NationalWatch

A Supreme Court leak is giving liberals new ammunition in their long-running criticism of the emergency docket after recently published internal memos showed how the high court fast-tracks major cases, a process that critics say has served to advance key parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda in his second term.

“The liberals are salivating over this. They’re very happy because it reinforces their narrative,” South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman told Fox News Digital.

The memos, published Saturday by the New York Times, offered a rare look at how Chief Justice John Roberts pressed the court in 2016 to quickly block President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. But the immediate concern now is not about what the documents revealed about the Supreme Court’s emergency docket but rather the leak itself, according to experts, who said it was a deliberate attempt to damage the court’s credibility.

“The bigger issue is people are leaking stuff to try to hurt the court,” Blackman said. “That’s the bigger story. This was done to try to make the court look bad. Roberts, I think, doesn’t come out looking very good in this one. … I think it’s designed to hurt the chief in particular.”

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The leaked internal memos appeared centered on the 5-4 decision along ideological lines in February 2016 to block Obama’s signature energy plan. The memos, written by and circulated among the justices, showed Roberts urging his colleagues to quickly intervene and halt the plan, a revelation that fueled attacks from the left on the so-called shadow docket.

“The new reporting highlights the role of this rashly issued stay in inaugurating the Supreme Court’s use of unexplained and hastily issued ‘shadow docket’ proceedings to alter major national policies,” Environmental Defense Fund general counsel Vickie Patton said in a statement Monday.

The leak incident has generated several theories in legal circles that a liberal justice or retired liberal justice, or one of their former clerks, passed the 16 pages of memos off to the New York Times to weaken confidence in high-profile emergency docket decisions, which have often favored Trump since he took office. A similar, smaller-scale leak to the same New York Times reporters occurred in 2024.

A ‘deteriorating culture at the court’

Blackman noted the person who gave the decade-old memos to the New York Times could share even more.

“This person probably kept a lot of things and decided to leak this, and there might be even more coming,” Blackman said. “I think this is absolutely partisan, and it’s done in a way to hurt and wound the court and to reaffirm this notion that the shadow docket is an evil, nefarious regime.”

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George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley echoed Blackman’s sentiments in an op-ed, saying “the controversy over the use of the shadow docket is immaterial to this story.”

Turley pointed to the Dobbs opinion leak to Politico from 2022, which was, at the time, a stunning violation of the high court’s confidentiality. Turley noted while that breach was an apparent “effort to influence the final opinion,” this latest one is about an old case and therefore “had a purely malicious purpose to embarrass or disrupt the court.”

“The leaks appear to reflect a deteriorating culture at the court,” Turley added.

The Supreme Court’s press office did not respond to an inquiry from Fox News Digital about the leaks.

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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told Fox News on Monday the memos were “100%” intended to discredit the court. Hawley and his wife, Erin, a lawyer at the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, both previously worked as law clerks for Roberts.

“You can tell from the news article that builds it that way,” Hawley said. “They criticize the court for how they’re managing their docket. They say this is some big conspiracy. The only conspiracy is the multi-year effort funded by somebody to undermine the institution of the court from within, from without. … We need to find out who’s doing this.”

Shadow docket criticism

The emergency docket allows litigants to bypass lengthy court proceedings and seek immediate relief from the Supreme Court if lower courts block them through restraining orders or preliminary injunctions.

Democrats have criticized the Supreme Court for the higher frequency of emergency decisions, which often contain little explanation but have increased because of what legal experts say is a rise in executive actions in lieu of Congress passing laws. In Trump’s second term, the justices have ruled in favor of Trump on emergency decisions most of the time, clearing the way for Trump to fire masses of federal employees, cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts, move forward with aggressive immigration policies and more.

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Last week, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee, tore into the high court’s majority during a Yale Law School speech for issuing what she said were rushed, “scratch-paper musings” that advance “harmful” policies.

Upon introducing a bill to “increase transparency” of the emergency docket in December, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the leading Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the Supreme Court was losing credibility by not allowing cases to first play out in the lower courts.

“The Roberts Court’s reliance on the Shadow Docket to covertly fast-track one-paragraph decisions on major cases drives tremendous mistrust toward Justices already facing record-low levels of public confidence,” Raskin said at the time.

Roberts the ‘bulldozer’

The Clean Power Plan would have involved the Obama Environmental Protection Agency imposing regulations on coal-powered plants under the Clean Air Act, a move that red states and industry groups implored the Supreme Court to quickly stop in 2016. Roberts, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote, according to the memos, that without the high court stepping in, “both the states and private industry will suffer irreparable harm from a rule that is — in my view — highly unlikely to survive.”

The New York Times described Roberts as acting like a “bulldozer.” Blackman said “it’s very clear” that Roberts stepped in to stop the EPA administrator from ramming through a plan in Obama’s last year in office that could reshape the energy sector with only the “very liberal” D.C. appellate court weighing in.

In another memo, Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, disagreed with Roberts, saying “the unique nature of the relief sought in these applications gives me real pause.”

In a matter of days, the high court issued its brief, unexplained decision along ideological lines to temporarily block Obama’s plan. The move would become a death blow to Obama’s efforts because Democrats would lose the White House later that year.

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Blackman noted that accountability for leaking the private memos, which framed Roberts as spearheading a reckless decision, would be difficult, saying any possible crime would fall outside of statutes of limitations and that, outside of the possibility of attempting to disbar the culprit for an ethics violation, there was no real recourse, especially for conservatives seeking to punish a possible left-leaning leaker.

“If a liberal leaks they’ll get a medal,” Blackman said. “They’ll become a hero. They’ll suffer zero professional consequences. In fact, they’ll probably be better off.”

An appeals court on Wednesday blocked California from requiring federal immigration agents to display identification during operations, handing the Trump administration a legal victory over Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found California overstepped its authority by trying to regulate Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, marking the latest flashpoint in a broader fight between blue states and the federal government over immigration enforcement operations.

The panel of judges, comprising two Trump appointees and one Obama appointee, found California’s No Vigilantes Act violated the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which says that when a state and federal law are in conflict, the latter wins out.

“We conclude that [section 10] of the No Vigilantes Act attempts to directly regulate the United States in its performance of governmental functions,” the panel wrote in an order. “The Supremacy Clause forbids the State from enforcing such legislation.”

APPEALS COURT BLOCKS ORDER LIMITING IMMIGRATION AGENTS’ USE OF FORCE IN CHICAGO

The decision came after Newsom signed into law a pair of bills last fall designed to address reports of unidentified federal agents, sometimes wearing masks and other gear, carrying out arrests and detaining illegal immigrants in California. The No Vigilantes Act and No Secret Police Act required ICE agents to display identification and banned them from wearing masks, respectively.

“Trump’s ICE agents need to be reined in and held to the same standards as any other law enforcement agency,” Newsom said in a statement in March. “Federal accountability and clear identification shouldn’t be optional.”

The Trump administration sued over the two bills and sought injunctions, arguing in court papers that “a state law that directly regulates the federal government’s operations is straightforwardly invalid, no matter the size of the burden it imposes.”

ICE has defended the practice of agents concealing their identities during operations, saying last summer as Trump’s intensifying immigration crackdown prompted anti-ICE protests and riots that rhetoric on the left had caused a spike in “threats and assaults against [agents’] families.”

TRUMP ADMIN URGES NEWSOM TO HONOR ICE DETAINERS FOR MORE THAN 33K CRIMINAL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

A federal judge also blocked California’s mask ban in February, and state Democratic lawmakers responded by attempting to rewrite the bill, a process that remains ongoing.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche commended the DOJ Civil Division, which has been handling the ICE litigation, calling the 9th Circuit’s decision “another decisive victory in this administration’s effort to remove illegal aliens from this country.”

Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney in California, celebrated the win, calling it a “huge legal victory … where the court permanently enjoined California’s unconstitutional mask law targeting federal agents.”

DOJ Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon said on X, “Told ya!”

Former DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf also weighed in, saying: “Finally – a good decision for common sense and strong immigration enforcement.”

TRUMP TELLS JUDGE HE DOES NOT NEED NEWSOM’S PERMISSION TO CRACK DOWN ON RIOTERS, DEPLOY NATIONAL GUARD

California could appeal the decision. Asked for comment, a Newsom spokesperson told Fox News Digital undercover ICE agents were “terrorizing” people at the direction of Trump and his aide Stephen Miller, the architect of many of the White House‘s immigration policies.

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“These laws shouldn’t even be necessary,” the Newsom spokesperson said. “We shouldn’t have unidentified, masked men terrorizing our communities. We will continue demanding federal accountability and fighting against Trump and Miller’s reign of terror against our communities.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

7President Donald Trump appeared to target Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Wednesday, calling her a “low IQ person” as he criticized the Supreme Court over recent rulings he opposes.

