The White House reiterated Thursday that the U.S. will not send a delegation to the upcoming G20 conference in South Africa, calling reports claiming the opposite ‘fake news.’ 

President Donald Trump said earlier in November that U.S. officials would skip the annual conference, which brings together 19 nations to discuss global economic stability and development, over South Africa’s reported human rights abuses. 

Media reports and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, however, have claimed that the U.S. will send a delegation to the summit, which begins Saturday. 

When approached for comment on claims the U.S. backtracked and will send a delegation, a White House official said such claims were ‘fake news.’ 

‘This is fake news. The chargé d’affaires in Pretoria will attend the handover ceremony as a formality, but the United States is not joining G20 discussions,’ a White House official told Fox News Digital Thursday. 

Trump wrote on Truth Social Nov. 7,  ‘Afrikaners (People who are descended from Dutch settlers and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated. No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.’ 

Ramaphosa, speaking Thursday at a G20 event in Johannesburg, told delegates and media, ‘We have received notice from the United States, a notice where we are still in discussions with them, about a change of mind about participating in one shape, form or other in the (G20) Summit.

‘So, the discussions are still ongoing, it’s come at a late hour before the summit begins, so it needs to engage in those type of discussions to see how practical it is, and what it finally really means.

‘In a way, I see this as a positive sign, very positive, because, as I’ve often said, boycott politics never works.’ 

Ramaphosa later said if the U.S. does not take part, it is ‘outside the tent.’

He added, ‘The United States needs to be here, so it’s pleasing to hear that there is a change of approach, and so we are still discussing how that will manifest.’  

Fox News Digital reached out to Ramaphosa’s office for a response to the White House official’s statement Thursday but did not immediately receive a reply. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added during Thursday’s news conference that ‘there is not a shift’ of plans to attend. 

‘The United States is not participating in official talks at the G20 in South Africa,’ she said. ‘I saw the South African president running his mouth a little bit against the United States and the president of the United States earlier today, and that language is not appreciated by the president or his team.

‘The ambassador or the representative of the embassy in South Africa is simply there to recognize that the United States will be the host of the G20,’ Leavitt continued. ‘They are receiving that send-off at the end of the event. They are not there to participate in official talks despite what the South African president is falsely claiming.’ 

Ramaphosa lashed out at Trump from the sidelines of a G20 event Thursday, reportedly saying, ‘We will not be bullied. We will not agree to be bullied by anyone.’

Trump had a fiery Oval Office moment with Ramaphosa in May when he confronted the South African president over claims White Afrikaner South African farmers were being slaughtered in the nation. The White House played video footage for Ramaphosa and his cohort that showed white crosses marking alleged graves lining a road in South Africa. 

‘Now this is very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites — over a thousand — of White farmers,’ Trump said during the tense Oval Office moment. ‘And those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there is approximately a thousand of them. 

‘They’re all White farmers. The family of White farmers. And those cars aren’t driving. They are stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed. And it’s a terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it. On both sides of the road, you have crosses. Those people are all killed.’ 

‘Have they told you where that is, Mr. President? I’d like to know where that is. Because this I’ve never seen,’ Ramaphosa then asked Trump. 

‘I mean, it’s in South Africa, that’s where,’ Trump responded. 

‘We need to find out,’ Ramaphosa said.  

That same month, the State Department announced that the U.S. was welcoming South African refugees who were victims of ‘government-sponsored racial discrimination’ in their homeland. 

The South African government has slammed the Trump administration’s refugee efforts, arguing claims of White genocide in the country have been discredited. 

‘The South African Government wishes to state, for the record, that the characterisation of Afrikaners as an exclusively white group is ahistorical. Furthermore, the claim that this community faces persecution, is not substantiated by fact,’ the South African government said in a statement on Nov. 8 in response to Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the U.S. would skip the summit. 

China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Argentina’s Javier Milei are also skipping the summit but are sending delegations in their place, The Associated Press reported. 

Fox News Digital’s Paul Tilsley, Morgan Phillips and Greg Norman contributed to this report. 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin — who clapped back after House Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett said that he and others had taken money from someone by the name of Jeffrey Epstein — took to social media again after Crockett defended her comments and claimed that she was not seeking to ‘mislead’ anyone.

