Cornyn says FBI will help find Texas lawmakers who left state
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He suggested that federal law enforcement agents might be used in an attempt to intimidate lawmakers, even if the agents did not have cause to make arrests. 'The FBI agents might show up just to, I don't know, again, to put a show on,' Pritzker said.
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Several of the Texas Democrats in Illinois said that as of Thursday morning, no federal agents had been seen or reported at the lawmakers' hotel in St. Charles, about 25 miles west of Chicago.
The whereabouts of the Texas lawmakers are widely known, but until now at least, they had considered themselves safe from arrest because they were far from the jurisdiction of Texas law enforcement agencies.
'I am proud to announce that Director Kash Patel has approved my request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats,' Cornyn said in a statement.
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In his letter Tuesday requesting the FBI's assistance, Cornyn argued that the Democratic lawmakers might have violated state bribery laws by accepting money from outside groups to support their efforts to prevent a vote in the Texas House on a redrawn political map.
No criminal warrants have actually been filed against the lawmakers in Texas. The speaker of the Texas House has issued civil warrants, saying the Democrats violated rules of attendance for that chamber, but those warrants have not been considered enforceable outside the state during previous legislative walkouts.
Cornyn has not suggested that federal statutes have been violated. Instead, he said the FBI can help state law enforcement when scofflaws leave the state.
'FBI has tools to aid state law enforcement when parties cross state lines, including to avoid testifying or fleeing a scene of a crime,' he wrote. 'Specifically, I am concerned that legislators who solicited or accepted funds to aid in their efforts to avoid their legislative duties may be guilty of bribery or other public corruption offenses.'
For Cornyn, the effort to force the Texas Democrats to return to Austin has figured prominently in his reelection campaign.
Cornyn is locked in a bruising primary battle against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Each man has appeared eager to show how tough he can be and has escalated his threats against the absent Democrats in the last few days.
Paxton has said that if Democratic lawmakers do not return in time for a roll call in the Texas House at 1 p.m. Friday, he would petition the Texas Supreme Court to have some of their seats declared abandoned and therefore vacant. Gov. Greg Abbott has filed a lawsuit on the same lines against the leader of the walkout, Rep. Gene Wu of Houston.
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However, Paxton said in a podcast interview this week that such a process was untested and would be a 'challenge.'
As an indication of how the U.S. Senate race and the fight over the legislative walkout have intertwined, Cornyn's campaign took Paxton's statements and rapidly turned them into an attack ad, claiming the attorney general was not being aggressive enough against the Democratic lawmakers.
Democratic leaders in Washington attacked the involvement of the FBI as a misuse of federal law enforcement by the Trump administration. 'Shouldn't the FBI be tracking down terrorists, drug traffickers and child predators?' Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said in a statement. 'We will not be intimidated.'
Dozens of Democratic Texas state lawmakers have been in Illinois since Sunday, when they left Texas to deny Republicans the quorum needed to hold a vote in the Texas House on the proposed congressional map. The map, requested by President Donald Trump, would remake five districts currently held by Democrats so that they would favor Republican candidates in the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats nationwide are expected to gain seats.
The redistricting fight in Texas has rapidly ballooned far beyond the state's borders. Democratic-led states like Illinois and California have been threatening to redraw their own political maps in response to Texas, and Republican-led states including Missouri and Indiana are looking to follow Texas' lead.
