Playing the Hitler card: Will Trump backers dismiss John Kelly’s attack?

Earlier this year, there was some media chatter about when the Biden campaign would go "full Hitler."

What that meant was, if they started talking about Donald Trump and the Nazi leader so early, what ammunition would they have left for October?

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Well, it’s late October, and the Hitler assault has begun.

It’s not like no one has heard this before. Trump’s detractors across the media landscape have periodically compared him to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. Magazines have depicted him with a little mustache. He’s been dismissed as an aspiring dictator who would blow up American democracy, with few of the guardrails that constrained him in his first term.

But now we have John Kelly, his second chief of staff, denouncing his ex-boss in a series of three on-the-record interviews with the New York Times, which were recorded and posted on the paper’s site.

Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who lost a son in Afghanistan, said he was going public because he was disturbed by Trump’s attacks on "the enemy within," which, as the former president told me in our weekend interview, included Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. And Kelly was equally concerned that he might use the military against Americans.

Kelly says in the Times audio that Trump meets his definition of a fascist. And in the context of wanting his generals (such as Kelly and Pentagon chief Jim Mattis) to be personally loyal to him, "He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too.’" 

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Kelly says he told the president "you should never say that" and explained some of the history of Nazi Germany. (Hitler’s generals tried to kill him more than once.)

The general also said that Trump referred to soldiers as "losers" and "suckers" and could not understand their sacrifice. If this and other passages sound familiar, it’s because it’s been previously reported in the Atlantic and elsewhere, rather obviously with Kelly as a background source.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung fired back, saying the former official was offering "debunked stories," had "beclowned" himself and was suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

My question is this: Are John Kelly’s comments going to change the mind of any Trump voters?

They may dismiss the comments as old news. Or say Trump didn’t really mean it, he was just letting off steam. Or question Kelly’s motivation in going public in the final stretch of the campaign.

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It’s not that I’m defending the comments as reported by Kelly, who’s free to say what he wants. I have absolutely nothing good to say about Hitler or the Nazis. I don’t agree with everything Trump says, just as I don’t agree with everything Kamala Harris says.

But how many Trump voters, having lived through nine years of media attacks on the 45th president, having watched the violence of Jan. 6, are going to abandon him now? The answer, in my view, is very few. 

Still, it gave the vice president an opening, since yesterday’s bombshell was detonated by a man who was the highest-ranking staffer in the Trump White House. She read a statement to reporters in Washington without taking questions:

"It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is," Harris said.

I once had a candid chat with Kelly at a White House media party, and when I looked up 10 other reporters had surrounded us, straining to hear what the man who kept a low profile with the press had to say. At the time, the former Homeland Security secretary was being touted as the guy who’d bring military discipline to a chaotic White House after Reince Priebus was let go.

Now the "full Hitler" moment has arrived. Whether it has much impact on a candidate who has survived two impeachments, the fallout after Jan. 6 and two assassination attempts is, at the very least, in doubt.

‘Rot and decay’: Rep Hank Johnson argues SCOTUS term limits are path forward for removing ‘corrupt’ justices

Georgia Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson, a strong proponent of Supreme Court reform, says term limits for the justices is a way to eliminate "the possibility of long-term rot and decay" that he argues is present on the high court now. 

"Term limits is a way of creating a process that eliminates the possibility of long-term rot and decay due to corporate corruption on the court that we have now with no means of being able to correct it other than impeachment and conviction of a justice," Johnson told Fox News Digital in an interview Thursday.

"And if you could not impeach and convict Donald Trump, you're certainly not going to be able to remove a corrupt Supreme Court justice from office when he or she is doing the bidding of the right-wing forces that put them there in the very beginning."

Johnson, a ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, previously teamed up with Democrats in both the House and Senate to propose court reform bills in an effort to both expand the court and impose term limits on the justices. During Congress' most recent session, Johnson introduced the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act (TERM) that would impose 18-year term limits on justices.

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In May 2023, Johnson joined Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Tina Smith, D-Minn., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as well as Democrat Reps. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Cori Bush, D-Miss., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in reintroducing the Judiciary Act of 2023 that would expand the Supreme Court to a 13-justice bench. The nine-justice court currently has a conservative supermajority.

"We want to prevent this kind of rot and decay from ever overtaking a Supreme Court again," Johnson said. "And term limits would enable that to happen."

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Johnson went on to say that justices with lifetime tenure become "unaccountable, and they can do whatever they want," calling the bench "a club of kings and queens who can do whatever they want to do simply because they serve in a third co-equal branch of government."

President Biden previously voiced support for such reform, releasing a statement in late July delineating three specific reforms, one of which called for Congress to approve term limits. Vice President Harris echoed Biden's sentiments, saying in a statement that reforms were being proposed because "there is a clear crisis of confidence facing the Supreme Court."

JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON SAYS SHE WOULD SUPPORT AN 'ENFORCEABLE CODE' OF ETHICS FOR THE SUPREME COURT

Johnson said he has yet to have direct conversations with Harris about implementing such reforms in anticipation of the vice president possibly winning the Oval Office in November, but he said she is "aware of the challenge that we face."

"She's supportive of efforts like my legislation," Johnson said. "So I look forward to having future conversations with, hopefully, President-elect and future President Kamala Harris and her team."

Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment.

Johnson acknowledged that proposals to reform the court would face an uphill battle toward enactment, with the congressman foreseeing the Senate blocking the measures with a filibuster.

"We're in it for the long haul, and however long it takes, this legislation will be there for consideration," he said.

