Attorney General Pam Bondi directed her staff Monday to act on the criminal referral from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard related to the alleged conspiracy to tie President Donald Trump to Russia, and the Department of Justice is now opening a grand jury investigation into the matter, Fox News Digital has learned.

Bondi ordered an unnamed federal prosecutor to initiate legal proceedings, and the prosecutor is expected to present department evidence to a grand jury to secure a potential indictment, according to a letter from Bondi reviewed by Fox News Digital and a source familiar with the investigation.

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment on the report of an investigation but said Bondi is taking the referrals from Gabbard ‘very seriously.’ The spokesperson said Bondi believed there is ‘clear cause for deep concern’ and a need for the next steps.

The DOJ confirmed two weeks ago it received a criminal referral from Gabbard. The referral included a memorandum titled ‘Intelligence Community suppression of intelligence showing ‘Russian and criminal actors did not impact’ the 2016 presidential election via cyber-attacks on infrastructure’ and asked that the DOJ open an investigation.

No charges have been brought at this stage against any defendants. A grand jury investigation is needed to secure an indictment against any potential suspects.

The revelation that the DOJ is moving forward with a grand jury probe comes after Gabbard declassified intelligence in July that shed new light on the Obama administration’s allege determination that Russia sought to help Trump in the 2016 election.

Former President Barack Obama and his intelligence officials allegedly promoted a ‘contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true. It wasn’t,’ Gabbard said during a press briefing of the intelligence.

Among the declassified material was a meeting record revealing how Obama allegedly requested his deputies prepare an intelligence assessment in December 2016, after Trump had won the election, that detailed the ‘tools Moscow used and actions it took to influence the 2016 election.’ 

That intelligence assessment stressed that Russia’s actions did not affect the outcome of the election but rather were intended to sow distrust in the democratic process.

It is unclear who is under investigation and what charges could be in play given statutes of limitations for much of the activity from nearly a decade ago have lapsed.

Former Obama intelligence officials, including John Brennan, James Clapper and James Comey have drawn scrutiny from Trump officials for their involvement in developing intelligence that undermined Trump’s 2016 victory.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

A federal court fight over President Donald Trump’s authority to unilaterally impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court for review, legal experts told Fox News Digital, in a case that has already proved to be a pivotal test of executive branch authority.

At issue in the case is Trump’s ability to use a 1977 emergency law to unilaterally slap steep import duties on a long list of countries doing business with the U.S.

In interviews with Fox News Digital, longtime trade lawyers and lawyers who argued on behalf of plaintiffs in court last week said they expect the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a matter of ‘weeks,’ or sometime in August or September – in line with the court’s agreement to hear the case on an ‘expedited’ basis.

The fast-track timeline reflects the important question before the court: whether Trump exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) when he launched his sweeping ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs.

Importantly, that timing would still allow the Supreme Court to add the case to their docket for the 2025-2026 term, which begins in early October. That could allow them to rule on the matter as early as the end of the year. 

Both Trump administration officials and lawyers for the plaintiffs said they plan to appeal the case to the Supreme Court if the lower court does not rule in their favor. And given the questions at the heart of the case, it is widely expected that the high court will take up the case for review.

In the meantime, the impact of Trump’s tariffs remains to be seen. 

Legal experts and trade analysts alike said last week’s hearing is unlikely to forestall the broader market uncertainty created by Trump’s tariffs, which remain in force after the appeals court agreed to stay a lower court decision from the U.S. Court of International Trade. 

Judges on the three-judge CIT panel in May blocked Trump’s use of IEEPA to stand up his tariffs, ruling unanimously that he did not have ‘unbounded authority’ to impose tariffs under that law. 

Thursday’s argument gave little indication as to how the appeals court would rule, plaintiffs and longtime trade attorneys told Fox News Digital, citing the tough questions that the 11 judges on the panel posed for both parties.

Dan Pickard, an attorney specializing in international trade and national security issues at the firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, said the oral arguments Thursday did not seem indicative of how the 11-judge panel might rule.

‘I don’t know if I walked out of that hearing thinking that either the government is going to prevail, or that this is dead on arrival,’ Pickard told Fox News Digital. ‘I think it was more mixed.’

Lawyers for the plaintiffs echoed that assessment – a reflection of the 11 judges on the appeals bench, who had fewer chances to speak up or question the government or plaintiffs during the 45 minutes each had to present their case. 

