A Senate Republican is demanding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigate whether illegal Chinese ingredients are making their way into weight loss drugs in the United States.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., called on FDA Commissioner Martin Makary to probe how far unregulated and illegal Chinese active pharmaceutical ingredients have penetrated the U.S. supply chain — and whether they have ended up in popular weight loss drugs.

‘China’s access to America’s pharmaceutical supply chain presents national security risks as well as significant health risks to American patients,’ Cotton wrote in a letter to Makary first obtained by Fox News Digital.

Cotton’s concern follows recent reports from the FDA and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that between September 2023 and January 2025, authorities intercepted 195 illegal shipments of active pharmaceutical ingredients.

He noted that the ingredients were ‘likely used in compounded weight loss medications’ that entered the U.S. market. Of those shipments, roughly 60 originated from China and Hong Kong.

‘It is estimated that as of January 2026, up to 1.5 million American patients could be using unregulated compounded weight loss medications that may contain potentially dangerous ingredients from Chinese manufacturers,’ Cotton wrote.

The ingredients are typically used in compounded versions of GLP-1 weight loss drugs that are marketed as alternatives to FDA-approved medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy.

Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it would refer telehealth company Hims & Hers to the Justice Department for ‘potential violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act’ over its planned sale of a compounded, non-FDA-approved weight loss drug.

Makary similarly said the FDA would ‘take decisive steps to restrict GLP-1 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) intended for use in non-FDA-approved compounded drugs that are being mass-marketed by companies — including Hims & Hers and other compounding pharmacies — as alternatives to FDA-approved drugs.’

The company announced last week that it would remove its weight loss pill, billed as a cheaper alternative to Wegovy, from the market following mounting pressure from federal agencies.

Cotton acknowledged that move and called for similar investigations going forward.

‘I encourage further investigations into other entities that expose American patients to dangerous, unregulated Chinese APIs,’ Cotton wrote.

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., the lone Senate Democrat to join the GOP to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), accused his colleagues of choosing party over country in their shutdown vote.

Senate Democrats dug their heels in against funding the agency on Thursday in their pursuit of stringent reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good during immigration operations in Minnesota.

But Fetterman believed that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his party were missing the point.

‘This shutdown literally has zero impact on ICE functionality,’ Fetterman said in a post on X. ‘Country over party is refusing to hit the entire Department of Homeland Security. Democracy demands a way forward to reform ICE without damaging our critical national security agencies.’

Senate Democrats’ refusal to fund DHS this week has made a partial government shutdown affecting only DHS inevitable. The deadline to strike a deal is midnight Friday, and the likelihood of that happening is nearly nonexistent.

That’s because both chambers of Congress quickly fled Washington, D.C., on Thursday, with many in the upper chamber leaving the country altogether for the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

Schumer and his caucus argued that the White House and Republicans weren’t serious about reforms to ICE or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and contended that the GOP’s counteroffer to their own list of demands didn’t go far enough to earn their votes.

But to Fetterman’s point, shutting down DHS won’t halt the cash flow to immigration operations.

That’s because congressional Republicans last year injected roughly $75 billion into the agency for ICE with President Donald Trump’s marquee ‘big, beautiful bill.’ That money is spread across the next four years, meaning that a shutdown now will have little, if any, effect on ICE’s core functions.

But other functions under DHS’ purview, like TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard and more, will experience the brunt of the partial shutdown.

Negotiations on striking a deal are expected to continue in the background, and Senate Democrats have signaled that they’re considering offering a counteroffer to the White House in response to the GOP proposal.

Still, a vote to reopen and fund the agency won’t happen until early next week at best.

Thousands of anti-government protesters violently faced off against riot police outside government buildings in Albania’s capital, Tirana, earlier this week, as people called for the resignation of the government following a massive corruption scandal.

The main Albanian opposition party called for people to take to the streets and demand the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Belinda Balluku after she was indicted by a special prosecutor who alleged she had been improperly influenced in her decision to favor one company in a tender for the construction of a 3.7-mile tunnel in southern Albania.

Albania’s Special Court Against Corruption and Organized Crime suspended Balluku from the government in November, but Prime Minister Edi Rama took the issue to the country’s Constitutional Court, which reinstated Balluku in December.

