Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called to ‘open the courtroom doors’ so parents can sue Meta, accusing founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg of misleading Congress after whistleblowers detailed child safety failures on the company’s virtual reality (VR) platforms.

Two former Meta researchers told a Senate panel Tuesday that the company buried child harm evidence in VR, killed age-verification studies and let AI chatbots flirt with kids, prompting a bipartisan push to pass measures protecting minors online.

‘The claims at the heart of this hearing are nonsense; they’re based on selectively leaked internal documents that were picked specifically to craft a false narrative,’ a Meta spokesperson said. 

‘The truth is there was never any blanket prohibition on conducting research with young people and, since the start of 2022, Meta approved nearly 180 Reality Labs-related studies on issues including youth safety and well-being.’

Testifying before the Senate were Cayce Savage and Jason Sattizahn, both former Meta researchers.

Sattizahn alleged Meta routinely prioritized engagement and profit over safety — especially for kids — and manipulated or erased research showing harm.

He said despite attempts to curb data collection, the studies researchers could run still showed the company’s products endangered users.

Germany once banned Meta’s VR sales over data treatment concerns; after sales resumed in 2022, Sattizahn was sent to conduct research there.

He said he understood Meta was trying to show its VR headsets were safe for Germans.

But when research uncovered that underage children using Meta VR in Germany were subjected to demands for sex acts, nude photos and other acts children should never be exposed to, Sattizahn alleged Meta demanded all evidence be erased.

‘My research still revealed emotional and psychological damage, particularly to women who were sexually solicited, molested or worse,’ he testified. ‘In response, Meta demanded I change my research in the future to not gather this data on emotional and psychological harm.’

Savage testified she led youth safety research in VR and likewise said Meta prioritized engagement over child safety.

She said the company employed suppression tactics, including editing reports, demanding deletions and threatening jobs.

Hawley asked Savage why it was important for Meta to have children under 13 using VR. She told him kids drive household adoption of gaming devices, which means more money for Meta.

‘So, this is about profits at the end of the day,’ Hawley told Savage while seeking clarification on whether Meta will do anything for a profit, including exposing children to vile sexual abuse.

‘When I was doing research to identify the harms that children were facing in VR, which I had to be sneaky about because legal wouldn’t actually let me do it, I identified that Roblox, the app on in VR, was being used by coordinated pedophile rings,’ Savage said. ‘They set up strip clubs, and they paid children to strip.’

She added that Robux could be converted into real money.

Savage said she flagged the issue to Meta, saying under no circumstances should Meta host the Roblox app on the headset.

‘You can now download it in their app store,’ she said.

Later, under questioning, Savage told the panel she estimates any child in a social VR space will come in contact with, or be directly exposed to, something inappropriate.

‘She said every single child who goes into the platform will 100% be exposed to child sex abuse material. Every single one,’ Hawley told Fox News Digital Tuesday evening. ‘I just come back to the fact that we have got to protect our children. 

‘It can’t be that if you go online as a kid, you are 100% likely to be sexually abused, and that’s what the witnesses said today. If you are online, if you’re on their virtual reality program platform rather, you are going to get sexually abused. That was their testimony.’

Hawley called out Zuckerberg for testifying on Jan. 31, 2024, that Meta does not allow people under the age of 13 on the service.

During his testimony last year, the CEO said anyone under the age of 13 will be removed from the service, and, in response to another question, Zuckerberg said Meta does not want users under the age of 13.

Hawley said Zuckerberg misled Americans with that testimony, pointing to whistleblowers who said under-13 users are rampant on the platform.

‘I don’t see how you can square what he told us under oath last year with what these whistleblowers said today,’ Hawley told Fox News Digital. ‘But that’s true of a lot of his statements. I mean, he said over and over, whether it’s the safety protocols Facebook has put into place, that’s not true. 

‘Whether it’s regarding their work in China, he said, ‘Oh, we don’t do work in China.’ That is not true. He said, ‘We don’t have any contacts with the Chinese government.’ That’s not true. So, I mean, we’re really piling up a long list here.’

