'Don’t flinch'

'The Trump White House will not allow impoverished mothers and their babies to go hungry'

'Very serious penalties'

'Increasingly dug in'

'Nearly 300 civilian nominees confirmed'

a dangerous precedent

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Former special counsel Jack Smith allegedly monitored the phone calls and personal messages of multiple Republican members of Congress during his probe of President Donald Trump’s efforts to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election, Fox News reported. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee were among those whose phones were tapped by the FBI, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told affected members of Congress after an oversight request by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, according to Fox News. The monitoring, conducted as part of the Arctic Frost probe, allegedly involved calls discussing plans to contest the certification of the electoral votes, Fox News reported. “It is a disgrace that I have to stand on Capitol Hill and reveal this—that the FBI was once weaponized to track the private communications of U.S. lawmakers for political purposes,” Bongino said to Fox News Digital. “That era is over.” Smith also reportedly probed multiple conservative organizations during his investigation, including the student group Turning Point USA. Smith’s investigation also targeted other individuals, including former Trump administration official Jeffrey Clark, according to whistleblowers who confided in Grassley. Smith secured a superseding indictment against Trump in August 2024, almost two months after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump’s claims of immunity in a case stemming from a previous version of the indictment of the former president. United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia agreed to dismiss the case at Smith’s request on Nov. 25, 2024, after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland released Smith’s report Jan. 14, in which Smith outlined findings from his probe into Trump’s efforts to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election. Garland appointed Smith in November 2022 to oversee allegations surrounding Trump’s challenge to the results of the 2020 election and retention of classified material by the then-former president. Smith and the FBI did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The post FBI Says Jack Smith Monitored Private Calls of Nearly a Dozen GOP Senators During Jan. 6 Probe appeared first on The Daily Signal.

