A federal grand jury in Washington declined to indict six Democratic members of Congress who published a video last November urging service members to refuse unlawful orders. The US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, led by Trump appointee Jeanine Pirro, had sought the charges — and came up empty.
The six lawmakers — Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, along with Representatives Jason Crow of Colorado, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania — all have backgrounds in the military or intelligence community. Their November 2025 video was brief and direct:
"Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders."
That single sentence detonated a political firestorm. And now, months later, the legal machinery marshaled against them has stalled at the grand jury stage, as the Daily Mail reported.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice already establishes that service members must obey lawful orders — and may refuse illegal ones. The six Democrats weren't announcing a novel legal theory. They were restating existing law on camera.
But context matters. The video landed in November 2025, and its timing carried an unmistakable political charge. It wasn't a civics lesson — it was a message aimed at the commander-in-chief. The Democrats knew exactly what they were doing, and the reaction was immediate.
President Trump responded on social media, calling the video:
"SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!"
Followed by:
"HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!"
Capitol Police moved to provide 24/7 security for the lawmakers. Senator Slotkin described the shift in mid-November:
"Capitol Police came to us and said, 'We're gonna put you on 24/7 security.' We've got law enforcement out in front of my house. I mean, it changes things immediately."
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth pursued his own track against Senator Kelly — a 25-year Navy combat pilot and former astronaut — seeking to strip his military rank and pay. That process remains ongoing.
The DOJ probe moved forward despite the lawmakers announcing they would not cooperate with it. The federal attorneys assigned to the case were reportedly political appointees rather than career DOJ prosecutors, according to an anonymous source cited by NBC News.
That detail matters. Grand juries are famously sympathetic to prosecutors. The old line about indicting a ham sandwich exists for a reason. When a grand jury declines to indict, it signals something beyond reasonable disagreement — it suggests the case presented to them was not persuasive on its most basic terms.
The Speech or Debate Clause in Article I of the Constitution provides lawmakers with broad protections for remarks relating to the "legislative sphere." Whether this specific video falls within that sphere is a legitimate legal question. But a grand jury didn't need to reach the constitutional argument — they apparently weren't convinced the case cleared even the preliminary threshold.
This is the core problem. If the administration believed these lawmakers committed a prosecutable offense, the case needed to be airtight. Instead, they handed Democrats exactly the narrative they wanted.
The six lawmakers wasted no time framing the outcome. Senator Kelly released a statement Tuesday evening:
"It wasn't enough for Pete Hegseth to censure me and threaten to demote me, now it appears they tried to have me charged with a crime — all because of something I said that they didn't like. That's not the way things work in America. Donald Trump wants every American to be too scared to speak out against him. The most patriotic thing any of us can do is not back down."
Senator Slotkin posted on X:
"But today wasn't just an embarrassing day for the Administration. It was another sad day for our country. Because whether or not Pirro succeeded is not the point. It's that President Trump continues to weaponize our justice system against his perceived enemies. It's the kind of thing you see in a foreign country, not in the United States we know and love."
Representative Crow was characteristically blunt:
"If these f***ers think that they're going to intimidate us and threaten and bully me in the silence, and they're going to go after political opponents and get us to back down, they have another thing coming. The tide is turning."
Representative Houlahan called it:
"It's a vindication for the Constitution."
None of these statements is surprising. What's notable is how cleanly they land. When you pursue a case and lose, your opponents get to write the story.
Here's where conservatives should be honest with themselves. The "seditious six" — as some on the right dubbed them — published a video that was politically provocative and deliberately timed to undermine confidence in the chain of command. There are legitimate reasons to find it objectionable. Encouraging service members to second-guess orders, even under the banner of existing law, carries implications that extend well beyond a civics refresher.
But objectionable speech and criminal conduct are not the same thing. The gap between the two is where American liberty lives. Conservatives spent the better part of a decade arguing — correctly — that the Obama and Biden DOJ had been weaponized against political opponents. The IRS targeting of Tea Party groups. The FISA abuse during the Russia investigation. The unequal application of the law during the summer of 2020. Those arguments carried weight because they were grounded in evidence of institutional overreach.
A failed indictment of sitting members of Congress — pursued by political appointees, rejected by a grand jury — hands the left the mirror image of every argument conservatives have made about prosecutorial abuse. It doesn't matter whether the two situations are truly equivalent. Politics runs on narrative, and this narrative writes itself.
The six Democrats are now more prominent than they were before the video. They have a persecution story. They have quotable defiance. They have a grand jury that functionally sided with them. Every strategic objective the prosecution might have served has been inverted.
Conservatives have stronger tools than failed indictments. The Speech or Debate Clause exists precisely to keep political speech disputes out of criminal courts and inside the political arena — where voters, not prosecutors, render judgment. The proper venue for accountability was always the next election, the committee hearing, or the public argument.
When the left overreached with its prosecutions, the result was a backlash that helped fuel a political realignment. Overreach doesn't become acceptable because the other side does it first. It becomes a gift to your opponents.
The administration has real power and a real mandate. Spending that capital on a case that a grand jury won't even return diminishes both.
The general counsels of America's three largest cell phone carriers sat before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday morning and defended their companies' decisions to hand over lawmakers' phone data to former special counsel Jack Smith — data obtained through subpoenas issued under non-disclosure orders that kept the targeted members of Congress entirely in the dark.
At least 84 subpoenas hit AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon as part of Smith's investigation. Ten of those subpoenas targeted the records of 20 current or former lawmakers. The companies complied. The lawmakers never knew.
That silence is the heart of the scandal.
According to Politico, each executive offered a variation on the same theme: we followed the law. T-Mobile general counsel Mark Nelson told the subcommittee that when T-Mobile receives valid demands from government entities, it responds "as required by law and with customer privacy top of mind." Verizon Consumer general counsel Chris Miller acknowledged the situation was imperfect but insisted his company operated within the legal framework. AT&T general counsel David McAtee offered a slightly different picture — his company actually pushed back.
