NationalWatch

A slate of progressive powerhouses rushed to endorse Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam upon launching a Democratic primary challenge against Rep. Valerie Foushee, D-N.C., on Thursday — the latest sign that the party’s far-left flank is gearing up to push the Democratic establishment further left ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

While the Democratic Party has claimed to be “on the offense” heading into the midterms — buoyed by two gubernatorial wins, success in California’s redistricting fight and an upset victory in Miami’s mayoral race — the growing docket of progressive primary challengers threatens to once again expose the party’s widening generational and ideological rift.

Allam entered the Democratic primary for North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District on Thursday with support from progressive star Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and endorsements from a slew of progressive groups, including Justice Democrats, Leaders We Deserve, Sunrise Movement, Indian American Impact and the Working Families Party.

“I’m not here to stay quiet while Washington fails us,” Allam said in her campaign launch video. “I’m here to fight for the people who built this district. This seat doesn’t belong to lobbyists and billionaires. It belongs to us. To use every dollar, resource and tool to fight back against Trump’s authoritarianism and corporate greed, and to build a brighter future for every North Carolinian.”

SOCIALIST WAVE SPREADS COAST TO COAST AS PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATS RALLY AROUND ZOHRAN MAMDANI’S NYC WIN

Allam accused Foushee of being “silent” this year while North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District faced federal funding cuts, especially in research grants, tied to President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda and Elon Musk’s mandate to slash government waste, fraud and abuse.

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

Former Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg, a 25-year-old activist and founder of Leaders We Deserve, said Thursday that he was “proud” to support Allam’s primary campaign.

Hogg sparked an intra-party rift earlier this year when he announced he would invest millions through his super PAC, Leaders We Deserve, to primary older, incumbent Democrats who he said are “asleep at the wheel.”

Leaders We Deserve has led a nationwide effort to elect young, progressive candidates to Congress and statewide legislatures across the U.S.

The group endorsed high-profile progressive Democrats this year, including New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and congressional candidate and Gen Z activist Deja Foxx, who lost a special election to Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., this year.

Hogg resigned from his vice chair position earlier this year after DNC Chair Ken Martin gave him an ultimatum to either forego his involvement with Leaders We Deserve or resign from his vice chair role. Amid a procedural challenge to his election, Hogg resigned, arguing party politics were at play in pushing him out — an accusation the DNC has rejected.

The 25-year-old’s plan to primary challenge Democrats in safe, blue districts triggered a debate about the party’s future as Democrats spent much of 2025 without a clear message or leader following losses up and down the ballot last year.

On the heels of Mamdani’s success in New York City — a race that took national politics by storm as a socialist millennial was elected to lead the largest city in the U.S. — more progressive, anti-establishment House candidates have been jumping into races across the U.S.

As California redraws its congressional map ahead of next year’s midterms, Leaders We Deserve is supporting progressive Planned Parenthood leader Lauren Babb Tomlinson for California’s 6th Congressional District and educator Randy Villegas for California’s 22nd.

And while Texas finalizes representation under its new congressional maps, Leaders We Deserve is backing Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee in the race for Texas’ 18th Congressional District, even as longtime Rep. Al Green, who currently represents the 9th District, also prepares to run for the seat in 2026.

The progressive group is also supporting Menefee this January in the 18th District’s special election.

Leaders We Deserve has also endorsed Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney in his Democratic primary challenge against Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., and Tennessee state Rep. Justin J. Pearson’s bid for longtime Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen’s seat in the 2026 Democratic primary.

In San Francisco, two high-profile Democratic challengers announced campaigns for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional seat before she had confirmed her plans to retire from the seat she has held since 1987 at the end of next year.

Saikat Chakrabarti, former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and state senator Scott Wiener, are running to Pelosi’s left, part of a broader coast-to-coast battle for the Democratic Party’s progressive base.

Chakrabarti is also a co-founder of Justice Democrats, a super PAC focused on recruiting a new generation of leaders to Congress who endorsed Allam this week.

Like Leaders We Deserve, Justice Democrats has thrown its support behind a slew of progressive Democratic primary challenges, including McKinney in Michigan and Pearson in Tennessee.

Justice Democrats is also supporting former Rep. Cori Bush’s comeback campaign for Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, now held by a comparably more moderate Rep. Wesley Bell, who defeated Bush in a Democratic primary last year.

The group has also endorsed Angela Gonzales-Torres for California’s 34th Congressional District, which is currently represented by Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif.; Melat Kiros for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District against incumbent Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette; and Darializa Avila Chevalier for New York’s 13th Congressional District, challenging longtime Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y.

And just this week, Brad Lander secured his own high-profile endorsements in his primary challenge against Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who refused to endorse Mamdani’s mayoral campaign.

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Lander is considered the more progressive candidate for his outright condemnation of the war in Gaza, while Goldman told CBS New York’s Marcia Kramer that he feared Mamdani wouldn’t do enough to protect Jewish New Yorkers.

Since launching his campaign, Lander has secured endorsements from Mamdani, Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and the New York Working Families Party.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – No case in Minnesota’s sprawling fraud scandal captures the scale of taxpayer abuse like the Feeding Our Future scheme, in which the program’s director signed off on sham meal services for the poor only to have the men around her splurge on mansions, luxury cars and lavish lifestyles.

Fox News Digital has obtained the court exhibits used at trial, including photos of the properties, vehicles and designer goods prosecutors say were purchased with stolen federal nutrition dollars.

The scheme was headed by Aimee Bock, the founder and executive director of Feeding Our Future, an organization responsible for ensuring that needy kids didn’t go hungry during the COVID pandemic.

Bock presided over a network that claimed to have served 91 million meals, for which the scammers fraudulently received nearly $250 million in federal funds. Bock, who was convicted by a federal jury on March 19, 2025, of wire fraud, conspiracy and bribery for her role, was dubbed the scheme’s “mastermind” by federal prosecutors.

FEDERAL PROBE TARGETS ALLEGED MINNESOTA SOMALI FRAUD ‘NETWORK’ AS COVID-AID CRIME RINGS PERSIST

Bock approved the meal sites, some of which were fake, and then certified the claims, signing off on the reimbursements from the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE). At least 78 people have now been indicted in the ongoing investigation.

Court exhibits used in the case against Bock and Salim Said, a local restaurant owner, captured some of the opulent spending Said splurged his ill-gotten gains on.

For instance, Said used $250,000 in stolen nutrition funds to buy a large home in Plymouth, while another $2.7 million wire transfer linked to the fraud was routed into a Minneapolis mansion-style office building, prosecutors said, that served as the headquarters for his company, Safari Group.

The property stood in stark contrast to the daycare centers and after-school programs the federal money was supposed to help.

The exhibits also showed that Said used fraud proceeds to buy a black 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLA and a 2021 Chevy Silverado.

Said operated Safari Restaurant, a small Minneapolis eatery that claimed to be serving more than 4,000 meals per day to the poor, according to federal exhibits, while his company and co-conspirators opened additional sites, as well as dozens of shell companies, which received more than $32 million in Federal Child Nutrition Program funds, prosecutors said.

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According to the indictment, Said’s spending spree stretched far beyond the cars and houses shown in the courtroom exhibits — with additional real estate, electronics, cash transfers, restaurant buildouts and other luxury goods purchased through shell companies he controlled. Other members of the Safari group were also accused of funneling nutrition dollars into luxury cars and designer goods.

Federal prosecutors did not accuse Bock of personally buying big-ticket items with the fraud proceeds. 

Instead, they said she built and protected the network that enabled others to spend the money. The exhibits show she approved the sites, signed the checks and kept investigators at bay, leaving her inner circle to splurge while she ran the system that made it all possible.

The only money movement directly tied to Bock in the exhibits was a picture of her making a $30,000 cash withdrawal, evidence, prosecutors said, that she was involved in a kickback scheme by accepting cash payments from meal-site operators in exchange for site approvals and reimbursements. 

A series of reimbursement checks she signed for alleged fraud sites were also shown, evidence prosecutors said captured her role as the scheme’s “gatekeeper,” though not a big personal spender.

Empress Malcolm Watson Jr., whom the Minnesota Department of Revenue describes as Bock’s boyfriend, appears in some of the exhibits, including a photo of him inside a Rolls-Royce with Bock standing next to him. He’s pictured in another photo standing in front of a Lamborghini.

DEM-APPOINTED EDUCATION OFFICIALS FACE NEW SCRUTINY AS FEEDING OUR FUTURE SCANDAL WIDENS, TRUMP TARGETS FRAUD

The latter exhibit also shows designer bags, jewelry and a white Mercedes-Benz — items prosecutors labeled as “Handy Helpers Spending” to illustrate the lavish lifestyle surrounding Bock’s network. Prosecutors made no claim that Bock bought the items herself and one co-conspirator even testified that Bock warned them not to splurge, telling them that luxury purchases would “become obvious.”

