‘Hysteria’: White House shuts down concerns over USAID document purge
The White House dismissed concerns that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is instructing employees to destroy classified documents amid efforts by the Trump administration to shutter the agency. USAID’s acting Executive Secretary Erica Carr instructed employees to begin shredding and burning documents, according to a motion that government labor unions filed in a federal court Tuesday. But the documents remain available on computer systems – and the order comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection is poised to move into the USAID building, according to White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “This was sent to roughly three dozen employees,” Kelly said in a Tuesday night X post regarding Carr’s order. “The documents involved were old, mostly courtesy content (content from other agencies), and the originals still exist on classified computer systems. More fake news hysteria!” ‘FIRED ME ILLEGALLY’: EMOTIONAL EX-USAID EMPLOYEES LEAVE BUILDING WITH BELONGINGS AFTER MASS LAYOFFS Everyone involved in the process of eliminating the documents had a secret security clearance or higher, and were not among those placed on administrative leave, an administration official told Fox News Digital Wednesday. As a result, those involved were familiar with the content they were handling and were specifically appointed by the agency to review and conduct the purge, the official said. Thousands of employees at USAID were either fired or placed on administrative leave in February, following recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to implement cuts targeting wasteful spending. Carr issued an email to employees instructing them to “shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” ProPublica first reported Tuesday. The State Department, which oversees USAID, did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. The American Foreign Service Association, a union representing those who serve in the U.S. Foreign Service and several other groups, filed a motion Tuesday in a Washington, D.C., federal court requesting a temporary restraining order blocking USAID from ordering employees to destroy documents. Specifically, the groups asserted in the filing that Carr’s order “suggests a rapid destruction of agency records on a large scale that could not plausibly involve a reasoned assessment of the records retention obligations for the relevant documents.” The American Foreign Service Association said it would monitor the situation and pressed officials at USAID to issue more guidance on the directive. TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CUTTING 90% OF USAID FOREIGN AID CONTRACTS, DOCUMENTS SHOW “Federal law is clear: the preservation of government records is essential to transparency, accountability, and the integrity of the legal process,” the American Foreign Service Association said in a Tuesday statement. “The Federal Records Act of 1950 and its implementing regulations establish strict requirements for the retention of official records, particularly those that may be relevant to legal proceedings,” the statement said. “Furthermore, the unlawful destruction of federal records could carry serious legal consequences for anyone directed to act in violation of the law.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the State Department had concluded a six-week review and would cancel more than 80% of USAID programs.
New study from key swing state shatters popular narrative against Voter ID: ‘No evidence’
FIRST ON FOX: A study in the crucial swing state of Wisconsin runs contrary to the popular claim of many on the political left and concludes that voter ID laws have not suppressed the vote in the state. “The study finds no statistically significant negative impact of Wisconsin’s voter ID law on overall voter turnout,” the new study from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) concludes. “In fact, turnout has slightly increased since the law’s implementation, challenging claims that voter ID requirements lead to widespread disenfranchisement.” Critics have also railed against voter ID laws in recent years, claiming that it disenfranchises minority voters who, according to critics, have difficulty obtaining identification. The study states that it found “no evidence of a negative effect on turnout from the implementation of voter ID among non-white Wisconsinites.” ‘FULFILL THE MANDATE’: NEW ELECTION INTEGRITY REPORT CALLS FOR CRITICAL CHANGES TO GUARANTEE SECURE ELECTIONS The study compared turnout in Wisconsin over a 20-year period, starting with the 2004 presidential election and ending with the 2024 presidential election while including gubernatorial elections in the years between. WILL acknowledged that turnout can be “impacted by many factors beyond