McAtee testified that AT&T raised the Speech or Debate Clause with Smith's office when asked to produce lawmakers' phone data. The clause, a constitutional protection designed to shield legislators from executive branch intimidation, should have given any prosecutor pause. Smith's team apparently felt otherwise.
"The Special Counsel's office never responded to that email, at least not substantively. And ultimately, the office abandoned the subpoena, and no records were produced."
So when AT&T flagged a constitutional concern, Smith's office went quiet — and eventually walked away. That raises an obvious question: if the subpoena couldn't survive a polite email about constitutional protections, how solid was the legal basis in the first place?
T-Mobile and Verizon, by contrast, did not mount similar challenges. They turned over the records. Verizon, which controlled many accounts for lawmakers' personal and official phones, bore the brunt of senatorial anger.
Sen. Lindsey Graham's phone records were seized as part of Smith's probe. Graham directed his frustration squarely at Verizon's Miller:
"I don't think I deserve what happened to me."
"You failed me. You failed to honor the contract protecting us all."
Graham was among the most vocal in arguing that he and other affected lawmakers should be compensated. Sens. Josh Hawley and John Kennedy also gave Miller an earful during the hearing. The anger wasn't performative — these are sitting U.S. senators whose private communications were swept up by a political prosecution, and the companies they pay for phone service helped make it happen without so much as a courtesy call.
Miller, to his credit, conceded what others wouldn't:
"These were unprecedented circumstances, and while we fully complied with the law, we also acknowledge that we could have done better in terms of our process. One year ago, we began working with the Senate Sergeant at Arms on changes to the handling of legal demands for official Senate lines. And we have expanded those changes to include personal and campaign lines."
"Could have done better" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Verizon handed a politically motivated special counsel the call records of elected officials, shielded by non-disclosure orders that prevented those officials from knowing, challenging, or contesting the surveillance. A year later, they started talking to the Sergeant at Arms about maybe improving the process.
The carriers are the middlemen. The real question is what Jack Smith's office was doing issuing 84 subpoenas — ten of them targeting lawmakers — while operating under non-disclosure orders that ensured no one on Capitol Hill could raise a constitutional objection in real time.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley framed it plainly in his opening statement:
"Smith and his team irresponsibly steamrolled ahead while intentionally hiding their activities from Members of Congress."
Grassley has pledged to call Smith to testify before his committee in the coming months. Smith recently appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, where he maintained that politics played no role in his work and said he would have made the same prosecutorial decisions regardless of whether the former president was Republican or Democratic.
That claim grows harder to sustain with each new revelation. Dozens of felony charges were levied against a political opponent. Subpoenas vacuuming up the phone records of Republican lawmakers. Non-disclosure orders ensured none of the targets could fight back. And when one carrier — AT&T — raised a basic constitutional question, the special counsel's office abandoned the subpoena rather than answer it. That's not the behavior of a prosecution confident in its legal footing. That's the behavior of a prosecution hoping no one would ask.
Ranking member Sen. Dick Durbin offered the Democratic response, which amounted to: why are we even talking about this?
"This is frankly an embarrassing use of the committee's limited time, and I urge my colleagues to turn their attention to the threats that President Trump currently poses to our democracy."
A special counsel secretly obtained the phone records of sitting members of Congress, and the Democratic position is that investigating it wastes time. Durbin did say Smith should testify "as soon as possible," — but the framing tells you everything. For Democrats, the surveillance of Republican lawmakers isn't a civil liberties concern. It's an inconvenience that distracts from their preferred narrative.
Imagine, for one moment, the reaction if a Trump-era special counsel had secretly subpoenaed the phone records of 20 Democratic lawmakers. The words "constitutional crisis" would have trended for a week. Every editorial board in America would have discovered a sudden passion for the Speech or Debate Clause. The asymmetry isn't subtle.
Grassley's pledge to haul Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee sets up the next act. Smith's House testimony offered his version of events — no political motivation, just following the facts. But the facts now include a special counsel who issued subpoenas he abandoned the moment a carrier questioned their constitutionality, who operated behind non-disclosure orders that neutralized congressional oversight, and who targeted the communications of the very legislators responsible for checking executive power.
The carriers will update their processes. Verizon already has. But process reforms don't answer the foundational question: What happens when a weaponized prosecution uses lawful mechanisms to achieve unlawful ends? The subpoenas were technically valid. The non-disclosure orders were technically legal. And yet the result was that a special counsel investigating the president's political allies secretly obtained the phone records of his political allies in Congress — and nobody could object because nobody knew.
The system worked exactly as Smith designed it to. That's the problem.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani became the first New York City mayor in nearly a century to skip the installation of the city's new Catholic archbishop — then tried to cover it with a tweet.
Archbishop Ronald Hicks, 58, accepted the reins of the New York Archdiocese from Cardinal Timothy Dolan at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Friday in a ceremony that began at 2 p.m. The 11th archbishop since 1850 now leads a flock of an estimated 2.5 million Catholics across Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, and counties north of the city.
The mayor was not there. He posted about it on X instead.
"Congratulations to Archbishop Ronald Hicks on today's installment and welcome to New York City."
He followed that with a promise that he and Hicks share "a deep and abiding commitment to the dignity of every human being" and that he looks forward to "working together to create a more just and compassionate city where every New Yorker can thrive."
Every New Yorker, apparently, except the 2.5 million Catholics whose most significant religious ceremony in years didn't rate a walk up Fifth Avenue.
The mayoral attendance record stretches back to at least 1939, when Fiorello LaGuardia attended the installation of Francis Spellman. Ed Koch — Jewish — was present for Cardinal John O'Connor's ceremony in 1984. Rudy Giuliani was at St. Patrick's for Archbishop Edward Egan's installation in 2000. Michael Bloomberg — also Jewish — attended Cardinal Dolan's installation mass in 2009.
Koch and Bloomberg didn't share the faith. They showed up anyway. That's what leaders of a pluralistic city do — they honor the institutions that bind their constituents together, especially the ones that don't share their own background. It is the most basic gesture of civic respect.
Mamdani couldn't be bothered, however, as MSN reported.