Watson earned more than $1 million for work he did as an employee of Bock’s for-profit childcare consulting business, as well as work his own remodeling company performed for that business, according to the Minnesota Department of Revenue. Prosecutors say Watson spent more than $680,000 on travel, jewelry, vehicles, cash withdrawals, or transfers to other accounts.

Watson has not been charged in the Feeding Our Future cases. He was charged with six tax-related felony offenses in September for allegedly underreporting his income for 2020 and 2021, failing to file a return for 2022 and failing to pay the income taxes he owed for those years. Watson allegedly owes more than $64,000 in unpaid income tax. He is currently being held in the Anoka County jail on a felony probation violation unrelated to the tax case.

At trial, Bock’s attorneys claimed she was an unwitting administrator who trusted the wrong people and followed United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) rules during a chaotic pandemic. The USDA supplied the federal child nutrition funds via the MDE. 

Her defense team said she believed the meal sites were legitimate and was being blamed for systemic oversight failures.

‘SCHEMES STACKED UPON SCHEMES’: $1B HUMAN-SERVICES FRAUD FUELS SCRUTINY OF MINNESOTA’S SOMALI COMMUNITY

Prosecutors countered that Bock personally approved many of the worst offenders, including the Safari network.

The DOJ also introduced slides showing emails and communications where Bock accused the MDE of racism when regulators questioned suspicious claims. In 2021, when the MDE grew suspicious and tried to stop the flow of funds, Feeding Our Future sued, alleging racial discrimination. A judge ordered the state to restart reimbursements — a ruling prosecutors said enabled the scheme to escalate.

“Bock lied to MDE and falsely accused state officials of racism to keep the money flowing,” one of the slides reads.

Another slide quoted a witness telling jurors, “Aimee Bock was a God,” describing how much power she held over the network.

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The government presented multiple slides showing that witnesses testified that Bock understood the numbers were fake or impossible and approved them anyway.

“That math ain’t mathin’,” said Cerresso Fort, the owner of SIR Boxing, describing figures he told jurors could not have been real.

Although the Safari Group was the single largest cell in the operation, prosecutors said more than a dozen additional networks operated under Feeding Our Future’s umbrella. 

Taken together, these groups submitted more than $250 million in fake invoices, making the conspiracy one of the largest pandemic-era frauds in the United States.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris thanked her supporters for “standing up for our democracy” and the “rule of law” on Friday at the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) annual winter meeting in Los Angeles.

Harris, who became the party’s 2024 presidential nominee without a primary election after former President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, said Democrats express gratitude toward her because she is the “public face of a lot of the work that we do.”

“People then come up to me in various places and when they thank me, they are thanking you for standing up for our democracy, for the rule of law, for values and principles, for community, for the breadth and depth of who we are with all of our beautiful differences as a nation,” she said during her remarks.

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Harris continued, “When they thank me, they are thanking you for the work that you do that are about upholding basic principles that are at the foundation of the declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. So thank you for everything that you have done, that you are doing and you will do.”

Harris recently passed on launching a 2026 gubernatorial campaign in her home state of California, but is keeping the door wide open to a 2028 presidential run.

“Obviously, we must focus on the midterms,” she said on Friday. “But Democrats, we must also have a clear vision for what comes after the midterms. And then after Trump. We need to answer the question. We need to answer the question: what comes next for our party and our democracy?”

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“And in so doing, we must be honest that for so many, the American dream has become more of a myth than a reality,” she added. “Whether it’s the cost of food, energy, health care, transportation or housing, America is facing an affordability crisis, a crisis that we are witnessing is fueling a system fear, frustration, and a lack of confidence in our systems.”

The former vice president also addressed Democrats’ recent wins in key local races.

“From Jackson to Atlanta, from Sacramento to New York. The American people sent a message they want leaders who fight yes for affordability, for health care, for the right of people to participate in their democracy,” Harris said.

Harris also took jabs at President Donald Trump, as well as his policies and his “Make America Great Again” movement.

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“We all know that in the midst of all this, the truth and reality of the moment that just a few days ago, he said the economy was, I had to count the pluses there. A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. That’s what he said when asked to rate the economy – a plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. There is nothing a plus about any of this,” she said.

“We must be candid and clear. Donald Trump is not the only source of our problems,” Harris added. “He and the rise of the MAGA movement, I believe, are a symptom of a failed system that is the result of years of outsourcing and offshoring, financial deregulation, growing income inequality, a broken campaign finance system and endless partisan gridlock all contributing to how we got here today.”

The Department of Homeland Security is amending its immigration enforcement operations by moving away from raids targeting all illegal immigrants in the U.S. and focusing more on the ones who have committed serious offenses, according to a report.

Teams under U.S. Border Patrol Commander at Large Gregory Bovino will shift their focus to specific targets, including illegal immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes, NewsNation reported.

The change means federal agents will put a smaller emphasis on carrying out large raids that have happened at Home Depot stores and other locations, according to the outlet.

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Illegal immigrants have been targeted based on characteristics such as ethnicity, accent, language or location, such as being at a Home Depot or a car wash.

Agents will still conduct traffic stop enforcement, but Border Patrol is unlikely to continue grabbing people off the streets, the outlet reported.

The reported change in immigration enforcement comes as support for President Donald Trump‘s mass deportation policies has tanked in the polls.

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A Public Religion Research Institute survey released earlier this week found that approval of Trump’s handling of immigration dipped from 42% in March to 33%.

A YouGov poll last month found that a majority of Americans oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations tied to Trump’s immigration crackdown.

In a survey last month by the health policy research group KFF and The New York Times, about half of the immigrants polled said they – and their family members – “feel less safe” with Trump as president.

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Border Patrol has carried out migrant raids this year in various cities, including in Los Angeles, Chicago and Charlotte. The raids have prompted several protests and lawsuits, as the operations have been scrutinized for going too far.

A new operation in New Orleans, dubbed “Catahoula Crunch,” will continue despite the updated tactics. Agents have already arrested more than 250 people, and DHS said it aims to reach 5,000, according to NewsNation.

One of the most high-profile Democrats who’s considered a likely top-tier contender for the party’s 2028 presidential nomination is getting a red carpet welcome at a major Democratic Party summit.

The potential White House candidate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, was treated like a VIP on Thursday as he held meetings and mingled with delegates during the opening day of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) annual winter meeting, which this year is being held in Los Angeles.

“Newsom received a rock star reception as he was mobbed by party leaders and activists alike while he attempted to walk to his next of the many meetings set up yesterday,” a DNC committee member who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely told Fox News Digital Friday morning.

The home state governor’s reception at the DNC confab comes as the party aims to rebound after last year’s sweeping defeats, when Democrats lost control of the White House and Senate and fell short of winning back the House majority.

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But Democrats are energized, thanks to the party’s decisive victories in last month’s 2025 elections and better-than-expected performances in this year’s special elections, which were fueled in part by their emphasis on affordability.

DNC delegates and party officials are reviewing this year’s ballot box successes and holding training sessions to prepare for next year’s crucial midterm elections.

“As we head into the midterms, we are unified, focused and ready to fight to lower costs for working people,” DNC Chair Ken Martin emphasized in a statement to Fox News.

Also firing up Democrats is their intense opposition to President Donald Trump and his unprecedented second-term agenda. And they’re starting to search for a 2028 standard-bearer who can win back the presidency.

With the unofficial start of the next White House race less than a year away, and what’s likely to be a bruising battle among Democrats over the party’s presidential nominating calendar getting underway, 2028 is also in the spotlight at the DNC meeting.

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Newsom’s stature in his own party has soared this year, thanks to his very vocal and visual pushback against the president, including his viral social media trolling of Trump and his successful California push to counter the Republican congressional redistricting effort.

“Newsom has shown an ability to stand up to Trump in a bold and highly effective manner without shying away from core democratic values,” veteran Democratic strategist Joe Caiazzo told Fox News Digital.

And Lucas Meyer, the former longtime president of the New Hampshire Young Democrats, and founder of the advocacy group 603 Forward, noted that “Newsom is getting attention right now because he’s extremely quick on his feet.”

“He’s sharp — maybe too slick for some folks in New Hampshire — combative, engaging and even funny in a way that cuts through,” Meyer added. “In a media environment that rewards speed and conflict, that skill set stands out and, for me, is a premium quality in any candidate, especially compared to Democrats who are more cautious or procedural.”

The governor, asked by CBS News in October if he would give a presidential bid “serious thought” after the 2026 midterms, answered, “Yeah, I’d be lying otherwise. I’d just be lying, and I can’t do that.”

Newsom on Thursday met with the Democratic Party chairs from New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state, and Nevada, another crucial early voting state.

“We had a great discussion on a wide range of issues,” longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley told Fox News Digital.

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While Newsom’s stature among Democrats is on the rise, the politician is still viewed with some suspicion by the progressive left wing of the party.