Balluku denied the allegations, calling the accusations against her amounted to ‘mudslinging, insinuations, half-truths and lies.’ Rama has refused to dismiss her.

The corruption allegations touched off widespread outrage, sparking protests in recent months. 

‘The wave of popular protests in Albania reflects a growing societal backlash against what critics describe as the increasingly autocratic rule of Prime Minister Edi Rama,’ Agim Nesho, former Albanian ambassador to the U.S. and the United Nations, told Fox News Digital.

‘Over more than a decade in power, Rama is accused of centralizing authority and personalizing state institutions, while his government has faced persistent allegations of cooperation with organized crime and the misuse of public funds and public assets for the benefit of politically connected clients,’ Nesho claimed.

The shady circumstances surrounding Rama’s most important ally and the lack of accountability reinforces the sentiment that is pervasive in Albanian society that their government is rife with corruption. With both the incumbent government and opposition figures accused of corruption, public confidence in institutions and the justice system has steadily been eroded.

Albania has a long legacy of government corruption and ranks 91st out of 182 countries in Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index.

The protests on Tuesday turned violent when supporters of Berisha’s opposition Democratic Party threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at government offices in Tirana. Security forces responded with water cannons and tear gas.

Berisha claims the protests have been peaceful, and people are only voicing their opposition to Rama’s increasing autocratic rule and his attacks of the justice system.

At least 16 protesters were treated for injuries and 13 protesters were arrested, according to The Associated Press. 

Observers of the region believe Berisha, who was prime minister from 2005 to 2013 and faced his own corruption charges, is angling to topple the socialist prime minister and main political rival, Rama, and return to power.

The turmoil in Albania comes as the country has long sought European Union membership, which began in 2014 when it became an official candidate for accession. While the 2025 annual European Commission report stated that Albania made significant strides in judicial reforms and combating organized crime, the latest allegations against Rami’s government will complicate its path to EU membership.

The United States helped implement Albania’s judicial reform process, including the creation of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Structure (SPAK). The State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) invested millions to foster democratic progress in Albania and assisted in combating Albania’s struggles with corruption and strengthening its weak institutions.

Nesho warned the U.S. and European Union need to get serious with policy in the Western Balkans and help move Albania closer to European integration.

‘If Washington and Brussels continue to look the other way — failing to enforce the rule of law, restore real checks and balances, and cut the regime’s ties to organized crime and drug trafficking — Albania risks drifting into the orbit of Eastern-style autocracy,’ Nesho said.

With little time and no deal in sight to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a partial government shutdown by midnight is all but guaranteed.

The battle to prevent the third government shutdown under President Donald Trump in less than six months was lost in the Senate on Thursday. Now, with Congress scattered across the U.S. and several senators headed abroad, there’s no chance that a shutdown will be averted.

Senate Republicans were unable to smash through Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats’ unified front to pass a full-year DHS funding bill, nor were they able to do yet another short-term, two-week extension.

‘The idea of not even allowing us to have an extended amount of time to negotiate this suggests to me, at least, that there isn’t a high level of interest in actually solving this issue,’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said.

The final fight on the floor Thursday wasn’t with every lawmaker present, but between Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., over giving lawmakers a little more time to keep the agency open while negotiations continue.

Senate Democrats argued that Republicans offered their legislative proposal in the dead of night, giving little time to actually move toward a compromise.

‘We had plenty of time to get a deal in the last two weeks,’ Murphy said. ‘And the lack of seriousness from the White House and from Republicans not getting language until last night has put us in the position we are in today.’

And with the expected shutdown, Democrats’ main targets — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — won’t see their cash flow dry up because of billions injected into the agency by Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

Instead, agencies like TSA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, and several others will suffer the brunt of the shutdown.

‘There is no way that you can’t say we’re working in good faith. We want to continue this conversation,’ Britt said on the Senate floor. ‘But yet you’re penalizing a TSA agent. A TSA agent is going to go without a paycheck. Why? So that you can posture politically? I’m over it.’

‘Everybody on that side of the aisle knows that ICE and CBP will continue to be funded,’ she continued. ‘They’re going to continue to enforce the law just as they should. Who’s going to pay the price?’

The final floor argument was a microcosm of what the week had devolved into. Senate Republicans argued that Democrats had burned too much time producing their list of demands, while Senate Democrats contended that they weren’t given enough time by the White House.

