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Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Are the Democrats Calling For Treason?
Democratic Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin posted to social media on Tuesday a video of herself alongside five other Democrats who served in the military and the intelligence community to "stand up" to President Trump and urge them to "refuse illegal orders" from the Commander in Chief.
"We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community," she wrote on X. "The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution. Don’t give up the ship."
“We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now,” said Slotkin, a former CIA officer, in the video. Also featured were Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a former Navy officer; Pennsylvania Representatives Chris Deluzio, a former Navy officer, and Chrissy Houlahan, a former Air Force officer; New Hampshire Representative Maggie Goodlander, a former intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve; and Colorado Representative Jason Crow, a former Army officer.
“Americans trust their military,” Houlahan said. “But that trust is at risk,” Deluzio continued. “This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens,” Kelly, Crow, and Slotkin said in unison.
“Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders,” Kelly, Slotkin, and Deluzio said.
“Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution,” Kelly continued.
“But whether you are serving in the CIA, the Army, our Navy, the Air Force, your vigilance is critical. And know that we have your back,” they continued, all alternating different lines. “Because now more than ever, the American people need you. We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans.”
“Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up the ship,” the Democratic representatives concluded.
‘No More Delays’: GOP Senators Demand D.C. Circuit Chief Suspend Boasberg Amid Impeachment Efforts
‘No more delays. Judge Boasberg must be suspended immediately,’ Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., wrote.
Half a dozen Republican senators are calling on the leading judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to suspend a rogue district judge as efforts to impeach him get underway.
On Monday, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution Chair Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., and five of his GOP colleagues sent a letter to D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan asking that D.C. District Judge James Boasberg be “administratively suspended pending formal impeachment by the House of Representatives and, if impeached, an impeachment trial by the Senate.” The letter’s other signatories include Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee.
“No more delays. Judge Boasberg must be suspended immediately,” Schmitt wrote in a series of X posts. “We cannot tolerate rogue, self-professed prejudicial judges ruling on our nation’s most important cases.”
In their letter to Srinivasan, an Obama appointee, the GOP senators referenced Articles of Impeachment filed against Boasberg earlier this month by Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas. The filing accused Boasberg, of “[i]gnoring his responsibility to wield the power of his office in a constitutional manner.”
The letter and impeachment articles cite allegedly improper actions by Boasberg — most notably his role in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s anti-Trump “Arctic Frost” probe.
As The Federalist previously reported, Smith’s expansive lawfare involved the seizure of several Republican senators’ phone records. At a press conference last month, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, noted how Jack Smith sent a subpoena to AT&T to obtain his phone records and how Boasberg “issued an order to AT&T and signed that order prohibiting AT&T from informing [him] of this subpoena for at least one year.”
“I’m going to quote from the order Judge Boasberg signed: ‘The court finds reasonable grounds to believe that such disclosure will result in destruction of, or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, and serious jeopardy to the investigation,'” Cruz said. There is “precisely zero evidence to conclude that I am likely to destroy or tamper with evidence or to intimidate potential witnesses. Zero evidentiary basis for that. This order is an abuse of power. This order is a weaponized legal system.”
(House Speaker Mike Johnson did not respond to The Federalist’s previous comment request about whether he plans to “lead House Republicans to hold impeachment hearings for James Boasberg” in response to his disclosed role in the Arctic Frost investigation.)
Also referenced in Monday’s letter is news originally broken by The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland earlier this year. Writing in these pages, Cleveland reported on the contents of a memo detailing the March 2025 Judicial Conference, during which Boasberg gave a speech expressing his “concern[s] that the [Trump] Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis.”
“Judge Boasberg disregarded [the Conference’s] history, tradition, and purpose to push a wholly unsolicited discussion about” this issue, Schmitt and his GOP colleagues wrote.
Addressing Srinivasan, the Republican senators noted that “[t]here is precedent for administratively suspending a judge pending an impeachment inquiry,” and that, “[a]s Chief Judge of the applicable circuit judicial council, [he is] tasked with overseeing the Article III remedial process for the misconduct of the appellate and district judges of [his] circuit.”
They further referenced a formal judicial misconduct complaint filed by the Justice Department against Boasberg in late July. While the senators noted how federal law mandates Srinivasan “to ‘expeditiously’ review this complaint and determine whether to take ‘appropriate corrective action’ or dispense with the case ‘by written order stating his . . . reasons,'” it appears that he has “yet to take any published steps regarding this very public complaint.”
“Given you have not entered an order under 352(b), we assume you are following your duties under 28 U.S.C. § 353, which mandate that you ‘shall promptly’ establish a special committee ‘to investigate the facts and allegations contained in the complaint,'” the letter reads. “While this impeachment process proceeds, we must have transparency regarding the actions the Circuit Judicial Council is taking against the judicial misconduct of Chief Judge Boasberg.”
