Republican lawmakers are ecstatic about the indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, cheering on President Donald Trump's corrupt and vindictive prosecutions of his perceived enemies as he slides the country further into autocracy.
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 installed unqualified sycophant Lindsey Halligan as Virginia's top federal prosecutor, who went on to follow Trump's orders to seek out the indictment.
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.
"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."
And given that the prosecutor who sought the charges couldn’t even fill out the indictment form correctly, she’s likely to beat them.
Most Americans give a failing grade to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. according to a new poll released on Thursday from nonpartisan health policy group KFF.
The survey was conducted after Kennedy, along with President Donald Trump and Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, held a press event pushing unscientific medical claims, including the promotion of a false link between autism and Tylenol.
In KFF’s poll, 59% of the public said they either somewhat or strongly disapprove of how Kennedy has been handling his job. The vast majority of his disapproval comes from Democrats and independent voters, but even 25% of Republicans also said they disapproved of him.
Poll respondents also strongly opposed Trump’s allegations about a link between Tylenol and autism. Among those surveyed, 65% said it was probably or definitely false that the link is real. Among parents, 60% also expressed doubt about Trump’s position.
Reflecting the Trump administration’s embrace of unscientific anti-vaccine stances, trust in the Centers for Disease Control is down significantly from the public support the agency had under former President Joe Biden. In KFF’s September 2023 poll, 63% of the public said they trusted the agency on vaccines. That is now down to 50% under Trump.
Following the event with Kennedy, Oz, and Trump, global health leaders soundly rejected their unscientific claims and reaffirmed support for the use of Tylenol-style drugs during pregnancy. For instance, the European Medicines Agency told Reuters, “Available evidence has found no link between the use of paracetamol during pregnancy and autism.”
That position was echoed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, who slammed the White House for “dangerous claims and misleading information that sends a confusing message to parents and expecting parents.”
Medical experts have also said not using pain relievers like Tylenol during a pregnancy when treating a fever can lead to severe medical problems, including miscarriage and other complications that could affect fetal health.
Related | RFK Jr. continues quest to Make America Sick Again, vaccines edition
Kennedy’s tenure has been plagued with a series of ill-informed medical recommendations and actions. He has pushed to limit the availability of vaccines for dangerous conditions like COVID-19 and a measles outbreak claimed lives while the administration pursued cutbacks and sidelined medical experts.
The public distaste for Kennedy’s actions has increased efforts from congressional Democrats like Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens, who has said she intends to introduce articles of impeachment against Kennedy.
“His contempt for science, the constant spreading of conspiracy theories, and his complete disregard for the thousands of research hours spent by America’s top doctors and experts is unprecedented, reckless, and dangerous,” Stevens said in a September statement.
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.”
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.
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.
Democratic Virginia Rep. Yevgeny "Eugene" Vindman, twin brother of Trump impeachment figure Alexander Vindman, blasted out to his Twitter followers a call to vote for Democrats Jay Jones and Abigail Spanberger days after texts showed the former referenced killing Republicans.
Meanwhile, a House of Delegates candidate in conservative southside Virginia doubles and triples down on support of Jones amid social media pushback.
As Jones’ controversy and campaign unraveled over the weekend, Vindman, D-Va., took to X to issue comments standing behind the entire Democratic ticket.
"We’re just a month out from Election Day in Virginia. It’s time for our Commonwealth to send a message that we’re tired of Republican chaos," Vindman wrote Sunday, two days after texts came to light showing Jones envisioning the murder of then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah.
Virginia "make a plan to vote — early if you can," he said, adding "for" and the three X handles for gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger, lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Ghazala Hashmi and Jones.
"Your voice couldn’t be more important this year," concluded Rep. Eugene Vindman, who coincidentally holds Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger's former seat.
The post got ratioed by critics, including one telling Vindman, "Nobody is voting for Jay ‘Two Bullet’ Jones."
"Get lost," the man wrote.
Another respondent posted a meme image of the Harrison family from "Pawn Stars" speaking with a customer and the caption "We need to tone down the political violence rhetoric" – "Virginia Democrats: Best I can do is murder your children."
A third posted the ubiquitous "Marked Safe From… Today" flag meme, with the caption "Virginia Attorney General candidate Jay Jones."
