Politics

(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Saturday mostly in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, in her effort to obtain more details about the planned closure and renovation of the Kennedy Center, which is set for a board vote at the White House on Monday.

Judge Christopher Cooper also ruled that as a trustee, Beatty must be afforded a “meaningful opportunity to provide input” and not be “categorically barred” from speaking at the meeting, which President Donald Trump is set to chair.

But Cooper stopped short of requiring at this stage that Beatty be permitted to cast a vote as a trustee, saying that is a “trickier question” with no clearcut answers.

“As the foregoing facts suggest, a project of this salience and magnitude—which threatens to involve at least some demolition and reconstruction of a major national memorial and active performing arts theater—does not happen overnight,” Cooper said in his ruling.

The judge directed the government to provide Beatty with materials on the project ahead of the Monday meeting.

“The government’s assertion, both in its briefing and at the hearing, that such information is ‘preliminary’ and not yet sufficiently ‘finalized’ to share with the full slate of decisionmakers—just four days before the Board is set to vote on a complete, two-year closure of the Center they are statutorily charged with overseeing—borders on preposterous,” Cooper said.

Beatty’s pending lawsuit challenges the renaming of the Kennedy Center to the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as the pending closure and renovations. Cooper said the court will address those issues at a later date.

“No president has the authority to shut Congress out of the governance of the Kennedy Center, much less unilaterally rename or demolish it,” Beatty said in a statement Saturday. “We will not stand by while an important part of our national heritage is jeopardized, and I intend to make that clear at next week’s board meeting.”

The White House didn’t immediately have a comment about the ruling.

Asked for comment on the lawsuit previously, White House spokesperson Liz Huston told ABC News in a statement that the Kennedy Center’s board voted to rename it after Trump “stepped up and saved the old Kennedy Center.”

As for whether a sitting member of the House who serves on the Kennedy Center board as a function of her office can vote, Judge Cooper said that the legal argument in Beatty’s favor is strong, but how the board has operated in practice in that respect is not clear.

Some veterans of the Kennedy Center recalled ex-officio members of the board voting, while others say they never observed that.

The board approved a bylaws change last May to delineate presidentially-appointed general trustees from “nonvoting” ex-officio members.

“Though the Court thinks that Beatty has the better statutory argument as to both participation and the right to vote, her battle for emergency relief on these fronts is not yet won,” Cooper ruled. 

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(NEW YORK) — One year after Elon Musk began an unprecedented attempt to eliminate swaths of the federal government, newly released deposition videos are providing a never-before-seen look at two of the people responsible for the largest mass termination of federal grants in the National Endowment for the Humanities’ history.

According to the depositions and other materials released as part of a civil lawsuit related to the funding cuts, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) relied on ChatGPT to identify more than $100 million in grants related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that were later cancelled.

When President Donald Trump returned to office last January, he empowered Musk to slash federal spending as a lead adviser in the newly created DOGE. Within days, all agencies were directed to put DEI staff on leave and related programs were shuttered.

In lengthy depositions, two DOGE employees — Justin Fox and Nate Cavanaugh — defended the effort to cut “useless agencies” as part of DOGE’s attempt to reduce the federal deficit.

“You don’t regret that people might have lost important income … to support their lives?” an attorney asked Cavanaugh about the grant cancellations.

“No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero,” Cavanaugh said.

“Did you reduce the federal deficit?” the attorney asked.

“No, we didn’t,” Cavanaugh said.

With backgrounds in tech and finance, neither man worked in government prior to joining DOGE last year. Cavanaugh said they originally determined which grants could be cut based on if they included certain words — like “DEI, DEIA, Equity, Inclusion, BIPAC, LGBTQ” — though the final decision about cuts was up to the head of individual agencies.

“Do you think it’s inappropriate in any way that someone in their 20s with no experience with grants for the federal government was making personal judgment calls about what grants to cancel?” an attorney asked.

“Um, no. I don’t think it’s inappropriate,” Cavanaugh said, arguing that he did not need formal education or experience to make informed judgments.

“So presumably you read some of these books that would have informed you on how to cancel a grant based on DEI,” the attorney asked.

“Um, I did not read a book, um, on how to discern whether a grant includes DEI or not. I read the actual description of the actual grant,” Cavanaugh said.