Comer report reveals Biden-Harris admin’s ‘rampant waste, fraud, abuse’

EXCLUSIVE: House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer revealed his committee’s oversight work of the Biden-Harris administration, telling Fox News Digital that Americans "cannot afford" another term of "incompetence."

Vice President Kamala Harris has "been an active participant in the worst administration in U.S. history that has inflicted untold harm on the American people," Comer told Fox News Digital. 

Comer compiled a 72-page report with the committee’s "118th Congress accomplishments," highlighting the committee’s work — including its investigation into the Biden family’s domestic and international business dealings, oversight of the Biden-Harris administration’s border crisis, as well as probing the fraud and abuse related to COVID unemployment relief benefits and the infiltration of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the U.S. 

"Republicans on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee are committed to achieving what Democrats have neglected: rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse within the federal government and holding the Biden-Harris Administration accountable," he said. "We have succeeded."

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"Our thorough oversight and investigations have revealed rampant waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement in the Biden-Harris Administration, and we’ve provided the transparency and accountability the American people demand," Comer said. 

The report included the committee’s latest Secret Service oversight following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally in July. Then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned the day after she publicly testified before the committee. 

"Americans cannot afford another four years of the same failed policies and incompetence," Comer told Fox News Digital. 

"Vice President Kamala Harris has been an active participant in the worst administration in U.S. history that has inflicted untold harm on the American people," Comer continued. "We must return to pro-growth, America-first policies to restore prosperity, liberty, and security for the American people."

During the 118th Congress, the House Oversight Committee held 135 hearings, sent more than 600 investigative letters, issued 51 subpoenas, heard testimony from 112 government witnesses and saw 23 bills passed in the House — with three signed into law. 

The committee investigated the Biden family’s business dealings, finding that from 2014 to the present, Biden family members and their associates received more than $27 million from foreign individuals or entities. The committee claimed that the family set up shell companies to conceal the payments from scrutiny. 

The White House previously ripped the investigation as an "evidence-free, politically-motivated" probe. 

Comer also co-led the impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Comer’s Oversight Committee led the inquiry after its monthslong investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings, alongside the House Judiciary Committee and House Ways & Means Committee. 

The committees concluded that Biden engaged in "impeachable conduct, "abused his office" and "defrauded the United States to enrich his family."

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"We also exposed Joe Biden’s corruption at the highest levels of government as he actively participated in his family’s influence peddling racket that made the Bidens millions from Chinese, Russian and other foreign entities," Comer told Fox News Digital. 

From those investigations, Comer, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department recommending Hunter Biden and James Biden be charged with making false statements to Congress about key aspects of the impeachment inquiry. 

The White House discounted the committee's investigations, calling the impeachment inquiry a "failed stunt" that "will only be remembered for how it became an embarrassment that their own members distanced themselves from as they only managed to turn up evidence that refuted their false and baseless conspiracy theories."

Following the investigation, Comer introduced the bipartisan Presidential Ethics Reform Act — a bill requiring presidents and vice presidents to disclose conflicts of interest while in office and disclose foreign payments, expensive gifts, loan transactions and tax returns during the two-year period prior to taking office, time in office, and for two years after leaving office. That bill also required presidents and vice presidents to make disclosures for immediate family members who receive foreign payments and other gifts, or who use official travel for personal business. 

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Regarding its oversight of the Biden-Harris administration’s border crisis, Comer said the committee found there have been more than 8 million illegal immigrants encountered entering the country and over 1.9 million gotaways — illegal immigrants who avoided agents but were detected by other forms of surveillance — since they took office. 

As for China, Comer sent letters to 25 federal agencies to investigate whether officials were aware of CCP outreach to the American public. The committee held briefings with 23 federal agencies revealing "there is no cohesive, government-wide strategy to identify, deter, and defeat CCP political warfare."

The committee also found that American taxpayers lost more than $100 billion to fraud and improper payments as a result of temporary unemployment insurance programs created in response to COVID-19. 

The committee also investigated Biden-Harris administration officials implementing a "radical environmental agenda" that Comer said is "jeopardizing jobs, energy security, and national security."

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Meanwhile, after the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, Comer launched an oversight investigation into the U.S. Secret Service, acting "quickly" to investigate the "historic failure and prevent a similar incident from happening again in the future." 

Comer held an immediate hearing with Cheatle, who testified publicly about the egregious security lapses that led to the assassination attempt of Trump and the murder of an innocent attendee, Corey Comperatore. 

Cheatle resigned the following day. 

Most recently, Comer launched an investigation into Harris' running-mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for alleged connections to the CCP. 

Comer said the committee's "effective, targeted oversight has led to transparency, accountability, and solutions for the American people." 

Trump foe Mitt Romney resists endorsing Harris

Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney won't endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president despite his outspoken criticisms of former President Trump. 

"I’ve made it very clear that I don’t want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States," Romney said Tuesday at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah, The New York Times reported.  

"I want to continue to have a voice in the Republican Party following this election. I think there’s a good chance that the Republican Party is going to need to be rebuilt or reoriented," he later added during the political forum. 

Romney announced last year that he would not seek re-election as a senator representing the Beehive State, and will leave office in January. The Republican has long criticized Trump, and indicated in June that he was unlikely to support the 45th president's re-election. 

