Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who ditched his Tesla last month, refused to label recent violence at Tesla dealerships in protest of Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts as ‘domestic terrorism,’ a term that has been used by Republicans and the Justice Department. 

Certainly vandalism and it’s a crime,’ Kelly told Fox News Digital when asked if the violence at Tesla dealerships in response to DOGE amounted to terrorism.

‘It’s a significant crime, especially if you’re going to firebomb a car or vandalize somebody’s vehicle or even key somebody’s vehicle. They shouldn’t be doing it. And these should be investigated. And if people are caught, they should be prosecuted.’

Attorney General Pam Bondi and Elon Musk have both called the violence ‘domestic terrorism’ in recent weeks.

When pressed by Fox News Digital on not using the word terrorism, Kelly said, ‘I think we got to tread lightly on the whole terrorism word.’

We sometimes try to expand this thing, it kind of loses its focus. But when folks are vandalizing people’s vehicles or dealerships, it is wrong and it’s dangerous. Somebody is going to get hurt. And for that reason, we should put, you know, the full force of law enforcement to this problem and prosecute people.’

While Kelly went further than most top Democrats in condemning the violence, many in the party have faced criticism from conservatives for refusing to use the phrase ‘domestic terrorism’ to describe violent incidents against Tesla, including shots fired at a building, destroyed dealership windows, charging stations and cars set on fire, and vandalism of Tesla cars.

Fox News Digital recently reached out to over a dozen Democrats who previously railed against the dangers of domestic terrorism, asking them if they condemned the Tesla violence. None of the Democrats responded.

Kelly made headlines last month when he announced that he was ditching his personal Tesla because it was ‘a rolling billboard for a man dismantling our government and hurting people.’ 

Kelly added that he believes Musk turned out to be an ‘a–hole’ and later announced that he had switched to a Chevy Tahoe SUV.

The violence against Tesla has spurred outrage on the right as many Democrats remain silent. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., on Tuesday introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives that slams unnamed members of the Democratic Party, who it says, ‘have made calls for their supporters to incite and engage in domestic terrorism by attacking Tesla vehicles and facilities to protest Elon Musk.’

‘The definition of terrorism is the unlawful use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. That is exactly what has been going on across the country at Tesla dealerships, and it is what innocent Americans who chose Tesla as their preferred vehicle are facing in the wake of violence from Radical Left-Wing domestic terrorists who hate President Donald Trump and Elon Musk,’ Boebert told Fox News Digital.

The resolution cites ‘at least’ 80 incidents of arson or vandalism against Tesla vehicles and 10 incidents of vandalism against Tesla dealerships, charging stations and facilities throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Incidents include individuals setting fire to cars and equipment by throwing Molotov cocktails, shooting up buildings and vehicles, and marking private property with words like ‘Nazi’ and ‘Long Live Ukraine.’

Among the incidents cited by the resolution is the March 18 attack in Las Vegas, in which a person dressed in black shot at Tesla cars at a Tesla collision center, ignited several of them with Molotov cocktails, and spray-painted the word ‘Resist’ on the front doors of the shop.

Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Budget Committee Republicans are meeting at the White House on Wednesday morning as discussions on how to extend the 2017 tax cuts continue and a key budget process to advance Trump’s agenda hangs in the balance. 

Notably, the meeting is taking place ahead of a Trump event in the Rose Garden, during which the president will discuss his new tariffs.

The Wednesday White House meeting is meant to be less of a debate on how to proceed and more of a final check-in to make sure all parties are on the same page, a source familiar told Fox News Digital.

Trump and Senate Republicans’ discussion is just the latest of several meetings on both the House and Senate sides, hammering out details on how to maneuver a House-passed budget reconciliation bill through the upper chamber. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was spotted leaving at least one of the congressional meetings on Wednesday and has been a fixture on Capitol Hill amid the reconciliation debate. 

