WASHINGTON - Sen. John Cornyn said FBI Director Kash Patel accepted his request for federal officers to work with Texas state law enforcement in tracking down the Democratic lawmakers who fled the Lone Star State to try to block Republicans’ redistricting efforts.
More than 50 Texas Democrats left their state on Aug. 3 in order to deny Republicans the quorum they need to move ahead with their plan to carry out an unusual mid-decade redistricting. The effort could give Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives up to five more seats in the 2026 midterms. The legislators fled to blue states, including Illinois, Massachusetts and New York.
House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, fired back on X.
“Shouldn’t the FBI be tracking down terrorists, drug traffickers and child predators? The Trump administration continues to weaponize law enforcement to target political adversaries. These extremists don’t give a damn about public safety. We will not be intimidated,” he wrote.
America: Can you just go ahead and release the files? This is beyond ridiculous.
FBI: Sorry, we’ve got Dems to hunt and local state matters to get involved in. Because we love small government and hate the deep state so much.
I’m mostly worried/concerned, but part of me is morbidly curious to see exactly how deep into the military toolbox they’re willing to go, and how they justify government overreach when they’re the ones doing it.
Facial recognition, license plate scanning, or just plain old fashioned cell phone tracking like they used for Comey? Will they bust out that new x-ray vision through the wall surveillance tech to hunt down Dems for doing the same thing Republicans have done in the past?
How will they explain the cost to tax payers? The old that was then, this is now? (I know they won’t bother to acknowledge how much this will cost in manpower, but it’s fun to pretend). Would they just blame it on the Dems for making them hunt them down?
I’m most curious to see what kind of showdown there is when the feds show up in Chicago to take these people into custody.