Hawley said he has called for Zuckerberg to testify again under oath, though he’s heard Meta isn’t interested.

Ultimately, Hawley said, it was time to ‘open the courtroom doors’ so victims and families can sue Meta for failing to protect children.

‘It is abundantly clear to me that it is time to allow parents and victims to sue this company,’ he said. ‘They have got to be able to get into court and to get in front of a jury and hold this company accountable, and that begins with Mark Zuckerberg. There has to be accountability. We have to open the courtroom doors and allow victims to have their day in court.’

Earlier this year, Hawley said he advanced legislation through the Judiciary Committee that would allow victims of child sex abuse online to sue Facebook or any Big Tech company where harm happens.

‘I don’t think we’re going to see real change at these companies until this becomes law and parents and victims can get into court and hold these people accountable,’ he said. ‘The bottom line is we’ve got to protect our kids. I mean, they’re making money by stealing the innocence of our children.’

Meta told Fox News Digital the company is training its artificial intelligence bots to not respond to teenagers on self-harm, suicide, disorder eating and potentially inappropriate romantic conversations, regardless of content. The company is also working to limit teen access to a select group of AI characters, ‘for now.’

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., closed the meeting by inviting anyone from Meta to testify or challenge what was said.

‘I think that they see there is truly bipartisan anger, not only with Meta, but with these other social media platforms and virtual reality platforms and chatbots that are intentionally, knowingly harming our children,’ she said. ‘This has got to stop. Enough is enough.’

It really shouldn’t be that big a deal.

Donald Trump was one of many friends solicited to send messages to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. There’s a far more cautious one from Bill Clinton, too.

If the president had merely said ‘yeah, I sent it, we were joking back and forth, nothing to see here’ – this was in 2003, before the child predator was charged with sexual abuse – nobody would have blinked. The birthday book was assembled by his then-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

Instead, he filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for supposedly publishing inaccuracies in its report on the Trump birthday message.

The Journal has now been vindicated.

Trump flatly denied having sent a birthday message at all. He can’t draw, he would never do such a thing, it was inconceivable.

Now it looks a lot more conceivable.

As the Journal was the first to report, there is a friendly back-and-forth against the backdrop of a sketch of a naked woman’s silhouette. Trump’s signature is in the pubic area, and the paper says it matches other acknowledged ‘Donald’ signatures – along with his use of such phrases as ‘a wonderful thing.’

There is this exchange:

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Yes we do, come to think of it.

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.

That’s it, given more punch by Trump’s denial that he never sent such a thing.

In fact, after the publication of the texts and the naked silhouette – which I’m sure you’ve seen as it’s been all over television – Trump continues to deny that the letter and sketch are his. 

They’re sure doing a good job of moving on from the Epstein mess, huh?

Reached on his cell yesterday by NBC reporter Garrett Haake, Trump said: ‘I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue. I gave all comments to the staff. It’s a dead issue.’

That sounds like wishful thinking. The only ‘dead’ part is Jeffrey Epstein.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt backed up the boss in a posting:

‘The latest piece published by the Wall Street Journal PROVES this entire ‘Birthday Card’ story is false. As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it. President Trump’s legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation.

‘Furthermore, the ‘reporter’ @joe_palazzolo who wrote this hatchet job reached out for comment at the EXACT same minute he published his story giving us no time to respond. This is FAKE NEWS to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax!’ But it’s hardly a hoax to Epstein’s victims, who spoke out the other day – one voted for Trump – about how being lured into having sex while young as 14 ruined their lives.

The New York Times has a sobering report on other birthday messages to Epstein.

Venture capitalist William Elkus recalled Epstein conjuring a beautiful woman out of thin air during a visit to a farm town in Iowa, where it was hard to ‘tell the difference between the girls and the hogs.’ Elkus marveled at Epstein’s being able to find a ‘spectacular tall blonde’ whom he later invited back with him to New York, concluding he had relied on ‘some long distance escort service.’

