U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem rejected an opportunity to retract her allegations that the two American citizens shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis in January, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, were “domestic terrorists.”

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Secretary Noem, instead of retracting her statements as Ranking Member Dick Durbin (D-IL) suggested, attempted to blame federal agents on the ground for the “domestic terrorist” labels.

“You and your agency rushed to brand these victims as, quote, domestic terrorists,” Senator Durbin told Noem on Tuesday. “We have ample video evidence and eyewitness testimony proving you are wrong. Your statements caused immeasurable pain to these families. Let me give you an opportunity to do the right thing. Do you retract these statements identifying these individuals as domestic terrorists?”

“You know, Senator Durbin,” Noem replied, “when we have these situations happen, we always offer our condolences to those families, and I offer mine as well.” She called the situations “tragic.”

READ MORE: Rubio Scrambles to Contain Iran War Revolt

“What I will say is, we always work to provide the American people with as much information as possible, that we’re relying on reports from the ground, and from agents that are there, and working to be transparent, and will continue to do all that we can to provide the accurate information and the facts to people, as we can.”

Critics blasted the DHS Secretary.

Republican former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock said it was “outrageous” that Noem “continues to lie” about the victims. “She should be fired or impeached. She’s unfit.”

Sen. Durbin: “You and your agency rushed to brand these victims as domestic terrorists…Do you retract these statements identifying these individuals as domestic terrorists?”

Noem: *does not retract her statement* pic.twitter.com/dD9YPq8RSb

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) March 3, 2026

READ MORE: FBI Agents Probing Iranian Threats Fired Over Mar-a-Lago Investigation Ties

Image via Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Capitol Hill on Tuesday in an effort to head off a potential “revolt” from lawmakers angered by the Trump administration’s decision to attack Iran without notifying Congress — let alone without seeking its authorization — a move critics say violates the U.S. Constitution.

The House and Senate are set to vote this week on resolutions to put guardrails on President Donald Trump‘s ability to use unilateral military force, Politico reports.

Secretary Rubio on Monday said that “Congress can vote on whatever they want. But there’s no law that requires us” to obtain congressional approval before going to war.

“Look, that is fine if they want to take a war powers vote,” Rubio told reporters. “They can do that. They’ve done that. They’ve done that a bunch of times. But there’s no – people keep saying that we have – there’s no law that requires the President to have done anything with regards to this. To begin with, no presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional – not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents.”

READ MORE: FBI Agents Probing Iranian Threats Fired Over Mar-a-Lago Investigation Ties

On Tuesday afternoon, Rubio will be joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, to brief members of Congress on the President’s military actions in Iran.

Politico adds that “lawmakers on both sides are decrying a lack of details from the administration — including evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S. that would necessitate military action.”

Some prominent Democrats blasted Rubio’s claim that there is no law that requires the administration to obtain congressional approval.

“There is a law,” wrote U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA). “It’s called the frickin Constitution of the United States.”

But Speaker of the House Mike Johnson pushed back on efforts to put guardrails on the President.

“The idea that we would take the ability of our commander in chief … to finish this job, is a frightening prospect to me,” he said.

READ MORE: White House Fires Back as Right Wing Influencer Fuels MAGA Rift

Image via Reuters 

On Saturday, President Donald Trump authorized massive military action against Iran. On Sunday, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, put FBI counterintelligence teams on high alert for threats to the homeland, after a Texas gunman killed two Americans and wounded 14 others in an attack the Bureau is investigating as a possible act of terrorism.

Not part of any FBI investigation will be at least a dozen staffers, including agents, who reportedly were fired last week for their roles in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump’s possibly unlawful removal, retention, and refusal to return dozens of classified documents and other items from the White House, which he kept at Mar-a-Lago.

“The ouster of at least a dozen staffers from a counterintelligence unit, known as CI-12, which operates out of the Washington Field Office, was ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, according to four former officials familiar with the dismissals,” The New York Sun reported on Monday in an exclusive. “The dismissals came just days before the start of Operation Epic Fury and, separately, a deadly mass shooting at a bar in Austin, Texas, by a man reportedly wearing a sweatshirt that said, ‘Property of Allah,’ beneath which was a T-shirt that was ’emblazoned with a design similar to the Iranian flag,’ CBS News reported Monday.”

The Sun reported that the CI-12 unit “focuses on media leaks, global espionage, and international threats against America emanating from countries such as Cuba and Iran, former FBI officials tell the Sun.”

“More broadly, CI squads are the lead domestic teams for investigating insider threats and foreign intelligence activity on American soil.”

The FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, which took place on August 8, 2022, came months before Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. President Trump called the raid a “travesty of justice.”

During Trump’s first term as president, CI-12 in 2020 “assisted in monitoring potential retaliatory actions by Iranian-backed actors on American soil following a U.S. drone strike near Baghdad International Airport that killed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps major general Qasem Soleimani.” Trump ordered that operation, according to former FBI officials.

Recently, Director Patel expressed outrage after learning that the FBI, under Smith’s direction, had “secretly obtained his phone records, along with those of Trump aide and current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, as part of Mr. Smith’s investigations into Mar-a-Lago as well as into January 6.”

In a statement to Reuters, Patel said: “It is outrageous and deeply alarming that the previous FBI leadership secretly subpoenaed my own phone records — along with those of now-White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight.”

Hours later, the FBI dismissed the dozen staffers and agents.

The Sun noted that those “fired were also believed to have been involved in efforts to obtain phone records of Mr. Patel and Ms. Wiles, according to reports.”

Image via Reuters