‘I want to be very clear that I’m not in any way, shape or form, predicting what the Federal Circuit will do – I leave that for them,’ one lawyer for the plaintiffs told reporters after court, adding that the judges, in his view, posed ‘really tough questions’ for both parties.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who helped represent the 12 states suing over the plan, told Fox News Digital they are ‘optimistic’ that, based on the oral arguments, they would see at least a partial win in the case, though he also stressed the ruling and the time frame is fraught with uncertainty.

In the interim, the White House forged ahead with enacting Trump’s tariffs as planned.

Pickard, who has argued many cases before the Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, noted that the oral arguments are not necessarily the best barometer for gauging the court’s next steps – something lawyers for the plaintiffs also stressed after the hearing.

Even if the high court blocks the Trump administration from using IEEPA, they have a range of other trade tools at their disposal, trade lawyers told Fox News. 

The Trump administration ‘has had more of a focus on trade issues than pretty much any other administration in my professional life,’ Pickard said. 

‘And let’s assume, even for the sake of the argument, just hypothetically, that the Supreme Court says this use of IEEPA exceeded your statutory authority. The Trump administration is not going to say, like, ‘All right, well, we’re done. I guess we’re just going to abandon any trade policy.’

‘There are going to be additional [trade] tools that had been in the toolbox for long that can be taken out and dusted off,’ he said. ‘There are plenty of other legal authorities for the president. 

‘I don’t think we’re seeing an end to these issues anytime soon – this is going to continue to be battled out in the courts for a while.’

Both Pickard and Rayfield told Fox News Digital in separate interviews that they expect the appeals court to rule within weeks, not days. 

The hearing came after Trump on April 2 announced a 10% baseline tariff on all countries, along with higher, reciprocal tariffs targeting select nations, including China. The measures, he said, were aimed at addressing trade imbalances, reducing deficits with key trading partners, and boosting domestic manufacturing and production.

Ahead of last week’s oral arguments, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said lawyers for the administration would continue to defend the president’s trade agenda in court.

Justice Department attorneys ‘are going to court to defend [Trump’s] tariffs,’ she said, describing them as ‘transforming the global economy, protecting our national security and addressing the consequences of our exploding trade deficit.’

‘We will continue to defend the president,’ she vowed. 

Put yourself in Hillary Clinton’s shoes. No, really. I know it’s an abhorrent thought, but imagine being Hillary, having initiated the greatest political dirty trick of all time, watching Russiagate unspool over the past decade. Think of her witnessing the country go down the granddaddy of all rabbit holes in 2017 – a rabbit hole she personally helped dig — looking for proof of Russian collusion between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin that she knew didn’t exist. 

What was she thinking as the country hired a special prosecutor and spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to pursue leads that she and her campaign team had fabricated out of thin air? Was she ever remorseful? Was there ever a moment when she wanted to reel in the whole sorry deception and tell the country that she was sorry, and that she had lied?

No, there was not. Hillary Clinton even wrote a book called ‘What Happened?’ in which she blamed Putin, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. and former CIA Director James Comey for her shocking loss to Donald Trump, a non-politician whom she mocked and derided. To this day, she sticks to her self-serving fable, that Russian President Vladimir Putin was out to get her and, but for his interference, she would surely have become the country’s first female president.

The reality is that Hillary Clinton was a terrible candidate, disliked and distrusted by most Americans. Polling from CNN that came out about the time of the 2016 Democrat Convention gives a taste of what voters thought of Clinton.  The Washington Post reported, ’68 percent say Clinton isn’t honest and trustworthy… her worst number on-record….  The 30 percent who see Clinton as honest and trustworthy is now well shy of the number who say the same of Trump: 43 percent.’ 

The public was right not to trust Clinton; the more we learn about Russiagate, and her role in it, the more apparent that is. 

Any normal person would conclude that Clinton, whose approval rating CNN pegged at a dismal 31% in July 2016, was not a shoo-in come the November election. Barack Obama had been president for eight years and the country had become less Democrat-leaning during his term; only 31% of the nation identified as Democrat in 2016, while 36% had described themselves as true blue in 2008, when he was first elected. 

Though expressing confidence that she would win, maybe Hillary knew she had to pull out all stops to beat Donald Trump. Perhaps that’s why she signed off on two dirty tricks that led to the despicable undermining of Donald Trump’s presidency. 

First, her former campaign manager Robby Mook testified in court that she personally approved her campaign’s scheme in October 2016 to tell a Slate magazine reporter about an unverified server backchannel between the Trump Organization and Alfa bank in Moscow. This supposed connection formed the first step in trying to convince the public that Donald Trump was a tool of Vladimir Putin. The purported link never existed, but it was widely publicized by Hillary’s supporters and the legacy media (I repeat myself), creating suspicion in the public’s mind. 