Elkus told the Times that it was a joke and that he was referring to Epstein’s ‘charisma, which was palpable.’

A person named Leslie wrote, ‘I wanted to get you what you want,’ so ‘here it is’ – a drawing of breasts. Another writer sent photos of zebras, and lions, getting it on.

A person named Nick described a night in London that left Epstein ‘howling with laughter.’ Nick said an ‘old man smiling sweetly’ pulled down a woman’s panties and put his hand on her privates, only to find another man’s hand already there. 

Some women, including assistants and girlfriends – the names are redacted – may have been Epstein’s victims. 

One woman wrote: ‘With you, dear Jeffrey, I laugh like a little girl and feel like a woman.’ There’s a hand-drawn heart, a brief message and a photo of a woman’s butt in a thong bikini.

There’s a cartoon of Epstein in a beach chair getting ‘what appears to be a nude massage from four topless women.’ Appears? That’s exactly what it is.

There were messages from Nathan Myhrvold, former chief technology officer for Microsoft; retail billionaire Leslie Wexner; billionaire investor Leon Black; Epstein’s onetime attorney Alan Dershowitz; and Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling scout who died in 2022 by suicide in a French jail cell after being charged with raping teenage girls.

The Washington Post has more, saying ‘attention to Trump’s relationship with Epstein is not going away anytime soon, and the political headaches for the president are likely to linger.’

In a partially redacted photo, Epstein is holding an oversized check made out to him for $22,500 with DJTRUMP on the signature line. The handwritten caption: ‘Sells ‘fully depreciated’ [redacted] to Donald Trump for $22,500.’ 

Trump allies have decided to make their stand on the signature question, adding to the murkiness.

‘Is this really the best they could do?’ wrote MAGA influencer Benny Johnson. ‘Trump has the most famous signature in the world. Time to sue them into the oblivion.’

In a drawing, labeled ‘1983,’ a male figure is pictured handing balloons to young girls in pigtails. That was next to ‘2003,’ where he’s drawn getting massages from topless blonde women with the caption ‘what a great country!’

Look, there’s no other way to say it: This has the whiff of a cover-up.

I mean, are people buying the president’s insistence that he never sent the birthday message that they’ve seen with their own eyes?

Trump boxed himself by insisting, even now, that he’d never sent such a message. That’s the heart of the political problem.

The president may pronounce the story dead, but for the rest of the world – including MAGA supporters who have been obsessed with this case – it’s very much alive.

Business tycoon Elon Musk agreed with Vice President JD Vance’s assertion that the bulk of violent crime is perpetrated by a small pool of people who should be locked up.

‘The big lie the Democrats told about violent crime is that it’s ‘systemic’ and therefore no one’s really responsible. If the ‘system’ is to blame then you fund a bunch of nonprofits that don’t do anything besides give jobs to underqualified radicals,’ Vance noted in a post on X. ‘The reality is that the gross majority of violent crime is committed by a very small group of people and we should be throwing them in prison.’

Musk agreed, saying that people who have greater sympathy for those likely to perpetrate murder than for those at risk of becoming murder victims are ‘disgusting.’

‘Yes,’ he commented when sharing Vance’s post. ‘What it comes down to is this: Do you have more sympathy for those highly likely to commit murder or more for those at risk of being murdered? If the former, you are a disgusting human being and yet so many on the radical left choose this!’

Republican Rep. Beth Van Duyne of Texas also shared Vance’s post.

‘The crime and homeless industrial complexes Democrats have set up with NGOs and nonprofits’ aren’t designed to solve problems,’ the congresswoman asserted. ‘Rather, they are fraudulent entities which exist to launder taxpayer dollars to enrich themselves, their friends, and further radical, pro-criminal policies that only endanger hard working Americans.’

Musk has also advocated for locking up repeat violent criminals for life.

‘A second conviction for aggravated violent crime should get life imprisonment,’ he wrote on X.

House Republicans are having early talks about cracking down on crime nationwide, the No. 2 GOP lawmaker suggested on Tuesday.

