The Trump administration is planning to make cost-saving cuts by merging two similar HIV/AIDS prevention programs run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an administration official told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. The cuts will pertain to administrative costs and DEI-related spending.

The tentative proposal, which is still ‘a concept of a plan,’ is to merge them into one program under HRSA to streamline efficiency – in line with the administration’s downsizing of federal government agenda – as having two separate programs doing similar functions doesn’t make sense, the official said.

‘One of those things is still very preliminary, but obviously, you don’t need two $1 billion budgets for this, with $1 billion going to the CDC and $1 billion going to HRSA,’ the official said. ‘Some of that will go toward paying the administrative overhead costs and that sort of thing.’ 

Both the CDC and HRSA are part of the Department of Health and Human Services, overseen by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

‘If this goes through, that will be more definitive… like with examining DEI spending with these two programs,’ the official said. The Trump administration has already moved to slash federal funding of DEI programs and initiatives in one of his early executive actions titled, ‘Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.’

While the CDC has a department dedicated to the prevention of HIV and other infectious diseases, HRSA also runs a program called the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP), which provides medical care for low-income people with HIV. 

During his first term, in 2019, Trump launched the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, with the aim of reducing cases of HIV by 75% by 2025 and by 90% by 2030. The initiative is operated by the CDC.

The proposal, which is still being worked on this week, comes amid big government shake-ups across several federal sectors at the direction of Trump and the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with thousands of workers let go in mass firings in recent weeks.

A House Republican town hall began and ended in chaos Tuesday night as angry protesters jeered for over an hour in a small Midwestern city and accused Republicans of trying to gut critical government programs.

Rep. Mike Flood, R-Neb., was the only House GOP lawmaker whose office set up an in-person town hall this week while Congress is in recess – and left-wing groups appear to have seized on the opportunity to disrupt.

The event kicked off on a contentious note just minutes after an opening prayer, with the moderator’s first audience question accusing President Donald Trump and Flood of not supporting the ‘rule of law.’ The crowd repeatedly booed any mention of Elon Musk or the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with Flood having to stop and plead for calm multiple times.

At one point protesters could be heard shouting, ‘Tax the rich.’

Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Fleming Kleeb posted on X, showing the number of people heading to Flood’s town hall minutes after it began. She said state Democratic Party operatives ‘are on site if you need an action handout of things you can do beyond the town hall!’

Meanwhile, progressive groups MoveOn and Indivisible advertised a ‘volunteer-organized event,’ titled, ‘Musk or Us: Demand Mike Flood Fight Back!’

The time and place listed matched Flood’s Tuesday night town hall. The event lasted roughly an hour and a half with little reprieve for the congressman as people peppered him with questions and the crowd jeered him during answers.

During the open mic portion of the event, a woman noted that Flood’s wife fought breast cancer and said her own sister died of the disease, before telling him, ‘You decided to capitulate your job of monitoring the funding of places that do research for breast cancer.’

‘I would like to know how you, personally, stomach that decision,’ she asked as the crowd applauded.

Flood said he supported medical research funding, and that while he was not aware of any such pause, DOGE was reviewing funds on a case-by-case basis as part of its mission to reduce the national debt. However, even mentioning Musk or DOGE set off the crowd inside Columbus High School’s auditorium, and Flood had to raise his voice and repeat himself several times at points as protesters grew louder.

‘How can you be against a balanced budget?’ an exasperated Flood asked the crowd.

After the event, Fox News Digital observed discussions on the message board site Reddit urging people to go protest Flood. One user posted on a Nebraska-focused message board, ‘I highly implore District 1 residents to make the drive and come out to make your voices heard.’

In response to another commenter noting the event was scheduled to last an hour, the same initial user replied, ‘That’s a whole hour’s worth of booing him and his stupid idea that he’ll get the support of his precious hometown.’

In a separate thread about the town hall, another user posted, ‘S— man isn’t even in my district, but I’m considering going up there.’