Initially, there was stark disagreement between GOP leaders in the House and Senate over how to organize a reconciliation bill, which is a key tool for the Trump administration and Republican majorities, because it lowers the vote threshold in the Senate, bypassing the legislative filibuster. 

Senate Republicans largely preferred splitting the priorities of the Trump administration into two reconciliation bills, the first of which would address the southern border’s urgent needs and a later bill would extend Trump’s hallmark 2017 tax cuts. 

But House Republicans, who have less space for dissent with their slim majority, made it clear they would only accept one reconciliation bill that included border funding and tax cut extensions. 

The House and Senate both passed separate resolutions, but Trump has voiced his support for one bill on multiple occasions and Senate Republicans themselves described their resolution as a backup plan to the House’s. 

Now, the Senate is charged with taking up the House’s bill, including border and tax cuts, in order to complete the budget reconciliation process for Trump. 

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Fox News he would be at the morning meeting at 11 a.m. He said he planned to bring up the debt limit, which will need to be extended soon. In particular, he wants to discuss raising the debt limit in the budget reconciliation resolution. 

According to the Republican, Trump hasn’t been highly communicative to Republicans about his position on the debt limit’s inclusion in this particular bill. 

But Kennedy believes they should raise the debt limit via reconciliation to ensure Republicans don’t need to negotiate with Democrats to avert default down the line. 

Democrats have remained relatively quiet while President Donald Trump and Republicans hammer federal district judges for churning out nationwide orders halting his administration’s actions. 

But during President Joe Biden’s tenure, they decried similar wide-ranging injunctions and even sought to remedy the issue with legislation. 

In 2023, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, debuted a measure to give the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sole jurisdiction over any cases with national implications. 

‘When parties are able to choose their judges, it creates the perception that they are able to predetermine their case’s outcome, compromising the integrity of our federal justice system,’ she said in a statement at the time. 

‘Activist plaintiffs should not be able to hand-pick individual judges to set nationwide policy, which is why it’s critical we address the issue of judge shopping in our federal courts. By routing cases with national implications through the D.C. District Court, which has expertise in cases challenging federal agency action, the Stop Judge Shopping Act will strengthen trust in our federal justice system and help ensure major cases are decided based on the law, not the ideological agenda of any one judge.’

The bill wouldn’t have ended nationwide injunctions as Republicans and Trump have sought, but it would give all jurisdiction on such decisions to one court, potentially reducing the probability of such orders being levied against Biden or other Democrat presidents. 

The D.C. court is made up of 11 district judges appointed by former Presidents Biden and Barack Obama, and four were appointed by Trump. The court’s chief judge is Obama-appointee James Boasberg, who is at the center of a key battle with the Trump administration over deportation flights using the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime immigration law. 

A similar measure was proposed by then-Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., in addition to 37 other Democrats in 2024. The bill would have required cases involving broad injunctions to be randomly assigned in order to ‘promote uniformity and fairness.’

Hirono, Schumer and Whitehouse did not provide comment to Fox News Digital when asked if they still supported legislative action and if they backed any of the Republican bills. 

Multiple Republicans in Congress have rolled out legislation this Congress to explicitly prevent district-level courts from issuing such wide-ranging orders, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. 

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, he wrote, ‘The obvious solution is to limit district courts to resolving the cases only between the parties before them.’

‘Under my bill, lower courts could no longer block legitimate executive action by issuing orders to nonparties to the lawsuit. The bill would also make TROs against the government immediately appealable, to make sure that prudence wins out over rash decisions handed down in the heat of a political moment,’ he explained. 

The top judiciary Republican also pointed to past grievances Democrats have had with the practice of nationwide court orders. 

‘Two-hundred forty Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, in 2023, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief warning of the ‘perilous consequences’ resulting from a district judge’s move to block the abortion pill mifepristone,’ he recalled. 

‘Justice Elena Kagan has similarly expressed dismay.’