‘There are discussions about addressing some of these problems at a more federal level, but right now, we’re focused on D.C.,’ House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News Digital.

‘The president’s been very effectively reducing crime in D.C., and he’s got some limitations right now with a lot of these ordinances, and that’s what we’re focused on cleaning up.’

He added, however, ‘But we’re not done.’

It comes after President Donald Trump federalized the Washington, D.C., police force and deployed federal troops to the capital city in a bid to end violent crime. He’s now eyeing National Guard deployments in other cities across the country, though the idea has been met with criticism by Democrats.

The House Oversight Committee is slated to advance several bills dealing with D.C. criminal sentencing this week, which will likely get full House votes in the coming months.

Scalise’s comments suggest that while lawmakers are currently focused on overhauling Washington, D.C.’s criminal policies, it’s possible they could turn to the rest of the country at some point as well.

Trump similarly signaled last month that he wanted to see a bill dealing with crime across the U.S.

‘Speaker Mike Johnson, and Leader John Thune, are working with me, and other Republicans, on a Comprehensive Crime Bill. It’s what our Country needs,’ he wrote on Truth Social.

House GOP leaders also railed against crime in Democrat-run cities and states during their weekly press briefing on Tuesday – specifically their leaders’ opposition to National Guard deployments.

Such moves by the federal government could risk court battles with Democrat-run states and cities, as was the case when Trump sent the National Guard into Los Angeles earlier this year over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

‘I mean, these mayors in these big blue cities have to ask this question – and I think their voters and the residents and the law-abiding citizens in all these cities should be asking local leadership, ‘How long are you going to put up with this? When are you going to put your foot down and do the right thing?’’ Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., posed.

‘This is common sense. And I cannot, for the life of me, understand how the Democrats think this is some sort of winning political message. Yield, man. Let the troops come into your city, and show how crime can be reduced.’

Scalise, meanwhile, said at the press conference that Democrats ‘want crime to continue.’

‘They want to continue defunding the police and try to have it both ways. And President Trump is tired of that game, because he’s tired of watching people be hurt. There’s no reason for this violent crime wave that we see in so many cities,’ Scalise said. 

‘So we’re going to continue to have the president’s back and, frankly, have the American people’s back, regardless of their party, regardless of what city they live in. Everybody deserves to be safe, and Republicans are going to continue to push policies to help put that in place.’

Former Vice President Kamala Harris admits that former President Joe Biden got ‘tired’ while in office, but she insists there was no ‘big conspiracy’ to cover up his decline.

Harris made the claims in a newly released excerpt from her upcoming book, ‘107 Days,’ which details her experience running for president with frequent throwbacks to her time as number two in the White House. The excerpt, published by The Atlantic, focuses on her relationship with Biden and her frustration with how she was treated in the Biden-Harris administration.

‘Many people want to spin up a narrative of some big conspiracy at the White House to hide Joe Biden’s infirmity. Here is the truth as I lived it. Joe Biden was a smart guy with long experience and deep conviction, able to discharge the duties of president,’ Harris wrote. ‘On his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best. But at 81, Joe got tired.’

‘That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles. I don’t think it’s any surprise that the debate debacle happened right after two back-to-back trips to Europe and a flight to the West Coast for a Hollywood fundraiser. I don’t believe it was incapacity. If I believed that, I would have said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I am more loyal to my country,’ she added.

Harris went on to complain that Biden’s staff didn’t give her the support she felt was necessary as vice president, on issues from foreign policy to illegal immigration.

She complained that getting the White House press office, including then-press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, to defend her was ‘almost impossible.’

‘Worse, I often learned that the president’s staff was adding fuel to negative narratives that sprang up around me. One narrative that took a stubborn hold was that I had a ‘chaotic’ office and unusually high staff turnover during my first year,’ Harris wrote, going on to say that some people just can’t hack it in a White House role.