“I think there are a lot of people on the left that are not bought in that he’s a progressive candidate, but they’re bought in that he’s the right voice right now as the contrarian personality to go up against Trump,” Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist and founder of the communications firm Winning Margins told Fox News Digital.

But Ceraso argued that “what he’s doing today I don’t think will help him in a 2028 presidential primary other than giving him some hoopla and hype.”

And some moderate Democrats worry that if Newsom becomes their presidential nominee, Republicans would use his California record as a cudgel to bash the party’s 2028 ticket.

If Newsom ends up running in 2028, he’s likely to be joined by a large crowd of other contenders.

One of them, two-term Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, was also making the rounds at the DNC meeting.

Pritzker, who’s running for re-election next year, told NBC News in August that “I can’t rule anything out” when asked about a possible White House run.

Fox News Digital confirmed that Pritzker raised over $1 million for the DNC at a fundraiser Thursday night. The billionaire governor was introduced at the fundraiser by Conan O’Brien, and Billy Crystal, Martin Short and Jane Fonda also spoke at the event.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, the party’s 2024 presidential nominee, is also participating at the winter meeting.

Harris, who earlier this year passed on launching a 2026 gubernatorial campaign in her home state of California, is keeping the door wide open to a 2028 presidential run.

“I am not done,” the former vice president said in an October interview with the BBC. “I have lived my entire career as a life of service, and it’s in my bones.”

A DNC committee member saw appearances at the winter meeting by the three Democratic heavyweights as an early screen test.

“It sets the tone not just for a Democratic landslide in the 2026 midterm elections, but it gives them an opportunity to start honing in on a winning message for Democrats in 2028,” said the committee member, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely.

While Harris, Newsom and Pritzker are among the most well-known Democrats nationally, there are more than a dozen other Democrats thought to be potential 2028 White House contenders. And most of them have also been paying visits to the early voting states, as well as parachuting onto the 2025 campaign trail.

Among them are governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan; senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Chris Murphy of Connecticut; progressive superstar Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, another leading progressive; and two moderate Democrats, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former Chicago mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

With the Democrats aiming to win back the House majority and possibly the Senate in the 2026 midterms, expect plenty of campaign traffic next year from the potential 2028 contenders.

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“It was my impression, talking to the various camps, that they’ll be very engaged … because they realize how critically important it is to win the House and Senate majority but also help elect candidates up and down the ballot,” Buckley said.

And Caiazzo highlighted that Democrats “are in for a long and intense presidential primary which has historically been a good thing for our party.”

The Trump administration is ending family reunification parole programs for immigrants from several countries, citing abuse of the humanitarian parole process.

The move applies to immigrants from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras, and their immediate family members, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.

“This administration is ending the abuse of humanitarian parole that allowed poorly vetted aliens to circumvent the traditional parole process,” a DHS news release states. “Parole was never intended to be used in this way, and DHS is returning parole to a case-by-case basis as intended by Congress. Ending the FRP programs is a necessary return to common-sense policies and a return to America First.”

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The agency noted that the desire to reunite families does not supersede the federal government’s responsibility to prevent fraud and abuse, as well as to ensure national security and public safety.

“DHS acknowledges that aliens paroled into the United States under the FRP programs may have been able to reunite with family members in the United States,” the Federal Register notice on the Family Reunification Program (FRP) termination states.

“However, upon further review of the scope and impact of the FRP programs in their totality, and in line with Executive Orders issued by President Trump, DHS has determined that national security and fraud concerns, along with the current administration’s priorities, outweigh those interests and weigh in favor of terminating the programs,” it continued.

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In addition to ending the program, the administration is also terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for citizens of Ethiopia.

“After reviewing country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S. government agencies, the Secretary determined that Ethiopia no longer continues to meet the conditions for the designation of Temporary Protected Status,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a notice posted in the Federal Register.

TPS is granted to individuals whose home country has experienced a natural disaster, armed conflict, or other extraordinary event.

Eligible migrants are provided work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.

The Biden administration extended protections to about 600,000 Venezuelans and 521,000 Haitians. In February, Noem reversed the extensions, saying they were no longer justified.

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The Trump administration has ended TPS for migrants from a number of countries, including Haiti, South Sudan, Syria, and Venezuela, amid its crackdown on illegal immigration.

In addition, President Donald Trump in November said he was ending deportation protections for Somalis in Minnesota “effective immediately.” 

The House Oversight Committee is ramping up its probe into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as Republican lawmakers say the scale of the state’s exploding fraud schemes draw questions about whether top officials should have been able to detect and stop them ahead of time. 

To Rep. Pete Stauber, R-Minn., the fraud schemes coming from his state are so numerous and so costly that he believes they represent either “incompetence or dereliction of duty.”

“Well, with the magnitude of the fraud, I find it really almost impossible that the governor or his staff and the attorney general didn’t know,” Stauber said. “And the Minnesota taxpayers are paying for it.”

DAVID MARCUS: WHITE GUILT, APATHY FUEL MASSIVE CORRUPTION IN MINNESOTA

Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital he had a high level of confidence that the committee would find out whether the governor’s office should have been aware of the mountain of fraud and whether the state’s climbing losses could have been prevented, citing whistleblowers’ testimony he hopes to confirm.

“We want to know how much fraud. Is it still ongoing? Were people aware [and] turned a blind eye? That’s pretty much the purpose of our investigation,” Comer said on Friday.

The House Oversight Committee launched its investigation earlier this month after recent reports revealed that the state had been hemorrhaging funds through fraud schemes in its social benefit programs. 

The most prominent example, the Feeding Our Future scheme, resulted in a $250 million loss when fraudsters received payments from the state for services that went unfulfilled, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

But the documented problems stretch well beyond the one example.

Notably, the state had to shutter its housing assistance program after 77 housing providers were discontinued due to “credible allegations of fraud” uncovered by the FBI in 2025. Similarly, the state’s Medicaid costs covering autism-related services have grown exponentially. According to the Minnesota Reformer, payments for the state’s autism program went from $6 million to over $190 million since 2018.

Stauber said the widespread fraud had climbed into the “billions.” It remains unclear, however, how much money the state has lost to fraud in recent years.

Although the schemes all look slightly different, Comer said they have one underlying question: Was Walz aware? 

“It’s going to be a pretty comprehensive investigation,” Comer said of efforts to answer that question. “We’ve gotten off to a pretty good start, because we have some whistleblowers.” 

Comer said the whistleblowers told the committee that members inside the governor’s office had been made aware of the fraud but that it had largely gone unheeded.

“They’re alleging that they made the governor and the attorney general aware a long time ago, and they did nothing about it. And it’s been an ongoing problem.”  

OMAR ACCUSED BY GOP OPPONENT OF OPENING UP THE DOOR TO MASSIVE MINNEAPOLIS FRAUD: ‘DEEP, DEEP TIES’

He said the committee would send investigators to Minnesota in the near future but didn’t give a timeline for how long he expected the investigation to take. Comer also declined to say exactly how many whistleblowers had spoken with the committee so far.

“Multiple,” Comer said. 

When asked about the committee’s investigation and whether Walz’ office would comply with committee requests, the governor’s office said yes.

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“We look forward to working together. While the governor has been working to ensure fraudsters go to prison, the president has been letting them out,” Walz’ office said.

President Donald Trump is being sued by a historic preservation group seeking to stop construction of his new White House ballroom.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit Friday against the Trump administration, arguing that it skipped mandatory reviews and failed to seek congressional approval before demolishing the East Wing of the White House.

“No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever — not President Trump, not President Biden, and not anyone else,” the lawsuit stated. “And no president is legally allowed to construct a ballroom on public property without giving the public the opportunity to weigh in.”

Attorneys for the nonprofit argued Trump’s project “should be immediately halted” and work on the 90,000-square-foot ballroom project should be paused until the reviews are completed.

WHITE HOUSE TROLLS DEMOCRATS OVER BALLROOM MELTDOWN — ADDS COCAINE, CLINTON, OBAMA SCANDALS TO TIMELINE

When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital, “President Trump has full legal authority to modernize, renovate and beautify the White House – just like all of his predecessors did.” 

Construction on the ballroom started in October, leading to the demolition of the White House’s historic East Wing. The project is being privately funded at an estimated cost of $300 million, up from a $200 million estimate in July when the project was unveiled.

The lawsuit claims the Trump administration failed to submit its demolition plans to the National Capital Planning Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts and Congress before construction began, arguing it is “depriving the public of its right to be informed.”

BILL MAHER SAYS HE DOESN’T ‘GIVE A S—‘ ABOUT TRUMP’S WHITE HOUSE REMODEL, SLAMS PRESS COVERAGE

Additionally, the National Trust said the project violates numerous federal statutes, including the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, and claimed Trump circumvented the Constitution. 

“The President, acting unilaterally, is wholly without constitutional authority to build or demolish anything on federal Grounds,” the lawsuit stated.