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Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The legal battle over Trump's use of the National Guard moves to a California courtroom
Lawyers for President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are set to face off Monday to determine whether the president violated a 147-year-old law when he deployed the National Guard to quell protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles – against the wishes of the Democratic governor. In June, as hundreds of people gathered in Los Angeles to protest a string of immigration raids that targeted workplaces and left dozens of people detained or deported, the president federalized and deployed 4,000 National Guard members over the objection of Newsom and local officials, who said the deployment would only cause further chaos. Trump invoked a rarely used law that allows the president to federalize the National Guard during times of actual or threatened rebellion or invasion, or when regular forces can't enforce US laws. The president's lawyers said in a court filing that the duties of the National Guard troops and a handful of Marines also dispatched were narrowly circumscribed: They were dispatched only to protect federal property and personnel, and they didn't engage in any law enforcement activities. Newsom filed a lawsuit June 9 against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, saying they violated the Posse Comitatus Act and the 10th Amendment. Trump's lawyers say the act, which prevents the use of the military for enforcing laws, doesn't provide a mechanism for a civil lawsuit. But Newsom's lawyers have argued the president illegally made an 'unprecedented power grab' – and even violated the Constitution – by overruling local authorities to send in the military. The president and Hegseth 'have overstepped the bounds of law and are intent on going as far as they can to use the military in unprecedented, unlawful ways,' Newsom's lawyers say in a complaint. The trial represents a crucial moment for determining how much power a US president can lawfully exercise over the military on domestic soil. During his first term, Trump had often speculated openly about the possibility of deploying the military on American soil, whether to suppress protests or combat crime. Now he's talking about deploying the National Guard to the nation's capital over recent high-profile crimes. The trial also represents an escalation of the feud between Trump and Newsom, which saw the president threaten to have the Democratic governor arrested during the Los Angeles protests. Newsom described the comment as 'an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.' The judge set to preside over the bench trial, Charles R. Breyer, previously granted a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration, ruling that the president unlawfully federalized the National Guard and that the protests didn't amount to an insurrection. But just hours later, an appeals court paused his ruling, allowing the deployment to continue. Here's more on what to know about the upcoming trial – and the three laws Newsom's team says Trump and Hegseth violated. The trial is taking place in San Francisco, presided over by Breyer, who sits on the US District Court for the Northern District of California, with proceedings scheduled from Monday to Wednesday. The Posse Comitatus Act At the center of the legal proceedings is the Posse Comitatus Act, which largely prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy organization. 'Posse Comitatus' is a Latin term used in American and British law to describe 'a group of people who are mobilized by the sheriff to suppress lawlessness in the county,' according to the Brennan Center. The act, signed into law by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878, consists of just one sentence: 'Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.' Newsom's lawyers say the deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles was a violation of the act since it bars 'the military from engaging in civil law enforcement unless explicitly authorized by law,' according to the complaint. But Trump's lawyers insist the National Guard and Marines didn't engage in any civil law enforcement – and therefore didn't violate the act. Moreover, they say the act itself doesn't provide any mechanisms for its enforcement in a private civil lawsuit. The 10th Amendment Newsom's lawyers also argue that by overriding California officials, Trump violated the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which governs the sharing of power between the federal government and the 50 states. The amendment says 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.' Trump and Hegseth's move to call up the National Guard against the governor's wishes 'infringes on Governor Newsom's role as Commander-in-Chief of the California National Guard and violates the State's sovereign right to control and have available its National Guard in the absence of a lawful invocation of federal power,' Newsom's complaint says. Policing and crime control are some of the most crucial uses of state power, Newsom's lawyers say. The Administrative Procedure Act Additionally, Newsom's lawyers argue Trump and Hegseth violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which says a court must 'hold unlawful and set aside agency action' that is 'arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law,' that is 'contrary to constitutional right (or) power,' or that is 'in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right.' Hegseth and the Department of Defense 'lack authority to federalize members of the California National Guard without issuing such orders through Governor Newsom, who has not consented to their actions or been afforded the opportunity to consult on any deployment. Such agency actions are unauthorized, unprecedented, and not entitled to deference by this Court,' reads the complaint. The obscure law Trump's lawyers cite Trump's lawyers, meanwhile, have focused in their filing on a little-used law they cited to federalize the National Guard. Section 12406(3) of the US Code says the president can federalize