Trump’s comments come as he has grown increasingly frustrated with the Supreme Court, particularly after it blocked his sweeping tariff plan and weighs his effort to end birthright citizenship. 

Though Trump did not name Jackson directly, his reference to the “new” female justice appointed by former President Joe Biden was clear. Biden in 2022 nominated Jackson, a Harvard Law School graduate and former clerk to former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, to the high court.

“The Republican Justices don’t stick together,” Trump said, adding that the court “ALWAYS vote as a group, or BLOCK, even that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench (Sleepy Joe!).”

JUSTICE THOMAS WARNS PROGRESSIVISM IS A THREAT TO AMERICA IN RARE PUBLIC REMARKS

Trump’s remarks came as part of a broader tirade against the Supreme Court’s conservative majority, which he said showed him “very little loyalty” earlier this year in blocking his global tariffs from taking force. He also suggested the court might rule against him on his executive order seeking to end so-called “birthright citizenship” in the U.S.

Trump had attended a portion of those oral arguments in person, making history and signaling just how closely he has been monitoring the issue.

“Certain ‘Republican’ Justices have just gone weak, stupid, and bad, completely violating what they ‘supposedly’ stood for,” Trump said. He contrasted this with Democrat justices, whom he said “stick together like glue, totally loyal to the people and ideology that got them there.”

TRUMP WARNS SUPREME COURT TARIFF SHOWDOWN IS ‘LIFE OR DEATH’ FOR AMERICA

“They are an immovable force, and there is nothing that can be done to change that,” Trump said, adding: “Frankly, I respect that a lot!” 

Trump’s remarks come after the high court blocked his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs from taking force earlier this year. Justices in February blocked Trump, 6-3, from using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA to unilaterally enact steep reciprocal tariffs. 

Trump on Wednesday also suggested the high court might rule against him on birthright citizenship. Trump used the social media post to take aim at what he described as the “nasty, one-sided questions on the country destroying the subject of Birthright Citizenship” during oral arguments earlier this month.

Trump attended roughly half of the oral arguments, and left shortly after U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer finished making the administration’s case.

“If they rule against our Country on Birthright Citizenship, which they probably will, it will be even worse, if that’s possible,” Trump said of the Supreme Court. “It will cost America massive amounts of money but, more importantly, it will cost America its DIGNITY!”

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The remarks come weeks after a majority of justices earlier this month appeared skeptical of Trump’s effort to end so-called birthright citizenship, using oral arguments to cite concerns over the legality and enforcement of an executive order that could reshape protections for millions of Americans.

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A ruling in Trump’s favor would represent a seismic shift for immigration policy in the U.S., and would upend long-held notions of citizenship, which Trump and his allies argue are misguided. 

Trump said in a separate Truth Social post Tuesday night that, “based on the questioning by Republican Nominated Justices that I watched firsthand in the Court, we lose” the case. 

While Rep. Ilhan Omar’s, D-Minn., has been denying accusations that she’s racked up a multi-million-dollar net worth since getting elected to Congress, her daughter has continued her hard-left political activism and support for communist causes that began when she was just 12.

Isra Hirsi, who was just 16 when her mother and charter member of “The Squad” was elected to Congress in 2019, has described herself as “an angry Black girl,” and played the role of a strident political activist. While her views would seem to jibe with her famous mother’s, they don’t easily square with reports, which Omar denies, that she is worth as much as $30 million.

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In a February letter to Omar’s husband, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., raised concerns about financial disclosures showing the value of two companies, eStCru LLC and Rose Lake Capital, surged from tens of thousands of dollars in 2023 to as much as $30 million in 2024.

Later, an amended filing reviewed by The Wall Street Journal showed Omar and her husband’s assets were worth between $18,004 and $95,000. The quick revision prompted skepticism from Omar’s critics, including Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

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“Ilhan Omar says her congressional financial reports have massive accounting error,” Fitton wrote on X. “She and her husband only worth 18k-86k, NOT $6 million-$30 million! Previously unreported ‘liabilities’ erase wealth!”

The New York Post reported in 2024 that Hirsi participated in demonstrations as early as age 12, when she joined Omar and their family at a Black Lives Matter event that forced the Mall of America to shut down. The demonstration would later be stopped by 50 riot control cops and more than 200 police officers. 

At about age 15, Hirsi co-founded and served as co-executive director of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, a branch of activist Greta Thunberg’s organization “Fridays for Future,” according to a biography on the Brower Youth Awards website. 

Hirsi received the award, which is given to young people who are active in climate sustainability advocacy, in 2019.

ILHAN OMAR DEFENDS MEALS ACT DESPITE TIES TO MASSIVE MINNESOTA FRAUD SCHEME

Omar posted on X in 2024 that Hirsi organized “a statewide school walk out on the 20th anniversary of Columbine at the age of 15” and led “the biggest youth climate rally at our nation’s Capitol at 16.”

Hirsi’s involvement with the anti-Israel groups and her participation in the encampments that plagued the Columbia University campus prompted her suspension from Barnard College in 2024.

She later continued her education at the private, liberal arts college for women in New York City, while Omar was in Congress. 

The estimated cost of attending Barnard is just shy of $100,000 for resident students, including tuition, fees, housing and food.

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Omar’s daughter then became an organizer with CU Apartheid Divest and Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization which is not formally recognized by the Ivy League school.

Fox News Digital reached out to Hirsi and Omar, but didn’t receive a response. 

In April 2024, Hirsi was arrested by the New York City Police Department along with more than 100 people who were issued summons for trespassing as a result of the encampments on the Ivy League campus — an arrest in which Omar praised her daughter for “courage and compassion,” saying she was “enormously proud.”

“I am enormously proud of my daughter @israhirsi,” Omar posted on X. “She has always led with courage and compassion, from organizing a statewide school walk out on the 20th anniversary of Columbine at the age of 15, to leading the biggest youth climate rally at our nation’s Capitol at 16, and now pushing her school to stand against genocide.”

ILHAN OMAR SAYS THERE ARE FEW UNDOCUMENTED SOMALI MIGRANTS IN THE COUNTRY

“Stepping up to change what you can’t tolerate is why we as a country have the right to speech, assembly, and petition enshrined in our constitution,” the post added.

Just 15 months after her arrest, the New York Post reported that Hirsi posted an Instagram Story, revealing she was unemployed and selling used clothes to make money, while still posting anti-Israel content on various social media platforms. 

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Last month, she traveled to Cuba on a trip sponsored by CodePink, an organization co-founded by Jodie Evans, the wife of a Shanghai-based American tech tycoon, Neville Roy Singham, who supports the policies of the Chinese Communist Party.

Hirsi, along with other far-left activists, went to Cuba to protest the economic sanctions imposed on the country by President Donald Trump’s administration, with many of the activists staying in a five-star hotel while many residents of the communist country suffered from an electricity blackout.

“People are here from across the globe to express solidarity with the Cuban people,” Hirsi wrote in an X post. “People who are standing against the oppressive blockade exacerbated by the [T]rump administration. i am honored to be here. I am honored to make history and Eid Mubarak to all.”

In an Instagram post touting the trip to communist Cuba, Hirsi credited the People’s Forum, an organization that has received a documented $22.44 million from Singham, according to a Fox News Digital investigation. In the post, she noted that the U.S. “has long bullied Cuba with its sanctions and now this oil blockade is killing people.”

According to Fox News Digital reporting, Singham has funneled $278 million into a network of agitator groups across the country, with the People’s Forum and CodePink at the center of many heated demonstrations.

Omar’s non-Congressional X account, which boasts 2.8 million followers, has interacted with her daughter’s account on the platform, mainly praising her political activism in posts that are then reposted by Hirsi. Hirsi’s social media presence has been less active on X, though she frequently reposted far-left accounts during her time at Barnard.

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“I am incredibly proud of Isra and everyone who made the trip to Cuba,” Omar said in an X post that Hirsi then reposted. “They took tons of aid to make sure the people of Cuba knew that there are so many people across the world who stand in solidarity with them.”

President Donald Trump said Iran is “starving for cash” after extending the ceasefire deadline, arguing that the regime is losing hundreds of millions of dollar a day due to the U.S.-enforced blockade.

Trump claims that that the foreign nation is “collapsing financially.”

“Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day (which is, therefore, what they are losing if it is closed!). They only say they want it closed because I have it totally BLOCKADED (CLOSED!), so they merely want to ‘save face.’ People approached me four days ago, saying, ‘Sir, Iran wants to open up the Strait, immediately.’ But if we do that, there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!” he declared in a Tuesday night Truth Social post.

