Poised to face tough questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats about President Donald Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department against perceived enemies, Attorney General Pam Bondi has brought a retort: Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro.

Bondi is testifying Tuesday at the panel’s annual oversight hearing of the DOJ, with Navarro in attendance in the Capitol Hill meeting room. A former aide in Trump’s first administration and now the president’s current trade adviser, Navarro has continued on a crusade against the Justice Department for his four-month prison sentence during the Biden administration, when he failed to comply with a subpoena from the Democratic-led committee investigating the Capitol attacks on Jan. 6, 2021.

Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced he had obtained documents around the FBI’s handling of the Navarro case, including a request for physical surveillance of Navarro on the day the FBI arrested him and a timeline of that surveillance. Navarro was ultimately arrested publicly in 2022 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Grassley called the treatment “unnecessary.”

“They were playing politics with law enforcement powers, and will go down as a historic betrayal of public trust,” Bondi said of the former Biden administration. “This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system.”

The revelations appeared designed to preempt Democratic criticism of Trump’s broad campaign to leverage the DOJ against the president’s political adversaries. The Justice Department in the Trump administration has opened investigations into Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — who, as a member of the House, managed Trump’s first impeachment trial — and New York Attorney General Letitia James — who had pursued a civil lawsuit against the Trump organization.

Last month, former FBI Director James Comey was charged with obstruction and lying to Congress.

Schiff, a now member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will question Bondi later Tueday.

Grassley also continued to decry what he believed was an “unconstitutional breach:” the FBI’s decision under former President Joe Biden to request telephone records for Republican members of Congress as part of the investigation into Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Republican senators announced this new information Monday, arguing it constituted an unjustified weaponization of law enforcement against the GOP.

The judiciary panel includes several lawmakers who were targets of that FBI probe, which was narrowly tailored around the date of the certification of the 2020 election results and the subsequent attack on the U.S. Capitol. The FBI did not obtain the content of their calls.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misspelled New York Attorney General Letitia James’ name.

President Donald Trump and Democrats spent Monday afternoon giving reporters conflicting messages about whether they were talking to each other about the health care impasse at the center of the shutdown.

Long story short: They’re not.

But Trump’s suggestion that he was speaking with Democrats about their health care demands raised the possibility that an off-ramp might be in distant sight.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who has been engaged in bipartisan discussions with senators, said Monday that Trump’s comments were “helpful” because “the president saying this is something that we need to address is important.”

But GOP leaders are sticking to their strategy: No talks until the government reopens. Senate Majority Leader John Thune plans to keep pressure up by forcing daily votes on the House-passed CR, while Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t plan on bringing the House back until the Senate acts.

Out of nowhere, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene added new pressure to GOP leaders Monday, calling them out for not prioritizing the expiration of ACA subsidies.

“Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING!!!” the Georgia Republican said in an X post that rocketed around Capitol Hill group chats.

One other thing the White House is eyeing to force movement is Trump’s threat to move ahead any day now with mass firings of federal workers.

But Democrats are largely unfazed — buoyed by encouraging early polling and the support of federal worker unions, which are already suing to block the move.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Monday night that blame for the layoffs “falls on Donald Trump’s shoulders … and the American people know that.”

What else we’re watching:   

— What’s next in the funding fight: The Senate is expected to take its sixth vote Tuesday on dueling partisan stopgap funding bills. Meanwhile in the House, Johnson will host a news conference at 10 a.m., and Democratic leaders will meet at 6 p.m.

— Bondi heads to the Hill: Attorney General Pam Bondi will testify in front of Senate Judiciary at 9 a.m. Expect questions on everything from the Jeffrey Epstein files to an FBI probe that captured phone data belonging to GOP members of Congress as part of the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

— Two years since Oct. 7 attack: Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) will host a 2 p.m. news conference announcing new legislation on the second anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. He’ll be joined by other members of Congress at the House Triangle.

Jordain Carney and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

Illinois’ senior senator made an appeal across the aisle Monday as President Donald Trump moved to deploy out-of-state National Guard troops on the streets of Chicago.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said in a floor speech and in comments to reporters that his Republican colleagues needed to speak up against what he said is a grave constitutional crisis.

“He is deploying troops into an American state and city without the permission of the governor,” he told reporters. “If you’re a student of American history, you realize what the significance of this move is. This is a president trying to assert his authority and power over a sovereign state and people who live in it. It could happen to your state next.”

Durbin also said he expects the matter to come up in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday with Attorney General Pam Bondi.

So far, the GOP response to the troop deployments in Illinois and in Oregon, which has so far been blocked by a federal judge, has been muted.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday that deploying federalized National Guard troops “to protect [federal] law enforcement personnel and federal buildings … is a justifiable use of executive branch authority.”

“Like any any executive branch of the government, they always — I’ve been through lot of them — extend and try and expand as much as possible the use of executive power and authority,” he added. “There’s always a tension, a back-and-forth — stress, if you will, between the branches of the government and, in many cases, the courts have to decide it.”