the National Guard of any state in three circumstances: if the US is being invaded or faces danger of invasion; if there is a rebellion or danger of rebellion; or if the president is unable 'with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.' The law, however, stipulates the orders should be issued 'through the governors.' Newsom's lawyers say Trump didn't consult with the governor before issuing the order. Breyer previously pointed out Trump's memo directed Hegseth to consult the governor before federalizing the National Guard – but that he didn't. The Los Angeles deployment was only the second time in US history that a president has used the 'exclusive authority' of this law to federalize the National Guard, according to Newsom's lawyers. The first was when President Richard Nixon called on the National Guard to deliver the mail during the 1970 Postal Service strike. And it's the second time since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators, that a president activated a state's national guard without a request from the governor – though he used a different law to do so. Trump's lawyers say the president was unable to enforce federal immigration law 'as well as laws forbidding interference with federal functions or assaults on federal officers and property' with 'the regular forces' – so the deployment falls within the limits of Section 12406(3). What do Newsom's lawyers want? With only 300 National Guard troops still deployed in Los Angeles, Newsom's lawyers are looking mostly for symbolic relief: a declaration the memorandum used to federalize the National Guard and Hegseth's orders were unauthorized and illegal. The remaining troops are stationed at Joint Forces Training Base – Los Alamitos, Newsom says, 'without a clear mission, direction, or a timeline for returning to their communities.' Newsom's team is also asking for 'injunctive relief' prohibiting Hegseth and the Department of Defense from federalizing and deploying the California National Guard and military without meeting legal requirements, including the cooperation of the governor. Finally, they ask to recoup the state of California's costs and attorneys' fees and 'such additional relief as the court deems proper and the interests of justice may require.' What witnesses will appear? Trump's lawyers indicated in a court filing they plan to call as a witness Maj. Gen. Scott M. Sherman, deputy commanding general of the National Guard. Sherman is expected to discuss the National Guard's deployment to Los Angeles and their compliance with the Posse Comitatus Act. Newsom's lawyers also plan to call Sherman, as well as US Army official William B. Harrington to testify about the activities of Task Force 51, the command post activated to coordinate deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles. Ernesto Santacruz Jr. of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also expected to testify about the federalized National Guard's activities in support of federal law enforcement officials during immigration enforcement operations.
Boston Globe
36 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
FBI moves to dispatch 120 agents to D.C. streets as Trump vows crackdown on crime
The deployment of FBI agents to deal with local crime puts agents from the bureau's counterintelligence, public corruption and other divisions with minimal training in traffic stops out on the streets in potentially dangerous encounters, diverting them from their typical jobs at the bureau. And it comes as Trump is publicly portraying the city as rampant with violent crime - even as the mayor refutes that characterization, pointing to police data showing a drop in violent crime. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Last week, Trump ordered federal law enforcement agents from several agencies to be deployed on city streets and called for more juveniles to be charged in the adult justice system. Advertisement Staffing assignments this weekend reveal for the first time how many new FBI resources the Trump administration could divert to local crime and the frustration it has caused within the bureau. Advertisement In recent days, the administration has authorized up to 120 agents, largely from the FBI's Washington Field Office, to work overnight shifts for at least one week alongside D.C. police and other federal law enforcement officers in the nation's capital, according to the people familiar with those efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss specifics of a staffing plan that has not been made public. FBI agents generally do not have authority to make traffic stops, and the people said the agents' roles could include supporting the other agencies during traffic stops. The FBI also is dispatching agents from outside D.C., including Philadelphia, to help with the surge of federal law enforcement in the District, according to multiple people familiar with the plans. Federal land is scattered across Washington, and local enforcement often works alongside federal law enforcement to patrol these and surrounding areas. But the U.S. Park Police and Secret Service - which have more experience patrolling streets - typically do this work, not the FBI. The Secret Service and the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division have also been directed to launch special patrols in D.C., according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the operation. The Trump administration has not asked the D.C. police department - the chief law enforcement agency responsible for policing local crime - on how best to deploy these federal resources, according to a senior official with the department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the matter. Because D.C. is not a state, the federal government has unique authority to exert control over the city - even amid objections from the residents and locally elected government. The Home Rule Act of 1973 gave D.C. residents the ability to elect their own mayor and council members. A federal takeover of the D.C. police force would be an extraordinary assertion of power in a place where local leaders have few avenues to resist federal encroachment. Advertisement 'Agents from the FBI Washington Field Office continue to participate in the increased federal law enforcement presence in D.C., which includes assisting our law enforcement partners,' the FBI said in a statement Sunday morning. Trump has been ramping up his criticisms on the nation's capital in recent days. Last week, the president posted on social media a photo of a former U.S. DOGE Service staffer who was injured in an attempted carjacking. Soon after the attack, D.C. police arrested a 15-year-old boy and girl from Maryland and charged them with unarmed carjacking. 