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“Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately- Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!” the president claimed in another Tuesday night post.

Trump had indicated in a Tuesday afternoon Truth Social post that he would extend the ceasefire.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump declared in the post.

“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” he added.

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Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi had declared in a post on X that “Blockading Iranian ports is an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire. Striking a commercial vessel and taking its crew hostage is an even greater violation. Iran knows how to neutralize restrictions, how to defend its interests, and how to resist bullying.”

Iran reportedly fired upon three ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Republicans are divided over Virginia’s new redistricting map, which creates a 10-1 Democratic advantage, with party leaders calling it an ‘egregious power grab’ while others blame GOP messaging for their loss.

Virginia’s new map, which gives Democrats the opportunity to pick up four additional seats, passed on slim margins, with 51.5% of votes cast in favor and 48.5% against the ballot measure. Republicans have argued that the close results show the new map is not an accurate reflection of Virginia voters.

“Virginia Democrats can’t redraw reality,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson, R-N.C., said. “This close margin reinforces that Virginia is a purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander. That’s exactly why the courts, who have already ruled twice to block this egregious power grab, should uphold Virginia law.”

DEMOCRATS’ CHAIR VOWS TO FIGHT ‘TOOTH AND NAIL’ TO STOP TRUMP, REPUBLICANS, IN REDISTRICTING BATTLE

The nonprofit group Virginians for Fair Maps, which is chaired by former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, echoed Hudson’s call to take the fight to the courts.

“Virginians deserve fair maps and respect for the rule of law, but as voters, they have a right clearly articulated by the Supreme Court in Coleman v. Pross, to vote on constitutional amendments before them at the ballot box only if faced there by a fair process,” the co-chairs wrote. “Virginians disenfranchised by today’s vote will have their day in court.”

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Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., is one of four House Republicans now at a greater risk of losing their re-election following the new map’s passage. She claimed that under the new map “conservative voices and values have been eliminated.”

“But the fight is far from over,” Kiggans wrote in a statement. “My mission remains to hold leaders accountable, to serve the people who elected me, and to once again win the vote in Virginia’s Second Congressional District this November.”

House Majority Leader Mike Johnson, R-La., said the Republicans will fight against the Democrats.

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“If Democrats are successful in the 2026 midterms, we know this is only the beginning. They will throw open our borders, let crime run rampant in our streets, project weakness on the world stage, make life more expensive for every family, and flood our elections with non-citizens to try and hold on to power forever,” Johnson wrote on X. “Republicans have responded in state after state, and we will finish this fight — and in November, we will WIN the midterms.”

But other Republican Party members, who have fallen out favor with President Donald Trump, have suggested that Republicans losing in Virginia is their own fault.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who is retiring from Congress, said the map passed because Republicans haven’t been able to deliver on their promised agenda to voters.

“It’s the absolute failures of Republicans to pass the agenda that the American people voted for in 2024 and it’s the complete and total campaign betrayals by President Trump of him going to war with [sic] Iran and fighting the release of the Epstein files and protecting the elite pedophiles,” Greene wrote on X. “There’s no amount of money that can be spent to lie to voters and get them to come back and vote for a Republican [sic] right now. If Trump and Republicans had delivered what they promised, this would be different.”

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Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele was quick to point out the hypocrisy over the upset over Democrats in Virginia passing a new map, while voters in Texas didn’t get a say when Republicans did the same thing.

“Let the whining from my Party begin about the fact the voters in Virginia, unlike Texas (which started all of this gerrymandering mess) actually had a say in whether or not they wanted their congressional maps redrawn,” Steele wrote on X. “In Texas, the Republican legislature just did it and not one Republican complained.”

Iran seized two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz hours after President Donald Trump extended a ceasefire, as confrontations at sea continued under the truce.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the vessels, identified as the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, were operating without proper authorization and had tampered with navigation systems, accusations that could not be independently verified. The ships had earlier reported coming under fire near the strait, underscoring the increasingly volatile conditions in one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.

Both ships are managed by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).

The Guard attacked a third ship, identified as the Euphoria, which had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, Iranian media reported.

In a turn of events Tuesday, Trump announced he would extend the two-week ceasefire with Iran. For how long is unclear, but a White House official told Fox News it would be several days. 

IRAN FIRES LIVE MISSILES INTO STRAIT OF HORMUZ AS TRUMP ENVOYS ARRIVE FOR NUCLEAR TALKS

Despite heavy U.S. strikes that officials say severely degraded Iran’s conventional navy, Tehran maintains maritime capability through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ fleet of fast-attack boats used for harassment and boarding operations in the narrow strait.

“We should think in the thousands,” Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Fox News Digital. “If you include very small boats up to more capable fast-attack craft, the total could reach 3,000 to 4,000 vessels.”

Those forces have been used to harass commercial ships, force them to stop, and take them into custody. Iranian state media said similar tactics were used when Revolutionary Guard units attacked multiple vessels before escorting at least two into Iranian waters.

The continued attacks highlight a gap between battlefield claims and reality.

In a Truth Social post April 13, Trump said, “Iran’s Navy is obliterated. It is laying at the bottom of the sea,” adding that U.S. forces did not need to target Iran’s “little fast-attack boats” because they were not a threat.

TRUMP WATCHES STRIKE ON IRAN-BACKED HOUTHIS IN YEMEN IN NEW WHITE HOUSE PICS AS LARGE-SCALE OP CONTINUES

But those smaller vessels, long a cornerstone of Iran’s asymmetric strategy, are now central to its ability to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

The seizures mark the latest escalation in a widening maritime standoff between Iran and Washington. 

Both sides have targeted commercial and cargo vessels as part of a broader pressure campaign tied to stalled negotiations. U.S. forces have also moved to seize at least one Iranian-linked vessel in the region, with each side accusing the other of violating the terms of a fragile ceasefire.

The Strait of Hormuz is a vital artery for global oil shipments, with roughly 20% of the world’s supply passing through it. Traffic has slowed dramatically as ships reroute or avoid the area amid gunfire, seizures and conflicting directives from both militaries.

In a series of Truth Social posts Tuesday night, Trump claimed Iran privately wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened despite public threats to close it.

“Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day (which is, therefore, what they are losing if it is closed!),” he wrote.

“But if we do that, there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!”

Trump said he agreed to extend the ceasefire at the request of Pakistani officials while waiting for Iran’s leadership to present a unified position in negotiations.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” he added.

Plans for renewed peace talks remain in limbo, with Iran signaling it may not participate in a second round of negotiations while the U.S. maintains its naval blockade. The blockade remains a key sticking point driving the confrontation at sea.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the naval blockade an “act of war,” accusing Washington of violating the ceasefire.

“Blockading Iranian ports is an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire. Striking a commercial vessel and taking its crew hostage is an even greater violation,” he wrote on X.

The comments came after U.S. forces moved to seize Iran’s M/V Touska vessel on Monday, which Araghchi described as “an act of piracy.”

The seizures come as U.S.-Iran diplomacy appears increasingly uncertain, with a planned second round of talks in Islamabad thrown into doubt. Vice President JD Vance, who had been expected to lead the U.S. delegation, remained in Washington after Iran signaled it would not participate, scrapping plans for the delegation to travel to Pakistan.

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The abrupt shift followed a day of mixed signals from Trump, who said Tuesday morning he did not want to extend the ceasefire as its deadline approached, warning time for negotiations was running out. By the afternoon, however, he reversed course and announced he would extend the truce indefinitely to allow more time for diplomacy.

The reversal has further clouded fragile negotiations. No date has been set for renewed talks, and Iranian officials continue to insist they will not engage while the U.S. maintains its naval blockade. The confrontation has increasingly shifted from the negotiating table to the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, where the risk of miscalculation is rising.

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report. 

Soros-backed Democratic prosecutor Steve Descano has been hit with a formal federal complaint alleging that his lenient policies led to the “preventable” murder of a woman who was stabbed to death by an illegal alien in Virginia’s most populous county.

This comes as Descano, Fairfax County’s commonwealth attorney, faces mounting criticism and pressure over his handling of a spate of illegal immigrant crime in the area. Descano rose to power with heavy financial backing from the Soros family’s Justice and Public Safety PAC. Three of the four murders actively being investigated by authorities in Fairfax County were committed by illegal aliens, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The debate mirrors broader national scrutiny of how sanctuary leaders handle migrant crime in their jurisdictions.

Victims Rights Reform Council (VRRC), an advocacy group for victims of violent crimes, filed a federal civil rights complaint against Descano this week on behalf of Cheryl Minter. Minter’s 41-year-old daughter, Stephanie Minter, was fatally stabbed at a bus stop earlier this year, allegedly by Abdul Jalloh, a 32-year-old illegal alien from Sierra Leone. Jalloh is now being held without bond and charged with second-degree murder.