Zeldin began his Wednesday post on X with an exploding head emoji and then declared, ‘When you find yourself in a hole, it’s best to stop digging.’

‘The public FEC report Crockett referenced on the House floor very clearly states that the Jeffrey Epstein who donated to my past campaign was a physician, and the donation date was well AFTER the [drum emoji] other [drum emoji] Jeffrey [drum emoji] Epstein [drum emoji] WAS [drum emoji] ALREADY [drum emoji] DEAD!!!’ he exclaimed.

The dust-up originated because Crockett, during remarks on Tuesday, listed figures and entities she said had taken money from ‘somebody’ with the name Jeffrey Epstein. Noting that she had her ‘team dig in very quickly,’ she ran through the following list: ‘Mitt Romney, the NRCC, Lee Zeldin, George Bush, WinRed, McCain-Palin, Rick Lazio.’

Zeldin fired back on X, pointing out that the donation was not from the notorious Jeffrey Epstein, but from a completely different individual.

‘Yes Crockett, a physician named Dr. Jeffrey Epstein (who is a totally different person than the other Jeffrey Epstein) donated to a prior campaign of mine,’ Zeldin wrote. ‘NO [clap emoji] FREAKIN [clap emoji] RELATION [clap emoji] YOU [clap emoji] GENIUS!!!’

Meghan McCain, who is the daughter of the late Republican senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, also fired back at Crockett.

‘My Dad has been dead 7 years @RepJasmine. He never met Jeffrey Epstein, let alone took money from him. The Jeffrey Epstein you are referencing is an entirely different human being. Do you have mashed potatoes for brains, you absolute joke?!’ she wrote in a Wednesday post on X.

When CNN’s Kaitlan Collins confronted Crockett on Wednesday about Zeldin’s Tuesday post that pushed back against the notion that he had accepted a donation from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Texas Democrat said that she ‘never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein.’ 

‘Unlike Republicans, I at least don’t go out and just tell lies,’ she later said.

‘So, number one, I made sure that I was clear that it was a Jeffrey Epstein, but I never said that it was specifically that Jeffrey Epstein,’ Crockett said later during the interview.

President Donald Trump loves a deal and few partners have proven more willing or more powerful than Saudi Arabia.

This week, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pledged to channel $1 trillion in investments from the oil-rich kingdom into the U.S. 

Trump embraced the announcement as validation of his close ties with Riyadh and proof that international money is eager to flow back into the U.S. economy. Yet beneath the impressive headline figure lies a familiar reality: much of the promised investment exists only on paper, and experts caution that the actual cash flow could take years to materialize.

‘The term investment implies long-term capital, but in this case it really means purchases like aircraft, tanks, even computer chips,’ said Simon Henderson, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. ‘And those figures, $600 billion, a trillion, who really knows how accurate they are, or over what time frame?’

‘Perhaps the real story is that Saudi finances are in bad shape,’ added Henderson, who specializes in the Gulf region and energy policy. ‘Oil prices are too low, they need about $100 a barrel, and extravagant spending on prestige projects like The Line and NEOM are being scaled back.’

The Line is a proposed 105-mile car-free city and NEOM is a $500 billion futuristic mega-development on the Red Sea. Both are part of the crown prince’s ‘Vision 2030’ plan to diversify the kingdom’s economy beyond oil.

Others note that Saudi Arabia’s short-term fiscal strains don’t necessarily preclude large-scale investments over time.

‘It’s perfectly within the realm of possibilities that Saudi Arabia could make a $1 trillion investment into the United States over many years,’ explained E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, citing the kingdom’s vast oil wealth and long-term economic ambitions.

Antoni noted that much depends on how such an investment ultimately takes shape. For now, the White House has offered few details about what exactly the Saudi funds would be directed toward or when they might arrive.

‘What does it look like in practice? It could take a whole host of different forms,’ he said. ‘We don’t know yet if this is going to look like an investment in infrastructure and even if it is, in what industry?’

He pointed to petrochemicals as one possible fit but said other sectors could also attract Saudi money.

‘In terms of beneficiaries, clearly you have the American taxpayer, who’s going to benefit from a larger economy,’ Antoni continued. ‘That broadens the tax base and reduces the overall tax burden on each individual. So that’s very, very positive.’