And as is typical during the string of shutdowns in the last several months, it has devolved into a public blame game. When asked about the effects a shutdown would have on the agencies not involved in immigration enforcement, Schumer pointed the finger at the GOP and the White House.

‘Talk to the Republicans, OK? We’re ready to fund everything,’ Schumer said. ‘We’re ready to have good, serious proposals supported by the American people. They’re not; they’re sort of dug in the ground, and they’re not moving forward.’

But neither side is willing to divulge publicly what the exact sticking points are in their ongoing negotiations. And Senate Democrats now appear to be considering a counteroffer to the White House, a sign that negotiations aren’t totally dead in the water.

‘Negotiations will continue, and we will see in the course of the next few days how serious they are,’ Thune said.

President Donald Trump’s administration fired a U.S. attorney the same day he was sworn in for the role by a federal court this week.

A board of judges for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York tapped Donald T. Kinsella to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, according to a court announcement that said Kinsella was sworn in on Wednesday. But Kinsella was then booted from the post on Wednesday. 

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche was blunt about the firing in a Wednesday post on X.

‘Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys, @POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella,’ Blanche wrote.

In a Thursday statement, the court noted, ‘Yesterday the United States District Court appointed a United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York, a position that was vacant.’ 

‘The Court exercised its authority under 28 U.S.C. § 546(d), which empowers the district court to ‘appoint a United States Attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.’ The United States Constitution expressly provides for this grant of authority in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, which states in part: ‘the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment’ of officials such as United States Attorneys ‘in the Courts of Law.’ By the end of the day, Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel, Morgan DeWitt Snow notified Mr. Kinsella that he was removed as the judicially-appointed United States Attorney, without explanation,’ the statement noted.

‘The Court thanks Donald T. Kinsella for his willingness to return to public service so that this vacancy could be filled with a qualified, experienced former prosecutor, and for his years of distinguished work on behalf of the citizens of the Northern District of New York,’ the statement added.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Friday.

Kinsella was tapped to succeed John Sarcone III after a judge declared in January that he was serving in the role of acting U.S. attorney illegally, according to NBC News. 

The outlet said U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield ruled that the Department of Justice took improper action to keep Sarcone in the role past the 120-day limit for U.S. attorneys who the Senate has not confirmed. He demoted himself to first assistant attorney while awaiting an appeal of the judge’s decision, the outlet added.

: A trio of Republican senators are moving to overhaul how federal childcare funds are distributed after what they call ‘mass fraud’ in Minnesota exposed a system that paid providers before verifying children were ever in the room.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joined by Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rick Scott, R-Fla., is introducing the Payment Integrity Act, legislation that would require states to distribute federally funded childcare dollars based on verified attendance — not enrollment claims.

‘Programs in Minnesota for welfare and childcare were designed to channel resources into protecting vulnerable children, but were treated like an open ATM by criminals,’ Cruz told Fox News Digital.

‘The mass fraud in Minnesota shows that American taxpayers can no longer rely on local and state politicians to prevent abuses, because those politicians often have electoral and partisan incentives to look the other way. My legislation reduces the risk of the waste and fraud we’ve seen and ensures that resources are provided to children and families who need it.’

The bill would reverse a 2024 Biden administration rule requiring states to pay childcare providers before attendance verification. Under Cruz’s proposal, providers would be paid only after services are confirmed — shifting from enrollment-based payments to attendance-based billing.

Cruz’s bill comes as the outspoken Texan led a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on alleged Somali fraudsters last week. There, lawmakers heard directly from David Hoch — a journalist seen accompanying blogger Nick Shirley to addresses proclaimed to be Somali daycares.

‘There are few crimes more morally repugnant than stealing from vulnerable children. Every dollar stolen is a meal not eaten, a doctor’s visit missed, and a future diminished,’ Cruz said, adding that such fraud ‘plunders our children’s potential.’

Gesturing towards a photo of the ‘Quality Learing Center’ in Minneapolis during the hearing, an allegedly fraudulent childcare provider Cruz called ’emblematic’ of the crisis, he said the fraud was occurring not in ‘some distant or lawless place, but in the heart of America’s Midwest.’

Co-sponsor Lee said that support for childcare should ‘go to real kids, not empty rooms.’