In a Tuesday statement, Minter remarked that her daughter “should be alive today,” saying, “She was taken because the system chose to release a violent offender again and again.”

HOUSE PANEL SUMMONS SOROS-BACKED FAIRFAX PROSECUTOR OVER RELEASES TIED TO VIOLENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CASES

This particular killing has caused significant national outrage, as Jalloh entered the country illegally under the Obama administration in 2020 and has had a final deportation order since 2020. He has a lengthy criminal history, including more than 30 arrests for charges of rape, malicious wounding, assault, drug possession, identity theft and other offenses. In 2023, he was convicted of malicious wounding and sentenced to seven years in prison, with five years suspended. He only ended up serving about seven months in prison, according to local outlet WUSA9.

Minter asserted that “had I murdered someone, I would be doing life in jail.”

She suggested that “it seems that citizens are doing a lot more time and receive a lot more punishment for the same crimes than the illegals are.”

VRRC is requesting that the Trump Department of Justice conduct a federal pattern-or-practice investigation into policies and practices it alleges resulted in the “preventable murder” of Minter’s daughter.

In its complaint, VRRC alleges that systemic failures in Descano’s office include discriminatory prosecutorial practices, including policies that consider and seek to mitigate immigration consequences in criminal cases. It also alleges that Descano’s office shows deliberate indifference to public safety by “repeatedly releasing a known violent offender despite clear warnings and a broader pattern of leniency toward repeat and violent offenders.”

Additionally, it alleges that Descano’s office has “potential outside influence on prosecutorial policy.”

Descano’s entry into political office was propelled by a massive $627,653 donation from the Soros family’s Justice and Public Safety PAC, which made up roughly 70 percent of his 2019 campaign budget. 

SPANBERGER FACES ‘BAIT-AND-SWITCH’ BACKLASH IN FINAL HOURS BEFORE REDISTRICTING REFERENDUM

In a statement shared with Fox News Digital, Jennifer Harrison, executive director of VRRC, explained the group is “demanding accountability for a system that failed Stephanie and too many others.”

“When known violent offenders are repeatedly released despite clear warnings, and policies yield unequal outcomes, the federal government must act,” she went on. “Equal justice means protecting innocent people — not prioritizing ideology over safety,”

In response, Descano’s office shared a statement from the commonwealth attorney who said, “I can’t speak to any individual lawsuit, but I can tell you that the idea that we favor one group over another is completely wrong.”

Descano said that the idea his office favors certain groups “has been fed by, in my opinion, purposeful misreporting and people taking things out of context for political gain.”

“I can tell you that my job and our office’s job is to keep us safe,” he added.

Descano delivered these remarks outside the Fairfax County Courthouse on Tuesday, following the sentencing of 18-year-old illegal immigrant Israel Flores Ortiz to 360 days of incarceration for assault by groping of several teenage girls. Descano said after the press conference that his office is “happy” with the sentence. Flores Ortiz is expected to serve about 135 days of his 360-day sentence.

SPANBERGER RECEIVES DHS PLEA TO HOLD ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT REPEAT OFFENDER NOW CHARGED IN ATTEMPTED RAPE

Meanwhile, Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe Communities, remarked that the DOJ “should heed Cheryl Minter’s warning,” because “Descano’s discriminatory policies are deadly.”

“Stephanie Minter would be alive today if Fairfax’s top prosecutor treated everyone equally and obeyed the law,” alleged Kennedy in a statement to Fox News Digital.

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“DOJ must act now before another parent buries a child because Descano decided to protect an illegal alien instead of the public,” said Kennedy.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wants to extend protections for Haitian migrants, and Republicans say it’s a perfect example of him putting the interests of illegal immigrants over Americans. 

Schumer fast-tracked a House-passed bill that would extend the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of Haitian migrants for three years earlier this week onto the Senate schedule. Whether it actually makes it to the floor is ultimately up to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

The top Senate Democrat’s desire to pass the legislation in the Senate comes at an inflection point for both the protected status of Haitian migrants and a funding battle started, in part, over immigration operations in the country. 

HOUSE REPUBLICANS DEFY TRUMP TO SHIELD HAITIANS FROM DEPORTATION

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who led negotiations for Senate Republicans to try to strike a compromise deal to end the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown, told Fox News Digital, “I’m so glad that he is prioritizing people who are not American consistently.”

“What about the countless Americans that have died at the hands of illegal aliens? I mean, the fact that you’re literally trying to defund the organization that is tasked with keeping our streets safe, our borders secure, keeping Americans — allowing Americans to go home to their families at night,” Britt said. “It’s just totally, his priorities are completely and totally off.”

While Schumer is trying to extend the protected status of Haitian migrants, DHS is still shut down over disagreements on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) funding.

SENATE TAKES FIRST STEP TO FUND ICE, BORDER PATROL IN BID TO CUT DEMS OUT OF THE FUNDING PROCESS

The legislation made it through the House last week after 10 Republicans bucked President Donald Trump and joined Democrats to shield more than 350,000 Haitian nationals from deportation.

The TPS program allows foreign nationals whose home countries face humanitarian crises or dangerous conditions to temporarily live and work in the United States without fear of deportation, but it does not provide a pathway to citizenship.

Schumer noted on the Senate floor earlier this week that Haitian migrants became a political flash point during Trump’s campaign, in which he claimed that a community of Haitians in Ohio were eating pets. 

SENATE REPUBLICANS UNVEIL IMMIGRATION FUNDING PLAN WITH $140 BILLION PRICE TAG AS GOP AIMS TO SPEND LESS

“Despite ongoing violence, gang violence, civil instability, terrible medical infrastructure, and poor food access in Haiti,” Schumer said, “Trump directed Kristi Noem to strip Haitian immigrants of their TPS, their Temporary Protected Status, disregarding the process Congress set into law.”

Trump tried to revoke the program for Haiti and argued that because conditions have improved in the country, granting Haitians legal protections runs counter to American interests. But his administration’s effort is currently snarled in the courts. 

And if it were to make it to a vote, Republicans plan to swiftly kill it.

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When asked whether the bill stood a chance in the upper chamber, Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, flashed a zero sign by connecting his index finger and thumb. 

“Zero point zero,” Moreno told Fox News Digital.  “Schumer is all illegals first, it’s crazy.”

Sparks flew on Capitol Hill as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., accused Federal Reserve nominee Kevin Warsh of being a potential “sock puppet” for President Donald Trump.

Warsh, tapped by Trump in January to lead the Federal Reserve, faced a two-and-a-half-hour confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.

If confirmed, he would take the helm of the world’s most powerful central bank, shaping interest rates, borrowing costs and the financial outlook for millions of American households for the next four years.

WHO IS KEVIN WARSH, TRUMP’S PICK TO SUCCEED JEROME POWELL AS FED CHAIR?

In her opening remarks, Warren sharply criticized Warsh’s record and questioned his independence, arguing he is “uniquely ill-suited for the job as Fed chair” and warning he could give Trump influence over the central bank.

She accused Warsh of enabling Wall Street during the 2008 financial crisis, which fell during his tenure as a Federal Reserve governor when he served from 2006 to 2011.

“In our meeting last week, we discussed the 2008 financial crash, where 8 million people lost their jobs, 10 million people lost their homes and millions more lost their life savings,” Warren said. “Giant banks, however, got hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts… and he said to me that he has no regrets about anything he did.”

She added that Warsh “worked tirelessly to arrange multibillion-dollar bailouts” for Wall Street CEOs, with nothing for American families.

The hearing grew more tense as Warren pivoted to ethics concerns, pressing Warsh over his undisclosed financial holdings and questioning him over links to business dealings connected to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The two spoke over each other and raised their voices in a heated exchange on Capitol Hill.

WARSH’S $226 MILLION FORTUNE UNDER SCRUTINY AS FED NOMINEE FACES SENATE CONFIRMATION

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: The Fed has been plagued by deeply disturbing ethics scandals in recent years. It’s critical that the next chair have no financial conflicts — none. You have more than $100 million in investments that you have refused to disclose. So let me ask: do the Juggernaut Fund or THSDFS LLC invest in companies affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies tied to money laundering, Chinese-controlled firms, or financing vehicles linked to Jeffrey Epstein?

Kevin Warsh: Senator, I’ve worked closely with the Office of Government Ethics and agreed to divest all of my financial assets.

Warren: Could you answer my question, please? You have more than $100 million in undisclosed assets. Are any of those investments tied to the entities I just mentioned? It’s a yes-or-no question.