City Hall eventually claimed Mamdani had a "scheduling conflict" and had sent a Catholic deputy mayor in his place. But his own public schedule tells a different story. The mayor attended an interfaith prayer breakfast at 10 a.m. and had a winter weather press conference at 4 p.m. The installation began at 2 p.m. — at a cathedral that, as the Catholic League pointedly noted, is a short walk up Fifth Avenue from the prayer breakfast venue at the New York Public Library.
The Catholic League did not mince words:
"The mayor of New York City traditionally attends the installation of the new archbishop of New York, but Mamdani — who was invited — ghosted the event."
"He could easily have been there. Instead, he attended to business as usual."
City Hall ignored several outreach attempts by the New York Post on both Friday and Monday. Only after publication did a spokesperson surface to say Mamdani and Hicks would speak on Tuesday. The damage-control instinct arrived well after the damage.
What makes Mamdani's absence sharper is the context surrounding it. In the same week, he put out a tweet marking World Hijab Day. At the annual interfaith prayer breakfast — the very event he attended that same Friday morning — he suggested that the United States should use the Prophet Muhammed's example on immigration.
No one objects to a mayor engaging with the Muslim community. The problem is the contrast. When you find time to commemorate World Hijab Day and invoke the Prophet Muhammed at a public event but can't walk a few blocks to honor the installation of the Catholic archbishop who shepherds millions of your constituents, you aren't practicing interfaith leadership. You're practicing selective faith engagement, and the selections are telling.
Bill Cunningham, former communications director and top adviser to Mayor Bloomberg, attended the 2009 installation himself. He told the Post:
"It was a missed opportunity for the mayor to show he wants to serve all the segments of the city."
"There are certain institutions the mayor of New York might want to take note of. One of them is the Catholic Church."
Ken Frydman, spokesman for Giuliani's 1993 campaign, was blunter:
"I thought Mamdani only disdains Jews who like Israel. Turns out, he also disdains Italian, Irish and other Catholic New Yorkers."
The Catholic League framed the absence in terms that will resonate far beyond one missed ceremony:
"Mamdani has been in office for just over a month, and already he is signaling to Catholics that they are not welcome."
That's the read, and Mamdani has done nothing to rebut it. His own representative, asked about the absence, offered this to a reporter: the mayor didn't go, but he tweeted about it. As if a social media post is a substitute for presence. As if the mayor of the largest city in the country can discharge his civic obligations from a phone screen.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Catholic, was in Syracuse at the Democratic convention formally accepting a nomination — an actual scheduling conflict with a verifiable event. Nobody faulted her for it. Mamdani had a four-hour gap between breakfast and a press conference. The excuse doesn't hold.
A mayor barely five weeks into office has managed to signal to one of the city's largest religious communities that their traditions rank below a weather briefing. He's shown that "interfaith" means the faiths he personally prioritizes. And when called on it, his administration went silent for days before offering a story contradicted by his own public calendar.
New York has had mayors of every faith and no faith. Every single one of them understood that the installation of an archbishop isn't a church picnic — it's a civic event, a recognition that the Catholic Church is woven into the fabric of the city. Schools, hospitals, charities, and parishes in every borough. You don't have to take communion to acknowledge what that institution means to millions of people.
Mamdani tweeted. The 2.5 million Catholics of the New York Archdiocese will remember what he didn't do.
A suspect in the 2012 Benghazi attack is now on American soil, facing murder, arson, and terrorism charges — and the prosecutor who met his plane at 3:00 a.m. says he's just the beginning.
The Department of Justice announced that Zubayar al-Bakoush had been extradited to the United States to face an eight-count indictment tied to the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro appeared on FNC's "Hannity" to lay out the charges and deliver a message that ought to rattle anyone still breathing free after that night in Benghazi.
Pirro said:
"We are not done yet, Sean. There are more of those people, those peaceful protesters. That was nonsense."
The indictment — filed roughly two months ago and unsealed the day of Pirro's appearance — charges Bakoush with supporting terrorism, providing material support to terrorism resulting in the murder of several people, including Smith and Ambassador Stevens, the attempted murder of Scott Wickland, and arson.
Pirro didn't delegate this one. She was standing on the tarmac when Bakoush's jet landed in the early hours of Friday morning — and she made no effort to hide her contempt for the man stepping off it.
"I wanted to see that dirtbag Bakoush get off that jet and make sure that he got into the hands of American law enforcement. My office indicted him two months ago. The indictment was unsealed today."
She described the brutality in plain terms. When attackers could not breach Villa C, where Ambassador Stevens sheltered with Sean Smith, they retrieved gas cans and set the building on fire. The goal was to make sure those Americans died.
"These people when they couldn't breach villa C where Ambassador Stevens was with Sean Smith, they went out and got gas cans. I'm talking about Bakoush, and they set fire to make sure that those Americans died."
Pirro credited Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Marco Rubio with helping secure the extradition. The machinery of accountability, dormant for over a decade, was finally put into motion.
Before going on air, Pirro had already spoken to the families of all four Americans killed in Benghazi. Their reaction tells you everything about how long this justice was delayed.
"They were thrilled. They didn't expect this."
That line deserves a moment. The families of Americans murdered in a terrorist attack on sovereign U.S. facilities — people who watched Washington spend years deflecting, minimizing, and moving on — did not expect anyone would still be pursuing their case. That is the indictment of the previous response that no courtroom filing could match.
Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, texted Pirro on the day the indictment was unsealed. Through Pirro, she shared the words her son had spoken to her before he was killed:
"Mom, I'm going to die. They're not going to send help."
Family members, relayed through Pirro, asked her to pass along a message to President Trump:
"Please tell President Trump how grateful we are. We knew that he stood for us. We knew he would never forget."
Pirro drove straight at the official narrative that the Obama administration constructed in the aftermath of Benghazi — the story about a "peaceful protest that went awry," the assurances of a few "troublemakers," the careful stage management on Sunday morning talk shows.
"We knew that we were being lied to. We knew that when they said it was a peaceful protest that went awry, or there were just a few troublemakers or that when President Obama said, quote, 'We did everything we could.'"