He added that while such deals can stimulate confidence and markets in the short term, their most meaningful returns often unfold over years, well beyond a single presidential term.

‘Most of what President Donald Trump has done is to accrue benefits that will not appear until after he has already left office,’ Antoni told Fox News Digital. 

‘That’s not to say there are no initial gains, there clearly are. Every time another company announces more investment in the United States, it helps buoy the stock market, because equity prices are ultimately based on future earnings and those earnings rise when there’s additional investment coming.’

For now, the pledge bolsters Trump’s economic narrative but also sets up a long-term test of U.S.–Saudi relations, one whose true impact may not be clear for years.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were not invited to the funeral for former Vice President Dick Cheney, Fox News has confirmed.

Cheney’s funeral is scheduled for mid-morning on Thursday at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. It is traditional for sitting U.S. presidents to attend funerals for past presidents and vice presidents, but Trump has had a uniquely poor relationship with Cheney’s family in recent years. News of the president’s exclusion was first reported by Axios.

Cheney’s daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., helped lead the House investigation into Trump’s role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Both Liz and her father endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign.

The elder Cheney, who went from the plains of Casper, Wyoming, to a decades-long public career as a Republican congressman, Defense secretary, White House chief of staff and one of the most powerful American vice presidents ever, died at age 84 earlier this month.

‘Richard B. Cheney, the 46th Vice President of the United States, died last night, November 3, 2025. He was 84 years old. His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,’ his family said in a statement obtained by Fox News. ‘The former Vice President died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.’

‘For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,’ the statement continued.

‘Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,’ his family said. ‘We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.’

Cheney had a long history of cardiac problems, including five heart attacks. He received a heart transplant on March 24, 2012, at a Virginia hospital after nearly 21 months on a waiting list.

Cheney, who served as vice president for two terms under President George W. Bush, was one of the most powerful and controversial men ever to hold that position. He was a driving force behind America’s ‘war on terror,’ including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Fox News’ Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is demanding specifics from a group of congressional Democrats who urged military service members to ‘refuse illegal orders.’

Graham sent letters to a cohort of congressional Democrats, all with backgrounds in the military or intelligence community, featured in a now-viral video where they urge service members to refuse illegal orders.

The six lawmakers featured in the video were Sens. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., along with Reps. Maggie Goodlander, D-N.H.; Jason Crow, D-Colo.; Chris Deluzio, D-Pa.; and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa.

They reiterated the lines, ‘You can refuse illegal orders,’ or ‘You must refuse illegal orders,’ as they went on to charge that service members do not have to carry out orders from higher-ups that they believe violate the Constitution.

Notably, none of the lawmakers dove into which orders they believed were illegal in the video.

Graham, who served three decades in the Air Force and worked as an Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG), wrote in six letters to each of the lawmakers that he took ‘the issue of unlawful orders very seriously.’

‘I cannot find a single example of an illegal order during this administration, but as a Member of Congress, I believe you owe it to the country to be specific as to which orders you believe are unlawful,’ Graham said.

‘However, to say that I am disturbed by your video encouraging service members and Intelligence Community professionals to refuse ‘unlawful orders’ is an understatement,’ he continued. ‘In that regard, could you please provide clarity on what orders, issued by President Trump or those in his chain of command, you consider illegal?’

The video, and Graham’s letters, come on the heels of rising questions among lawmakers about the legality of President Donald Trump’s authorization of strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, and in the wake of the administration’s deployment of the National Guard to blue cities across the country.

Members of the military have an obligation to follow lawful orders from their superiors, but they can ignore orders deemed illegal, according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice — the standardized military justice system enacted in 1951.

When asked to get into specifics, Slotkin’s office pointed Fox News Digital to an interview the senator had with TMZ, where she explained that the video was made in response to service members ‘reaching out to us saying, ‘I don’t know what to do if the commander in chief orders me to do something that is illegal.’’

Slotkin, who was a CIA officer, said service members aren’t ‘trained in police techniques. They’re not trained in arresting, detaining American citizens, crowd control, raids on homes, and they were worried that they could be asked to do those things, that protests could get bad in a place like Chicago, and they could be asked to do these things.’

