Hillary Clinton caught on video stepping back after pushy former president nudges her at busy NYC intersection
Viral video shows former President Bill Clinton appearing to nudge former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toward a busy New York City intersection crosswalk Tuesday, prompting her to pull back and protest as the couple attempted to cross the street. The Clintons were walking in New York City after attending an event and visiting their daughter, Chelsea Clinton, when the awkward encounter unfolded. Video showed the former president smiling as he pushed his wife into an adjoining crosswalk, in an apparent jaywalking attempt. Hillary Clinton pulled back and raised her hands in front of her to avoid being thrust into the street, saying, “No, no, no, no, no. Don’t do that. Don’t do that.” HILLARY CLINTON COMES OUT SWINGING AFTER GOP GRILLED HER DURING MARATHON EPSTEIN DEPOSITION “That’s not a good idea,” Bill Clinton replied with a grin. Moments later, the crosswalk signal changed, and the pair — accompanied by what appeared to be a security detail — crossed the street without incident. The appearance came days after the Clintons wrapped up their testimony in a probe related to the government’s handling of the case against disgraced late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. CLINTONS CAVE: COMER SAYS BILL AND HILLARY TO TESTIFY IN EPSTEIN PROBE In an unprecedented deposition, the former president and first lady testified under subpoena to the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation. Bill Clinton had publicly acknowledged a past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, including shared trips. However, the Clintons have not been accused of misconduct related to Epstein. Investigators agreed to examine how Epstein cultivated ties with prominent individuals to help obscure his criminal activity, prompting former President Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump‘s inclusion in Epstein document releases. Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
Minnesota human services officials skip fraud hearing as Walz promises reform
Minnesota Department of Human Services (MNDHS) officials skipped a key hearing this week held by a state House fraud prevention panel, earning the ire of its chairwoman as Gov. Tim Walz separately promised reform. MNDHS was expected to face tough questions at the hearing, which featured a former judge and Catholic diocesan official appointed by Walz to investigate “program integrity” in the state. “I’m incredibly frustrated that they ghosted us,” House Fraud Prevention Committee Chair Kristin Robbins said, as she has since sent a letter to the department demanding answers. Robbins, a suburban Minneapolis Republican who is also running for governor, previously said state leaders “knew this was going on and they allowed it to continue.” YOUTUBER TO TESTIFY BEFORE CONGRESS ON MINNESOTA’S MASSIVE $9B FRAUD NETWORK INVESTIGATION At the top of Monday’s hearing, Robbins verbally recognized the absence of MNDHS, as she introduced the session as one “discussing the roadmap to program integrity and fraud prevention, followed by an informational hearing and discussion of periodic data matching.” “Before we begin, is there anyone in the Department of Human Services in the audience? I don’t see anyone,” she said. “So I just want to note for the record that [MN]DHS was invited to be available in the audience to answer questions today after Judge O’Malley’s presentation. And they have apparently declined to come, which is very frustrating.” MINNESOTA ‘ON THE CLOCK’ AS HHS THREATENS PENALTIES OVER CHILDCARE FRAUD SCANDAL Robbins said it was the second such hearing that MNDHS ignored, and that she would be contacting MNDHS Commissioner Shireen Gandhi. “She may not always be able to attend, but there are a lot of employees at that agency [including] someone who especially can speak to periodic data matching should have been here for that portion of the hearing.” Instead, Robbins moved on to testimony from Tim O’Malley, a retired judge and St. Paul archdiocesan official, who was recently appointed by Walz as state director of Program Integrity. “Minnesota has experienced extensive, well-documented fraud in programs designed to serve the state’s most vulnerable residents. The state’s ineffectiveness in combating that fraud has wasted taxpayer dollars, enriched criminals, eroded public confidence, and impeded the delivery of essential services to Minnesotans in need,” O’Malley said. In a video interview with Fox News Digital, Robbins expounded on her earlier reported comments, saying it was “very disappointing” to see MNDHS no-show. TAFOYA RIPS WALZ ‘DODGING’ ACCOUNTABILITY IN HEARING, UNVEILS PLAN TO FIGHT FRAUD: ‘FULL WEIGHT OF THE LAW’ “What was more shocking is, as we gaveled out, the next hearing was coming in, a Ways and Means Committee hearing, and all the [MN]DHS people walked in the door for the next hearing because they wanted to ask for money from the state … but they couldn’t bother to show up to react to the governor’s own program integrity report. It was unbelievable,” she said. When reached for comment, an MNDHS spokesperson said “the department had a prior commitment Monday morning.” “Monday marked the 19th hearing of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee since it began in February 2025. The Minnesota Department of Human Services has testified before the committee eight times. This was the second time the department was unavailable to attend at the chair’s request,” the spokesperson said, adding that the agency supports O’Malley’s work. Asked about MNDHS’ response to