They didn't do everything they could. That has been obvious for thirteen years. But what made Benghazi burn in the national memory wasn't just the failure — it was the institutional shrug that followed. The "What difference does it make?" posture. The Sunday show's talking points treated the truth like a messaging problem to be managed rather than a massacre to be answered.
Pirro drew the contrast herself, and it's a sharp one. In 2012, the cavalry never came. Now the cavalry brought a defendant back in handcuffs.
"This was for most Americans, Sean, and for me in particular, the first time in my life that I realized that the American cavalry wasn't coming for you. And right now, we know the difference between the presidents because it is President Trump who has made the decision to bring the American cavalry in to protect Americans."
Bakoush is not the first Benghazi defendant prosecuted by Pirro's office. She referenced two prior defendants who went through the same jurisdiction. He won't be the last. Pirro's language was deliberate and forward-looking — "future Benghazi defendants" — a phrase designed to land in Benghazi and wherever the remaining attackers are hiding.
This case languished. Pirro said it herself. The question now is whether the pace holds — whether the apparatus that pulled Bakoush out of wherever he'd been sitting for over a decade can find the rest of them. The indictment is eight counts. The promise is open-ended.
For thirteen years, the families of the Benghazi dead carried their grief through a political environment that treated their loss as an inconvenient talking point — something to be debunked, fact-checked, or memory-holed whenever it became uncomfortable for the people who let it happen. Patricia Smith's son told her he was going to die because help wasn't coming. Now someone is answering for it.
Not all of them. Not yet. But Jeanine Pirro was on that tarmac at 3:00 a.m. for a reason.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard torched Sen. Mark Warner on Saturday, posting a detailed rebuttal on X after the Virginia Democrat accused her of burying a classified whistleblower complaint filed against her last May. Gabbard didn't mince words—she called Warner a liar and laid out a timeline she says exonerates her office entirely.
The complaint, filed by an unnamed U.S. intelligence official eight months ago, alleges wrongdoing on the part of Gabbard. Neither the contents nor the specific allegations have been revealed. What has been revealed is a political fight over process—specifically, how long the complaint sat before reaching Congress and who bears responsibility for the delay.
Warner says the law required Congress to receive the complaint within 21 days. Gabbard says that the requirement doesn't apply here. One of them is banking on the public not reading the fine print.
Gabbard's Saturday post was lengthy, specific, and combative. She went after Warner by name and accused him of coordinating with the media to mislead the public.
"Senator Mark Warner and his friends in the Propaganda Media have repeatedly lied to the American people that I or the ODNI 'hid' a whistleblower complaint in a safe for eight months. This is a blatant lie."
She then zeroed in on the custody chain—a detail Warner's framing conveniently omits. The complaint wasn't sitting in Gabbard's desk drawer. According to Gabbard, it was secured by Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson, who held possession of it for months before her successor, Inspector General Chris Fox, continued the same protocols, as Fox News reports.
"I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or control of the Whistleblower's complaint, so I obviously could not have 'hidden' it in a safe. Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson was in possession of and responsible for securing the complaint for months."
That's a significant point. If the complaint spent the bulk of its life in the hands of a Biden-appointed inspector general, the "Gabbard buried it" narrative requires some creative rewriting of the calendar.
Warner's accusation rests on a specific legal claim: that the statute required the complaint to reach Congress within 21 days of filing. Gabbard's rebuttal rests on an equally specific legal distinction—one that matters far more than Warner seems to want anyone to notice.
"The '21 day' requirement that Senator Warner alleges I did not comply with, only applies when a complaint is determined by the Inspector General to be both urgent AND apparently credible. That was NOT the case here."
An inspector general representative told the Wall Street Journal that it had determined some of the allegations in the complaint weren't credible, while it hasn't decided on others. If the complaint failed the credibility threshold, the 21-day clock never started. Warner's entire legal argument collapses into a talking point.
Gabbard said she was first notified by Chris Fox on December 4 that she needed to provide security guidance on how to share the complaint with Congress. She wrote that she took immediate action and that the IC Inspector General shared the complaint and referenced intelligence with relevant members of Congress last week. Fox hand-delivered it to the Gang of 8.
Gabbard offered Warner a choice:
Either he knows these facts and is intentionally lying to the American people, or he doesn't have a clue how these things work and is therefore not qualified to be in the U.S. Senate.
Both options are unflattering. Neither is implausible.
Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told NPR on Thursday that the situation was straightforward:
"The law is clear."
He added that the complaint was required to be sent to Congress within 21 days of its filing and said he believed it was an effort to bury the whistleblower complaint. His office told Fox News Digital that Gabbard's post was an "inaccurate attack that's entirely on brand for someone who has already and repeatedly proven she's unqualified to serve as DNI."
Notice what's missing from Warner's response: any engagement with Gabbard's actual legal argument. She cited the credibility threshold. He repeated, "The law is clear." She named the Biden-era inspector general who held the complaint for months. He said she buried it. The accusation doesn't change no matter how many times the defense is stated—which tells you everything about whether this is a legal dispute or a political operation.
Sen. Tom Cotton reviewed the complaint and the inspector general's handling of it, then posted his assessment on X Thursday:
"I agree with both inspectors general who have evaluated the matter: the complaint is not credible and the inspectors general and the DNI took the necessary steps to ensure the material has handled and transmitted appropriately in accordance with law."
Cotton didn't stop there. He framed the entire episode as part of a broader pattern—one that should sound familiar to anyone who watched the last decade of Washington politics.
"To be frank, it seems like just another effort by the president's critics in and out of government to undermine policies that they don't like; it's definitely not credible allegations of waste, fraud, or abuse."
Cotton's characterization carries weight here. He's a Republican on the intelligence committee who has actually read the classified material. Warner has read it too—but Warner's public statements focus on process timelines, not the substance of what's in the complaint. That asymmetry is telling.
One U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal that disclosing the complaint's contents could cause "grave damage to national security." That's a detail worth sitting with. The same complaint Democrats are using to attack Gabbard is apparently so sensitive that its mere disclosure would be dangerous—and yet the political pressure campaign to publicize the dispute around it rolls forward without hesitation.