Fox News Digital reached out for comment from Kelly, Crow, Houlahan, Goodlander and Deluzio but did not immediately hear back.

U.S. taxpayers are footing nearly $250 million a year in SNAP benefits spent on fast-food meals across just nine states, most of which are blue states, according to Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst.

Nine states, including Arizona, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia — all of which are Democrat-run states except for Virginia — are opted into a SNAP program called the Restaurant Meals Program (RMP), which has spent nearly $250 million a year on hot meals, including fast-food, Ernst’s office found. 

The modern day Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was established in 1964 under the Food Stamps Act to provide basic food needs such as meats and fruits and vegetables to financially vulnerable Americans. Hot foods or foods ready for immediate consumption were not eligible for purchase under the program as its main mission was to provide staple foods to be prepared at home. 

A 1977 loophole, however, allowed states to opt into a program called the Restaurant Meals Program, which was established to allow homeless individuals who do not have a kitchen to purchase prepared meals using SNAP benefits, according to Ernst’s office. The eligibility for the program expanded in the following years to include disabled individuals, the elderly and their spouses, according to the office. 

Nine states are opted into the program, which requires participating restaurants to sign an agreement with the state that is then authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the SNAP program writ large. Restaurants that participate in the program were historically a small group but have since expanded, most notably in California in the Biden era, Ernst’s office said. 

California expanded its program statewide, for example, in 2021 that allowed restaurants to accept CalFresh benefits via SNAP at a swath of top fast-food chains stretching from McDonald’s to Domino’s Pizza to Jack in the Box. 

Ernst’s office found that from June 2023 to May 2025, more than $475 million in taxpayer dollars funded Restaurant Meals Program meals at fast-food establishments. During that same time period, $524 million in taxpayer funds were spent through the Restaurant Meals Program overall, meaning California accounted for more than 90% of the nation’s total Restaurant Meals Program funds from June 2023 to May 2025, according to the office. 

‘The ‘N’ in SNAP stands for nutrition not nuggets with a side of fries,’ Ernst told Fox News Digital. ‘I wish I was McRibbing you but $250 million per year at the drive-through is no joke and a serious waste of tax dollars. I hate to be the one to say McSCUSE ME, but something needs to be done because taxpayers are not lovin’ it.’

The data found that between June 2023 and May 2025 $41.4 million funds went through Restaurant Meals Program in Arizona, $3.6 million in New York, $1.3 million in Michigan, $995,900 in Rhode Island, $649,000 in Massachusetts, $479,000 in Illinois, $308,500 in Virginia and $8,600 in Maryland. 

Ernst’s introduced legislation Thursday, dubbed the McSCUSE ME Act, to rein in the scope of the Restaurant Meals Program. Specifically, the bill would continue allowing homeless, elderly and disabled individuals to continue using the program, but ending spousal eligibility. 

The legislation also would reel in which vendors are able to participate in the program, specifically restricting fast-food vendors in favor of grocery stores that have hot bars to better ensure availability of healthy prepared food options. The legislation would also require states to produce public annual reports showing how many vendors participate in the Restaurant Meals Program, the number of participating beneficiaries and total costs for the program, Fox News Digital learned. 

The report and legislation comes after the U.S. government just emerged from the longest government shutdown in history, at 43 days, that included putting the food assistance program under heightened scrutiny over fraud and concern as recipients saw disruptions to their access. 

Upon the reopening of the government, the Trump administration is requiring all SNAP beneficiaries to reapply for the program in an effort to prevent fraud. 

Federal spending on SNAP overall climbed to record highs under the Biden administration, Fox News Digital previously reported, at $128 billion in 2021 and $127 billion in 2022 during the pandemic. By the Biden administration’s final year, SNAP cost $99.8 billion.

Fox News Digital’s Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

A U.S. citizen jailed in Saudi Arabia for criticizing the royal family online was freed Wednesday by Saudi authorities, ending a four-year ordeal in the country, according to media reports.

Saad Almadi’s release came just a day after President Donald Trump met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Washington, D.C., per the New York Post.

Almadi, 75, a retired engineer and U.S. resident since 1976, was detained in 2021 during a family visit to Riyadh and later sentenced to more than 19 years in prison on terrorism charges tied to a series of posts online.

