While the 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, has resulted in a host of changes to bolster the Secret Service’s security practices, the agency has its work cut out for it in an era of unprecedented threats against the president, according to former Secret Service agents. 

Trump faces a plethora of threats, ranging from violent extremists backed by proxy groups, to domestic actors inspired to incite violence amid heightened political rhetoric, according to experts.

‘No U.S. president has been under so much threat of violence,’ Bill Gage, who served as a Secret Service special agent during Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s administrations, told Fox News Digital Wednesday. ‘The threat on President Trump is the greatest that any president has ever faced.’

Twenty-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump from a rooftop during the rally — with one of the eight bullets shot grazing Trump’s ear. In addition to injuring two people, the gunman also shot and killed Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, father and husband attending the rally. 

Months later, another man was apprehended and charged with attempting to assassinate Trump at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Both incidents are under investigation. 

Political rhetoric from the left that paints Trump as a threat to democracy is dangerous and could provide fodder for political radicals to believe assassinating the president is the way to save the country — potentially leading to a similar assassination attempt seen in Pennsylvania, Gage said.

Other factors contributing to the heightened threat levels include policies related to immigration or funding cuts from the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that are unpopular with the left, as well as hostile proxy groups who are backed by actors like Iran who oppose Trump, Gage said. 

‘That increases the threat level on Trump,’ Gage said. ‘There’s probably dozens and dozens of threats every day, just sort of insider threats, or threats within our own borders that the Secret Service has to run down.’ 

Specifically, Gage pointed to comments from leaders like Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who delivered an address to the nation in June where he claimed ‘democracy is under assault,’ following the Trump administration’s decision to dispatch thousands of National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to respond to the immigration riots in the Golden State and place them under federal command, rather than state command. 

‘Right now there is someone out there reading Newsom’s quotes, someone who wishes President Trump harm,’ Gage said in an email in June to Fox News Digital. ‘It is up to the USSS to stop them. Hopefully those wishing the President harm will not slip through the cracks.’

A spokesperson for Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Trump isn’t the only subject that’s a potential target for politically motivated violence. 

Attacks against federal immigration officials are on the rise and a gunman opened fire against Border Patrol agents Monday at an annex in McAllen, Texas. Authorities have yet to identify a motive. 

However, lawmakers have not minced their words on Trump’s immigration agenda. In June, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., accused ICE of acting ‘like a terrorist force’ — comments she has since defended. 

Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., who oversees the House Homeland Security committee’s subcommittee on border security and enforcement, said in a Wednesday statement to Fox News Digital that ‘radical anti-law enforcement rhetoric’ has prompted the surge in violence against federal immigration officials.  

Meanwhile, threats continue to change, creating additional challenges for security forces like the Secret Service as they adapt. 

Although the Secret Service is taking action to enhance its security measures, the agency still faces ‘considerable vulnerabilities given the rising complexity and sophistication of the threats it faces,’ Tim Miller, who served as a Secret Service agent during Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s administrations, said in an email Wednesday to Fox News Digital.

‘The FBI has consistently warned about homegrown violent extremists, which remains a major concern,’ Miller said. 

While Miller characterized Butler as a ‘wake-up’ call for the Secret Service and said the incident is sharpening the agency’s ability to handle threats, there is still a lot of work that must be done, he said. 

‘The Secret Service is also still playing catch-up when it comes to adopting critical technology — especially in the areas of secure communications, drone surveillance, and real-time intelligence tools,’ Miller said. ‘These are not luxuries; they are vital to modern protective operations.’

A bipartisan House task force that investigated the attack found that the attempted assassination was ‘preventable,’ and determined various mistakes were not an isolated incident. 

At the top of the list of mistakes, the report identified that the Secret Service did not secure a ‘high-risk area’ next to the rally, the American Glass Research (AGR) grounds and building complex. Failure to secure this area ‘eventually allowed Crooks to evade law enforcement, climb on and traverse the roof of the AGR complex, and open fire.’ 

Other faults the task force found included handing over advance planning roles to inexperienced Secret Service personnel, along with various technology and communication breakdowns. 

‘Moreover, relevant threat information known by members of the intelligence community was not escalated to key personnel working the rally,’ the House task force said in its report. 

As a result, the agency has spearheaded a series of reforms. 