This is the contradiction at the heart of Warner's gambit. He wants maximum political damage from a complaint whose contents he can't discuss, filed by a person he can't name, about allegations an inspector general has partly deemed not credible. The weapon isn't the complaint itself. It's the accusation that it was hidden.
The whistleblower's lawyer accused Gabbard's office of slow-walking the complaint. Gabbard's office called the accusation "baseless and politically motivated."
Washington has a well-worn formula for this kind of fight. A classified complaint surfaces through media leaks. The substance remains hidden—conveniently immune to public scrutiny—while the process debate dominates headlines. The accused can't fully defend herself without compromising classified material. The accuser gets to imply the worst while risking nothing.
Gabbard, to her credit, engaged on the specifics. She named the Biden-era inspector general who held the complaint. She cited the legal standard Warner ignored. She provided a timeline with dates. Warner responded with a sentence fragment and a character attack.
The question isn't whether the complaint was in a safe for eight months. Everyone agrees it was. The question is whether Gabbard put it there—or whether a Biden appointee did, following standard protocol for classified material that didn't meet the credibility bar for expedited congressional review.
Warner knows the answer. He's counting on everyone else not to ask the question.
The Richmond-based Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Friday that President Trump's executive orders eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives across federal agencies and contractors can proceed. The New York Post reported that the three-judge panel vacated a preliminary injunction issued by a Maryland federal judge that had kept the orders on ice — a clean win for an administration that has made dismantling the DEI apparatus a signature priority.
The ruling landed with a clarity that the legal resistance to these orders has lacked from the start. Chief Judge Albert Diaz, an Obama appointee, wrote the opinion himself.
"President Trump has decided that equity isn't a priority in his administration and so has directed his subordinates to terminate funding that supports equity-related projects to the maximum extent allowed by law."
That's not a conservative pundit talking. That's the judge who ruled against the injunction, describing the executive orders in terms that sound a lot like a president simply doing his job.
Maryland federal judge Adam B. Abelson had blocked the orders not once but twice. He first granted a nationwide injunction, which this same Fourth Circuit panel struck down back in March 2025. Abelson then issued a preliminary injunction. The Fourth Circuit has now vacated that one, too.
The pattern is worth noting. A single district court judge repeatedly attempted to freeze a sitting president's policy directives — and was repeatedly told by the appellate court above him that he overstepped.
The lawsuit behind the injunction was brought by Baltimore's mayor and city council, the American Association of University Professors, and the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. They argued the orders violated the First and Fifth Amendments.
The court was unpersuaded. The panel found that Trump "may determine his policy priorities and instruct his agents to make funding decisions based on them." Diaz posed the question plainly:
"Whether that's sound policy or not isn't our call. We ask only whether the policy is unconstitutionally vague for funding recipients."
The answer, evidently, was no.
The most revealing portion of the ruling wasn't in the body of the opinion — it was buried in a footnote. Chief Judge Diaz used a lengthy aside to take a shot at Secretary of State Marco Rubio over his directive ending the use of the Calibri font in official State Department correspondence.
Diaz acknowledged that Rubio's stated reasons were sound — that his preferred fonts offered more professional typography and that Calibri hadn't meaningfully improved reader accessibility. Then Diaz noted that Rubio didn't stop there:
"Had the Secretary left it there, I would applaud him, particularly since our court favors his font choice." "But leave it there, he couldn't. Instead, the Secretary lashed out at his predecessor for imposing yet another 'illegal, immoral, radical [and] wasteful [diversity initiative]' before ordering Calibri's demise."
Diaz also wrote that the "Administration's obsession over so-called 'woke' DEI programs appears to know no bounds."
It's a curious thing for a judge to do — rule in the administration's favor on the actual legal question and then use the margins of his opinion to editorialize about the administration's tone.
The footnote reads less like jurisprudence and more like a judge who wanted to make sure his friends knew he didn't enjoy ruling this way. He even consoled "those disappointed by the outcome," urging them to "keep the faith" and "depend on the Constitution, which remains a beacon."
That's an unusual amount of pastoral care from an appellate opinion. But the ruling itself is what matters — and on the merits, it wasn't close.
Trump signed his first DEI-related executive order on Day One of his presidency, directing federal departments and agencies to cut equity-related grants and contracts.
A second order followed, mandating that federal contractors certify they don't promote DEI. Together, the orders represent the most direct challenge to the DEI infrastructure that spread through federal agencies and into the private sector over the past decade.
Justice Department attorneys argued that DEI programs and initiatives ran afoul of federal civil rights legislation — a position that reframes the entire debate. For years, the DEI industry operated under the assumption that its programs were the natural fulfillment of civil rights law. The administration's legal position inverts that claim: these programs don't advance civil rights — they violate them.
The plaintiffs in this case are instructive. The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education exists to promote the very positions these officers target.
Baltimore's city leadership has presided over one of the most troubled cities in America while prioritizing equity language in grant applications. The American Association of University Professors has spent years defending campus orthodoxies that treat dissent as harm.
These aren't neutral parties defending constitutional principles. They are institutions whose funding streams and professional relevance depend on the survival of DEI.
This is now the second time the Fourth Circuit has sided with the administration on these orders. The March 2025 ruling striking down the nationwide injunction sent a signal. Friday's ruling confirmed it wasn't a fluke. All three judges — Diaz, Pamela A. Harris, and Allison Jones Rushing — concurred.
The unanimity matters. When an Obama-appointed chief judge writes the opinion vacating an injunction against a Trump executive order, the legal arguments against the order start looking thin.
The constitutional claims made by the plaintiffs — that directing federal funding priorities amounts to a First or Fifth Amendment violation — never carried the weight their proponents insisted they did. A president directing how federal money gets spent is not a constitutional crisis. It is governance.
The DEI industry had grown accustomed to operating as if its existence were constitutionally mandated — as if any attempt to defund or dismantle it were inherently unlawful. Courts are now systematically dismantling that assumption.
With the preliminary injunction vacated, the executive orders take effect. Federal agencies will resume implementing the directives to cut equity-related funding. Contractors will face certification requirements. The organizations that built their business models around DEI compliance are going to discover what happens when the federal spigot turns.