voter ID laws” but explained that it “included these key control variables to ensure we isolated the law’s true impact.” Wisconsin established voter ID laws in 2011 that have undergone several court challenges in the following years. Will Flanders, research director at WILL, told Fox News Digital that he hopes people takeaway from this study that the popular narratives about voter ID laws are not based in data. “When people make these claims that voter I.D. is this instrument of suppression, there’s really no evidence to back that up,” Flanders said. “People often say it’s especially hard for minorities and folks from low-income backgrounds. We specifically looked at the impact on areas with more minority voters, and we found that there’s no evidence, even in those areas, to support this case. There’s no impact on voter turnout in areas with high numbers of minority residents relative to other parts of the state as well. So no impact overall and no impact on those voters that are generally claimed to be most affected.” ‘HE CANNOT BUY AN ELECTION HERE IN WISCONSIN’: SANDERS SLAMS MUSK IN STATE TRUMP WON BY LESS THAN 1% Honest Elections Project Action Executive Director Jason Snead told Fox News Digital that the WILL report is consistent with “many” other studies that show voter ID laws “do not do what the Left claims.” “To the contrary, voter ID laws enhance public trust in elections, leading directly to higher voter turnout and greater trust in the democratic process. Liberal politicians are desperate to mislead the public, but the truth is that voter ID laws are overwhelmingly popular. That is why 36 states have them and voters in states as diverse as North Carolina and Nevada have voted for ballot measures to require voter ID.” On April 1, voters in Wisconsin will be asked if they want to enshrine Wisconsin’s voter ID law into the state Constitution. Polling shows that the majority of Americans support the idea of requiring identification to vote. The latest Gallup poll on the issue showed that more than 80% of voters support showing photo identification to vote as well as providing proof of citizenship. A 2024 Pew Research Poll also showed a bipartisan consensus that over 80% of Americans support voter ID measures. In Wisconsin, nearly 75% of residents polled by Marquette University Law School supported voter ID.
Will Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM disrupt political dynamics in West Bengal Elections 2026?
Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM, which has been accused many times of supporting the BJP by splitting the Muslim votes, is eyeing the West Bengal Elections 2026 with clear intentions.
U.S. Rep. Keith Self cuts short committee hearing after colleague objects to him misgendering trans member
On social media, Self later wrote “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.”
Pro-Hamas activist’s deportation not a ‘free speech’ matter and law is on Trump’s side: experts
Legal experts slammed a recent left-wing narrative that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest of a pro-Hamas activist who led protests on Columbia University’s campus is an attack on the First Amendment, telling Fox News Digital the case is rooted in national security concerns and that immigration laws support the Trump administration’s efforts to deport the agitator. “The State Department has pulled the first visa of a foreign student who engaged in pro-Hamas disruptions. That’s the right thing to do if we want to fix campus cultures,” Ilya Shapiro, the director of constitutional studies at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, wrote in an essay for the City Journal Friday. “And contrary to disingenuous critics, such a move poses no First Amendment problems.” “While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States,” he wrote. “There’s nothing objectional or controversial about removing those who harass, intimidate, vandalize, and otherwise interfere with an educational institution’s core mission. More, please.” Pro-Hamas activist Mahmoud Khalil was taken into ICE custody a day after Shapiro’s essay was published at his Columbia University-owned apartment in Manhattan. The Department of Homeland Security said he was a former Columbia graduate student who “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” TRUMP VOWS ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIVIST MAHMOUD KHALIL WAS ‘FIRST ARREST OF MANY TO COME’ Khalil, who reportedly graduated with a master’s degree from Columbia in December 2024, helped lead the anti-Israel protest that plagued the campus in April 2024, including as a negotiator for radical agitators students on campus as they set up a tent encampment and took over an academic building, Hamilton Hall. He served as a leader of a group called Columbia United Apartheid Divest, which demanded that Columbia completely