Claims by Texas Republicans that the FBI is getting concerned in efforts to trace down and presumably detain Democratic state lawmakers who fled Texas to cease a partisan redistricting effort is getting sturdy pushback from Democrats in Congress.
Democratic lawmakers are investigating how concerned the FBI is within the Texas redistricting battle, however lawmakers who’ve weighed in on the matter say that FBI intervention could be an egregious politicization of the nation’s high regulation enforcement company.
Claims that FBI Director Kash Patel helps to trace down state-level Texas Democrats come after Senate Democrats obtained data that the Justice Division ordered 1,000 FBI personnel to return by way of 100,000 Jeffrey Epstein-related paperwork in March to flag mentions of President Trump.
Democrats say that if Patel is taking sides within the Texas redistricting combat, it could be a misuse and politicization of the FBI — one thing they warned about throughout Patel’s Senate affirmation proceedings earlier this yr.
“Shouldn’t the FBI be monitoring down terrorists, drug traffickers and little one predators? The Trump administration continues to weaponize regulation enforcement to focus on political adversaries,” Home Democratic Chief Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) mentioned in an announcement on social media.
Responding to a declare by Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) that the FB I’ll assist discover Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled the Lone Star State, Jeffries mentioned: “These extremists don’t give a rattling about public security.”
“We is not going to be intimidated,” he declared.
Jeffries mentioned in a Thursday interview with ABC Information Reside that the FBI lacks the authorized authority to intervene in a state-level political dispute.
“There could be no authority for the FBI to focus on Democrats from the Texas legislature in reference to an act that Democrats have taken that’s licensed by the Texas Structure,” he mentioned.
He mentioned the redistricting effort in Texas is “a transparent energy seize as a result of Donald Trump and Home Republicans are determined to attempt to maintain on to their skinny majority within the Home of Representatives.”
The FBI declined to touch upon Republican claims that the company was aiding Texas regulation enforcement in monitoring down Democratic state lawmakers who’ve taken refuge in Illinois and different states.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, referred to as out the Trump administration for abusing its energy and misusing regulation enforcement personnel.
“This ridiculous misuse of federal regulation enforcement for political ends needs to be rejected by any fair-minded particular person,” Whitehouse mentioned.
Whitehouse, the rating member of the Judiciary panel’s Federal Courts Subcommittee, mentioned in December that there was “lots of quiet concern about Kash Patel” and the way he would lead the FBI.
“You actually don’t need an FBI director who desires to make use of that place to attempt to direct, intimidate and management the American media, and you actually don’t need one who is available in with an enemies record of his personal that he desires to pursue with out justification,” Whitehouse advised MSNBC in an interview on the time.
Democratic lawmakers warned the FBI to step again from the Texas redistricting combat after Cornyn, the senior Republican senator from Texas, who faces a tricky main combat towards Texas Legal professional Common Ken Paxton subsequent yr, urged Patel to assist monitor down Texas Democrats and examine them for the potential crimes.
“I’m proud to announce that Director Kash Patel has permitted my request for the FBI to help state and native regulation enforcement in finding runaway Texas Home Democrats,” Cornyn mentioned in an announcement Thursday morning.
“I thank President Trump and Director Patel for supporting and swiftly appearing on my name for the federal authorities to carry these supposed lawmakers accountable for fleeing Texas,” Cornyn mentioned.
Democrats referred to as the event a doubtlessly “harmful” politicization of the FBI.
“The FBI needs to be working to maintain our communities protected, not getting concerned within the political thuggery of Texas Republicans. What authorized grounds they might presumably must play a task on this escapes me – but when they had been to get entangled, it could actually set a harmful precedent for the politicization of the Bureau,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) advised The Hill.
Van Hollen sponsored an modification to the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations invoice for fiscal yr 2026 that may have blocked the Trump administration from spending cash to relocate the FBI headquarters to anyplace apart from Greenbelt, Maryland, the positioning chosen by the Common Providers Administration in 2023.
The modification was initially adopted to the spending invoice however then stripped on a party-line Republican vote.
Democratic sources say the rising politicization of the FBI will seemingly change into a problem within the upcoming September authorities funding negotiations.
Senate Majority Chief John Thune (R-S.D.) stored the Commerce, Justice, Science spending invoice out of a three-bill appropriations package deal that handed the Senate on Friday after Democrats objected.
Thune was doing occasions in South Dakota on Thursday and didn’t touch upon the mobile device partisan back-and-forth of the FBI’s involvement within the Texas redistricting battle.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Cornyn, who faces a tricky combat with Paxton that may determine the way forward for his lengthy Senate profession, has spearheaded the push to convey the FBI into the political meals combat over Texas redistricting.
Democrats suspect Cornyn is leaping into the fray to win factors with the Republican base forward of subsequent yr’s main at a time that some polls present him trailing Paxton.
Cornyn despatched a letter to Patel Tuesday to “encourage” the FBI to “take any applicable steps to help in Texas state regulation enforcement efforts to find or arrest potential lawbreakers who’ve fled the state.”
He argued the departure of state lawmakers from Texas was designed to “keep away from legislative duties” and a “violation of their oath of workplace.”
Cornyn mentioned he’s particularly “involved” that Democratic legislators “solicited or accepted funds to help of their efforts to keep away from their legislative duties” and “could also be responsible of bribery or different public corruption offenses.”
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott mentioned on Thursday that “Texas DPS and the FBI are monitoring down derelict Democrats.”
“They are going to be taken on to the Texas Capitol,” he wrote in a social media put up on X.
Not Above the Legislation, a coalition of left-of-center activist teams, mentioned that Cornyn’s efforts to push the FBI into the Texas political combat threatened political rights and freedoms “core to our democracy.
“Federal regulation enforcement mustn’t ever be weaponized as a political software of the president or manipulated by state-level politicians to serve partisan agendas. Utilizing federal brokers to encroach on state issues units a harmful precedent that threatens the rights and freedoms of each Individuals,” the group mentioned in an announcement.
The signatories to the assertion embrace Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, Praveen Fernandes, vice chairman of the Constitutional Accountability Heart, Kelsey Herbert, marketing campaign director at MoveOn, and Brett Edkins, managing director for coverage and political affairs at Stand Up America.