Secretary Kristi Noem‘s Department of Homeland Security is facing a sweeping investigation launched by Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis, who announced that he has “serious questions” about how her agencies are operating — including how they are treating U.S. citizens — in his home state of North Carolina and in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The Hill, which reported on Tillis’ investigation, noted that his “letter does not mention the deaths of Renee Good or Alex Pretti after they were shot by immigration agents in Minneapolis, but it does ask for a sweeping data production on every ICE interaction in the field, including with U.S. citizens.”

Senator Tillis has recently called for Noem’s resignation or ouster.

“What she’s done in Minnesota should be disqualifying. She should be out of a job,” he said in late January, describing her performance as “amateurish.”

“I believe that Noem is out of her depth,” Tillis said just one day later. “She is not competent to run this organization.”

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On Wednesday, Tillis responded to a rebuke of him by President Donald Trump, who said the Senator from North Carolina was a “loser.”

“That obviously qualifies me to be the Homeland Security secretary,” he told CNBC.

In his letter to Secretary Noem, Tillis wrote that he was seeking “clarification” on “multiple public reports” from North Carolina that “allege that U.S. citizens were detained, subject to force, and experienced damage to personal property.”

“Local reporting describes, among other incidents, a U.S. citizen detained twice in a single day, with the second encounter involving agents shattering the individual’s vehicle window and forcibly removing him from the car. Other reports describe an 18-year-old U.S. citizen detained at his workplace in Cary, North Carolina, and later dropped off at a different location, where CBP agents tossed his belongings,” he wrote, asking if they “reflect substantiated incidents.”

Tillis also shared similar concerns in Minneapolis, Minnesota, “where DHS enforcement actions reportedly involved U.S. citizens, use of force, reliance on administrative warrants, and unclear predication for initial engagements.”

READ MORE: White House Scrambles to Spin Trump’s Call to ‘Nationalize’ Voting

“Taken together, these events point to a broader transparency and accountability gap in DHS interior enforcement operations that this Committee has a responsibility to address.”

Tillis’s sweeping demand calls for “all encounter-level data for DHS interior enforcement operations conducted in North Carolina and Minneapolis, including all stops, detentions, questioning, searches, releases, uses of force, property damage incidents, and encounters involving U.S. citizens,” among other items.

He noted that his “requests apply to all DHS components engaged in interior enforcement activities.”

Tillis also asked for training materials governing “obligations with respect to constitutional protections for U.S. citizens and lawful residents and describe how compliance is assessed and enforced.”

And he called for DHS policies “addressing entry into private residences based solely on administrative warrants, including how compliance with the Fourth Amendment is assessed, enforced, and reviewed in practice.”

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Image via Reuters 

Attorney George Conway, the Republican never-Trump activist turned Democratic candidate for the U.S. Congress, issued a strong call for the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump from office.

It’s the latest dire warning Conway has made in recent days.

On Monday, Conway issued a warning about President Trump and his “megalomania.”

“The way things are going in America, it should be clear we don’t have much time,” Conway wrote. “We certainly don’t have three years. We need to help ourselves by pushing for impeachment and removal as hard as we can and carrying it out as soon as humanly possible.”

“How quickly does the megalomaniac lose strength versus how quickly he destroy[s] everything around him,” he added. “The one thing you can depend on is that the megalomaniac gets more destructive and dangerous over time before he’s done.”

READ MORE: White House Scrambles to Spin Trump’s Call to ‘Nationalize’ Voting

On Tuesday, Conway wrote, “I think a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility—the most modern and secure one, because our president deserves the best—should be named after Trump. If elected to Congress, I pledge to do my best to enact this into law.”

Tuesday evening, using strong language, he vowed to work to impeach and remove Trump from office, if he wins his bid for a New York congressional seat.

“Removed — not just impeach — remove this fascist f — —,” Conway told the MeidasTouch Network.

“If you want your lives to be better and you want this country to preserve for your kids, we need to impeach and remove this fascist f — —,” he continued. “Now. As soon as possible.”

“You know, that language is tough, but that’s where we are,” Conway said. “We can’t mince words at this point.”

“We are at a crossroads,” he explained, “and if we want to have a country that survives, we need to end this tragedy that’s called Trumpism as soon as humanly possible.”

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President Donald Trump is drawing widespread attention and backlash after urging Republicans on Monday to “nationalize” elections in at least fifteen jurisdictions he deemed “crooked,” particularly because the U.S. Constitution primarily assigns election authority to the states. Now, the White House is having to defend his remarks.

Saying there are “millions and millions” of undocumented immigrants and “we have to get them out,” Trump warned that “if Republicans don’t get them out, you will never win another election as a Republican.”

He claimed that undocumented immigrants are told, “Oh, well, you can vote, you can do whatever you want.”

“It’s crazy,” he added. “I mean, it’s crazy how you can get these people to vote, and if we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election.”

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting,’ the voting in at least many, 15 places,” Trump insisted. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

The New York Times called Trump’s remarks an “escalation,” saying it was “an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters,” and noting that it followed “a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections.”

Prominent elections attorney Marc Elias said Trump’s call to nationalize elections is “one of his most explicit signals yet that he plans to interfere with the workings of democracy.”

But during a press gaggle on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Trump was referring to the SAVE Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Opponents argue many Americans do not have ready access to acceptable documents, such as a passport or birth certificate. The bill could also complicate voter registration for people who changed their names but don’t have updated citizenship documents.

Calling the SAVE Act “a huge common sense piece of legislation that Republicans have supported,” Leavitt added, “I don’t think any rational person who’s being honest with themselves would disagree with the idea of requiring citizens of this country to present an ID before casting a ballot in a federal election, or, frankly, in any election, and that’s something the president wants to see happen.”

Despite Trump’s call to “nationalize” elections and have the Republican Party oversee them, Leavitt told reporters that the president “does believe the states should oversee them. The President believes in the United States Constitution.”

“However,” she continued, “he believes there has obviously been a lot of fraud and irregularities that have taken place in American elections. And, again, voter ID is a highly popular and common sense policy that the president wants to pursue, and he wants to pass legislation to make that happen for all states across the country.”

Leavitt appeared to conflate a small number of California jurisdictions that allow non-citizens to vote in local elections, such as school board elections, with fraud.

“If you look at states like California, or if you look at New York City, for example, non-citizens are allowed to vote in elections in places like California and New York City,” she said. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in elections in New York City at all.

“That just creates a system, an electoral system that is absolutely ripe with fraud, and you cannot deny the fact that, unfortunately, there are millions of people who have questions about that, as does the president,” she continued.

Noting that it’s a “constitutional issue,” Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune said he is “not in favor” of nationalizing elections, NBC News reported.

The Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said “it’s always been the responsibility of the states to administer elections and it’s a system that works well, so long as the states make it a priority to ensure the integrity of our elections. And we have real concerns about some of the blue states, frankly, that have not been doing that well.”

There is little evidence of voter fraud across the country.

“Extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare,” the Brennan Center for Justice reported. “Yet repeated, false allegations of fraud can make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to participate in elections.”

Former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade noted of Trump’s remarks, “The Constitution delegates the power to conduct elections to the states. This would require an amendment. It would expose voter data to the risk of one hack instead of 50.”

Image via Reuters