The brief was filed to plead with the high court to overrule the nationwide injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, which suspended FDA approval of mifepristone. 

‘The consequences of the Fifth Circuit’s decision could extend far beyond mifepristone, for it undermines the science-based, expert-driven process that Congress designed for determining whether drugs are safe and effective,’ the lawmakers wrote at the time. ‘By permitting the district court to disrupt FDA’s current regulation of mifepristone, the Fifth Circuit has countenanced judicial interference that erroneously substitutes the district court’s judgment for FDA’s scientific determination.

Hirono, Schumer and Whitehouse have not been publicly critical of nationwide injunctions during the new Trump administration as district judges across the country manage to halt actions.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the subject as Republicans push legislation to end the practice of issuing nationwide orders. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing to examine the influx of nationwide orders against the Trump administration by federal district judges. 

Last week, Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed the details of the event, set one day after the House committee’s hearing on the same subject. 

‘Since the courts and the executive branch are on an unsustainable collision course, Congress must step in and provide clarity,’ he said in a statement last week. ‘Our hearings will explore legislative solutions to bring the balance of power back in check.’

The hearing, titled, ‘Rule by District Judges II: Exploring Legislative Solutions to the Bipartisan Problem of Universal Injunctions,’ will feature testimony from John N. Matthews Professor of Law at Notre Dame Samuel Bray, partner at Boies Schiller Flexner Jesse Panuccio, who was previously the acting associate attorney general at the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the chairman of the DOJ’s Regulatory Reform Task Force and vice chairman of the DOJ’s Task Force on Market Integrity and Consumer Fraud, as well as Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Federal Courts at Georgetown University Law Center Stephen I. Vladeck.

After revealing details of the hearing, Grassley rolled out his own bill to tackle the issue. 

‘These nationwide injunctions have become a favorite tool for those seeking to obstruct Mr. Trump’s agenda,’ he wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. ‘More than two-thirds of all universal injunctions issued over the past 25 years were levied against the first Trump administration. In the past two months alone, judges have issued at least 15 universal injunctions against the administration—surpassing the 14 President Biden faced throughout his four-year term.’

Grassley’s legislation would restrain the lower courts’ ability to issue nationwide orders, and they would no longer be able to stop ‘legitimate executive action’ by granting orders to entities or individuals who are not parties to the lawsuit. 

While similar bills have been introduced by Grassley’s GOP colleagues in both the Senate and House, it is unclear whether the issue will get floor votes, as it would need to amass more than 60 votes in the upper chamber to beat the filibuster. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has not elaborated much on the issue and, when asked about it, he told reporters, ‘At the end of the day, there is a process, and there’s an appeals process. And, you know, I suspect that’s ultimately how it’s going to be ended.’

President Donald Trump has made his frustration with nationwide injunctions clear, urging action on them publicly. 

‘Unlawful Nationwide Injunctions by Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country!’ the president said in a recent Truth Social post. ‘These people are Lunatics, who do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect Decisions and Rulings.’

‘If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!’ he continued. 

The legal resistance to President Donald Trump’s second term is in full swing with more than 120 lawsuits filed since Jan. 20 by states, advocacy groups and individuals targeting his executive orders and policy agenda.

As the lawsuits move through the judiciary, understanding the structure of the federal court system can help clarify how these challenges are likely to unfold.

Article III of the U.S. Constitution establishes the Supreme Court along with ‘inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.’ The Constitution also states that judges shall hold their offices during a period of ‘good behavior.’

The federal judiciary has three main levels: district courts (trial courts), circuit courts (the first level of appeal) and the Supreme Court (the final appellate authority). There are 94 district courts, 13 circuit courts and one Supreme Court.

To hear a case, a court must have personal jurisdiction (authority over the parties involved), subject matter jurisdiction (authority to hear the type of legal issue at hand) and proper venue (the correct geographic location for the case to be tried).

