Andrea Bocelli paid President Donald Trump a visit at the White House on Oct. 17.

Trump’s special assistant, Margo Martin, shared a video of the moment on X, formerly known as Twitter.

While the Italian tenor appeared to give an impromptu performance in the Oval Office, Trump stood behind the Resolute Desk as Bocelli stood in front, wearing a black suit and tie with sunglasses on.

‘Listen to this,’ Trump said as ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ started playing in the Oval Office.

Bocelli began singing along with the track before he took a moment to laugh. He then continued to sing until the video concluded.

Another video posted by Martin shows Trump and Bocelli talking at the president’s desk and listening to a recording of a Bocelli song.

Trump told reporters Bocelli would be performing at the White House on Dec. 5, two days before the Kennedy Center Honors, according to Deadline. 

Bocelli’s representatives did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Bocelli’s visit to the White House came just before the President of the United States welcomed the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for the high-stakes summit. 

It is unclear if Bocelli’s visit and Zelenskyy’s are connected.

The federal judge assigned to oversee the criminal case against former Trump national security advisor John Bolton is an Obama-era appointee who made headlines during both Trump administrations for halting or pausing some of his most sweeping executive orders. 

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, a 2014 appointee to the federal bench in Greenbelt, Maryland, is far from the only judge whose rulings have been viewed by Trump allies as unfavorable to the administration. Dozens of judges have issued temporary orders and injunctions during Trump’s second term aimed at pausing or blocking certain directives while courts consider their merits.

But Chuang is noteworthy for being the judge who in 2017 issued a nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s revised ‘travel ban’ from taking force. The March 2017 executive order suspended travel for 90 days from six majority-Muslim countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — and paused the entry of asylum seekers for 120 days.

Chuang ruled that Trump’s order was likely motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment, describing it as a revised ‘realization’ of Trump’s ‘long-envisioned Muslim ban,’ which he had floated repeatedly during his first presidential bid.

‘Simply because a decisionmaker made the statements during a campaign does not wipe them from the ‘reasonable memory’ of a ‘reasonable observer,” he said in the injunction, which was quickly appealed to the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. 

Shortly after Trump took office in January, Chuang again drew the administration’s ire when he blocked Trump and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from continuing efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development. In a 70-page ruling, he said the actions likely violated the U.S. Constitution ‘in multiple ways.’

The preliminary injunction was the first to attempt to constrain DOGE, which at the time had already cut 98% of USAID staffers. The 4th Circuit also set aside Chuang’s ruling on appeal several weeks later, clearing the way for DOGE to continue its efforts to gut USAID. 

Chuang has also presided over lesser-known cases, including temporarily suspending in-person requirements for women who were seeking the morning-after pill during the COVID-19 pandemic. That decision was later reversed by the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision.

Trump’s executive actions and orders have sparked 220 lawsuits since January, according to a litigation tracker from Lawfare Media. 

Many of the early actions were blocked by federal judges, including Chuang, through emergency orders or temporary injunctions pending review.

(Court watchers and legal experts attribute this imbalance to congressional inaction, which has prompted an increase in executive orders by the last four presidents and, in turn, more judicial review.)

Like other federal judges who have held up Trump’s agenda, if only temporarily, in his second term, Chuang’s orders have been castigated by the president’s allies and some Republicans in Congress.

Earlier this year, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., introduced a House resolution seeking to impeach Chuang and five other federal judges who had challenged Trump administration actions. (The attempt prompted a stern warning from the New York City Bar Association, which cited ‘grave concerns’ about the effort.)

Bolton appeared Friday in federal court in Greenbelt, Md., where he pleaded not guilty to 18 counts.

Bolton’s indictment makes him the third Trump foe to have been indicted in federal court in as many weeks, following the high-profile indictments brought against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. But his case has not touched off the same concerns or allegations of political retribution as the others.

The investigation into Bolton’s handling of classified materials moved forward in part during the Biden administration, and career prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office signed off on the charges — a contrast to the cases against Comey and James, which were brought by Trump’s former attorney Lindsey Halligan.

A magistrate judge ordered Bolton released on the condition that he remain in the continental United States and surrender his passport, which he did. His next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 21.

As the government shutdown nears its fourth week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has no intention of giving in to what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wants.