Flood’s decision to host a town hall in person comes in apparent defiance of House Republican leaders’ guidance to refrain from such face-to-face events, given the intense uptick in protests – both planned and unplanned.

The majority of House Republicans have transitioned to holding tele-town halls, which the lawmakers have defended as a more productive and controlled environment.

Several have cited issues of safety for their staff, with mobs at in-person constituent events growing raucous at times.

Meanwhile, left-wing groups that had been urging people to protest at GOP town halls are now taking advantage of the change in strategy, and have pushed activists to hold mock town halls with empty chairs representing lawmakers who in some cases were not even invited.

Prominent Democrats like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have also seized on the vacuum to hold their own events in Republican districts.

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) deployed troops to Gaza for the first time since the collapse of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Hamas on Wednesday.

The IDF troops are deployed to the Netzarim corridor, a key section of Gaza that essentially cuts the strip in half. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued to vow that Israel will maintain is military operations until every hostage has been returned from Hamas custody.

The IDF described Wednesday’s deployment as a ‘limited ground operation,’ but has not said whether it will remain limited to the Netzarim corridor.

The move follows a multi-day wave of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that killed over 400 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

The IDF says its strikes on Monday and Tuesday eliminated a number of mid- and high-level Hamas officials. Among them was Essam al-Da’alis, head of the Hamas government and ‘the most senior figure of authority in the Gaza Strip.’

The IDF and ISA also determined with ‘high probability’ that Israeli strikes eliminated Mahmoud Marzouk Ahmed Abu-Watfa, the Minister of Internal Affairs in charge of Hamas’ Internal Security Forces; Bahajat Hassan Mohammed Abu-Sultan, who served as Head of Hamas’ Internal Security Forces; and Ahmed Amar Abdullah Alhata, who served as Hamas’ Minister of Justice.

Israel on Wednesday also said it eliminated Yasser Muhammad Harb Musa, who was responsible for security affairs in Hamas’ political bureau, in addition to Muhammad Al-Jamasi, Head of the Hamas Emergency Committee.

President Donald Trump’s administration backed Israel’s move to end the ceasefire in a statement on Monday.

‘Hamas could have released hostages to extend the ceasefire but instead chose refusal and war,’ National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Brian Hughes told Fox News.

The White House has not responded to the deployment of Troops in Gaza on Wednesday.

Israel will intensify its military actions against Hamas moving forward, authorities said.

‘Under the direction of the political echelon, the IDF and Shin Bet are widely attacking terrorist targets of the Hamas terrorist organization throughout the Gaza Strip, more details below,’ the IDF and ISA said. 

This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.

A federal judge who blocked President Donald Trump from implementing an executive order banning transgender troops from serving in the military has a long history of activism in the Democratic Party, including volunteering for Joe Biden and donating tens of thousands to Democrat campaigns. 

U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes, a Biden appointee who is the first openly gay federal judge in D.C., acknowledged in her Senate questionnaire during her confirmation process that she volunteered for Biden’s 2020 campaign ‘providing limited legal assistance regarding potential election law issues.’

Reyes, who assumed office in February 2023, has been donating to Democratic causes to the tune of more than $38,000 since 2008, sending money to liberal efforts such as ActBlue, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossof’s campaign, and maxed out contributions to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, FEC records show.

Additionally, Reyes has been a frequent contributor to Defeat By Tweet, a Democratic-aligned super PAC that supports the Justice Fund, which Influence Watch describes as a group that ‘raises money for liberal groups in swing states each time President Donald Trump makes a post to his controversial Twitter account.’

Defeat By Tweet’s website is currently shuttered but says it is ‘transferring’ its resources to Black Church PAC, a group aligned with defunding the police that received at least $150,000 from the Kamala Harris presidential campaign.

Reyes, who was born in Uruguay before her family immigrated to the United States when she was in kindergarten, has been active in representing illegal immigrants in her previous capacity as a lawyer. 

During a speech accepting the 2017 Woman’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia’s Woman Lawyer of the Year award, Reyes said she was ‘privileged’ to represent asylum seekers and thanked lawyers at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, stating it was an honor ‘fighting for the rights of refugees in the United States.’