divest from Israel amid the country’s war with Hamas that began on Oct. 7, 2023. The divest group said its main goal was to “challenge the settler-colonial violence that Israel perpetrates with the support of the United States and its allies,” according to an op-ed published in the Columbia Spectator in November 2023. DHS additionally reported that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump and his administration have railed against the protests on college campuses, which hit a fever pitch in 2024 before Trump was back in office. The 47th president signed an executive order in January putting pro-Hamas protesters in the U.S. on student visas on notice that they will be deported. “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” the president said in a Jan. 30 fact sheet on the executive order. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.” JUDGE BLOCKS ANTI-ISRAEL COLUMBIA AGITATOR MAHMOUD KHALIL FROM DEPORTATION AS POLITICIANS COME TO HIS DEFENSE Khalil was born in Syria in 1995, the New York Post reported, and has been in the U.S. on a green card. He is under investigation as a possible threat to U.S. national security, with investigators reportedly finding “antisemitic and hateful” posts on Khalil’s social media accounts, White House sources told Fox News Tuesday. DHS, the Department of Justice and the secretary of state are involved in the investigation, according to sources. Following Khalil’s detention, Democrats and other left-wing activists and groups slammed the arrest as an attack on the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and assembly. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s X account also called for Khalil to be freed, which was met by a response from the White House account quoting Trump that more arrests will soon follow. Julian Epstein, an attorney and former chief counsel to the Democratic House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital that “the arrests and deportation of pro-Hamas organizers seems not only legal but long overdue.” “The Immigration and Naturalization Act allows the denial or revocation of any visa holder who espouses or otherwise supports terrorist organizations,” he continued. “Further, 18 USC 245 makes it a criminal offense for any of these protesters to intimidate, harass or impede Jewish students from moving freely about campus and attending classes.” Epstein continued that deportation is a “mild step” and that the DOJ should consider criminal prosecutions of violent protesters. “The Columbia University protesters’ support for Hamas has been widely reported, as have their violent actions targeted at Jews,” he said. “Deportation is a mild step. The DOJ should be considering criminal prosecutions.” ICE AGENTS ARREST ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIVIST WHO LED PROTESTS ON COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CAMPUS FOR MONTHS Shapiro added in his essay that immigration law clearly outlines that an individual’s visa, which offers temporary entry to the U.S., or green card, which grants permanent residence to a non-American, can be revoked. “Indeed, it’s a basic application of U.S. immigration law, which says that people here on a visa (tourist, student, employment, or otherwise) who reveal themselves to be ineligible for that visa — ‘inadmissible,’ in the parlance of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) — can have their visa revoked,” Shapiro continued in the piece. In response to claims that the Trump administration was violating Khalil’s First Amendment rights, Shapiro responded on X that “green cards can be revoked. We have laws and must enforce them.” Khalil “having a green card only changes the extent of the process due — a hearing before an immigration judge rather than just an administrative order — not the substance of the law or the outcome,” Shapiro added in comment to Fox News Digital Tuesday. U.S. officials also have stressed that the detention of Khalil is a matter of national security, not free speech, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio determining that the activist’s presence in the U.S. holds “serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” according to a senior State Department official. NYC MAYOR
Rubio pushes back against Mahmoud Khalil defenders: ‘Not about free speech’