On a surface level, Schumer and Senate Democrats want a guaranteed deal on expiring Obamacare subsidies, and Thune has signaled that he is open to giving them an opportunity to negotiate on that only after the government reopens.

But what he won’t do is strike a deal in secret with Schumer, something he told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that was all too often the case when the top Senate Democrat ran the upper chamber.  

‘You know, I’ve been around here when everything’s decided by four people in Schumer’s office,’ Thune said. ‘That’s not a way to run the government.’

‘It’s not the business model that Chuck Schumer is accustomed to, and he likes to be the kingmaker and have everybody come and kiss the ring,’ he continued. ‘And I just think that’s not my style.’

Thune described his leadership style as a bottom-up approach ‘where senators get to be senators.’ That has proven true so far, in his handling of the shutdown.

He’s encouraged rank-and-file Republicans to have talks with Senate Democrats in the hopes of constructing an off-ramp from the shutdown, rather than handing down a my-way-or-the-highway edict.

And from those conversations, an offer to Senate Democrats has materialized on the expiring subsidies that would give them a vote, but only if the government reopens. And that offer comes with several caveats that Thune couldn’t guarantee an outcome on. 

‘I signaled to the Democrats that, because they’ve said, ‘Well, we want a guaranteed vote by a certain date.’ OK, I think we can make that happen,’ Thune said. ‘But they also want a guarantee they’re going to win, you know, and I can’t guarantee that. And honestly, even if I could, there’s no guarantee anything gets through the House.’

Still, with an offer for a vote on the table, Schumer and his caucus have not budged from their position. They again blocked Republicans’ attempt to reopen the government for a tenth time on Thursday, and in doing so, guaranteed that the shutdown goes into next week as lawmakers leave town for a long weekend.

A potential complication, too, is Republicans’ desire to make reforms to Obamacare subsidies, enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic but set to expire at the end of this year. In Democrats’ counter to the House-passed continuing resolution (CR), they demanded a permanent extension of the program as-is, which was a non-starter for congressional Republicans.

The Congressional Budget Office found in a report last month that permanently extending the subsidies would cost roughly $350 billion over the next decade.

Thune didn’t dive into specifics of certain reforms he and others in the Senate GOP would like to see, but he noted that reining in the cost of the program was a starting point.

‘There’s no incentive to control costs,’ Thune said. ‘And when the insurance companies are getting direct subsidies from the federal government to enroll as many people as possible, they’re going to enroll as many people as possible, even if those people don’t know they’re enrolled.’

Meanwhile, Schumer has called on President Donald Trump to get directly involved in negotiations after a meeting with the president and Republican leaders at the White House late last month was not enough to prevent the shutdown from happening.

Thune said, ‘I think that happens,’ when asked if Trump would get involved, but he noted that first, the government has to reopen.

‘That’s basically what the White House has been saying,’ he said. ‘The president does like to be, you know, obviously, he is a guy who has experience and wants to solve problems and has experience making deals, and I think he’s probably more than willing to sit down with them, but he’s not going to let them extort him.’ 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has once again instructed House lawmakers to remain in their home districts next week, keeping attention — and heat — in Washington on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for over a month.

A clerk in the House of Representatives announced on Friday that Johnson is designating Oct. 20 through Oct. 23 as a ‘district work period,’ meaning no votes or House hearings are expected to be held for that time.

It’s part of the pressure strategy Johnson has implemented against Democrats amid the ongoing government shutdown, which is barreling into a fourth week with the GOP’s federal funding plan stalled in the Senate.

The House GOP passed its federal funding plan on Sept. 19, a seven-week extension of fiscal year (FY) 2025 government spending levels, called a continuing resolution (CR). 

It was aimed at giving congressional negotiators more time to strike a longer-term deal on FY 2026 spending.

But Democrats, infuriated by being sidelined in the talks, are threatening to reject any deal that does not include an extension of COVID-19 pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of December.

Democrats reason that millions of Americans are expected to see their healthcare premiums skyrocket even before the subsidies themselves expire at the end of this year, and with no plan in place.

Republican leaders have signaled openness to having those discussions at a later date — albeit not without reforming the system — but are holding firm to their demand that the CR be passed without any partisan policy riders attached.

Johnson told reporters earlier on Friday that he would give House members 48 hours’ notice before they had to return for any votes, something he’s stated both publicly and privately for weeks.