Judge Abelson has now been overruled twice on this issue by the same panel. Whether the plaintiffs seek further review remains to be seen, but the legal trend line is moving in one direction. The administration's position — that the president can set policy priorities and direct funding accordingly — is a principle so basic it's remarkable it required appellate litigation to affirm.
Chief Judge Diaz closed his concurrence by telling the disappointed to keep the faith. The faith he should have pointed them toward is simpler than he made it sound: elections have consequences, presidents set priorities, and courts interpret law — not feelings. The Fourth Circuit, to its credit, did exactly that.
Islamic terrorists descended on villages in western Nigeria this week and slaughtered at least 162 people — many of them Muslims whose only offense was refusing to submit to jihadist ideology. The dead include men, women, and children across the villages of Woro, Nuku, and Patigi in Kwara state, with additional attacks claiming lives in Katsina and Benue states. Some of the bodies are still being recovered from the bush.
Approximately 200 attackers stormed Woro alone. They burned homes, looted property, and killed indiscriminately. Nigerian lawmaker Mohammed Omar Bio told the Associated Press that at least 162 people were confirmed dead in Woro and Nuku, with the toll expected to climb. The Daily Trust reported that over 130 additional deaths were anticipated once damage assessments concluded across all affected areas, including Katsina and Benue.
The attackers have been identified variously as members of Lakurawa — an Islamic State affiliate — Boko Haram, and so-called "bandits," a term Nigerian officials often use for armed jihadist groups operating in the country's north and west, according to Breitbart News. Whatever name they carry, the result is the same: mass death inflicted on defenseless communities.
The motive behind the attacks carries a particularly grim clarity. Kwara Police Commissioner Adekimi Ojo told the Daily Trust that the terrorists had previously attempted to impose their ideology on the targeted villages — and were turned away.
"We learnt there was a time they wrote a letter that they were coming to preach, but the village head refused. I am sure this incident is a kind of reprisal for that refusal."
Kwara Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq shared that 75 "local Muslims" were killed in Patigi, and that police officials believed the massacre was a direct response to the community rejecting what he characterized as a "strange doctrine." President Tinubu's office described the dead as Muslims who had:
"rejected their [the terrorists'] obnoxious attempt at indoctrination, choosing instead to practice Islam that is neither extreme nor violent."
Read that carefully. These were not soldiers. They were not political operatives. They were villagers — faithful Muslims — who told jihadists "no." And for that, they were executed.
Alhaji Salihu Bio Umar, a village leader, offered a devastating account to the Daily Trust:
"75 people have been identified and some got burnt completely beyond recognition including Muslims and Christians. Others are yet to be traced up till this moment. We estimated about a hundred people with some corpses still in the bush and my palace was burnt. However we have information that some bodies are still in the bush."
His losses were not abstract.
"Two of my sons have been killed. They left with my Highlander Jeep. They also burnt all the shops in the community."
In Katsina state, at least 20 more people were killed. In Benue state, at least 17. Reports indicated that the scale of the carnage in Woro was aided in part by locals being afraid to alert government authorities — a detail that speaks volumes about the erosion of trust between Nigerian citizens and the institutions that are supposed to protect them.
An unidentified eyewitness to the Katsina attack captured the despair plainly:
"Is there really a government in this country? They have failed us."
Boko Haram formally declared allegiance to the global Islamic State movement in 2015. In the decade since, Nigeria has become one of the deadliest places on earth for civilians of all faiths. Jihadist groups operate with near impunity in vast stretches of the country's north and west, raiding villages, conscripting fighters, and terrorizing anyone who resists their ideology. The Nigerian government's inability — or unwillingness — to secure its own territory has been a running crisis for years.
What has changed is American engagement.
President Trump declared Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom in October — a formal designation that carries diplomatic weight and signals that the United States views Nigeria's security failures as a matter of international concern. On Christmas Day, Trump ordered airstrikes on northwestern Nigeria with the cooperation of President Tinubu. Experts suggested the likeliest targets of those strikes were members of Lakurawa, the same Islamic State affiliate now blamed for the Woro massacre.
On Tuesday, U.S. Africa Command confirmed that a small team of American military officers had been deployed to Nigeria to aid in the fight against terrorism. That deployment, paired with the CPC designation and the Christmas Day strikes, represents a clear escalation of American involvement — one driven by the recognition that jihadist networks in West Africa pose a threat that extends well beyond Nigeria's borders.
President Tinubu announced on Wednesday an immediate military deployment to Kwara state. His office stated that a new military command would spearhead Operation Savannah Shield to, in his words:
"checkmate the barbaric terrorists and protect defenceless communities."
Tinubu condemned the attacks directly:
"He condemned the cowardly and beastly attack and described the gunmen as heartless for choosing soft targets in their doomed campaign of terror."
Strong words. But strong words have been issued after Nigerian massacres before. The question now is whether Operation Savannah Shield amounts to a genuine strategic shift or another temporary surge that fades once international attention moves on. The deployment of American military officers suggests this time may be different — that external pressure and partnership are backing the Nigerian government's stated intentions.
One detail worth noting: Nigerian officials cannot seem to agree on who carried out the attacks. Lawmaker Mohammed Omar Bio identified the attackers as members of Lakurawa. President Tinubu's office called them Boko Haram. Others used the catch-all term "bandits." This is not a minor discrepancy. Lakurawa and Boko Haram are distinct organizations with different command structures, even if both operate under the Islamic State's ideological umbrella. If the Nigerian government cannot accurately identify the enemy, the prospects for Operation Savannah Shield dim considerably.
Effective counterterrorism requires precise intelligence. Lumping every armed group into one category — or mislabeling them for political convenience — is how governments lose wars against insurgencies. American military advisors on the ground may help sharpen that picture, but the confusion at the highest levels of Nigerian leadership is not encouraging.
The scale of this week's attacks — at least 162 confirmed dead across multiple villages, with the true toll likely far higher — represents one of the worst episodes of jihadist violence in Nigeria in recent memory. It also exposes a grim reality: the Islamic State's global network is not contained to the Middle East or North Africa. It is active, lethal, and expanding in West Africa.