It seems in the wake of increasing political violence, assassinations, and left-wing terrorism, you can count on left-leaning judges to go easy on perpetrators. That’s the takeaway from the lenient sentencing of Nicholas Roske, a man—who now identifies as a woman—convicted of attempting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Roske received a sentence on Friday of only eight years in prison despite the Department of Justice seeking 30 years. Judge Deborah Boardman of U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, an appointee of President Joe Biden, made much of her sentencing ruling about how the defendant was transgender and how this incident brought the family together. Boardman said, according to the Daily Wire, that “this crime did involve domestic terrorism,” but she undid the “terrorism enhancement” created by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to ensure terrorism charges brought heavier sentences. “I am heartened that this terrible infraction has helped the Roske family … accept their daughter for who she is,” Boardman said of Roske’s mother in the sentencing. “I have attended [Parents, Families & Friends of LGBTQ+ People] meetings and learned about the LGBTQ+ community. I am committed to going on this journey with Sophie.” Boardman further said that she was glad that the whole ordeal helped the Roske family “accept their daughter for who she is.” The judge lamented the fact that an executive order by President Donald Trump made it so that Roske had to be put in a male prison. “Let’s not hide the fact that President Trump issued an executive order saying transgender inmates would be assigned to prisons with their biological sex,” Board said according to the Daily Wire. It must be noted that there is ample evidence that men in women’s prisons present a particular danger to female inmates. Many conservatives on social were understandably outraged by Boardman’s ruling. Attorney Mike Davis called it a “national disgrace.” Maryland U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman—a Biden appointee—is a national disgrace.She only sentenced to 8 years, instead of 30, someone who attempted to murder Justice Kavanaugh and his family in their home.Make no mistake:Today’s Democrats want conservatives killed. pic.twitter.com/LMZTYLAHuT— ?? Mike Davis ?? (@mrddmia) October 3, 2025 Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called for Boardman’s impeachment. “This judge has demonstrated she is utterly unfit to be a federal judge,” Cruz said Monday on his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz”. “The House of Representatives should seriously contemplate impeaching this judge.” Cruz said it was clear the decision was made because of ideology. ? Utterly insane. Now, a left-wing Biden judge is giving a lenient sentence to the attempted murderer of a Supreme Court Justice, BECAUSE the attempted murderer is trans-gender.Leftism has truly become a mental disease. https://t.co/ljY3qZ3Q3Q— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 4, 2025 “If you are such a zealot, such a partisan ideologue, that you will not follow the sentencing guidelines … and instead you say, ‘You know what? This person’s transgender, and my ideology is such that I love transgenders.’ … That’s appalling,” Cruz said on the show. “I would love to have a trial in the Senate.” I am honestly not surprised by this ruling, which took place in one of the increasingly Soviet-like courts in deep blue parts of the U.S. But this trend of left-leaning judges giving incredibly lenient sentences to violent left-wing activists based on the absurd idea that they were good people going through a rough time or who just made a little mistake isn’t new. During the 2020 George Floyd riots two lawyers, Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis, took to the streets of New York City and firebombed a cop car. There is something particularly perverse about people who have been trained in the law violently attacking another part of the system that they’ve sworn to protect. If anything, the penalty should be particularly harsh for people who’ve violated that public trust, right? Nope. Despite facing 45 years in prison, both of these lawyers acting against the law got remarkably light punishments. The Biden Justice Department dropped the top charges in the case and only asked for 18 to 24 months of prison time, with time served. Mattis got sentenced to a year and a day in jail and Rahman was sentenced to 15 months. At Rahman’s sentencing, the judge called her “a remarkable person who did a terrible thing on one night.” Yeah, same with O.J. On the night of oopsies, Rahman replied to Mattis in a text about attacking cops, “Molotovs rollin’. I hope they burn everything down. Need to burn all police stations down and probably the courts too.” Not long after she was released on a second chance, the “remarkable” Rahman was right back out protesting, though assumedly not burning police cars. Is anyone surprised that Urooj Rahman (the lawyer who was arrested in 2020 for throwing Molotov cocktails at NYPD) is attending WOL protests? pic.twitter.com/cemy0bcKc9— Jason Curtis Anderson (@JCAndersonNYC) July 5, 2024 Remember those absurd riots at Columbia University in New York? District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the man who led a politicized, weaponized prosecution of President Donald Trump, let nearly all the violent vandals off the hook without even a slap on the wrist. If you are a leftwing activist and a member of one of the Left’s protected, oppressed groups being tried in a leftwing jurisdiction it appears you are very much in luck and have been for quite some time. This will only further embolden ideologues on the Left to take their crack at violence with the hope—even expectation—that they can skirt serious consequences. The post Kavanaugh Would-Be Assassin’s Light Sentence Sends Message That Violent Left Faces Different Standard appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Attorney General Pam Bondi clashed with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on law enforcement issues at a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday. Durbin, the ranking member of the committee, questioned Bondi about the legal justification for President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to restore law and order in Chicago. “You voted to shut down the government, and you’re sitting here. Our law enforcement officers aren’t being paid. They’re out there working to protect you,” the attorney general said. “I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” the attorney general told the Illinois senator. Bondi explained that the National Guard was being sent to Chicago to protect American citizens in the city. She complained that Illinois has taken measures to thwart federal law enforcement’s efforts to enforce American immigration law. “The state of Illinois has a TRUST Act, which prevents local law enforcement from cooperating with our federal immigration authorities,” the attorney general said. Bondi then elaborated on some of the threats facing the residents of Illinois. “On Sept. 15, our partners at ICE arrested an illegal alien from Mexico for beating a 21-year-old man to death. He had been imprisoned in Illinois prior to the murder and was released under the Illinois TRUST Act,” she continued.  Bondi explained some of the policies she was combating from the sanctuary state. Bondi: Trump Declared War on Narco-Terrorists to ‘Make America Safe Again’@AGPamBondi relayed to @SenMikeLee that under Trump’s direction, the administration is “working hand in hand” with Homeland Security to tackle illegal immigration and gang crime."These narco-terrorists… pic.twitter.com/BxqmPegsOW— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) October 7, 2025 “We filed multiple lawsuits in Illinois for sanctuary policies, specifically in-state tuition for illegal aliens and obstructing employers from verifying citizenship,” Bondi told the committee before adding that Ovidio Guzman Lopez, son of the notorious drug kingpin El Chapo, had pleaded guilty to federal drug crime charges in Chicago.  Bondi detailed the massive scale of illegal drugs that poured into the United States during the Biden administration. “The surge of drugs in this country has been horrific over the last four years,” the attorney general said, noting that the Drug Enforcement Administration had “seized 4,500 kilos of fentanyl powder and 50 million fentanyl pills, which I said earlier represents 370 million deadly doses of fentanyl.” The former Florida state attorney general promised to continue the fight against fentanyl and other illegal drugs killing Americans.  ?Bondi on Prison Reform: 'We Believe in Second Chances'@AGPamBondi said the Federal Bureau of Prisons is “doing everything to create more halfway houses” to give inmates “everything they need to be successful upon release” while also keeping Americans safe.“We need everyone… pic.twitter.com/Vx9Ww1BqSu— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) October 7, 2025 The committee hearing also discussed the explosive document released to the public yesterday that revealed the FBI during the Biden administration had monitored the phone calls of several U.S. senators, including Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.  “Gee, it sure looks like targeting political opponents to me, and yet, I haven’t heard a word from that side of the dais about any concern whatsoever,” the Missouri senator said. Bondi explained that she could not discuss who had ordered the tapping of the federal legislator’s phones “for very good reason,” but promised to get to the bottom of the matter. “We will be looking at all aspects of this, and I have talked to [FBI Director Kash] Patel at length about this,” she said.  “I took office with two main goals, to end the weaponization of justice and return the department to its core mission of fighting violent crime,” the attorney general had said earlier in her opening statement. Bondi also emphasized to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., that she was prepared to protect federal judges from threats foreign and domestic, a topic in the news after a federal judge appointed by President Joe Biden sentenced Nicholas Roske, the would-be assassin of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “Sen. Whitehouse, I would be happy to sit down with you regarding any threat to any federal judge in this country. We take threats very seriously. I will set a meeting with you, with Director [Gadyaces] Serralta of the U.S. Marshals [Service], and I will be there. And we will talk about any threats on federal judges, who threatened them or who orchestrated them,” Bondi asserted.  ? @AGPamBondi fires back after @SenWhitehouse references rumors of “photos” of Trump with Epstein:“Sen. Whitehouse, you sit here making salacious remarks… when you’re the one taking money from Epstein’s confidants,” she said, citing billionaire Reid Hoffman’s ties to Epstein… pic.twitter.com/3l6GqWFSLQ— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) October 7, 2025 The post Bondi Clashes With Illinois’ Durbin Over Sending National Guard Troops to Chicago appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. Normally, America does not care when a superintendent of public instruction or a school district is fired. Even in a big city like Des Moines, Iowa. But now we do. And why? For a variety of reasons. Ian Roberts, who is an African American resident alien—we’ll get to that in a minute—from Guyana, was recently fired. And he was fired because of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention order. And they came and arrested him. He fled. This is the superintendent of schools, remember. He fled ICE agents. And they chased him, and he was apprehended, arrested. It was found out, A, that he is here illegally. He is an illegal alien. He never obtained either citizenship nor legal residence. And he had an existing deportation order out on him, which ICE was trying to finalize when they arrested him. He had a prior weapons charge. And it was also discovered in the investigation to deport him that he is not a doctor of education, as his resume and as the school board thought when they hired him. And more importantly, they can’t figure out exactly how many units in which particular degrees he actually obtained because he’s mentioned five or six different universities of various statuses. So, it’s kind of a mess. When he was arrested, he was found with $3,000 in cash. I don’t know when a superintendent of schools carries $3,000 in his wallet. And he also had a loaded Glock gun. Put all that together, and it’s mystifying that he became a cause celebre. So that when he was detained, and therefore, immediately put on suspension, and he resigned before he was fired, there was a mass protest to retain him. And the chairman of the school board, Jackie Norris, who’s now a candidate in the Democratic upcoming primaries to replace incumbent Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, tried to use this as a political ploy when she said, you know, this is a—basically, her subtext was: This is a typical ICE overreach. And we, people of Iowa, and especially liberal Des Moines, will not stand for it. So, we need radical—that was a weird word—radical empathy for Dr. Ian Roberts. Of course, he wasn’t a doctor. And then, all of what I just told you started to trickle in, and she backed off. And now the school board says: Well, we were deceived. We were deceived. We didn’t know. They hired a headhunting firm to find him. And apparently, he’d taught at four or five other places, most of which are mum about his record there. But there was plenty of evidence, had anybody wanted to look for, that he never had a doctorate, that he lied about his citizen status, he lied about a prior arrest for a gun violation, and he was, as I said, here illegally. So, the question then is, why would a sophisticated city and a sophisticated school district hire someone without specifying his citizen status or his degrees? And the answer was: He was a diversity, equity, and inclusion candidate. He was a charismatic, apparently, they thought, black American. This was mostly a white city. It had a large minority population. They felt it would be a goodwill gesture to hire the first African American—although he was not an African American, he was a citizen of a foreign country. And he was here illegally. But nevertheless, they thought that would be reflecting on their goodwill, their sensitivity, their liberality. But they didn’t seem to be worried about whether he was qualified because all you have to do—and I’m speaking as someone who has been in academia for 50 years and probably, I don’t know, run 20 searches when an applicant applies for a teaching job or administrative job. And I think I’ve been on three or four administrative searches. The suspicion is always there. When you see these resumes, you always ask yourself: I have to check the resume. I’ve gotta call the institution and make sure they have a degree. I’ve gotta call the recommender to make sure that he really exists. They apparently didn’t do many of that at all. And why? We’re getting back to a theme we’ve talked about a lot of times. And that is the dangers of DEI. And what are the dangers? They’re a danger of omission and commission. Commission means that you do not use meritocratic standards for particular people of a particular gender or sexual persuasion or racial background or religious background. You exempt them in a way that you would not for other people. And therefore, when you exempt them and they know that you’re exempting them, they take advantage of that, as Mr. Roberts did. I can’t say “Dr. Roberts,” he’s not a doctor. And then there is the sin, always, of DEI of omission. When you hired Dr. Roberts—“Dr.”—you passed over a lot of qualified people who probably did have doctorates, who probably did get legitimate degrees from good universities, who probably did have school districts and universities that would be willing to contact you and vouch for the resident. But you weren’t interested in that. So, you basically disqualified dozens of people because they didn’t have the right race or they didn’t have the right ethnic background. And they didn’t, therefore, fit your definition of what the school board president, Ms. Norris, who was a former staffer to then-first lady Michelle Obama, called “radical empathy.” She doesn’t have radical empathy now, once she learned the story and got embarrassed, and sees that it’s going to damage her senatorial prospects. But until the full story came out, this was a Luigi Mangione and Kilmar Abrego Garcia—not in the same magnitude, but it was the same sort of profile. We suspend all normal meritocratic evaluations because of someone’s ideology, or someone’s superficial appearance, or ethnic or racial background. It’s a very dangerous thing to suspend meritocracy for those reasons. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post How an Illegal Alien Cheated the System to the Top—Until ICE Caught Him appeared first on The Daily Signal.