the no-show, Robbins said “it’s not true” and said that when she left the hearing at its end, she ran into MNDHS staff coming in to testify at an ensuing hearing. “[Ours] wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill hearing. It was the public hearing on the governor’s program integrity report with the guy the governor appointed: Judge O’Malley. So, absolutely, they should have been there to ask questions.” Walz said during a press availability broadcast Tuesday that he and O’Malley are working to root out decades of institutional issues that he likened to a “Frankenstein” monster that saw additional “bolts” being soldered on it and complicating its structure instead of it being fixed. MINNESOTA AG BLASTS HOUSE HEARING ON FRAUD SCANDAL IN HIS STATE : ‘A LOT OF BULLS— FROM REPUBLICANS’ “When I came here, the discussion was, if you recall clear back in 2019, that reforms around [MN]DHS as a large organization that does multiple things that we needed to think about modernizing… I talked to my fellow governors and we talked to commissioners in other states, Minnesota system of delivery around social services is a bit of an outlier in how it’s done,” Walz said. The “topline” he said, will be to “moderniz[e] a proposal on how Medicaid is administered … Strengthening oversight of enrollment in these programs by centralizing eligibility decisions, and funding a comprehensive study to examine the role of state, counties, and tribal nations in the delivery of these to provide more transparency and effectiveness.” Walz underlined he was not blaming counties for issues in attempting to restructure the system to a more state-centralized one. The governor did not respond directly to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. Fox News’ Mike Tobin and Elise Oggioni con
‘You can cry about it’: Tempers flare in Senate as DHS shutdown debate erupts, stalemate digs deeper
The Senate floor erupted Wednesday as Republicans and Democrats sparred over funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with one point becoming clear: neither side was close to reaching a deal. While senators met behind closed doors just steps from the chamber, party leaders accused each other of refusing to negotiate over reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the key sticking point in the standoff. “You can cry about it. You can whine about it. You lost an election over it,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., said. “The White House has dealt with you in good faith. You want to prolong this until you get another incident, while your activists are on the street confronting ICE agents in sanctuary jurisdictions, hoping they get some viral moment.” So far, Senate Republicans have delegated final say over any agreement to the White House, though the back and forth between both sides has slowed to a grinding halt. KATIE BRITT BLASTS DEMOCRATS FOR PLAYING ‘POLITICAL GAMES’ WITH SHUTDOWN AMID AIRPORT CHAOS Republicans want DHS reopened in the short term, while negotiations over reforms to ICE continue. Democrats, meanwhile, have offered a funding proposal that would carve out immigration enforcement but reopen other key functions, including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). At the center of the dispute is whether either side will agree to formal negotiations. Republicans say Democrats are ignoring their offers to meet, while Democrats contend they have not received an invitation. KRISTI NOEM’S FIRING FAILS TO SWAY DEMOCRATS AS DHS SHUTDOWN DRAGS ON “We are here today, and we are trying to close a deal that would enable us to fund all the agencies that the Democrats say they want funded with reforms to ICE,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said. “And I’ve seen the offer sheet from the White House, and they have gone a lot farther, a lot farther than any Democrat I thought was even possible.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said their demands for reform are straightforward, though Republicans have drawn red lines against proposals that would require ICE agents to obtain judicial warrants and unmask their identities, citing concerns about doxxing. “But the bottom line is they refused, probably because the right wing doesn’t like it,” Schumer said. “So then let’s fund everything else but ICE and Border Patrol.” SCHUMER WEAPONIZES MULLIN NOMINATION TO DEMAND DHS OVERHAUL, SAYS ‘ROT’ GOES BEYOND NOEM The floor fight was ignited by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and her attempt to force a vote on a DHS spending bill that stripped out funding for ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But both ICE and CBP are flush with billions in funding for the next handful of years thanks to Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill.” Still, she argued that Democrats would not be “blackmailed” into funding immigration operations after the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were shot and killed by ICE agents in Minnesota. “I am willing to talk to people, but I’m not willing to sit in a room, have coffee, give away a few things, and have Stephen Miller override whatever we all agreed to in a room,” Murray said. There has been little movement in the stalemate over DHS. The White House made its last offer nearly two weeks ago, and Democrats rejected it. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who was tapped by Thune to lead DHS negotiations for Senate Republicans, contended that Murray and Senate Democrats’ latest offer “would effectively defund our law enforcement.” “Look, we’re not going back to the era of ‘defund the police,’” Britt said. “We’re not doing it.”