The National Trust is requesting that a federal judge prevent the Trump administration from continuing work on the Ballroom project until the necessary federal commissions have reviewed and approved the project’s plans, an adequate environmental review has been conducted and Congress has authorized the ballroom’s construction.

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The White House is expected to submit plans for Trump’s new ballroom to a federal planning commission before the end of the year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New York State Assemblyman Alex Bores, D-73, who is leading an effort to enact tighter safety regulations in the state for the country’s largest artificial intelligence developers, has attributed pressure from Big Tech to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to rewrite his bill.

Just before President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at undercutting state-level AI regulations, news broke that Hochul had severely watered down a state-level bill targeting some of the industry’s biggest players, attempting to force them to implement stricter safety measures. 

Her amendments reportedly mirrored a California measure more favorable to major AI firms.

In response to Bores’ work on the bill, the RAISE Act, the progressive state lawmaker who is running for Congress to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., says he has been the target of a $100 million ad campaign bankrolled by some of the biggest leaders in the AI industry, such as OpenAI President Greg Brockman and the major AI venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

TRUMP SAYS EVERY AI PLANT BEING BUILT IN US WILL BE SELF-SUSTAINING WITH THEIR OWN ELECTRICITY

“My reaction was, ‘Oh, this is a message to the governor’ — this is not just about defeating me,” Bores told Rolling Stone after Hochul amended his bill. “They want the governor to be intimidated by the idea they might target her next.”

“NY can be a leader on critical AI safety, or we can cave to the pressure of the same Big Tech and VC bullies pushing Trump’s AI safety ban,” New York State Sen. Andrew Gounardes, D-26, the Senate sponsor of the RAISE Act, said on X. “I know which side I’m fighting on.”

The RAISE Act, in its original form, sought to compel a select few of the most advanced AI developers to implement specific safety protocols, including requirements to write detailed safety and security protocols that must then be followed, report incidents of serious harm within 72 hours to the New York attorney general and a prohibition on the release of new models that could pose “unreasonable risk.”

But Hochul’s rewrite removed the prohibition on new AI models that could pose “unreasonable” risk, extended the reporting threshold to 15 days and weakened penalties against AI companies, among other revisions that scaled back the bill’s restrictions.

KYRSTEN SINEMA WARNS US ADVERSARY WILL PROGRAM AI WITH ‘CHINESE VALUES’ IF AMERICA FALLS BEHIND IN TECH RACE

“AI oligarchs want to take over our safety, our workforce and our minds for their own personal profit and power,” Bores told Fox News Digital when reached for comment. “They’ve already bought the White House and are trying very aggressively to try to buy statehouses, too. That can’t happen, and I won’t let it.” 

Some tech experts, including TechNYC’s Julie Samuels, argue that aligning the RAISE Act with California’s standards is actually a wise move because it will “help create a de facto national standard” that does not exist. 

When reached for comment, Hochul’s office pointed to an “absence of federal leadership on responsible AI” and asserted that New York has been “leading with commonsense laws to protect children, families and consumers.”

“Our approach should be a model for the nation,” a Hochul spokesperson said. “Gov. Hochul has been at the forefront of the innovation economy and remains committed to advancing AI responsibly as she reviews the legislation.”

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On Thursday, not long after news broke of Hochul’s rewrite, Trump signed an executive order aimed at creating a federal regulatory framework that would undercut state regulatory efforts on AI. During the signing ceremony from the White House Thursday evening, Trump said he thinks there will only be “one winner” in the global AI arms race, likely the U.S. or China.

Trump said China holds an advantage because of its centralized regulatory structure, while the U.S. “has to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states,” slowing development of new AI centers.

“We want to have one central source of approval,” Trump said.

According to senior Trump advisor Will Scharf, more than 1,000 bills aimed at regulating artificial intelligence are moving through state legislatures.

EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Digital obtained a copy of President Donald Trump’s personal schedule since Dec. 1, showing back-to-back calls and meetings that frequently drag into the evening.  

The president has come under heightened scrutiny in recent months from the media over his health and age, including the New York Times reporting last month that Trump, 79, is “facing the realities of aging” while in office. The concern surrounding Trump’s stamina follows the media’s silence on the topic when the then-oldest sitting president, Joe Biden, led from the Oval Office  – a health saga that has continued long after Biden dropped out of the 2024 federal election and exited 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on Jan. 20.  

Over the 12 days covered in the internal schedule obtained by Fox Digital, Trump is on the books for roughly 10 hours a day, averaging around 21 separate meetings, calls or events per day – while some days pack in more than 30 such events. 

A copy of the president’s schedule shows Trump begins most scheduled calls and meetings around 8:30 or 9 a.m., with his days typically not wrapping up until after 8 p.m. 

TRUMP TORCHES BIDEN’S SHUTOUT PRESS RECORD — OPENS FLOODGATES OF MEDIA ACCESS IN FIRST YEAR BACK

On Monday, Dec. 1, for example, Trump kicked off his day at 8:30 am with a phone call to his chief of staff Susie Wiles, which was followed by a 9:30 call to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and a 9:35 a.m. call into a rally. Across 10 minutes, Trump then held a series of rapid-fire meetings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Wiles, before holding calls with a member of Congress and a political advisor. 

The day continued with 18 other meetings, phone calls and events, including a bill signing, remarks at a Christmas reception, additional meetings with the secretary of state, Leavitt and his trade team. 

According to Trump’s schedule, his busiest day so far this month was on Wednesday, Dec. 3, when he held 32 events, meetings and phone calls. He began the day at 9 a.m. with a call to senior staff members, and wrapped the day up at 7:30 p.m., when he met with a “television personality.”

TRUMP’S LONG-RUNNING FEUD WITH NEW YORK TIMES ESCALATES WITH NEW INSULTS, LAWSUITS

Every hour between 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. that day included a scheduled event or meeting or call. 

Trump’s longest work day this month fell on Tuesday, Dec. 9, according to the schedule, at 13 hours and 9 minutes. Trump began his day at 9:46 a.m. with a call to a Cabinet secretary, before holding five other meetings, and one other call. He wrapped up the day at 10:55 p.m. after traveling to Pennsylvania on Tuesday, where he delivered a speech focused on his economic policies. 

The schedule overall showed a heightened focus on foreign policy and business, including 11 separate meetings or calls with his secretary of state, eight head-of-state sessions, three meetings with a special envoy and two with an ambassador. Trump had at least one CEO or business-focused engagement on 10 of the 12 days, including 17 direct CEO calls or meetings, a call with “business leaders,” and other events on the economy or technology. 

One of Trump’s lightest days was on the weekend, when Saturday, Dec. 6, recorded 5 hours and 51 minutes of scheduled events, including meetings with Kennedy Center leadership and Secret Service leadership, meeting with the Kennedy Center Honorees, and taking part in the Kennedy Center’s Honors Dinner.

Trump entered his second term as the oldest person ever inaugurated at 78, with the media becoming increasingly focused on his health, including when he was spotted with swollen legs in July while attending the FIFA Club World Cup final in New Jersey, as well as other photos stretching back to February showing bruising on his hand. 

DEMS, MEDIA CREDIBILITY IN SHAMBLES AS PRESS FIXATES ON TRUMP MRI AFTER YEARS DOWNPLAYING BIDEN HEALTH ISSUES

The White House attributed the bruising to frequent handshakes and said the swelling stemmed from chronic venous insufficiency — “a benign and common condition, particularly in individuals over the age of 70,” according to previous comments from Leavitt.

The media most recently focused on an MRI scan Trump received during a checkup at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland in October, which was described as routine by the administration. The checkup was Trump’s second in 2025, following an April visit that Navy Capt. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president, said found Trump “remains in excellent health.”

Trump pledged to release the results of the scan when pressed about it by the media, with the White House releasing the report a day after Trump’s pledge. The report found Trump was in normal and good health. 

SCOTT BESSENT CALLS OUT NY TIMES’ TRUMP REPORTING DURING PAPER’S SUMMIT, SAYS IT’S NOT PAPER OF RECORD

“The purpose of this imaging is preventative to identify any issues early, confirm overall health, and ensure the president maintains long-term vitality and function,” Leavitt said during a press conference while reading Trump’s MRI report. “… Overall, his cardiovascular system shows excellent health.” 

The White House has been quick to challenge reporters’ focus on Trump’s health, pointing to his health reports and the lack of media coverage Biden received over his mental acuity concerns. 

Biden’s mental acuity had been under conservatives’ microscope since before the 2020 election. Concerns among the mainstream media, however, did not heighten until February 2024, when special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents as vice president, announced he would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” 

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“I can tell you there was certainly a lack of transparency from the former president, from the entire former administration,” Leavitt told reporters in April. “And frankly, a lot of people in this room, when it came to the health and the competence of the former President of the United States, Joe Biden.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday signed legislation that will allow eligible terminally ill adult patients to obtain life-ending medication in consultation with their doctors, making Illinois the latest state to authorize physician-assisted suicide for people with a prognosis of six months or less.