'I'm going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before,' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Sunday morning. 'It's all going to happen very fast, just like the Border.' In a different social media post on Sunday, Trump said the 10 a.m. White House news conference on Monday will be about the city's cleanliness, its physical renovation and its general condition. 'The Mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, is a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances, and the Crime Numbers get worse, and the City only gets dirtier and less attractive,' Trump said in that afternoon Truth Social post. Bowser (D) has been pushing back against Trump's characterization of the city she leads, pointing out on MSNBC on Sunday morning that crime rates have been dropping in the nation's capital. Advertisement In D.C., violent crime is down 26 percent compared with this time in 2024, according to D.C. police data. Homicides are down 12 percent. D.C. police have made about 900 juvenile arrests this year - almost 20 percent fewer than during the same time frame last year. About 200 of those charges are for violent crimes and at least four dozen are for carjacking. 'If the priority is to show force in an American city, we know he can do that here,' Bowser, who said she last spoke to Trump a few weeks ago, said on MSNBC. 'But it won't be because there's a spike in crime.' The reassignment of FBI agents has further demoralized some agents in the Washington Field Office, who believe they have little expertise or training in thwarting carjackers and were already angered by a spate of firings inside the agency that they deemed were unwarranted. Last week, the Trump administration ousted with no explanation FBI personnel across the country, including the head of the Washington Field Office. In 2020, the first Trump administration dispatched FBI agents, mostly from the Washington Field Office, to respond to the racial justice protests that June in the nation's capital. The Trump administration had wanted a federal presence in the streets as a deterrent to rioters or protesters who might try to vandalize federal property. Several agents were captured in a photograph taking a knee in what was viewed as a gesture of solidarity to protesters marching against racial injustice - an image that went viral and fueled accusations from conservatives that the bureau harbors a liberal agenda. But people familiar with the FBI have said agents are not trained for riot control and were placed in an untenable position as they knelt down, trying to defuse a tense situation. Advertisement In the first months of the current Trump administration, officials reassigned several of those agents who were captured in that photo from nearly five years ago. 'If D.C. doesn't get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they're not going to get away with it anymore,' Trump wrote on social media last week in a post that included a bloody image of the injured former DOGE staffer. This spring, Trump ordered the creation of the 'D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force,' a vehicle for his long-held fixations on quality-of-life issues in the city, including homeless encampments and graffiti. On Sunday, homeless advocates and D.C. residents criticized Trump's threats to remove homeless people from D.C. as inhumane, costly and impractical. 'That money could be better spent getting folks housing and support' Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center, said of the federal law enforcement presence in the District. Deborah Goosby, a 67-year-old homeless woman, sat in her usual spot greeting shoppers outside a D.C. grocery store on Sunday morning. 'That's never going to happen,' she said after hearing that Trump wanted to send people experiencing homelessness far from the nation's capital. 'They can't make me leave.' Natalie Allison, Emily Davies and Paul Kiefer contributed to this report.
Forbes
37 minutes ago
- Forbes
Trump Says Homeless Must Move From D.C. ‘Immediately'—FBI Agents Reportedly Deployed
The FBI is set to deploy its agents to conduct night patrols in the nation's capital, according to multiple reports, as President Donald Trump said that homeless people living in the nation's capital would 'have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,' ahead of a planned press conference where he will address his claims that violent crime is widespread in the nation's capital, despite federal data indicating crime rates have fallen to historic lows. The president claimed Washington, D.C., had become "one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world," despite federal data indicating crime fell to historic lows. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. According to the New York Times and the Washington Post, the administration will pull 120 FBI agents, primarily from the agency's Washington field office, from their regular duty and deploy them on night patrol duty with local law enforcement officers to tackle street crime. A White House press conference on Monday will 'essentially stop violent crime' in Washington, D.C., Trump wrote on Truth Social, claiming the city had become 'one of the most dangerous' in the world. Trump said the press conference would take place at 10 a.m. on Monday, and would focus on 'ending the Crime, Murder, and Death in our Nation's Capital.' 