According to former Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe, immediate changes to the agency following Butler, Pennsylvania, included expanding the use of drones for surveillance purposes, and also incorporating greater counter-drone technology to mitigate kinetic attacks from other drones. 

The agency also overhauled its radio communications networks and interoperability of those networks with Secret Service personnel, and state and local law enforcement officers, Rowe told lawmakers on a bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempt in December 2024.  Updates to these radio communications are a significant change, according to Gage, who noted that he could carry up to five radios at a time because an integrated system didn’t exist.

Rowe also told lawmakers that the Secret Service was aiming to up its staffing in the next year, and had placed more special agents in Trump’s security detail. Some of the additional $231 million in funding that Congress approved for the Secret Service in a stopgap spending bill in September 2024 to hire 1,000 new agents and officers in 2025 would go toward these increased hiring plans, Rowe said. 

A few other changes are in the pipeline, including possibly building a precise replica of the White House. Historically, agents have trained using Tyler Perry’s White House replica at his Atlanta film studio. 

Secret Service director Sean Curran said in an interview on Fox News’ ‘My View with Lara Trump’ in April that the agency is working with the White House to install such a building at the James J. Rowley Training Center, a 500-acre center in Laurel, Maryland. 

‘In order for our officers and agents to train up properly, they have to see what it’s like to be at the White House,’ Curran said. ‘It’s an important complex to know. There’s a lot of ins and outs, and something as simple as the local fire department showing up to help with a fire, and they need to know where they are going.’ 

Altogether, Congressional oversight bodies issued nearly 50 recommendations to the Secret Service following the assassination attempt, including ones related to better radio communications and planning for events. The agency reported Thursday that it has executed 21 of those recommendations, and is in the process of implementing 16 others. 

‘The reforms made over this last year are just the beginning, and the agency will continue to assess its operations, review recommendations and make additional changes as needed,’ the Secret Service said in a news release Thursday.

President Trump once famously quipped that he could shoot a man on 5th Avenue and his strongest supporters would stay with him. For nearly a decade this has seemed true, but today, the president may have stumbled on the exception, in the sickening form of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

It turns out that Epstein is a major test for Trump in the eyes of his MAGA warriors. They want real answers from this administration, not fumbled document dumps and dismissive comments from the president himself, as we saw this week.

Now, we have FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino who is apparently threatening to resign over the debacle, if Attorney General Pam Bondi doesn’t go first and a bewildered MAGA base that feels it is being insulted and lied to by its government, again. 

To be sure, Epstein was an awful human being who preyed on poor underage girls for decades, according to testimony from the Ghislane Maxwell trial (which I covered in the courthouse), as well as a wealth of other evidence. But for most Americans, his crimes and suspicious death are a mere curiosity at this point.

It is much, much more for hard-core MAGA. For them, it is nothing less than a test to determine whether or not the Swamp that has lied to our faces for decades is still in control.

This week, Steve Bannon said the only way the Epstein story goes away is if ‘the 5 to 10 to 15 percent of the Trump movement, the Pepes and hardcores,’ finally just say, ‘I’ve had enough of it.’ He added that the basic question is, ‘who is running the country?’

Likewise, at the TPUSA convention in Florida this weekend, which is led by Trump ally Charlie Kirk and is as pure a distillation of the core MAGA movement as exists, my sources tell me that Epstein is very much the top topic of concern.

But why did this curious case of this infamous creep and his private island become a synecdoche for all government lies in the mind of MAGA? In other words, how did Epstein become the symbol of deep government corruption?

For one thing, the notion Epstein was allowed to kill himself inside a federal prison has always strained credulity. From missing video to conflicting medical exams, there have been legitimate questions about how a man rumored to have damaging information on powerful people and ties to the intelligence community could turn up dead in federal custody. While officials assured the nation there was nothing to see, MAGA seethed. ‘Epstein didn’t kill himself’ became not just a meme and a mantra, but a declaration that we’ve been gaslit by our government.

There is also the matter of Bondi seeming to indicate that there was an Epstein client list in a Fox News Channel interview, only to now say it doesn’t exist. She says she was talking about the file writ large, but it didn’t sound that way at the time.

Bongino, in recent weeks, along with FBI Director Kash Patel, told us that a video from the prison is proof positive that this was suicide, but it turns out there was a missing minute of footage, and the video may have been doctored.