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"With President Trump, it’s a matter of personal character," Romney told CNN at the time. "I draw a line and say when someone has been actually found to have been sexually assaulted, that’s something I just won’t cross over in the person I wouldn't want to have as president of the United States." Romney's comments referred to a federal jury’s decision in New York City last year, which ruled Trump was not liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll, though the former president was liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

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Romney has also slammed Trump for Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of the then-president breached the U.S. Capitol, arguing Trump incited an insurrection due to his "injured pride" over the 2020 election. Romney subsequently was one of seven Republican members of the Senate who voted to impeach Trump over Jan. 6. 

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Romney was also the only Republican who voted to impeach Trump in 2020 over abuse of power and obstruction of Congress charges. Trump was acquitted in both impeachment cases, and is the only president in history who was impeached twice and acquitted twice. 

Trump has also hit back at Romney, saying in 2020 that the Utah senator "can't stand the fact that he ran one of the worst campaigns in the history of the presidency," referring to his 2012 bid for the White House, and calling him a "disgrace" that same year for voting to impeach. 

While Romney has previously broken with the GOP on other key issues, he indicated Tuesday that he will not offer his endorsement to Harris despite other Republicans recently throwing their support behind the vice president. Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney officially endorsed Harris last week and joined her on the campaign trail in Wisconsin, while former Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger and former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake also endorsed Harris

Fox News Digital reached out to Romney's office for additional comment on the matter, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital's Greg Wehner contributed to this report. 

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.    

SCOTUS kicks off historic term under scrutiny amid ethics code debate

The Supreme Court begins its new term today amid lingering internal strife over several recent rulings, with details of its thorny internal deliberations selectively leaked to certain media outlets.

All of this as the nine justices have come under increasing public scrutiny and criticism over perceived blatant partisanship on hot-button issues, ethics controversies and its own wilting reputation as a body remaining above politics.

"The Supreme Court, in a sense, is on the ballot this election, or at least the future of the Supreme Court," said Thomas Dupree, an appellate attorney and former top Justice Department official. "So any time the court wades into political waters, it's going to be upsetting people, people who are on the side that loses. And they'll say the court shouldn't have got involved in the political fray. The court recognizes that it's not something that it wants to do, but in some cases, it has no choice."

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Here are five questions confronting the Supreme Court:

Directly or indirectly, the nine members of the Supreme Court could again play an outsized role in determining who will be the next president.

There is no indication yet of another Bush v. Gore, the case in which the justices in 2000 ended ongoing litigation over the Florida election results, essentially handing the presidency to George W. Bush.

But the high court four years ago summarily refused to consider a series of lawsuits from Trump and other Republicans in five states President Biden won: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Former President Trump has again promised court challenges if he loses, and in a recent social media post, he said this election "will be under the closest professional scrutiny" and "people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law."

Trump has proceeded with his campaign without the imminent cloud of legal jeopardy hanging over his head. His criminal sentencing in the New York business fraud conviction has been postponed until November at least.

And his two separate federal cases involving document mishandling and 2020 election interference have been deferred indefinitely. Those prosecutions could disappear entirely if Trump is elected and dismisses the Justice Department's special counsel.

All this after the Supreme Court in July ruled former presidents enjoy a substantial amount of immunity for "official acts" committed in office. Trump has used that ruling to demand both of his federal cases be dismissed.

Two justices took the unusual step of commenting publicly on its effect.

"You gave us a very hard question," Justice Neil Grouch exclusively told Fox News' "America Reports" co-anchor Sandra Smith. "It's the first time in American history that one presidential administration was seeking to bring criminal charges against a predecessor. We had to go back and look at what sources were available to us."

The Trump appointee said the Supreme Court ruled in Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982) that civil claims cannot be brought against a president "presumptively, in his official capacity, after he leaves office. Why? Because that would chill him from exercising the powers and duties of a president while he is president," Gorsuch said. "He would be overwhelmed. His political enemies would simply bring suits against him forevermore."

But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was on the losing side of the 6-3 opinion, has taken another approach.

"I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances, when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same," she told CBS News while promoting her new book, "Lovely One: A Memoir."

The Supreme Court has already gotten involved in several pre-election challenges: allowing some redistricting maps for congressional seats to go into effect and blocking others.

And the justices last month allowed Arizona to temporarily enforce its law requiring proof of citizenship on state voter registration forms.

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Five days before President Biden withdrew as a candidate for re-election, he made the Supreme Court a major political issue. 

Word leaked from the White House on July 16 that Biden was seriously considering proposals to establish term limits for the justices, and an ethics code that would be enforceable under law, amid growing concerns they were not being held accountable.

The proposal was made public days later, including a congressional law limiting justices to 18-year terms despite the Constitution's guarantee of life tenure for all federal judges.

Biden framed it as an effort to address "recent extreme opinions the Supreme Court has handed down [that] have undermined long-established civil rights principles and protections."

Public calls for changes came after revelations of previously undisclosed free trips and gifts by the justices and lucrative book deals. Recent public polls support greater ethics reform.

Other federal judges are bound by an enforceable code of conduct, but the high court had long resisted being included. 

Under Chief Justice John Roberts' leadership, he and his colleagues adopted a revised code last year, but it still lacks any enforcement mechanism, which critics say makes it feckless and ineffective.

Fox News previously reported that the court had been privately meeting for months on how to structure a new ethics code, one that would address public concerns over its behavior without abdicating what Roberts in particular had said was the court's independence on such matters from congressional oversight.

So, the justices have near-total discretion to decide whether to abide by the new code.

But growing and very public calls for more have come from some justices in recent days.

