Supreme Court gives candidates more room to challenge election rules
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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday significantly expanded the ability of candidates for political office to challenge rules governing an election, rolling back lower court decisions that had said a candidate needed to show concrete harm in order to bring a suit.
The 7-2 decision handed a victory to Republicans in Illinois who are contesting a state policy of counting timely cast but late-arriving mail ballots up to two weeks after Election Day.
It also promises to increase litigation nationwide ahead of the midterm election.
“Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the court’s opinion.
Roberts concluded that candidates — by virtue of running for office alone — should have the ability to bring legal challenges over rules governing how campaigns are conducted and votes are cast and counted.
Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan concurred with the court’s judgment in the case but on different grounds, saying candidates should need to show a “pocketbook injury” or other “actual or imminent injury” before being allowed to sue.
In dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, accused the majority of breaking from settled law and “unnecessarily thrusting the judiciary into the political arena.”
“By carving out a bespoke rule for candidate-plaintiffs — granting them standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes, simply and solely because they are candidates for office — the Court now complicates and destabilizes both our standing law and America’s electoral process,” Jackson wrote.
In this Nov. 18, 2025, file photo, Rep. Robert Garcia speaks during a news conference on the “Epstein Files” outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Heather Diehl/Getty Images, FILE
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic lawmakers warned the Trump administration that they’re “examining all legal options” to hold it accountable to Friday’s deadline ordering the Department of Justice to release all its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accusing the administration of “breaking the law.”
The Justice Department was set to release on Friday hundreds of thousands of documents stemming from its investigations into Epstein, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an interview with Fox News.
But as the administration reviews the documents for sensitive materials, Blanche said more productions would be coming over the next several weeks — indicating the administration does not believe it can fully comply with a law mandating the release of all files by 11:59 p.m. on Friday.
“So today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple of weeks I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said.
The comments set off immediate reaction from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Schumer charged that the administration is “hell-bent on hiding the truth” while asserting that failure to release all of the Epstein documents by Friday’s deadline would be “breaking the law.”
“Senate Democrats are working closely with attorneys for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and with outside legal experts to assess what documents are being withheld and what is being covered up by Pam Bondi. We will not stop until the whole truth comes out,” Schumer pledged in a statement. “People want the truth and continue to demand the immediate release of all the Epstein files. This is nothing more than a cover up to protect Donald Trump from his ugly past.”
Trump has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and said he hadn’t spoken to Epstein for more than a decade at the time of his arrest in 2019.
Trump’s name was mentioned several times across the hundreds of Epstein files that were made public earlier this year. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair in an article published this week that Trump “is in the file” but that “he’s not in the file doing anything awful.”
Reps. Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, said they’re examining “all legal options” after “the Department of Justice is now making clear it intends to defy Congress itself.”
“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice are now violating federal law as they continue covering up the facts and the evidence about Jeffrey Epstein’s decades-long, billion-dollar, international sex trafficking ring,” Garcia and Raskin said in a statement.
“Courts around the country have repeatedly intervened when this Administration has broken the law. We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law. The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ,” they added.
The White House has not publicly commented on the criticism from Democrats.
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who led the charge to force the vote to compel the Justice Department to release the files, posted the legislative text of the bill he co-authored highlighting the phrase “not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this act” and also the word “all” as it pertained to “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorneys’ Offices.”
Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee who has long been investigating Epstein’s financial ties, proclaimed that anything short of a full release of the files by end of day Friday amounts to a “violation of the law.”
“The law Congress passed did not say ‘release some of the Epstein files’ or ‘release the files whenever it’s convenient for Donald Trump.’ Anything short of a full release today is a violation of the law and a continuation of this administration’s coverup on behalf of a bunch of pedophiles and sex traffickers,” Wyden wrote in a statement.
Blanche, during the Fox News interview, suggested that the administration’s review has been partially hamstrung by a ruling from a judge in the Southern District of New York that demanded the administration verify that its review is fully protecting the identities of victims.
Blanche added that “there’s a lot of eyes” looking over the documents to ensure victim identities have been redacted. The Justice Department in recent weeks has enlisted scores of attorneys from the National Security Division to conduct the review, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on February 25, 2026 in Washington. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Thursday said Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin will replace Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security secretary.
Trump made the announcement on social media Thursday afternoon saying he was “pleased to announce that the Highly Respected United States Senator from the Great State of Oklahoma, Markwayne Mullin, will become the United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), effective March 31, 2026.”
