On Dec. 18, 2019, for what was then the third time in U.S. history, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered a powerful speech invoking the late Elijah Cummings, a civil rights hero and former congressman.
Pelosi: As our beloved chairman Elijah Cummings, an oversight committee chair, our North Star, said when announcing his support for this action, “When the history books are written about this tumultuous era, I want them to show that I was among those in the House of Representatives who stood up to lawlessness and tyranny.” He also said, almost prophetically, “When we are dancing with the angels, the question will be what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact?”
Elijah, as you know, has since passed on. Now he is dancing with the angels, and I know that he and all of us here are very proud of the moral courage of members who want to honor the vision of our founders for a republic, the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform to defend it, and the aspirations of our children to live freely within it. Today we are here to defend democracy for the people. May God bless America.
A few weeks later, the Republican-controlled Senate held Trump’s impeachment trial, where then-Rep. Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, delivered a similarly emotional message in his closing arguments.
Schiff: But here, right is supposed to matter. It's what's made us the greatest nation on Earth. No constitution can protect us if right doesn't matter anymore. And you know you can't trust this president to do what's right for this country. You can trust he will do what's right for Donald Trump. He'll do it now. He's done it before. He'll do it for the next several months. He'll do it in the election if he's allowed to. This is why if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed. Because right matters. Because right matters. And the truth matters. Otherwise, we are lost.
Republican senators—many of whom voted to impeach then-President Bill Clinton—ultimately shirked their constitutional duties and acquitted Trump.
The deluge of congressional retirements that Republicans feared was incoming appears to be starting, with Washington State GOP Rep. Dan Newhouse announcing on Wednesday that he will not seek reelection.
“This decision comes with no reservations or remorse, only gratitude for the tremendous opportunity to have represented my home state in Congress,” Newhouse said in a statement.
Newhouse is the first Republican to announce his retirement following the spate of special elections earlier this month that sent a chill through the spines of the GOP. Republicans fear that the growing backlash to President Donald Trump will sweep them out of power in the 2026 midterms, and lead other GOP lawmakers like Newhouse to decide to hang it up rather than fight to live another day.
Following the GOP's underperformance in a U.S. House special election in Tennessee, Puck News reported that as many as 20 Republicans would announce plans to retire rather than seek reelection in 2026. Those 20 retirements would be on top of the 24 House Republicans who had already announced plans to either retire or seek other offices—a large number that suggests GOP lawmakers expected to be in the minority upon their return in 2027 and would rather try their hand at something else.
Newhouse, for his part, is one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in January 2021, after Trump incited the violent and deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to try to steal the 2020 election he had handily lost.
Rep. David Valadao
With Newhouse's retirement, just one Republican who voted to impeach Trump over the insurrection remains: Rep. David Valadao of California. However, Valadao is one of the most vulnerable GOP lawmakers up for reelection in 2026, and could see his district slip away if the blue wave that appears to be building crests.
Newhouse's district is heavily Republican. Trump carried it by 20 points in 2024, and 17 points four years earlier against Joe Biden, making it unlikely a Democrat could win here even in a wave. However, Newhouse could be replaced with a more far-right lawmaker, giving Trump a more reliable vote for his evil agenda.
Indeed, Trump and his allies tried to oust Newhouse in 2024 in an effort to replace him with a MAGA representative who would blindly follow Trump’s orders. But Newhouse narrowly hung on in a 2024 election against a MAGA-backed challenger.
With Newhouse’s retirement, Trump allies are crowing about being able to install one of their own.
The Pentagon announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona after he and several other Democratic lawmakers said that military troops should not obey “illegal orders.”
In a statement on X, the so-called Departmentof War said that Kelly may be recalled “to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures” for his comments.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona is being investigated by the Pentagon for telling military members that they don’t have to obey illegal orders.
“If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work,” Kelly wrote in response to the threat. “I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”
Kelly served as a captain in the Navy and flew 39 combat missions in the first Iraq War. He then went on to a distinguished career as a NASA astronaut and was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame before successfully running for Senate.
Kelly was part of a group of six Democratic lawmakers, including veterans of the military and national security agencies, who created the video that sparked retribution from the Trump administration.