"Virginia — not for lovers anymore," another wrote, referring to the Old Dominion’s famous 50-year tourism slogan.
Rep. Eugene Vindman's brother Alexander Vindman was a key figure in then-Rep. Adam Schiff's impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Schiff defended then-witness Alexander Vindman in congressional hearings after Trump and other Republicans repeatedly condemned the former Ukraine-focused National Security Council staffer.
In Washington, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine also defended his support for Jones, saying he's known the former Norfolk state delegate for 25 years.
"I think those statements were not in character, and he has apologized — I wish other people in public life would sincerely apologize for stuff," Kaine said.
At the other end of Virginia, a Democrat running for a seat in Pittsylvania County and vicinity doubled and tripled down on her endorsement of Jones as the controversy continued.
Candidate Melody Cartwright, a former graphic designer at the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, lambasted the delegate whom Jones had incidentally texted the invective to and vociferously defended the attorney generalship nominee.
Jay Jones "will defend Virginia's rights, healthcare, and education. Stay the course," Cartwright wrote on X, inscribing Jones’ handle.
"I stand with (Jay Jones) period. End of statement," Cartwright wrote in a second tweet, both of which were lambasted by critics.
"Then you stand for a man who fantasizes about the murder of his political opponent's children and wants to kill them, the parents, and piss on their graves," replied former Energy Department staffer Matt van Swol.
Another critic said Cartwright’s comment wasn’t just a show of support but "an endorsement of an (expletive) death-obsessed lunatic."
"No one is surprised. By you, by him, or by your entire party. It’s who you are," wrote conservative figure Western Lensman.
Another reply included a one-second clip of conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart from his CPAC 2012 intro video, saying "War," which had been one of the last appearances by the major right-wing figure before his death just days later. Breitbart's stern-faced delivery of the singular word grew into a memorialization on the right in the time since; depicting the view that the left holds visceral hatred for the right.
Virginia Del. Eric Phillips, R-Martinsville, who defeated Cartwright last cycle and faces her again, told Fox News Digital it’s "not the Virginia way" to even entertain chatter in terms of what Jones referenced in his texts.
"It's disturbing and disgraceful for my opponent to defend Jay Jones' vile comments," Phillips said of Cartwright.
"Standing with someone who talks about shooting colleagues in the head, harming their children, and desecrating graves is indefensible," Phillips added.
"Anyone who excuses or embraces that kind of hate has no business asking to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates."
In a separate tweet, Cartwright also bashed Virginia Del. Carrie Coyner, R-Chester, who originally had shared Jones’ texts with the National Review and Fox News Digital.
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Tuesday wouldn’t say where a reported bribe paid to a top Trump official ended up.
In September 2024, Tom Homan, who currently serves as the administration’s “border czar,” reportedly took a $50,000 cash bribe from undercover FBI agents who were posing as businessmen. In turn, Homan reportedly agreed to help them obtain border-security contracts from a potential Donald Trump administration.
However, once Trump took office, his politicized Department of Justice closed an investigation into the matter, seemingly allowing Homan to get off scot-free.
As if that weren’t bad enough, it still leaves the question about where the $50,000 is now.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, probed Bondi at a Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee about that very matter.
"What became of the $50,000 in cash that the FBI delivered, evidently in a paper bag, to Mr. Homan?" Whitehouse asked Bondi.
"The investigation of Mr. Homan was subjected to a full review,” Bondi replied, avoiding the question. “They found no evidence of wrongdoing.”
"What became of the $50,000? Did the FBI get it back?" Whitehouse asked, not letting Bondi off the hook.
"You're welcome to talk to the FBI," Bondi said, again deflecting, even though the FBI reports to Bondi.
After Bondi kept refusing to answer, Whitehouse replied, “I can see I'm not going to get a straight answer from you to a very simple question.”
The question should have been easy for Bondi to answer: Either Homan kept the money, or he gave it back. If he gave it back, Bondi could have easily said so. But if Homan kept it, did he report the earnings on his tax filings? If he didn't report it, Homan would have committed a second crime—tax evasion.