“The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at ‘Homeland,'” Trump said in the post.
The news that the Oklahoma senator would take over Noem’s job came after several sources told ABC News that Trump had called Republicans and top allies asking if he should fire her.
The president had privately expressed deep frustration over Noem’s testimony during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, those sources with direct knowledge of the conversations said.
The sources said the president was upset with a particular moment during the hearing when Republican Sen. John Kennedy questioned Noem about a taxpayer-funded $220 million ad campaign. Noem repeatedly suggested the president was aware of the campaign and signed off on it.
A senior administration officials tells ABC News that the president did not sign off on a $220 million ad campaign.
“Absolutely not,” the senior administration official said.
Kennedy told reporters Thursday that Trump even called him about it.
“I’m not going to speak for him. You folks know him. You can ask him yourselves, but his, I want to put it this way, his recollection and her recollection are different,” Kennedy said.
Tuesday’s hearing was just the latest in several incidents that have sparked concern among Trump administration officials and some Republicans on Capitol Hill, sources tell ABC News.
Just days ago, Noem and her top adviser Corey Lewandowski made the decision to temporarily suspend TSA Precheck amid the partial government shutdown — which later had to be reversed after the White House stepped in, according to sources.
Noem has faced criticism in recent weeks over her handling of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Minneapolis after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal law enforcement. She was removed from leading operations in the state following the scrutiny, and Border Czar Tom Homan was sent in to take over.
During a Cabinet meeting in January, the president did not call on Noem to speak.
Former President Barack Obama attends a ‘Get out the vote’ rally at the Essex County College gymnasium in Newark, New Jersey, November 1, 2025. Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama told House Democrats at an event on Sunday in Los Angeles that as they focus on trying to win control of the House of Representatives, they should not get caught up in ideological differences within the party and can “sort through” them later, according to excerpts of his comments provided to ABC News.
Ideological arguments within the Democratic Party between its progressive and moderate wings came into sharp focus during 2025’s key elections — particularly in New York City, as Democrats debated over the candidacy of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. This past year, Obama campaigned on the ground for the Democratic Party’s Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial candidates and spoke with Mamdani ahead of Election Day.
The party has also been divided over how to handle government funding and the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Obama told the lawmakers to “focus” on winning back the Republican-controlled House in the 2026 midterm elections, indicating that after that the party could work more through those ideological divisions.
“Because I promise, when that gets done, we have enormous talent, and we are then going to be in a position, as the next presidential campaign ramps up, to sort through some of the differences,” Obama said, according to excerpts of his remarks obtained by ABC News.
Obama spoke in a conversation with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at the event, which was hosted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to support House Democrats. The event was attended by Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, around a dozen members of the House, and other party supporters.
Obama said the Democratic Party’s “differences aren’t that big” — but “sometimes they get magnified because that’s the nature of social media.”
But, Obama said, more progressive Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, and moderates such as Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer and the “Blue Dog” Democrats “actually agree in making sure that people have a living wage, they can support a family,” and on issues such as people having health care and not being discriminated against.
ABC News has reached out to the offices of Ocasio-Cortez, Schumer, Sanders and Jeffries about Obama’s remarks.
While some Democrats have “tactical differences,” he added, “that shouldn’t be our primary concern because we’re fighting a bigger fight.”
“Our job is to focus like a laser on this upcoming election. That’s the short term,” Obama said, according to the excerpts.
He also told House Democrats that while the short-term goal is to win back the House, the longer-term goal is to “tell a story” to “bring [Democrats] back in.” But, he added, they won’t be able to bring those people back in “if we don’t win the House of Representatives.”
Obama told lawmakers that the party’s wins in 2025, while not surprising for him, have reenergized the party and show a path forward for discussing issues such as affordability and health care.
“If we bring energy and clarity and commitment to talking about things like affordability and making sure people have health care when they need it, and that they have the ability, if they work hard, to be able to support a family and create a better future for their children and their grandchildren … when we deliver that message, it resonates with people, and we have to have confidence in that,” Obama said, according to the excerpts of his remarks.
The challenge ahead, he told lawmakers later, is how the party strategizes toward the future and what it should do if it does win the House in 2026.
“With that as a bulwark, we’re now able to block some of the worst impulses that are coming out of this White House,” he added, according to the excerpts of his remarks. “We have a platform now to highlight some of the damage that’s already been done, and we can make an argument about how we’re going to deal with some big, long-term problems.”
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