Top US court hands Trump a win on deportations as SCOTUS challenge looms
A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted the Trump administration‘s request to pause a lower court order that blocked it from deporting illegal immigrants to so-called “third countries” — granting a near-term reprieve to the administration just hours before the lower court’s order was slated to take effect. Trump administration lawyers had appealed the ruling to the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last week, arguing that the order from U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy created an “unworkable scheme” that threatened to derail sensitive negotiations with outside countries, and risked derailing up to “thousands” of planned deportations. They also argued Murphy’s ruling cut against two previous Supreme Court emergency stays last year, after the high court intervened and allowed the administration to continue its deportation policy, for now. US JUDGE ACCUSES TRUMP ADMIN OF ‘MANUFACTURING CHAOS’ IN SOUTH SUDAN DEPORTATIONS, ESCALATING FEUD The case is all but certain to be punted to the high court for a full review on its merits, as senior Trump administration officials acknowledged earlier this year. Murphy, a Biden appointee, sided with migrants last month in his 81-page ruling, determining that the Department of Homeland Security’s third-country removal process — or the process by which migrants are removed from the U.S. to a country other than their country of origin — is unlawful and violates due process protections under the U.S. Constitution. He ruled that the Trump administration must first try to deport the migrants to their home country, or to a country of removal previously designated by an immigration judge. Only after that process, he said, could migrants be removed to a third country, so long as “meaningful notice” is provided, as well as the opportunity for the migrants to raise any fear of persecution in the third country identified for their removal under a so-called “reasonable fear” interview. The third-country removal policy “fails to satisfy due process for a raft of reasons, not least of which is that nobody really knows anything about these purported ‘assurances,’” Murphy wrote in his ruling, though he stayed it from taking force for 15 days in order to give the administration time to appeal. Barring intervention from the U.S. appeals court, the order was slated to take force on Thursday. FEDERAL JUDGES IN NEW YORK AND TEXAS BLOCK TRUMP DEPORTATIONS AFTER SCOTUS RULING DHS officials have previously claimed an “undisputed authority” to deport criminal illegal migrants to third countries that have agreed to accept them. “If these activist judges had their way, aliens who are so uniquely barbaric that their own countries won’t take them back, including convicted murderers, child rapists and drug traffickers, would walk free on American streets,” former Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in June, after the Supreme Court temporarily permitted the Trump administration to continue its deportation policy amid legal challenges. Murphy had presided for months over a class-action lawsuit filed by migrants challenging deportations to third countries, including South Sudan, El Salvador, and both Costa Rica and Guatemala, which the Trump administration has reportedly eyed in its ongoing wave of deportations. He has sparred with the Trump administration while overseeing the case, including in May, when he accused the administration of failing to comply with a court order requiring it to keep in U.S. custody six migrants who were deported to South Sudan without due process or notice. ‘WOEFULLY INSUFFICIENT’: US JUDGE REAMS TRUMP ADMIN FOR DAYS-LATE DEPORTATION INFO Murphy previously ordered that the migrants remain in U.S. custody at a military base in Djibouti until each of them could be given a “reasonable fear interview,” or a chance to explain to U.S. officials any fear of persecution or torture, should they be released into South Sudanese custody. Murphy previously acknowledged the criminal histories in question after Trump officials blasted the individuals removed as the “worst of the worst.” “The court recognizes that the class members at issue here have criminal histories,” Murphy wrote in an order last year. “But that does not change due process,” he wrote. “The court treats its obligation to these principles with the seriousness that anyone committed to the rule of law should understand.”
