Apr. 14, 2026, 8:50 PM EDT

When White House budget director Russell Vought appears before lawmakers on Wednesday, he will almost certainly face questions about a ballooning Pentagon budgeta special war-funding request and an extended Homeland Security shutdown. But Democrats also plan to press him on an issue closer to the Capitol: why he has spent months dodging their questions altogether.

Vought is set to testify Wednesday before the House Budget Committee and again before the Senate’s budget panel on Thursday. It’s a long-awaited chance for Democrats eager to question him on several fronts — including the cost of the Iran war, cuts to health care spending, a demoralized federal workforce and what the government’s own watchdog has described as the illegal impoundment of federal funds.

Lawmakers also have a growing to-do list that involves Vought, including a war supplemental for President Donald Trump’s military campaign in Iran and a reconciliation bill that would fund immigration enforcement agencies. Congress is also supposed to adopt a budget, though that may slip after the president’s budget was weeks late and omitted any information about projected federal debts and deficits.

But Democrats see Vought as “missing and reclusive,” ignoring their questions for months, the Budget Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, told MS NOW. Vought didn’t testify before the committee last year, a break with tradition. And written questions to Vought have been met with “stone cold silence,” Boyle said.

In JanuaryHouse Democrats pressed Vought for answers on the administration’s health care plans, its compliance with congressionally approved funding laws, its attempt to withhold nutrition aid during last year’s government shutdown, and plans for federal layoffs.

“He sent us not one word in response,” Boyle said. “And in doing so, it shows their contempt for the United States Congress, and it shows their contempt for our constitutional system.”

Boyle told MS NOW he plans to introduce legislation to legally require Office of Management and Budget directors to testify before the House Budget Committee, after Vought didn’t do so last year. He also said he aims to require that the OMB director respond to members of the committee.

Democrats didn’t hear back from Vought about testifying to the committee until March, when Boyle displayed a picture of Vought as a missing child on a milk carton. That prompted Vought to respond on X that, “I am coming to testify on April 15. You should get up to speed.”

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, had previously assured reporters that Vought would testify in 2026, but Boyle said Democrats hadn’t gotten confirmation until the milk carton incident.

“That’s what shamed him into it,” Boyle said of Vought.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee and a member of the Budget Committee, also said Vought had not been responsive to questions from Democratic members of the Senate, including on the cost of the Iran war. She said she’d press Vought at Thursday’s hearing on whether he would distribute funds appropriated by Congress.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he’d ask Vought questions “around this ‘traumatizing the federal workforce’ stuff,” and whether DOGE wasted money by firing employees who needed to be rehired later. And Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said he’d ask Vought “how he’s not a corrupt stooge of the fossil fuel industry.”

Senate Republicans, meanwhile, say they haven’t been pressing Vought hard for answers. For example, the missing debt and deficit data in the budget proposal — which Maya MacGuineas, president of the fiscally conservative Committee for a Responsible Budget called “an astonishing lack of information — hasn’t prompted pushback from conservative lawmakers.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said he was unbothered by Vought’s decision to leave out the debt data in the president’s budget request.

“Nobody looks at it anyway,” Scott told MS NOW. “It’s just for you guys to write something.”

Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said he’d ask Vought “to give a great update on the progress that we’ve made” in reducing the deficit. When asked about the missing debt and deficit information, Moreno said he didn’t know about it.

“I haven’t had a chance to see the whole thing, to be honest with you, so I’ve got to see what that’s all about,” Moreno told MS NOW.

In prepared remarks obtained by PunchbowlVought reportedly plans to say that, “when President Trump took office, the nation was facing financial catastrophe under the failed leadership of the Biden Administration and decades of status quo spending strangling our nation.”

But federal spending, according to the Treasury Departmenthas increased under Trump. And the federal deficit is going up. (The federal deficit was $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025 and is projected to be $1.9 trillion in fiscal 2026according to the Congressional Budget Office.)