Reyes said in the same speech that she deferred law school for a year to work for the Feminist Majority Foundation, a group that describes itself as a ‘cutting edge organization dedicated to women’s equality, reproductive health, and non-violence.’

Reyes said in her Senate questionnaire that she served on the board for the group from ‘2014-present’ although she is not currently listed on the organization’s website.

The Feminist Majority Foundation has previously called abortion a ‘necessity’ and opposed in a January press release the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which blocks men from playing in women’s sports.

The questionnaire also acknowledges that she was a panelist in a 2021 discussion called ‘Did You Really Just Say That? Recognizing and Managing Microaggressions.’ The discussion was hosted by Centerforce, which touts a DEI series that includes several conferences aimed at ‘address[ing] the obstacles posed by the backlash against DEI initiatives and the consequences of Affirmative Action repeal.’

Despite her history of progressive activism, Reyes has sided with Trump in the past, including last April when she berated Biden’s Justice Department after two of its employees failed to appear in court for depositions related to the Republican push to impeach Biden, NBC News reported. 

Earlier that year, Reyes also called it ‘an attack on our constitutional democracy’ when a former IRS consultant leaked Trump’s tax returns. 

She also ripped the lawyers of eight inspectors general who were fired by Trump and denied their immediate reinstatement last month, asking, ‘Why on earth did you not have this figured out with the defendants before coming here?’ The lawsuit against the Trump administration is still ongoing.

At issue currently is a Jan. 27 executive order signed by Trump requiring the Defense Department to update its guidance regarding ‘trans-identifying medical standards for military service’ and to ‘rescind guidance inconsistent with military readiness.’ 

Reyes questioned the Trump administration at length over the order, demanding to know whether it was a ‘transgender ban’ and if the government’s position is that being transgender is an ‘ideology.’ 

Reyes, who previously stated that the idea of only two sexes is not ‘biologically correct,’ issued a preliminary injunction this week barring the Pentagon from enforcing Trump’s order, which asserted ‘expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.’

In her 79-page ruling, Reyes in part cites Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical ‘Hamilton’ to justify blocking the ban on transgender troops. 

‘Women were ‘included in the sequel’ when passage of the Nineteenth Amendment granted them the right to vote in 1920,’ Reyes wrote in the footnotes, adding, ‘That right is one of the many that thousands of transgender persons serve to protect.’

Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch, Stephen Sorace and Emma Woodhead contributed to this report.

The Biden administration buried for more than a year a final draft report that failed to prove that an increase in U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals was linked to a meaningful impact on greenhouse gas emissions, according to a copy of the findings, exclusively previewed to Fox News Digital.

The Biden administration stalled the release of the information, senior Trump administration officials told Fox News Digital, delaying sharing the data with House Oversight Committee Republicans. The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported that the Biden administration ‘intentionally buried’ the study. 

The impact that new U.S. LNG exports had on the environment and the economy had been reviewed by U.S. Energy Department scientists and federal contractors, who by September 2023 had completed their work and had a draft final report ready for publication.

Fox News independently reviewed a copy of that draft study, titled, ‘Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports.’ That report and its findings were slated for publication in 2023 — months before then-President Joe Biden, who was still seeking re-election at the time, announced a pause on all new U.S. LNG export terminals in January 2024, citing the need to better consider environmental and economic impacts.

The draft report found that across all modeled scenarios, an increase in U.S. LNG exports and natural gas production did not change global or U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, nor did it correlate with a strong uptick in energy prices for consumers, Trump administration officials said.

‘​​Secretary Granholm, and Biden White House told Americans that the increase in LNG exports would disproportionately increase prices for American consumers as well as from the environment,’ an official said.

‘And both these claims were refuted in the report that the Biden administration hid from Congress and the American public,’ the official said.

A copy of the report was shared Wednesday morning with the House Oversight Committee, which had been requesting the Energy Department to share its findings on LNG since March 2024.