Epstein accountant testifies he never saw ‘any type of transaction’ with Trump, Comer says
Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accountant testified behind closed doors that he was never aware of any payments the late financier and sex offender made to President Donald Trump, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said Wednesday. Richard Kahn, one of the executors of Epstein’s estate, is the latest person to be deposed in the committee’s investigation into how the federal government handled Epstein’s case. “Mr. Kahn testified under oath that — because the Democrats asked this question — that he had never seen any type of transaction to Trump or anyone in his family,” Comer told reporters. “That makes the fifth witness now that’s testified under oath that they’ve never seen any involvement by Donald Trump or the family.” NEW MEXICO DOJ ANNOUNCES SEARCH OF FORMER JEFFREY EPSTEIN PROPERTY ZORRO RANCH Comer said Kahn did confirm, however, that five people paid money to Epstein: ex-Victoria’s Secret CEO Les Wexner, hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, businessman Steven Sinofsky, the Rothschilds and investor Leon Black. Epstein was known to have served as a financial advisor for each of them. HOUSE REPUBLICANS DESCEND ON CLINTONS’ HOMETOWN FOR HIGH-STAKES EPSTEIN PROBE GRILLING “What Kahn said is he was under the impression that Epstein made his money as a tax advisor and a financial planner. So, these were the five people that transferred significant sums of money to Epstein,” Comer said. But when it comes to Trump, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., gave a slightly different account of what Kahn said behind closed doors. He told reporters Kahn said a “person who was an accuser of Donald Trump was given a settlement by Jeffrey Epstein’s estate.” That does not necessarily mean that the alleged settlement was regarding Trump. A person familiar with the deposition told Fox News Digital, “Earlier testimony from Kahn about the Trump accuser receiving a settlement from the Epstein estate is incorrect. When the Democrats asked about Jane Doe 4, they were talking about someone else. Kahn’s attorneys went back on the record to clarify that the person the Dems thought was Jane Doe 4 was not an individual they had ever heard of.” The president was known to be a friend of Epstein’s until the two had a falling out before the late pedophile’s first federal investigation. He has not been implicated in any wrongdoing related to his crimes. Subramanyam said Kahn also testified that “there was another head of state that was mentioned as having financial transactions with Jeffrey Epstein,” though he did not elaborate on who that was.
EXCLUSIVE: ICE says El Paso detention facility will stay open under new contractor after $1.2B deal scrapped
EXCLUSIVE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas will remain open and is undergoing an operational upgrade, Fox News Digital has learned. “Camp East Montana is NOT closing, quite the opposite,” an ICE spokesperson exclusively told Fox News Digital Tuesday. “Rather, ICE has contracted with a new provider following Secretary Noem’s termination of the old contract inherited from the Department of War. ICE is always looking at ways to improve our detention facilities to ensure we are providing the best care to illegal aliens in our custody.” BLUE-STATE GOVERNORS MOVE TO KEEP HEAT ON NOEM AS DHS FIRES BACK The spokesperson said the new contract will allow the facility to maintain what the agency described as the “highest detention standards” while expanding oversight. According to ICE, the new contractor will also provide increased on-site medical care, additional staffing and a “PRECISE quality assurance surveillance plan.” The agency said the updated agreement also strengthens ICE’s direct oversight of operations at the El Paso-area facility. “Far from closing, Camp East Montana is upgrading,” the spokesperson said. FOUR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS LINKED TO MS-13 INDICTED FOR ALLEGEDLY MURDERING 14-YEAR-OLD BOY IN MARYLAND PARK The news that the facility will remain open comes after The Washington Post reported that the facility could face closure amid scrutiny over operations. A document was distributed to ICE staff, the Post reports, indicated that the agency was drafting a letter to terminate the facility’s $1.2 billion contract at an unspecified date. ICE officials, however, characterized the contract termination as a deliberate effort by Noem to raise standards and improve services. The facility, located at Fort Bliss in Texas, has been used to house thousands of detainees as part of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts. ICE did not immediately provide details on the identity of the new contractor or the timeline for full implementation.
