Senator John Cornyn announced, without elaboration or providing further details, that Kash Patel‘s FBI would help “investigate and locate” Texas Democrats who left the state.
The confrontation between the two parties began when Republicans there acquiesced to Donald Trump’s demand to further gerrymander the state for purpose of gaining additional House seats ahead of the 2026 Midterm elections; in response, Democrats “fled” Texas in an effort to deny a procedural quorum. Owen Dahlkamp for Texas Tribune:
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn announced that the FBI has granted his request to investigate and locate the Texas Democratic lawmakers who left the state in an attempt to stop passage of new GOP-favored congressional maps. A spokesperson for Cornyn declined to provide additional details about the FBI’s involvement, and the bureau declined to comment. Cornyn said on a local radio show that Patel ‘had assigned agents in both the San Antonio and Austin office,’ but he did not specify what role those agents would play.
Owen Dahlkamp for Texas Tribune
A notable subplot to this drama is how Cornyn is facing a MAGA-on-MAGA primary against Attorney General Ken Paxton who is, according to reports, leading Cornyn in polling.
Cornyn, a Republican who is facing a tough primary challenge, previously sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel asking for the agency’s help in tracking down the House Democrats, who decamped to Illinois and are known to be staying at a hotel in the Chicago suburbs. Cornyn also asked Patel to investigate the legislators for alleged bribery by accepting funds to cover costs associated with their trip.
Owen Dahlkamp for Texas Tribune
According to Texas Trib, a majority of Texas Democrats have sought refuge in Illinois—and Governor JB Pritzker has made it clear that any FBI action taken to locate or detain the lawmakers would not be welcome.
The largest contingent of Democrats is seeking refuge in Illinois, but the state’s governor, JB Pritzker, said on a podcast Wednesday that the FBI would be ‘unwelcome’ in any operation seeking to apprehend the lawmakers. He previously vowed to ‘do everything we can to protect every single one of them.’
Owen Dahlkamp for Texas Tribune
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
The hottest new club in Texas has everything: dick-wagging, corruption, systemic cheating and America’s last line of defense against fascism—the Democratic party. That’s right, Cornyn and Paxton are locked in a, shall we say, “heated” primary, which means both of those corrupt dolts will be (are already) trying to out-MAGA the other. And meanwhile, since-departed Democrats are doing a lawful maneuver (vacating seats to deny quorum) with an entire right-wing-media ecosystem calling it “illegal” and “brazen.”
As I noted throughout 2024: if Trump successfully got himself reinstalled, red states would serve as transactional partners to the fascist mothership. That has born out in a number of ways (too many to list, frankly) but most notably in the state of Georgia (like Texas, a majority-normal state kept under the thumb of Republicans) where an existing case against Brian Kemp’s profoundly racist, anti-voting law went POOF under Pam Bondi’s Department of “Justice.”
Watch for more of that in the months to come, in addition to a possible confrontation between Patel’s goons at FBI and Texas Democrats.