The senators concluded their letter demanding that Srinivasan provide answers about the status of the DOJ’s July complaint, as well as any and all potential investigative steps taken over the matter. They requested that, in addition to themselves, all such information be provided to the DOJ and the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
Biden Regime Hid Online Footprint Of Trump’s Would-Be Assassin
Without transparency, institutions like the FBI and the Department of Justice will continue to lose credibility with vast swathes of the American people.
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The Biden administration hid critical information about Thomas Matthew Crooks — the person who shot President Donald Trump and three others in Butler, Pennsylvania — throughout the 2024 election, according to a report from the New York Post.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Biden appears to have knowingly lied to Congress, misled the American people, and, at best, was negligent in its duty to track Crooks after he reportedly made numerous statements about committing political violence and assassinations.
The NYP received information from a source showing that Crooks did have a history of significant online activity, despite then-Biden FBI Director Christopher Wray testifying that Crooks had no “online history that pointed to motive or political ideology.” Wray also attempted to downplay Trump’s being shot by suggesting he may have been hit with a piece of shrapnel from his podium, despite no evidence of that whatsoever.
Paul Abbate, former FBI deputy director under Wray, seemed to muddy the water even more, telling Congress that some social media accounts connected to Crooks “appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature.”
That is true, but the posts Abbate was referring to — which appear to paint Crooks in some sort of right-wing extremism light — were quite a bit older than posts showing a left-wing, anti-Trump ideology Crooks seems to have adopted over time.
Crooks’ online footprint appears to show someone who has always been interested in political and mass violence, who grew to openly hate Trump and called for “terrorism style attacks” and assassinations. He also seemingly became involved with “furry” fetish platforms — often a sexual deviancy associated closely with gender ideology. Furry fetishes and transgender ideology are more and more common among those who commit left-wing violence, and the person who allegedly assassinated Charlie Kirk in September was apparently immersed in both.
In light of Crooks’ online threats, it seems impossible that he was not known to the FBI before he attempted to assassinate Trump, and yet his online footprint was completely omitted from the final report about the shooting released in December 2024.
It is important that the American people get answers about Crooks and his attempted assassination of a former president who, by all serious accounts at the time, was the leader in the presidential race. But it is also important to keep in mind that, in addition to nearly killing Trump, Crooks’ bullets took the life of rallygoer Corey Comperatore and wounded rallygoers David Dutch and James Copenhaver. They and their families deserve answers too.
Crooks was 20 years old when he tried to assassinate Trump. He was shot dead by the Secret Service on the scene, but not before he was able to fire eight bullets.
His online history goes back at least to when he was 15, showing a political evolution from Trump supporter (though violent) to left-wing terrorist. The source cited by the NYP found 17 online accounts on platforms YouTube, Snapchat, Venmo, Zelle, GroupMe, Discord, Google Play, Quizlet, Chess.com, and Quora.
Crooks’ “radicalization, violent rhetoric and obsession with political violence were all documented under his real name,” the NYP source stated. “The threat wasn’t hidden.”
And, far from the all-too-common “lone wolf with no discernible motive” narrative peddled by officials after acts of mass violence or political violence, Crooks’ political development was out in the open for anyone to see — and for the FBI to monitor.
Crooks’ uncovered activity took place primarily on YouTube, with 737 comments made publicly from one account created on Jan. 14, 2019, and suspended the day after the assassination attempt, July 14, 2024.
In July 2019 he began calling for the deaths of immigrants and members of the Democrat Party, stating, “I hope a quick painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti-trump congresswoman who don’t deserve anything this country has given them.”
In December of that year, he stated, “MURDER THE DEMOCRATS.”
But Crooks appears to have adopted a violent left-wing ideology in the weeks after that post. On Jan. 23, 2020, Crooks posted his first criticism of Trump in response to a video of Jonathan Turley, a law professor, talking about Trump’s first impeachment.
“Keep in mind the only reason we may know about any of this is because of Trump’s stupidity,” he wrote.
Soon after, on Feb. 26, he started criticizing Trump supporters, too, stating, “How can you people call others sheep, but you are do [too] brainwashed to realize how dumb you are. … I mean literally you guys sound like a cult at times.”
He called Trump a “racist” the same day.
Crooks criticized the Trump administration’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic in April, and over the summer started posting more violent comments.
“IMO the only way to fight the gov is with terrorism style attacks, sneak a bomb into an essential building and set it off before anyone sees you, track down any important people/politicians/military leaders etc and try to assassinate them,” he posted Aug. 5. “Any sort of head-to-head fight is suicide and even ambush/surprise attacks likely aren’t going to end well. A large portion of the war will also be propaganda/information wars — both sides will want people to join them, and a big deciding factor in wars is often which side has more popular support for them.”
For his PayPal account, Crooks appears to have avoided using his real name, utilizing the alias “Rod Swanson,” the name of a former FBI agent who was in charge of investigations in Nevada during the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.
Swanson also served on former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s security detail, and has ties to Pennsylvania, having been a firearms instructor there, according to the NYP.