Fox said they instead turned to OpenAI’s ChatGPT to help sift through the thousands of grants awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

According to court filings, the men prompted ChatGPT by asking, “From the perspective of someone looking to identify DEI grants, does this involve DEI? Respond factually in less than 120 characters.· Begin with ‘Yes.’ o. ‘No.’ followed by a brief explanation.· Do not use ‘this initiative’ or ‘this description’ in your response.”

Fox was repeatedly pressed by attorneys to explain certain funding decisions, such as defunding a language center — described as a “wasteful, noncritical spend” — or projects related to Black history and civil rights.

“Why is a documentary about Holocaust survivors DEI?” an attorney asked.

“It’s a gender-based story that’s inherently discriminatory to focus on this specific group,” Fox said.

According to the depositions and legal documents, the men did not provide a clear definition for DEI or take additional steps to ensure the decisions were not discriminatory — arguing it was not necessary because AI software was not the final decision-maker.

“Did you do anything to ensure that ChatGPT’s perception of DEI as applied here wouldn’t discriminate on the basis of sex?” an attorney asked, prompting another objection.

“It didn’t matter,” Fox said.

DOGE’s efforts in multiple federal agencies and departments last year faced opposition and lawsuits, with critics raising concerns about the group’s effectiveness and its access to sensitive data. 

Both Fox and Cavanaugh defended the funding decisions, arguing the cuts were necessary to reduce the deficit, though they never achieved their goals.

“Did you ever find it problematic that you were, alongside Nate, short-listing for termination projects that had hits on words like Black, homosexual, LGBTQ+?” an attorney asked, prompting an objection and follow up question.

“We were identifying wasteful spend in the government based on administration direction. That was the whole reason we were there, was to find savings,” Fox said, though he acknowledged the deficit was never reduced.

Their work cutting grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities was memorialized in a social media post by DOGE, which vowed that any future grants would be “merit-based and awarded to non-DEI, pro-America causes.”

According to the depositions, some of the saved funds were spent on the National Garden of American Heroes — a sculpture garden to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary.

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(WASHINGTON) — A top federal judge in Washington on Friday blocked Justice Department subpoenas to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors after determining the government “produced essentially zero evidence” to support a criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, according to an unsealed court opinion. 

“There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair who will,” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in his opinion.

“A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning. On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual,” the judge added.

Acting U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro blasted Boasberg as an activist judge and has pledged to appeal the ruling.

The Justice Department’s probe centered on Powell’s testimony to Congress last year about cost overruns in a multi-billion-dollar office renovation project.

Powell rebuked the investigation in a video message in January as a politically motivated effort to influence the Fed’s interest rate policy.

The Justice Department’s move was met with heavy criticism from the Hill especially from key Republicans who stressed the importance of the Fed’s independence.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, warned Pirro’s office against attempting to appeal Boasberg’s ruling.

“This ruling confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence.  We all know how this is going to end and the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on,” Tillis said in an X post Friday.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — Top Pentagon officials on Friday pledged to combat Iran’s efforts to turn the Strait of Hormuz into a dangerous choke point for the world’s oil supply as the critical waterway stands out as a key piece of terrain to control in the war.

Iran has said it will continue to seek to shut down the key waterway, which threatens the safe passage of oil tankers and could lead to devastating effects on fuel prices and other parts of the market. The Strait of Hormuz is a critical and narrow waterway through which about 20% of the world’s oil flows.

“It’s something we’re dealing with, we have been dealing with it, and [you] don’t need to worry about it,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon briefing, asserting the U.S. won’t allow the strait to “remain contested.”

“The only thing prohibiting transit in the strait right now is Iran shooting at shipping. It is open for transit should Iran not do that. Now, there’s a reason why we chose as one of our primary objectives to destroy the navy. We understood the ability to interdict shipping is something Iran has done for 40 years. It’s key terrain,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth said the Pentagon has options for the strait but did not provide detail on how it would be reopened. U.S. forces continue a relentless barrage of attacks on Iranian missile and drone position, as well as other tactical pain points the regime needs to threaten the strait.

Hegseth noted that Friday is set to see the largest volume of strikes against Iran so far. Some 15,000 targets have been attacked by the U.S. and Israel.