The charges were reduced to cyber crimes, and although he was released from prison in 2023, Almadi was held in the country under an exit ban which prevented him from going back home to the U.S.

The Almadi family issued a statement Wednesday celebrating the good news and thanking Trump.

‘Our family is overjoyed that, after four long years, our father, Saad Almadi, is finally on his way home to the United States!’ they said.

‘This day would not have been possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration. We are deeply grateful to Dr. Sebastian Gorka and the team at the National Security Council, as well as everyone at the State Department.’

A third portion of the statement expressed appreciation to others who had supported the case over the years.

‘We extend our thanks to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh for keeping our father safe, and to the nonprofit organizations and members of Congress who fought for his freedom,’ the statement read.

Almadi’s case also drew attention from human rights groups and U.S. lawmakers after he was accused of terrorism over 14 social media posts.

One suggested that a street in Washington be renamed after Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

U.S. pressure to lift Almadi’s exit ban had also intensified since Trump’s May visit to Saudi Arabia.

The president’s national security advisor, Sebastian Gorka, also met with Almadi’s son at the White House.

The Foley Foundation, which advocates for Americans detained overseas, praised the news Wednesday, saying it was ‘so excited’ the family’s fight had finally succeeded.

Per reports, Almadi was flying to the U.S. from Riyadh on Wednesday, according to his family, after Trump and the crown prince set foot on stage at a forum in Washington.

Fox News Digital has reached out to Sebastian Gorka, the Department of State and The White House for comment.

The House of Representatives unanimously voted against a provision that allows Republican senators whose phone records were seized by former Special Counsel Jack Smith to sue the federal government.

The provision was included in the recently passed bill to end the 43-day government shutdown, which President Donald Trump signed into law last week.

Despite supporters saying the provision is necessary to give senators recourse when the executive branch oversteps its constitutional bounds and reaches into congressional communications, the last-minute inclusion of the measure outraged both Republicans and Democrats, underscoring the ever-present tensions between the House and Senate.

The repeal passed 426 to 0, with 210 Democrats and 216 Republicans in the tally.

Dubbed ‘Requiring Senate Notification for Senate Data,’ the provision would allow senators directly targeted in former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation to sue the U.S. government for up to $500,000.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., who was involved in crafting part of the successful funding deal, told Fox News Digital he had even been afraid it could derail the final vote to end the shutdown.

‘It had been added in the Senate without our knowledge,’ Cole said. ‘It was a real trust factor … I mean, all of a sudden, this pops up in the bill, and we’re confronted with either: leave this in here, or we pull it out, we have to go to conference, and the government doesn’t get reopened.’

It was placed into the bill by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and given the green light by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sources confirmed to Fox News Digital last week.

Thune put the provision into the bill at the request of members of the Senate GOP, a source familiar with the negotiations told Fox News Digital, which included Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. 

It was a big point of contention when the House Rules Committee met to prepare the legislation for a final vote last Tuesday night. Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Austin Scott, R-Ga., and Morgan Griffith, R-Va., all shared House Democrats’ frustration with the measure, but they made clear it would not stand in the way of ending what had become the longest shutdown in history.

Even Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., appeared blindsided by the move.

‘I had no prior notice of it at all,’ Johnson told reporters last week. ‘I was frustrated, as my colleagues are over here, and I thought it was untimely and inappropriate. So we’ll be requesting, strongly urging, our Senate colleagues to repeal that.’

Those Republicans agreed with the motivations behind their Senate counterparts wanting to sue but bristled over the notion that it would come at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital the senators ‘have been wronged, no doubt in my mind’ but added its scope was too narrow.

‘This provision does not allow other Americans to pursue a remedy. It does not even allow the President of the United States, who was equally wrongfully surveilled and pursued by the Justice Department — they didn’t even include President Trump in this,’ Rose said.

And while several senators who would be eligible for the taxpayer-funded lawsuits have distanced themselves from the issue amid uproar, others have stuck to their guns.

‘My phone records were seized. I’m not going to put up with this crap. I’m going to sue,’ Graham said on ‘Hannity’ Tuesday night. He said he would be seeking ‘tens of millions of dollars.’