The FBI investigated Republican lawmakers as part of its Biden-era probe into President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, GOP Senators announced Monday.

The investigation under former special counsel Jack Smith ultimately culminated in a number of felony charges brought against Trump, but the case was dismissed after his reelection in 2024. The records, which were narrowly tailored around the date of the certification of the 2020 election in early January 2021, included phone data for Republican members of Congress.

“They’re casting this net, this fishing expedition against members of the Senate and the House,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said in a press conference to announce the findings. “There is no predicate. There’s no reason for this other than a fishing expedition, which, again, should outrage and shock every American.”

Johnson is among the elected officials included in the records request, alongside fellow GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. Some of these lawmakers were on hand for the press conference announcing the findings.

Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania also appears to have been mistakenly identified as a senator and included in the list of lawmakers whose records were seized as part of the now-disbanded FBI investigation.

The phone records sought by Smith’s team were for calls that took place between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2021 — on either side of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by rioters seeking to disrupt Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results.

The FBI probe did not obtain the content of the calls, only the recipients, the length of calls and the date on which they were placed. The request for this information was approved by a grand jury.

Asked at the press conference whether he would call Smith others to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) declined to provide further details on the investigation’s next steps. Johnson, however, suggested former FBI Director Christopher Wray — who Trump pushed out of the post in favor of Kash Patel — would have to answer questions.

Patel turned over the phone records sought by Johnson and Grassley. Before being confirmed as FBI Director Patel was a House aide who worked to discredit the investigation into Russian election interference and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Republicans will likely highlight these revelations during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing scheduled for Tuesday with Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday there are no pending bipartisan talks over expiring health insurance subsidies despite a claim from President Donald Trump.

The president said in Oval Office comments to reporters Monday that “we have a negotiation going on right now with the Democrats that could lead to very good things … with regard to health care.” He later reiterated “we are speaking with the Democrats” on health care but did not specify with whom.

But Schumer said in a statement that “Trump’s claim isn’t true — but if he’s finally ready to work with Democrats, we’ll be at the table.”

Democrats have made extending the expiring subsidies — available for insurance plans offered on Affordable Care Act exchanges — a central demand in the ongoing government shutdown fight. They have pushed Republicans to negotiate but GOP leaders on Capitol Hill have said they must first reopen government agencies.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier Monday that Trump was not talking to Democrats amid the shutdown standoff. Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he had spoken to Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democratic appropriator, about moving full-year spending bills — not about health care. Murray declined to discuss the call Monday but said she did not initiate the conversation.

GOP senators have said the White House is being kept in the loop about the contours of what is being discussed by a bipartisan group of senators who are hunting for a way out of the shutdown.

“If President Trump and Republicans are finally ready to sit down and get something done in healthcare for American families, Democrats will be there — ready to make it happen,” Schumer said Monday.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries challenged Speaker Mike Johnson to a floor debate on the government shutdown Monday as agencies remained closed into a second workweek.

“Given the urgency of the moment and the Republican refusal to negotiate a bipartisan agreement, a debate on the House Floor will provide the American people with the transparency they deserve,” Jeffries said in a letter sent Monday. “It will also give you an opportunity to explain your my way or the highway approach to shutting the government down, when Democratic votes are needed to resolve the impasse that exists.”

Johnson declined the offer at a news conference Monday, calling the offer “nonsense” and Jeffries “desperate” while arguing that the time to debate was when the House took up a seven-week continuing resolution late last month.

“I respect him, but we all know what he’s trying to do there,” Johnson said.

It’s not the first time Jeffries has tried to engage the speaker in a tete-a-tete. He similarly asked for a “one-on-one debate” with Johnson in April as the House GOP muscled through its party-line domestic policy megabill.

It’s set to be a quiet week in the House, with Johnson keeping the chamber in recess as Republicans try to pressure Senate Democrats to pass the House-approved seven-week CR. He told House Republicans on a private call over the weekend they would be given 48 hours notice if they needed to return to the Capitol. Jeffries, meanwhile, is set to host his members for a Monday evening online conference meeting but has not announced any plans to bring them back to Washington.

Amy McGrath on Monday officially launched another Kentucky Senate bid, aiming to take the seat held by retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell.

McGrath, a retired fighter pilot, announced her candidacy on X, saying the Bluegrass state deserves a senator “battle-tested and ready to fight.”

“I know what courage looks like. Right now, way too many politicians don’t, and Americans are being thrown under the bus by cowards in Washington without the moral backbone to serve our nation with honor,” McGrath said in her announcement.

In 2019, McGrath ran against McConnell in one of the most expensive senate races in Kentucky history. In 2018, she raised nearly $8 million in her House run. She narrowly lost that race to Republican Rep. Andy Barr.

Since McConnell announced his retirement in February, the pool of candidates vying for his seat has grown.

In addition to McGrath, state Rep. Pamela Stevenson, attorney and former Secret Service agent Logan Forsythe and Joel Willett, an ex-CIA and military officer, will face off in the Democratic primary. Barr, former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron and businessperson Nate Morris will face off in the Republican primary.