“On top of the Epstein files, she needs to release EVERYTHING on the Tom Homan investigation, including the video,” Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee wrote Tuesday in a post on X, referring to a reported video of the bribe. “Where is the $50k?”
It’s unclear if we will ever get the answer. Democracy Forward, a group seeking to stop corruption in the executive branch, sued the Trump administration on Monday for refusing to release the recording of Homan accepting the bribe.
“The Trump-Vance administration continues to erode public trust and weaken accountability with the American people,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a news release. “These law enforcement agencies must follow the law and release this critical recording without delay. The public deserves answers about why this investigation was closed and whether senior Trump officials are being shielded from scrutiny that would apply to anyone else.”
This case is the latest in which Trump has let his allies break the law, while at the same time seeking to punish his perceived enemies with sham charges.
Already, Trump’s corrupted DOJ successfully sought an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, even though federal prosecutors do not believe Comey committed a crime.
And MSNBC reported on Monday that federal prosecutors are bracing for a top colleague to be fired once she tells her boss, interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, that there is no reason to charge New York Attorney General Letitia James, another enemy of Trump’s.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2015 told the CIA he would "strongly prefer" an intelligence report documenting Ukrainian officials’ concerns with his family’s ties to "corrupt" business deals in the country "not be disseminated" — and so it wasn’t, according to a newly-declassified email and records made public by the agency.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe declassified the heavily redacted records, which he said he believes is an example of "politicization of intelligence."
Fox News Digital obtained the declassified documents, which were discovered during a CIA review of historical agency records.
A senior CIA official briefed Fox News Digital on the declassified documents and intelligence report, stating that the intelligence was discovered along with an email showing that Biden "expressed a preference to not share the report."
Representatives for Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
CIA officials discovered and declassified an email dated February 10, 2016, with the subject line stating: "RE: OVP query regarding draft [REDACTED]." The email was sent to the CIA.
The classification of the email was listed, and crossed out, as "SECRET."
"Good morning, I just spoke with VP/ NSA and he would strongly prefer the report not/not be disseminated. Thanks for understanding," the email states, signed by a redacted name, but with the title of "PDB Briefer." The "PDB" is the presidential daily brief.
The report in question included intelligence revealing that Ukrainian officials viewed the Biden family’s alleged ties to corrupt business practices in Ukraine "as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power."
"Intelligence officials agreed that, at the time of collection, it would have met the threshold [for dissemination], but based on the Office of the Vice President’s preference, the information was never shared outside of the CIA," the official said.
The CIA, during its review, confirmed that Biden’s request was granted and that the intelligence report "had not been disseminated."
The senior CIA official told Fox News Digital that it was "extremely rare and unusual" and "inappropriate to go outside of the intelligence community and inquire with the White House on the dissemination of a particular report for what appears to be political reasons."
The newly declassified intelligence report, which Biden sought to keep private, had a subject line of: "NON-DISSEMINATED INTEL INFORMATION: Reactions of [REDACTED] Ukrainian Government Officials to the Early December Visit of Senior United States Government Official."
The document states the date of the information came in December 2015. The document was created in 2016.
At the time, Biden was vice president and was running U.S.-Ukraine relations and policy for the Obama administration.
The intelligence document stated that "officials within the administration of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko expressed bewilderment and disappointment at the 7-8 December 2015 visit of the Vice President of the United States to Kiev, Ukraine."
"These officials highlighted that, prior to the visit, the Poroshenko administration and other [REDACTED] Ukrainian officials expected the U.S. Vice President to discuss personnel matters with Poroshenko during the visit, and had assumed that the U.S. Vice President would advocate in support of or against specific officials within the Ukrainian Government," the intelligence states.
"After the visit, these officials assessed that the U.S. Vice President had come to Kiev almost exclusively to give a generic public speech, and had not had any intention of discussing substantive matters with Poroshenko or other officials within the Ukrainian government," the intelligence states.
"Following the visit of the U.S. Vice President, [REDACTED] officials within the Poroshenko administration privately mused at the U.S. media scrutiny of the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corrupt business practices in Ukraine," the intelligence states. "These officials viewed the alleged ties of the U.S. Vice President’s family to corruption in Ukraine as evidence of a double-standard within the United States Government towards matters of corruption and political power."