The Trump administration's approach — CPC designation, direct military action on Christmas Day, and now boots on the ground in an advisory capacity — treats the Nigerian situation with the seriousness it demands. That stands in stark contrast to years of diplomatic hand-wringing that produced no meaningful change for the people of Woro, Nuku, and Patigi.
Alhaji Salihu Bio Umar lost two sons this week. His palace was burned. Bodies remain uncollected in the bush. He is not a statistic. He is a man who watched his community destroyed because its members refused to bend to terrorists.
The villages said no. Two hundred attackers made them pay for it. Now the question is whether anyone with the power to act will ensure it never happens again.
In a decision that’s sure to rattle the political landscape, the U.S. Supreme Court has greenlit California’s new congressional map, tilting the scales toward Democrats for this year’s elections.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court issued a brief, unsigned order rejecting an emergency appeal from California Republicans and the Trump administration to block the voter-approved map. The ruling, which did not explain, saw no dissenting justices and keeps in place districts poised to flip as many as five Republican-held seats. This comes as filing for congressional primaries in California begins on Monday.
The decision follows a lower court’s 2-1 rejection of claims by Republicans, supported by the Trump administration, that the map improperly considered race. Meanwhile, the Justice Department and White House have not responded to requests for comment on the ruling. The order aligns with the court’s earlier allowance of a Republican-friendly map in Texas, despite a lower court finding potential racial discrimination there.
Critics on the right see this as another chapter in a blatant power grab by the left, especially in a state like California, where Democrats already dominate. The nationwide redistricting battle, intensified by President Trump’s push in Texas to secure Republican seats, now faces a counterpunch from California’s leadership. This tit-for-tat struggle over congressional control is heating up ahead of the November midterms, the Associated Press reported.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat with rumored ambitions for a 2028 presidential bid, didn’t hide his glee over the court’s ruling. On social media, he crowed that Trump had “started this redistricting war” and predicted a Democratic victory in the midterms. It’s the kind of chest-thumping that grates on anyone who values fair play over partisan gamesmanship.
Newsom’s pledge to retaliate against Texas’ redistricting wasn’t just empty talk; he rallied voters to approve this map, bypassing the need for legislative arm-twisting. Meanwhile, California Attorney General Rob Bonta chimed in, calling the decision “good news not only for Californians, but for our democracy.” Such rhetoric drips with irony to those who see this as democracy being redrawn for one party’s gain.
Republicans aren’t rolling over, though, with the state party vowing to fight the map’s use in future elections. Longtime strategist Jon Fleishman, formerly with the California Republican Party, noted on X that “this year’s elections will take place on the new lines, shrinking the already very small Republican delegation from California.” That’s a bitter pill for a state where conservative voices are already drowned out.
The Supreme Court’s silence on its reasoning—common for emergency docket rulings—offers little clarity for those challenging the map. Justice Samuel Alito had previously pointed out that both California and Texas seemed to redraw districts for political advantage, a practice the court has ruled isn’t grounds for federal lawsuits. This leaves Republicans grasping for legal footholds in a fight that feels increasingly stacked against them.
Let’s not pretend this is anything but a calculated move by California’s Democratic machine to tighten its grip on Congress. The map’s design to flip up to five seats isn’t happenstance; it’s a direct jab at what’s left of Republican influence in the Golden State. For conservatives, this is a stark reminder of how the left plays hardball while preaching about fairness.
President Trump’s bold redistricting efforts in Texas last year aimed to shore up five Republican seats, a strategic masterstroke to counterbalance liberal strongholds like California. Now, with Newsom and his allies hitting back, the midterm elections are shaping up as a battleground for congressional control. Conservatives must admire Trump’s foresight in pushing these boundaries, even if the opposition is retaliating with equal ruthlessness.
What’s galling is how the left frames this as a moral crusade while conveniently ignoring their own gerrymandering tactics. The hypocrisy is thick when California Democrats cry foul over Texas but celebrate their own map as a win for democracy. For those paying attention, it’s just politics as usual—only with higher stakes.
Looking ahead, the California Republican Party’s determination to challenge this map in future cycles offers a glimmer of hope. But with the immediate elections locked under these new lines, the damage may already be done. Conservatives nationwide will be watching to see if this sparks a broader pushback against partisan map-drawing.
The midterm elections are now a pressure cooker, with control of Congress hanging in the balance. California’s new map could tip the scales, potentially handing Democrats a stronger hand in Washington. For those who value limited government and traditional principles, this is a wake-up call to mobilize.
This ruling isn’t just about lines on a map; it’s about the future of political power in America. If conservatives don’t counter these moves with equal resolve, the left’s stranglehold on key states will only tighten. The fight for fair representation is far from over, and it’s one worth waging with every tool at hand.
Disturbing new images have surfaced, shedding light on the final moments of Jeffrey Epstein’s life in a New York City jail cell.
Released as part of a massive document dump by the Department of Justice, the materials include previously unseen photos of Epstein’s body and cell after his death on Aug. 10, 2019. The files, comprising a death investigation from the FBI’s New York Field Office and a report from the Metropolitan Correctional Center’s Lieutenant’s Office, detail the grim scene where Epstein was found hanged.
Dozens of images also show emergency efforts to resuscitate him, as well as the makeshift noose crafted from prison materials.
On Aug. 9, the day before Epstein’s death, he attended court in the morning, and by afternoon, his cellmate departed, leaving uncertainty about whether a new one would be assigned. According to the New York Post, an officer noted, “possibly may not return, so Epstein would need a cellmate upon arrival from his attorney visit.”
That evening, Epstein made a 20-minute phone call from the shower area, dialed by an officer since he lacked his access code. Two other officers, pulling overtime until 8 a.m. the next day, were left to monitor him. Yet, something went terribly wrong in those overnight hours.
At 6:33 a.m. on Aug. 10, a body alarm sounded, and an officer reported to the morning lieutenant that “Epstein hung himself.” Photos reveal a strip of orange fabric tied to the metal bed frame and a noose made from bedsheet strips measuring 31 inches. The scene paints a haunting picture of desperation—or something more sinister, depending on who you ask.