Sen. Hyde-Smith set for November clash with Dem foe she once vanquished
The race for Mississippi’s Senate seat is set for November and will feature a clash of a sitting incumbent battling a foe she once blocked from a lifetime judicial appointment. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., cruised to a victory in her primary to earn the GOP nomination for Senate in Mississippi. She beat Sarah Adlakha, a political newcomer who challenged Hyde-Smith’s effectiveness in Washington, D.C., since being appointed to the position in 2018. Hyde-Smith is running for a second term in the upper chamber and, in deep-red Mississippi, is expected to hold onto her job in the GOP’s sprawling battle to maintain control of the Senate. PAXTON VOWS HE’S ‘STAYING IN THIS RACE’ EVEN IF TRUMP BACKS CORNYN IN TEXAS GOP CLASH But she’ll face a Democratic opponent she’s dealt with before — just not on the election battlefield. Mississippi District Attorney Scott Colom came out on top of his crowded primary to earn the Democratic nomination for Senate in the Magnolia State. He toppled U.S. Marine Corps veteran Albert Littell and Priscilla Till, the cousin of Emmett Till, who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in the 1950s. Hyde-Smith and Colom have a history dating back to the Biden administration, when the lawmaker blocked his nomination to serve as a district court judge in Mississippi. TRUMP TEASES ENDORSEMENT COMING SOON IN CRUCIAL GOP CLASH At the time, she used the veto power each home-state senator has, known as a blue slip in the upper chamber, to weigh in on a judicial nominee — it’s a tradition that President Donald Trump has demanded be done away with to nullify Democratic resistance to his own judicial nominees. Hyde-Smith told the Magnolia Tribune at the time that while she recognized that Colom was “smart and well-liked in his district,” she had concerns over his record. Nathan Calvert, spokesperson for the Hyde-Smith campaign, told Fox News Digital in a statement that “Colom has never seen a Biden/Harris policy he didn’t like.” “Senator Hyde-Smith is proud of opposing judicial nominations for extreme leftists who support a radical transgender agenda,” Calvert said. “She opposes allowing men to participate in women’s sports and believes we need judges who will take the same stance.” “Senator Hyde-Smith believes we need to cut government spending, fight inflation (driven by excessive government spending), and reduce (not increase) our soaring national debt, and she’ll continue voting to do that,” he continued. CONTENTIOUS REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN TEXAS HEADED INTO OVERTIME “As someone with a strong interest in protecting the rights of girls and women, I am concerned about Scott Colom’s opposition to legislation to protect female athletes,” Hyde-Smith said. “The significant support his campaign received from George Soros also weighs heavily against his nomination, in my view. I simply cannot support his nomination to serve on the federal bench in Mississippi for a lifetime.” Meanwhile, Colom has gone after Hyde-Smith for voting against federal funding coming into Mississippi, which has consistently ranked as the poorest state in the country. His website accused Hyde-Smith of not “working for us anymore, voting against Mississippi jobs and investments because it serves her donors’ agenda.” Fox News Digital reached out for comment to Colom’s campaign, but did not immediately hear back.