"A binding code of ethics is pretty standard for judges," said Jackson, "and so I guess the question is: Is the Supreme Court any different? I guess I have not seen a persuasive reason as to why the court is different."

"I am considering supporting it as a general matter," she said. "I'm not going to get into commenting on particular policy proposals, but from my perspective, I don't have any problem with an enforceable code."

And Justice Elena Kagan, perhaps the most vocal advocate for an enforcement provision, said this month, "It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that people have confidence that we're doing exactly that. So, it seems like a salutary thing for the court."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., recently told the chief justice that the unilateral ethics code adopted by the justices falls short and needs an enforcement trigger.

In a closed-door meeting with federal judges attending a semiannual policymaking conference at the high court, Durbin was seated next to Roberts and made clear that failure by the justices to strengthen their judicial code of conduct could prompt congressional intervention.

Sources say Roberts made no commitments but thanked Durbin for the ongoing dialogue on the issue.

But Justice Neil Gorsuch urged caution, telling "Fox News Sunday" host Shannon Bream last month that he did not want to get into "what is now a political issue during a presidential election year." 

He added about the role of an independent judiciary, "It's there for the moments when the spotlight's on you, when the government's coming after you. And don't you want a ferociously independent judge and a jury of your peers to make those decisions? Isn't that your right as an American? And so I just say be careful."

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Following the contentious conclusion of the court's term in July, much was written about the "Barrett Factor" and the supposedly evolving jurisprudence of Justice Amy Coney Barrett

She has become something of a recent lightning rod on the right and left over her occasional willingness to depart from her fellow conservatives, especially in cases involving the man who appointed her in 2020.

The 52-year-old Barrett took issue with some conclusions in the former president's historic immunity ruling and criticized parts of the majority ruling keeping him on the ballot in Colorado. 

And breaking with conservatives, she separately authored pointed dissents on an obstruction case dealing with a 2021 U.S. Capitol riot suspect as well as an environmental case on federal rules to manage downwind air pollution.

Many court watchers on the left characterized her "burgeoning" legal reasoning as an "independent streak," increasingly ready to "skewer" her right-leaning colleagues and a "principled voice in the middle" with a strong set of principles that present a "different world view" from other conservative justices.

But other legal observers say it is too early to dub Barrett the new deciding vote on hot-button cases who would resist walking lockstep with any ideological bloc.

"I don't think she's really trying to become the 'swing' justice or auditioning for that role. She's calling these cases as she sees them, and she's, generally speaking, a conservative justice," said Dupree. "But what we've seen over the last term is Justice Barrett really coming into her own. She has the confidence to write separately and in some cases to break from the other conservatives when she sees the law a little differently. I suspect that will continue."

And it remains clear Barrett's conservative credentials in most cases are solid: She has ruled to strike down Roe v. Wade, expand gun rights and scale back affirmative action in higher education.

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We recently highlighted potential Supreme Court nominees in another Biden or Trump administration, based on what sources in both camps exclusively told Fox News.

Now the dynamic has shifted, with Vice President Harris heading the Democrat ticket. 

Campaign sources say the whirlwind of taking over the nomination from her boss in recent weeks has left Harris, her legal advisers and campaign team little time to focus on the what-ifs of choosing justices or broader legal policy. 

But it is a topic of particular interest to the former prosecutor, state attorney general and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Administration sources say that since taking office, she has been part of the inner circle cultivating an informal White House list of high court possibles. And Harris was deeply involved in spearheading Jackson's selection and confirmation in 2022, Biden's only Supreme Court nominee.

As a senator, her 2018 questioning at the confirmation hearings for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh were especially contentious, and she later called for his impeachment after unproven allegations of past sexual misconduct.

Harris herself was under serious consideration for a Supreme Court seat during the Obama years, but sources say her percolating ambitions at the time were directed to elected office.

As for Trump, sources close to him tell Fox News he is expected to soon release his own preemptive list of candidates, as the Republican nominee did in 2016. That evolving list of two dozen or so names became a centerpiece of his successful campaign and later presidency.

This time, the former president will rely on those he has already named to the federal bench for the top names he would choose from to fill any Supreme Court vacancy.

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The Constitution's framers viewed the judiciary as the "least dangerous branch," but to hear some politicians and pundits on both the left and right, the Supreme Court is prepared to lead the country into imminent ruin.

Such attacks on the justices are nothing new, but the tenor of the criticism, especially in a presidential year, coupled with self-inflicted missteps on ethics and docket discretion, have combined to put its nine members on the defensive.

And the public seems to have noticed.

A Gallup poll this summer found 43% approve of how the Supreme Court handles its job, with 52% disapproval. That is a drop of 15 points since 2020 (58%-38%). In 2000, 62% approved of the institution.

Especially concerning the court are continued leaks to the media of its internal, mostly secretive, operations.

A draft opinion of the 2022 "Dobbs" abortion case, published two months before the final ruling that struck down nationwide access to the procedure, sent shock waves in Washington in a massive breach of protocol.

That was followed by selective leaks in the past year over how the court decided hot-button issues like affirmative action and election redistricting.

And in recent weeks, the New York Times received leaked internal memos from the chief justice over his leading role in the Trump immunity opinion.

Court sources say the leakers, who have never been publicly identified, have further eroded institutional camaraderie and trust among the justices, long seen as essential to doing their jobs. It has led to outside partisan finger-pointing.

Roberts, who will gavel in his 20th term next week as chief justice, has not publicly responded to the latest controversies or calls for ethics reform, declining repeated invitations from the Senate to testify.