A September 2024 court filing from Government Accountability and Oversight (GAO) revealed that the Energy Department was conducting an LNG study in 2023, Comer’s office told Fox News Digital. But DOE repeatedly declined to provide this study to the House Oversight Committee or comply with other requests for information.

‘Biden Administration officials, who religiously claimed to ‘follow the science,’ abandoned it to undermine American-made energy production, appease climate activists, and achieve their predetermined outcomes,’ House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. told Fox News in response to the report’s release. 

‘I am grateful to President Trump and Secretary Wright for providing the transparency the American people deserve and for taking action to restore America’s energy dominance.’

The 2023 findings present the most definitive data to date that the Biden administration, and then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, misrepresented the impact LNG exports would have on the U.S.

At the time, Biden was facing mounting criticism from progressives in the party to scale back LNG exports, which during his term rose to an all-time high. The U.S. became the world’s largest energy exporter in 2023, underpinned by new demand in the EU, following Russia’s war in Ukraine, and its abrupt cutoff of nearly all piped gas supplies to the bloc.

To help alleviate the deep energy security concerns, the U.S. ramped up exports to Europe to a record-high, supplying more than 50% of their LNG, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

That prompted fierce pushback from progressive Democrats, including Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., which put new pressure on the administration for the pause.

However, rather than come forward with the report, the Biden administration continued to stall on releasing the study and declined to comply with requests from the House Oversight Committee to testify or share their findings, Trump administration officials said.

That’s far less significant than the data eventually released by the Biden administration in December 2024, after the presidential election, which suggested the rise in exports could cause consumer prices to rise by as much as 30% in the coming years.

That sparked fierce backlash from both industry groups and Republicans, who panned the study as exaggerated and failing to justify the administration’s 10-month pause. 

Fox News Digital has emailed a Biden office spokesperson for comment but did not receive a response prior to publication.

A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. 

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction barring the Pentagon from enforcing Trump’s order, which asserted ‘expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service.’ The order, issued Jan. 27, instructed the Department of Defense (DOD) to update its medical standards for military service and pronoun policies, stating that ‘beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.’ 

Reyes said that the executive order likely poses constitutional rights violations. 

‘The court knows that this opinion will lead to heated public debate and appeals. In a healthy democracy, both are positive outcomes,’ Reyes wrote, delaying her order until Friday morning to allow time for the Trump administration to appeal. ‘We should all agree, however, that every person who has answered the call to serve deserves our gratitude and respect.’

Transgender individuals were considered unfit for U.S. military service until the DOD changed its policy during former President Barack Obama’s second term. 

In her 79-page ruling, Reyes in part cites Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical ‘Hamilton’ to justify blocking the ban on transgender troops. 

‘Women were ‘included in the sequel’ when passage of the Nineteenth Amendment granted them the right to vote in 1920,’ Reyes wrote in the footnotes, adding, ‘That right is one of the many that thousands of transgender persons serve to protect.’

Reyes said plaintiffs ‘face a violation of their constitutional rights, which constitutes irreparable harm.’ 

‘Indeed, the cruel irony is that thousands of transgender servicemembers have sacrificed – some risking their lives – to ensure for others the very equal protection rights the Military Ban seeks to deny them,’ the judge wrote, adding that the defendants, on the other hand, ‘have not shown they will be burdened by continuing the status quo pending this litigation, and avoiding constitutional violations is always in the public interest.’ 

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller condemned Reyes’ ruling on X, writing, ‘District court judges have now decided they are in command of the Armed Forces…is there no end to this madness?’ 

Reyes was the second judge of the day to rule against the Trump administration. Trump called for impeaching a third judge who temporarily blocked deportation flights, drawing a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.

‘Unelected rogue judges are trying to steal years of time from a 4 year term. It’s the most egregious theft one can imagine: robbing the vote and voice of the American People,’ Miller wrote in another X post. 

In response to Trump’s executive order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy on Feb. 26 that presumptively disqualifies people with gender dysphoria from military service. The policy says, ‘a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are incompatible with the high mental and physical standards necessary for military service.’