Biden, on Dec. 9, 2015, gave a speech in Ukraine, in which he discussed corruption in the country.
"And it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption," Biden said in the speech. "The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform."
In that speech, Biden also said Ukraine’s "energy sector needs to be competitive, ruled by market principles — not sweetheart deals."
"It’s not enough to push through laws to increase transparency with regard to official sources of income," he said. "Senior elected officials have to remove all conflicts between their business interest and their government responsibilities. Every other democracy in the world — that system pertains."
DEVON ARCHER: HUNTER BIDEN, BURISMA EXECS ‘CALLED DC’ TO GET UKRAINIAN PROSECUTOR FIRED
At the time, Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was investigating Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. Several months later, in March 2016, Biden successfully pressured Ukraine to remove Shokin. At the time Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden had a highly lucrative role on the board, receiving tens of thousands of dollars per month.
Biden, at the time, threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.
"I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion.' … I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’" Biden recalled telling then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Biden recollected the conversation during an event for the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.
But during his first term, President Donald Trump was impeached after a July 2019 phone call in which he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to launch investigations into the Biden family’s actions and business dealings in Ukraine, specifically Hunter Biden’s ventures with Burisma and Joe Biden’s successful effort to have former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin ousted.
At the same time as that call, Hunter Biden was under federal investigation, prompted by his suspicious foreign transactions.
Trump was acquitted in Feb. 2020 on both articles of impeachment against him — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — after being impeached by the House of Representatives in December 2019.
Meanwhile, the declassified intelligence report had a "warning," noting that "due to the extreme sensitivity, this report should be distributed only to the renamed recipients. No further distribution is authorized without prior approval of the originating agency. Violation of established handling procedures are subject to penalty, including termination of access to this reporting channel."
It added that "any discussion of or reference to information in this report [REDACTED] is strictly prohibited. Any references to this report in derived or finished intelligence should include this warning."
A senior CIA official told Fox News Digital that Ratcliffe believes the suppression of this intelligence is an example of "politicization of intelligence."
"Director Ratcliffe believes this is an example of politicization of intelligence that we need to work to eliminate and for what we have zero tolerance," a senior CIA official told Fox News Digital. "We believe transparency is important. We will release information and avoid any future weaponization of the intelligence community."
As for the heavily redacted nature of the intelligence report, the senior CIA official told Fox News Digital that the agency was "careful about protecting CIA sources and methods with redactions."
The official stressed that Ratcliffe believes in "maximum transparency" and said he will continue to declassify CIA information and intelligence "when it serves the public’s interest."
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry against Biden during his presidency, and found, after years of investigating, that he engaged in "impeachable conduct," "abused his office," and "defrauded the United States to enrich his family."
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.
“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.
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.”
Cornyn, a 23-year Senate veteran, has been a lightning rod for the GOP base ever since he backed a bipartisan gun safety bill in 2022 and questioned Trump’s staying power in 2024. But Paxton has hammered him for it, framing Cornyn as out of touch with Texas conservatives.
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.
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.
The Supreme Court will launch its new term Monday with a focus on controversial prior rulings and a review of President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive agenda.
After a three-month recess, the nine justices met together for the first time this week to reset their docket, and discuss appeals that have piled up over the summer. The high court will resume oral arguments to confront issues like gender identity, election redistricting, and free speech.
But looming over the federal judiciary is the return of Trump-era legal battles. The administration has been winning most of the emergency appeals at the Supreme Court since January, that dealt only with whether challenged policies could go into effect temporarily, while the issues play out in the lower courts — including immigration, federal spending cuts, workforce reductions and transgender people in the military.
In doing so, the 6-3 conservative majority has reversed about two dozen preliminary nationwide injunctions imposed by lower federal courts, leading to frustration and confusion among many judges.
FEDERAL JUDGES ANONYMOUSLY CRITICIZE SUPREME COURT FOR OVERTURNING DECISIONS WITH EMERGENCY RULINGS
Now those percolating petitions are starting to reach the Supreme Court for final review — and legal analysts say the bench may be poised to grant broad unilateral powers to the president.
The justices fast-tracked the administration’s appeal over tariffs on dozens of countries that were blocked by lower courts. Oral arguments will be held in November.