Cruz also told Fox News Digital that he did not support repealing the provision.

And Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., defended the provision in comments to Politico. 

‘I’d like for us to be able to defend our branch when DOJ gets out of control,’ he said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., similarly suggested to reporters on Wednesday that he was in favor of the measure.

‘I would just say, I mean, you have an independent, co-equal branch of government whose members were, through illegal means, having their phone records acquired — spied on, if you will, through a weaponized Biden Justice Department,’ Thune said. ‘That, to me, demands some accountability.’

He added, ‘I think that in the end, this is something that all members of Congress, both House and Senate, are probably going to want as a protection, and we were thinking about the institution of the Senate and individual senators going into the future.’

A bid by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., to force a censure of her fellow House Republican and remove his committee assignments failed on Wednesday night.

Mace introduced a censure resolution against Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., earlier in the day, accusing him of stolen valor among other alleged improprieties.

Mills rose in his own defense on Wednesday night to call for a vote to refer the measure to the House Ethics Committee and deny her accusations.

His counter-effort succeeded, with the House voting 310-103 to send the matter to the ethics panel — effectively squashing Mace’s effort for an immediate punishment.

Seven House Republicans voted alongside Mace to move the censure vote forward. They are Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., Kat Cammack, R-Fla., Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Joe Wilson, R-S.C.

The 310 lawmakers who voted against Mace’s move included both Democrats and Republicans.

Twelve lawmakers, including members of the House Ethics Committee, voted ‘present.’

Mace introduced the censure as a privileged resolution, a mechanism aimed at forcing House GOP leaders to reckon with a piece of legislation in the immediate future.

The resolution accused Mills of a wide variety of improprieties, including misrepresenting his military service and working as a private military contractor while serving as a member of Congress. 

She also cited several media reports alleging Mills assaulted past romantic partners while being accused of threatening another woman he was also reportedly involved with. Mills previously denied those allegations.

In addition to censuring him, Mace’s resolution would have also removed Mills from his roles on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and House Armed Services Committee if successful.

Hours before the vote, however, the House Ethics Committee announced it would open an investigation into Mills via a new subcommittee — a move Mace criticized as an effort to neuter her push.

‘This is a naked attempt to kill my resolution to censure Rep. Cory Mills. Common sense tells us we don’t need an investigative subcommittee to decide if Cory Mills, who a Court found to be an immediate and present danger of committing dating violence against a woman, should serve on committees related to national security. Or the testimony of soldiers and the stolen valor,’ Mace said.

Notably, however, the House Ethics Committee is the traditional first step when lawmakers are accused of impropriety.

It comes after House Democrats threatened to pursue a retaliatory censure against Mills Tuesday evening in response to Republicans trying to censure Del. Stacey Plaskett, D-V.I., the Virgin Islands’ nonvoting representative in the House, over her ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

The Plaskett censure failed after three House Republicans voted ‘no’ and three more voted ‘present,’ however, along with every Democrat rejecting the measure. Democrats did not appear to pursue the censure against Mills after that.

Mace had accused Mills of participating in a ‘backroom deal’ at the time to avoid a censure, adding, ‘I have the General who ‘recommended’ him for the Bronze Star on record saying he never wrote it, never read it and never personally signed it.’

Mills’ office told Fox News Digital there was never a deal, however, and had expected his censure to move forward on Tuesday night. He also voted in favor of censuring Plaskett.

Mace introduced her resolution after sending a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Wednesday accusing Mills of ‘credible accusations he misrepresented his military service’ and ‘credible accusations of having committed crimes against women.’

Mills has previously denied wrongdoing in reports of both sets of allegations.

He also criticized the move in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘Congresswoman Nancy Mace’s latest stunt is a politically motivated attempt to grab headlines and settle personal scores. The American people deserve better than fabricated accusations and theatrics at a time when Republicans should be focused on governing,’ Mills said.

‘The claims on my valor that she’s pushing are baseless, recycled, and already publicly disproven. I fully deny them, just as I always have. This is not oversight, it’s attention-seeking dressed up as accountability.’