Republicans have also been patient with the lack of information about the cost of the Iran war.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday he still hasn’t seen a request and doesn’t know how much it will cost.

“The only thing I think I’ve seen is what you guys report,” Thune told reporters.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told reporters he’d want to scour the funding request’s details before he decides if he’ll support it.

But when pressed whether the administration had answered his questions on the topic, Johnson made it clear he hadn’t focused on those details yet.

“Haven’t really asked,” he said.

Jack Fitzpatrick covers Congress for MS NOW. He previously reported for Bloomberg Government, Morning Consult and National Journal. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Arizona State University.

Apr. 14, 2026, 8:06 PM EDT

The Justice Department requested on Tuesday for a federal appeals court to erase the seditious conspiracy convictions of a group of leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys — two right-wing extremist groups who were involved in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The request asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the individuals’ convictions, effectively erasing their guilty verdicts, and to dismiss the charges with prejudice. A dismissal with prejudice prevents the government from bringing the cases again.

In January 2025, President Donald Trump had already either pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of most of the roughly 1,500 people charged in connection with the 2021 attack on the Capitol after Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. While most of the defendants received pardons, wiping their convictions, Trump only commuted the sentences of 14 high-profile defendants to time served, which upheld their convictions while allowing them to leave prison.

The request by the Justice Department would go a step further and erase all the convictions for the extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodeswho didn’t receive pardons last January.

Only 12 of those defendants were referenced in the Justice Department’s request on Tuesday. Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 yearsin prison, is among those who would benefit.

“The government’s motion to vacate in this case is consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice — motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

Trump himself faces criminal a series of civil lawsuits related to his incitement of the Jan. 6 attack. A federal judge earlier this month rejected his efforts to end the suits ahead of his trial, which has not yet been scheduled.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.

Apr. 14, 2026, 8:05 PM EDT

The Trump Justice Department paid a $1.1 million settlement to an anti-abortion protester, even after a George W. Bush-appointed judge dismissed the protester’s lawsuit against the government with prejudice, according to a former DOJ prosecutor and the protester’s lawyer.

Two former federal government officials who spoke to MS NOW characterized the settlement paid to Mark Houck, a longtime anti-abortion activist, as the latest example of the Trump DOJ making concessions to previously prosecuted abortion opponents under the guise of protecting their religious freedom.

Houck is a 52-year-old Pennsylvania resident and the founder of The King’s Men, described as a donation-based, anti-pornography and anti-abortion Catholic meeting group for men. He unsuccessfully ran as a Republican in 2024 to represent Pennsylvania’s 1st Congressional district.

Following Houck’s September 2022 arrest for allegedly shoving a 72-year-old clinic escort at a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood — he was later acquitted of those charges at trial — his case became a rallying cry for the GOP and abortion rights opponents, who alleged he was targeted by overzealous prosecutors in Biden’s DOJ for his religious beliefs.

Houck’s case is discussed in a more-than-800-page report the DOJ released on Tuesday that purports to expose “the Biden administration’s weaponization” of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law that prohibits obstructing access to reproductive health clinics. The report frames Houck’s case as an example of the Biden DOJ using “aggressive tactics” against an abortion opponent, and says some supervisors did not think the FACE Act was a proper charge for the circumstances. MS NOW first reported on the existence of the DOJ report last week, after reviewing a draft copy.

The report says the government “recently reached a settlement agreement with Houck,” but does not provide further details or specify the amount. The report also does not mention that a federal judge dismissed Houck’s lawsuit against the government and that it was pending appeal at the time of the settlement.