“You can refuse illegal orders,” they said in the video—a bedrock concept in American law.
We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.
The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.
Don’t give up the ship.
The Pentagon’s threat echoes President DonaldTrump’s call for the execution of the lawmakers in the video.
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Trump falsely claimed in a Truth Social post.
In an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, Kelly responded to Trump’s threat.
“He declared that loyalty to the Constitution is now punishable by death. Those are serious words coming from the president of the United States,” Kelly said. “He’s trying to intimidate us. But … I’m not going to be intimidated.”
Military members take the oath of enlistment, in which they vow to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and to obey orders “according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”
Democrats are raising this issue because the Trump administration has committed a series of military strikes in South America, which lawyers have said are legally questionable, if not outright illegal. The administration is also reportedly pushing to expand military combat in the region, possibly leading to war.
Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman of Virginia is another military veteran being targeted by the Trump administration.
Kelly not only gives factually correct advice in the video, but he is also protected from frivolous prosecution as a senator.
In addition to the action against Kelly, the Pentagon has reportedly been pressuring the House to launch an inquiry into Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman of Virginia, a retired Army officer.During Trump’s first impeachment trial, Vindman testified against the president’s attempts to pressure the Ukrainian government.
Both of these actions show that the administration is attempting to use the power of the government against military veterans who dare to speak out against Trump’s abuses.
Trump, who infamously called military veterans “suckers” and “losers,” continues to add to his roster of attacks and slights against those who dedicate their lives to serving the country.
A listeria outbreak tied to prepared food products has caused at least six deaths and more than 25 hospitalizations. The outbreak is occurring roughly four months after the Trump administration halted a program that monitored the food supply for problems like listeria.
The Listeria monocytogenes contamination has been linked to precooked pasta supplied by Nate’s Fine Foods Inc. to supermarket chains like Walmart, Kroger, Trader Joe’s, and Sprouts, which then used the pasta in prepared foods. Consumption of contaminated food can cause listeriosis, an infection that can lead to vomiting, fever, headache, and diarrhea, and can be deadly for children, pregnant women, people over 65, and others with compromised immune systems.
Despite the danger a listeria outbreak can pose to the public, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July significantly scaled back the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network, or FoodNet, which monitors for foodborne illnesses.
This image provided by the Food and Drug Administration shows an example of a precooked pasta meal that Demers Food Group voluntarily recalled on Oct. 1, after a sample of a supplier's linguine pasta tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes.
As of July 1, FoodNet stopped monitoring for listeria as well as campylobacter, Yersinia, cyclospora, shigella, or vibrio, according to NBC News. Only two pathogens continue to be monitored—salmonella and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.
At the time, the CDC claimed in a memo that a lack of funding was the issue for the cutbacks. Rather than scale up funding for FoodNet, the Trump administration has since increased money for deportation operations and other priorities.
When the cutbacks were uncovered, experts sounded the alarm. Elaine Scallan Walter, a professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health, told The New York Times, “We’re really gutting one of the cornerstones of food safety.”
The CDC falls under the purview of the Department of Health and Human Services, which is led by anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In September, a coalition of 22 food-safety groups called on Trump to fire Kennedy, citing his promotion of anti-science beliefs and policies throughout the agency.
The website includes a “major events timeline,” which seems normal at first, highlighting the history of White House projects— including its reconstruction after the 1812 fire, the additions of the West Wing in 1902 and the East Wing in 1942, and President Harry Truman’s “total reconstruction” in 1948.
Notably, all of these changes to the White House were done with approval from Congress and historic preservation boards, unlike Trump's ballroom monstrosity.
The last real entry on the timeline is President Richard Nixon’s 1970 conversion of the White House swimming pool into the press briefing room. After that is just a bunch of unhinged garbage thrown together by Trump’s knuckle-dragging minions.
A screenshot of some of the asinine “major events” on the White House’s timeline.
Next on the timeline is a photo from 1998 of President Bill Clinton with White House intern Monica Lewinsky labeled, “Bill Clinton Scandal.”
"President Bill Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky was exposed, leading to White House perjury investigations. The Oval Office trysts fueled impeachment for obstruction,” it reads.