Unlike state courts, which have broad authority, federal courts are courts of ‘limited jurisdiction,’ which means they can only hear cases authorized by the Constitution or federal law. Each lawsuit filed against the Trump administration raises a federal question, giving federal courts subject-matter jurisdiction.

Each district court has at least one United States district judge appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a life term. Plaintiffs who lose at the district court level can appeal to a federal appellate court.

Appellate courts, also known as circuit courts, hear appeals from district courts within their geographic boundaries. Each circuit covers multiple states. For example, the Fifth Circuit includes Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Each circuit also has multiple judges, ranging from six total judges to 29. Appeals to the circuit courts are first heard by a panel of three judges. Parties must file briefs to the court, arguing why the trial court’s decision should either be affirmed or reversed.

After briefs are filed, oral arguments are scheduled during which attorneys from both sides present their case and answer questions from a panel of judges. In some instances, the full court may hear a case in what’s called an en banc session. The Ninth Circuit, due to its size, follows a modified en banc process.

A circuit court’s decision is binding on all lower courts within that circuit. As such, those courts must follow that holding. Other circuits can look to that circuit’s holding as reference, but they are not bound by it.

A case can generally only be appealed once a final decision has been issued. However, some issues can be appealed before a final decision is made via what’s called an interlocutory appeal.

Parties can appeal a circuit court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court by filing a writ of certiorari, which is a request for the court to review the case. The Supreme Court isn’t required to take the case and denies most petitions, granting review in less than 1% of appeals. When cert is denied, the lower court’s ruling remains in place.

A circuit split is when circuits disagree on a particular legal matter. This will generally prompt the Supreme Court to grant cert in a case. If cert is granted, parties must file briefs and conduct oral arguments. 

Each circuit is assigned to a specific Supreme Court justice who handles certain appeals from that region, such as emergency applications and administrative requests. For example, Chief Justice Roberts oversees the D.C. Circuit, the 4th Circuit and the Federal Circuit. The assigned justice may act alone or refer the matter to the full court at their discretion.

The Trump administration has already appealed various decisions to the Supreme Court via emergency appeals. On March 28, the administration asked the court to review a temporary restraining order that blocked the administration’s use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport Venezuelan nationals, including alleged members of the gang Tren de Aragua, from the United States. 

The appeal came shortly after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a 2-1 ruling to uphold the district court’s decision blocking the administration. 

Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report. 

Vice President JD Vance condemned European countries last month for a lack of commitment to democracy as many of them lash out with lawfare attacks against populist leaders.

Vance’s critique applies to more than just Europe, however, as populist leaders across the globe are facing legal troubles from outright election bans to criminal convictions.

Here are the top populist leaders facing the most pressure.

1. Marine Le Pen, France

Right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen and several members of her ascendant National Rally party were convicted of embezzlement on Monday, and she herself has been banned from running in the 2027 presidential election.

Populist leaders from across Europe condemned the verdict, pointing to her significant lead in the polls.

‘Those who fear the judgment of voters often seek reassurance from the courts. In Paris, they have condemned Marine Le Pen and would like to remove her from political life,’ Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said following Le Pen’s verdict.

‘We are not intimidated,’ he added. ‘Full speed ahead, my friend!’

2. Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil

Brazil’s Supreme Court accepted charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro last week over an alleged attempt to remain in office after his 2022 election defeat, ordering the former leader to stand trial.

All five justices ruled in favor of accepting the charges leveled by Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, who accused Bolsonaro and 33 others of attempting a coup that included a plan to poison his successor, current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and kill a Supreme Court judge.

The former president has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and says he’s being politically persecuted.

Under Brazilian law, a coup conviction carries a sentence of up to 12 years. When combined with the other charges, it could result in a sentence of decades behind bars.

3. Calin Georgescu, Romania

Calin Georgescu won the first round of Romania’s presidential elections earlier this year, only for the election to be canceled due to allegations of Russian collusion in Georgescu’s favor.