Warsh: I have worked tirelessly with ethics officials and agreed to sell all of my assets before taking the oath of office.

Warren: Are you refusing to tell us if you have investments in vehicles linked to Jeffrey Epstein? You just won’t say?

Warsh: What I’m telling you is those assets will be sold if I’m confirmed.

Warren: Will you disclose how you plan to divest these assets? The public might question your motives if, for example, someone who profits from predicting Fed policy cuts you a $100 million check as you take office.

Warsh: I’ve reached a full agreement with the Office of Government Ethics and will divest those assets before taking the oath.

Warren: I’m asking a very straightforward question. Will you disclose how you divest those assets?

Warsh: As I’ve said, I’ve worked with ethics officials.

Warren: I’ll take that as a no.

In a separate exchange, Warren invoked Trump’s past statements about the Fed and challenged Warsh to prove his independence in real time.

She insisted that Warsh answer whether he believes Trump won the 2020 presidential election and if he would name policies of the president with which he disagrees. The hopeful future Fed chair dodged the question and said he would remain apolitical, if confirmed.

THE ONE LINE IN WARSH’S TESTIMONY SIGNALING A BREAK FROM THE FED’S STATUS QUO

Warren: Donald Trump has made clear he does not want an independent Fed. He has said, “Anybody that disagrees with me will never be Fed chairman.” He’s also said interest rates will drop “when Kevin gets in.” Let’s check out your independence and your courage. We’ll start easy. Mr. Warsh, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

Warsh: Senator, we should keep politics out of the Federal Reserve.

Warren: I’m asking a factual question.

Warsh: This body certified the election.

Warren: That’s not what I asked. Did Donald Trump lose in 2020?

Warsh: The Fed should stay out of politics.

Warren: In our meeting, you said you’re a “tough guy” who can stand up to President Trump. So name one aspect of his economic agenda you disagree with.

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Warsh: That’s not something I’m prepared to do. The Fed should stay in its lane.

Warren: Just one place where you disagree.

Warsh: I do have one disagreement — he said I looked like I was out of central casting. I think I’d look older and grayer.

Warren: That’s adorable. But we need a Fed chair who is independent. If you can’t answer these questions, you don’t have the courage or the independence.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., announced Tuesday she is resigning from the House of Representatives after Republicans vowed to force a vote to expel her from the chamber.

“Rather than play these political games, I choose to step away so I can devote my time to fighting for my neighbors in Florida’s 20th District,” she wrote on social media Tuesday afternoon. “I hereby resign from the 119th Congress, effective immediately.”

“This fight is far from over,” Cherfilus-McCormick, who was indicted by a grand jury last year for allegedly stealing COVID-19 emergency funds, added in her statement. 

She is facing 53 years in prison as part of a separate criminal indictment.

INDICTED DEMOCRAT SHEILA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK REFUSES TO RESIGN AS EXPULSION VOTE LOOMS

Cherfilus-McCormick’s abrupt announcement came after Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., pledged to file a motion to expel her, teeing up a vote later this week. It takes two-thirds of the House to remove a lawmaker, but a growing number of Democrats have voiced support for the expulsion effort.

It also came just minutes prior to a House Ethics Committee hearing that was slated to recommend sanctions against her for committing a bevy of violations involving financial misconduct. 

House Ethics Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., announced the panel lost jurisdiction with Cherfilus-Mccormick’s eleventh-hour decision to quit Congress. 

The committee panel found “clear and convincing evidence” in March that the Florida Democrat misused federal disaster relief money that was improperly paid to her family’s healthcare company, among other misconduct. 

Cherfilus-McCormick has denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly rebuffed speculation she would resign if confronted with an expulsion vote. 

She slammed the ethics panel’s investigation as a “witch hunt” on social media and claimed a violation of her due process rights, despite the committee granting a request to delay proceedings when she temporarily lost legal representation earlier this year. 

Guest vigorously pushed back on that assertion Tuesday, noting that she had repeatedly declined the committee’s request to provide exculpatory evidence.

“The committee has worked diligently to investigate this matter,” he said. “This was not a rush to judgment, as some would claim … this was a very deliberate process to gather information into allegations that were extremely serious, and extremely complicated.”

Guest also thanked committee staff Tuesday who had worked for more than two years and reviewed tens of thousands of documents to probe Cherfilus-McCormick’s alleged misconduct.

She is the third lawmaker to resign from Congress in the past week. Reps. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, stepped down last week to avoid their own expulsion threats related to sexual misconduct allegations.

At least five women have come forward with allegations against Swalwell of sexual assault and rape. Gonzales admitted to sexual misconduct in March with a former aide who later died by suicide.

JIMMY KIMMEL IGNORES ERIC SWALWELL RESIGNATION AFTER SAYING IT’D BE ‘SHAMEFUL’ TO AVOID POLITICAL TOPICS

The embattled lawmaker is facing a separate 15-count federal criminal indictment that carries a maximum sentence of 53 years in prison, if convicted. The federal trial is not scheduled to begin until early 2027.

She filed to run for re-election, despite raising just $11,000 in the year’s first fundraising quarter, according to recent Federal Election Commission filings. It is unclear whether she plans to suspend her campaign.

Cherfilus-Mccormick was not present as her resignation announcement was read on the House floor. 

A Cherfilus-McCormick aide told reporters that she was with her family in Washington, D.C. as the news broke.

“She’s with her family digesting this development and digesting this decision,” the staffer said. “As you can imagine, this wasn’t what she wanted.”

House Democratic leadership did not publicly weigh in before Cherfilus-McCormick’s resignation announcement, despite the extensive misconduct determined by the House ethics panel.

But the congresswoman appeared to cave to the pressure after a wave of Democrats said they would vote to expel her if a rare removal vote hit the floor. 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi notably urged the quick expulsion of the Cherfilus-McCormick during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, stating, “Let’s just get this over with.”

Pelosi also advocated for the swift removal of embattled Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., who is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for an alleged domestic violence incident, among other misconduct. 

“These cases just being out there … they make us look terrible,” Pelosi said. 

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has argued that the Ethics Committee’s investigation into Mills should run its course before lawmakers consider punitive measures.

“I’m confident that they are moving along as quickly as they are able,” Johnson told Fox News. “And when members cooperate, which my understanding is Representative Mills is cooperating, unlike Cherfilus-McCormick, I would expect that the outcome would be much sooner.”

“He’s very upset about some of the allegations that have been made,” Johnson said of Mills. “He says that he wants to prove his innocence, and he has the opportunity to do that.”

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and Kelly Phares contributed to this report.

Democrat Analilia Mejia was sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday after decisively winning a special election last week in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.

Democrat Mikie Sherrill vacated the House seat last year after winning the Garden State’s gubernatorial contest.

Mejia has been an advocate for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

MEET ANALILIA MEJIA, THE SANDERS-AOC BACKED PROGRESSIVE WHO JUST WON ELECTION TO CONGRESS

“I join you today with a message delivered by the people of New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, but echoed nationally: Stand up, defend, restore, not only our democracy, but also a just economy that actually works for working people,” Mejia declared during a speech after being sworn in.

BERNIE SANDERS, AOC-BACKED DEMOCRAT WINS KEY HOUSE RACE; GOP FAILS TO EXPAND FRAGILE MAJORITY

Republicans now hold a slim 217-214 majority in the lower congressional chamber.

Rep. Kevin Kiley of California switched from Republican to independent last month.

EX-TRUMP ALLY MTG SLAMS BOTH SIDES OF THE POLITICAL AISLE: ‘NOTHING EVER CHANGES’

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While Republicans currently hold the majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate, Democrats are aiming to change that during the 2026 midterm election cycle.

House Democrats are launching an investigation into FBI Director Kash Patel following a bombshell story from The Atlantic alleging he had “alarmed colleagues” with excessive drinking and erratic behavior. 

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and House Judiciary Democrats are demanding that Patel complete a 10-question test identifying “hazardous drinking behaviors” under the penalty of perjury.

“These glimpses of your relationship to alcohol would be alarming to see in an FBI agent; for us to see them in the FBI Director himself is shocking and indicative of a public emergency,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Patel late Tuesday evening. 

Patel has vigorously denied the allegations in The Atlantic story and said Tuesday he has “never been intoxicated on the job.”

LEFT-WING GROUP CHASES PROOF OF KASH PATEL’S ALLEGED ‘EXCESSIVE DRINKING’ AS DEMS EYE FBI DIRECTOR’S OUSTER

“I can say unequivocally that I never listen to the fake news mafia, and as when they get louder, it just means I’m doing my job,” he added, during a joint press conference with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Raskin also sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chairman Jim Jordan, demanding that the top Republican require Patel to testify under oath in person if he does not provide the requested information.