The East Wing is demolished to make room for President Donald Trump’s ballroom monstrosity.
Then there's an utterly racist image of President Barack Obama that appears to be from a trip he took to Kenya in 2006, though it’s labeled on the timeline as occurring in 2012.
"Obama hosts members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that promotes Islamist extremism and has ties to Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood is a designated terrorist organization by nearly a dozen nations,” it says.
Of course, using a totally unrelated image to make Obama look like a scary Muslim is racist beyond words.
But beyond that, it’s not even clear that the Muslim Brotherhood even went to the White House at all. News reports at the time say that Muslim Brotherhood officials met in Egypt with White House aides—not Obama himself. But if they did, is that any worse than Trump planning to meet with the literal Taliban at Camp David?
The timeline then returns to real events with the 2020 construction of the tennis pavilion by first lady Melania Trump before again launching into offensive and unhinged “events.”
Next is an image of Hunter Biden shirtless and smoking a cigarette in a bathtub labeled, "Cocaine Discovered."
"During Biden’s administration, a U.S. Secret Service agent discovered a small, zippered plastic bag containing cocaine in the West Wing entrance lobby. Speculation has pointed to Hunter Biden, an admitted drug user. Additional evidence includes a laptop, seized in 2019, which contains photos of frequent drug use alongside emails about foreign business dealings (Ukraine, China) involving his father, Joe, while he was Vice President," the entry reads.
The White House Rose Garden is paved over to create a gathering spot for President Donald Trump to host dinner parties with his billionaire donor pals.
Of course, it was never determined whose cocaine it was, as it was found in a highly trafficked area where tours are given and could have been anyone’s—including visitors. The Secret Service closed an investigation into the incident without determining a perpetrator.
Then the timeline takes potshots at transgender people—the right’s new favorite punching bag—by highlighting Trans Day of Visibility.
"The Biden/Harris administration hosts transexuals at the White House in 2023, and goes on to establish the 'The Transgender Day of Visibility' on the same day as Easter Sunday in 2024," it says.
The fact that this trash is on an official White House website is so beyond the pale. And yet, the Trump administration is very proud of this infantile timeline.
"NEW on WhiteHouse.gov—The White House Major Events Timeline," the Trump War Room wrote on X alongside the absolutely unhinged images.
As the government shutdown drags on—in no small part because President Donald Trump is desperate to hide his connections to Jeffrey Epstein—he is now picking and choosing who gets paid.
Unsurprisingly, it’s exactly who you would think. Active-duty military? Check. Air marshals? Check. FBI agents? Check. ICE agents? Check.
You get the point.
ICE agents detain a protester in Chicago on Oct. 14.
Because we no longer have any meaningful insight into the workings of government, it’s tough to figure out exactly how many people are drawing paychecks, but it’s not a small amount.
There are around 1.3 million active-duty military members. And according to the Washington Post, there are about 70,000 people between the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security who are also getting paid, presumably including FBI, ICE, and Border Patrol personnel.
As for the people who make sure that those employees get their paychecks? They’re not getting paid at all.
“We are called support staff, but I’d argue that we drive them. Just because they have a gun, badge, and authority doesn’t make them more important than us,” one ICE staffer told the Post. “It shows that the administration only cares about the gun holders.”
Well, yes.
Meanwhile, The New York Times, in case you were wondering, is not meeting the moment on this one. Instead, it’s framing the Trump administration’s completely illegal diversion of government money to pay fascists as a “budgetary twister,” and that Trump is “stretching the limits” of his authority.
The Times also claims that Trump is “reprogramming” dollars allocated by Congress, but that is not a thing. Trump can’t use the government shutdown as an excuse to allocate government funding to whatever he wants and nothing else. But given that the Times called it “expanding his authority to spend federal money” a couple of weeks ago, this tracks.
A cartoon by Jack Ohman.
As the shutdown enters its third week, federal workers are lining up at food banks as they try to keep their heads above water while not getting paid. That’s about 1.4 million people.
And all of this is happening while Trump demands the government to give him $230 million because being investigated for his myriad crimes and impeachment-worthy offenses made him sad.