Special election replacing Marjorie Taylor Greene goes to runoff between Trump-endorsed candidate and Democrat
The special election to fill former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s vacant House seat in Georgia’s solidly red 14th Congressional District is headed to a runoff next month. The seat in northwestern Georgia was left vacant when Greene stepped down at the beginning of January. Green quit Congress with a year left in her term after a public falling out with President Donald Trump over the Epstein files. Tuesday’s special election ended in a runoff between Trump-endorsed Republican District Attorney Clay Fuller and retired Army veteran Shawn Harris. The GOP clings to a razor-thin 218–214 majority in the House. As a result, Republicans cannot afford any surprises and allow the Democrats to pull an upset in a district Trump carried by a whopping 37 points during his 2024 presidential election victory. TRUMP FOE FANI WILLIS BLOCKED YET AGAIN FROM COLLAPSED RICO CASE AS PRESIDENT PUSHES TO CLAW BACK MILLIONS All 17 candidates in Tuesday’s special election in Georgia, regardless of party affiliation, were on the same ballot. Twelve were Republican, three were Democrats. Since no contender topped 50% of the vote in the primary, the top two candidates are advancing to an April 7 runoff. Harris, a retired Army brigadier general, got 39.9% of the vote, while Fuller, a district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, got 34.2%. HOUSE GOP FEARS PRIMARY LOSERS COULD JEOPARDIZE RAZOR-THIN MAJORITY With $4.3 million raised, Harris was the fundraising champion among all 17 candidates, but Fuller has a Trump endorsement in a district the president won handily. Fuller teamed up with the president recently during a stop in the district at an event in Rome, Georgia, during which he described himself as a “MAGA warrior.” In addition to his Trump backing, Fuller is backed by the politically potent and deep-pocketed fiscally conservative group the Club for Growth. “I think we’ve been very successful in staying with our message discipline that President Trump truly matters in Georgia 14,” Fuller told Fox News Digital. “His support has meant the world to me and meant the world to the voters. So, we’re just going to continue to get that message out about President Trump supporting us, and my experience, being a military officer, an elected district attorney and an America First fighter too.” FBI SUBPOENAS 2020 ARIZONA VOTING DOCS AS FEDERAL PUSH INTO ELECTION ADMINISTRATION WIDENS Former Congresswoman Greene, once a top Trump ally in the House, became a vocal critic of his and stayed neutral in the race to succeed her. Fuller told Fox News Digital Tuesday night that he had not gotten a chance to speak with other Republicans in the race, but said he was confident that the Republican Party would embrace him against Harris. Third place Tuesday evening went to former state Sen. Colton Moore, a vocal Trump backer who enjoyed support from the far right. Moore garnered 10.9% of the vote. “Everybody in the field understands that a Democrat cannot represent Georgia 14. It would be a tragedy for Georgia 14, a tragedy for the MAGA movement. And we’re going to rally around as a party and go and win this thing and defeat Sean Harris,” Fuller said Tuesday evening.
Speaker Johnson touts Trump’s agenda as crucial blueprint ahead of midterms: ‘On the ballot’
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., signaled Tuesday that Republicans will continue to closely align themselves with President Donald Trump as the November midterms creep closer. “The American people are going to understand he is on the ballot, at least in a metaphorical sense, because if we were to lose the midterms, everybody knows the chaos that would ensue,” the leader of the House of Representatives told NBC News reporter Scott Wong. Johnson made the remarks at House Republicans’ annual policy retreat, which is taking place this year at Trump’s golf course and resort in Doral, Florida, where GOP lawmakers are huddling to hash out policy goals ahead of the midterm races and beyond. MCINTOSH: MIDTERMS A CHOICE BETWEEN TRUMP’S ‘GREAT PROGRESS’ AND ‘SOCIALISTS BACK IN’ He said Trump is also going to take an “active” role in the coming election cycle. “President Trump is going to be … he’s engaged, he’s going to run like he’s 2024. He’s going to do the rallies and do the events, and he’s already doing it now,” Johnson said. “He’s going to be heavily involved. And he is still the turnout machine for our side — as well as the other side, I acknowledge that.” The speaker’s comments are not surprising given Trump’s continued command and influence over the GOP, but tying Republicans so closely to a sitting president in a midterm year could be viewed as a risky strategy. JOHNSON WARNS HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO ‘STAY HEALTHY’ AS GOP MAJORITY SHRINKS TO THE EDGE Political history dictates that the party holding all levers of power in Washington at the beginning of a presidential term — in this case, Republicans — generally lose control of one or both houses of Congress in the following election cycle. It happened most recently during former President Joe Biden’s term, when Republicans clawed back the House majority in the 2022 races and won the Senate in the following 2024 cycle. But Johnson has been and continues to be optimistic about Republicans’ chances of bucking that trend in November. “I think there’s so many factors in our favor. I think the energy and excitement is going to be on our side,” Johnson said. “I can’t wait for the midterm convention that we’re going to have before early voting starts in the fall, where we parade all of our stars across the stage, and we talk about all the great things we’ve done for the American people. “This is a midterm like none other. So, I’m telling you, do not bet against the House Republicans.”