This was after Bondi all but hijacked a group of influencers in the spring at the White House, handing out binders purporting to share new bombshell information that turned out to be as exciting as a list of grandma’s baking recipes. 

On top of all of this, we have President Trump himself, visibly annoyed in the White House, this week when asked about Epstein, ‘Are you still talking about this guy…this creep?’ Trump asked. Well, yes, Mr. President, they are.

All in all, the administration’s handling of the Epstein case has been about as transparent as a brick wall, one that appears to be crumbling.

Trump has expressed concern in the past about innocent people being listed in Epstein documents, as happened to attorney Alan Dershowitz and others, and according to Elon Musk, both Trump and Bannon appear in this evidence, though Musk offers no proof of this.

This may be a reasonable concern, but after decades of blatant lies and stalled prosecutions of Epstein, Trump’s hardcore supporters want more than assurances. They want to see the documents. They want to see everything.

And this is a central part of Trump’s appeal, his promise to open up the hood and expose the broken-down, deep-state engine of government. But promises are not enough. Where are the results? When are we going to Fort Knox as promised, for example?

A breathtaking hallmark of the second Trump term has been extreme transparency. The president takes questions almost daily, and answers with candor. Except, it seems, when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein.

For a quarter-century now, the Epstein case has been a combustible cocktail of power, greed, private islands and sexual abuse. It has ushered in both careful examination and wild conspiracy theories, and the only way to separate the two is with complete sunlight onto the evidence.

For President Trump, this may be the first time he is risking the loyalty of his longest, strongest supporters, and for a populist political movement that is pure poison. 

The time to release everything is now, the future of MAGA may depend on it.

Ashley Williams, a longtime ally of former President Joe Biden, met with House investigators behind closed doors for nearly six hours Friday as Republicans probe allegations the Democrat’s top aides hid his mental decline.

A source familiar with the transcribed interview told Fox News Digital Williams said she did not ‘recall’ various things ‘an untold number of times.’

‘Examples include she could not recall if she spoke with President Biden in the last week, if teleprompters were used for Cabinet meetings, if there were discussions about President Biden using a wheelchair, if there were discussions about a cognitive test, if she discussed a mental or physical decline of President Biden, if she ever had to wake President Biden up and how she got involved with his 2020 campaign,’ the source said.

Williams told House investigators Biden is fit to be president today, the source said. 

In addition to whether senior aides covered up Biden’s alleged decline, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is looking into whether any presidential orders were signed via autopen without the former commander in chief’s knowledge.

Any allegations of wrongdoing so far have been denied by the ex-president’s allies.

But Republican investigators have pointed to Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate and subsequent revelations in the media that there were more concerns from Biden’s inner circle about his fitness for office than previously known.

Williams, however, argued he was in command of himself during that debate, the source said.

The former White House aide said nothing to reporters when entering or leaving the committee meeting room for her voluntary interview.

Fox News Digital reached out to Williams’ lawyers for their account of events inside the room.

It was a staff-led meeting, but Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, briefly stopped in for just under 30 minutes to show ‘solidarity’ with the witness, the progressive told reporters afterward.

‘I do think that it is important that I show up because if they are going to make allegations about the former commander in chief, egregious allegations they continue to wage, I want to make sure that I’m in the room to correct the record because a lot of times they like to mischaracterize things,’ she said.

When asked by Fox News Digital if the interview was still ongoing as she exited, Crockett answered, ‘It’s still going. I’m leaving early. I’ve got to get to another thing.’ 

The source who spoke with Fox News Digital said Crockett had come in during the GOP’s questioning session and did not ask any questions herself. Fox News Digital reached out to her office for a response.

Williams is a longtime Biden ally whose time with the Democrat goes back to assisting second lady Jill Biden during the Obama administration, according to a 2019 profile of Biden staffers.

Williams later worked for Biden’s 2020 campaign and presidential transition team. She served as his trip director before being hired by the White House as deputy director of Oval Office operations and a special assistant to the president.

Williams ended her White House tenure as deputy assistant to the president, senior advisor to the president and director of strategic outreach, according to her LinkedIn page.

Notably, the social media page also says Williams still works for the ex-leader as senior advisor in the Office of Former President Joe Biden.

She was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee last year during Republicans’ investigation into Biden’s cognitive health, but GOP investigators say the former White House blocked her from giving any information.

The Democratic staffer is the third person to appear before committee investigators in recent weeks.