The missive is likely to fall on deaf ears, with a spokesperson for the committee Republicans slamming the letter as “unserious” in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“Crime is down to record-low levels. Criminals are behind bars, and America is safer thanks to the leadership of President Trump and Director Patel,” the spokesperson said. “This is just another unserious effort from anonymous sources and partisan actors to attack the President and his Administration.” 

Democrats’ probe comes after Patel on Monday sued the outlet and Sarah Fitzpatrick, the story’s author, for $250 million in a defamation lawsuit alleging “actual malice.”

 KASH PATEL CALLS ‘BULLS**T’ ON SWALWELL IN HEATED EXCHANGE OVER EPSTEIN FILES

The story, relying completely on anonymous sourcing, cited several officials detailing an alleged “emotional outburst” Patel had after being logged out of his computer. The outlet also reported officials alleging several instances of the FBI director engaging in copious drinking that led to difficulties waking him up.

“Defendants are of course free to criticize the leadership of the FBI, but they crossed the legal line by publishing an article replete with false and obviously fabricated allegations designed to destroy Director Patel’s reputation and drive him from office,” the lawsuit states. 

The Atlantic released a statement defending its reporting and argued Patel’s lawsuit is “meritless.”

Trump administration officials have publicly defended Patel following the viral story.

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Blanche told reporters Tuesday that he had “a lot of concerns” with the report’s anonymous sourcing, but said he had not read it.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Atlantic that “Director Patel remains a critical player on the administration’s law and order team.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI for comment.

California Angel Mom Agnes Gibboney, who lost her son in an illegal alien-involved shooting, is blasting Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Democrats over a proposed bill that would use taxpayer dollars to fund legal defense for immigrants facing deportation. She urged voters to “stop this insanity.”

State lawmakers are considering a proposal that would expand access to taxpayer-funded legal representation for immigrants facing deportation proceedings. The measure would build on existing state programs by creating a framework to provide attorneys to adults in immigration court, regardless of legal status, with priority given to those in detention. This comes as California, and other sanctuary states across the country, are facing increasing pressure and scrutiny from the Trump administration for allegedly prioritizing illegal aliens over citizens.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Gibboney, whose son, Ronald, was shot and killed by an illegal alien, ripped into Newsom and California Democrats over the bill. She claimed that it is further proof that they care for illegal immigrants more than citizens.

“My son was murdered,” she said. “Not one politician has ever contacted me. Not one politician said, ‘I’m so sorry that this previously deported criminal illegal alien shot and killed your son.’ Not one of them.”

NEWSOM ADMINISTRATION ALLEGEDLY KNEW OF $2B CALIFORNIA BUDGET ERROR FOR MONTHS: REPORT

Gibboney said that since losing her son in 2002, she sent Newsom “many, many emails,” and “never once did I get a response, not even from his office, much less from Newsom.” 

Newsom has not signaled whether he would sign the bill into law. He previously signed legislation that created and expanded a state-funded legal aid program to ensure legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children in deportation proceedings.

Ronald da Silva, 29, the son of a law enforcement official, was shot and killed by an illegal immigrant gang member while standing in his driveway.

Gibboney asserted that “Newsom doesn’t care about citizens of this country, about legal immigrants like myself. He cares about free votes from illegal aliens.”

Regarding the legal defense bill, Gibboney said she is “outraged.”

“California is about three to 400 billion, with a ‘B,’ dollars in debt. How is that possible? How much more can you milk us citizens?” she railed.

Meanwhile, for citizens, she said, “everything has gotten worse” under Newsom.

ILLEGAL ALIENS ARE GETTING TAXPAYER-FUNDED BOOB JOBS AND SEX CHANGE OPS IN NEWSOM’S CALIFORNIA, WATCHDOG SAYS

“We have the highest tax in the entire country, we have the highest cost of living, the most homeless,” she said, adding, “We are number one on everything, and nothing number one in good things, it’s always on the bad things.”

“We taxpayers keep paying more and more each year for taxes just so our government, actually Gavin Newsom, can hand it out and squander our tax dollars and give it to illegal aliens.”

The bill, introduced by Democratic Assemblymember Mia Bonta in February, advanced out of two Assembly policy committees and is currently under review in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

In addition to Gibboney, the bill has garnered significant outrage, including from The American Border Story, a group that advocates on behalf of the families of victims of migrant crime. Earlier this month, the group condemned the measure as “a grave affront to Angel Families across the country who have suffered immeasurable loss at the hands of foreign criminals.” The group asserted that the bill “actively incentivizes illegal immigration and directly undermines the progress achieved by the Trump administration since the President’s second inauguration.”

At the same time, the bill has been lauded by some, such as Abraham Bedoy, manager of California policy and government affairs for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Bedoy said in a March statement that “increasing immigrant legal defense is critical to address the mass deportations, unprecedented numbers of people held in detention, and indiscriminate arrests devastating families, communities, and our economy across our state.” 

He called the measure “another important step in our state’s strong trajectory towards universal legal representation.”

DOJ SUES NEWSOM OVER CALIFORNIA MEASURE GIVING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS COLLEGE TUITION BENEFITS

While the bill does not explicitly outline all its exclusions, existing California policy suggests some immigrants with certain criminal histories could be excluded or deprioritized under any expanded program. California has already moved to limit state-funded legal aid in certain immigration cases, particularly for individuals with serious or violent felony convictions.

Bonta, who represents the Oakland area, framed her bill as ensuring “every Californian’s right to a fair hearing.”

In a March statement, Bonta’s office said the bill “builds on” her earlier bill to expand access to counsel for unaccompanied minors and other young immigrants in removal proceedings. That bill was signed into law by Newsom last year.

“Every person deserves their day in court, with a lawyer by their side. In California, thousands of our neighbors are being swept into one of the most complex legal systems in the country, often in a second language, without an attorney or a fair shot,” she said in a March statement.

She decried the Trump administration’s “mass deportation machine,” saying it is “accelerating that injustice.”

“[The bill] represents California’s chance to stand up for our values: a commitment to due process, dignity, and the principle that justice shouldn’t depend on what you can afford,” said Bonta.

Gibboney, however, said California should “use that money appropriately.”

“Use it for our education, which is failing … Use it for the veterans for better healthcare and for the seniors for better healthcare,” she suggested.

She urged Newsom to “recall his oath of office is to serve us, the public, we the people, not those that broke into our country and came here illegally.”

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“Ronald was my firstborn and only son. He was 29 years old, a father of two. They were eight and 10,” she shared. “The media usually doesn’t talk about that kind of family separations, six feet of dirt in a coffin. But they talk about the ones that are deported to their country, where they can go back and visit and be reunited. I can never be reunited with my son.”

While expressing she is grateful that Newsom is term-limited, Gibboney urged California voters to vote to “stop this insanity,” saying, “Yesterday it was my son that was shot by a previously deported criminal illegal alien. Tomorrow it could be your child.”

Mexico’s president is demanding answers after a crash killed two U.S. officials tied to a cartel-related operation, an incident exposing conflicting accounts over American involvement inside the country.

Fox News independently confirmed via a U.S. official that the two deceased individuals worked for the CIA, which declined to comment.

The crash in the northern state of Chihuahua killed two U.S. Embassy personnel and two Mexican officials as they were returning from an operation targeting a clandestine drug lab, according to authorities.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said her administration was not informed of any U.S. presence and has ordered an investigation into whether Mexican sovereignty or national security laws were violated.

MEXICO BROKE INTERNATIONAL LAW WITH THE CARTELS AND AMERICANS SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES

“We were not aware of any direct work or coordination between the state of Chihuahua and personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said Tuesday at a news conference, adding her government is seeking information from both local authorities and the United States.

She stressed that Mexico does not permit joint operations with foreign governments, saying cooperation is limited to intelligence-sharing “within a clearly defined framework … in keeping with our sovereignty.”

But officials in Chihuahua, Mexico, offered a different account, describing the U.S. personnel as part of routine cooperation with local authorities.

“Two instructor officers from the U.S. Embassy died while carrying out training duties as part of the exchange we generally and routinely have with U.S. authorities,” state prosecutor César Jáuregui Moreno said Tuesday at a news conference. 

He added the Americans had “always supported us with advisory support and training, as part of our regular exchange.”

Experts say those roles often extend beyond the classroom.

“The CIA has been supporting counter-narcotics efforts for some time and works closely with the DEA, the military and partner governments,” said Christine Balling, a senior vice president at the Institute of World Politics.

Balling, counterinsurgency expert with experience in Latin America, said the role described as “training” can place U.S. personnel alongside partner forces in operational settings.