But while his House GOP conference is holding largely united behind him, there are several Republicans growing uncomfortable with the lengthy recess period.

Both Reps. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Julie Fedorchak, R-N.D., expressed concern about the extended time at home during a private call among House Republicans earlier this month.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., has been more public with his pushback. He told MSNBC live on television Wednesday, ‘It is absolutely unacceptable to me and I think only serves further distrust.’

And Rep. Dave Valadao, while not explicitly pushing back on Johnson’s decision, told Fox News Digital that he was ‘kind of torn on that’ before blaming Senate Democrats for putting the GOP in this situation.

Meanwhile, Rep. Johnny Olszewski, D-Md., the lone House Democrat who was in the chamber when the district work period was declared, criticized Johnson for keeping the chamber out of session.

‘Congress has been absent here in the House for almost a month when there are critical conversations that need to be happening about reopening the government, lowering the cost of healthcare for millions of Americans, and also moving forward on critical issues,’ Olszewski said.

In a sign of a likely lengthy shutdown, the Senate is preparing to hold a standalone vote next week on paying government workers who are forced to work during the shutdown, including active-duty military members.

Asked by reporters if the House would come back to vote on the measure if it passed the Senate, Johnson said Friday, ‘If we have a viable path, yes, but I suspect the Democrats are going to bat it down again.’

President Donald Trump said Friday that ‘tremendous bad blood’ between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin is delaying a peace deal in Ukraine despite the administration’s recent victory with calming tensions in Gaza.

‘They have tremendous bad blood. It’s really is what is holding up I think a settlement. I think we are going to get it done and we have to make it long-lasting, as I said in the Middle East, everlasting,’ Trump said Friday as he hosted Zelenskyy at the White House.

‘The Middle East is a much more complicated situation. You know, we had 59 countries involved, and every one of them agreed. And it’s, you know, it’s sort of amazing. Most people didn’t think that was doable. This is going to be something I really believe that’s going to get done. I had a very good talk yesterday with President Putin. I think he wants to get it done,’ Trump added.

Zelenskyy, sitting alongside Trump, said, ‘President Trump has a big chance now to finish this war.’

‘President Trump has really showed for the world that he can manage a ceasefire in the Middle East. And that’s why I hope that he will do this. And we will also have such big success. For Ukraine, it’s a big chance, and I hope that President Trump can manage it,’ Zelenskyy said.

Trump also said at one point during the meeting, ‘We need Tomahawks, and we need a lot of other things that we’ve been sending over the last four years to Ukraine.’

Trump and Zelenskyy’s meeting, which was announced earlier this week, unfolded a day after Trump held a phone call with Putin. 

Zelenskyy has made clear his chief aim is to secure better defenses for Ukraine amid Russia’s constant aerial bombardments of civilian targets like cities, energy infrastructure and hospitals, and his big-ticket item is the American Tomahawk missile. 

With the capability of hitting beyond even Moscow, the sophisticated high-precision long-range cruise missile could increase Ukraine’s ability to strike further into Russia and better target not only its military complex, but its oil industry, which has largely funded Putin’s war chest.  

Following his call with Putin on Thursday, Trump said ‘great progress’ was made, but he did not provide any specifics on how progress was achieved, though the pair agreed to once again meet in person, this time in Hungary. 

Though Trump said the pair discussed U.S.-Russia trade, he did not say whether U.S. aid to Ukraine was discussed, which appeared to be the impetus for the call earlier this week when he told reporters he ‘might have to speak’ with Putin regarding whether he wanted U.S. Tomahawks near his borders, in what appeared to be an implied threat.  

But neither Tomahawks nor defensive aid were mentioned in the president’s account of the talks.  

Though, according to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, the issue was discussed and opposed by Putin.  

‘Vladimir Putin reiterated his thesis that Tomahawks won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but they will cause significant damage to relations between our countries. Not to mention the prospects for a peaceful settlement,’ he told reporters following the call, according to Reuters. 

Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X on Thursday that, ‘Nothing has changed for Russia – it is still terrorizing life in Ukraine.’

‘Therefore, every air defense system for Ukraine matters – it saves lives. Every decision that can strengthen us brings the end of the war closer,’ he added.

Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House Friday was his third this year. In his first visit in February, Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Zelenskyy sparred during their meeting.

Trump-appointed lawyers leading key federal court districts in blue states have become wrapped up in legal disputes that are testing their authority and threatening to undermine criminal cases they are overseeing.

U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, who brought a high-profile indictment against former FBI Director James Comey in Virginia, is in the hot seat, as are President Donald Trump’s appointees in New Jersey, California and Nevada.

In a sign of his growing frustration over the matter, Trump wrote in a pair of statements Thursday night that he had ‘eight GREAT Republican U.S. Attorney Candidates’ who did not have a path to Senate confirmation in blue states, blaming the upper chamber’s ‘blue slip’ tradition. He called the precedent, which requires home-state senators to approve of U.S. attorney nominees, ‘stupid and outdated.’

Vulnerability in Virginia 

Trump nominated Erik Siebert to be U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, but he ousted Siebert in September and blamed it on Siebert securing blue slips from the state’s two Democratic senators. In reality, Siebert opposed bringing criminal charges against two of Trump’s top political nemeses, Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

At Trump’s direction, Halligan, a former insurance lawyer with no prosecutorial experience, entered the scene within days.

Halligan brought indictments against both Comey and James, which could now come back to haunt the Department of Justice.

Josh Blackman, professor at South Texas College of Law, noted that when she charged Comey, Halligan was the lone prosecutor to sign his indictment alleging he made a false statement to Congress. Comey has since told the court that he plans to contest Halligan’s authority because of the unconventional way Trump installed her to lead the U.S. attorney’s office.

‘The Halligan issue is central to the James Comey prosecution, and if, for whatever reason, it’s found that she was not properly appointed — she was the only person who signed the Comey indictment — that indictment’s thrown out, so the stakes are actually pretty high,’ Blackman told Fox News Digital.

The judge could also toss out Comey’s case on other grounds before addressing Halligan’s appointment, which could allow the court to avoid addressing the matter.

Halligan was also the lone prosecutor to sign James’ bank fraud indictment. By contrast, several prosecutors appeared in court on Thursday for former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s indictment in Maryland and signed onto the 26-page charging document.

‘Utterly implausible’ that president can’t choose his appointees

Halligan is not the only temporary U.S. attorney facing scrutiny. Another Trump ally, Alina Habba, has seen her authority called into question in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, where Democratic Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim refuse to support her, creating at least one insurmountable obstacle to her permanent confirmation.

When Habba’s interim term expired, Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi used a series of loopholes in federal vacancy laws to bypass the Senate, fire Habba’s court-appointed successor and re-install Habba as ‘acting’ U.S. attorney, which carries a 210-day term.

Judge Matthew Brann found Habba’s appointment was unlawful, and now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit will hear arguments over Habba’s appointment on Monday in a case that could be headed for the Supreme Court.

In court papers, the DOJ argued federal vacancy laws established by Congress and the Constitution favored the president.

‘It is utterly implausible that Congress intended the default to be that the President must rely on career officials who may disagree with his policies to serve as acting political officers during the critical period at the start of an administration,’ DOJ lawyers wrote.

But the trend of challenging Trump’s workarounds did not stop with Habba.

More blue state blues

A federal judge disqualified Sigal Chattah from serving as the temporary U.S. attorney in Nevada, while Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli is facing a court challenge after Trump and Bondi extended his tenure in the Central District of California, where pivotal immigration-related cases are playing out.

Three sets of defendants facing charges in California are seeking to have their cases tossed on the grounds that Essayli is an invalid appointee. They alleged in court filings that using loopholes to skip over Essayli’s Senate confirmation is following ‘a handbook for circumventing the protections that the Constitution and Congress built against the limitless, unaccountable handpicking of temporary officials.’

Carl Tobias, professor at University of Richmond law school, told Fox News Digital in August that Trump’s maneuvers to keep his most loyal prosecutors in positions of power defy the spirit of the Constitution.

‘It’s good to have that scrutiny from the Judiciary Committee and then on the [Senate] floor, and so hopefully they could return to something like that, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen, and so I think it is troubling,’ Tobias said.

Although the contentious fight for presidents to push their nominees through the Senate is not new, Blackman said Trump’s escalation of the disputes is uncharted territory and that the issue is ‘two-fold.’

‘The first problem is the senators are perhaps not giving deference to Trump’s picks if they don’t have to,’ Blackman said. ‘The second issue is, does the law actually permit these sort of workarounds? And I think Trump is sort of pushing novel grounds. This hasn’t really been tested before like this.’

The regime in Iran was described as being on an ‘unprecedented execution spree’ by the United Nations. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said the Islamic Republic of Iran carried out more than 1,000 executions since the start of the year.

With as many as nine executions each day at the time of their report, OHCHR said that victims were primarily accused of murder and drug-related crimes.

In an effort to raise worldwide awareness of their situation, some 1,500 Iranian prisoners on death row in Ward 2 of Ghezel Hesar Prison staged a hunger strike on Oct. 13. Among them were 17 members of the Iranian dissident organization Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). 

A spokesperson from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told Fox News Digital that Iran previously executed two MEK members on July 27 and has yet to return their bodies to their families.

The hunger strike has spread to Wards 1 and 4 in Ghezel Hesar Prison, as well as to the notorious Evin Prison. The NCRI claims that prison officials have attempted to break the strike and has shared footage of prisoners in Ward 3 eating food to ‘falsely claim that there is no hunger strike in Ward 2.’

In an exclusive statement provided to Fox News Digital, the striking prisoners said, ‘Our patience has run out over this endless oppression and the taking of the lives of prisoners and young people. Every day and every week, some of our cellmates are sent to the gallows, and many of us spend our nights in the nightmare of death. These are the most agonizing moments of our lives and of our families. We demand the abolition of the death penalty in Iran.’

The NCRI told Fox News Digital that executions have increased in recent days, with 38 executions taking place between Oct. 13 and Oct. 15. This drove the total ‘number of executions during the 14½ months of [Masoud] Pezeshkian’s presidency’ to ‘an unprecedented record of 2,008 prisoners.’

Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the NCRI, called ‘for immediate action by the United Nations, U.N. Security Council members, the European Union, and international human rights organizations to end this horrific nightmare in Iran under the rule of the criminal mullahs.’

Iranian prisoners have called on U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres to speak out and intervene on their behalf.

Fox News Digital asked if the U.S. State Department is considering additional sanctions against Iranian leaders in response to the rash of executions. A State Department spokesperson said, ‘We strongly condemn the Iranian regime’s use of executions to kill people for exercising basic human rights, including peacefully protesting for a better life.’

‘For decades, Iranians have been subjected to torture and sham trials resulting in executions and other severe punishments, often with those coerced confessions as the only evidence presented against them. We will continue to hold the Iranian regime accountable, ensuring it faces severe consequences for its heinous acts,’ the spokesperson continued.

Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesman for Guterres, told Fox News Digital, ‘We stand firmly against and continue to condemn the use of the death penalty in Iran, and anywhere else in the world.’

Earlier this month, the U.N. Human Rights Council drew widespread condemnation after it elected Iran to its advisory committee. 

President Donald Trump called out Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley while asserting that multiple U.S. attorney picks remain unconfirmed because Grassley is honoring the blue slip tradition.

The arcane custom involves showing deference to home-state senators by allowing them to stymie the confirmation of nominees they do not like. 

‘I have eight GREAT U.S. Attorneys, Highly Respected ALL, who will not be confirmed for their positions in various Highly Consequential States only because they’re Republicans, and the Democrats have convinced Chuck Grassley to honor the stupid and outdated ‘Blue Slip’ tradition, which precludes very talented and dedicated people from attaining High Office,’ the president asserted in part of a Truth Social post on Thursday night.

In a portion of another post, the president claimed, ‘A ‘Blue Slip’ means that if you’re a Republican President, and there happens to be just one Democrat Senator in a state where you are appointing a U.S. Attorney or District Court Judge, you will never be successful in getting a Republican confirmed. In other words, ‘Blue Slips’ are a disaster, and I have eight GREAT Republican U.S. Attorney Candidates who will not be able to fulfill their service to the people of a state that voted overwhelmingly for me.’

The president has repeatedly sounded off about the blue slip issue this year.

‘Chuck Grassley should allow strong Republican candidates to ascend to these very vital and powerful roles, and tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!’ Trump asserted in part of an August Truth Social post.

A Grassley spokesperson responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Friday by pointing to an August post on X in which the senator addressed the blue slip issue.

‘A U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not hv the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t hv the votes to get out of cmte As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE,’ the senator asserted in the post.

In another post the same day in August, Grassley wrote, ‘The 100 yr old ‘blue slip’ allows home state senators 2 hv input on US attys & district court judges,’ adding, ‘In Biden admin Republicans kept 30 LIBERALS OFF BENCH THAT PRES TRUMP CAN NOW FILL W CONSERVATIVES.’

Former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton surrendered to federal authorities Friday after being indicted on 18 counts related to the improper handling of classified materials.

Photographers snapped images of Bolton leaving his home in Bethesda, Md., earlier Friday. He was later captured on news cameras walking into the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Md.

When asked by Fox News at the scene if he had a comment, Bolton just walked into the building.

Bolton was indicted on eight counts of transmission of national defense information and ten counts of retention of national defense information.

‘From on or about April 9, 2018, through at least on or about August 22, 2025, BOLTON abused his position as National Security Advisor by sharing more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities as the National Security Advisor — including information relating to the national defense which was classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level — with two unauthorized individuals, namely Individuals 1 and 2,’ the indictment reads. ‘BOLTON also unlawfully retained documents, writings, and notes relating to the national defense, including information classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level, in his home in Montgomery County, Maryland.’

The documents Bolton allegedly transmitted were sent to two individuals unauthorized to view classified documents, the indictment said.

Those documents, according to the indictment, revealed intelligence about future attacks by an adversarial group in another country, a liaison partner sharing sensitive information with the U.S. intelligence community, intelligence that a foreign adversary was planning a missile launch in the future and a covert action in a foreign country that was related to sensitive intergovernmental actions, among other information.

‘The FBI’s investigation revealed that John Bolton allegedly transmitted top secret information using personal online accounts and retained said documents in his house in direct violation of federal law,’ said FBI Director Kash Patel. ‘The case was based on meticulous work from dedicated career professionals at the FBI who followed the facts without fear or favor. Weaponization of justice will not be tolerated, and this FBI will stop at nothing to bring to justice anyone who threatens our national security.’

Bolton’s Maryland home had been raided by FBI agents in August. That search was focused on classified documents that investigators believed Bolton possessed. 

‘Now, I have become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department to charge those he deems to be his enemies with charges that were declined before or distort the facts,’ Bolton said in a statement Friday to The Associated Press, referencing President Donald Trump.

Bolton’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, added in a statement to the AP that the ‘underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago.’

‘Bolton kept diaries — that is not a crime,’ he said, noting that Bolton ‘did not unlawfully share or store any information.’

Lowell told the AP that the charges Bolton faces are linked to portions of Bolton’s personal diaries and included unclassified information that was shared with only immediate family members. Lowell also said this was known to the FBI dating back to at least 2021.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

House Republicans in battleground districts appear to be closing ranks as GOP leaders dig in on their government shutdown strategy, while the fiscal standoff shows no signs of slowing. 

Eight House GOP lawmakers whose seats are being targeted by Democrats in 2026 spoke with Fox News Digital this week. And while some shared individual concerns, they were largely united in agreeing with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., that Republicans should not renegotiate their federal funding proposal — and were confident that Americans are behind them.

‘The more people understand the math inside of the Senate, the more I would say Republicans are winning,’ said Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., who defeated a moderate Democrat for his seat last year.

Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., who also flipped her seat from blue to red, argued the results of the 2024 election show Americans ‘can see through a lot of the games that the Democrats have been playing.’

‘We’ve gotten to work with the demands of the American voters, and Democrats are still in disarray,’ she said.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., said, ‘It’s a simple math problem. And the Democrat Party grossly underestimated the American public’s ability to understand math.’

For a House GOP conference that’s been plagued by historic levels of division in recent history — particularly over the issue of government funding — it has shown a notable display of unity amid the shutdown, with few exceptions.

The shutdown is poised to roll into next week after most Senate Democrats voted to block the GOP’s bill for a tenth time. 

Republicans put forward last month a seven-week extension of fiscal year (FY) 2025 funding levels, called a continuing resolution (CR), aimed at giving congressional negotiators more time to strike a long-term deal for FY2026.

But Democrats in the House and Senate were infuriated by being sidelined in those talks. The majority of Democrats are refusing to accept any deal that does not include serious healthcare concessions, at least extending COVID-19 pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.

Several vulnerable Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital pointed out they’re in favor of extending the Obamacare subsidies as well. Indeed, a majority of them are backers of a bipartisan bill to extend them for one year, led by Kiggans.