The Senate is once again finding a moment of bipartisan unity in its fury over a recently-passed law that would allow lawmakers to sue the federal government and reap hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money as a reward.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continue to grapple with the inclusion of a provision in a package designed to reopen the government that would allow only senators directly targeted by the Biden-led Department of Justice (DOJ) and former special counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation to sue the U.S. government for up to $500,000.

Both Senate Republicans’ and Democrats’ ire at the provision is multi-pronged: some are angry that it was tucked away into the Legislative branch spending bill without a heads-up, others see it as nothing more than a quick pay day for the relatively small group of senators targeted in Smith’s probe.

‘I think it was outrageous that that was put in and air dropped in there,’ Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., told Fox News Digital. ‘It’s outrageous. It’s basically just a cash grab for senators to take money away from taxpayers. It’s absolutely outrageous, and needs to be taken out.’

The provision was included in the spending package by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on request from lawmakers in the GOP. And it was given the green light by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The provision is narrowly tailored to just include senators, and would require that they be notified if their information is requested by the DOJ, be it through the subpoena of phone records like in the Arctic Frost investigation or through other means. The idea is to prevent the abuse of the DOJ to go after sitting senators now and in the future.

Thune pushed back on the notion that lawmakers weren’t aware the provision was in the bill, given that the entire package was released roughly 24 hours before it was voted on, but acknowledged their frustration over how it was added was warranted.

‘I think I take that as a legitimate criticism in terms of the process, but I think on the substance, I believe that you need to have some sort of accountability and consequence for that kind of weaponization against a co-equal branch of the government,’ Thune said.

Schumer, when asked about the anger brewing on both sides of the aisle, heaped the blame on Thune, but noted that it was an opportunity to get protection for Democrats, too.

‘Look, the bottom line is Thune wanted the provision, and we wanted to make sure that at least Democratic senators were protected from [Attorney General Pam] Bondi and others who might go after them,’ Schumer said. ‘So we made it go prospective, not just retroactive, but I’d be for repealing all the provision, all of it. And I hope that happens.’

The House is expected to vote on legislation that would repeal the language, and many in the upper chamber want to get the chance to erase the provision should it pass through the House. Whether Thune will put it on the floor remains in the air though.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was one of the eight senators whose records were requested during Smith’s probe. He told Fox News Digital that he was neither asked about the provision, nor told about it, and like many other lawmakers, found out about it when he read the bill.

‘I just think that, you know, giving them money –- I mean making a taxpayer pay for it, I don’t understand why that’s accountability,’ he said. ‘I mean, the people who need to be held accountable are the people who made the decisions to do this, and, frankly, also the telecom companies. So I just, I don’t agree with that approach.’

He also took issue with the fact that the provision was narrowly tailored to only apply to the Senate, and argued that it could be reworked to only provide for declaratory judgement in court rather than a monetary one.

‘I could see the value of having a court say this was illegal and ruling against the government,’ Hawley said. ‘I think it’s the monetary provisions that most people, including me, really balk at. Like, why are the taxpayers on the hook for this, and why does it apply only to the Senate?’

The provision set a retroactive date of 2022 to allow for the group of senators targeted in Smith’s Arctic Frost probe to be able to sue. That element has also raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital that he supported repealing the provision, but wanted to fix it.

‘The best way to be able to handle it, I think, is to be able to fix it, take away the retroactivity in it,’ he said. ‘The initial target of this whole thing was to make sure this never happened again.’

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., told Fox News Digital that the provision was a ‘total mess,’ and raised concerns on a bipartisan basis.

Not every Senator was on board with ditching the provision, however.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., made clear that he intends to sue the DOJ and Verizon, his phone carrier, and argued that he didn’t believe that the provision was self-dealing but rather to deter future, similar actions. He also wants to take the provision, or the core idea of it, a step further.

Graham said that he wanted to open up the process to others, including dozens of groups, former lawmakers and others affected by the investigation.

‘Is it wrong for any American to sue the government if they violated your rights, including me? Is it wrong if a Post Office truck hits you, what do you do with the money? You do whatever you want to do with the money,’ Graham said.

‘If you’ve been wronged, this idea that our government can’t be sued is a dangerous idea,’ he continued. ‘The government needs to be held accountable when it violates people’s rights.’

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tx., was far more succinct. When asked if he would support a repeal of the provision, he told Fox News Digital, ‘No.’