Former Biden White House physician Kevin O’Connor appeared for a sworn deposition Wednesday after being subpoenaed by Comer.

David Gergen, who worked for four presidents, including Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, before becoming an academic and political TV pundit, has died. He was 83. 

Gergen died in a retirement home in Massachusetts on July 10, his son said, according to several outlets. 

The Washington, D.C., veteran had been suffering from Lewy body dementia, his son said. 

Those who knew and admired Gergen took to X to express their condolences. 

Former California first lady Maria Shriver wrote on X: ‘David Gergen was total professional and a really kind man. My thoughts are with his family. He loved politics and he loved being in service to this country.’

‘RIP, Mr. Gergen,’ CBS reporter Robert Costa wrote. 

Former Democratic Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. wrote: ‘We lost a good one, a really good one – RIP, my friend David Gergen

Gergen came up with the line that then-candidate Reagan said in the 1980 election: ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ according to The New York Times. 

He later said of the line: ‘Rhetorical questions have great power.’ 

Of his time with the Nixon administration, Gergen told the Washington Post in 1981, ‘I was young, and I was too naive. It hardened me up a lot. It was an extremely difficult experience emotionally, in terms of belief in people.’ 

After leaving public office, Gergen worked as an editor and columnist, as well as for the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was also a commentator for PBS, CNN and NPR. 

‘To say that I rely on him is an understatement,’ Reagan’s White House Chief of Staff, James A. Baker III, told The Washington Post in 1981. ‘He’s the best conceptualizer, in terms of communications strategy, that we have.’

Former White House aide Ashley Williams is the latest ex-Biden administration official to appear in the House Oversight Committee’s probe.

Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is investigating allegations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back on those claims.

Williams is the third member of Biden’s White House inner circle to show up, though she said nothing to reporters on her way into the room late Friday morning nor during a brief lunch break in the afternoon.

She’s a longtime Biden ally whose time with the Democrat goes back to assisting then-second lady Jill Biden during the Obama administration, according to a 2019 profile of Biden staffers.

Williams later worked for both Biden’s 2020 campaign and presidential transition team. She served as his trip director before being hired to the White House as deputy director of Oval Office Operations and a special assistant to the president.

Williams ended her White House tenure as deputy assistant to the president, senior advisor to the president, and director of Strategic Outreach, according to her LinkedIn page.

Notably, the social media page also says Williams still works for the ex-leader as senior advisor in the Office of Former President Joe Biden.

Williams is a graduate of Georgetown University, and received a doctorate of Law from the University of Pennsylvania. She also got a Master’s degree in political management from George Washington University.

She was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee last year in Republicans’ investigation into Biden’s cognitive health, but GOP investigators say the White House blocked her from giving any information.

‘The Biden White House obstructed the Committee’s investigation and refused to make the aides available for depositions or interviews,’ the committee said in a press release this year.

Williams’ Friday appearance was not forced under subpoena, however. She appeared voluntarily for her closed-door transcribed interview.

The Trump White House waived executive privilege for Williams along with several other former Biden aides last month.

Progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, made a second surprise appearance at the House Oversight Committee’s closed-door discussions with former Biden administration aides this week, once again criticizing President Donald Trump on the way out.

Crockett surprised reporters when she arrived roughly 15 minutes after House investigators’ transcribed interview with former White House advisor Ashley Williams began, declining to speak on the way in.

The Texas Democrat emerged just over 30 minutes later, saying little about what went on inside but telling reporters she still had ‘absolutely’ no concerns about Biden’s mental fitness while in office.

She said it was important to ‘be there physically’ for Biden allies being interviewed in the GOP probe – even going as far as suggesting the Trump administration created a threatening environment for members of Congress and its own political opponents.

‘It is important…in my mind, to be there for these witnesses. Unfortunately, we know what happens when this regime gets going. We know about the threats that come upon them, that come upon us as members of Congress,’ Crockett said.

‘I think it is important to stand there in solidarity and to at least be there physically so that they don’t feel like they’re alone as they are enduring egregious attacks consistently from this administration.’

Crockett was the only lawmaker seen going in or out of Williams’ meeting with investigators on Friday. The transcribed interview was expected to be staff-led, and lawmakers were not required to attend.

‘Right now, the Republicans continue to act as if this is a main priority. Yet none of them are showing up,’ she said.