The law, known as the Medical Aid in Dying bill or “Deb’s Law,” will take effect in September 2026 to allow participating healthcare providers and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) time to implement stringent processes and protections.

Deb Robertson, a lifelong Illinois resident with a rare terminal illness who the bill was named after, said in a statement she “know[s] the end for me could be near. But I’m pleased to have been able to play some role in ensuring that terminally ill Illinoisans have access to medical aid in dying.”

‘LOVE YOU FOREVER’ AUTHOR MAY SOON DIE BY ASSISTED SUICIDE, PRO-LIFE GROUPS CALL DECISION ‘HEARTBREAKING’

Pritzker, a Democrat, wrote in a news release the legislation will help terminal patients “avoid unnecessary pain and suffering at the end of their lives,” and will be “thoughtfully implemented so that physicians can consult patients on making deeply personal decisions with authority, autonomy and empathy.”

The ACLU of Illinois applauded the new measure, saying terminally ill patients living in Illinois will “no longer have to agonize about spending their remaining days fearful of a painful death.”

While Pritzker’s office included a quote from Chicago Episcopalian minister Rev. Judith Doran supporting the law, other groups, including the Catholic Conference of Illinois, released statements opposing any legislation that would legalize assisted suicide.

“Proponents argue that this legislation will end suffering at the end-of-life,” the Catholic Bishops of Illinois wrote in a September statement. “Assisted suicide is not the compassionate solution for those who are suffering. Through palliative care, expanded access to mental health care, and stronger family and community support, providers and families are finding better ways to accompany these people compassionately that truly confer the love for, and dignity of, each human life.”

‘UNTOLD DAMAGE’: GLOBAL ASSISTED SUICIDE MOVEMENT TARGETS CHILDREN

They added “unintended consequences” of legalized assisted suicide include documented cases of people being denied life-saving medical treatment by insurance companies in lieu of the much cheaper option of life-ending drugs.

“The poor and those with disabilities are particularly in jeopardy as they are the most vulnerable to such abuses,” the Catholic Conference of Illinois wrote. “In response, every major national organization that represents people with disabilities is opposed to assisted suicide.”

Patients must self-administer the medication, with the legislation making it a felony to coerce anyone to request the medication or forge a request.

Patients who qualify and receive medication have the right to withdraw their request at any time or choose not to ingest it, according to the release.

The death certificates of those who commit physician-assisted suicide under the bill will list their cause of death as an underlying terminal disease. 

The Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm, claimed in a statement Friday that Illinois has “crossed a moral and legal red line.”

“This is a dark and sorrowful day for Illinois. When the state signals that some lives are no longer worth living, the most vulnerable pay the price,” Thomas More Society executive vice president Thomas Olp wrote in a statement. “Instead of offering true compassion, support, and care, this law offers a fatal prescription. That is not mercy. It is abandonment.”

In addition to its “grave social and moral implications,” the law firm noted the law threatens the conscience rights of physicians opposed to facilitating assisted suicide, as well as the freedom of association of religious medical institutions. 

While physicians, health care providers and pharmacists are not required to participate, the bill requires physicians who object to assisted suicide on moral or religious grounds to refer patients to providers who will participate in ending their lives.

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“The State is forcing doctors to become active participants and cooperators in a patient’s suicide—no matter if their faith, ethics, or Hippocratic Oath forbid it,” Olp wote. “This is unconscionable coercion, plain and simple. No doctor should be ordered by the government to participate, directly or indirectly, in a process that deliberately ends a human life.”

Beyond the law’s compelled-referral mandate, the law also forces religious hospitals and clinics to retain staff who promote assisted deaths on-site, as long as those staff provide lethal drugs off-site. 

“This is a Trojan horse designed to violate and undermine the missions of religious healthcare institutions,” Olp wrote. “Gov. Pritzker’s assisted suicide law threatens the integrity of Catholic and Christian medical institutions statewide. . . . State law should never endorse the idea that suffering or sickness makes a life disposable.”

If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

GOP House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said he plans to commence contempt of Congress proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton for ignoring the committee’s subpoenas related to its ongoing probe into the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. 

In July, a bipartisan House Oversight Subcommittee approved motions to subpoena Bill and Hillary Clinton and a slew of other high-profile political figures to aid its investigation looking into how the federal government handled Epstein’s sex trafficking case. 

The subpoenas were then sent out in early August, and the Clinton’s were scheduled to testify Dec. 17-18. 

“It has been more than four months since Bill and Hillary Clinton were subpoenaed to sit for depositions related to our investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s horrific crimes. Throughout that time, the former president and former secretary of state have delayed, obstructed, and largely ignored the committee staff’s efforts to schedule their testimony,” Comer said in a press release issued Friday evening.

DOJ CLEARED TO RELEASE SECRET JEFFREY EPSTEIN CASE GRAND JURY MATERIALS

“If the Clintons fail to appear for their depositions next week or schedule a date for early January, the Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings to hold them accountable.”

Comer’s threats come as Democrats from the House Oversight Committee released a new batch of photos obtained from Epstein’s estate, which included further images of the disgraced financier with powerful figures like President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. Thousands of images were reportedly released, with potentially more to come.

Other high-profile figures subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee include James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Robert Mueller, William Barr, Jeff Sessions and Alberto Gonzales.

FEDERAL JUDGE APPROVES RELEASING GHISLAINE MAXWELL CASE GRAND JURY MATERIAL

In addition to testimony from these individuals, Comer and the Oversight Committee issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for all documents and communications pertaining to the case against Epstein.

In September, the committee released tens of thousands of pages of Epstein-related records in compliance with the subpoena, and the Oversight Committee indicated the DOJ would continue producing even more records as it works through needed redactions and other measures that must occur before they are released.

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A top Senate Republican argued that if allegations against “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., that she married her brother to enter the U.S. were true, she’d be breaking several laws.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joined the long-standing scrutiny against Omar Friday after President Donald Trump revived the allegations during a rally pushing his affordability agenda in Pennsylvania earlier this week.

In a post on X responding to a White House social media account that charged, “Yes, [Omar] married her brother,” Cruz listed a trio of federal and state laws the progressive lawmaker may have violated.

ILHAN OMAR’S EX APPEARS ON ‘DIRTY DANDY’ SOCIAL ACCOUNT AS TRUMP REVIVES MARRIED SIBLINGS CLAIM

“If this is true, then Omar faces criminal liability under three different statutes,” Cruz said.

Cruz argued that Omar could have committed federal marriage fraud, which stipulates that it is a felony to knowingly enter into a marriage to evade immigration laws, and could lead to up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and deportation.

Omar was born in Somalia and came to the U.S. in 1995 after her family was granted asylum. She became a citizen in 2000. Omar, who is Muslim, has been married legally three times, first in a religious marriage to Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi in 2002, then to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009 before later divorcing and legally marrying Hirsi. In 2020, she married political aide Tim Mynett. 

SCOOP: ILHAN OMAR HIT WITH HOUSE ETHICS COMPLAINT OVER RESPONSE TO CHARLIE KIRK ASSASSINATION

Cruz noted that Omar could also be breaking Minnesota’s state incest law, a felony in the state punishable by jail time up to 10 years. He also contended that she could be liable for tax fraud, specifically if joint tax returns were filed while she was not legally married.

That violation would levy up to a $100,000 fine and up to three years in prison.

MINNESOTA HOUSE HOPEFUL CALLS MARRIAGE, FRAUD CLAIMS ‘LIES’

The Senate Republican’s legal analysis of the situation comes after Trump resurrected the unsubstantiated claims that Omar had married her brother for immigration purposes that have dogged the lawmaker since she entered politics nearly a decade ago. She has denied the allegations.

Still, Trump charged, “She married her brother to get in, right?”

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“If I married my sister to get my citizenship, do you think I’d last for about two hours or something less than that? She married her brother to get in,” he said. “Therefore, she’s here illegally. She should get the hell out.”

Fox News Digital did not immediately hear back for comment from Omar’s office.

Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content. Here’s what’s happening…

-Waltz hails ‘night-and-day’ Middle East shift as Trump’s Gaza plan reshapes region

-Duffy threatens to yank New York federal funds over illegally issued commercial driver’s licenses

-Democrats ramp up calls to release Jack Smith’s special counsel report on Trump classified documents case

Omar accused by GOP opponent of opening up the door to massive Minneapolis fraud: ‘Deep, deep ties’

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Republican John Nagel, who is running against Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar in her Minneapolis district, spoke to Fox News Digital about the responsibility she holds in the unfolding massive fraud scandal that has garnered national headlines.

“Where did this actually start?” Nagel told Fox News Digital. “She passed legislation. Her legislation actually started and it allowed people to get into Feeding Our Future. If you look at where the fraud is, it’s primarily her [5th Congressional District], the district that I’m running in against her. And it’s really odd to think that you know all the fraud just happened in a particular area, and it was a bill that she, you know, particularly put together.”