Houck’s lawyer, Edward Greim, told CBS News the DOJ agreed to the $1.1 million settlement in February, prior to the Houcks’ move to withdraw their appeal. Houck declined an interview request from MS NOW and Greim, his lawyer, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Abortion opponents celebrated news of the settlement, while two former federal officials characterized it to MS NOW as yet another example of the Trump administration kowtowing to abortion opponents who the Biden administration prosecuted under the FACE Act. The Trump administration has alleged the FACE Act has historically been weaponized against abortion opponents and has pledged to roll back those prosecutions — even as prosecutors employ a lesser-used provision of the law to try to prosecute former BLN journalist Don Lemon and protesters for entering a church in Minneapolis.

A former DOJ prosecutor with knowledge of Houck’s case told MS NOW they see the settlement as “rewarding a MAGA supporter,” and a former federal law enforcement official called it “concerning” given that Houck’s prior lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge.

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that supports abortion rights, said in a statement provided to MS NOW that Houck’s settlement “should embarrass every person who touched it,” adding that it “represents an abuse of the rule of law.”

In response to questions, a Justice Department spokesperson referred MS NOW to a statement from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stating Trump’s DOJ “will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice.”

“No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs,” Blanche added. “The weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system.”

Houck was indicted in September 2022 on charges of violating the FACE Act for allegedly assaulting a volunteer escort at a Planned Parenthood in October 2021. According to the government’s indictment, Houck twice shoved the escort to the ground, including while the escort was accompanying two patients leaving the clinic.

Houck’s attorneys denied the government’s account, alleging the incident occurred outside an anti-abortion pregnancy resource center across the street from a Planned Parenthood, and arguing that the DOJ was engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” by seeking to prosecute Houck for his anti-abortion beliefs. They also argued that the escort — not Houck — was the aggressor, and that Houck only shoved the escort after the escort “approached and verbally confronted” Houck and his 12-year-old son.

Houck was acquitted of the charges at a five-day jury trial in January 2023. Less than a year later, Houck filed a civil lawsuit alleging “a faulty and malicious investigation” and excessive force against the federal government and Pennsylvania state and local police officers, involved in his September 2022 arrest, when armed federal and state police arrested him at his home while his wife and 7 children were present.

Houck and his wife alleged in the lawsuit that the stress of the arrest led to three miscarriages for the couple and, ultimately, an infertility diagnosis, along with emotional distress for their children.

A former federal law enforcement official told MS NOW that Houck’s arrest “was appropriate and done in accordance with FBI procedures.”

Last March, Judge Paul Diamond of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania ordered Houck’s suit dismissed with prejudice — meaning it cannot be refiled — alleging he had failed to state a plausible claim.

Diamond wrote in his 20-page order that Houck’s complaint “generates considerably more heat than light,” adding that his “indignation is not a substitute for plausibility, however.”

Houck subsequently filed a notice of appeal, before moving to withdraw it in February, records show.

The ex-DOJ prosecutor, who handled multiple FACE Act cases, told MS NOW they believe the account of Houck’s case included in the newly-released “weaponization” report “was not representative of the government, it was representative of the defense.” The source added that the prosecutors involved in Houck’s case were not consulted as the report was prepared, and that at least 1 of the 3 prosecutors received an order from Blanche earlier this year to hand over records related to the case. The former DOJ prosecutor said that request seemed “out of the ordinary, because the civil case had been dismissed.”

“I couldn’t believe this was still being batted around,” they added.

The source also said Sanjay Patel — who prosecuted many FACE Act cases against people later pardoned by President Donald Trump — was told as he was being escorted from the building last month to be placed on administrative leave that he was the reason Houck received the settlement.

Patel was one of four prosecutors fired on Monday in preparation of the release of the “weaponization report,” MS NOW reported. He has not responded to repeated requests for comment from MS NOW.

The ex-DOJ prosecutor told MS NOW they disagree with the allegations included in the “weaponization” report that Houck, and other abortion opponents, were targeted due to their beliefs. The prosecutor added that they are Catholic, and that their own beliefs “never factored into my prosecutorial activities.”

“In any case that I’ve handled,” the source said, “I evaluate the facts of the case based on the law.”

Carol Leonnig contributed to this reporting

Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.