Georgescu was then taken into custody and has since been banned from running in the election, despite leading in polls.

4. Matteo Salvini, Italy

Italian Vice Premier Matteo Salvini faced years of legal trouble due to accusations that he had illegally detained roughly 100 migrants during his term as interior minister in 2019.

The 2019 incident saw migrants held offshore on a humanitarian rescue ship. Italian courts dropped the charges against Slavini in December.

‘Protecting our country’s borders from smugglers is not a crime,’ Salvini said shortly after the verdict. ‘This is a victory for the League and for Italy.’

5. Imran Khan, Pakistan

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was jailed last month on corruption charges, though many of his supporters have compared his situation to that of President Donald Trump and the charges he has faced.

A Pakistani court sentenced Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, to 14 and seven years in jail after finding them guilty of corruption. They were convicted for allegedly accepting land as a bribe through the Al-Qadir Trust, which they had set up while Khan was in office. Khan, however, maintains his innocence, describing the events as a ‘witch hunt’ in exclusive comments to Fox News Digital. It is just one of the more than 100 cases he is facing.

Khan’s plight has also been highlighted by longtime Trump ally and adviser Richard Grenell, who took to social media late last year when he tweeted, ‘Free Imran Khan!’

6. Donald Trump, United States of America

President Donald Trump has faced waves of legal trouble from his political opponents stretching back nearly a decade to his first administration.

First he faced down the now-discredited Russia collusion claims before once again facing impeachment for negotiating aid for Ukraine. Once out of office, federal and state governments targeted his business dealings with investigations, eventually resulting in his conviction for falsifying business records, a verdict his allies say was bogus.

Trump has acknowledged that populist leaders like him are facing challenges across the globe. He remarked on Le Pen’s ‘very important’ situation in a statement Tuesday.

‘She was banned for five years and she was the leading candidate,’ Trump said. ‘That sounds like this country, that sounds very much like this country.’

Fox News’ Avi Kumar, Benjamin Weinthal and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Canada is bracing for the fallout of President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, with economists warning of spiking grocery prices, major job losses and even a potential recession if threatened U.S. tariffs take effect.

The United States is Canada’s largest trading partner, accounting for nearly two-thirds of Canadian imports and receiving over 70% of its exports. But under Trump’s new ‘liberation day’ tariffs – 25% on Canadian goods and 10% on energy – Ottawa now faces an economic gut punch that could ripple across key provinces, industries and its national election campaign.

Trump has repeatedly blasted what he calls ‘unfair’ trade practices, citing Canada’s trade imbalance with the U.S. to justify the sweeping tariffs.

‘This is the beginning of liberation day in America,’ Trump said last week. ‘We’re going to charge countries for doing business in our country and taking our jobs, taking our wealth, taking a lot of things that they’ve been taking over the years. They’ve taken so much out of our country, friend and foe. And, frankly, friend has been oftentimes much worse than foe.’

Increased tariffs could mean that Americans will see higher price tags on everything ranging from fertilizer and oil, vehicles and machinery, to plastic and wood products, which, theoretically, would deter consumers from purchasing those products and result in a loss for Canada’s economy. 

Likewise, Canada in mid-March implemented reciprocal tariffs on $30 billion worth of U.S. goods, which means Canadians will not only feel losses on a macro scale but also in an immediate sense as prices at the grocery store have spiked on things like leafy greens, citrus, orange juice, beef, pork and fish.

Ottawa has yet to announce any tariffs on U.S. imported vehicles due to reported concerns over how it could further hinder Canada’s economy. Though there are some $95 billion worth of U.S. goods that it is reportedly considering putting tariffs on, depending on Trump’s April 2 announcements, according to Canadian outlet Financial Post.

‘They’re in the midst of a general election campaign,’ Andrew Hale, a senior policy analyst in trade policy with the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. ‘I think it’s very difficult for them to negotiate and put these measures on during an election campaign.