‘Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed. None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well,’  she added regarding Biden’s staff. ‘That given the concerns about his age, my visible success as his vice president was vital. It would serve as a testament to his judgment in choosing me and reassurance that if something happened, the country was in good hands. My success was important for him.

The former vice president also said Democrats across the board should have been more aggressive in pushing Biden not to run, saying it was ‘reckless’ to leave the decision in his hands for so long.

”It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision,’ Harris wrote.

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed President Donald Trump to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission without cause as the high court inches toward revisiting a landmark ruling about executive power over terminations.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a brief order that Biden-appointed FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter should remain terminated from her job, at least for the next week, while the Supreme Court continues to consider her case.

The high court’s order responding to an emergency petition from the Trump administration comes as Slaughter has faced whiplash in the courts while challenging Trump’s decision to fire her at will.

A district court reinstated Slaughter, and then through the appeals process, Slaughter was re-fired, re-hired, and then re-fired once again on Monday. After an appellate court allowed her to return to work on Sept. 2, she did so right away, even sharing on social media multiple dissents she has authored in the days since her return.

Fox News Digital reached out to Slaughter’s legal team for comment.

Trump’s decision to fire Slaughter and the other Democrat-appointed commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, stood in tension with the FTC Act, which says commissioners should only be fired from their seven-year tenures for cause, such as malfeasance.

Their firings are at odds with a 90-year-old Supreme Court ruling in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which found that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s firing of an FTC commissioner was illegal.

While the Supreme Court has let Trump’s firings at other independent agencies proceed temporarily while the lawsuits play out in the lower courts, Slaughter’s case has presented the most blatant question yet to the justices about whether they plan to overturn Humphrey’s Executor. Legal scholars have speculated that the current conservative-leaning Supreme Court has an appetite to reverse or narrow that decision.

Solicitor General John Sauer argued to the high court that the FTC wielded significant executive power and that its authority had expanded since the 1930s, when Humphrey’s Executor first established that an at-will FTC firing was illegal. The FTC now enforces dozens of statutes, including the Sherman Act, and has power to bring lawsuits seeking injunctions and penalties, Sauer noted.

‘Contrary to the lower courts’ suggestion, Humphrey’s Executor does not mean that Article II permits tenure protections for any agency named the ‘Federal Trade Commission,’ no matter how much more executive power the FTC accumulates,’ Sauer said.

A specialized unit with the Los Angeles Police Department is no longer providing former Vice President Kamala Harris security, according to a new report. 

Officers with LAPD’s Metropolitan Division, which falls under the police department’s special operations group, stepped in to provide Harris with security after President Donald Trump yanked Harris’ security detail in August, The New York Times reported. 

But that protection ended on Saturday following backlash from the LAPD’s union, The Los Angeles Police Protective League. The union called the arrangement ‘nuts,’ arguing that ‘LA taxpayers should not be footing the bill for this ridiculousness.’

‘We are happy to report that the Metro officers assigned to protect the multimillionaire failed presidential candidate are back on the street fighting crime,’ the union’s board of directors said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Monday. 

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said using LAPD resources to provide Harris with protection was never a permanent solution. 

‘The plan was always to provide temporary support, and I thank L.A.P.D. for protecting former V.P. Harris and always prioritizing the safety of all Angelenos,’ Bass said in a statement to The New York Times. 

Bass’ office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital. 

Bass previously said in a statement Wednesday that Trump’s decision to revoke Harris’ security detail amounted to an ‘act of revenge’ on a political opponent, and put Harris ‘in danger,’ according to The New York Times. 

The LAPD did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Fox News Digital. 

The Los Angeles Times also reported on Aug. 29 that the California Highway Patrol was providing security for Harris, according to law enforcement sources. California Gov. Gavin Newsom must approve such protection, per the publication. 

‘Our office does not comment on security arrangements,’ Izzy Gardon, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Thursday. 

The White House confirmed to Fox News Digital that Trump pulled Harris’ security detail on Aug. 29, and noted that typically vice presidents are only offered Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office. 

However, former President Joe Biden signed an order before leaving office that extended Harris’ Secret Service protection by an additional year. 