Nagel is referring to allegations that the free meals at the center of the massive fraud scandal were made possible by the 2020 MEALS Act, introduced by Omar and passed with bipartisan support. He told Fox News Digital the public deserves to know who helped her craft that legislation…READ MORE.

White House

‘CHERRY-PICKED’: White House slams House Dems releasing Epstein photos showing Trump, Clinton, Woody Allen

STOCKPILE SQUEEZE: Gas prices are falling — so why isn’t Trump refilling the oil reserve faster? WH blames Biden ‘damage’

DEFIANT MESSAGE: Kilmar Abrego Garcia seen for first time since release, pledges to ‘continue to fight’ Trump admin

LINES DRAWN: High-stakes map fight: Here are the next battlegrounds in the Trump vs. Democrats redistricting showdown

World Stage

SEIZED AT SEA: Why the US could snatch a Venezuelan tanker — and not under ‘wartime’ authority used in cartel strikes

Capitol Hill

SHOW THE TAPES: Bipartisan push grows in Senate to force release of unedited Caribbean strike footage

TECH WAR GAMBLE: Trump’s green light for NVIDIA sales to China sparks alarm on Capitol Hill

CARE CLIFF: Senate mulls next steps after dueling Obamacare fixes go up in flames

Across America 

‘LOOPHOLE’: Whistleblower says massive fraud happening in Ohio Somali community, Minnesota ‘just tip of the spear’

‘MUST-SEE TV’: ‘Must-see TV’: Texas Senate candidate challenges Jasmine Crockett to public debate

DIGITAL DIRT: Latin Grammy winner and Texas Dem star recruit hits House campaign with years of porn-linked posts

GAME ON: Husted files for 2026 Senate race, launching aggressive statewide re-election push

‘TOUGH ROAD’: Extreme sports star lashes out at Newsom for killing the California dream: ‘What happened?’

Get the latest updates on the Trump administration and Congress, exclusive interviews and more on FoxNews.com.

House Republicans have released a 111-page plan for reforming healthcare that they hope to vote on next week.

House GOP leadership aides also told reporters on Friday afternoon that they expected a vote on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies to also happen next week as part of the amendment process to the final bill, called the “Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act.” The subsidies have been the subject of fierce inter-party debate for Republicans.

“We expect that there will be an amendment that I believe is being worked on, so the process will allow for that amendment,” aides said.

The plan as-is includes provisions to codify association health plans, which allow small businesses and people who are self-employed to band together to purchase healthcare coverage plans, giving them access to greater bargaining power.

SENATE DEMS’ OBAMACARE FIX FAILS AS SENATE LOOKS FOR OFF-RAMP FROM HEALTHCARE CLIFF

Republicans also plan to appropriate funding for cost-sharing reductions beginning in 2027, which are designed to lower out-of-pocket medical costs in the individual healthcare market. House GOP leadership aides said it would bring down the cost of premiums by 12%.

New transparency requirements for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are also in the legislation, aimed at forcing PBMs to be more upfront about costs to employers.

GOP UNVEILS PLAN FOR ‘TRUMP HEALTH FREEDOM ACCOUNTS’ TO REPLACE OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES WITH STATE WAIVERS

PBMs are third parties that act as intermediaries between pharmaceutical companies and those responsible for insurance coverage, often responsible for administrative tasks and negotiating drug prices.

PBMs have also been the subject of bipartisan ire in Congress, with both Republicans and Democrats accusing them of being part of a broken system to inflate health costs.

But the most divisive measure for Republicans is likely not yet fleshed out. 

A majority of House Republicans are against extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, which were designed to get affordable health insurance for more Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Democrats voted to pass the enhanced subsidies in 2021 and extended them through 2022 when they controlled Congress.

A group of moderate House Republicans has joined Democrats now in vehemently pushing for those subsidies to be extended again, as millions of Americans face near-certain healthcare price hikes beginning in January.

Two separate bipartisan efforts have been launched to force a vote on extending the subsidies in some form. But any such push would require support from virtually all House Democrats to succeed, and their leaders have not given their blessing to either plan.

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“We’re going to evaluate every single good faith proposal. But it has to meaningfully provide certainty to the American people who are at risk of having their health care ripped away from them,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters on Friday.

But conservatives have warned they would not support any such extension unless paired with significant reforms to what they view as a long-broken system that fuels healthcare price inflation.

“I think that would be a disastrous plan. I mean, we’ve clearly seen that Obamacare is the Titanic. It’s going down. I think throwing money after it is just going to be wasteful,” House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., told Fox News’ Chad Pergram on Friday.

 

The final legislation governing Pentagon spending dropped a bipartisan provision that would have guaranteed the military the right to repair its own equipment, prompting immediate criticism from its authors, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and Tim Sheehy, R-MT, who accused Congress of siding with defense contractors over service members.

Both chambers had passed versions of the reform, and the White House publicly supported the measure, which would have required contractors to provide the Pentagon with the technical data needed to perform repairs in-house — rather than flying out manufacturer technicians at added cost. The final National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) omits that mandate, a move Warren and Sheehy say will leave troops facing the same barriers to fixing equipment whenever contractors assert proprietary rights.

“For decades, the Pentagon has relied on a broken acquisition system that is routinely defended by career bureaucrats and corporate interests. Military right to repair reforms are supported by the Trump White House, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and our brave servicemembers,” Warren and Sheehy said after the text of the legislation was released. “The only ones against this common-sense reform are those taking advantage of a broken status quo at the expense of our warfighters and taxpayers.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) repeatedly has warned that the Pentagon’s lack of access to technical data is one of the biggest drivers of soaring sustainment costs, estimating that broader repair rights could save the department “billions” of dollars over the life cycles of major weapons systems.

SEN ROGER WICKER: THE PENTAGON NEEDS MAJOR REFORM. NOW IS OUR CHANCE 

GAO reviews of aircraft, ships and ground vehicles have found that when contractors retain exclusive control over repair information, the military is forced into long-term vendor support arrangements that are far more expensive than in-house maintenance. In several cases, GAO concluded that obtaining necessary data earlier in the acquisition process would have given the Pentagon more flexibility, reduced downtime, and lowered costs for everything from software fixes to depot-level repairs.

Sources familiar with the NDAA negotiations claimed that, behind closed doors, lobbyists had persuaded leaders on the House and Senate Armed Services Committee to drop the more aggressive right to repair language. 

“This is a textbook case of the swamp prevailing at the expense of our warfighters and government efficiency,” one source said. “Does (War Secretary Pete) Hegseth realize that Boeing just knocked the legs out from our warriors?”

A spokesperson for the House Armed Services Committee said: “The Committee is committed to addressing the right to repair issue in a manner that ensures our warfighters have the data they need to effectuate repairs while preserving the intellectual property of private industry.”

“The FY26 NDAA requires the Department to audit its contracts to determine where they are missing data rights they need and determine whether any missing data rights is the result of a defective law or a defective contract.  If the law is defective, the department needs to make recommendations to Congress on how to fix it.”

Watchdogs also questioned the weaker compromise. 

“The provisions are nowhere near strong enough,” said Greg Williams of the Project on Government Oversight. “They help catalog the problem, but they don’t really do anything to solve it.” Williams added that the original proposals “acknowledged the cost and committed to paying fair, reasonable prices to vendors for that intellectual property,” countering industry arguments that the bill would have seized or devalued contractors’ data.

CONGRESS UNVEILS $900B DEFENSE BILL TARGETING CHINA WITH TECH BANS, INVESTMENT CRACKDOWN, US TROOP PAY RAISE

Industry groups defended their opposition. 

“This debate is not about ensuring equipment and technology can be repaired in contested environments; commanders already have broad authority to keep mission-critical systems operational,” said Marta Hernandez, spokesperson for the Aerospace Industries Association. “Our concern with the Senate proposal is its sweeping mandate for government takeover of IP — without regard to necessity or cost. ‘One size fits all’ doesn’t work for our troops or for the industry that equips them.”

But military officials and watchdogs say that while commanders can authorize emergency fixes, that authority does not give units the technical data, software access, or parts needed to actually perform repairs. They argue that crews remain dependent on contractors even when they have the skills to fix the equipment themselves.

Instead of requiring contractors to provide repair data, the final NDAA directs the Pentagon to create a database cataloging what technical information it currently has and to “request options” from contractors when data is missing. Critics say the language has no enforcement mechanism and leaves manufacturers free to refuse, preserving the contractor-controlled repair model the reform sought to change.

The Trump administration had backed the reform, with Statements of Administration Policy supporting both the House and Senate versions earlier in the fall. Service secretaries also endorsed the effort, and War Secretary Pete Hegseth issued new acquisition guidance in November instructing the military to plan for “organic depot-level maintenance and repair” in major systems.