‘Everything they do and say now carries electoral weight,’ he added, noting that Canadian politicians will need to strike a careful balance: tough enough on Trump to appeal to voters but measured enough to leave room for future negotiations on tariffs.

‘If they were to put on reciprocal tariffs, it would damage the Canadian standard of living and have an impact – as all this already is having an impact – in Canada,’ Hale said, noting that auto tariffs not only affect direct car sales but all businesses that rely on vehicles, creating a trickle-down effect.

While Trump has argued that his tariffs protect U.S. manufacturing – especially the auto sector – the fallout could be far more severe for Canada. Immigration Minister Marc Miller has warned that up to 1 million Canadian jobs are at risk.

‘Most Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S.-Canadian border, and so they obviously will be heavily impacted,’ said Hale. ‘Most Americans don’t.’

Hale noted that while the tariffs will affect the entire U.S., the hardest-hit areas will be industries closely tied to Canadian imports, such as agriculture. The U.S., for instance, sources 90% of its potash fertilizer from Canada.

‘This will have a disproportionate impact on border states,’ Hale said, but he added that the economic strain on Canadian regions like Ontario will be far greater.

Canadian leaders have already voiced concern that as many as 160,000 jobs could be lost in Quebec, along with another 500,000 jobs in Ontario, depending on how long the tariff dispute lasts.

Both Quebec and Ontario are two of the provinces expected to be among those hardest hit in Canada as they rely heavily on their steel and aluminum and lumber and forestry sectors for exports.

Canada could face a recession this year if it can’t rein in Trump’s tariff offensive, Oxford Economists first warned in a report last November.

Previous tariff wars between trading partners during the first Trump administration resulted in billions of dollars of losses for Americans and their foreign counterparts.

But Trump is banking on the U.S. being less severely affected than nations like Canada.

The full impact of the tariff war with Canada remains uncertain as Washington has also imposed steep tariffs on the European Union, China and Mexico. Trump has pledged to target the ‘Dirty 15,’ which are countries he accuses of contributing most to the U.S. trade deficit.

Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam are expected to be among those next targeted in Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement, which he has dubbed ‘liberation day.’

Details on what Trump’s next steps in his tariff war with Canada and dozens of other nations remain unknown ahead of the April 2 deadline, which has created a sense of uncertainty, Hale said.

‘Last week’s Bureau of Economic Analysis Reports signaled a continued high core personal consumption expenditure PC inflation at 2.8%. So inflation, one could argue, is not coming down, and certainly price levels continue to rise,’ he said. ‘Consumer spending has slowed sharply in both Canada and the United States.’

‘Businesses want certainty. They can’t make future investment decisions in this climate,’ he added, noting that while a recession could be on the horizon in Canada, there are too many variables to make a prediction on the U.S. at this time.

‘What I do know is that businesses and banks, people who are investing in projects, want to be able to plan,’ Hale said. ‘Hopefully, we’ll have a clear idea [on Tuesday] where this is all going to land, and then we can work with it.’

The respective chairs of the Small Business Committee in both chambers of Congress are unveiling a plan to address the roughly 2 million ‘likely fraudulent’ pandemic aid applications flagged in a recent government report.

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, both Republicans, plan to introduce the SBA Fraud Enforcement Extension Act on Wednesday in hopes of corralling the alleged scofflaws who they say broke the law and prevented untold numbers of legitimate U.S. small businesses from receiving crucial aid.

The bill extends the statute of limitations to 10 years for fraud surrounding the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund relief programs instituted in 2020.

In 2022, Williams, Ernst and other lawmakers sought to do the same to identify potential scofflaw violators of the Paycheck Protection Program.

A report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Biden-era Small Business Administration (SBA) either signed or guaranteed more than $1 trillion in loans to more than 10 million small businesses.

While it had instituted a four-step process to manage fraud, that plan reportedly faltered when the SBA inspector general was unable to fully probe two-thirds of the risk referrals because the agency didn’t provide either correct or complete information about those cases.