CNN first reported that Trump signed a memo pulling Harris’ Secret Service security detail. A spokesperson for Harris told Fox News Digital no reason was provided for eliminating the protection. 

The U.S. Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, had his security detail rescinded in July. 

Former presidents and their spouses receive Secret Service security details for the remainder of their lives unless they voluntarily opt out, according to the Secret Service’s website. 

Fox News’ Greg Norman, Patrick Ward, and David Spunt contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump is still facing a $83.3 million payment to writer E. Jean Carroll after a federal appeals court rejected his challenge of a defamation verdict against him Monday.

The ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court decision finding that Trump did, in fact, defame Carroll. Trump’s lawyers argued his comments about Carroll were protected by presidential immunity and that the verdict in the case was unjust. The three-judge panel rejected both of those claims.

‘We conclude that Trump has failed to identify any grounds that would warrant reconsidering our prior holding on presidential immunity. We also conclude that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s damages awards are fair and reasonable,’ the court opinion read.

‘The record in this case supports the district court’s determination that the ‘the degree of reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented,’ the court added.

Carroll sued Trump twice after she released a book in 2019, which claimed Trump raped her during a brief encounter with him in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.

Trump vigorously denied the claims, saying he had never met Carroll, that she was not his ‘type’ and that she fabricated the incident to sell books. His vocal and repeated criticisms and denials led to Carroll’s defamation allegations.

Monday’s ruling comes months after the same court rejected Trump’s appeal in another Carroll-related case. In that appeal, Trump challenged evidence that Carroll’s legal team introduced to the jury during the civil lawsuit, including the Access Hollywood tape that surfaced during Trump’s 2016 campaign.

The full panel of judges declined to hear Trump’s argument, however, forcing the president to either accept defeat or appeal to the Supreme Court.

Read the full ruling below (App users click here)

Fox News’ Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.

Senate Republicans have started the process of going nuclear on Senate Democrats in their quest to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominees.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Monday laid the framework for the GOP to use the ‘nuclear option,’ a move that allows for a rule change in the Senate with a simple majority vote in order to install a new rule that allows for nominees to be voted on in groups.

Republicans are moving forward with a plan originally devised by Democrats during the Biden administration, due to frustrations at the time with the sluggish pace that nominees were moving through the upper chamber.

However, that pace has turned into an outright crawl during Trump’s second term. No nominee at any level has received a voice vote or moved through unanimous consent — two methods meant to fast-track the confirmation process for sub-cabinet level positions in the bureaucracy.

Thune quoted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who in 2022 railed against Republicans during a Senate floor speech for slowing some of former President Joe Biden’s nominees, and said, ‘Regardless of the party in the White House, both sides have long agreed that a President deserves to have his or her administration in place, quickly.’ 

Thune charged that the Democrats’ blockade was ‘Trump derangement syndrome on steroids’ and argued that if the nominees were as historically bad as they claimed, they would not have voted some of them out of committee on a bipartisan basis.

‘We’ve got a crisis, and it’s time to take steps to restore Senate precedent and codify in Senate rules what was once understood to be standard practice,’ he said. 

‘This afternoon I will be taking the necessary procedural steps to amend the rules,’ Thune continued. ‘It is an idea with a Democrat pedigree.’

Thune is expected to take the first step in the process Monday night and will file a resolution with dozens of nominees who advanced out of committee on a bipartisan basis. 

The plan, which takes its cue from a bill pushed by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Angus King, I-Maine, and former Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., would allow for nominees to be voted on in groups, or ‘en bloc.’

The original bill put a cap of 10 nominees per en bloc group and included both district judge and U.S. attorney picks. Republicans are likely to go beyond the cap but may not include judicial nominees.

Instead, the focus is on sub-cabinet level nominees that make their way through their respective committees with bipartisan support.

‘What I’m just saying is we’re returning to the way the Senate used to work,’ Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News Digital. ‘When the vast majority of nominees, after being scrutinized in committee, had their hearings voted out and sent to the floor. Then you know, Bush, Clinton — 99% of them by unanimous consent or by voice vote, and President Trump has had zero.’