‘I do think that it is important that I show up because if they are going to make allegations about the former commander-in-chief, egregious allegations they continue to wage. I want to make sure that I’m in the room to correct the record, because a lot of times they like to mischaracterize things.’

When asked by Fox News Digital if the interview was still ongoing as she exited, however, Crockett answered, ‘It’s still going. I’m leaving early. I’ve got to get to another thing.’

A source familiar with the ongoing proceeding told Fox News Digital that Crockett came in during Republican investigators’ round of questioning and so was unable to make inquiries herself. Fox News Digital reached out to Crockett for a response.

Williams was the former Director of Strategic Outreach under the Biden administration. She did not speak to reporters on the way into her transcribed interview.

Crockett initially caught reporters and potentially even staff off guard when she arrived for the closed-door deposition of Biden’s former White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., was there as well, as is the norm for sworn depositions.

Williams, unlike O’Connor, is not on Capitol Hill under subpoena.

During her Wednesday appearance, Crockett declared she never had any concerns about Biden’s mental state while he was president, though she did raise similar claims about Trump.

White House spokesman Harrison Fields told Fox News Digital in response to Crockett questioning Trump’s mental acuity: ‘The Democrats’ rising star has done more to cement the party’s demise than the President she breathlessly supported, the decrepit and feeble Joe Biden. Jasmine continues to prove she’d be better suited as a reality TV star on VH1 than an elected official on Capitol Hill.’

Comer is investigating accusations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back on those claims.

The State Department will move to layoff nearly 2,000 employees on Friday as it begins its reorganization plan. 

An internal memo circulated Thursday evening by Michael Rigas, deputy secretary of management and resources, announced that domestic employees affected by the reduction in force (RIF) would be notified ‘over the coming days.’ 

Approximately 1,800 people will be affected, Fox News has learned. 

The RIF notices plus voluntary departures under the Trump administration amount to a 15% work force reduction. 

‘The departments, bureaus, offices and domestic operations have grown considerably over the last 25 years, and the resulting proliferation of bureaus and offices with unclear, overlapping or duplicative mandates have hobbled the department’s ability to rapidly respond to emerging threats and crises or to effectively advance America’s affirmative interests in the world,’ a senior State Department official said. 

The official added that there are ‘more than 700 domestic offices for 18,000 people.’ 

‘A lot of this, as we said, covers redundant offices and takes some of these cross-cutting functions and moves them to the regional bureaus and to our embassies overseas, to the people who are closest to where diplomacy is happening, to empower them with the resources and authorities they need to be able to carry out the President’s foreign policy.’

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce warned on Thursday the agency would move quickly after the Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s injunction blocking the administration from implementing widescale force reductions across federal agencies. 

A senior official said there are currently no plans for overseas closures of embassies and outposts. They added the State Department will work to preserve the dignity of affected workers. 

‘We’re going to work to preserve the dignity of federal workers,’ the official said. ‘We want to be sensitive to that process and make sure people have the resources they need … and make sure everyone is treated with dignity.’

A former White House physician is criticizing Kevin O’Connor after the ex-Biden administration doctor refused to answer questions by House Oversight Committee investigators earlier this week.

Dr. O’Connor, who served as White House physician to former President Joe Biden, sat down for a transcribed interview with committee staff and panel Chair James Comer, R-Ky., on Wednesday. The closed-door meeting lasted roughly 30 minutes, with O’Connor invoking the Fifth Amendment to all questions, save for his name.

His legal team said there were concerns the broad scope of Comer’s probe could force O’Connor into a position of risking doctor-patient confidentiality privileges. 

‘Well, you can’t do both,’ Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a former White House doctor himself, told Fox News Digital in an interview afterward.

‘I mean, the Fifth Amendment is designed to keep him from incriminating himself in some type of, you know, criminal or unethical behavior. He’d already addressed the issue of patient-doctor privacy, or confidentiality, with the committee.’

He pointed out that O’Connor’s lawyers had already raised issues with patient-doctor confidentiality in a letter to the committee trying to get the interview delayed, but Comer pressed forward.

‘They had already let him know that in this particular case, because he had been subpoenaed, and it was a legal process, he’d been subpoenaed to testify before Congress in this closed session, that the patient-doctor privilege no longer applied,’ Jackson said. ‘And President Trump had waived presidential privilege. So it left him with nothing. Nothing to stand on except for pleading the Fifth.’