The GAO then made a formal recommendation to the SBA, which, according to the public watchdog’s website, remains ‘open’ – and it appeared no action had at least been recorded.

The GAO also found that the fraud prevention process had not been fully implemented until ‘more than half’ of aid programs’ funding had been approved.

‘I will not allow criminals to run out the clock and escape justice simply because the Biden administration was asleep at the wheel,’ Ernst told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.

‘Thousands of hardworking small businesses were deprived of desperately needed relief because swindlers, gang members, and felons cashing in on COVID drained the programs. Every single con artist who stole from taxpayers will be held accountable.’

In Ernst’s home state, 1,800 restaurants reportedly qualified for SBA aid but never received it, prompting critics to question how much funding was diverted to fraudulent applicants instead of family-run eateries.

In Williams’ Lone Star State, federal aid allowed tens of thousands of restaurants to stay in business, but others told outlets like Houston PBS that such funding ran out before many could get back on their financial feet.

The Texas Restaurant Association told the station that 12,000 restaurants found themselves in danger of closing by 2022.

Hollywood celebrities had also received some of the SVOG funds and spent them on private jets and parties or cash for themselves, Business Insider reported.

‘The SBA distributes millions of dollars to small businesses in need every year. However, where small business owners found the capital needed to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic, bad actors saw the opportunity to defraud the government,’ Williams told Fox News Digital.

‘It is imperative that every fraudster who stole and exploited taxpayer dollars during our nation’s utmost hour of need be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’

He added that as March marked five years after the first COVID lockdowns, an extension of the SBA and law enforcement’s ability to pursue fraudsters must be realized.

Fox News Digital reached out to the SBA for comment.

When asked about the discrepancies found in the GAO report, an SBA spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Administrator Kelly Loeffler has already taken action to enhance fraud prevention efforts.

‘The SBA fully supports all efforts to crack down on fraud within its loan programs – in stark contrast to the last administration, which failed to investigate or address more than $200B in estimated pandemic-era fraud,’ Caitlin O’Dea said.

‘[SBA] will continue working to hold pandemic-era fraudsters accountable.’

President Donald Trump called out GOP Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in an effort to apply public pressure before the Senate votes on a measure to scuttle his Canadian tariff policy.

The joint resolution would terminate the national emergency Trump declared regarding illicit drugs and Canada — in his executive order, Trump called for slapping tariffs on America’s northern neighbor.

In a lengthy Truth Social post shortly before 1 a.m. on Wednesday, the president suggested that the four GOP senators have ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’ 

‘Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, will hopefully get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change, and fight the Democrats wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl, by Tariffing the value of this horrible and deadly drug in order to make it more costly to distribute and buy,’ Trump declared.

‘They are playing with the lives of the American people, and right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats and Drug Cartels. The Senate Bill is just a ploy of the Dems to show and expose the weakness of certain Republicans, namely these four, in that it is not going anywhere because the House will never approve it and I, as your President, will never sign it. Why are they allowing Fentanyl to pour into our Country unchecked, and without penalty,’ he continued.

Trump blasted the four lawmakers as ‘disloyal’ to the GOP.

‘What is wrong with them, other than suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly known as TDS? Who can want this to happen to our beautiful families, and why? To the people of the Great States of Kentucky, Alaska, and Maine, please contact these Senators and get them to FINALLY adhere to Republican Values and Ideals. They have been extremely difficult to deal with and, unbelievably disloyal to hardworking Majority Leader John Thune, and the Republican Party itself. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’

Paul is a cosponsor of the joint resolution. 

Murkowski reportedly informed Politico’s Lisa Kashinsky that she will vote for the resolution, while Collins has said she is ‘very likely’ to back it, according to the outlet. 

McConnell declared in an op-ed earlier this year that ‘tariffs are bad policy.’