrollan entre la administración Trump y el régimen de Teherán. Esto significa que los principales actores de la región actúan de forma independiente, distanciándose, al menos parcialmente, de la política estadounidense que, con el conflicto con Irán, hasta ahora solo ha sido perjudicial para sus intereses.

El Golfo Pérsico ya no parece querer actuar como zona de amortiguación para guerras libradas en otros lugares y busca construir una arquitectura regional en torno a los intereses convergentes de Arabia Saudí, Turquía, Egipto y Pakistán. Este pacto táctico entre aliados y rivales está diseñado para contener a Irán, pero también para dialogar con él, evitando que Medio Oriente, tras el conflicto bélico, quede exclusivamente en manos de Estados Unidos e Israel.

Una iniciativa que avanza en medio de incertidumbres y desmentidas de las negociaciones, comenzando con las inspecciones de la AIEA. El director general de la Agencia Internacional de Energía Atómica (AIEA), Rafael Grossi, anunció que sus inspectores visitarán las plantas de enriquecimiento de uranio iraníes, un elemento clave del memorando entre Estados Unidos e Irán para poner fin a la guerra.

El entendimiento preliminar «establece explícitamente que las actividades nucleares que se lleven a cabo en relación con las instalaciones de material nuclear serán supervisadas por la AIEA en todos sus aspectos», explicó Grossi: «que ocurran pasado mañana, en una semana o en diez días es importante, pero no esencial. Ocurrirán».

Sin embargo, el viceministro iraní de Asuntos Exteriores, Kazem Gharibabadi, advirtió que Teherán no tiene intención, por el momento, de permitir el acceso a los inspectores, y afirmó que el asunto solo puede ser examinado y resuelto en el marco de un acuerdo definitivo con Estados Unidos, y dependerá de las medidas concretas que tome la otra parte para levantar todas las sanciones. Por lo tanto, los ayatolas están posponiendo las inspecciones hasta que se alcance un pacto definitivo.

Entre los obstáculos a superar se encuentra el alto el fuego en Líbano, que Irán impuso como condición para el acuerdo.

Empero, el primer ministro israelí, Benjamin Netanyahu, y su ministro de Defensa, Israel Katz (este último también hoy), declararon reiteradamente que no retirarán las tropas del sur de Líbano, donde afirman haber creado una zona de seguridad para proteger a los residentes del norte de Israel. Y ello ocurre mientras Israel y el Líbano debaten una propuesta respaldada por Estados Unidos que transferiría parte del territorio libanés ocupado por las Fuerzas de Defensa de Israel (IDF) al Ejército de Beirut.

Prosigue, en tanto, la misión del secretario estadounidense de Estado, Marco Rubio, en el Medio Oriente: el míercoles se reunió con el jeque emiratí Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, antes de arribar a Kuwait para una reunión con el Consejo de Cooperación del Golfo, asegurando que Estados Unidos estará «completamente alineado» con sus aliados de la región en las conversaciones con Irán. Entre las cuestiones que les preocupan se encuentran el fondo de reconstrucción de 300.000 millones de euros, que temen que pueda utilizarse con fines militares, y la exclusión de las tratavias del programa iraní de misiles balísticos, que financiaron durante el conflicto. (ANSA)

Foreign policy experts are advising the Trump administration to continue to carefully watch Iran’s behavior over its terror proxy Hezbollah — a group with American blood on its hands.

The importance of Hezbollah to the Tehran regime is clear in the comprehensive U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding. While the agreement does not mention the group by name, clause one of the 14-point MOU calls for the permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including the cessation of conflict in Lebanon.

Lisa Daftari, editor-in-chief, told Fox News Digital that, «Hezbollah isn’t just the Iran regime’s most prized proxy; it’s the crown jewel of the regime’s forward defense. For almost five decades, the Islamic Republic has invested billions building Hezbollah into a forward-deployed missile arsenal aimed directly at Israel’s heart.» She said «Losing Hezbollah would hurt the mullahs more than losing the Strait of Hormuz or anything else in their arsenal. That’s why Hezbollah is clause one,» of the MOU. 

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Daftari said Hezbollah is «a forward-deployed arm of the IRGC Quds Force taking Lebanon hostage,» She said that «the IRGC created Hezbollah in 1982, trained it, armed it, funded it, and to this day embeds Quds Force commanders inside its command structure. Treating them as separate organizations is a fiction Tehran exploits.»

While the State Department didn’t answer Fox News Digital questions over concerns raised by critics regarding the administration’s handling of Hezbollah, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a tough line on the terror group when asked by reporters in the United Arab Emirates Tuesday about Tehran’s terror proxies and why Iran’s ballistic missile program was left out of the recent Islamabad memorandum of understanding (MOU).

Rubio insisted that regional proxy threats are fundamentally covered by the framework. «I think a careful reading of the MOU will see that when you talk about, for example, a complete – an end of hostilities in the entire region, well, that’s not possible. You can’t have the end of hostilities and conflicts in the region as long as Iranian proxies are launching missiles and drones from Iraq and are participating in terrorism like Hamas did and like Hezbollah did. So I do think it’s covered by the MOU, and it is an issue that will be gotten to at the appropriate time in these negotiations.»