President Donald Trump said he would consider U.S. Navy escorts of commercial ships to help ease an escalating crisis of the world’s oil supply, but remained noncommittal on Friday.

“Well, we would do it if we needed to,” Trump told Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade in a radio interview. “But, you know, hopefully things are going to go very well. We’re going to see what happens.”

The Strait of Hormuz is only about 30 miles wide and just 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. Iran has mines that it can use to litter the strait, which would be an enormously complicated obstacle for ships in the area that are also vulnerable to Iranian missile and drone attacks.

Hegseth told reporters there’s “no clear evidence” Iran has yet placed any mines.

Ships are also vulnerable to Iranian missile and drone attacks. Several commercial ships have been attacked in recent days, both in the strait and Persian Gulf.

While the U.S. develops plans for the strait, Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said the focus continues to be strikes — some of the heaviest so far — against missile and drone platforms as well as factories to cripple Iran’s ability to manufacture new weapons.

Escorting tankers through the strait would be a complex operation, one that the U.S. military doesn’t execute often at such a high level.

“It’s a tactically complex environment,” Caine told reporters Friday when asked about the timetable for possible U.S. Navy escorts. “Before I think we want to take anything through there at scale, we want to make sure that we do the work pursuant to our current military objectives to do, to do that safely and smartly. So, we’re continuing to develop options.”

The closest comparison is from December 2023 through mid-2025, when the U.S. Navy and partner forces, including the United Kingdom and France, escorted commercial vessels through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to shield them from Houthi drone and missile attacks.

The last time the U.S. Navy escorted ships through the Strait of Hormuz was in 1987 and 1988, during the so-called “Tanker War,” when Washington launched convoy operations to shield oil tankers caught in the maritime spillover of the decade-long Iran-Iraq conflict.

At least 140 service members have been wounded with the war as it approaches its second week. Thirteen service members have died. Six soldiers were killed by an Iranian drone strike at a U.S. tactical operations center in Kuwait, one was killed by an Iranian strike at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, and six service members were killed when their refueling aircraft went down in friendly airspace in western Iraq.

ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is facing an escalating crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, where roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply remains caught in the crosshairs of the U.S. and Israeli war with Tehran.

Trump downplayed the virtual standstill in and near the vital shipping route, saying on Wednesday it was in “great shape.”

But Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in a purported first message since taking over for his father, vowed Thursday that his country will continue to block the strait as leverage and capitalize on Iran’s economic weapon.

Attacks on shipping vessels have surged in the Persian Gulf this week, and oil prices jumped to more than $100 per barrel. In the U.S., gas prices rose to a national average of $3.59 a gallon, according to data from AAA.

The International Energy Agency said on Thursday the Middle East conflict is creating “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.” Member countries of the IEA have said they will release 400 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves, a first such joint effort since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

To deal with the economic and political fallout at home, President Trump will tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said his department’s been authorized to release 172 million barrels from the reserve starting next week.

But analysts say those solutions are temporary, likely not enough oil in the long term to make up for the 20 million barrels that typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz each day.

Trump told Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade in an interview earlier this week that ships holding at the Strait of Hormuz need to “show some guts” and push through the channel.

Trump on March 3 had announced the U.S. government was going to provide some risk insurance and guarantees after insurers canceled their coverage.

He also said that if necessary, the U.S. Navy would escort tankers through the strait, a potentially risky proposition.

But as of Thursday, Energy Secretary Wright said the U.S. Navy is “not ready” to escort oil tankers because of the military’s current focus on striking Iran.

“It will happen relatively soon, but it can’t happen now. We’re simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities,” Wright told CNBC.

When asked if the U.S. escorting of tankers could happen by the end of the month, Wright said, “I think that is quite likely the case.”

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly, when asked about Wright’s comments, told ABC News that Trump is “fully prepared to provide U.S. Navy escorts through the Strait of Hormuz if he deems it necessary. Our military has destroyed well over 20 inactive mine laying boats with more to come.”

Earlier this week, Trump warned that if Iran disrupted the Strait of Hormuz with mines, “the Military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before.”

Another potential avenue the White House said it is “considering” to mitigate the crisis is to waive the Jones Act, a century-old law that requires all goods shipped between U.S. ports be carried on U.S. owned-and-operated ships. 

