A Minnesota fraud scandal is a ‘canary in the coal mine’ for how easily swindles can seep into government systems — including election administration — Republican election attorney Justin Riemer told Fox News Digital. 

‘What you’ve seen happen in Minnesota and now similar fraudulent schemes in other states, this should be very much a canary in the coal mine for other governmental processes,’ Riemer told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview in January. ‘Which would include our voter registration and election processes. And it’s not somehow immune to the type of corruption that we’ve seen in Minnesota and in other places.’

Riemer leads Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), a legal nonprofit that fights court efforts from a ‘well-funded network of activists’ working to ‘undermine elections and democracy.’ He previewed that RITE is readying an investigation into Minnesota’s election system to see if it has potentially faced fraud similar to the sweeping multiyear, COVID-19-era schemes currently under scrutiny. 

Riemer framed Minnesota as an early test case for broader concerns he believes are building ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, particularly around noncitizen registration and voting safeguards. 

‘They’ve definitely opened up opportunities for noncitizens to register. And honestly, there’s times where noncitizens are being unwittingly registered,’ Riemer said, before pointing to an instance that unfolded in 2025 in the Last Frontier State — Alaska. 

 ‘It’s happened in Alaska, actually, where you have two noncitizens who, by no fault of their own, were registered through some sloppy state automatic voter registration process, which essentially sucks in anyone that goes to the DMV into the registration system without any sort of voluntary registration on the part of the noncitizen,’ he said. 

The election attorney argued that the fastest-moving battles are increasingly being fought in court — including disputes over voter roll maintenance, documentary proof of citizenship requirements and ballot deadlines.

‘Look at what the Supreme Court is reviewing right now,’ Riemer said, pointing to litigation challenging whether states can accept ballots that arrive after Election Day. He also cited ongoing legal fights involving state efforts to remove noncitizens from voter rolls and require documentary proof of citizenship.

‘There are also various cases winding their way through the courts on state efforts to remove noncitizens and to require documentary proof of citizenship,’ he continued. ‘So I think a lot of the action you’re going to see is going to be in the courts.’

RITE says its mission is to defend state election laws in court and prevent what it calls efforts to dilute the votes of eligible citizens.

Riemer told Fox Digital that Democratic-aligned legal groups are a major force opposing stricter election rules, describing them as heavily funded and aggressive in litigation.

‘The boogeyman is the left-wing lawyers and interest groups that are funded by basically unlimited amounts of money that sue a state for doing anything that increases the integrity of their elections,’ he said. ‘They claim that some of these laws disenfranchise or suppress the vote. But they have a very hard time proving that in court. But I would point to the left-wing lawyers and to the donors who fund them with essentially unlimited amounts of money to file ridiculous and frivolous lawsuits.’

RITE points to recent court wins it says strengthened election safeguards, including a federal ruling in Maryland requiring public access to certain voter-roll maintenance records under the National Voter Registration Act. The group also assisted in cases in Colorado and Pennsylvania that preserved mail-ballot authentication requirements, including signature verification and envelope-signature and dating rules.

‘RITE is out there fighting to stop these things from happening,’ he said. ‘We’re out there fighting in the courts to try and make sure that states, especially those who are unwilling, are being forced to perform more checks at the front end, because the registration process is really where it all begins. And states need to be doing more than they are.’ 

On the national level, President Donald Trump’s administration has made it easier for states to verify voter eligibility, notching some wins in the Republicans’ election integrity battle ahead of the midterms. 

‘The Trump administration has really emphasized election integrity as a priority,’ he said. ‘And one of the big things I would point to is what they have done to allow states to verify the citizenship of those who are registering to vote. They’ve opened up databases at the Department of Homeland Security that state election officials can use to determine whether or not voters on their registration lists are actually citizens or otherwise eligible to vote. That’s been key.’ 

The Minnesota fraud case unfolding in the Twin Cities has continued since December 2025, when it hit the nation’s radar in earnest that officials were uncovering hundreds of millions of dollars in state-administered funds allegedly lost to fraud that could exceed $9 billion. 

The investigations have been underscored by federal immigration law enforcement presence in the Twin Cities, which has led to violent protests and two fatal shootings of Americans by federal police officials. 

Senate Republicans are marching forward with a massive funding package to avert a partial government shutdown, despite Senate Democrats doubling down on their resistance to the Homeland Security funding bill.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Tuesday teed up a key test vote for the six-bill package for Thursday. The move allows Senate Republicans time to hash out a deal with Senate Democrats, who are demanding several restrictions on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Republicans are eager to find a middle ground that doesn’t involve modifying the current funding package, given that doing so would almost guarantee a government shutdown and jeopardize funding to several other federal agencies, including the Pentagon.

But Democrats aren’t willing to budge, for now, until the DHS bill is stripped and sidelined.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she spoke with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Monday, but wouldn’t reveal details of the conversation.