‘Fake childcare operations are stealing funding from the ones who are actually taking care of America’s children in need. Our bill will address this massive fraud by granting funding based on actual attendance rather than reported enrollment, and allowing states to pay retroactively instead of in advance,’ Lee said, adding such ‘diligence’ should have been the law all along.

The Payment Integrity Act also puts into law January rule from Health and Human Services that established attendance-based billing procedures

That rule, according to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s deputy Jim O’Neill was also spurred on by what has been happening in Minnesota.

‘We’ve seen credible and widespread allegations of fraudulent daycare providers who were not caring for children at all. The reforms we are enacting will make fraud harder to perpetrate,’ O’Neill said in a statement.

The Payment Integrity Act officially amends the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act signed into law by President George Herbert Walker Bush, to include such ‘attendance-based billing.’

‘Nothing in this subchapter shall be construed to require a lead agency to make a payment to a child care provider prior to the provision of child care services,’ the bill reads, a direct reversal of the pre-payment system Cruz says allowed fraud to flourish.

Iran’s election as vice-chair of the United Nations Commission for Social Development is being slammed by human rights advocates and policy analysts, who have condemned the U.N.’s hypocrisy when it comes to its treatment of undemocratic regimes. 

The leadership role was approved without objection during a meeting of the commission, where delegates adopted agenda items and organizational decisions by consensus.

The United Nations has faced continued criticism over its inaction towards the regime’s violent crackdown against protesters in December and January. On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres faced criticism for congratulating Iran on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz criticized the development, writing on X: ‘Yet another reason why we are not a member of, nor do we participate in, this ridiculous ‘Commission for Social Development.’’

Alireza Jafarzadeh, author of The Iran Threat and deputy director of the U.S. office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also criticized the decision. ‘Having the Iranian regime in the leadership of a U.N. body tasked with promoting democracy, gender equality, tolerance and non-violence is appalling and like fox guarding the hen house,’ Jafarzadeh said. ‘The vast majority of the Iranian people are calling for regime change because the mullahs are the world’s leading human rights violators, misogynist to the core, and they slaughter the voices of dissent by thousands.’

He argued that Iran should face scrutiny rather than institutional advancement. ‘Instead, the Iranian regime must be a subject of intense investigation and accountability by all U.N. bodies for crimes against humanity and genocide, from the 1980s to January 2026 uprisings,’ Jafarzadeh said. ‘Decades of inaction by Western governments have emboldened the regime. This must stop now.’

‘By electing Iran to help lead a commission devoted to democracy, women’s rights and non-violence, the U.N. makes itself into a mockery,’ said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch. ‘This is a regime that brutalizes women for not covering their hair, and that just massacred tens of thousands of its own civilians in two days.’

Neuer argued that governments had the ability to block the appointment but chose not to act. ‘The EU states know how to stop abusive regimes from winning these seats — they’ve done so in the recent past with Russia — but this time on Iran, they chose silence and complicity,’ he said. ‘By rewarding the Mullahs right after their slaughter of innocents, the U.N. has now sent a very dangerous message to Tehran.’

Lisa Daftari, an Iran analyst, said the optics of Iran holding a leadership role in a commission centered on social development and rights were deeply troubling.

‘For Iranian women who risk prison or worse just for taking off a headscarf, watching Tehran get a vice-chair on a U.N. social-development commission feels like a slap in the face.’

She added that broader patterns in U.N. voting and resolutions contribute to perceptions of bias.

‘When the same U.N. system has spent the last decade passing roughly 170-plus resolutions against Israel and only around 80 on all other countries combined, you don’t need a PhD to see there’s a bias problem,’ Daftari said. ‘When the U.N. has churned out well over a hundred anti-Israel resolutions in recent years while managing a fraction of that number on the world’s worst dictatorships, it looks less like moral leadership and more like political theater.’

Daftari rejected that procedural nature of United Nations committees and committees.

‘Some diplomats will wave this away as a procedural formality, but at the U.N. nothing is ever purely symbolic,’ she said. ‘The bottom line is that handing Iran’s regime a gavel on ‘social development’ confirms yet again that the place is biased and deeply hypocritical.’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is making an example of former President Barack Obama for encouraging voters and lawmakers to reject adopting national voter ID laws. 