“In the interest of national defense, the White House is considering waiving the Jones Act for a limited period of time to ensure vital energy products and agricultural necessities are flowing freely to U.S. ports. This action has not been finalized,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Thursday. 

Trump, who could face political consequences of higher oil and gasoline prices in this year’s midterm elections, on Thursday tried to spin the rising costs as good for the U.S. overall.

“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

“BUT, of far greater interest and importance to me, as President, is stoping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons, and destroying the Middle East and, indeed, the World,” Trump added.

He did not comment on how expert say higher oil prices will hurt many companies and American consumers, although Wright, the energy secretary, insisted in an interview with Fox News that the individual consumer is Trump’s main concern.

“Overall for the U.S. economy, this isn’t bad news. But of course [what] President Trump is worried about is not overall, he is worried about every single American consumer. So yes, of course he is concerned about the rising energy prices through this short-term period that people have to suffer,” Wright said. 

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(WASHINGTON) — Longtime Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn told ABC News on Thursday that he is running for reelection, not announcing his retirement.

Clyburn, 85, later made the announcement official at South Carolina Democratic Party HQ in Columbia, where he promised to mount a “vigorous campaign” as he pursues an 18th term in the House of Representatives.

Amid speculation that he may opt to retire, the former House majority whip admitted he seriously considered it and consulted with his three daughters and polled constituents. He said the message he received was, “We don’t want you to leave.”

“So, I’m responding to the people down here,” Clyburn said.

After more than 33 years in the House, what is left unfinished for Clyburn to accomplish?

“We exist in pursuit of a more perfect union,” Clyburn said. “There’s nobody here today who thinks that this country is perfect. It is not a perfect country. But I don’t think there’s anybody today who believe that we should give up on that pursuit of perfection, and I’m here today to say I do believe that I’m very well equipped and healthy enough to move into the next term, trying to do the things that are necessary to continue that pursuit of perfection.”

Clyburn’s potential reelection would push his political survival beyond Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, who are retiring at the end of the current term on Jan. 3, 2027.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to seize the majority in November’s midterm elections.

“He was among those who asked me to stay,” Clyburn said of Jeffries. “He expressed an interest in my being a part of his leadership if he were to take the House back.”

Clyburn helped propel former President Joe Biden to the White House in 2020, throwing his endorsement behind Biden days before the South Carolina primary after three consecutive primary victories by Bernie Sanders as a field of Democrats vied for the party nomination.

Biden awarded Clyburn with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2024.  

“Always grounded in faith, family and service, Jim has guided South Carolina and our country with a steady hand and honest heart for over the last half century,” Biden said. “I would not be standing here as president making these awards were it not for Jim. I mean that sincerely.”

Clyburn on Thursday would not say whether, if he is reelected, it would be his final term.

“This could very well be my last term, and it could very well not be,” Clyburn said. “We’ll just see how things go.”

Clyburn’s announcement comes as an increasing number of members of Congress are retiring, including Pelosi, 85, Hoyer, 86, and Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, 84.

Clyburn said in a 2021 interview with Axios that there is a path for the next generation and that if they wanted his seat, to “come get it.”

“The path is there for the next generation; I never asked anyone to die for me. I don’t know why people come saying you need to step aside for me. No. If you want my seat, come get it,” Clyburn said at the time.

Still, the U.S. Congress has gotten younger as a whole, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of representatives and senators who took office at the start of the 119th Congress.

The median age of voting members of the House of Representatives is now 57.5 years. That’s down from 57.9 at the start of the 118th Congress (2023-2025), 58.9 in the 117th Congress (2021-2023).

The Senate, following the death or retirement of some of its oldest members, has begun to reverse its aging trend. The new Senate’s median age is 64.7 years, down from 65.3 at the start of the previous Congress. 

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(WASHINGTON) — The UFC will host training sessions at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, this weekend, the mixed martial arts promotion and FBI announced on Thursday. 

FBI Director Kash Patel has long been a UFC fan and talked about doing this type of training in one of his first calls with staff at the FBI. 

“I’m thrilled to announce this historic seminar between the FBI and the UFC at Quantico,” Patel said in a statement. “This is a tremendous opportunity for our FBI agents to learn and train with some of the greatest athletes on earth — helping the world’s premier law enforcement agency be even better prepared to protect the American people.”