Collins, whose home state is also a target of Noem’s and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), noted that there were already bipartisan restrictions and reforms baked into the current DHS funding bill, like $20 million for body cams and numerous reporting requirements that, if not met, would halt money flowing to immigration operations.

But more could be done if needed.

‘I think there might be a way to add some further reforms or procedural protections, but those discussions are ongoing and really involve [Thune],’ Collins said.

Senate Democrats’ rapid unity against the bill came on the heels of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by a Border Patrol agent in Minneapolis over the weekend. Roughly two weeks before that, Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent in her vehicle.

‘I understand how this has changed the conversation, but I still think if there are things the Democrats want in the Homeland bill or addressed in the context of the situation, that they ought to make those clear and known and see to what degree the administration may be able to address them,’ Thune said. ‘So I would prefer that there be a way that we keep the package together.’

But Senate Democrats appear ready to reject any executive action taken by the administration or President Donald Trump on the matter. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued on the Senate floor that the five other funding bills were got go, but that the ‘Senate must not pass the DHS budget as currently written.’ 

‘And it must be reworked to rein in and overhaul ICE to ensure the public’s safety,’ Schumer said. ‘The fix should come from Congress. The public can’t trust the administration to do the right thing on its own.’

Even if Senate Democrats are successful in their gambit and halt the DHS funding bill, the agency is still flush with billions in taxpayer dollars following Republicans’ passage of President Donald Trump’s signature ‘big, beautiful bill’ last year.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said during a virtual press conference that given that reality, Democrats ‘have to try no matter what.’

‘Look, if [Noem] doesn’t need the money, then she doesn’t need the money, but we can still have some legitimate restrictions on how these people are conducting themselves,’ Gallego said.

The other reality is that lawmakers are fast running out of time to concoct a solution by the Jan. 30 deadline.

Thursday’s vote, if successful, would tee up several hours of debate on the funding package in the Senate, eating away at valuable time and pushing final passage of the spending bills right to the midnight deadline.

The pressure created by the deadline and Democrats’ sudden reversal from just days before has Republicans scrambling.

Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Committee, is set to be a key figure in any deal that emerges, given that she helped bring an end to the previous shutdown last year.

She told reporters that a ‘government shutdown does not help anyone,’ but noted that what the path forward will be ‘is yet to be determined.’

‘We’re really going to have to put our heads together and figure out how we can make meaningful adjustments that would allow us to move these bills,’ Britt said. ‘And so that’s what we are looking for.’

President Donald Trump credits Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the one for training him to become a diplomat, comments that come as Rubio has increasingly secured more responsibility and influence over the president during the second Trump administration. 

Trump described Rubio’s guidance as he described his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping and shared an anecdote about how Xi requested that Trump stop referring to COVID-19 virus as the ‘China virus.’ According to Trump, Xi requested that the president use a different name – an ask that Trump said he chose to respect.

‘I decided to do that because why should we have a problem over that?’ Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Wednesday. 

‘You were a true diplomat, huh?’ said Børge Brende, the president and CEO of the World Economic Forum.

‘I became a diplomat for the first time. Well, you know, taught me that? Marco Rubio. He said, ‘Let me teach you about diplomacy,’’ Trump said. 

Trump has entrusted Rubio with a portfolio of responsibilities, and in addition to leading the State Department, Rubio also is serving as the national security advisor and head of the National Archives for the Trump administration. Rubio is the only person to oversee the White House’s National Security Council and lead the State Department since Henry Kissinger since the Nixon administration. 

‘He’s just really smart, really effective, and he’s succeeded at everything he’s done,’ Matthew Kroenig, a former Pentagon official and current vice president at the Atlantic Council think tank, told Fox News Digital. ‘He doesn’t see his job as containing Trump. He understands who the boss is and channels those instincts into constructive directions.’

Rubio, who is the son of Cuban immigrants and previously served as a U.S. Senator representing Florida, has emerged as a key architect steering the Trump administration’s foreign policy agenda – gaining even more visibility after the U.S. launched strikes in Venezuela and captured dictator Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3. 

Rubio, who historically has espoused more hawkish foreign policy positions, had long supported overthrowing Maduro. The first Trump administration sought to oust the Venezuelan strongman by imposing sanctions on Venezuela and backing opposition leader Juan Guaidó. 

In 2019, Rubio predicted Maduro’s fall — even though he was uncertain about the timeline. 

‘He’s picked a battle he can’t win,’ Rubio said in an interview with The New York Times about Maduro. ‘It’s just a matter of time. The only thing we don’t know is how long it will take — and whether it will be peaceful or bloody.’

Following Maduro’s capture, Trump announced that the U.S. would ‘run’ Venezuela until a peaceful transition could occur. The move to ouster Maduro has attracted scrutiny, mostly from Democrats, who have called into question the legality of the operation in Venezuela, which was conducted without Congress’ approval. 

Even so, Rubio has said that Congressional approval was not required since the operation was not an ‘invasion.’ 

Trump speculated in Switzerland that Rubio would be remembered as ‘the best’ Secretary of State, and noted that every single member of the Senate voted to confirm Rubio for his post in January 2025.

 ‘Hey, any guy that gets approved by 100% of the votes – you think of it, he got liberal Democrats and radical right Republicans to approve him,’ Trump said Wednesday. ‘He’s the only one…At first I wasn’t happy about it. I said, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t like that.’ And now it turns out that the Democrats probably wish they didn’t do that. And Marco has been fantastic.’ 

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Rubio for comment. 

Fox News’ Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday he has no plans to ask Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem to step down from her role.

Trump was asked about Noem’s status during a gaggle with reporters outside the White House. He told the press that he still thinks Noem is doing a ‘great job.’

‘Is Kristi Noem going to step down?’ a reporter asked.

‘No,’ Trump responded bluntly.

He later said he believes she is doing a ‘very good job,’ citing her role in closing down the border.

His statement comes as Noem is facing widespread criticism after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota this month.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., called on Trump to fire her directly on Tuesday. In a post on X, the senator accused Noem of ‘betraying’ the department’s central mission.

‘I make a direct appeal to immediately fire Sec. Noem,’ Fetterman wrote. 

‘Americans have died. She is betraying DHS’s core mission and trashing your border security legacy. DO NOT make the mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary,’ he said.

Unlike other Democratic senators, Fetterman typically takes a more pragmatic stance toward Trump and the broader GOP on issues including immigration and border security. In recent weeks, Fetterman had encouraged his party to avoid calls to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

 As the Trump administration has been having federal authorities crack down on illegal immigrants around the U.S., the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota have caused an uproar.

‘Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti should still be alive. My family grieves for theirs,’ Fetterman said in a statement on Monday.

‘The operation in Minneapolis should stand down and immediately end. It has become an ungovernable and dangerous urban theatre for civilians and law enforcement that is incompatible with the American spirit,’ he noted.

Fox News’ Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.

House Freedom Caucus leaders are drawing battle lines in the federal funding fight as the threat of a partial government shutdown grows by the day.

Senate Democrats are threatening to sink a massive government spending bill — which would impact the Department of War, Department of Transportation, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other offices — over its provisions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

If the legislation, which passed the House last week, fails to clear the Senate by the end of the day Friday, large swaths of the government could be forced to pause or reduce operations until an agreement is reached.

But leaders within the conservative House Freedom Caucus are warning they will not accept changes to ICE funding that’s included in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) portion of the package.

In a letter sent to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, the Freedom Caucus Board of Directors urged him to ‘ensure the Department of Homeland Security is funded fully along with all remaining appropriations bills — and not allow Democrats to strip its funding out to pass other appropriations separately.’

‘We cannot support giving Democrats the ability to control the funding of our Department of Homeland Security,’ the letter said.

Conservatives are also calling on Trump to ‘use all tools necessary,’ including invoking the Insurrection Act, to quell the unrest in Minneapolis.

‘All Americans have the right to protest — including their right to speech and to bear arms consistent with our laws — but there is no right to thwart federal, state, or local law enforcement and the state of order among our citizens. The coordinated effort to stop law enforcement by politicians in Minnesota and around the country has caused chaos and led to the tragic deaths of two Americans in Minnesota. It must end,’ the letter said.

Ongoing demonstrations in the Midwestern city — both over Trump’s immigration crackdown and the federal law enforcement-involved killing of two U.S. citizens there — have spurred Democrats in Congress to demand further restrictions on ICE before they could support any DHS funding bill.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats are threatening to vote against the entire spending package unless it’s stripped of the DHS portion — meaning it would have to go back to the House for another vote.

But the Freedom Caucus’ letter is a clear signal that such a move is virtually guaranteed to fail in the House, where nearly all GOP votes will be needed to advance the package again.

In fact, the conservatives are pushing Trump to explore other options to provide funding to other critical government agencies if Democrats dig their heels in.

‘The House has passed an appropriations package negotiated and agreed to by Senate Democrats. The package will not come back through the House without funding for the Department of Homeland Security,’ the letter said.

‘If Democrats insist on reneging and shutting down the government, endangering Americans to side with criminal illegal aliens, the Freedom Caucus stands ready to take all steps necessary to fund government unilaterally — by supporting (a) changing the Senate rules to end the ‘fake’ filibuster threshold, (b) moving an emergency reconciliation bill to fund the departments of Homeland Security and War, and (c) efforts by the Executive Branch to transfer funding with maximum flexibility.’

Senate leaders have already signaled they’re against changing the filibuster threshold to make it so that a simple majority, not 60 votes, is needed to advance legislation.

It’s a stance that has caused some friction with Trump, who called on the Senate GOP to invoke the so-called ‘nuclear option’ to end the filibuster during the prior 43-day government shutdown.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that the administration was opposed to Democrats’ demand to split off DHS funding.

At the same time, Trump has been having discussions with Democratic leaders in Minnesota in a bid to quell the chaos.