Congress

Jim Jordan goes after Adam Schiff at FBI oversight hearing

Published

1 year ago

September 17, 2025

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan on Wednesday opened FBI director Kash Patel’s second Congressional oversight hearing in two days by going after a former colleague, Sen. Adam Schiff.

“Why would the head of the Intelligence Committee, the chair of that committee, who’s supposed to be guarding our secrets — why would he be encouraging the leaking of classified information?” Jordan, the Ohio Republican, said in his opening remarks regarding Schiff, the California Democrat who was elected to the Senate last year.

Republicans, including Patel, have accused Schiff of moving to leak damaging information about President Donald Trump in his former capacity as chair of the House Intelligence panel.

Patel, a former staffer on House Intelligence who once worked to discredit Schiff’s investigation into Russian election interference, went after Schiff directly during his appearance before Senate Judiciary the day before, calling him a “liar,” “the biggest fraud to ever sit in the United States Senate” and “a political buffoon at best.”

A Schiff spokesperson said in a statement that “Kash Patel’s smear against Senator Schiff is absolutely and categorically false, and is just the latest in a series of defamatory attacks from the President and his allies meant to distract from their plummeting poll numbers and the Epstein files scandal.”

Schiff, who led Trump’s first impeachment, has become a prominent political target for the Trump administration, and the Trump has repeatedly levied attacks against him since his inauguration. The Justice Department has also begun probing his mortgage activities.

In his opening remarks Wednesday, Patel also signaled he was prepared to project a defensive posture in his testimony in the House as he did in the Senate, particularly when challenged by members of either party.

“If you want to criticize me, bring it on, but do not attack the brave leaders in the field,” he told House lawmakers. “I’m dedicated to restoring the trust in the mission and the integrity of the FBI, and we cannot do so without Congressional oversight.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, contended that the Senate hearing underscored Patel’s “explosively volatile temper.”

“The intractable problem is that you are running the FBI not as a law enforcement agency charged with keeping the American people safe, but as a political enforcement agency working directly for the President’s vengeance campaign,” said Raskin, a Maryland Democrat.

Both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees have scheduled their annual oversight hearings with the FBI director at a watershed moment for the agency — and for Patel’s tenure as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

His handling of materials in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the manhunt for conservative political activist Charlie Kirk’s killer, and recent FBI personnel departures have all prompted renewed questioning of Patel’s leadership.

In both his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday and House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Patel has been forcefully defensive, brandishing how his agency handled the Kirk investigation and crime at-large across the country.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

23 minutes ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

36 minutes ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.

Congress

Sanders, AOC, Merkley propose bill to ban Flock cameras

Published

6 hours ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Friday released text of legislation intended to ban the use of Flock surveillance cameras and other license plate readers.

Flock has faced severe public backlash against the surveillance technology following reports that police officers misused the technology to track women, and it has the largest network of license plate readers across the U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) hosted a hearing last month probing its potential misuses, although the company’s CEO Garrett Langley did not appear.

The latest bill, unveiled Friday and named the Ban Flock Act, would bar federal agencies from using automated license plate readers or accessing data from the technology and prevent federal grants from funding states and local governments that use automated license plate readers.

“At a time of growing concern about the unchecked power of artificial intelligence, Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” Sanders, who has positioned himself as a leading progressive voice on AI technology, said in a statement. “We cannot allow America to become a surveillance state where a handful of AI oligarchs profit by giving the government the power to track our every movement.”

Ocasio-Cortez similarly condemned the surveillance capabilities of the technology and said the bill would “enforce our constitutional right to privacy and protect Americans from both corporate and government surveillance.”

“No one should have this unchecked surveillance power at their fingertips,” Merkley added.

Republicans have introduced similar efforts to regulate license plate readers, such as Hawley’s Stop Flock Abuse Act, which would require audits and limits on unauthorized searches.

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.