‘You know how badly the Democrats are panicking when they bring out Obama to spread lies about voter ID,’ Leavitt posted to X Thursday. ‘The fact is that nearly 90% of voters support’ voter ID laws, she continued before posting two screenshots showing two polls reflecting Americans support such laws at around 83% support to 84% support. 

Leavitt’s comments follow the House passing a massive election integrity overhaul bill Wednesday, which includes requiring voters to show a photo ID when casting ballots in federal elections. The bill overall aims to prevent noncitizens from voting in U.S. federal elections, with all but one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, voting against it. 

Obama was among prominent Democrats encouraging House lawmakers to vote against the measure, claiming it will disenfranchise voters. 

‘Republicans are still trying to pass the SAVE Act—a bill that would make it harder to vote and disenfranchise millions of Americans,’ he posted to X Wednesday evening. ‘Join @RedistrictAct and tell your member of Congress to vote no.’ 

Democrats have argued that voter ID laws can disenfranchise eligible voters because they often require specific, current government-issued IDs that may be a struggle to obtain due to costs, paperwork hurdles or limited DMV access. Republicans have rejected that argument, calling the requirement a common-sense safeguards that would boost confidence in elections, while simultaneously noting that most Americans already need IDs for everyday tasks.

In another post, Leavitt shared that Obama presented his own driver’s license to vote in the 2012 election. Obama voted early that cycle and was seen on camera pulling his Illinois driver’s license from his wallet to flash to poll workers. 

‘Here is Barack Obama showing his photo ID to vote in a past election,’  Leavitt posted. ‘Why are Democrats in Congress so opposed to making this a requirement across the country? Voter ID laws are common sense.’ 

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers added that IDs are frequently used by Americans to buy alcohol or get on a plane, which she said shows the hypocrisy of Democrats pushing against the election security overhaul. 

‘Barack Obama and the rest of the Democrats think Americans are stupid, which is why they are blatantly lying about the commonsense election integrity provisions in the popular SAVE Act,’ Rogers told Fox News Digital. 

‘Americans need to show ID to buy alcohol, get on a plane, and even get into the Democratic National Convention — but these hypocrite Democrats don’t want voters to show their ID to cast a ballot. Congressional Democrats’ opposition to the SAVE America Act is indefensible and wildly out of step with the views of the American people.’ 

Fox News Digital reached out to Obama’s office Thursday for comment but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Called the SAVE Act, the legislation would additionally require information-sharing between state election officials and federal authorities in verifying citizenship on current voter rolls, as well as enable the Department of Homeland Security to pursue immigration cases if non-citizens were found to be listed as eligible to vote.

If passed, the new requirements could be implemented for the November midterm elections. It must first pass the Senate before it could land on President Donald Trump’s desk. 

Lawmakers are jetting from Washington, D.C., without a deal to prevent a partial government shutdown. 

Their departure comes after the Senate was unable to send a full-year funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to President Donald Trump’s desk. 

Senate Democrats doubled down on their demands for stringent reforms to immigration enforcement and bucked multiple attempts Thursday to keep the agency open.

With both chambers now on their way to a weeklong recess, the agency is expected to shutter at midnight Friday. Unless a deal is struck before lawmakers return, DHS will be shut down for at least that period of time.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made the call to send lawmakers home and noted that if negotiations made a breakthrough, they would be on 24-hour notice to return. But talks, for now, are somewhere between baby steps and stuck. 

‘What it appears to me, at least at this point, is happening is the Democrats, like they did last fall, they really don’t want the solution,’ Thune said. ‘They don’t want the answer. They want the political issue.’ 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus blocked an attempt to pass the original DHS funding bill and a subsequent two-week funding extension. 

Their resistance comes after the White House unveiled the legislative text of the administration’s counteroffer, which several Senate Democrats balked at Thursday morning. 

‘The administration doesn’t actually want to reform ICE,’ Schumer said. ‘They never do it on their own. That is why we need — we are fighting for — legislation to rein in ICE and stop the violence.’

Senate Democrats have demanded a stringent list of reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They weren’t persuaded by border czar Tom Homan that operations in Minneapolis would be drawn down as negotiations continue.

It was a déjà vu moment from months earlier, when Thune repeatedly tried to peel Democrats away from Schumer during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history but failed to break their blockade.

While there was optimism that negotiations were moving in a positive direction earlier this week, those hopes appeared to have shattered. 