‘I think we would actually prefer to have … longer term than one year,’ said Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa.

But Mackenzie also pointed out that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., criticized the one-year bill, adding, ‘He already said ‘Absolutely not,’ so I don’t even know what their position is and what they’re asking for.’

Jeffries walked those comments back somewhat a day later, telling reporters that Democrats were willing to look at any good-faith offer.

Kiggans told Fox News Digital, ‘I care about that issue, certainly, you know, I had introduced that [Affordable Care Act] premium tax cuts extension.’

She added that Obamacare, formally called the ACA, and reopening the government are ‘two different issues, though’ that should be discussed separately.

The House Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital, while largely supportive of discussing Obamacare subsidy reforms and extensions, were united in refusing to entertain Democrats’ demands to come back to the negotiating table on federal funding. All maintained, in some form, that the House did its job in passing the CR on Sept. 19.

‘We have a clean CR that would fund all of the programs — all of the federal employees, keep everything up and running through Nov. 21st, so that we can finalize FY2026 appropriations and address issues like healthcare. But you don’t do it at the barrel of a gun,’ said Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y.

Lawler is one of three House Republicans who won in a district that President Donald Trump lost in 2024.

‘I think what the Democrats are doing here is creating a mess for the American people. And they’re not actually solving any of the problems,’ he said.

Mackenzie said, ‘It was a seven-week continuing resolution so that we could have time to have policy discussions on other issues that did need to be wrapped up by the end of the year. And we were on track to do that. And I think [Democrats] totally blew that process up.’

‘This is an unprecedented thing that Senate Democrats are doing, trying to add policy programs into the new continuity of funding bill,’ Rep. Tom Kean, R-N.J., the most vulnerable Republican in the Garden State, also said.

Both Lawler and Rep. Dave Valadao, R-Calif., warned that giving up a policy rider-free spending bill in favor of inserting partisan demands would create an unworkable new standard.

‘Holding the government office is never a good strategy. And if it becomes a successful way of negotiating … it’ll set a bad precedent for governing moving forward,’ Valadao said. ‘So this is an absolute no-go, should never be successful.’

Lawler said, ‘The reality is, the moment you start giving in on a clean CR and start giving in to demands, this will continue in perpetuity. Every time there’s a government funding lapse, you’ll have a group of people demanding something, and it will turn into a fiasco.’

Several of the battleground Republicans also praised Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., in the process.

Valadao told Fox News Digital, ‘I think they’re doing a good job. At least all the calls I’ve been on, the conversations I’ve had with my colleagues and, again, folks in the district, they all seem pretty confident that we’re doing the right thing.’

Lawler said Johnson had ‘handled it well,’ while Bresnahan said, ‘I would say, at least with members, they’re, you know, keeping very fluid conversations. We have daily or at least biweekly calls here as to what the messaging needs to be and what the conversations are.’

But there has been some dissent within the House GOP as the shutdown drags on.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has criticized House Republican leaders for not announcing a plan on extending the Obamacare subsidies.

And Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., publicly ripped Johnson’s decision to keep the House out of session while the Senate considers the CR.

‘It is absolutely unacceptable to me and I think only serves further distrust,’ Kiley told MSNBC on Wednesday.

Notably, not all battleground House Republicans who spoke with Fox News Digital directly backed Johnson’s move — but none explicitly condemned it, either, and most blamed Senate Democrats for the holdup.

‘I’m kind of torn on that, because to come back and just be a part of the gimmicks that you see going on right now is not helpful,’ Valadao said. ‘Holding the government hostage is what’s the problem here.’

Kiggans, who said she’s lobbying for the House to vote on a standalone bill to pay both active duty and civilian members of the military, said, ‘I think we all want to get back to work. We know that we have work to do, but the ball’s in the court of the Senate Democrats and Chuck Schumer.’

Others more directly backed the move, however.

Kean told Fox News Digital that his staff were still busy in D.C. and in New Jersey trying to help constituents navigate the shutdown and other matters.

‘Any chance we can get back to our district, it’s always important that we listen to our constituents and hear their concerns,’ Kean said. ‘Right now, I 100% support the decision.’

Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, said it was ‘the right move.’

‘We should be with our district. I’m keeping all my district offices open despite nobody getting paid,’ Nunn said. ‘Coming back and having a theatrical debate is less effective than having a real conversation about how to get the government back open.’