What’s particularly galling is the admission of negligence by the officers on duty. One confessed, “We did not complete the 3 a.m. nor 5 a.m. rounds,” laying bare a failure that could have cost a life—or at least delayed discovery. This kind of lapse in a federal facility is the stuff of nightmares for anyone who values law and order.
Epstein was moved to a second-floor medical area where CPR was attempted, first by the lieutenant and then by a nurse, but no pulse was detected.
He was rushed to Beekman Hospital in an ambulance, with images showing TENS pads on his chest, a neck brace, and an oxygen tank strapped to his gurney. His official time of death was recorded as 7:36 a.m.
The photos are unsettling, showing Epstein’s face red and bloated, with deep cuts on his neck from the noose. His orange prison shirt was torn open during resuscitation efforts, and an IV drip was attached as medics fought a losing battle. It’s hard to look at these images and not wonder how a system meant to protect—or at least contain—failed so spectacularly.
Epstein was awaiting trial on serious federal charges, including sex-trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit the same. Reports suggest he victimized hundreds of women and girls at his Manhattan townhouse, his private Caribbean island, Little St. James, and his New Mexico ranch. This wasn’t just a small-time crook; this was a predator on a scale that demands answers.
Yet, instead of justice, we’re left with fractured thyroid cartilage and a fractured sense of trust in our institutions. The Department of Justice’s release last Friday offers a detailed account of Epstein’s last minutes, but it’s cold comfort when the bigger question—how this was allowed—remains unanswered. This isn’t just a tragedy; it’s a scandal of epic proportions.
Now, let’s talk about what this means for a nation fed up with bureaucracy run amok. When officers admit to skipping rounds and high-profile inmates slip through the cracks, it’s not just incompetence—it’s a betrayal of the public’s trust. We’re not here for excuses; we’re here for a system that actually works.
The left might spin this as a one-off, but let’s be real: this is what happens when oversight gets drowned in red tape and political correctness trumps common sense. If we can’t secure a single cell in a federal jail, how are we supposed to secure anything else? It’s time to stop coddling failure and start demanding results.
For anyone struggling with thoughts of despair, resources like the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 are available. But beyond personal crises, we’ve got a national crisis of accountability to address. Let’s not let Epstein’s death be just another headline—let it be a wake-up call to fix what’s broken.
In a dramatic turn of events, the House Republican majority has been slashed to a razor-thin one-vote edge after a Democrat’s recent victory in Texas.
On Monday evening, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) swore in Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX), the newly elected representative from a left-leaning Texas district. Menefee’s win in a special congressional election over the weekend narrowed the House margin to 218 Republicans against 214 Democrats.
This shift comes as GOP leaders grapple with an ongoing partial government shutdown and hold a critical vote on a funding compromise negotiated between Senate Democrats and the White House, which did pass on Tuesday and will now go to the Senate.
With such a tight margin, losing even a single Republican vote on key legislation could result in a 216-216 tie, causing measures to fail, Fox News noted. This precarious balance adds immense pressure to an already challenging week for Republican leadership.
Menefee’s path to Congress began with a runoff election on Saturday, where he defeated Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member and fellow Democrat. He steps into the seat previously held by Rep. Sylvester Turner, who passed away in March 2025 while in office. Turner, a longtime state lawmaker and two-term Houston mayor, had won the seat in a prior election to succeed the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.
As a former attorney for Houston’s Harris County, Menefee brings local experience to a district that had been vacant for nearly a year. His arrival, however, is a bitter pill for Republicans already navigating treacherous political waters. The addition of another Democrat only amplifies the headaches for GOP leaders trying to maintain unity.
Speaker Johnson, no stranger to slim margins, has previously secured major wins for his party with majorities of just two or three seats. Yet, with the numbers now tighter than ever, every vote counts in a way that could make or break the GOP agenda. The stakes couldn’t have been higher as the House faced a procedural “rule vote” on the funding compromise, a hurdle that often splits along partisan lines.
The ongoing partial government shutdown has loomed large over this week’s battles. House GOP leaders pushed hard to resolve the crisis, knowing they needed near-unanimous support from their ranks to push through any legislation. With Democrats unlikely to lend a hand, the margin for error was effectively zero.
Speaker Johnson made it clear that attendance was non-negotiable. “They’d better be here,” he warned his caucus, emphasizing the gravity of the moment.
He didn’t stop there, adding a touch of humor to his urgency. “I told everybody, and not in jest, I said, no adventure sports, no risk-taking, take your vitamins. Stay healthy and be here.”
Tuesday’s vote on the funding compromise was a make-or-break moment for Republican leadership. Negotiated by Senate Democrats and the White House, the deal is already viewed with suspicion by many on the right who fear it may concede too much to the left’s agenda. Any dissent within GOP ranks could have derailed the effort entirely.
Let’s not mince words: this one-vote margin is a disaster waiting to happen if Republicans can’t lockstep their way through these votes. The left is likely salivating at the chance to exploit any fracture, knowing full well that a tied vote means a failed measure. It’s a brutal reminder of how every election, even a special one in Texas, can tip the balance of power.
Looking ahead, the redistricting battle in Texas for the 2026 midterms, shaped by President Donald Trump and Republican efforts against Democrat opposition, could reshape the landscape. While this special election used current district lines, the fight over new maps signals more high-stakes clashes on the horizon. Republicans must hold the line now to avoid being outmaneuvered later.
Menefee’s swearing-in isn’t just a number on a tally sheet; it’s a warning shot to a GOP already stretched thin. Speaker Johnson’s ability to wrangle his party into unity will be tested like never before, especially with the shutdown crisis casting a long shadow. Conservatives across the nation are watching, hoping their leaders don’t buckle under the pressure.
The reality is stark: Republicans can’t afford to lose focus or votes in this environment. With Democrats emboldened by their latest win, the fight to preserve a conservative vision for America just got a whole lot tougher. The coming days will show whether the GOP can rise to the occasion or stumble at the worst possible moment.