‘At this point, it seems clear that the Democrats are going to walk away from that bipartisan conversation,’ a senior White House official said. ‘They’re going to shut the department down. They’re going to deprive Americans of critical services such as FEMA, such as TSA and what will be the third partial government shutdown of this Congress.’

Senate Democrats received the legislative version of Republicans and the White House’s counteroffer Wednesday night, but many said it was ‘not sufficient,’ and several Democrats leaving a closed-door meeting Thursday morning said a deal remained out of reach.

Given the stagnation in talks, Thune opted to go ahead with the scheduled recess, but made clear to lawmakers that if there was a breakthrough they would need to return.

‘Obviously, we’ve made it clear to people that they have to be available to come back and vote,’ Thune said. 

Talks of another counteroffer to the White House are in the works. Some Senate Democrats hope that the upcoming recess and likely closure of DHS will serve as a wake-up call to Republicans. 

Complicating matters is that several members of the House and Senate are expected to travel to Germany for the annual Munich Security Conference.

‘I still think the Republicans are in a bubble and do not understand the depth of the anger out there in the world,’ Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told Fox News Digital. 

‘And maybe this break will allow them to go home and get yelled at, not just by people who are progressive, but everybody who thinks that this agency is out of control and needs to be reined in.’

President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) office focused on aviation is facing heightened scrutiny for hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes that were not disclosed in official ethics documents obtained by Fox News Digital. 

Jeffrey Anderson, a retired Delta Air Lines captain and U.S. Navy veteran, was nominated to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization in July 2025. The International Civil Aviation Organization is a U.N. office based in Canada that is charged with overseeing international aviation standards, including issues related to safety, navigation and environmental protection. 

The administration has backed him as ‘highly qualified’ for the role and a ‘great choice to represent the President’s America First foreign policy agenda in the international aviation community,’ in a statement to Fox News Digital in 2025 as his tax issues and past support of Democrats came to light. 

The role is a Senate-confirmed post, with Anderson’s nomination sitting before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

Now, Anderson has signed his ethics agreement and disclosure forms, but mentions of the now-paid off liens are not included, Fox News Digital found.  

Fox News Digital obtained Anderson’s IRS Certificates of Release of Federal Tax Lien that show he and his wife had multiple federal tax liens stemming from tax years 2013–2019, with unpaid assessed balances totaling approximately $426,000. The liens were related to ‘small business/self employed’ taxes, according to the documents. 

A federal tax lien is ‘the government’s legal claim against your property when you neglect or fail to pay a tax debt,’ according to the IRS. 

The liens, filed in two Georgia counties, were not released until October 2025 after payment was fulfilled. One IRS Certificate of Release of Federal Tax Lien shows liens tied to the 2012–2018 tax years totaling $354,791.63 and later released on Oct. 15, 2025, according to the documents obtained by Fox Digital. A second release shows a lien tied to tax year 2019 totaling $71,313.11 and released Oct. 29, 2025. 

Anderson’s Public Financial Disclosure Report, called OGE Form 278e, however, only lists a single mortgage in the liabilities section — not any disclosures of federal tax liens or IRS liability, according to the documents obtained by Fox News Digital. The OGE Form 278e does detail boilerplate and detailed information on Anderson’s assets, past employment and income. 

The Office of Government Ethics’ guidance for OGE Form 278e instructs filers to report liabilities over $10,000 owed at any time during the reporting period.

Anderson signed the OGE Form on Aug. 14, 2025, according to the document obtained by Fox News Digital. 

Anderson’s OGE Form 278e and a separate ethics document sent by Anderson to the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser were added to the Office of Government Ethics’ system tracking financial and ethics disclosures Sept. 21, 2025, Fox News Digital found. 

Fox News Digital repeatedly reached out to the State Department, specifically inquiring why Anderson did not disclose the liens on the liabilities section of the OGE 278e, if he filed an amended financial disclosure to add any IRS liability or lien after the initial filing, and when the administration was first notified of the liens.  

The ICAO ambassador operates under the authority of the secretary of state when confirmed.

‘We support the president’s nominee and look forward to having him confirmed,’ a State Department spokesperson told Fox Digital of Anderson Wednesday. 

A review of other nominees listed on the OGE disclosure database shows individuals have amended their ethics disclosures amid the vetting process. Anderson’s file does not reflect any public amendments to his initial disclosures. 