US COULD LOSE NEXT MAJOR WAR DUE TO PENTAGON’S ‘BROKEN’ ACQUISITION SYSTEM

In May 2025, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll publicly pledged that the Army would ensure right-to-repair provisions were included in future Army contracts — aligning the service with the broader congressional push for greater access to technical data. But advocates said a service-by-service approach wasn’t enough and pushed to codify and expand right to repair across all branches to prevent contractors from controlling critical maintenance information.

The F-35 program offers one of the clearest examples of how restricted repair rights drive up costs. 

GAO has found that the Pentagon still lacks key technical data needed to perform many F-35 repairs organically, forcing the services to rely on Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors for everything from software maintenance to component overhauls. That dependence has helped push sustainment costs so high that the Pentagon warns it cannot afford to operate the planned fleet without major changes. 

GAO reported that greater access to repair data could save the department billions over the jet’s projected life cycle, reduce turnaround times for broken parts, and allow military depots to take on work that is currently outsourced back to the contractor.

The consequences of contractor restrictions are already visible across the force. A mechanic deployed for an exercise in Korea “was prohibited from conducting maintenance on a generator because the warranty would be voided,” leaving the unit with the choice of voiding the warranty or losing equipment needed for training, according to a comment filed on Regulations.gov.

Marines stationed in Japan were forced to “pack() up and ship() back (engines) to contractors in the (U.S.) for repairs,” leaving the engines offline for months, former Marine Corps logistics officer Elle Ekman wrote in The New York Times.

Even basic shipboard systems have been affected. Navy Secretary John Phelan told lawmakers that during a visit to the USS Gerald R. Ford, six of the ship’s eight ovens — responsible for preparing more than 15,000 meals a day — were broken. Sailors said they knew how to fix the ovens but were not allowed to and had to wait for contractors instead, according to a War Department readout. When shipboard elevators stopped working, the crew similarly had to call in the manufacturer. 

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Advocates say these examples illustrate why Congress sought to codify military right to repair in the first place — and why they argue the issue is far from resolved. Warren and Sheehy have already vowed to push another legislative fix next year, while watchdog groups say they will press the Pentagon to use its existing authority to demand greater data access in new contracts.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced financial reporting crackdowns in Minnesota Friday as part of the ongoing investigation into sprawling fraud schemes rocking the state, including deploying Treasury personnel to the ground. 

The Treasury Department is rolling out a geographic targeting order focused on money services businesses — which are understood as financial operations that grant money transfers, currency exchange and check cashing — to ensure potential illegal activity is reported to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Bessent said the heightened security will monitor if funds are being transferred to places such as Somalia. 

“This important tool will be used to make sure information regarding any such illicit activity is quickly reported to @FinCENnews and made available to our law enforcement partners,” Bessent posted to X Friday morning. “This will empower investigators to develop additional leads through increased scrutiny on funds going to areas of concern, such as Somalia.” 

Bessent added that employees of the Treasury are on the ground in Minnesota, including to investigate money services businesses suspected of participating in the fraud schemes.

OMAR ACCUSED BY GOP OPPONENT OF OPENING UP THE DOOR TO MASSIVE MINNEAPOLIS FRAUD: ‘DEEP, DEEP TIES’

“Additionally, Treasury personnel are on the ground working hard to uncover the facts. FinCEN will soon be issuing Notices of Investigations to MSBs of concern, and I can report that @IRSnews will be examining these businesses,” Bessent posted. 

Bessent announced at the start of December that he opened an investigation into “feckless mismanagement” by Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz that allegedly allowed what U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Daniel Rosen called “the largest Covid-19 fraud scheme in the country.”

The scandal initially centered on a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. The group and its partners are accused of siphoning off as much as $250 million from a federal children’s nutrition program by allegedly creating hundreds of sham meal sites. At least 77 people have been charged in the scam, many of whom are from the Somali community in Minnesota. 

WHISTLEBLOWER WARNS MASSIVE FRAUD IS HAPPENING IN OHIO SOMALI COMMUNITY, MINNESOTA ‘JUST TIP OF THE SPEAR’

The scandal, according to local Republican lawmakers, goes far deeper and could total over $2 billion in fraud, pointing to various nonprofits that have allegedly ripped off the government. 

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announced it was launching its own investigation into “widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs under Governor Tim Walz’s watch,” pointing to how the fraud allegedly affects multiple government programs. 

MINNESOTA’S SOMALI FRAUD SCANDAL EXPOSES THE HIDDEN COST OF IMMIGRATION

President Donald Trump has railed against the schemes while arguing “Somali gangs” should be deported. 

“Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from,” Trump said on Truth Social of the fraud. 

Minnesota Democrats, including Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar, have pushed back, accusing Trump of smearing the Somali community for political points. 

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“You commit crimes, you go to jail. Doesn’t matter what your race is, what your ethnicity, religion,” Walz said earlier in December. “But demonizing an entire group of people by their race and their ethnicity? A very group of people who contribute to the vitality — economic, cultural — of this state, is something I hoped we’d never have to see.”

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller, Peter Pinedo and Michael Dorgan contributed to this report. 

The Trump administration is in the midst of “gradually” refilling the nation’s emergency reserve of oil after it was partially drained under the Biden administration. 

President Donald Trump and the White House have been touting falling energy and oil prices in recent months as Democrats realign their political messaging following their 2024 election losses, finding a winning strategy in knocking the Trump administration over “affordability” and cost-of-living concerns. 

Considering the administration is touting falling gas prices as they champion Trump’s economic plans in the face of Democrat “affordability” pushback, Fox News Digital asked the White House Wednesday if the administration was taking steps to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which Trump pledged to do from the campaign trail and during inauguration. 

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve serves as the U.S.’ emergency stash of oil that was established after the 1970s oil crisis and stored along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana. The Department of Energy oversees the reserve. 

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A Trump official explained that the administration is working to “gradually” refill the stash of oil, while citing significant “damage” left to the reserve following the Biden administration releasing millions of barrels of oil in 2021 and 2022. 

“Joe Biden’s disastrous green energy policies sent gas prices soaring across the country, making the past four years painfully unaffordable for Americans filling their gas tanks to commute to work, take their children to school, and travel during the summer and holiday seasons,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Fox News Digital. 

“In a desperate attempt to provide an illusion of relief during his 2024 campaign, Joe Biden irresponsibly depleted our Strategic Petroleum Reserve — shamelessly jeopardizing our economic and national security. President Trump’s energy dominance agenda has already brought gas prices down across the country, while gradually replenishing the SPR, and they will continue to drop as we unleash American energy.”

Biden released 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2021 to lower gas prices and address the nation’s supply chain issues, citing the move was needed after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a “near economic standstill.”

He upped the ante on draining the SPR in March 2022, announcing that his administration would release one million barrels of oil per day from the SPR for six months to combat rising gas prices. The announcement followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with the U.S. and other allies imposing steep sanctions on oil-rich Russia in response. Biden released roughly 300 million barrels of oil across his four years. 

The U.S. uses about 20.2 million barrels of crude oil per day, according to the Energy Information Administration, so the roughly 400 million-barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve would cover only about 20 days of demand if it were the country’s sole source of crude.

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Biden holds the top spot among presidents for releasing the most oil from the SPR, with his administration acknowledging at the time that it was “unprecedented” but needed to lower energy prices. SPR levels dropped to a 40-year low of 347 million barrels in July 2023 after the drawdowns in 2021 and 2022, compared to its record high at 727 million barrels under the Obama administration in 2009. 

“The scale of this release is unprecedented: the world has never had a release of oil reserves at this 1 million per day rate for this length of time,” the Biden administration said in a statement at the time, pinning blame for the prices on Russia. “This record release will provide a historic amount of supply to serve as bridge until the end of the year when domestic production ramps up.” 

Other presidents have released oil from the reserve, including the President George H.W. Bush administration releasing 17.3 million barrels in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, and the President George W. Bush administration ordering an 11 million barrel drawdown in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina rocked the Gulf Coast. 

‘Damage’ left by Biden White House 

A Trump administration official told Fox Digital that the “repercussions of this damaging decision” to release roughly 300 million barrels of oil “persist.” 

The official said that releasing the oil under the Biden administration sparked $280 million in costs, delayed critical infrastructure maintenance, and put “unprecedented” wear and tear on storage and injection facilities. 

The SPR currently holds just more than 400 million barrels, with a capacity of roughly 700 million barrels, Fox Digital learned. Refiling the reserve could cost up to $20 billion, according to the administration official, who underscored that the “damage the Biden administration did to America’s SPR and national security cannot be overstated.” 

The SPR notched its lowest levels in modern history under the Biden administration, though the reserve only held just a few million barrels of oil in the late 1970s and early 1980s as officials worked to fill the reserve. 

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden’s office for comment on the SPR and Trump administration’s comments but did not immediately receive a reply. 

After Biden’s record 2022 emergency drawdown, the Biden–Harris administration directed the Energy Department to start repurchasing crude for the SPR at prices well below the roughly $95 per barrel it sold for in 2022. 