“People think training is just in the classroom — it’s not,” she said. “These officers would be working with partner forces on things like strategy or technology, including drones.

“It makes perfect sense that they would be on site when an operation is carried out and be vulnerable.”

Under Mexican law, foreign security cooperation is generally subject to federal oversight, but, in practice, those relationships can play out at the local level, sometimes without national leaders being directly involved in every operation.

The incident comes as tensions grow over the U.S. role in Mexico’s fight against powerful drug cartels.

President Donald Trump has increased pressure on Mexico to crack down on trafficking groups, while recent operations have relied heavily on U.S. support, including surveillance and intelligence-sharing to locate cartel targets.

But Sheinbaum has drawn a firm line against any unilateral U.S. activity inside Mexico.

Balling said Sheinbaum likely was not aware of the specific mission but faces political pressure to distance herself from any American-involved operations.

“There are domestic political pressures to show that the government is in control and not allowing outside forces to take over,” Balling said.

“I would be shocked if she knew the details, unless it was the type of operation that required a president’s sign-off.”

It remains unclear what caused the crash, and authorities have not said whether foul play is suspected.

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Officials said the Americans were not involved in the raid itself and had been conducting training work elsewhere before meeting with Mexican investigators after the operation.

Balling said the circumstances may never be fully clear, raising the possibility — without evidence — that cartel involvement could be difficult to confirm publicly.

“It makes perfect sense that they would be on site when an operation would go down and then be vulnerable to whether this was actually an accident or an intentional hit,” she said. “I don’t think that would ever be made public.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill Tuesday allowing nursing home residents to drink alcohol, clearing the way for “happy hour” in senior living facilities.

Previously, Minnesota law barred facilities from organizing events that included alcohol without a liquor license. The new “Grandparents’ Happy Hour” law allows nursing homes and assisted living facilities to serve alcohol without one.

The measure also updates the state’s liquor laws, allowing some cities to issue licenses and easing rules for certain businesses, including nursing homes and University of Minnesota facilities.

Walz announced the bill in a post on X, encouraging seniors to enjoy a drink.

STATE OFFICIALS AND DAYCARE MANAGER PUSH BACK ON VIRAL VIDEO FRAUD ALLEGATIONS IN MINNESOTA

“Living in a nursing home shouldn’t mean giving up everyday freedoms,” Walz wrote in a post on X. “I just signed a bill allowing seniors living in nursing homes to consume alcohol – so that everyone can enjoy happy hour!”

The law requires staff serving alcohol to be at least 18 years old, and facilities are responsible for ensuring residents do not overindulge.

The bill drew attention during the legislative session, largely due to Anita LeBrun, an 88-year-old resident of an assisted living facility whose support went viral.

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“My friends and I love happy hour, just like many of you do, I am sure,” LeBrun said before the House Commerce, Finance and Policy Committee last month. 

“Over a shared drink, we get to reminisce about parts of our lives, military service, raising a family, the loss of a friend, and celebrating the golden phase of our lives too,” she said.

LeBrun also told a state Senate committee that living in an assisted facility “doesn’t mean that we should have fewer freedoms than anyone else.”

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She later appeared on “Fox & Friends,” describing social gatherings with snacks and music where residents previously had to bring their own alcohol due to restrictions.

While policies vary, senior living communities in many states allow residents to drink or host informal social hours.

Minnesota’s rules stood out because they limited how facilities could organize and serve alcohol in communal settings.

“Living in a nursing home or assisted living facility should not mean giving up everyday freedoms,” Walz said in a statement. “This bipartisan bill increases independence and safety under clear regulations, while ensuring residents are treated with the respect and dignity they deserve—including the ability to get together for happy hour.”

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As the bill was considered, industry advocates said it would preserve small routines that support quality of life.

“Ultimately, the ‘free the happy hour’ bill is about restoring a fundamental expectation — that moving into a senior living community does not mean giving up one’s autonomy,” LeadingAge Minnesota, an industry group that represents senior living providers, said in a statement last month.

Fox News Digital’s Deirdre Bardolf contributed to this report.

FIRST ON FOX: Vivek Ramaswamy is putting his money where his mouth is, and the Republican candidate for Ohio governor is fulfilling a campaign pledge he first made last summer.

Ramaswamy, a multimillionaire biotech entrepreneur and business leader, invested $25 million of his own money into his gubernatorial campaign so far this year. He first grabbed national attention in the 2024 election cycle by running for the GOP presidential nomination before dropping out and becoming a top surrogate for President Donald Trump.

The investment was included in Ramaswamy’s latest fundraising report, which indicates he has hauled in a record $50 million since launching his campaign last year. That includes $30 million this year — $5 million from donors and Ramaswamy’s $25 million investment.

The fundraising report, shared first with Fox News Digital Tuesday, also highlights that Ramaswamy had $30 million in his campaign coffers at the end of last month. Separately, a Ramaswamy-aligned super PAC reported $29.5 million in fundraising so far this cycle, which, combined with the campaign, amounts to roughly $80 million brought in over the past year.

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“No gubernatorial campaign in Ohio history has ever put up numbers like this, and it sends a clear message: Ohioans are fired up for Vivek, our campaign is growing, and we will win big in November,” Ramaswamy’s campaign manager Jonathan Ewing said in a statement.

The report, coming before next month’s Ohio primary, showcases Ramaswamy’s large fundraising advantage over his Democratic rival for governor, Amy Acton, a doctor and researcher who served as director of the state Department of Health from 2019-2020. The winner of November’s election will succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Mike DeWine.

Once a top general election battleground state, Ohio has shifted to the right over the past decade, with Trump carrying the state by 11 points in the 2024 election.

But this year’s race for governor and a battle for a U.S. Senate seat in the Buckeye State are expected to be competitive. The Cook Report, a nonpartisan political handicapper, rates the governor’s race as leaning Republican, which is one step away from being considered a toss-up.

As first reported by Fox News Digital in July, Ramaswamy pledged to infuse up to $30 million of his own money into his bid for governor. His campaign says the $25 million investment so far this year is a large down payment on the pledge.

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Acton’s campaign last week reported that it brought in $9.3 million in fundraising to date, which it highlighted as “the most ever raised at this point in the calendar by a Democratic candidate for governor in the state’s history.”

The campaign also reported more than $4.8 million raked in during the first three months of this year.

Campaign manager Philip Stein, responding to Ramaswamy’s fundraising figures, argued, “He can continue throwing money at his campaign from the seat of his private jet, but Ohioans see right through his false promises.”

And Stein said that Acton is “building a grassroots campaign powered by supporters from every corner of this state. While our opponent tells Ohio that affordability is just a ‘buzzword’, Amy is fighting to make life better for Ohio’s working families by lowering costs, tackling corruption and building a state where everyone can get ahead.”

Ramaswamy, who was endorsed by Trump last year as he launched his campaign, has used his large financial lead over Acton to put up ads statewide in Ohio. The campaign in March launched a $10 million ad buy and pledged to keep running spots through Election Day in November.

Ramaswamy’s campaign noted that “Vivek has already far surpassed all finance benchmarks set in recent gubernatorial campaigns.”

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It also spotlighted the grassroots nature of Ramaswamy’s fundraising, with 392,347 donations from more than 120,000 unique donors and an average contribution of just $63. It also pointed out that donors giving $200 or less accounted for over 98% of individual contributions.

The campaign pointed out that the fundraising drive will continue and shared that Ramaswamy will headline a fundraising event in Columbus on Thursday evening that’s expected to bring in over $1 million.

Rep. lhan Omar, D-Minn., brushed past questions from a Fox News Digital reporter on Monday about reported accounting errors that had previously inflated her reported wealth by millions, declining to explain the discrepancies.

Omar’s finances continued to grab national attention on Friday, when Congressional disclosures reviewed by the Wall Street Journal indicated that Omar’s wealth is somewhere between $18,000 and $95,000 — a far cry from previous reports that had put her wealth between $6 and $30 million.

Fox News Digital attempted to ask Omar about the discrepancies, but the Minnesota congresswoman ignored the questions while chatting and laughing with another woman. 

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Omar’s office previously said the new numbers would end suspicion that Omar may have used her position on Capitol Hill to monetarily benefit her and her husband.

“The amended disclosure confirms what we’ve said all along: The congresswoman is not a millionaire,” Omar spokesperson Jacklyn Rogers told the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Rogers noted that the filing was corrected “as soon as the discrepancy was identified.”

While the new figures undercut concerns about the size of her wealth and where it came from, they also bring new questions of their own, including how they had been so far off the mark in the first place.

Omar came under fire last year when disclosure reporting revealed she and her husband accumulated up to $30 million in wealth, drawing calls from President Donald Trump for lawmakers to investigate her husband’s business ties.