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the detention and possible deportation of former Columbia University protest organizer Mahmoud Khalil, as critics claim it goes against the First Amendment. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday at Shannon Airport in Ireland, Rubio said that the issue is “not about free speech.” Rubio discussed the situation during a refueling stop en route to the G7 Foreign Ministers meeting in Canada after conducting negotiations on the Ukraine war in Saudi Arabia. A federal judge in Manhattan later Wednesday morning is expected to consider arguments from Khalil’s lawyers challenging the Trump administration’s revocation of his green card. “When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is – which is how this individual entered this country, on a visitor’s visa – as a visitor, we can deny you that visa,” Rubio said. “When you tell us when you apply, ‘Hi, I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa. I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages,’ if you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, ‘and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, antisemitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities,’ if you told us all these things when you applied for your visa, we would deny your visa. I’d hope we would.” WHITE HOUSE: RUBIO RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REVOKE GREEN CARD OR VISA OF ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIVIST MAHMOUD KHALIL “If you actually end up doing that once you’re in this country on such a visa, we will revoke it, and if you end up having a green card, not citizenship, but a green card as a result of that visa while you’re here doing those activities, we’re going to kick you out. It’s as simple as that. This is not about free speech,” Rubio said. “This is about people who do not have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a greed card by the way.” “So when you apply for a student visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason, but I think being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them upside down, being complicit in what are clearly crimes, vandalization, complicit in shutting down institutions,” Rubio added. “There are kids at these schools that can’t go to class. You pay all this money to these high-priced schools that are supposed to be of great esteem, and you can’t even go to class. You’re afraid to go to class because there are lunatics running around with covers on their faces screaming terrifying things. If you told us that’s what you intended to do when you came to America, we would have never let you in. And if you do it once you get in, we’re going to revoke it and kick you out.” Federal immigration authorities arrested Khalil at his university-owned apartment in New York on Saturday, and he was transported to a detention center in Louisiana. A student organizer during last year’s anti-Israel protests, Khalil was born in Syria to Palestinian parents and was granted a student visa to enter the U.S. to attend Columbia in 2022. He has since obtained a green card and is married to an American citizen who is reportedly eight months pregnant. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York on Monday temporarily blocked Khalil’s deportation as the case plays out. His attorneys argue that his constitutional rights of free speech and due process under the First and Fifth amendments were violated and filed a motion challenging the validity of Khalil’s detention. They are pushing for Khalil to be returned to New York, while Trump administration lawyers say they intend to file a motion to dismiss or transfer the case out of the Southern District of New York by Wednesday night. They say the Manhattan federal court is “an improper venue.” A federal judge in Manhattan later Wednesday morning is expected to consider arguments from Khalil’s lawyers challenging the Trump administration’s revocation of his green card. Sources tell Fox News that Khalil is being investigated as a potential national security threat. State Department officials say Khalil’s activities in the U.S. would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” SUPPORTERS OF DETAINED COLUMBIA STUDENT ARRESTED AFTER CLASH WITH NYPD AS TRUMP ADMIN SEEKS HIS DEPORTATION White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday the Immigration and Nationality Act gives Rubio the right to revoke a green card or visa from an individual considered “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America,” and that Khalil “took advantage” of the privilege of coming to the United States to study at one of America’s finest institutions “by siding with terrorists, Hamas terrorists, who have killed innocent men, women and children.” After riding in a Tesla with Elon Musk at the White House, Trump addressed his promise that Khalil’s detention would be the first of many related to antisemitic campus unrest. “I think we ought to get them all out of the country. They’re troublemakers. They’re agitators. They don’t love our country. We ought to get him the hell out,” Trump said Tuesday. “I heard his statements, too. There were plenty bad. And I think we ought to get him the hell out of the country … I watched him, I watched tapes, specifically, I watched tapes…> You can have him, okay? You can have him, and you can have the rest of them.”