Congress needs to appropriate funds in order to refill the reserves. Currently, the Department of Energy has refill authority and funds granted under the “big, beautiful bill,” which appropriated $218 million for maintenance and repairs to the storage facilities and $171 million to refill the SPR. 

Appetite among Republicans to refill the SPR was apparent earlier in 2025, when House GOP lawmakers unveiled a budget proposal in May that included more than $1.5 billion to replenish and maintain the SPR. The funding was whittled down amid negotiations on the funding bill. 

The Trump administration told Fox Digital that the Energy Department and Trump are working to gradually refill the reserve and remain committed to their previous pledges to do so, while awaiting additional funding from Congress. 

The Department of Energy began refilling the SPR in October, Fox Digital learned, in October with a notice of intent to purchase a million barrels of oil, which was followed by the department awarding contracts to begin refilling the reserve. The Department of Energy expects that oil to be delivered to the reserves by the end of 2025.

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The administration said it is examining other avenues to refill the reserves as it awaits further funding action from Congress, including exchanging 1 million barrels to ExxonMobil in July to address a temporary supply disruption at its Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refinery. Exxon will return the oil, plus an additional amount that will be returned under a negotiated schedule by the third quarter of fiscal year 2026.

Pledge to refill the reserve after Biden

Trump railed against Biden’s plan and subsequent release of the oil in his interim between his first and second administration, including in 2021 when he told the New York Post that the reserve should only be tapped during “serious emergencies, like war, and nothing else.”

“Now I understand that Joe Biden will be announcing an ‘attack’ on the newly brimming Strategic Oil Reserves so that he could get the close to record-setting high oil prices artificially lowered,” Trump told the outlet at the time. “We were energy independent one year ago, now we are at the mercy of OPEC, gasoline is selling for $7 in parts of California, going up all over the Country, and they are taking oil from our Strategic Reserves. Is this any way to run a Country?”

The U.S. Department of Energy under Trump’s first term worked to purchase $3 billion in crude oil under the $2 trillion stimulus package in 2020, but Senate Democrats dropped the funding from the final version of the bill that Trump signed into law. 

As the federal election cycle heated up, Trump vowed to refill the reserves if re-elected.

WHITE HOUSE TURNS UP HEAT ON BIDEN’S ECONOMIC RECORD AS VOTERS SOUR ON ‘AFFORDABILITY’

Biden is “using the strategic reserves, which is meant for military, which is meant for war, and very important things, he’s using it to try and keep gasoline prices down,” Trump said in August 2024, saying he would “immediately refill” the reserve if re-elected. “We can’t allow that to happen.”

Trump also vowed in his inauguration speech on Jan. 20: “We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top, and export American energy all over the world.” 

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Thursday, during a press briefing, celebrated the nation’s current falling gas prices as evidence that the Trump economy is easing the financial anxiety Americans are feeling.

Democrats in the off-season 2025 election cycle campaigned on the platform of “affordability,” claiming the Trump administration was worsening cost-of-living woes. The president and his administration have hit back against the Democrats’ new winning campaign strategy, pinning blame for high costs on Biden administration policies that have had a lasting effect on the economy.

“American families faced constant pain at the pump, and those costs caused the price of everything else to go up as well,” Leavitt said Thursday. “In fact, the average cost for a gallon of regular gas in the country was the most expensive price during a presidential term in U.S. history under Biden’s disastrous leadership, even with them recklessly draining our strategic reserves to try and artificially decrease prices. But thanks to President Trump, those days are long behind us. In the months ahead, Americans can expect prices to fall even further.”

FIRST ON FOX: Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted officially filed his paperwork to run for re-election on Friday, capping off a rollout week that highlighted his campaign objectives in a race that is expected to be one of the most expensive and closely watched Senate races in the country. 

Husted says he filed “because too many people in Washington have forgotten what it’s like to live, work, and raise a family in Ohio,” adding that his campaign will center on lowering costs, creating jobs, securing the border and “making America affordable again.”

Husted’s filing capped off a fast-moving week in which he released a new campaign video, his first ad, and a full leadership slate of 112 County Campaign Chairs representing all 88 Ohio counties — an unusually large infrastructure rollout this early in the cycle.

Husted’s team includes 23 county commissioners, 20 GOP county chairs, nine mayors, seven sheriffs, and five state legislators.

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Husted enters the 2026 cycle with the support of former President Donald Trump, who recently called him a “trusted conservative” who “has always delivered for Ohio.”

The Ohio senator’s campaign says the senator’s early filing, combined with his statewide staffing rollout, is intended to send a clear message: he is running aggressively, early, and everywhere.

“My focus is on delivering for Ohio’s working families,” Husted said. “That won’t change in this campaign, and it won’t change in my next term.”

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Husted was appointed to the Senate by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to fill in for JD Vance after the young senator left office to become Trump’s vice president. 

Husted, a former Ohio lieutenant governor, will square off against former Ohio Dem. Sen. Sherrod Brown next year.

Brown, a veteran Democrat who held statewide office for decades, is expected to frame his campaign around protecting union jobs, defending Social Security and Medicare, and pushing back on what he calls “corporate greed.”

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Husted’s team, meanwhile, is preparing to cast Brown as a Washington insider out of step with Ohio’s economic and cultural concerns, similar to the narrative that Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno used to successfully unseat Brown last year.

“Ohio needs conservative champion Jon Husted in the U.S. Senate,” the narrator says in Husted’s first campaign ad released earlier this week. 

Lawyers for the Trump administration are seeking to shut down a revived contempt inquiry led by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, arguing in new filings that the court should cancel two scheduled witness examinations next week or allow the administration to block testimony on grounds of “executive privilege.”

In filings earlier this week, Justice Department lawyers argued the court is exceeding its authority. “At the outset, the Court’s inquiry exceeds its authority and is now intruding on the prerogatives of a co-equal branch,” they wrote, adding that criminal contempt falls within the executive branch’s power.

“Criminal contempt is a criminal offense, and the investigation and prosecution of crimes is [a] core executive power reserved to the Executive Branch,” they added. 

The filings are part of a revived contempt inquiry that will bring to the fore longtime tensions between the Trump administration and the chief judge for the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., who sparked Trump’s ire earlier this year after he attempted to temporarily block the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador in March.

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Boasberg this week requested testimony from two current and former Justice Department officials who played a key role in the Trump administration’s use of the 18th century wartime law to quickly deport the migrants to El Salvador in March, despite his temporary restraining order and subsequent oral order that attempted to block — for 14 days — the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to immediately deport the migrants. 

He is now weighing whether senior Trump officials willfully defied that order. To wit, he ordered Drew Ensign, the Justice Department’s deputy assistant attorney general, to appear in court Monday for questioning and for cross-examination from lawyers representing the class of deported Venezuelan migrants. 

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He also ordered testimony and cross-examination the following day from former Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni, who since parting ways with the Justice Department has publicly accused the administration of ignoring court orders — including in this case.

“The Court thus believes that it is necessary to hear witness testimony to better understand the basis of the decision to transfer the deportees out of United States custody in the context of the hearing on March 15, 2025,” Boasberg wrote in scheduling the appearances.

“The events surrounding this decision should shed light on this question,” he said.

The inquiry was revived after the D.C. Circuit, sitting en banc, vacated an earlier ruling and returned the matter to Boasberg. New details about the government’s handling of the March flights have already emerged, with additional disclosures expected in the coming days.

Still, court filings revealed that the Trump administration plans to fight those efforts at every turn. 

“If the Court does proceed with testimony, it should grant a protective order with respect to privileged information or provide Defendants with an opportunity to seek appellate relief in advance of any testimony; and the Court should also limit the scope of the testimony and preclude Plaintiffs from participating,” they told Boasberg.

TRUMP FOE BOASBERG ORDERS DOJ TO DETAIL STATUS OF CECOT MIGRANTS SENT TO VENEZUELA

Last month, DOJ officials identified DHS Secretary Kristi Noem as the official who authorized the transfer of the Venezuelan migrants after being briefed on Boasberg’s emergency order by lawyers for the Justice Department and acting general counsel for DHS.

Boasberg said earlier this week that it would be “premature” to refer anyone for prosecution under the revived contempt probe, and declined to immediately compel testimony from Noem at this stage in the process.

Noem said in a declaration of her own that she made that call based on legal advice from lawyers for the Justice Department, as well as the acting general counsel for DHS.

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The fresh action on the contempt issue is almost certain to spark the ire of some Republicans in Congress and from Trump himself, who has repeatedly excoriated Boasberg as an “activist judge” for his role in the Alien Enemies Act case and resulting inquiry.

Boasberg, for his part, has appeared unfazed. 

“This has been sitting for a long time,” Boasberg said late last month of the contempt inquiry, “and I believe justice requires me to move promptly on this.”

The government, he added, “can assist me to whatever degree it wishes.”