He’s also literally tearing down the White House so he can build a monstrous ballroom, which is supposedly paid for by shadowy private donors who are lining up to bribe the president in exchange for personal favors.
Congress could stop Trump from diverting money to favored employees tomorrow, but the Republicans in control have no interest in doing so. And the Supreme Court has had ample opportunity to rule against Trump’s efforts to treat the government and taxpayer dollars as his personal playthings.
But like so many things in Trump’s second term, the shutdown has highlighted that checks and balances aren’t magically self-executing. There are no rules, just norms to be completely ignored.
Injustice for All is a weekly series about how the Trump administration is trying to weaponize the justice system—and the people who are fighting back.
Last week was … a lot, legally speaking. While much of the Trump administration’s efforts have shifted to trying to get courts to agree that President Donald Trump can deploy troops from red states to bring blue cities to heel, there are still many other terrible developments.
We’ve got a throwback to Elon Musk’s idiotic actions, the Fifth Circuit is likely going to decide it’s totally groovy to force religion into the classroom, James Comey’s attorney is taking a page from Trump’s playbook, and the Supreme Court looks primed to strike down conversion therapy bans—because why not hurt trans kids more. Oh and last—but never least—is the Department of Justice’s meme antics undermining its own case against Luigi Mangione.
Musk and the Trump administration FAFO
Well, well, well. If it isn’t the consequences of Musk’s own actions.
The New York Times recently prevailed in its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over the Trump administration’s refusal to provide a list of Musk’s security clearances when he was a government contractor prior to 2025. Now the administration will have to cough it up.
Elon Musk stands beside President Donald Trump.
They tried to say that it would violate Musk’s privacy, but the court noted that Musk bragged publicly of his “top secret clearance” in 2024, making it not really all that private to begin with.
The Times did not request additional information—like Musk’s application for clearances or any investigative materials—but the government still claimed that it couldn’t provide the form because it would show whether clearances were subject to any conditions, even if the conditions themselves were redacted.
This is where Musk’s boasts about his ketamine use, his cringe-worthy blunt rotation with Joe Rogan, and his chats with Vladimir Putin came back to bite him.
To grant a security clearance, the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency must review foreign influences and drug use. The court said that, while Musk has not publicly discussed any conditions, he has publicly addressed his drug use and contacts with foreign leaders. And since the DCSA is supposed to consider those things, the public has an interest in the DCSA’s performance of its duties.
You can expect the Trump administration to continue fighting this because it would likely crack open the door for FOIA requests about Musk’s clearances at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency—and they desperately don’t want that.
The Fifth Circuit will keep hearing Ten Commandment cases until they get the desired result
In another horrible development, the Fifth Circuit has ordered a full court review of the three-judge panel decision in Roake v. Brumley—and it’s not an exaggeration to say that we should all be worried.
Both the Louisiana lower court and the three-judge panel ruled that the law requiring public schools to permanently display the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional, because it so obviously is.
The fact that they agreed to a review and requested new briefs and oral arguments is a sign that there’s an appetite to reverse it. This would mean getting a decision on the books holding that the government can force the display of the Ten Commandments—but only the Protestant version chosen by the state.
Next stop will be the Supreme Court because, much like they did with abortion, states are going to keep passing objectively unconstitutional laws, shoving them up to the Supreme Court to bless them. Terrific system we have here.
Unlawful appointments giveth, but they may also taketh away
One of the challenges James Comey’s attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, has said he will raise—and file a motion to dismiss the case—is an unlawful appointment claim.
Former FBI Director James Comey
Basically, that would be that Lindsey Halligan, installed as interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia for the sole purpose of indicting Trump’s enemies, is not legally allowed to be in her role. Her predecessor, Erik Siebert, served the limit of 120 days in the interim position, allowing the federal judges to appoint him.
The issue is whether that created a new vacancy or not. If it did not, then that 120-day interim use is gone forever, which is why the court ruled that Alina Habba isn’t legally in her role in New Jersey. In that case, the Trump administration argued that the 120-day clock starts over with each interim appointment, but that would make the 120-day interim limit entirely useless.