21,000% spike in MA vape seizures throws cigarette ban into question, ex-ATF official says
After Massachusetts authorities released a report showing a sharp rise in flavored cigarette and vape seizures under a recent bipartisan statewide ban, a former ATF official and a network of law enforcement veterans specializing in contraband called into question why the ban remains. An annual multi-agency report from the Bay State’s Illegal Tobacco Task Force showed vape seizures up by more than 200,000 – largely due to large-scale seizures – since 2023, while smokeless tobacco and standard cigarette seizures were down. Calculations by the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network found that Massachusetts police seized 279,432 vape units in fiscal year 2024, up from about 1,300 the year prior. Former New York City Sheriff Edgar Domenech, who is also a former ATF official who focused on tobacco and related contraband, told Fox News Digital the findings showed the illegal vape market is “exploding,” and that when the Bay State became the first to outlaw flavored tobacco, it was a clarion call for cartels and smugglers to say, “[we’re] open for business.” MIGRANT CRISIS ROILS BOSTON AREA AS SCHOOL STANDS FIRM ON RESIDENCY POLICY “A 21,000 percent increase in smuggling proves once and for all that the Massachusetts flavor ban experiment has been an embarrassing catastrophe,” said Domenech, who had been appointed to his Big Apple post by then-Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg and now works with Georgetown University. “They are spending so much time seizing so much product they literally can’t find a place to store the contraband,” he said. While the rule of law is important, sometimes new laws themselves may need revisiting, he suggested. Without the ability to levy taxes on what is now an illegal product that remains ubiquitous elsewhere in New England, bordering states like New Hampshire – less than an hour from Boston – seek to reap the tax benefits of Massachusetts’ ban as customers go a little out of their way to buy their products, he said. Prohibiting adult products like vapes “never works,” Domenech added. “It moves sales out of the stores and into the streets.” RAMASWAMY MOCKS MASS GOVERNOR’S ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT STANCE AFTER FLIP: ‘NOW ACCEPTABLE TO COMPLAIN’ In January, Boston police in the Drug Control Unit arrested a 58-year-old Dorchester man as part of a raid that netted 50 grams of crack and 700 packages of “illegally possessed unstamped menthol cigarettes.” The man, Parrish Jones, was charged with trafficking cigarettes. Separately, a Hopkinton man was arrested in June for allegedly failing to pay nearly $500,000 in excise taxes after he allegedly sought out-of-state distributors in order to market vape-type products, according to FOX Boston. The ban itself went into effect in December 2019, as the Massachusetts Public Health Council enacted new sales restrictions on vapes and flavored tobacco. The panel was able to do so after then-Gov. Charles Baker – a Republican – signed a bill from the Democratic legislature “modernizing tobacco control.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP More recently, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office filed a complaint against a vape company in 2024 for allegedly ignoring the flavored tobacco ban. The office previously sued several other companies as well, according to a statement. In November, several Massachusetts lawmakers announced plans to file legislation this year to phase out all tobacco and nicotine sales in the state, beginning with those Bay Staters who are currently underage to begin with. Sen. Jason Lewis, D-Middlesex, Rep. Kate Lipper-Garabedian, D-Melrose, and Rep. Tommy Vitolo, D-Brookline, are collaborating on the bill, according to NBC Boston. Fox News Digital reached out to the AG’s office for further response but did not hear back by press time.
FL spent $660M on healthcare for illegals as hospitals ordered to verify legal status, report shows
New data collected by the state of Florida shows that illegal immigrants cost the Sunshine State’s healthcare system nearly $660 million in 2024. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) announced the latest update to its Hospital Patient Immigration Status Dashboard Tuesday, which records the total number of hospital admissions and emergency room visits based on a patient’s immigration status. The data for 2024 showed a total of 67,700 emergency room visits were made by patients who illegally entered the country, leading to roughly $76.6 million in Medicaid payments for their emergency care. In total, the state paid nearly $660 million for the cost of care provided to immigrants inside the U.S. illegally. PROBATION REFORM MODELED AFTER JAY-Z, DESANTIS EFFORTS PRIMED FOR PASSAGE IN VA “The Agency remains dedicated to fulfilling Governor Desantis’ commitment to protecting taxpayer dollars from being used on individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States,” AHCA Deputy Secretary Kim Smoak said. “The data confirms that the financial burden of illegal immigration continues to strain Florida’s healthcare system. We will continue working to ensure that hospitals and healthcare providers deliver quality services to U.S. citizens.” The county paying the most, according to the AHCA dashboard, is Miami-Dade County, which forked over $282 million to pay for the health services of illegal immigrants in 2024. Neighboring Broward County – anchored by Fort Lauderdale – clocked in at $77 million, Hillsborough County (Tampa) at $64 million, Orange County (Orlando) at $38 million and Duval County (Jacksonville) at $34 million. Several counties, particularly around the Big Bend region, do not have any hospitals, so they did not have any costs to report. DESANTIS CITES ‘GULF OF AMERICA’ IN WINTER STORM ORDER IN FIRST NOTATION OF TRUMP REBRANDING Meanwhile, some major hospitals reportedly saw a large proportion of their ER patients refuse to answer the citizenship question outright. Nearly two-thirds of patients seen at Tampa General Hospital-Spring Hill declined to answer in the first three months of 2024, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. Similarly, near St. Augustine, Flagler Hospital reported 96% of its 36,000 ER patients declined to notate on the citizenship question, the paper reported. In 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law as part of his crackdown on illegal immigration in the Sunshine State that presented an immigration question to patients at hospitals that accept Medicaid. While they are not forced to answer it, the move led to a 54% decline in Medicaid billings to a state program for undocumented immigrants’ medical assistance, according to Politico. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP State Rep. Randy Fine, R-Melbourne, who co-sponsored the immigration legislation package that led to hospitals cataloging such data, said last year $500 million had been spent on healthcare for “people who should not be in the United States.” “That’s half a billion dollars stolen from real Floridians,” he told WLRN. In January, President Donald Trump also removed hospitals from a list of places immune to ICE activity.