Plaintiffs’ attorneys contend Trump’s order violates transgender people’s rights to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.

Government lawyers argue that military officials have broad discretion to decide how to assign and deploy service members without judicial interference.

Reyes said she did not take lightly her decision to issue an injunction blocking Trump’s order, noting that ‘Judicial overreach is no less pernicious than executive overreach.’ However, she said, it was also the responsibility of each branch of government to provide checks and balances for the others, and the court ‘therefore must act to uphold the equal protection rights that the military defends every day.’

Thousands of transgender people serve in the military, but they represent less than 1% of the total number of active-duty service members, according to The Associated Press. 

In 2016, a DOD policy permitted transgender people to serve openly in the military. During Trump’s first term, he issued a directive to ban transgender service members. The Supreme Court allowed the ban to take effect. 

Biden, a Democrat who served as Obama’s vice president, scrapped it when he took office.

Six service members and two people wanting to enlist in the military sued the government in January over Trump’s executive order. About a dozen others, including nine people on active duty, have since joined the lawsuit. Their attorneys, from the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLAD Law, said transgender troops ‘seek nothing more than the opportunity to continue dedicating their lives to defending the Nation.’

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are praising the Trump administration’s release of government documents on John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

The National Archives released a tranche of some 80,000 pages late on Tuesday night, part of a long-standing promise by President Donald Trump to declassify information on the historic event.

And though there did not appear to be revelatory information in the initial release, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., a progressive Democrat who co-sponsored legislation to publicize the Kennedy files, was among those who praised the move.

‘It’s too soon to know whether there’s much in the documents released today, but it is a good sign that some progress toward the goal of full disclosure is under way,’ Cohen said Tuesday night. ‘The assassinations of the 1960s need to be understood in their full historical context and the documents being released may help us get there.’

Republicans were more enthusiastic in their praise, however, including House GOP Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky. He also offered praise for Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., whom he tapped to lead a task force aimed at getting other critical government records declassified.

‘President Trump has the most transparent administration in history. President Trump is more accessible to the American people than his predecessor and his administration is releasing critical information to the American people,’ Comer said.

Luna said, ‘By investigating the newly released JFK files, consulting experts, and tracking down surviving staff of various investigative committees, my task force will get to the bottom of this mystery and share our findings with the American people.’

‘I am happy that after decades of questions from the public and government cover-ups that the American people finally may have answers to the JFK assassination,’ said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn.

‘President Trump is once again showing his commitment to having the most transparent administration this country has ever seen.’

Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., who introduced the initial legislation to declassify unredacted records from the Kennedy assassination, said, ‘It’s been 61 years since the tragic murder of President John F. Kennedy. A truly functioning republic ensures Americans have access to information, and this moment symbolizes the long-awaited restoration of the people’s trust in the federal government.’

While a large share of the documents released are not new, nor do they appear to contain explosive new information, a significant number are presented without redactions for the first time – a long-awaited first step for history buffs and others who were invested in one of the defining tragedies of the 20th century.

Trump signed an executive order directing the release of thousands of files related to Kennedy’s assassination, as well as the assassinations of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., soon after returning to the White House for his second term.

‘That’s a big one. Lot of people are waiting for this a long, for years, for decades,’ the president said when he signed the order. He asked that the pen he used be given to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he needs more details about peace proposals following President Donald Trump’s call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, warning that ‘For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian.’ 

Zelenskyy announced he plans to speak with Trump Wednesday after the president told Fox News’ ‘The Ingraham Angle’ that he spent nearly two hours on the phone Tuesday with Putin. 

‘We will discuss the details of the next steps with him,’ Zelenskyy said. ‘For us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian. We will not go for it.’ 

Zelenskyy added that attacks continue to strike Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, despite U.S. and Russia saying Tuesday that Trump and Putin agreed to a ceasefire against those targets. Russia launched a series of drone strikes that struck civilian areas overnight and damaged a hospital in Ukraine. 

