Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 247 at backgroundbriefing.org. I'm Ian Masters,

and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the House impeachment vote with all Republicans signing on to an investigation of President Biden,

even though there is absolutely no evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors.

While on the other hand, it is clear that Republicans are doing Trump's bidding of petty payback for his

impeachments, which were based on real facts and evidence. Joining us is David Redlorsk,

Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and International Relations

at the University of Delaware. His latest book is The Positive Case for Negative

Campaigning. Then we're looking to how Hungary's crooked despot Victor

Orban is blackmailing the EU holding up Ukraine's entry along with a 78

billion euro military and economic aid package after the EU paid him a $10 billion euro bribe.

Joining us is R. Daniel Callerman, McCourt Chair at the School of Public Policy at

Georgetown University as well as a professor of law at Georgetown Law.

He's the author of Eurolegalism, the transformation of law and regulation in the European Union,

and the rules of federalism, institutions and regulatory policies in the EU and beyond.

He is a senior associate in the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic International Studies

and a member of the Executive

Committee of the European Union Studies Association.

Then finally, we'll assess the efforts by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and civil liberties

groups to reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, now that the Pentagon and the House have voted

for what amounts to a 16-month extension of Section 702, which was tucked into the Pentagon's

886 NDAA bill. Joining us as Elizabeth Goytine, the co-director of the Liberty and National Security

...