American Marines search for survivors and bodies in the rubble of their barracks headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, after a suicide car bomb killed 241 U.S. servicemen and wounded over 60 on Oct. 24, 1983. (Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket)

Hezbollah was designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. in 1997.  Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense for Democracies (FDD) and editor of its Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital that «Hezbollah has a five-decade-long track record of killing Americans, starting with the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983, attacks on U.S. embassies and airplane hijackings.»

Roggio said the efforts «continue to this day,» with Hezbollah playing «a key role in establishing, training, advising and supporting the Iraqi militias, which are responsible for killing more than 600 American soldiers. Hezbollah also trained al Qaeda to use suicide car bombs, which it implemented in the 1998 suicide attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and perfected in theaters such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.» 

In May 2025, A U.S. District Court determined that the torture of Lebanese American Amer Fakhoury was the responsibility of Iran, through its proxy Hezbollah. Fakhoury lost sixty pounds during a six-month period of captivity after being kidnapped by Hezbollah in Lebanon in September 2019. He died six months after his return to the U.S. of cancer that was diagnosed in prison in Lebanon.

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As U.S.-Iran talks opened Sunday in Switzerland, a dispute over who controls and monitors billions of dollars in potentially unfrozen Iranian assets emerged (Fabrice Coffrini/Pool via REUTERS)

Zoya and Guila Fakhoury, Amer’s daughters and co-founders of the Amer Foundation, told Fox News Digital that their «family wants to see a peaceful, sovereign, and prosperous Lebanon» and welcomes «any effort that genuinely reduces violence and helps Lebanon move toward stability.»

The Fakhoury’s said that «lasting peace cannot come at the expense of accountability. True stability in Lebanon requires ensuring that terrorist organizations like Hezbollah no longer hold the power to intimidate, detain, and silence innocent people.»

They expressed disappointment that there has been «little public focus on the Americans who remain unjustly detained by the Iranian regime.» They added that «Any meaningful agreement with Iran should include concrete progress toward bringing every wrongfully detained American home.»

Amer Fakhoury is shown before his illegal detention in Lebanon and after his rescue from hospital with cancer. His New Hampshire family seeks justice from Iran for his imprisonment. (Fakhoury Family)

A U.S. official told Fox News Digital that «The Trump Administration is committed to securing the release of all Americans unjustly detained in Iran and around the world. The Iranian regime has a long and shameful history of unjustly detaining U.S. nationals and other foreign citizens. The Iranian regime should immediately release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran.  To ensure the safety and security and security of those Americans, we have nothing further to share at this time.»

As talks brokered by the U.S. between Lebanese and Israeli officials resumed in Washington, the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, released a statement on his X account Tuesday, thanking the Vice President and Secretary of State, stating in part «for the attention that the United States is showing toward Lebanon, aimed at ending the war there, strengthening the authority of the Lebanese state, and the independence of its decision-making, considering it solely responsible for preserving national sovereignty, the dignity of the Lebanese people, and their safety.»

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The U.S. delegation including Steve Witkoff, JD Vance and Jared Kushner arrived in Switzerland on Sunday (REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool)

Walid Phares, a foreign policy expert and author of ‘Iran: An Imperialist Republic and U.S. Policy,’ told Fox News Digital that it was «a major mistake…to give the Islamic regime in Iran a power to include Lebanon and Hezbollah in the talks. He warned that «putting Lebanon on the agenda of the talks with the regime in Switzerland could collapse the Washington, D.C. platform.»

Pressed by reporters while in Kuwait on Wednesday about Israel’s continued military presence, Rubio drew a firm line on the administration’s expectations, stating its hope is «that the Lebanese Armed Forces and the legitimate, sovereign Lebanese government will continue to be able to control and secure more and more of their own territory – because that’s who needs to control Lebanese territory, not a terrorist group like Hezbollah. So that’s the goal. And I think the Israelis have been clear. They don’t have any quarrels with the Lebanese people, they don’t have any claims on the territory of Lebanon.»

Michael Needham, counselor for the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Moawad, and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter pose for a photo before a meeting at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 2026. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)

Jonathan Conricus, a former international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, told Fox News Digital that «From an Israeli perspective, Hezbollah is not an organization that we can talk with or expect them to change their ways.» He said that as a jihadi organization, «their primary objective in life is to wage holy war against the Jews, and then against Christians and against other what they consider to be infidels and Westerners. These are not people that you can negotiate or talk sense with.»

Conricus, a senior fellow at the FDD, added that «there’s a unique chance here to roll back Iranian aggression in the region and to dismantle the most important Iranian proxy Hezbollah.» To do so, he called for «political pressure, information pressure and…economic pressure on Hezbollah [and] on all of its financial institutions.»

A deliverman rides a motorcycle along a road in Baghdad past billboards showing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah, the slain leader of Hezbollah, on Oct. 7, 2024. (Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP)

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A U.S. government official told Fox News Digital that «Secretary Rubio spoke to both [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and Aoun on Friday about solidifying ceasefire and future talks. As a result of those calls, the U.S. started a monitoring mechanism via [U.S. Central Command] so that our policymakers have real-time and accurate information about fighting in Lebanon.»

The Washington talks between Lebanon and Israel are expected to continue into Thursday.