‘We will support any proposals that lead to a sustainable, just peace. But for this we must understand what is at stake. What are the details? And I hope to God that we know all these details, so that the partners talk to us. Because there are two sides in this war – Russia and Ukraine. Trying to negotiate without Ukraine, in my view, will not be productive,’ Zelenskyy said Tuesday. 

‘We support all steps toward ending the war. We will give support, but in order to support something we need to understand what specifically it is,’ he added. 

Trump described his call with Putin as ‘very good and productive’ on Truth Social. 

‘Many elements of a Contract for Peace were discussed, including the fact that thousands of soldiers are being killed, and both President Putin and President Zelenskyy would like to see it end,’ Trump wrote. ‘That process is now in full force and effect, and we will, hopefully, for the sake of Humanity, get the job done!’ 

The White House said in a statement following the call that ‘The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace.  

‘These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East,’ it added. 

During the call, Putin also said a complete cessation of military aid to Ukraine was a key condition for ending the war, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported, citing the Kremlin. 

However, Trump told Fox News ‘We didn’t talk about aid, actually.’ 

‘We didn’t talk about aid at all,’ he said. ‘We talked about a lot of things, but aid was never discussed.’ 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Concerns are mounting around former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen to sign presidential pardons and other official documents across his four years in office, though the chances of successfully challenging in court the use of an autopen on presidential pardons are ‘vanishingly low,’ constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley said. 

‘Many are suggesting that the Biden pardons may now be challenged in light of the disclosures of Biden’s use of an autopen,’ Turley, a Fox News contributor, wrote on X Tuesday. ‘The chances of such challenges succeeding are vanishingly low. Presidents are allowed to use the autopen and courts will not presume a dead-hand conspiracy.’ 

‘Many of these were high-profile pardons, including for his own son, that Biden acknowledged publicly,’ he added. ‘There is also a problem with standing unless the issue comes up in a government effort to indict a recipient. That does not mean that the disclosures are not deeply troubling.’ 

Autopen signatures are ones that are automatically produced by a machine, as opposed to an authentic, handwritten signature. 

President Donald Trump has been sounding the alarm on Biden’s prevalent use of an autopen for official presidential documents, most notably for official presidential pardons before he left office in January. On Monday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social that Biden’s pardons for individuals connected to the Jan. 6 select committee investigation another are ‘void.’

‘The ‘Pardons’ that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen,’ Trump wrote. 

‘In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden. He knew nothing about them, and the people that did may have committed a crime. Therefore, those on the Unselect Committee, who destroyed and deleted ALL evidence obtained during their two year Witch Hunt of me, and many other innocent people, should fully understand that they are subject to investigation at the highest level,’ he added. 

At the heart of the issue over the use of an autopen, which have been frequently used by presidential administrations across the decades, is concern over Biden’s mental acuity when he served in the White House. Trump said Sunday that though he uses the autopen for documents such as letters, he does not use an autopen for legally binding documents. 

Trump’s declaration that Biden’s pardons are now ‘void’ sparked a wave of legal questions to swirl — with many legal experts reporting that this is uncharted legal territory. 

‘This dog will not hunt,’ Turley added on X. ‘It may be worthy of investigation by Congress, but the pardons are unlikely to be seriously questioned by the courts.’ 

Michael O’Neill, the vice president of legal affairs at Landmark Legal Foundation — a conservative legal advocacy group that works to defend the Constitution — told Fox News Digital that, to his knowledge, ‘there hasn’t been a case where the limits of this power have been challenged.’

‘Biden’s pardons at the end of his term certainly test whether there are any limits to the presidential pardon power,’ O’Neill said. ‘Can a president issue blanket pardons encompassing any crime an individual may be accused of over ten years? This is a legitimate question that has yet to be addressed by the courts because no president has abused this authority until Biden. Another question is whether the pardons are valid if executed without the president’s knowledge — i.e. via autopen.’ 