After the Slate story emerged, weeks before the election, Hillary put out a tweet claiming ‘Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank,’ followed up by a news release in which she said, ‘This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.’ 

The FBI subsequently concluded no ‘hotline,’ indeed no link, ever existed. Interestingly, another apparatchik pushing the Trump-Alfa bank lie was Jake Sullivan, later presumably rewarded by President Joe Biden appointing the unknown politico to be National Security Adviser. 

Of course, the bigger and more destructive Russia collusion lie that Hillary helped originate came from the salacious allegations contained in the Steele dossier, paid for by the Clinton campaign, which led to the longtime investigation into Russian interference and the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. This is a fact, verified by the fact that the Federal Election Commission under Biden penalized the campaign and the DNC for lying about having funded that opposition research. 

The story, however, goes on. New revelations have revived accusations that Hillary Clinton, as well as Barack Obama, James Comey, John Brennan and others manipulated intelligence and facts to feed the public even more lies about Donald Trump’s supposed ties to Russia. 

Amazingly, the New York Times has again leapt into the breach to protect Clinton, perhaps concerned they might lose their 2018 Pulitzer earned for helping promote a fake news story. They reference, ‘An annex to a report by the special counsel John H. Durham’ but claim the disclosures are an effort by ‘the Trump team [seeking] to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files.’ They write that GOP allegations that ‘Mrs. Clinton had approved a campaign proposal to tie Mr. Trump to Russia to distract from the scandal over her use of a private email server’ is not valid because…the damning emails contained in the annex are likely fabrications from Russian spies. Sure. 

Will we ever know the complete truth about the plot hatched to discredit the Trump presidency? Probably not, and it is probably also true that key players like Hillary Clinton will never be held accountable.

But, as Hillary watches the ongoing revelations coming from the Trump White House, we can also imagine that she is getting her comeuppance. Her treachery and deceit -– knowing how badly she has abused the public’s trust — has surely shriveled her soul, leaving her bitter and defeated. 

People now see her as a corrupt schemer, someone who knew she could not win an election on her merits and so resorted to lies and fabrications that hurt the country. 

We also now see her as someone who didn’t just attack President Trump, but also the 61 million Americans who voted for him in 2016.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris is back in the national spotlight with her forthcoming book about her short-lived 2024 White House campaign, and she is generating a buzz about whether she’ll try again in 2028.

While politicos are keenly watching Harris for her next moves, she’s also being eyed by House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., who is investigating whether top Biden administration officials covered up evidence of a mental decline in former President Joe Biden.

Comer all but guaranteed his committee would be contacting Harris during an appearance on ‘The Ingraham Angle’ last week. He joined Fox News Channel just after Harris announced she would not be running for governor of California, as some have speculated, and will instead embark on a listening tour to hear from Americans and try to boost fellow Democrats across the country. 

‘I think that that’s another great thing about Kamala Harris not running for governor – she’s gonna have more time to come before the House Oversight Committee and testify about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline,’ Comer said. ‘So I think that the odds of Kamala Harris getting a subpoena are very high.’

During a recent appearance on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,’ Harris distanced herself from any immediate electoral ambitions. She emphasized she wanted to hear from all voters, however, not necessarily ruling out a future presidential run.

‘I believe, and I always believed, that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. And I think right now that, they’re not as strong as they need to be,’ Harris said.

‘And I just don’t want to for now, I don’t want to go back in the system. I want to, I want to travel the country. I want to listen to people. I want to talk with people. And I don’t want it to be transactional, where I’m asking for their vote.’

Jonathan Turley, a Fox News contributor and professor at George Washington University Law School, told Fox News Digital the optics of a congressional subpoena would be less than ideal for a potential 2028 candidate.

‘This is a tough question for Harris, who clearly has aspirations to run again,’ Turley said when asked if he would advise Harris to appear. ‘The committee can compel her to appear. However, the optics of forcing a subpoena are not exactly optimal for someone who wants to run again for this office.’

He added, however, that Harris would be a ‘natural’ target for Comer’s probe.

‘Harris held a unique spot within the inner circle of the White House,’ Turley said.

But both he and former House Oversight Committee ChairTrey Gowdy, R-S.C., now a Fox News Channel host, were doubtful that bringing Harris in would yield much new information.

‘Is it worth investigating? Absolutely. Is it worth getting her take on it? Yeah. Is she going to cooperate? No,’ Gowdy told Fox News Digital. 