It reflects his "less is best" approach to explaining and promoting his own court's resolution of thorny legal and political issues.  

In September 2022, after the abortion ruling was issued, he said, "Simply because people disagree with opinions is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court. I think just moving forward from things that were unfortunate is the best way to respond," he said.

And he has carefully glided over his role to force internal change and to defend his court's reputation all while being unable to stop the continuing leaks over their deliberations.

"It seems like at times they're [leakers] motivated to be able to potentially lead to mistrust in the [judicial] branch, attacks on what the branch is doing," said Jennifer Mascott, a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and then-Judge Kavanaugh and now a Catholic University law professor.

Added Dupree, "You can't have a court deliberate and perform its constitutionally assigned function if it can't be ensured of the sanctity of its deliberations, if it thinks that anything that one justice says to another colleague or any memo that they write internally is going to appear on the front page of the newspapers the next day. That's a very, very worrisome trend. It may be the new normal."

After a three-month recess, the justices met together for the first time this week to reset their docket and discuss appeals that have been filed over the summer.

Sources say the chief justice, who leads the closed-door meeting, had sent a memo to his colleagues indicating some of the controversies surrounding the court, like the leaks and ethics reform, would be privately and candidly discussed.

The Supreme Court in its new term will confront issues like gun rights and transgender care for minors, with pending appeals over the Affordable Care Act, religious freedom, immigration and abortion access.

It is a unique, fast-moving time of change and challenge at an institution used to being slow and deliberate.

"I did learn early on that when you are holding the reins of leadership, you should be careful not to tug on them too much," said Roberts in 2016. "You will find out they aren't connected to anything."

Dems eye possible Trump investigations if they win House majority

Some House Democrats are already looking at the possibility of investigating former President Donald Trump if they win the House majority in November.

Two top lawmakers, Reps. Richard Neal, D-Mass., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., did not rule out probing Trump if he wins the White House in November.

Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways & Means Committee who led the probe into Trump’s tax returns in the last Congress, told Fox News Digital it would be "hard to assess" whether he would see himself resuscitating that effort, but he added that the Supreme Court’s recent decision expanding presidential immunity could change the calculus.

"That would be speculative, but I certainly would not back away from the positions I’ve taken over the years on that issue," Neal said.

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Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News Digital, "I’d rather look to the future than the past, but we’ll do our job."

In a longer statement provided to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, Raskin accused Republicans of ignoring issues like gun violence and prescription drug costs.

"Instead, for two years, House Republicans have used the gavel to pursue a laughingstock flop of an impeachment investigation to help their presidential nominee and personal cult leader, Donald Trump. Even worse, they have blocked and obstructed Democrats' efforts to investigate the corruption of Donald Trump and his autocrat allies," Raskin said.

"Investigating this endless corruption is critical for Congress to create legislative fixes to ensure government serves the people and to put an end to efforts to exploit the presidency and sell out our government to the highest bidder."

Meanwhile, rank-and-file Democratic Reps. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said investigations could be warranted into Trump’s family and their business dealings even if the former president lost his re-election bid.

Both singled out his son-in-law and former White House adviser Jared Kushner, whose investment firm got a $2 billion investment commitment from a fund led by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. 

"His family has some ongoing deals that we learned about after we went out of the majority that I think are worth visiting," Swalwell said. "The Kushners and the Saudi deal – I think people want some closure on that."

He took a shot at the House GOP’s probes into the foreign business dealings of President Biden’s son, Hunter, adding, "If you tell me you're interested in Hunter Biden, then you probably owe it to the country to be interested in what happened there."

JOHNSON'S PLAN TO AVOID GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN GOES DOWN IN FLAMES AS REPUBLICANS REBEL

Goldman, an Oversight Committee member, told Fox News Digital, "I think if Trump wins, obviously that'll be the principal purpose [of the committee], is to provide the checks and balances that Congress needs to check, and that Donald Trump especially requires."

"I think there are a lot of really important, substantive issues that the committee has not investigated this year that are not partisan, that we should be focused on," he said, adding, "But we also were frustrated this term that obvious, obvious concerns were not investigated."

"How did Jared Kushner get $2 billion from Mohammed bin Salman for an investment company in something that he had never done before…That's a tremendous amount of money. There's been no investigation into that."

SHUTDOWN FEARS MOVE HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO PROTECT MILITARY PAYCHECKS

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt responded, saying, "Swalwell and Goldman should get a life. President Trump has endured two fake impeachments, four baseless witch-hunt indictments, and endless investigations into his businesses — all of which have failed because they are not based on facts but rather, they are fueled by the vitriolic Trump Derangement Syndrome that has taken over the Democrat Party."

Raskin’s investigatory efforts into Trump during this Congress, as leader of the Oversight Committee’s Democratic minority, could also offer a possible preview of what Democrats’ probes could look like in a second Trump term.

Earlier this month, he and Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., sent a letter to Trump demanding that the former president prove he did not take a "cash bribe" from Egypt’s president in 2017. The letter was spurred by a Washington Post report that also alleged former Attorney General Bill Barr had blocked a probe into the matter.

Investigating Biden and his family has been a core focus of the committee under Chairman James Comer’s tenure. Comer, R-Ky., released a report recently accusing the president of having committed impeachable offenses – something the White House denies.

He denied that the intensity of his Biden probe could give Democrats cover to investigate Trump, however – insisting their inquiries into Trump were political.