DOJ blasts ‘partisan’ DC Bar complaint against senior Trump official
A senior Trump administration official and former acting U.S. attorney for D.C. is under disciplinary review for his role in President Donald Trump’s anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative — sparking outrage from the Justice Department, which assailed alleged ethics violations against Ed Martin as a “partisan” effort, and one that unfairly targets Trump and his allies. The disciplinary charge, filed Friday to the D.C. Court of Appeals Board on Professional Responsibility and published Tuesday, centers on a letter sent by Martin to Georgetown Law last February while Martin was serving as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin allegedly demanded in the letter that Georgetown Law provide information about its DEI practices and teachings, according to the ethics complaint. It states that without “further explanation,” and without receiving a response from Georgetown Law, Martin then announced he would be imposing sanctions on the school — instructing his staff not to hire any students, fellows, or interns affiliated with the university. EXCLUSIVE: BONDI TRANSFERS FORMER DEATH ROW INMATES COMMUTED BY BIDEN TO ‘SUPERMAX’ PRISON The Justice Department blasted news of the ethics complaint, telling Fox News Digital on Tuesday that the complaint represented yet another “clear indication” of unfair and “partisan” treatment from the D.C. Bar, a body they argued has continued “to target and punish those serving President Trump while refusing to investigate or act against actual ethical violations that were committed by Biden and Obama administration attorneys,” representing what DOJ spokesperson described as “a clear indication of this partisan organization’s agenda.” The complaint was signed by the disciplinary counsel for the D.C. Bar, Hamilton Fox, whose role allows him to function similarly to a prosecutor for attorney misconduct cases. Fox previously donated thousands to Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008, according to FEC records reviewed by Fox News Digital. The complaint accuses Martin of violating the First and Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by using his role as a government official to demand that the university change its teachings; failing to give the university a time frame to respond; and threatening adverse action against Georgetown Law for teaching a particular viewpoint. It also accuses Martin of conducting unauthorized, ex parte communications with the chief judge and senior judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after he was asked to respond to a complaint about his remarks to Georgetown Law. “In that letter, he stated that he would not be responding to Disciplinary Counsel’s inquiry, complained about Disciplinary Counsel’s ‘uneven behavior,’ and requested a ‘face-to-face meeting with all of you to discuss this matter and find a way forward,’” the complaint said, noting that Martin had copied White House counsel onto the email. JUDGES V TRUMP: HERE ARE THE KEY COURT BATTLES HALTING THE WHITE HOUSE AGENDA The Justice Department’s second-highest-ranking official, Todd Blanche, sharply criticized the complaint on social media Tuesday, noting: “The DC Bar is such a blatantly Democrat-run political organization.” “Thank God I’m not a member, and trust me, I never will be,” Blanche said in a post on X.Martin, a former defense attorney who helped represent individuals charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, has made headlines during his short time at DOJ. His path to confirmation to serve as U.S. Attorney for D.C. stalled last year amid concerns from some Senate Republicans, prompting Trump to install Martin last May as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney. EX-JUDGES BLAST TOP TRUMP DOJ OFFICIAL FOR DECLARING ‘WAR’ ON COURTS Trump also tapped Martin at the time to head up the Justice Department’s so-called “Weaponization Working Group,” or the newly formed internal body within DOJ tasked with probing federal prosecutions viewed by the administration as unfairly partisan. Martin was removed last month from his role heading up the working group, though no reason for his removal was immediately provided. The complaint will now be kicked to D.C. Court of Appeals for next steps and review — a notoriously lengthy process that will likely take months, if not longer. News of the ethics complaint comes just days after the Justice Department filed a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register that would allow the department to suspend state bar investigations while the DOJ conducts its own review.