The former South Carolina congressman, who also served as a federal prosecutor, predicted that Harris’ lawyers would seek to bury any potential appearance in a quagmire of legal proceedings stemming from executive and/or presidential privilege claims.

‘That privilege has been invoked by both parties repeatedly during congressional investigations,’ Gowdy said.

‘Leaving the names out of it, just for the sake of an analogy, I can’t think of an advisor that would be closer to a president than his or her vice president. So, by the time you’re litigating the issue of whether or not you can compel a vice president to talk about conversations that he or she had with a chief of staff, with a spouse, with the president, with the president’s physician – you’ll be as old as I am by the time that’s litigated.’

Turley said House investigators would have to be armed with ‘specific’ questions to avoid someone like Harris being able to answer with ‘a matter of opinion.’

Gowdy agreed Harris was a ‘legitimate’ witness to bring in and that the issue of Biden’s autopen use, particularly for pardons, ‘warrants further scrutiny.’

He warned, however, that a potent subpoena comes with consequences for noncompliance.

‘Prosecutors can send cops and have [people] brought in. Congress can’t do that. Judges can send the marshals or the sheriff’s deputies out to bring a witness in if the witness is recalcitrant. Congress can’t do that,’ Gowdy said. ‘So your power is only as good as what you can do to enforce it.’

A spokesperson for Biden declined to comment on Comer’s subpoena threat when reached by Fox News Digital.

Spokespeople for Harris and House Oversight Committee Democrats did not return requests for comment.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz says the Trump administration plans to invest more than $200 billion ‘more dollars’ into Medicaid following the passage of the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill.’ 

‘I’m trying to save this beautiful program, this noble effort, to help folks, giving them a hand up,’ Oz told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday.

‘And as you probably gather, if Medicaid isn’t able to take care of the people for whom it was designed, the young children, the dawn of their life, those who are twilight of their lives, the seniors, and those who were disabled living in the shadows, as Hubert Humphrey said, then we’re not satisfying the fundamental obligation of a moral government,’ he continued. 

Oz, the 17th administrator for CMS, said the government wants ‘an appropriate return’ on the Medicaid investment. He addressed the difference in drug costs between the U.S. and Europe, adding that work is being done by the administration in an attempt to bring drug prices down.  

Last week, the Trump administration announced it is launching a new program that will allow Americans to share personal health data and medical records across health systems and apps run by private tech companies, promising that this will make it easier to access health records and monitor wellness.

CMS will be in charge of maintaining the system, and officials have said patients will need to opt in for the sharing of their medical records and data, which will be kept secure.

Those officials said patients will benefit from a system that lets them quickly call up their own records without the hallmark difficulties, such as requiring the use of fax machines to share documents, that have prevented them from doing so in the past.

‘We’re going to have remarkable advances in how consumers can use their own records,’ Oz said during the White House event.

CMS already has troves of information on more than 140 million Americans who enroll in Medicare and Medicaid. Earlier this month, the federal agency agreed to hand over its massive database, including home addresses, to deportation officials.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump alleged that Senate Democrats are possibly delaying his nominees in exchange for money in a heated post on Truth Social Sunday night.

In the post, Trump accused Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of slowing down the confirmations of more than 150 executive nominees.

‘Democrats, lead[sic] by Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, are slow walking my Nominees, more than 150 of them. They wanted us to pay, originally, two billion dollars for approvals. The Dems are CRAZED LUNATICS!!!’ the post read.

He implied that Democrats were leveraging the process to extract funding agreements — a tactic his associates have described as ‘political extortion.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., met with Schumer recently to discuss an offer during ongoing negotiations, but they have not readdressed it directly since choosing to communicate through intermediaries, according to Thune.

While Trump has urged the Senate to make quick moves, Democrats continue to block more nominees than normal.

‘I think they’re desperately in need of change,’ Thune said of Senate rules Saturday after negotiations with Schumer and Trump broke down. ‘I think that the last six months have demonstrated that this process, nominations is broken. And so I expect there will be some good robust conversations about that.’

Historically, nominees have been confirmed unanimously or by voice vote quickly, but Senate Dems have been reportedly forcing roll-call votes on many of the current nominees.

Thune told Fox News Digital that not much headway was being made as ‘the Dems are dug in on a position that’s just not working.’

Senate Republicans want to strike a deal that would send nominees with bipartisan support through committee to lightning-fast votes on the floor, but Schumer has not relented.

Trump’s claims come after the Senate left Saturday for a month-long August recess without coming to a deal on advancing dozens of nominees, which prompted him to post on Truth Social that Schumer could ‘GO TO HELL.’

Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller contributed to this report.