"If the Democrats want to waste taxpayer dollars and time investigating the Trump administration again for the second time, then that's their prerogative. But we focused on waste, fraud and abuse and mismanagement by the federal government," Comer told Fox News Digital.

"If Trump wins…They're going to harass and obstruct every step of the way."

Blinken may be held in contempt after House GOP advances measure

Secretary of State Antony Blinken could be held in contempt of Congress after a key House committee advanced the penal measure on Tuesday.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced a contempt resolution against the top Biden administration Cabinet secretary, setting it up for a House-wide vote after Congress returns from a six-week recess. A secretary of state has never in history been held in contempt.

"We have a duty of oversight, and no one’s above the law," McCaul told Fox News Digital Tuesday morning.

HOUSE GOP RELEASES SCATHING REPORT ON BIDEN'S WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Fox News Digital, "I’m sure we will," when asked if there would be a House-wide vote on holding Blinken in contempt when Congress returns in November.

If the House votes to hold Blinken in contempt, he would be automatically referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for criminal charges.

HOUSE COMMITTEE SUBPOENAS BLINKEN OVER AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL 

The House GOP majority has already held another Biden official in contempt – Attorney General Merrick Garland. The DOJ declined to prosecute, however. 

House Republicans also voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, though it was quickly dismissed by the Senate.

McCaul has accused Blinken of stonewalling his committee’s probe into President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Blinken was absent from the hearing portion due to a full schedule at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, however.

In a letter sent to McCaul over the weekend, Blinken urged McCaul to withdraw his subpoena and efforts to hold him in contempt, saying he was "disappointed" with the Texas Republican.

"As I have made clear, I am willing to testify and have offered several reasonable alternatives to the dates unilaterally demanded by the Committee during which I am carrying out the President’s important foreign policy objectives," Blinken wrote.

But McCaul dismissed the Biden official’s arguments.

"I gave him any day," McCaul challenged. "Any day in September, and he refuses."

"He doesn't have one day in the whole month of September to show up before Congress? I mean, I've been very flexible with him since May to try to get cooperation."

It comes after McCaul’s committee released an explosive report detailing Biden administration shortfalls that led to the hasty military withdrawal from Kabul following a lightening-fast takeover of the country by the Taliban.

The Republican-led paper opens by hearkening back to President Biden’s urgency to withdraw from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s. That, along with the Afghanistan withdrawal, demonstrates a "pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners," according to the report.

The report also disputed Biden's assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and it revealed how state officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them.

Two recent House contempt votes that resulted in criminal charges were those against former Trump administration advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. Both were held in contempt by the previous House Democratic majority for failing to comply with subpoenas from the now-defunct House select committee on Jan. 6.

Piling on: A tsunami of anti-Trump pieces offer a stark contrast with Kamala’s upbeat coverage

In just the last few days, there’s been a tremendous media pile-on against Donald Trump.

Whether you think that’s warranted or not – much of it is based on his own words – we are back to a Trump-centric universe. Kamala Harris is making little or no news, despite such spectacles as the Oprah show, and Trump, as usual, is back to driving each news cycle.

I have been telling people since 2015 that negative stories are good for Trump because the ensuing debate then unfolds on his terms. In fact, he deliberately uses provocative or inflammatory language as catnip for the press, knowing that even if he’s denounced that will drive coverage for at least a couple of days.

The vice president generally gets such favorable press that many people assume she’s got this race wrapped up. When an NBC poll shows her leading Trump by 5 points, she’s said to have the momentum, although national surveys are basically meaningless.

SCANDALS, FAILED ASSASSINATIONS AND POLITICAL RHETORIC: BOTH SIDES GO HIGH AND LOW

And a New York Times poll shows Trump leading in the key Sunbelt states that the Harris camp hoped to pick off. He has a 5-point lead in Arizona, a 4-point lead in Georgia and a 2-point lead in North Carolina.

That’s within striking distance and in some cases a statistical tie. But the Times piece says that many voters believe Trump "improved their lives when he was president – and worry that a Kamala Harris White House would not."

That’s the thing. Trump’s already had four years in the Oval Office. And while there was no shortage of chaos – two impeachments, January 6th – plenty of folks remember a strong economy. And they want more details about whether Harris would take the country in a more liberal direction, even as she puts her rhetorical focus on the middle class and small business (as well as abortion rights).

Plus, it’s hard to run as a change candidate when you’re part of the incumbent administration and large numbers see the country as being on the wrong track.

Virtually everyone in America has a set-in-stone view of the former president. His MAGA loyalists have been with him since he said in his first campaign that "I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue" and not lose support. 

That takes on a more ominous tone now that Trump has barely escaped assassinaton twice – and, after the Florida golf course attempt, blamed the attacks on "danger to democracy" language by Harris and the Democrats. Many in the media have made Hitler comparisons, and the truth is both sides have used incendiary language.

Sometimes Trump just resorts to trolling – "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!" – to get chattering classes chattering, even though he much wanted her endorsement.

Let’s look at the coverage in recent days:

TRUMP INDICATES HE WON'T MAKE ANOTHER PRESIDENTIAL RUN IN 2028 IF UNSUCCESSFUL THIS TIME

The Washington Post describes "Donald Trump’s imaginary world," where "Americans can’t venture out to buy a loaf of bread without getting shot, mugged or raped. Immigrants in a small Ohio town eat their neighbors’ cats and dogs. World War III and economic collapse are just around the corner. And kids head off to school only to return at day’s end having undergone gender reassignment surgery.