'The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social accompanied by images of a few tents and refuse scattered on the side of the road and the steps of a building, adding 'we will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.' Trump said his plans in D.C. include also 'beautification' efforts, and took the opportunity again to lambast the Federal Reserve for their yearslong headquarters renovation and ballooning budget of at least $2.5 billion on the project. Trump has claimed in recent months that violent crime was rampant in Washington, D.C., and has threatened to deploy the National Guard and have the city be taken over by the federal government, writing earlier this week that if 'D.C. doesn't get its act together, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the city.' Violent crime rates in Washington, D.C., dropped 35% from 2023 to 2024, marking the lowest rates recorded in more than 30 years, according to the Justice Department. According to data released Aug. 8 by the Metropolitan Police Department, violent crime rates have continued to fall in 2025, with violent crime down 26% year-over-year. The MPD said homicide rates have dropped 12% on the year so far, sex abuse by 49%, assault with a dangerous weapon by 20% and robbery by 28%. Property crime rates have also fallen, including burglary (19%), theft from vehicles (4%) and other theft crimes (6%). However, Trump continued to insist Sunday that the crime numbers keep rising. 'The Mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, is a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances, and the Crime Numbers get worse, and the City only gets dirtier and less attractive,' the president wrote on Truth Social. 'The American Public is not going to put up with it any longer.' Why Does Trump Want A Federal Takeover Of D.c.? Trump previously called for the federal government to take control of Washington, D.C., by falsely claiming violent crime rates were rising in the city. His latest calls follow an attack on a high-ranking member of the Department of Government Efficiency, as Trump wrote on Truth Social that crime in D.C. was 'out of control' and the federal government would 'put criminals on notice that they're not going to get away with it anymore.' MPD said two 15-year-old suspects were arrested and charged with unarmed carjacking, after Edward Coristine was assaulted in the early morning of Aug. 3. Bowser said that although the incident was unfortunate, crime in the city was already trending lower for the month. 'We had one of the lowest crime levels in shootings in a July in recent history,' the mayor said, later adding that carjackings fell 50% after spiking in 2023, and are still falling this year. It's not immediately clear whether Trump would bring in the National Guard, though the White House said in a statement that agents from some law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, immigration police and a dozen other offices were deployed early Friday. It's not immediately clear where or how many agents were deployed, though the White House said deployment was focused on 'high traffic areas and other known hotspots.' Officials will be 'identified, in marked units, and highly visible.' Bowser said she was concerned that deploying the National Guard would not be the most 'efficient' use of their time, explaining Sunday 'they're not law enforcement officials. These are men and women who leave their families to serve our country, and that is just not their primary role—to enforce local laws.' Earlier this year, Trump deployed about 4,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles in response to protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Could Trump Order A Federal Takeover Of D.c.? Trump could lobby support for federal control of Washington, D.C., though doing so would require approval from Congress, which would need to vote to repeal the 1973 Home Rule Act. The law established a legal framework for city residents to elect local officials, including a mayor and city council, to manage city business. A bill to repeal the Home Rule Act was introduced by Rep. Andrew Ogles, R-Tenn., in February, though the legislation has yet to move forward. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., told Fox News she would 'totally' support Trump if he sought a federal takeover, adding, 'If that's what we need to do to get it done, that's what he should do.' Trump has said he would support a federal takeover of the MPD, falsely claiming the crime rate in the city was 'ridiculous,' though legal experts have said this would likely be challenged in court. On Sunday, Bowser said that the president could only take over the MPD if specific conditions were met. 'None of those conditions exist in our city right now. As I mentioned, we are not experiencing a spike in crime, in fact, we're watching our crime numbers go down.' Key Background Trump proposed the federal government's takeover of Washington, D.C., multiple times during his presidential campaign last year. He met with Mayor Muriel Bowser at his Mar-a-Lago property in December, during which Bowser said the pair discussed 'shared priorities.' Bowser has not directly addressed Trump's false claims of violent crime rates rising in the city, though she said in February that Washington, D.C. was a 'world-class city' and noted the city holds a AAA bond rating from Moody's and that violent crime was at a 30-year low. Bowser and Trump previously clashed in 2020, when Trump deployed the National Guard to the city as protests enveloped the city and others in the wake of George Floyd's murder. Are Federal Law Enforcement Agents Already Operating In D.c.? About 450 federal law enforcement agents were already deployed in D.C. and making arrests, FOX 5 DC reported. Law enforcement has not released official numbers for arrests. However, they reportedly include an individual detained for carrying a handgun without a license, a person driving on a suspended license and people riding dirt bikes in a park. Three guns were seized, including one that was stolen. 'We are not experiencing a crime spike. We do know that this task force has been focused on quality of life issues,' Bowser said Sunday. After reviewing the reported arrests, the mayor said 'that sounds like a typical MPD rundown of arrests that I review on a daily basis.' Forbes Trump Says Federal Government Should 'Take Over' And Run Washington, D.C. By Siladitya Ray