There would be a sort of grimly hilarious symmetry if the Comey prosecution falls apart because a judge decides that Halligan was not properly in her role. Trump hit a stroke of luck when his all-time favorite lower-court judge Aileen Cannon ruled, wildly incorrectly, that Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed and threw out the entire classified documents case.
What’s good for the goose, etc.
SCOTUS tips its hand, and it’s not great
Tuesday’s oral argument in Chiles v. Salazar made it clear that the Supreme Court is going to strike down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. Doing so would also knock out similar laws throughout almost half of the country.
There’s no credible argument for conversion therapy, which tries to force minors to be heterosexual and cisgender. Major health care organizations have denounced it, and people forced to undergo it report high levels of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
The right-wing argument in Chiles is that it violates the free speech of therapists if they can’t compel children to listen to how their identity is bad and wrong.
It’s an absolute sham of a lawsuit, with no evidence that the plaintiff ever intended to offer conversion therapy or received any complaints. Her lawyer, with the rabidly anti-LGBTQ+ group Alliance Defending Freedom, told the court that Chiles was the subject of “anonymous complaints” that they declined to provide.
This is just another case where the plaintiff is nothing but a straw man standing in to get the desired conservative result—which is to protect the free speech of bigots at the expense of the wellbeing of LGBTQ+ kids.
Trump and the DOJ are going to tweet Luigi Mangione right out of jail
The DOJ is in trouble over how hyped it is to talk about Mangione’s guilt while in the midst of prosecuting him, with the public affairs deputy director posting on X interviews of Trump saying that Mangione “shot someone in the back as clear as you’re looking at me.”
Luigi Mangione is seen in a courtroom wearing a bulletproof vest.
This is pretty much a textbook example of prejudicial pretrial statements, which are not allowed, as pretty much every DOJ prosecutor knows. But the DOJ is being steered by people whose main interests are creating cool meme content and hurting people, so they might not be so familiar.
When the court ordered the Trump administration to explain what happened here, they said that, since the person who made the post wasn’t part of the prosecution team, they weren’t violating the rule.
This is nonsense, of course, as it would basically mean that the DOJ could pop off with these statements any time as long as the actual prosecutor on the case isn’t the one to say it.
But this isn’t the first time that the attention-hungry, meme-driven administration ran into trouble with Mangione, who’s now moving to block the DOJ from seeking the death penalty because of the highly televised perp walk they made him do.
Career prosecutors had refused to seek an indictment against James, saying there was not enough evidence that James committed mortgage fraud and that the case was unlikely to end in a conviction.
But Trump fired the prosecutor who wouldn’t go along with his corrupt demand to indict his enemies and installedunqualified sycophant Lindsey Halligan as Virginia's top federal prosecutor, who went on to follow Trump's orders to seek out the indictment.
“The enemy within” by Mike Luckovich
Now, Republicans are gleefully mocking James, whose indictment mirrors that of the civil fraud case James successfully brought against Trump, and are lauding the Trump administration for indicting her.
"Crooked NY AG Letitia James, used taxpayer money to maliciously prosecute President Trump over non-crimes, has now been INDICTED based on legitimate bank fraud allegations," Rep. Claudia Tenney (D-NY) wrote in a post on X.
"Back in 2024, Letitia James posted, 'No one is above the law. Even when you think the rules don’t apply to you.' Here's the reality: 1–No one is above the law 2–You cannot commit mortgage fraud 3–She thought the rules didn't apply to her 4–She got indicted. Law & order is back," Rep. Byron Donalds (D-FL) wrote in a post on X.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY)—who is running a likely unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in New York—cheered what she called James' "long overdue indictment" calling it a "critical step toward restoring accountability and the rule of law."
Actual legal experts say, however, that James is unlikely to be convicted, as the charges are even less than thin gruel.
Former FBI director James Comey
"It’s hard to imagine a worse case than the one against James Comey—until you see the one against the attorney general of New York," Molly Roberts, a senior editor at the legal outlet Lawfare, wrote in an article on the site in which she laid out all of the reasons why the evidence does not exist that James committed fraud.
Democrats condemned the Trump DOJ for seeking the indictment, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries saying that the "baseless indictment ... is part of Donald Trump's corrupt weaponization of the criminal justice system against anyone who has sought to hold him accountable."