Before being elected to Congress, Jackson served as White House physician to both former President Barack Obama and current President Donald Trump.

Comer told reporters on Wednesday that Jackson played a key role in crafting questions for O’Connor. 

‘We have a lot of questions that we’ve prepared for this. We’ve consulted closely with Ronny Jackson, my colleague, who was the White House physician in the first Trump administration. We’ve consulted with a lot of people in the medical community, so there’s going to be a lot of medical questions that are asked,’ he told reporters before the transcribed interview.

He is investigating accusations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back on those claims.

‘The cover-up could not have happened without the assistance and the help of his personal physician, Kevin O’Connor,’ Jackson said. ‘I think that’s why he pled the Fifth, because he realized he was about to implicate himself as a key player in this cover-up.’

O’Connor’s lawyers have denied any implications of guilt.

Jackson said some of the questions he recommended to the committee would have surrounded any potential neurological concerns or cognitive tests while Biden was in office.

But many of those were left unasked, it appears, after O’Connor’s brief meeting with House investigators.

The doctor’s lawyers said O’Connor’s refusal to answer questions on Fifth Amendment grounds was not an admission of guilt, but rather a response to what they saw as an unprecedented investigatory scope that could have violated the bounds of patient-physician privilege.

‘This Committee has indicated to Dr. O’Connor and his attorneys that it does not intend to honor one of the most well-known privileges in our law – the physician patient privilege. Instead, the Committee has indicated that it will demand that Dr. O’Connor reveal, without any limitations, confidential information regarding his medical examinations, treatment, and care of President Biden,’ the attorney statement said.

‘Revealing confidential patient information would violate the most fundamental ethical duty of a physician, could result in revocation of Dr. O’Connor’s medical license, and would subject Dr. O’Connor to potential civil liability. Dr. O’Connor will not violate his oath of confidentiality to any of his patients, including President Biden.’

Fox News Digital reached out to O’Connor’s lawyers for further comment.

I wrote recently about the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has drawn the ire of colleagues in opinions for her rhetoric and extreme positions. Many have expressed alarm over her adherence to what has been described by one as an ‘imperial judiciary’ model of jurisprudence. Now, it appears that Jackson’s increasingly controversial opinions are serving a certain cathartic purpose for the far-left Biden appointee.

‘I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues, and that’s what I try to do,’ Jackson told ABC News.

Her colleagues have not entirely welcomed that sense of license. The histrionic and hyperbolic rhetoric has increased in Jackson’s opinions, which at times portray her colleagues as abandoning not just the Constitution but democracy itself.

Her dissent in the recent ruling on universal injunctions drew the rebuke of Justice Amy Coney Barrett over what was described as ‘a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush.’

‘We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,’ Barrett wrote. ‘We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.’

Jackson, however, clearly feels that opinions are a way for her to opine on issues of the day. 

She is not alone. Across the country, liberal judges have been adding their own commentary to decisions in order to condemn Trump, his supporters, and his policies.

I previously wrote about this pattern of extrajudicial commentary.

District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who previously presided over Trump’s election interference case, was criticized for failing to recuse herself from that case after she made highly controversial statements about Trump from the bench. Chutkan lashed out at ‘a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.’ That ‘one person’ was still under investigation at the time, and when Trump was charged, Chutkan refused to let the case go.

Later, Chutkan again added her own commentary when asked to dismiss a case due to Trump pardoning January 6 defendants. She acknowledged that she could not block the pardons, but proclaimed that the pardons could not change the ‘tragic truth’ and ‘cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.’

One of Chutkan’s colleagues, Judge Beryl Howell, also an Obama appointee, lashed out at Trump’s actions, writing, ‘[T]his Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement.’

Then there is Judge Amit Mehta, another Obama appointee, who has been criticized for conflicted rulings in Trump cases and his bizarre (and ultimately abandoned) effort to banish January 6 defendants from the Capitol.

Last week, Mehta had a straightforward question of jurisdiction concerning a challenge to the denial of grants by the Trump administration. While correctly dismissing the challenge, Mehta decided to add his own commentary on Trump’s priorities and policies:

‘Defendants’ rescinding of these awards is shameful. It is likely to harm communities and individuals vulnerable to crime and violence. But displeasure and sympathy are not enough in a court of law.’

