Texas Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said Thursday the FBI has granted his request to assist Texas law enforcement in locating House Democrats who fled the state, setting up a potential confrontation with Illinois Democratic officials who have vowed to protect them.
“I am proud to announce that Director Kash Patel has approved my request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats,” Cornyn said in a statement.
“I thank President Trump and Director Patel for supporting and swiftly acting on my call for the federal government to hold these supposed lawmakers accountable for fleeing Texas. We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities.”
The decision by Patel and the Trump administration represents the latest escalation in what has become a national battle between Republicans and Democrats after Texas House Democrats left the state Sunday to deny Republicans a quorum to approve a new mid-decade redistricting plan that would flip five Democratic congressional seats to the GOP. The new map, encouraged by Trump, is aimed at helping ensure Republicans maintain their narrow U.S. House majority in next year’s midterm elections and during the president’s final term.
It was unclear what the FBI’s activities would entail since the Texas lawmakers have not been charged with state or federal-level criminal activity. They are facing civil warrants for leaving the state, but they are unenforceable outside of Texas.
As for locating the Texas lawmakers, the bulk of them are staying at the same hotel in far west suburban St. Charles, where they went after arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Sunday night. Their hotel was the subject of a bomb threat on Wednesday that caused them to be evacuated during a search, which turned up nothing.
Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said his administration was closely coordinating with state and local law enforcement to protect the Texas House delegation.
“We’ve had to react from a law enforcement perspective here in the state by calling our state police, local law enforcement, making sure that they’re protecting the people who are staying at that hotel, including the Texas visitors that we have,” Pritzker said Wednesday, at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield.
The Democratic governor didn’t directly answer what concrete steps Illinois State Police were taking to shield the Texas legislators from possible efforts to send Texas Rangers or FBI agents to bring them back to Texas.
In making his original request for federal assistance, Cornyn wrote that the FBI “has tools to aid state law enforcement when parties cross state lines, including to avoid testifying or fleeing a scene of a crime.”
“Specifically, I am concerned that legislators who solicited or accepted funds to aid in their efforts to avoid their legislative duties may be guilty of bribery or other public corruption offenses,” Cornyn wrote on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Texas Democrats on Thursday morning did not comment on the reports that the FBI had granted Cornyn’s request. Instead, the spokesman referred to a statement from Texas state Rep. Gene Wu, the leader of the state’s House Democratic Caucus, from earlier in the week in which Wu referred to Corney as “a career DC politician in the middle of a political death spiral.”
“So he’s flailing around, threatening to misuse the FBI in a pathetic attempt to prove his extremist credentials to a base that’s already left him behind,” Wu said, alluding to Cornyn facing a challenge in his reelection bid against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. “We’re focused on fighting for Texas, he’s focused on fighting for his own political survival. Good luck with that.”