‘If an individual who has received a pardon is indicted, they would, most likely, assert pardon as an affirmative defense,’ he added. ‘Lower courts would, most likely, uphold the dismissal, leaving it to SCOTUS to define the contours of the pardon power. How SCOTUS decides such a case is unknown.’ 

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project first sounded the alarm on Biden’s use of an autopen earlier in March, reporting that an autopen signature was used on the vast majority of official documents researchers reviewed, except for the signature on Biden’s official announcement that he was dropping out of the presidential race in 2024. 

Heritage’s Project Oversight posted a memo on its ongoing investigation into the matter Monday, reporting that researchers are wading through copious amounts of ‘public documents discharging non-delegable Presidential powers containing former President Joseph R. Biden’s signature.’ 

The memo determined that ‘individuals in the Biden Administration other than the President appear to have used a device called an autopen to affix the President’s signature onto some of the most controversial clemency warrants of his Presidency.’

The Project Oversight memo offered a legal explanation that ‘if President Biden’s non-delegable official actions were not his own, then they are invalid.’

‘Start with the Constitution,’ the memo reported. ‘Multiple Constitutional provisions, like the pardon power, vest those powers solely in the President. In those cases, the President affixing his signature is his execution of the acts as President.’ 

‘The Founding Fathers contemplated these issues when writing the Constitution. For example, Article I, Section 7, Clause 2 of the Constitution lays out the role of the President to sign or veto legislation. Early debates at the Constitutional Convention concerning this provision made it clear that regardless of the structure of the Executive Branch, the President would maintain a necessary affirmative approbation of legislation presented to him. The act of the President affixing his signature manually to a bill is his consent and is the very act that causes a bill to become law; it is in no way ministerial. Until he signs, there is no law,’ the legal explanation continued. 

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2005 under former President George W. Bush’s administration determined that the president is permitted to use an autopen to sign bills into law.

‘You have asked whether, having decided to approve a bill, the President may sign it, within the meaning of Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, by directing a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to it, for example by autopen,’ the opinion stated. ‘This memorandum confirms and elaborates upon our earlier advice that the President may sign a bill in this manner.’ 

The Project Oversight memo, however, hit back that the opinion is ‘wrong.’

‘This opinion is wrong. But even that erroneous opinion was clear that ‘(w)e emphasize that we are not suggesting that the President may delegate the decision to approve and sign a bill, only that, having made this decision, he may direct a subordinate to affix the President’s signature to the bill,’’ the memo said. 

Concerns over Biden’s mental acuity when he was in the White House have been under the microscope as legal questions fly over the use of the autopen and Trump’s declaration his pardons were voided. 

Biden kicked off 2024 in the driver’s seat of the Democratic Party as he keyed up a re-election effort in what was shaping up to be a rematch against Trump. In February 2024, however, Biden’s 81 years of age and mental acuity fell under public scrutiny after years of conservatives questioning the commander in chief’s mental fitness. 

Scrutiny over Biden’s mental fitness rose to a fever pitch in June 2024 after the president’s first and only presidential debate against Trump. Biden missed his marks repeatedly in the debate, tripping over his responses and appearing to lose his train of thought as he squared off against Trump. 

The disastrous debate performance led to an outpouring from both conservatives and traditional Democrat allies calling on the president to bow out of the race in favor of a younger generation. 

Biden dropped out of the race in July, with former Vice President Kamala Harris taking up the mantle in his place, though concerns over his health have continued months later as Trump speculates that Biden was unaware of signing the pardons specifically. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was peppered with questions about the autopen during Monday’s White House press briefing, saying Trump’s Truth Social was raising the question whether Biden was aware of the pardons when he signed them. 

‘Was his illegal signature used without his consent or knowledge? And that’s not just the president or me raising those questions,’ Leavitt said on Monday. ‘According to the New York Post, there are Biden officials from the previous White House who raised those questions and wondered if the president was even consulted about his legally binding signature being signed onto documents.’