The seminars will be on March 14 and 15 and will be led by current and former UFC fighters, including one champion, UFC said. 

“I have tremendous respect for the FBI and the work they do every day to protect this country,” UFC CEO Dana White said in a statement. “Our UFC fighters are some of the baddest men and women on the planet and they are heading to Quantico to train the best FBI agents in mixed martial arts. It’s an incredible opportunity for our athletes to experience, and we’re proud to support the FBI in strengthening their defense techniques.”

UFC fighters taking part in this weekend’s training include current interim UFC lightweight champion Justin Gaethe, the first UFC BMF champion Jorge Masvidal, former UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman, former UFC strawweight title challenger Claudia Gadelha, former UFC lightweight title challenger Michael Chandler, top UFC flyweight contender Manel Kape and mixed martial arts legend Renzo Gracie, the UFC said.

“This collaboration is part of an overall initiative by the FBI to provide its agents with exciting, innovative training options and to constantly look for opportunities to revamp and improve their preparation to continue to be the best of the best,” the FBI said in a release.

The FBI did not say what type of training would be conducted.

The Trump administration and UFC relationship is not new. Trump has attended multiple fights in recent years and the White House is hosting a UFC fight on the Ellipse later this year. 

The White House-UFC event, which has been named UFC Freedom Fights 250, is June 14, which is also President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. The event is also meant to celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary.

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(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, told ABC News on Thursday that he is running for reelection, not announcing his retirement.

Clyburn, who took office in the House in 1993, is set to appear at South Carolina Democratic Party HQ in Columbia at 10:30 a.m. to make his campaign announcement.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is traveling to Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday to deliver another speech focused on economic messaging. But this time, it’s in the district of Rep. Thomas Massie, the six-term Republican that the president is actively working to oust.

Just two months ahead of a contentious Republican primary between Massie and Trump-endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, the president is set to make two stops in the area: at a packaging facility in Hebron, Kentucky, and then at ThermoFisher in Reading, Ohio, where he’ll discuss efforts to lower prescription drug prices.

The visit comes amid an ongoing, bitter feud between Massie and Gallrein — one of the party’s few significant MAGA proxy battles this year. The race is also one of the most expensive House GOP primaries of the 2026 cycle.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week that Trump will be joined by Ohio and Kentucky lawmakers “who he greatly admires and respects and supports.” Massie won’t be at any of Wednesday’s events alongside Trump; a Gallrein spokesperson confirmed to ABC News that he will be in attendance for the president’s event.

Massie has long been the subject of Trump’s ire, but it has ramped up this cycle with Massie’s unwavering push for the release of the files about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as well as his opposition to significant legislation championed by the president, including his chief domestic policy package.

Last week, Massie was one of two Republicans to buck party leadership and vote in favor of the Iran war powers resolution, which attempts to curtail military action.

In October, Trump said Massie needed to be “thrown out of office,” after the congressman objected to a short-term funding bill backed by the president– also saying, “[Massie] SHOULD BE PRIMARIED, and I will lead the charge against him.” 

Trump then nudged Gallrein to enter the race, backed him, and the fifth-generation farmer launched his bid that month.

In a social media post on Monday, Gallrein said the “rally will be a huge moment for our campaign and for the people of Northern Kentucky.” Gallrein wrote Monday on X.

In an interview with ABC affiliate WCPO about the president’s visit and his race against Gallrein, Massie said he’s glad Trump is visiting the district and “paying attention to local issues.”

“I suspect he’s also going to try and help my opponent, but you know that’s really all my opponent has going for him. He’s promised to be a rubber stamp when he gets to Washington, D.C., and I don’t think people here want a rubber stamp.”

Massie told WCPO he will not make Trump’s visit due to prior commitments.

Massie also said the president would “discover” support for the positions he champions, including a focus on releasing the Epstein files and staying out of foreign wars.

“What they’ll discover is Trump fans in KY-4 and across the entire commonwealth also support my work on the Epstein files, reigning in spending, ending forever wars, draining the swamp, and food freedom!” Massie said in a social media post on Tuesday regarding the president’s upcoming visit to his district.