Thune’s move comes after he and Schumer were unable to reach a deal on moving nominees last month before lawmakers left Washington for recess.

Both parties have turned to the nuclear option a handful of times since 2010. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used the nuclear option to allow for all executive branch nominees to be confirmed by simple majority. 

Four years later, then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., went nuclear to allow for Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority. And in 2019, McConnell reduced the debate time to two hours for civilian nominees.

Republicans voiced hope that using a proposal from Democrats would sway some to support the change and argued that the move is meant to further streamline the process and prevent future blockades by either party.

‘I really look at this like they’re forcing us to do something,’ Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told Fox News Digital. ‘There’s nothing nuclear about it, in my humble opinion. And again, this is their bill, and we’ll see. It’s great to watch them squirm as they try to figure out what to do with this.’

Jeffrey Epstein’s estate began handing documents over to Capitol Hill lawmakers on Monday, pursuant to a subpoena issued by the House Oversight Committee last month.

Trustees tasked with handling the late pedophile’s matters were ordered to turn over a tranche of files, including his infamous ‘birthday book,’ as part of House lawmakers’ investigation into Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

The ‘birthday book,’ along with Epstein’s last will and testament, details of his 2007-2008 non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, entries from Epstein’s contact books from Jan. 1, 1990 through Aug. 10, 2019, and information about Epstein’s known bank accounts, were all handed over to investigators.

A committee aide told Fox News Digital that staff would review the documents, and they would be made public ‘in the near future.’

House Oversight Committee Democrats, meanwhile, took to X with what appears to be an excerpt from the ‘birthday book’ that shows a message from President Donald Trump to Epstein, though the White House denied its veracity.

‘As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it. President Trump’s legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X, specifically in reference to a Wall Street Journal story that first mentioned allegations of Trump writing in the book.

A letter from attorneys representing Epstein’s estate signaled in a letter to the Oversight Committee that Monday’s production was just the first tranche of documents pursuant to the congressional subpoena.

Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., sent a letter on Aug. 25, requesting a slew of documents by Sept. 8.

‘It is our understanding that the Estate of Jeffrey Epstein is in custody and control of documents that may further the Committee’s investigation and legislative goals. Further, it is our understanding the Estate is ready and willing to provide these documents to the Committee pursuant to a subpoena,’ Comer wrote at the time.

As part of his non-prosecution agreement, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to two state charges in Florida of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution, avoiding more severe federal charges. He ended up serving 13 months in county jail with the benefit of a work-release program, confidential settlements with some victims, and being registered as a sex offender. 

It also allowed co-conspirators to avoid charges – a major point of contention during his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell’s federal trial in late 2021. It’s also the basis of Maxwell’s appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn her guilty verdict.

Subpoenaed documents include all entries in a book compiled by Maxwell for Epstein’s 50th birthday, Epstein’s will and information on his 2008 non-prosecution agreement.

Lawmakers hope that the ‘birthday book,’ which allegedly includes personalized messages from Epstein’s friends and associates, will shed light on his personal connections. The information is likely to be dated, however, with the book having been compiled in 2003.

Information was also sought on Epstein’s financial transactions, call and visitor logs, and ‘any document or record that could reasonably be construed to be a potential list of clients involved in sex, sex acts, or sex trafficking facilitated by Mr. Jeffrey Epstein,’ according to a copy of the subpoena viewed by Fox News Digital.

Comer has subpoenaed a litany of individuals, as well as the Department of Justice (DOJ), for information related to Epstein.

He is also bringing in Alexander Acosta, a former Trump administration labor secretary who also served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida when Epstein entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the federal government in 2008, for a transcribed interview on Sept. 19.

Comer and other members of the House Oversight Committee met with Epstein survivors last week.

About 33,000 pages of files turned over by the DOJ have already been released by the House Oversight Committee, though the vast majority of those were already public knowledge.