‘And so I think it’s a question that everybody in this room should be looking into, because certainly that would propose, perhaps criminal or illegal behavior if staff members were signing the president of the United States’ autograph without his consent,’ Leavitt continued. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also recounted earlier in January to the media that Biden reportedly didn’t remember signing an executive order freezing new liquid natural gas exports in 2024, which has increased scrutiny surrounding Biden’s mental acuity. 

‘I didn’t do that,’ the former president said in 2024, Johnson recounted during an interview with the Free Press’ Bari Weiss in January. 

‘Sir, you paused it, I know. I have the export terminals in my state,’ Johnson said he told the president at the time. ‘I talked to those people in my state, I’ve talked to those people this morning, this is doing massive damage to our economy, national security.’ 

‘I walked out of that meeting with fear and loathing because I thought, ‘We are in serious trouble — who is running the country?’’ Johnson said of the 2024 meeting.

‘Like, I don’t know who put the paper in front of him, but he didn’t know,’ he added.

Turley said Johnson’s comments on Biden suggest the ‘use of dead-hand power,’ but that legally pursing a challenge will nonetheless likely be a non-starter. 

‘The account of Speaker Johnson on how Biden seemed unaware of signing a major piece of legislation does suggest the use of a dead-hand power by staffers,’ Turley wrote. ‘In the end, this is the most difficult type of allegation to pursue since the key parties will be unified in claiming full knowledge and approval by the president.’ 

Fox Digital reached out to Biden’s office for comment on his use of the autopen and Trump’s comments he was unaware of the pardons he signed, but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital’s Diana Stancy contributed to this report. 

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from terminating $14 billion in grants awarded to three climate groups by the Biden administration.

U.S. District Judge Tonya Chutkan ruled that the federal government’s ‘vague and unsubstantiated assertions of fraud are insufficient.’ The order prevents the EPA from ending the grant program, which totaled $20 billion. The judge also blocked Citibank, which holds the money on behalf of EPA, from transferring it to the government or anyone else.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed the grant recipients engaged in mismanagement, fraud and self-dealing in announcing that he froze and moved to terminate the grants, but the judge said Zeldin’s allegations were inadequate.

‘At this juncture, EPA Defendants have not sufficiently explained why unilaterally terminating Plaintiffs’ grant awards was a rational precursor to reviewing’ the green bank program, Chutkan wrote.

The grant recipients sued the EPA, Zeldin and Citibank, arguing that they had illegally denied the groups access to $14 billion awarded last year through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, commonly referred to as a ‘green bank.’ The program, which consisted of two initiatives worth $14 billion and $6 billion, respectively, was approved by Congress under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to support clean energy and climate-friendly projects.

Three groups — Climate United, the Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities — said the frozen grants prevented them from funding new projects and might force them to lay off staff. The groups said the allegations of mishandling funds were meritless.

The groups also asked Chutkan to order Citibank to unfreeze the account, but the judge declined. The order only preserves the status quo as the case moves forward.

Climate United was awarded nearly $7 billion, the Coalition for Green Capital won $5 billion and Power Forward Communities — a group linked to Democrat Stacey Abrams — was awarded $2 billion.

Beth Bafford. CEO of Climate United, said the judge’s ruling was ‘a step in the right direction.’

‘In the coming weeks, we will continue working towards a long-term solution that will allow us to invest in projects that deliver energy savings, create jobs, and boost American manufacturing in communities across the country,’ Bafford said.

Zeldin said Tuesday on X that the grants were awarded ‘in a manner that deliberately reduced the ability of EPA to conduct proper oversight,’ adding that he ‘will not rest until these hard-earned taxpayer dollars are returned to the U.S. Treasury.’

Zeldin has described the grants as a ‘gold bar’ scheme involved in conflicts of interest and potential fraud.

‘Twenty billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution, in a deliberate effort to limit government oversight — doling out your money through just eight pass-through, politically connected, unqualified and in some cases brand-new NGOs,’ Zeldin previously said in a video posted on X.

Climate United contended that the termination was unlawful, arguing the federal government had identified no evidence of waste, fraud or abuse.