Public financial disclosure is a core piece of the nomination vetting process. Federal ethics rules and guidance generally require nominees to disclose major outstanding liabilities during the reporting period. 

Nominees for Senate-confirmed ambassador posts typically are cleared through a multistep White House process that can include FBI background checks and federal ethics review of financial disclosures, with the State Department helping compile and process the nomination package before it is formally sent to the Senate.

‘Everyone has setbacks. That’s not the problem,’ a former Trump official told Fox Digital about the matter. ‘The problem is lying to Congress and misleading President Trump. Jeffrey Anderson stiffed the IRS for more than $426,000, carried federal tax liens for years, then tried to slip through Senate confirmation by hiding them on a sworn disclosure. Federal tax liens aren’t optional, and they don’t magically disappear.’

The former official added that most ‘Americans don’t just come up with half a million dollars to make a scandal vanish,’ while arguing ‘Anderson’s record of donating to anti-Trump politicians’ tees up a nomination that will collapse on itself. 

ICAO ROLE HAS GONE UNFILLED FOR YEARS 

Anderson’s nomination to serve in the office follows years of it sitting dormant of U.S. leadership. The role was last filled by former ambassador, famed pilot Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, who stepped down in 2022. 

Sullenberger gained widespread applause in 2009, when the US Airways pilot landed Flight 1549 on the Hudson River after a bird strike disabled both engines and saved 155 people — an event known as the ‘Miracle on the Hudson.’

Anderson’s nomination has been dragging since July 2025, with it returned to the president on Jan. 3, 2026 under Senate Rule XXXI, a technical rule, and Trump resending Anderson’s nomination to the Senate days later. 

Anderson’s nomination has received pushback from the Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents nearly 80,000 pilots across the U.S. and Canada, arguing his ‘only’ qualification was supporting an effort to raise the mandatory pilot retirement age. 

The union opposes increasing the mandatory retirement from 65 years of age to age 67, arguing it ‘would leave the United States as an outlier in the global aviation space and create chaos on pilot labor, and international and domestic flight operations,’ the group’s statement in July 2025 read.

International aviation rules prohibit airline pilots older than 65 from flying. Some global airline groups have called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to consider raising the international pilot retirement age to 67, citing staffing pressure and that retaining veteran pilots would only bolster airline safety. 

Anderson also has had close financial ties to Democrats and other politicians frequently hostile toward Trump and his policies, Fox News Digital previously reported. 

‘Jeffrey Anderson isn’t a Trump Republican at all; he’s a liberal sleeper who slipped through the cracks of PPO (Presidential Personnel Office),’ a former Trump official told Fox Digital of Anderson’s political donations and tax history in August 2025. 

Anderson made a handful of small-dollar donations to Republican Nikki Haley during the 2024 campaign cycle, when the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. ran against Trump, whom she slammed as ‘unhinged’ while on the campaign trail before dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump as the GOP nominee for president. 

The former pilot also donated to the former Democratic opponent who tried to unseat then-Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in the 2024 cycle, according to donation filings previously reported by Fox News Digital. Anderson’s political donations to Democrats stretch back years, including in 2017 when he donated to Democrats, such as former House candidate Dan Ward in Virginia and former Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon.

Texas Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, who serves as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation, told Fox Digital in August 2025 that Anderson will help usher in ‘the Golden Age of aviation’ if confirmed. 

‘Mr. Anderson served as a naval aviator and has more than three decades of experience as a pilot for Delta,’ Nehls said in August. ‘He is, without a doubt, qualified to represent the United States of America at ICAO, where his first-hand experience with the aviation industry will play a crucial role in advancing President Trump’s mission of ushering in the Golden Age of aviation.’

‘I am fully supportive of President Trump and his America First agenda. I have been fully vetted by the White House and appreciate the approval of the President, House Aviation Chair Troy Nehls and House T&I Chair Sam Graves, among others. I look forward to advancing American interests as the next Permanent Representative to ICAO,’ Anderson wrote in a direct message on LinkedIn to Fox Digital in August 2025, while adding that Trump is seeking to ‘move effectively forward in a space negligently left vacant by Biden.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on the timeline of disclosure but did not receive a reply.

Fox New Digital reached out to Anderson for comment on the timeline of the tax liens and ethics filings but did not receive a reply.