"This is what tyranny looks like. President Trump is using the Justice Department as his personal attack dog, targeting Attorney General Tish James for the ‘crime’ of prosecuting him for fraud—and winning," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote in a post on X. "One U.S. Attorney already refused this case. So, Trump hand-picked an unqualified hack that would go after another political enemy. This isn't justice. It's revenge. And it should horrify every American who believes no one is above the law."
James, for her part, vowed to fight the charges.
"This is nothing more than a continuation of the president’s desperate weaponization of our justice system," James said in a statement. "I am not fearful—I am fearless. We will fight these baseless charges aggressively, and my office will continue to fiercely protect New Yorkers and their rights."
It’s hard to find good help these days. What’s a president to do when all he wants is to use the might of the state to persecute his political enemies, but all of these pencil-necked geek attorneys keep saying things like “sir, there is no case here”?
President Donald Trump’s retribution jamboree is being stalled out by career Justice Department prosecutors worried about stupid things like “the law” and “ethics.”
Lindsey Halligan, interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia
Take Elizabeth Yusi, a career prosecutor who has been an assistant U.S. attorney for about 15 years. According to MSNBC, Yusi will be telling Lindsey Halligan, a real-estate lawyer who has been interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for about 15 minutes, that there’s no probable cause to prosecute New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud.
How dare she?
Looks like Halligan is going to have to roll up her sleeves and take care of this herself, just like she did with bringing charges against former FBI Director James Comey. Sure, the indictment was comically thin, and sure, she didn’t manage to make one of the ginned-up charges stick, and sure, she had to present it to the grand jury herself.
Halligan, of course, was installed in her job because she’s perfectly happy to take on the shoddiest, most vindictive prosecutions. She was brought in to bring charges against Comey after her predecessor, Eric Siebert, said he wouldn’t.
Trump took a victory lap after Halligan secured an indictment against Comey, but for all the fanfare over that, there is so much more that has to happen before Trump can live out his fantasy of putting Comey behind bars.
Sadly for Trump, all of those steps require prosecutors. Many, actually.
At the moment, Halligan might need to consider a crash course in trial preparation, because as of Tuesday, no career attorneys from her office have entered an appearance in Comey’s case, even though the arraignment is on Wednesday. Though to be fair, Halligan probably doesn’t know about this, since she’s never been a prosecutor and her only client as a defense attorney was Trump.
Instead, it looks like Halligan is going to bring in prosecutors from outside her office. Can’t wait for a passel of freshly minted Liberty University School of Law graduates to handle a politically explosive and high-profile prosecution. Well, at least those who weren’t smart or vicious enough to land a clerkship with the many Trump judges eager to mold new baby fascists.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the Trump administration’s eagerness to have one state invade another, it seems to all rest—legally speaking—on the shoulders of one lawyer: Eric Hamilton.
A protester stands draped in an American flag as officers try to disperse protesters near an ICE facility in Portland on Oct. 5.
Hamilton handled Sunday night’s hearing about deploying National Guard troops to Oregon and was then bundled off to Illinois to argue about how cool and legal it would be if Texas troops were deployed to Chicago.
Normally, of course, there is a veritable army of DOJ attorneys to handle these things. But between resignations and purges, the DOJ doesn’t have a lot left in the tank.
The agency lost 70% of its civil rights division. The top national security prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia was just purged. Multiple high-level prosecutors who refused to sign off on the DOJ’s quid pro quo with Mayor Eric Adams were also fired. Two-thirds of the attorneys tasked with defending Trump’s signature initiatives—like birthright citizenship and immigration—have bolted. And Trump has rapidly depleted the entire federal attorney bench.
This is also why there’s such turmoil among some U.S. attorneys right now. Trump knows he can’t get people like Alina Habba—another of his former personal attorneys—or Halligan confirmed by the Senate. But he also knows that only the most bone-deep partisan loyalists will do his bidding.
Eventually, all that the DOJ will have left are people who previously represented Trump in some personal capacity. Fortunately for Trump, that’s a lot of people. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they all suck.