For Jackson, her opinions have at times left her isolated on the Court. Weeks ago, Jackson and Sotomayor were alone in dissent over the defiance of a district court judge of the Court’s decision on universal injunctions. To her credit, Justice Elena Kagan (who voted with Sotomayor and Jackson in dissent in the earlier case) voted with her conservative colleagues in rebuking Judge Brian Murphy in Boston.

Kagan joined in the reversal of Murphy’s conflicting order and wrote the new order ‘clarifies only one thing: Other litigants must follow the rules, but the administration has the Supreme Court on speed dial.’

This week, Jackson lost even Sotomayor and stood alone in her dissent in support of an injunction over plans to downsize the government. Sotomayor observed that the Trump order only directed agencies to plan for such downsizing and said that the courts could hardly enjoin such policy preparations in the Executive Branch.

However, Jackson could and would. 

The controversial position of Jackson on the Court is not due to her liberal views. We have had many such liberal jurists. The difference is how Jackson views her role as a justice.

The danger is not confined to opinions. For years, justices have yielded to the temptations of public speaking before supportive groups. I have long been a critic of what I called the era of ‘celebrity justices,’ where members seem to maintain political constituencies at public events. 

Such speeches not only undermine the integrity of the Court by discussing matters that may come before it, but they can create a desire to maintain the adoration of supporters. The greatest danger is that justices will consciously or subconsciously pander to their bases with soundbites and inflammatory rhetoric.

Judicial advocacy from the bench has been a concern since the founding. Article III can have a corrosive impact on certain jurists who come to view themselves as anointed rather than appointed. Most judges and justices are acutely aware of that danger and struggle to confine their rulings to the merits of disputes, avoiding political questions or commentary.

The ‘opportunity to tell people how I feel’ can become a slippery slope where opinions become more like judicial op-eds. The Court is not a cable show. The price of the ticket to being ‘one of nine’ is that you should speak only through your opinions and only on the narrow legal matter before you. 

Opinions must remain ‘opportunities’ to do simple justice, not a supreme editorial.

A former top White House advisor is slated to appear before House Oversight Committee investigators on Friday as GOP lawmakers probe whether ex-President Joe Biden’s top aides covered up evidence of his mental and physical decline.

Ashley Williams, who served as deputy director of Oval Office Operations during the Biden administration, is expected to sit with investigators behind closed doors for a transcribed interview around 11 a.m. Friday.

If she appears, Williams will be the third member of the former president’s White House inner circle summoned in Comer’s probe in recent weeks.

In addition to whether senior aides covered up Biden’s alleged decline, Comer is looking at whether any presidential orders were signed via autopen without the former commander-in-chief’s knowledge.

Any allegations of wrongdoing so far have been denied by the ex-president’s allies.

But Republican investigators have pointed to Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate and subsequent revelations in the media that there were more concerns from Biden’s inner circle about his fitness for office than previously known.

Williams was one of three then-Biden aides called before Comer’s House Oversight Committee in July 2024 to discuss the former president’s mental state, but the White House at the time called it a ‘baseless political stunt’ to NBC News.

Her expected appearance on Friday comes two days after ex-Biden White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor briefly sat down with investigators on Wednesday.

O’Connor’s encounter with the committee lasted roughly 30 minutes, with the doctor invoking the Fifth Amendment for all questions except his name.

‘It’s clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment,’ Comer said in a statement after O’Connor’s appearance.

‘Dr. O’Connor took the Fifth when asked if he was told to lie about President Biden’s health and whether he was fit to be President of the United States. Congress must assess legislative solutions to prevent such a cover up from happening again. We will continue to interview more Biden White House aides to get the answers Americans deserve.’

O’Connor’s lawyers said he did so out of concerns that House investigators would violate doctor-patient privilege.

‘This Committee has indicated to Dr. O’Connor and his attorneys that it does not intend to honor one of the most well-known privileges in our law – the physician patient privilege. Instead, the Committee has indicated that it will demand that Dr. O’Connor reveal, without any limitations, confidential information regarding his medical examinations, treatment, and care of President Biden,’ the attorney statement said.

‘Revealing confidential patient information would violate the most fundamental ethical duty of a physician, could result in revocation of Dr. O’Connor’s medical license, and would subject Dr. O’Connor to potential civil liability. Dr. O’Connor will not violate his oath of confidentiality to any of his patients, including President Biden.’