In December, the justices will decide whether to overturn a 90-year precedent dealing with the president's ability to fire members of some federal regulatory agencies like the Federal Trade Commission.
And in January, the power of President Trump to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors will be tested in a major constitutional showdown. For now, the Biden-appointed Cook will remain on the job.
"A big fraction of the Supreme Court's docket will present the question: ‘can President Trump do?’— then fill in the blank. And that could be imposing tariffs; firing independent board members; removing illegal aliens; sending the military into cities like Los Angeles," said Thomas Dupree, a prominent appellate attorney and constitutional law expert. "So, much of what the Supreme Court is deciding this term is whether the president has acted within or has exceeded his authority."
The tariffs dispute will be the court's first major constitutional test on the merits over how broadly the conservative majority high court views Trump's muscular view of presidential power, a template for almost certain future appeals of his executive agenda.
In earlier disputes over temporary enforcement of those policies, the court's left-leaning justices warned against the judiciary becoming a rubber stamp, ceding its power in favor of this president.
After a late August high court order granting the government the power to temporarily terminate nearly $800 million in already-approved health research grants, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said her conservative colleagues had "ben[t] over backward to accommodate" the Trump administration. "Right when the Judiciary should be hunkering down to do all it can to preserve the law's constraints, the Court opts instead to make vindicating the rule of law and preventing manifestly injurious Government action as difficult as possible. This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins."
But some of Jackson's colleagues have denied they are paving the way for Trump's aggressive efforts to redo the federal government.
"The framers recognized, in a way that I think is brilliant, that preserving liberty requires separating the power," said Justice Brett Kavanaugh earlier this month at a Texas event. "No one person or group of people should have too much power in our system."
And Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Fox News' Bret Baier three weeks ago that she and her colleagues "don't wear red and blue, we all wear black because judges are nonpartisan ... We're all trying to get it right. We're not playing for a team."
Barrett, who is promoting her new book, "Listening to the Law," said her court takes a long-term view, and is not reflexively on Trump's side.
"We're not deciding cases just for today. And we're not deciding cases based on the president, as in the current occupant of the office," Barrett told Fox News. "I think the judiciary needs to stay in its lane ... we're taking each case and we're looking at the question of presidential power as it comes. And the cases that we decide today are going to matter, four presidencies from now, six presidencies from now."
KAVANAUGH CITES 3 PRESIDENTS IN EXPLAINING SUPREME COURT'S BALLOONING EMERGENCY DOCKET
These sharp court fractures between competing ideologies will likely escalate, as the justices begin a more robust look at a president's power, and by dint, their own.
"He who saves his Country does not violate any Law," Trump cryptically posted on social media a month after retaking office.
Federal courts have since been trying to navigate and articulate the limits of the executive branch, while managing their own powers.
Yet several federal judges — appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents — have expressed concern that the Supreme Court has been regularly overturning rulings by lower courts dealing with challenges to Trump administration policies — mostly with little or no explanation in its decisions.
Those judges — who all requested anonymity to speak candidly — tell Fox News those orders blocking enforcement have left the impression they are not doing their jobs or are biased against the President.
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Those frustrations have spilled into open court.
"They’re leaving the circuit courts, the district courts out in limbo," said federal appeals Judge James Wynn about the high court, during oral arguments this month over the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to Social Security data.
"We're out here flailing," said Wynn, an Obama bench appointee. "I'm not criticizing the justices. They're using a vehicle that’s there, but they are telling us nothing. They could easily just give us direction, and we would follow it."
The president may be winning short-term victories in a court where he has appointed a third of its members, but that has not stopped him or his associates from criticizing federal judges, even calling for their removal from office when preliminary rulings have gone against the administration.
"This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!" Trump posted on social media, after a March court ruling temporarily halting the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
The target of the attack was DC-based Chief Judge James Boasberg, appointed to the bench by President Obama.
Top Trump White House policy advisor Stephen Miller, in interviews, has warned against some unaccountable and "communist crazy judges" "trying to subvert the presidency."
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According to an analysis by Stanford University's Adam Bonica, federal district judges ruled against the administration 94.3% of the time between May and June.
