Congress

Biden-era FBI requested Senate Republican phone records, lawmakers say

Published

12 months ago

October 6, 2025

The FBI investigated Republican lawmakers as part of its Biden-era probe into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, GOP Senators announced Monday.

The investigation under former special counsel Jack Smith ultimately culminated in a number of felony charges brought against Trump, but the case was dismissed after his reelection in 2024. The records, which were narrowly tailored around the date of the certification of the 2020 election in early January 2021, included phone data for Republican members of Congress.

“They’re casting this net, this fishing expedition against members of the Senate and the House,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said in a press conference to announce the findings. “There is no predicate. There’s no reason for this other than a fishing expedition, which, again, should outrage and shock every American.”

Johnson is among the elected officials included in the records request, alongside fellow GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Some of these lawmakers were on hand for the press conference announcing the findings.

Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania also appears to have been mistakenly identified as a senator and included in the list of lawmakers whose records were seized as part of the now-disbanded FBI investigation.

The phone records sought by Smith’s team were for calls that took place between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2021 — on either side of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by rioters seeking to disrupt Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results.

The FBI probe did not obtain the content of the calls, only the recipients, the length of calls and the date on which they were placed. The request for this information was approved by a grand jury.

Asked at the press conference whether he would call Smith others to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) declined to provide further details on the investigation’s next steps. Johnson, however, suggested former FBI Director Christopher Wray — who Trump pushed out of the post in favor of Kash Patel — would have to answer questions.

Patel turned over the phone records sought by Johnson and Grassley. Before being confirmed as FBI Director Patel was a House aide who worked to discredit the investigation into Russian election interference and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Republicans will likely highlight these revelations during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing scheduled for Tuesday with Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Congress

Top Democratic appropriator wants White House to pay for airing ‘propaganda’

Published

10 hours ago

October 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A group of Senate Democrats are rolling out a bill Thursday to cut funding from the White House budget office any time a president uses taxpayer dollars to pay for anything considered political “propaganda.”

The legislation led by Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, is unlikely to clear Congress unless Democrats win control of the House and Senate in the midterms. But the language could eventually be included in annual government funding bills and serves in the meantime as a way for Democrats to press their GOP counterparts on President Donald Trump’s ongoing use of federal funding to air campaign-style ads commending the president and his offensive against Iran.

“Congress cannot sit on its hands,” Murray said in a statement, noting that lawmakers in both parties have said in recent days that they oppose the taxpayer-funded ads the Trump administration is defending as “public service announcements.”

The bill would dock the budget of the Office of Management and Budget by $20 million every time an administration violates existing law barring the use of federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” The head of the Government Accountability Office would be charged with determining if such a violation has occurred.

Congress

Barrage of lawsuits targets Trump’s funding cancellation

Published

14 hours ago

October 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s move to cancel $810 million in congressionally approved spending are piling up in courtrooms throughout the country as states and groups that receive federal dollars fight to keep the cash flowing.

In the final hours before the fiscal year ended late Wednesday, a half-dozen states went to federal court to challenge Trump’s latest use of a controversial “pocket rescission.” A group that helps students from migrant families go to college also filed suit, trying to preserve about $25 million in education funding Trump is seeking to claw back.

At least one federal judge so far has been sympathetic to arguments that Trump’s move, which essentially runs out the clock on Congress’ right to evaluate and potentially reject funding clawbacks, could be illegal: U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled late Wednesday to delay the expiration of $56 million for housing support services, temporarily blocking Trump from canceling the money.

The flurry of legal action comes as many lawmakers on Capitol Hill clamor for the courts to strike down Trump’s action as an illegal and unconstitutional encroachment on Congress’ power to dictate how federal cash is spent.

But the fresh lawsuits will not necessarily prompt a sweeping ruling from the Supreme Court, which allowed Trump to go ahead last year with withholding $4 billion he canceled through the same budget tactic. The high court argued in that brief unsigned order that the Trump administration had made a strong argument that outside groups may not have legal standing to sue under the decades-old impoundment law.

In the lawsuit Wednesday by six states, the suing parties argue that the president has not only flouted that 1970s law, but also the Constitution and the annual funding bills Congress has enacted over the last year.

The group suing over the cancellation of funding for educating students from migrant families laid out similar arguments, contending that the Trump administration has violated the First Amendment by discriminating based on “protected speech, expressive activities, and viewpoints that are irrelevant to funding or activities” the programs support.

Cobb’s decision, meanwhile, is only temporary. She explained in an emergency order Wednesday that she acted because the suing groups “would lose out on significant amounts of funding due to allegedly unconstitutional actions.”

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.

Congress

Centrist Dem’s Supreme Court plan boosts momentum for revamp

Published

21 hours ago

October 1, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democratic efforts to revamp the Supreme Court gained momentum Thursday as an influential center-left think tank released a plan to limit justices’ terms and misconduct.

Third Way’s proposal, shared first with Blue Light News, highlights growing unity across the ideological spectrum in the Democratic Party for significant changes to the high court as Americans’ trust in the institution hovers at historic lows.

The group says it also wants to inject ideas to overhaul the court — including legislation to set an 18-year term limit and an enforceable ethics code — into the party’s conversations leading up to the 2028 presidential race.

“This is one of those things that we think can and should be a part of the 2028 discussion, and those folks who are running should be asked about whether they would champion Supreme Court reform,” Lanae Erickson, a senior vice president at Third Way, said in an interview.

Key Democratic groups have increasingly been coalescing around ideas to overhaul the court’s structure and policing in light of accusations of growing partisanship and corruption among justices. In June, a number of key Democratic House caucus leaders, including the Congressional Progressive Caucus, released their own resolution calling for term limits for justices and a code of ethics.

“We think that the center left has been remiss in not being forward enough on reform proposals that would make our system work better for people, which is why some folks have gone to the further left,” Erickson said.

Third Way cited public opinion polling from both the Brennan Center for Justice and FOX News indicating more than 70 percent of respondents favored term limits for justices. An 18-year cycle would ensure the appointment of two justices every presidential term.

The group also wants legislation to hold justices accountable for ethics violations. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said last month he supports “dramatic reform” on the Supreme Court starting with an ethics code so justices don’t act “above the law.”

The court in 2023 adopted its own formal ethics code for the first time in history, but that policy largely lacks some of the teeth that advocates have proposed.

One idea supported by some Democrats that Third Way is not endorsing: upping the number of justices on the bench. Erickson said that idea seems more like “a mutually assured destruction path,” as parties could go back and forth adding more justices.

The path forward for any court-focused legislation in Congress in the near future, however, is very slim without majorities in both chambers and control of the White House — something Third Way acknowledged.

Still, the group’s recommendations are meant “to show that the center left can also be bold and be addressing systemic problems to appeal to voters and their level of anxiety and anger about what’s happening right now,” Erickson said.