Longtime Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen not seeking re-election in 2026 in key northeastern swing state
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire is the latest Democrat in the Senate to announce her retirement rather than seek re-election in the 2026 midterms. The Wednesday announcement by the former governor and three-term senator in a key New England swing state will further complicate the Democrats’ efforts to regain control of the Senate from the Republicans in next year’s elections. “I ran for public office to make a difference for the people of New Hampshire,” Shaheen said. “That purpose has never and will never change. But today, after careful consideration, I am announcing that I have made the difficult decision not to seek re-election to the Senate in 2026.” Shaheen, who turned 78 earlier this year, added that “it’s just time.” There was intense speculation regarding whether Shaheen, who first won election to the Senate in 2008 and who this year became the first woman in history to hold one of the top two positions on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will seek another term in office. Shaheen raised a paltry $170,000 in the final fundraising quarter of 2024, which sparked buzz that the senator might not be preparing for another re-election campaign. But sources in Shaheen’s political orbit noted that the senator did not emphasize fundraising in the fourth quarter of last year, which included the final month of the 2024 presidential election. Fox News confirmed that Shaheen had a major fundraiser scheduled for March 20 in Manchester, New Hampshire. There’s no word yet on whether that event has been canceled. National Republicans see opportunities to flip the Senate seat in New Hampshire from blue to red, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee had already run ads targeting Shaheen over her defense of USAID funding that the Trump administration is axing. FORMER TRUMP AMBASSADOR EYES SENATE RETURN Former Sen. Scott Brown, the former senator from Massachusetts who later narrowly lost to Shaheen in New Hampshire in the 2014 election, is seriously considering a 2026 run, in a possible rematch against Shaheen. Brown, who served four years as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand during President Donald Trump’s first administration, has been holding meetings with Republicans across New Hampshire for a couple of months and has met with GOP officials in the nation’s capital. It has been 15 years since Republicans last won a Senate election in New Hampshire, with Democrats victorious in the past four elections. Republicans flipped four Democrat-held Senate seats in last November’s elections to win back control of the chamber. They now control the chamber and are aiming to expand their majority in 2026. Besides New Hampshire, the GOP is targeting battleground Michigan, where Democratic Sen. Gary Peters announced in January that he would not seek re-election. Also on their 2026 radar is Georgia, another key battleground state where Republicans view first-term Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff as vulnerable. Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota announced last month that she would not bid for another term in next year’s midterms, giving the GOP hope that it might be competitive in the blue-leaning state. But Republicans are also playing defense in the 2026 cycle. Democrats plan to go on offense in blue-leaning Maine, where moderate GOP Sen. Susan Collins is up for re-election, as well as in battleground North Carolina, where Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is also up in 2026.