Ahead of his visit, Trump attacked Massie on his social media platform, saying, “I predict that ‘Representative’Thomas Massie will go down as the WORST Republican Congressman in the long and fabled history of the United States Congress.”

“Massie, who is running against a great American Patriot in the Kentucky Primary, will hopefully lose BIG,” added Trump, who reiterated his endorsement of Gallrein in another post.

The president’s rhetoric toward Massie is not new — in 2020, Trump called on the GOP to “throw Massie out of Republican party” following the congressman’s opposition to a coronavirus relief bill. Still, Massie won his primary by 62 points. In 2022, Trump endorsed Massie for reelection, calling him a “conservative warrior.” Massie won by nearly 60 points that year.   

But with Massie on the outs with Trump once again, Kentucky’s primary election — which will take place on May 19 — is expected to remain contentious.

On Tuesday, Massie attempted to paint his opponent as the “Trump traitor,” claiming Gallrein dropped his Republican affiliation after Trump became the party’s presidential nominee in 2016.

“Woke Eddie Gallrein abandoned President Trump’s Republican party – a complete dereliction of his MAGA duty,” the narrator of a recent Massie ad says. 

Gallrein spokeswoman Alexandra Wilkes acknowledged that Gallrein changed his voter registration in the past, but pinned the blame on Massie for this decision. 

“Ed briefly changed registration out of frustration with the broken system Congressman Massie created in his district, which hurt the Republican Party, and he is proud to stand with President Trump and true conservative Republicans,” Wilkes said in a statement, slamming Massie for “pretending to be a Trump ally.”  

Gallrein is also supported by Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr, who is also running for Senate, to replace outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell. Barr’s decision to endorse against Massie was significant, given that Massie is a part of his delegation. Trump has not yet endorsed in the Kentucky Senate race, and Barr is among the top three GOP candidates working for his endorsement. 

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(WASHINGTON) — Two congressional Democrats are calling on the Justice Department’s internal watchdog to launch a probe into what they characterized as a “troubling pattern” of favorable outcomes for clients who hired defense attorney Brad Bondi, the brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi, for representation in cases involving the Justice Department.

The lawmakers, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Rep. Dave Min, D-Calif., penned a letter Wednesday asking the DOJ’s inspector general to review “whether Attorney General Pamela Bondi properly recused herself from, or otherwise improperly influenced, several cases involving defendants represented by her brother.”

“We are concerned that DOJ officials, including the Attorney General, may have failed to ensure the independence of internal accountability mechanisms,” the lawmakers wrote.

Brad Bondi, a defense lawyer with the firm Paul Hastings, has secured several voluntary dismissals and settlements since his sister took the helm at the DOJ. In a LinkedIn post cited in the Democrats’ letter, Brad Bondi promoted a litany of “remarkable victories” on behalf of clients in 2025.

As ABC News previously reported, Brad Bondi successfully persuaded federal prosecutors to drop charges against Carolina Amesty, a former Florida state legislator, who faced two counts of theft of government property related to COVID relief fraud.

Weeks later, the Justice Department abruptly withdrew its case against another of Brad Bondi’s clients: Sid Chakraverty, a property developer who faced felony wire fraud charges in Missouri.

Amesty and Chakraverty denied any wrongdoing with respect to their cases at the time.

The DOJ told ABC News at the time that Attorney General Bondi had “no role” in either case, and that the decisions to drop those charges were “made through proper channels.”

Most recently, Brad Bondi was retained by an individual negotiating a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over civil fraud charges brought last September.

SEC regulators accused Brad Bondi’s client, Alexander Mehr, and another person of running a Ponzi scheme — misleading investors to the tune of more than $112 million as part of a plan to turn well-known retailers, including Pier 1 Imports and RadioShack, into thriving e-commerce businesses. The SEC also accused the two men of using more than $16 million in investor funds for personal use.

In October 2025, the SEC paused the case citing the government shutdown and noted ongoing settlement talks. Regulators said as recently as last month that the parties remain engaged in settlement negotiations. Neither Mehr nor the other defendant have publicly commented on the case.

DOJ spokesman Gates McGavick reiterated in a statement to ABC News on Wednesday, “These decisions were made through the proper channels, and the Attorney General had no role in them.”

A representative for Brad Bondi did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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