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“The DOJ and Congress are looking at ‘congresswoman’ Ilhan Omar, who left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than $44 million. Time will tell all. Thank you for your attention to this matter!,” Trump said in a a post to Truth Social last year.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment on whether lawmakers should continue scrutiny of Omar’s business ties in light of new evaluations.

Omar’s wealth jump had been tied to two businesses: Rose Lake Capital and ESTCRU LLC.

In 2024, evaluations of Rose Lake, a business firm co-founded by her husband, reached between $5 million and $25 million. Just one year before, in 2023, she reported that the same company’s value was between $1 and $1,000.

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Similarly, ESTCRU LLC, a winery registered in Santa Rosa, California, first appeared on Omar’s disclosure reports in 2020 and had a value of just $15,000 to $50,000 in 2023. In 2024, that evaluation exploded to between $1 million and $5 million.

Reports of Omar’s wealth drew scrutiny from the House Oversight Committee, which demanded to see more of the companies’ business records earlier this year. 

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Responding to new evaluations, Emmer said Omar shouldn’t consider herself safe from congressional investigations just yet. 

“Ilhan Omar is even more clueless than I thought if she thinks this financial disclosure revision clears her of suspicion,” Emmer exclusively told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. 

“She can backtrack, obfuscate, and distract all she wants but she’s made clear who she is: A fraud-enabling, racist antisemite who espouses anti-American rhetoric every chance she gets,” Emmer charged of his fellow Minnesota lawmaker.

Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

FBI Director Kash Patel and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a sweeping indictment Tuesday against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), accusing the far-left nonprofit of fraudulently paying members of extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

A grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment charging the SPLC with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to the Justice Department (DOJ). Between 2014 and 2023, according to the DOJ, the SPLC “secretly funneled” more than $3 million in donations to at least eight individuals associated with violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, the Nationalist Socialist Movement, Unite the Right, Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, and more.

According to Blanche, the SPLC paid members of these extremist groups so it could create a “work product that reported on these activities.”

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“To that end, [SPLC] was doing the exact opposite of what it told its donors it was doing – not dismantling extremism but funding it,” Blanche said Tuesday during the press conference announcing the indictment.

The SPLC is a longstanding left-wing nonprofit that claims to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement about them with the goal of dismantling the groups. SPLC’s CEO, Bryan Fair, addressed the probe in a video message posted online, arguing the Trump administration has “made no secret who they want to protect and who they want to destroy.”

“We are reviewing the charges,” a subsequent statement from Fair sent to Fox News Digital added. “However, after today’s Department of Justice press conference, we are outraged by the false allegations levied against SPLC – an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive. Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do. To be clear, this program saved lives.”

“The actions by the DOJ will not shake our resolve to fight for justice and ensure the promise of the Civil Rights movement becomes a reality for all,” Fair continued in his comment to Fox News Digital. “SPLC will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff and our work; we will continue to fight hate; and we will continue to envision and create a safer and more just world.”

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But Patel and Blanche on Tuesday accused the SPLC of conducting “widespread, decade-long, multimillion dollar fraud” funneling money to the very groups it claims to combat. 

The complete list of these groups, according to a Justice Department press release, includes the Ku Klux Klan, United Klans of America, Unite the Right, National Alliance, the National Socialist Movement, Aryan Nations affiliated Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club, National Socialist Party of America (American Nazi Party), and the American Front.

Blanche and Patel also argued Tuesday that the SPLC tried to hide its payments to groups the SPLC told its donors it was trying to combat, leading to several of the charges in the indictment.

“They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that money was not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in the perpetration of this scheme and fraud, but rather fictitious entities,” Patel argued during the press conference. “They stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud. This is a serious and egregious violation of a group that purported to dismantle violent extremist groups, but in turn actually only fueled that hatred.”  

For example, the SPLC was paying roughly $270,000 to a member of the leadership group that planned the Unite the Right protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, that resulted in the death of one person and injured dozens more.

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Another individual, embedded in a neo-Nazi organization, was reportedly paid $1 million to steal more than two dozen boxes of the hate group’s documents.

“This is an important case brought by President Trump’s administration, and we’re thankful to the president for his leadership and funding of not just the FBI and DOJ, but his commitment to go out there and wipe out fraud, and conspiracy, and waste and abuse wherever it occurs, including the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Patel said Tuesday. 

California State Treasurer Fiona Ma, who is running for lieutenant governor, is facing blowback for promising jobs and internships to students at a China-based boarding school accused of committing diploma fraud in conjunction with a California school district, after the school’s founder poured tens-of-thousands of dollars into her campaigns.

Pegasus California School, based in Qingdao, China, was the subject of a probe completed in February by California education officials in Riverside County, following concerns that the Val Verde Unified School District was illegally issuing diplomas to Pegasus’ China-based students. It also identified other potential concerns related to Pegasus and California education officials working for the district and the California Department of Education, indicating there was evidence of them engaging in potential fraud, misappropriation of funds and other illegal fiscal practices. The audit concluded that investigators found “a pattern of favors, official acts, promises, and payments” leading to the California Department of Education’s ultimate approval of a pilot program that allowed wealthy Chinese students to obtain a U.S. high school diploma overseas.

Meanwhile, a post on the school’s website shows Ma visiting in 2023, telling students, parents and teachers there that she would be able to help the enrollees at the school get jobs and internships back in the U.S. The same post on the school’s website heralded Ma’s visit as evidence of “the California government’s recognition and attention to Pegasus,” which became a sister-school to California’s Val Verde Unified School District in 2016 and started its pilot program issuing California diplomas a year later.

“Fiona chose Pegasus as the only school to visit in China, which shows the California government’s recognition and attention to Pegasus,” Pegasus bragged in the now-archived post from its website.

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It then included an excerpt from Ma: “I am honored to come to Qingdao Pegasus California School today to see many students perform and communicate with them. If they want to intern in California, they can come to me, I will provide some internship and employment opportunities.”

Steven Ma, who is unrelated to Fiona Ma but is Pegasus’ founder, directly contributed over $13,200 to her campaigns for State Treasurer and Lt. Gov., according to California campaign finance records dating back to 2021.

The Pegasus founder’s college-admissions consulting firm, ThinkTank Learning Inc. also contributed $23,800 to Ma’s campaigns since 2010, according to state campaign finance records.

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Fox News Digital reached out to Ma multiple times for comment on her visit to the China-based school, and to the Val Verde school district itself to inquire whether it was aware of Ma’s visit, but did not receive a response.

Business Insider released a scathing report in 2021 calling out the Pegasus California School for its improper relationship with the Val Verde Unified School District, which Business Insider argues spurred the recently completed audit into Pegasus by California education officials. The China-based school, according to Business Insider, was charging up to $34,000 a year for students to enroll and, despite drawing on Val Verde resources, it functioned as a private boarding school. The school’s own website describes itself as an “independent” international school that uses a “fee payment and registration” framework for students after gaining admission, similar to how private schools in the U.S. operate, according to a Fox News Digital review.

A February 2018 Memorandum of Understanding between the China-based boarding school and Val Verde, reviewed by Fox News Digital, indicated that in return for receiving diplomas and teachers from the United States, ten students from the Val Verde school district would be afforded the opportunity to travel to China and attend Pegasus for 10 days at the cost of $300 a student. It also laid out an exchange program for students at Pegasus to visit schools’ in California. While the audit does not appear to identify any clear direct repayment from Pegasus to Val Verde itself, it does highlight travel, consulting opportunities, scholarships and other perks, like “great publicity,” that benefited officials and the district more than its own students.

Meanwhile, Pegasus was allegedly telling its students and parents that it could guarantee them admission to one of the top 100 universities in the U.S., and if that didn’t happen, they would get a complete tuition reimbursement. A 2019 Memorandum of Understanding, included in the California audit, showed the University of California – Riverside even made a commitment that students who met certain academic thresholds would “receive a UCR scholarship.”

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Following the completion of the audit from Riverside County officials in February, announced publicly in March by Riverside County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Edwin Gomez, the California Department of Education issued a cease-and-desist demanding Pegasus terminate official statements on its website claiming it was founded in 2016 with the department’s “blessing and support.”

“California Business and Professions Code Section 17533.6 makes it unlawful for a non-governmental entity to use a state government name in a manner that could reasonably be interpreted or construed as implying connection, approval or endorsement by the state government,” stated the March cease-and-desist. “The above statement on your website could reasonably be interpreted or construed to imply that the California Department of Education is connected to, approves or endorses Pegasus California School. You are on notice that the California Department of Education is not connected to, does not approve and does not endorse Pegasus California School.”