Federal judge appointed by Trump quits group over statement on threats
A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump in 2018 announced that he had resigned from the largest association of federal judges, decrying how the group issued a rare statement last week condemning recent alleged threats against judges but stayed quiet for years while conservative members of the judiciary faced scrutiny and attack. Judge James C. Ho, of the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, announced his departure from the Federal Judges Association during a speaking event Saturday hosted by the conservative Federalist Society at the University of Michigan Law School. It comes in response to the 1,100-member group issuing a statement on March 5 saying in part that “judges must be permitted to do their jobs without fear of violence or intimidation of any kind.” Trump and his allies have grown increasingly critical of judges who have blocked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and other aspects of the administration’s agenda, while DOGE leader Elon Musk last month called for an “immediate wave of judicial impeachments.” “I was very surprised by that statement. And the next morning, I sent an email to the organization saying that I wanted to resign,” Ho said of the Federal Judges Association. “I researched for myself, and I also asked the association if they ever issued any such statements when Justice Thomas received attacks, or Justice Alito. Justice Kavanaugh dealt with an assassination attempt. We’ve had federal district judges in Texas and in Florida – as well as, I’m sure, other states, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately – all faced the kinds of things that that statement was complaining about and more. Did we see these statements in 2024 or 2023 or 2022? From what I can tell, no.” WHO IS JUDGE AMIR ALI? THE BIDEN-APPOINTED FEDERAL JUDGE AT THE CENTER OF TRUMP’S USAID BATTLE “You can’t say that you’re in favor of judicial independence only when it comes to decisions that you like. That’s not protecting the judiciary, that’s politicizing the judiciary,” Ho said, arguing that such statements actually harm the cause they try to further. “Because one of two things turns out to be true when you’re selective in this way. And either of these options, I think, is a bad thing. Option number one is that you’re basically lying, that you actually don’t care about this principle because you didn’t stand up for it when the shoe was on the other foot, and so you’re telling the world essentially we’re not seriously committed to judicial independence.” “The alternative is perhaps even worse, which is that you are telling the truth – you do care about this, this principle, whether it’s judicial independence or free speech. I think this concept applies to a lot of things,” Ho continued. “If you’re telling the truth, you really care about this principle, but there are just some people who have views that are so anathema to you that you don’t think they are worthy of this principle that you expound on.” “And so what you may think is a statement born of righteousness I think is perceived by a lot of people as merely sanctimonious,” he concluded. Fox News Digital reached out to the Federal Judges Association for comment, but they did not immediately respond. JUDGE RULES DOGE LIKELY SUBJECT TO PUBLIC RECORDS REQUESTS, SAYS DEPARTMENT OPERATING IN ‘UNUSUAL SECRECY’ The president of the Federal Judges Association, U.S. Circuit Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, wrote in an email to members last week that the “judiciary faces growing threats, including violence, intimidation, disinformation, and unprecedented impeachments that challenge its independence,” according to Reuters. The Federal Judges Association then released a lengthier public statement the next day that did not elaborate on specific threats against specific judges. It began by saying that “recent events are a clear and urgent reminder that federal judges play a crucial role in upholding our democracy as guardians of the rule of law.” “In the history of our Republic, there has always been tension between the three separate and equal branches of the federal government, including criticism of judicial interpretations. The FJA strives to ensure that accurate information is shared with all American citizens regarding the role of the judiciary as defined in the U.S. Constitution: to impartially interpret the laws that have been created by the U.S. Congress and enforced by the Executive branch,” the group said. “Specific decisions issued by judges are not formed from individual opinions, but rather are prepared against evaluation of what the ‘laws on the books’ require.” The group commended those, including Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, “who have commented recently on the rise in criticism, threats and violence aimed at members of the judiciary.” “Irresponsible rhetoric shrouded in disinformation undermines the public’s confidence that our justice system can fulfill its constitutional duties,” the statement said. “The security of federal judges and all those serving in the judicial branch of our government is fundamental to their ability to uphold the rule of law, and to fulfill their constitutional duty without fear or undue influence. Any erosion in the independence of the judiciary is a threat to our Constitution and to democratic rule of law. Ensuring judicial security is not just about protecting individuals, it is about preserving the integrity of our legal system and the public’s trust in an impartial judiciary.”