But the Supreme Court has in turn reversed those injunctions more than 90% of the time, giving the president temporary authority to move ahead with his sweeping reform agenda.
As for the rhetoric, the high court has walked a delicate path, reluctant to criticize Trump directly, at least for now.
"The fact that some of our public leaders are lawyers advocating or making statements challenging the rule of law tells me that, fundamentally, our law schools are failing," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor at a recent Georgetown University Law Center event, without naming Trump by name. "Once we lose our common norms, we’ve lost the rule of law completely."
Chief Justice John Roberts in March offered a rare public statement criticizing impeachment calls from the right.
But several federal judges who spoke to Fox News also wish Roberts would do more to assert his authority and to temper what one judge called "disturbing" rhetoric.
The U.S. Marshals Service — responsible for court security — reports more than 500 threats against federal judges since last October, more than in previous years. Law enforcement sources say that includes Boasberg, who, along with his family, has received physical threats and intimidating social media posts.
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"I think it is a sign of a culture that has, where political discourse has soured beyond control," said Justice Barrett in recent days.
"The attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity," said Justice Jackson in May. "The threats and harassment are attacks on our democracy, on our system of government."
The administration in recent days asked Congress for $58 million more in security for executive branch officials and judges, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who led Turning Point USA.
A Fox News poll from this summer found 47% of voters approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing, a 9-point jump since last year when a record low 38% approved.
"Over the past decade, public confidence in our major institutions has declined," says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who helps conduct the Fox News survey with Democrat Chris Anderson. "The Court’s rebound could reflect its attempts to steer a middle course on politically polarizing questions or indicate an uptick in positive attitudes toward our more venerable institutions."
Still, by more than 2-to-1, more voters think the court is too conservative (43%) than too liberal in its decisions (18%, a low), while 36% think the court’s rulings are about right. That continues a seven-year trend.
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The public's views of the court's ability to steer clear of politics will be tested this term.
Besides the two Trump-related appeals, the justices are already scheduled to decide:
But court watchers are pointing to several hot-button pending appeals where "stare decisis" or respect for established landmark court rulings will be tested: same-sex marriage and communal school prayer.
The high court is expected to decide in coming weeks whether to put those petitions on its argument calendar, with possible rulings on the merits by June 2026.
But other cases are already awaiting a final ruling: the use of race in redistricting under the Voting Rights Act; and independent government boards.
"I think the likeliest candidates for being revisited are the ones that involve the power of the president to fire the heads of federal agencies," said attorney Dupree. "This is an old precedent that's been on the books really back since the New Deal, and it's come into question in recent years. There's been a long shadow hanging over these decisions, and I think the Supreme Court is poised to revisit those this term and in all likelihood overrule that."
The court may have already set the stage, by using the emergency docket in recent weeks to allow Trump to temporarily fire members of several other independent federal agencies without cause. The court's liberal wing complained that giving the president that power without explanation effectively unravels the 1935 precedent known as "Humphrey's Executor."
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"Today’s order favors the president over our precedent," said Justice Elena Kagan in a blistering dissent against Trump's removal of Gwynne Wilcox from the National Labor Relations Board.
The court's "impatience to get on with things — to now hand the President the most unitary, meaning also the most subservient, administration since Herbert Hoover (and maybe ever) — must reveal how that eventual decision will go" on the merits, added Kagan.
Sotomayor said recent overturned precedents were "really bad" for certain groups of people.
"And that’s what’s at risk, is in each time we change precedent, we are changing the contours of a right that people thought they had," she said this month. "Once you take that away, think of how much more is at risk later. Not just in this situation."
The conservative justices in recent years have not been shy about revisiting cases that had been settled for decades but now have been overturned: the nationwide right to abortion, affirmative action in education and the discretionary power of federal agencies.
Other pending issues the justices may soon be forced to confront which could upset longstanding precedent include libel lawsuits from public officials, flag burning and Ten Commandments displays in public schools.
One justice who has been more willing than his benchmates to overrule precedents may be its most influential: Justice Clarence Thomas.
"I don’t think that any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel," Thomas said last week at a Catholic University event. If it is "totally stupid, and that’s what they’ve decided, you don’t go along with it just because it's decided" already.