"The former president’s imaginary world is a dark, dystopian place, described by Trump in his rallies, interviews, social media posts and debate appearances to paint an alarming picture of America under the Biden-Harris administration.

It is a distorted, warped and, at times, absurdist portrait of a nation where the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to deadly effect were merely peaceful protesters, and where unlucky boaters are faced with the unappealing choice between electrocution or a shark attack. His extreme caricatures also serve as another way for Trump to traffic in lies and misinformation, using an alternate reality of his own making to create an often terrifying — and, he seems to hope — politically devastating landscape for his political opponents."

Trump also accused Tim Walz speaking positively about "execution" after a baby is born–though Washington Post’s Fact-Checker says the governor never said that, and that fewer than 1 percent of abortions are performed after 21 weeks of pregnancy.

In the New York Times, conservative writer David French uses self-described "Black Nazi" and pro-slavery GOP candidate Mark Robinson, who’s running for North Carolina governor, to slam Trump.

French says he’s endorsed Kamala "because I believe that a Harris victory gives Republicans ‘a chance to build something decent’ from the ruins of a Trump defeat.

"After enduring weeks of lies about the Haitian immigrants who live in Springfield, Ohio, and an entire news cycle devoted to covering Trump’s connection with Laura Loomer, one of the most overtly racist figures in MAGA America (she once spoke at a conference of white nationalists and declared, ‘I consider myself to be a white advocate, and I openly campaigned for the United States Congress as a white advocate’) — I’m hardening my view. Trump loses now or the Republicans are lost for a generation. Maybe more…

"This has changed the composition of the party. While many decent people remain — and represent the hope for future reform — Trump’s Republican Party has become a magnet for eccentrics and conspiracy theorists of all stripes." 

64 DAYS: KAMALA HARRIS HAS YET TO DO FORMAL PRESS CONFERENCE SINCE EMERGING AS DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE

Back at the Washington Post, the Trump campaign is described as imploding: 

"In a single 24-hour span at the end of last month, for example, he amplified a crude joke about Harris performing a sex act; falsely accused her of staging a coup against President Joe Biden; promoted tributes to the QAnon conspiracy theory; hawked digital trading cards; and became embroiled in a public feud with staff and officials at Arlington National Cemetery.

"The Swift attack was especially concerning to Trump’s advisers, who are worried about attracting female voters."

And there are his constant tributes to "the late, great Hannibal Lecter," the movie serial killer.

"Some campaign advisers are eager to move on from Trump’s and Vance’s unverifiable claims about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs — a potentially detrimental news cycle that has stretched into its second week — but also acknowledge that Trump rarely retreats, even when it might be politically advantageous to do so."

The piece describes Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager, as playing a divisive role, to which he responded: "Same old nonsense that has already been written by the Washington Compost. Your obsession with my volunteer efforts just demonstrates your continued hatred of Donald J. Trump and prove you will stop at nothing to try and prevent him from becoming the 47th President of the United States."

Post op-ed columnist Ruth Marcus says Trump is "crossing a hazardous new line" by saying it will be the fault of Jewish people, insufficiently grateful for his pro-Israel policies, if he loses the election:

"They threaten, if he does lose, and especially if he continues this line of argument, to unleash the fury of disappointed Trump supporters on Jews. It does not take much to imagine the backlash, and the violence, that could ensue. We Jews know something about being scapegoated…

Trump has long had an unnerving habit of bringing up the fact of people’s Judaism — sometimes mistakenly — on occasions when it seems irrelevant at best. ‘Who would have thought my top guys are Jews?’ Trump observed to aides Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller and Jason Miller aboard Air Force One, according to the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman. (In fact, Jason Miller, as he told Trump, is not Jewish.)" 

By contrast, a Times piece on Harris’ record as a prosecutor soberly finds "a coherent record that is for the most part consistent. Ms. Harris seemed particularly focused on protecting the most vulnerable victims by cracking down on violent offenders while seeking alternatives to incarceration for less serious criminals." 

It’s not that each individual story isn’t based on reported facts. But the tsunami of anti-Trump pieces is a reminder of how relentlessly negative his coverage is – his supporters just don’t trust the media – when compared to the general praise for the Democratic nominee.

Footnote: As I was typing this column, I got a statement from Trump saying "the Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling the second assassination attempt on my life since July." He says Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state of Florida should handle the investigations and prosecutions instead.

Hillary Clinton celebrates decades of marriage to Bill after being ‘deeply hurt’: ‘We just have a good time’

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton celebrated her nearly 50-year marriage to former President Bill Clinton despite "dark periods" throughout their relationship. 

"I've said this for many years, nobody really knows what happens in a marriage except the two people in it. And every marriage I'm aware of has ups and downs – not public, hopefully for everyone else – and you have to make the decisions that are right for you. And I would never tell anybody else, ‘stay in a marriage, leave a marriage,’ whatever the easy answer is. And you know, for me and for us, I think it's fair to say we are so grateful that at this stage of our life, we have our grandchildren. We have our time together," Clinton told CNN's Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired Sunday morning. 

Clinton recently published her new memoir, "Something Lost, Something Gained," which included excerpts on how "both my marriage and Bill's presidency were imperiled" at the end of the 1990s. Bill Clinton's presidency was rocked by a sex scandal in 1998, with the 42nd president admitting to having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky later that year. 

Hillary Clinton did not cite Monica Lewinsky by name in her memoir or during her interview that aired Sunday, only referring to "dark periods" that threatened her marriage or "a very unfortunate" incident.

HILLARY CLINTON CALLED OUT FOR SUGGESTING AMERICANS SHOULD BE ARRESTED OVER DISINFORMATION: 'QUITE CHILLING'

"I write about how we start the morning playing spelling bee in bed. And, you know, Bill is like such a great player. He gets to Queen Bee almost immediately it feels like. We just have a good time. We have a good time sharing this life that we've lived together for now nearly 50 years of marriage. That's what is right for us, and that's really my, my message," Clinton shared of her marriage during the interview. 

CNN COMMENTATOR BLASTS DEMOCRATS FOR HAVING BILL CLINTON AT DNC: 'QUIT' HIM, 'FINALLY PLEASE!'

The couple married on Oct. 11, 1975, meaning they will celebrate their 50th anniversary next year. 

Bill Clinton was ultimately impeached over his affair with Lewinsky, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. 

Hillary Clinton said that during "one of the darkest periods" of the impeachment, she felt "deeply hurt" by the scandal, while "on the other hand," she saw the incident as a "political ploy" to force her husband out of office. 

CLINTONS ENDORSE KAMALA HARRIS HOURS AFTER BIDEN DROPS OUT

"I had to almost have a binary view of the world that I was living in my reality," she reflected of how she was feeling during the impeachment. "My reality, on the one hand, I was deeply hurt, deeply confused, really upset, angry. And on the other hand, I knew that this was a political ploy to try to drive, you know, Bill out of office, and I thought he'd been a really good president, and I resented that as an American citizen, that these hypocrites, who, you know, had all kinds of their own stories about, you know, marriage and everything else, were going after him because of a very unfortunate, you know, incident in his life. 

BILL CLINTON RIPPED HILLARY'S CAMPAIGN AS NOT BEING ABLE TO SELL 'P---- ON A TROOP TRAIN,' NEW BOOK SAYS

"So on the one hand, I'm trying to make a decision about my life, my marriage, my future, my child, my family, which only I could make. On the other hand, I saw the hypocrisy and cruelty of what those Republican, you know, members of Congress were doing, and that that is a reality that people on the outside could never have understood. 

"And you know, obviously I got tons of unsolicited advice from all sorts of observers, but my friends – and I have a whole chapter in there about how incredibly grateful I am to my friends – friends of a lifetime, friends you know, that have stood with me, have supported me, who, during that dark period showed up at the White House to be with me," she said. 

Mayorkas, top border officials in Biden-Harris admin worth millions: database

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other top officials dealing with the crisis at the southern border are worth millions, according to a database collecting federal forms -- leading a top Trump ally to accuse them of inflicting mass migration on regular Americans while avoiding the consequences.

"Inside Biden's Basement," which lists the OGE Form 278e of government employees showing financial worth, is an organization stemming from the Transparency Action Fund, a 501(c)4.

According to the database, Mayorkas' estimated net worth is between $3.8 million to $9 million. 

NEW ‘INSIDE BIDEN’S BASEMENT' PROJECT AIMS TO ‘EXPOSE’ OFFICIALS ‘DRIVING AMERICA INTO A DITCH'

Previous reporting identified his worth at around $8 million. Mayorkas’ finances, specifically his salary, came into focus this year when Republicans voted to block his salary.

It was an amendment by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., for the House's appropriations bill funding the DHS for fiscal year 2025 that would block funds in the bill from being used to pay Mayorkas.

Biggs cited Mayorkas’ impeachment in the House earlier in the year for freezing his salary. Mayorkas was impeached in the GOP-led chamber for his handling of the border crisis, but the Senate did not take up his trial. The DHS had brushed off efforts by Republicans to freeze his salary.

"While the House Majority has wasted months trying to score points with baseless attacks, Secretary Mayorkas has been doing his job and working to keep Americans safe," a spokesperson said last year. "Instead of continuing their reckless charades and attacks on law enforcement, Congress should work with us to keep our country safe, build on the progress DHS is making, and deliver desperately needed reforms for our broken immigration system that only legislation can fix." 

Meanwhile, other officials were also valued as having a high net worth by the website.

TOP HOUSE COMMITTEE SHREDS BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN ON BORDER CRISIS IN NEW REPORT: ‘ASSAULT ON THE RULE OF LAW’ 

Royce Bernstein Murray, assistant secretary for Border and Immigration Policy, has an estimated net worth of $1.7 million to $6.8 million. Michelle Brane, the immigration detention ombudsman and who previously served as executive director for the department’s Family Reunification Task Force, has an estimated net worth of $1.4 million to $3.3 million.

Fox News Digital reached out to DHS for comment on the figures.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE COVERAGE OF THE BORDER SECURITY CRISIS

While the website shows others in the administration have significantly higher net worth, the numbers from the immigration officials brought criticism from former Trump senior White House official Stephen Miller, who told Fox News Digital that it showed how rich officials have the ability to distance themselves from the policies of the administration.

"Leftist elites force intolerable mass migration on an unwilling populace while using their wealth to remove themselves as far as possible from the catastrophe they have inflicted on everyone else," Miller, who is also the founder of America First Legal, told Fox News Digital.

Immigration and the ongoing border crisis has been a top issue in the U.S. ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Republicans have placed the blame for the crisis on the Biden administration's ending of Trump-era policies. The Biden administration has said its strategy of expanding lawful pathways for migration while implementing consequences at the border is working – pointing to a recent drop in encounters by more than 50% since June when President Biden signed an executive order implementing new restrictions.