Imagine running for higher office, only to have your own party tell you that it’s selfish and that they don’t want you as a colleague. That’s basically what happened to GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas.
On Monday, Hunt announced that he’s jumping into the already crowded GOP Senate primary, taking on both Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas
“The U.S. Senate race in Texas must be about more than a petty feud between two men who have spent months trading barbs,” Hunt said in a statement announcing his bid. “With my candidacy, this race will finally be about what’s most important: Texas.”
In an interview with The Associated Press, Hunt added that polling shows that “people want an alternative, and I’m going to give it to them.”
But the numbers don’t really back that up. Cornyn has clawed back what was once a massive polling gap with Paxton, and Hunt’s entry could make things even messier.
“The time is NOW,” Hunt wrote on X, alongside a campaign video heavy on testimonials from his wife, brother, and military colleagues—plus footage of him with President Donald Trump. Neither Cornyn nor Paxton was mentioned.
Hunt, a close Trump ally, has been laying the groundwork to join the Senate race for months. While he’s mostly stayed out of the Cornyn-Paxton fight in public, he and groups tied to him have poured more than $6 million into ads boosting his profile statewide. And his allies say that he’s a better match for the MAGA base than Cornyn—without all of Paxton’s legal baggage.
His entry upends what’s already one of the most volatile Senate primaries of 2026—and it could all but guarantee a runoff.
GOP Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas with President Donald Trump
But not everyone’s thrilled.
GOP leaders have made it clear that they’d rather Hunt stay in the House. Top Republicans—including those on the National Republican Senatorial Committee—have warned that his campaign would be a “vanity project” that wastes money and risks the party’s Senate majority.
“This is not a vanity project. This is about giving the people of Texas a viable alternative,” Hunt told the AP. “Let’s stop the exercise in futility and get the right person for the job.”
Still, the NRSC doubled down on Monday, openly siding with Cornyn.
“John Cornyn is a battle-tested conservative who continues to be a leader in delivering President Trump’s agenda in the U.S. Senate,” NRSC Communications Director Joanna Rodriguez said. “Now that Wesley has chosen personal ambition over holding President Trump’s House Majority, there will be a full vetting of his record. Senator Cornyn’s conservative record of accomplishment stands tall against Wesley’s.”
Both have been chasing Trump’s endorsement—something that Hunt will now also have to compete for. The president hasn’t yet made his pick.
A 43-year-old former Army captain, Hunt will also have to introduce himself to voters outside of his Houston-area district to overcome Cornyn’s and Paxton’s statewide name recognition. And he’s up against serious money: Cornyn’s operation pulled in $3.9 million last quarter, while Paxton raised $2.9 million. Hunt, however, brought in just over $400,000.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
According to The Texas Tribune, Cornyn allies have already spent roughly $19 million on ads, most of which tout his pro-Trump voting record and attack Paxton’s scandals—including the revelation that Paxton improperly claimed multiple homes as his primary residence to obtain better mortgage rates.
Meanwhile, Paxton hasn’t yet spent big on ads, but his personal drama looms large, having survived both an impeachment effort and a federal corruption probe. His wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, recently filed for divorce and accused him of adultery—deepening concerns about his electability.
Recent polling shows Cornyn narrowing Paxton’s lead, with Hunt polling third in a three-way race but pulling votes from both rivals. In a one-on-one matchup, internal polling shared with Punchbowl News showed Hunt performing better—likely enough to force a runoff if he finishes second in March.
Hunt’s decision to run also opens his solidly Republican 38th Congressional District, which backed Trump by 20 points in 2024. Between retirements and Texas’ new GOP-tilted districts, that’s at least seven open seats that could be up for grabs—ensuring pricey and chaotic primaries across the state.
On the Democratic side, the primary is also heating up. Former Rep. Colin Allred, who narrowly lost to Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024, faces state Rep. James Talarico, a rising progressive star known for fighting Texas’ mid-decade redistricting.
Senate GOP leadership remains firmly behind Cornyn, with a top Super PAC already spending more than $8 million to protect him. But for now, the biggest question is whether Trump will step in or stay out long enough to let his allies tear each other apart.
Get your popcorn ready. Texas Republicans are in for one brutal brawl.