Despite telling the NYP he had no idea who Crooks or his family were, Swanson did offer that it would be shocking if the FBI did not know about Crooks, given his online activity.
“No matter how ridiculous the allegation, no matter if it’s COVID or not, somebody is going to knock on somebody’s door,” he told the outlet. “If they investigated that kid there’s a record of it and there’s an assessment that some leader made that this was not a threat or it rose to a level and they did something else.”
Swanson also said that if the FBI was aware of the PayPal account Crooks reportedly opened in his name, the agency almost certainly would have contacted him.
Crooks also used an alias on the platform DeviantArt, which hosts many people in the “furry” subculture. There, Crooks, under the usernames “epicmicrowave” and “theepicmicrowave,” identified with “they/them” pronouns and displayed an interest in images of cartoon characters wearing little clothing and “sporting muscle-bound male bodies and female heads,” the NYP stated.
Toward the end of Crooks’ online radicalism arc, before he apparently ceased activity completely leading up to the Butler shooting, Crooks came into contact with a person named “Willy Tepes,” who appears to be a member of a Norwegian neo-Nazi group.
Engaging with Crooks’ ideas, Tepes used a famous phrase from Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” It appears to have had an effect on Crooks, as he used it multiple times.
According to Tepes, posting on Oct. 5, 2025, American and Russian intelligence services had made contact with him. What remains unanswered, however, is whether Tepes’ encouragement had anything to do with Crooks ultimately pulling the trigger.
According to NYP, the FBI refuses to say whether it had any knowledge of Crooks prior to the assassination attempt, whether someone was tracking him, and if not, how that was possible given his online comments.
Days after the shooting, Biden’s FBI told Congress that it had no prior knowledge of the shooter, which is probably just as bad as knowing and doing nothing. One of the two is true, it seems, and the American people deserve to know which.
The Secret Service also claimed it had no idea who Crooks was before the shooting.
Whatever the answers are in this case, the American people have witnessed a pattern in recent years that many of the people who commit acts of violence were already known by the FBI or components of the government, including Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, and others.
With this pattern, as well as the federal government’s pattern of keeping the American people in the dark about shooters, the Trump administration’s FBI must be as forthcoming as possible about Crooks.
Without such transparency, institutions like the FBI and, by association, the Department of Justice will continue to lose credibility with vast swathes of the American people.
Trump Dropped Some Major News Amid Saudi Crown Prince's Visit to the White House
Our great friend, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, visited the White House, and it did not disappoint. MBS was there to reaffirm the kingdom’s commitment to the United States, adding that his nation will invest $1 trillion with the United States. It was also vintage Trump as he sparred with the media over this relationship. Also, the media is once again obsessed with the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Sorry, I don’t care. We got $1 trillion worth of investment, and only a fool would turn that down because some journalist who was causing trouble got chopped up (via Axios):
President Trump said "a lot of people didn't like" journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a Tuesday meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
Why it matters: The 2018 murder of Khashoggi was among the reasons for heightened tension between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia during the Biden administration, which released a report in 2021 that concluded MBS approved the order to "capture or kill" the Saudi journalist.
Saudi officials rejected the report's findings, calling it a "negative, false and unacceptable assessment."
The latest: "You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial," Trump said in the Oval Office.
"About the journalist, it's really painful to hear anyone losing his life for no real purpose or not in a legal way," MBS said. "And it's been painful for us in Saudi Arabia. We did all the right steps of investigation, et cetera, in Saudi Arabia. And we've improved our system to be sure that nothing happened like that."
"A lot of people didn't like [him]”—what a line.
And ABC News’ Mary Bruce opted to put her head in the lion’s mouth with these questions (via ABC News):
President Trump on Tuesday called for ABC News to lose its license after one of its reporters peppered him with Oval Office questions — including whether his family’s business dealings with Saudi Arabia constituted a conflict of interest.
ABC’s Mary Bruce used Trump’s meeting with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to also ask about the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“People are wise to your hoax,” Trump said. “Your crappy company is one of the perpetrators.
“And I’ll tell you something, I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and is so wrong. And we have a great commissioner, a chairman, who should look at that,” he added.
Ultimately, he answered the question, explaining that he was not involved with the Trump Organization any longer to make overseas business decisions.
At the State Dinner, Trump announced that Saudi Arabia has been formally designated a major non-NATO ally. They will also be purchasing F-35 fighter jets. Elon Musk was spotted at the event.
Trump also showed MBS the Biden autopen portrait on the Presidential Wall of Fame.
President Trump Holds a Bilateral Meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman
Mohammed Bin Salman (MbS) is a forward thinking change agent for Saudi Arabia and the region. As a key strategic ally Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and President Donald Trump have a strong personal and geopolitical relationship.
MbS and President Trump hold a bilateral discussion in the White House and open the conversation to the press pool. MbS is a key participant in the peace deal between Israel and Hamas within Gaza. WATCH: