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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is making an example of former President [Barack Obama] for encouraging voters and lawmakers to reject adopting national voter ID laws.

“You know how badly the Democrats are panicking when they bring out Obama to spread lies about voter ID,” Leavitt posted to X Thursday. “The fact is that nearly 90% of voters support” voter ID laws, she continued before posting two screenshots showing two polls reflecting that Americans support such laws at around 83% support to 84% support.

Leavitt’s comments follow the House passing a massive election integrity overhaul bill Wednesday, which includes requiring voters to show a photo ID when casting ballots in [federal elections]. The bill overall aims to prevent noncitizens from voting in U.S. federal elections, with all but one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, voting against it.

Obama was among prominent Democrats encouraging House lawmakers to vote against the measure, claiming it will disenfranchise voters.

[ROGAN DEFENDS DEMOCRATIC SENATOR WHO FACED BACKLASH FROM PARTY FOR SUPPORTING VOTER ID]

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is making an example of former President Barack Obama for encouraging voters and lawmakers to reject adopting national voter ID laws.(Graeme Sloan/Getty Images)

“Republicans are still trying to pass the SAVE Act—a bill that would make it harder to vote and disenfranchise millions of Americans,” he posted to X Wednesday evening. “Join [@RedistrictAct]and tell your member of Congress to vote no.”

Democrats have argued that voter ID laws can disenfranchise eligible voters because they often require specific, current government-issued IDs that may be a struggle to obtain due to costs, paperwork hurdles or limited DMV access. Republicans have rejected that argument, calling the requirement a common-sense safeguards that would boost confidence in elections, while simultaneously noting that most Americans already need IDs for everyday tasks.

In another post, [Leavitt] shared that Obama presented his own driver’s license to vote in the 2012 election. Obama voted early that cycle and was seen on camera pulling his Illinois driver’s license from his wallet to flash to poll workers.

[‘I VOTED’ STICKER HELPS CONVICT NON-CITIZEN WHO CAST BALLOT IN 2024 AS ELECTION SECURITY DEBATE HEATS UP]

Then-President Barack Obama jokes with election worker Marie Holmes, left, who double-checked his photo on his driver’s license as he signed in for early voting Oct. 25, 2012, at the Martin Luther King Community Center in Chicago.(Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

“Here is Barack Obama showing his photo ID to vote in a past election,” [Leavitt posted.] “Why are Democrats in Congress so opposed to making this a requirement across the country? Voter ID laws are common sense.”

White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers added that IDs are frequently used by Americans to buy alcohol or get on a plane, which she said shows the hypocrisy of Democrats pushing against the election security overhaul.

[MURKOWSKI BREAKS WITH GOP ON VOTER ID, SAYS PUSH ‘IS NOT HOW WE BUILD TRUST’]

“Barack Obama and the rest of the Democrats think Americans are stupid, which is why they are blatantly lying about the commonsense election integrity provisions in the popular SAVE Act,” Rogers told Fox News Digital.

“Americans need to show ID to buy alcohol, get on a plane, and even get into the Democratic National Convention — but these hypocrite Democrats don’t want voters to show their ID to cast a ballot. Congressional Democrats’ opposition to the SAVE America Act is indefensible and wildly out of step with the views of the American people.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Obama’s office Thursday for comment but did not immediately receive a reply.

Democrats have argued that voter ID laws can disenfranchise eligible voters because they often require specific, current government-issued IDs that may be a struggle to obtain due to costs, paperwork hurdles or limited DMV access.(Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Called the SAVE Act, the legislation would additionally require information-sharing between state election officials and federal authorities in verifying citizenship on current voter rolls, as well as enable the Department of Homeland Security to pursue immigration cases if non-citizens were found to be listed as eligible to vote.

[CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP]

If passed, the new requirement could be implemented for the November midterm elections. It must first pass the Senate before it could land on President [Donald Trump]’s desk.

Marine declared dead after falling overboard in Caribbean, first known U.S. death in “Operation Southern Spear”

February 12, 2026 / 3:45 PM EST / CBS News

Washington— A young Marine died after falling overboard from the USS Iwo Jima in the Caribbean Sea, the Marine Corps announced Thursday, the first known U.S. death in “Operation Southern Spear.”

Marine Lance Cpl. Chukwuemeka E. Oforah was 21.

Oforah, an infantry rifleman from Florida, was declared dead on Feb. 10 after a 72-hour search and rescue mission failed to find him, the Marine Corps said. He was reported as falling overboard on the evening of Feb. 7. The Marine Corps said the circumstances surrounded the incident are under investigation.

“We are all grieving alongside the Oforah family,” said Col. Tom Trimble. “The loss of Lance Cpl. Oforah is deeply felt across the entire Navy-Marine Corps team. He will be profoundly missed, and his dedicated service will not be forgotten.”

The military says the multi-branch search included five U.S. Navy ships, a rigid-hull inflatable boat, and 10 aircraft from the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

Operation Southern Spear, begun last year, is the Trump administration’s military and surveillance campaign with the stated purpose of detecting and disrupting transnational criminal maritime networks, particularly related to drug trafficking. The operation has led to scores of deaths and the sinking of at least 39 alleged drug-carrying vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

White House seeks to tighten control over HHS priorities with personnel shakeup

By Adam Cancryn
Updated 38 min ago
Updated Feb 12, 2026, 5:22 PM ET
PUBLISHED Feb 12, 2026, 4:00 PM ET

Federal agencies Donald Trump Prescription drugs Health care policy

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., speaks during the Take Back Your Health Tour event on February 4, in Nashville, Tennessee.

George Walker IV/AP/File

The White House is looking to exercise tighter control over key areas of the US Health and Human Services Department, planning a shakeup of top personnel as the administration looks ahead to the midterm elections, an administration official told CNN.

The moves are aimed at restructuring HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s senior-most ranks, installing four new senior counselors who will be charged with more closely managing the department’s daily operations and communications across the federal government.

Chris Klomp, the administration’s current Medicare head and senior adviser at HHS, will become chief counselor and the department’s de facto chief of staff, the administration official said.

John Brooks, the deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will be a senior counselor in charge of CMS-related issues. Two senior US Food and Drug Administration officials, Grace Graham and Kyle Diamantas, will take on senior counselor roles at HHS managing FDA-related issues.

Matt Buckham, the current HHS chief of staff, will move to a senior counselor role, the administration official said, adding that the changes came out of conversations between White House officials and Kennedy.

HHS confirmed the changes later Thursday, saying the hires would help accelerate the department’s agenda in their new roles, while still retaining their previous positions.

“I am proud to elevate battle-tested, principled leaders onto my immediate team — individuals with the courage and experience to help us move faster and further as we work to Make America Health Again,” Kennedy said in a statement.

Chris Klomp, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 6, 2025.

Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The White House is preparing a midterm push that will rely heavily on promoting key health policies President Donald Trump has increasingly touted as central to his domestic agenda. That includes the “most favored nation” drug pricing deals that Klomp took a lead role in negotiating and recent efforts to spotlight healthier eating that Trump aides view as appealing to a broad spectrum of voters.

Trump officials are also planning to step up their case for broader health care legislation aimed at codifying the administration’s most favored nation deals and advancing a slate of other policies aimed at lowering health care costs, the administration official said. That effort would require more muscle in HHS’ senior ranks, they added.

Klomp, who has played a central role in negotiating and promoting the drug price deals that Trump has touted as a top accomplishment, has drawn praise at HHS and among top Trump aides for his management expertise and public messaging skills.

The moves also represent an effort to keep closer tabs on Kennedy and an HHS leadership that has struggled at times to coordinate with its own agencies and the White House, frustrating senior Trump officials and generating dayslong controversies.

Kennedy last year ousted his first chief of staff, Heather Flick Melanson, and a top deputy, Hannah Anderson, after just months on the job following a series of internal clashes. The department was also roiled last year by the abrupt firing — and then rehiring — of top FDA official Dr. Vinay Prasad, who has since made a series of controversial drug approval decisions that have overruled career staff and angered the drug industry.

In the meantime, Kennedy has also pressed ahead on a major overhaul of the nation’s vaccine system — a top priority for the longtime vaccine skeptic that has raised concerns among Republicans that it could damage the party politically ahead of the midterms.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

Federal agencies Donald Trump Prescription drugs Health care policy

One marriage, two campaigns: Iowa spouses launch dual campaigns for legislature

February 12, 2026 / 4:18 PM EST / CBS News

On a February evening in Iowa, the dining room table at the home of Spencer and Sinikka Waugh is buried under notebooks, campaign maps, yard signs — some with his name and some with hers.

Married since 1998, the two are both running for office in Iowa — Spencer for the state House and Sinikka for state Senate.

Their story didn’t begin as a coordinated political plan. Spencer, an associate dean at Simpson College, had run in the last election and lost by 17 points. When he announced early last year that he planned to run again, Sinikka’s first reaction was blunt. “I looked at him, I said, ‘Why?’” What followed were conversations about “the work and the care that we have for the community and the service that we can do along the way.” As she listened, Sinikka, a small business owner, began thinking about her own role. “How could I use my gifts and my skills and my talents to support him best in the campaign?”

At first, she did so in familiar ways: She stood by his side when he kicked off his campaign. She knocked on doors and showed up at events. Then, at one campaign gathering, someone in the crowd said, “You know, the Senate seat is open.” It happened again at another event.

Undated: Spencer and Sinikka Waugh, both Democrats, are running for office in Iowa. Spencer is running for a seat in the state House, while Sinikka is state Senate candidate. Photo provided by the Waughs

The moment Sinikka decided to take up the challenge still makes them laugh. “What if I really ran?” she asked one day in late December. “[Spencer] runs downstairs and he comes back like two seconds later,” she recalls. In his hands was a printed map. “This is the Senate district map. Take a look at this.” When she asked why he already had it, he told her, “I printed it a few weeks ago. Because I could tell.”

Politics, it turns out, fits neatly into the rhythm of the Waughs’ long marriage. The campaigns operate separately, but the boundaries blur. “We share the dining room table,” Sinikka said, “We have to alternate the time when we’re working sometimes.”

Asked why he chose to run for the state House again, Spencer joked, “We already had the yard signs.” After the 2024 race, a volunteer collected the 500 signs, and Spencer wiped them clean, to get them ready to be used again.

He’s not making any predictions about how this race will go, but he says it already feels different. “People care about their community. They care about education. They care about clean water,” he said, contrasting this election with the last one. Sinikka agrees. “The energy is changing,” she said.

Reactions to their joint candidacies have ranged from positive to incredulous. Sinikka laughed, recalling a friend told her, “You people are crazy!” One of their children initially misunderstood what it meant that both would be running, and thought that Mom was running against Dad. But Spencer says people have been “overwhelmingly positive, overall.”

They are realistic about the odds. “There’s four possible outcomes,” Sinikka said. She does not linger on which outcome matters most. “Right now, we’re focused on the journey,” she said. “What kind of good we can do, how we can serve, how we can educate?”

If they both win, someone suggested they could commute together to the Capitol. “Absolutely not!” Spencer replied. “We have a different relationship to time,” Sinikka laughs.

If only one of them were to win, Sinikka says “that’s okay.” Nearly 28 years into their marriage, love looks less like certainty and more like shared work. The dining room table will eventually be cleared. Yard signs will come down. Maps will be folded and put away. However the election turns out, the commitment remains. For now, Spencer says, “We’re focused on the journey.”

US energy secretary describes ‘tremendous’ cooperation with Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez | CNN Politics

By Blake McGill, CNN
Published 3:58 PM EST, Thu February 12, 2026

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US energy secretary Chris Wright joins CNN’s Boris Sanchez live from Venezuela where Wright and Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez toured an oil facility in the Venezuelan state of Anzoátegui. Wright is the highest-ranking US official to visit Venezuela in almost three decades.

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US judge blocks Pentagon’s effort to punish Senator Mark Kelly

February 12, 2026 5:26 PM UTC / Reuters / By Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge blocked the Pentagon on Thursday from reducing Senator Mark Kelly’s retired military rank and pension pay because he urged troops to reject unlawful orders.

The preliminary ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington is the latest setback in court for President Donald Trump’s historic campaign of vengeance against his perceived political enemies, which has drawn pushback from judges across the ideological spectrum.

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Kelly, a retired Navy captain and former astronaut who represents Arizona in the U.S. Senate, was one of six congressional Democrats who appeared in a November video that reminded service members of their duty to reject unlawful orders. In the clip, Kelly stated: “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders.”

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Leon, appointed by then-U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002, in his ruling said “the speech at issue here is unquestionably protected speech,” describing the move to punish Kelly as a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

Kelly brought a lawsuit against the Trump administration to halt the censure.

“There is nothing ‘routine’ about defendants’ actions here: punishing a sitting U.S. Senator for his views on military policy,” Leon wrote. “It is a particularly valuable asset for our country to have retired veterans contributing to public discussion on military matters and policy.”

Kelly applauded the ruling, saying in a statement that “a federal court made clear that (U.S. Defense Secretary) Pete Hegseth violated the constitution when he tried to punish me for something I said.”

A White House spokesperson said the court’s ruling would not be the final say on the matter and that “Hegseth rightfully directed a review to determine future actions as a result of these dangerous comments by Senator Kelly”.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

Kelly made his remarks in November as more Democrats were criticizing Trump’s decisions to deploy the National Guard in U.S. cities and authorize lethal strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs from Latin America.

The Republican president, in a social media post, called the video “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.”

Hegseth issued a censure letter on January 5, asserting that Kelly had “clearly intended to undermine good order and military discipline” in violation of military rules that apply to both active and retired personnel.

Trump administration lawyers had urged the judge to dismiss Kelly’s lawsuit, calling it a “quintessential matter of military discipline not within the Judiciary’s purview” in a recent court filing.

The Trump administration also called the lawsuit premature, saying Kelly has not yet been formally censured and should have responded to Hegseth’s allegations through administrative channels.

Reporting By Jan Wolfe and Mike Scarcella; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Nia Williams

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Wall Street regulator to restore some jobs after cuts, chair says

February 12, 2026 5:37 PM UTC / Reuters / By Douglas Gillison

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Paul Atkins, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), delivers remarks at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., December 2, 2025. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s top regulator is working to restore some of its workforce following last year’s deep cuts at the behest of the White House, the agency’s chief told Congress on Thursday.

“We have gaps in different divisions, so we will fill that,” Paul Atkins, chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said during Senate testimony.

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He also rejected charges by Democratic lawmakers that the agency had dropped enforcement actions against crypto companies and entrepreneurs with ties to President Donald Trump.

After taking office last year, Trump called for “large-scale” workforce cuts across the federal government as part of the Department of Government Efficiency initiative with former adviser Elon Musk. The SEC offered several rounds of buyouts, resulting in a staff exodus that, as of a year ago, had depleted some key agency components by nearly 20%, causing critics to say this could hamper the SEC’s ability to police markets and respond to crises.

“A lot of these people left voluntarily or through buyouts before I arrived at the SEC, so I’m looking at our numbers of employees, and I think we have a very good group of people in enforcement,” Atkins said.

SEC HAS OFFERED MORE VOLUNTARY REDUCTIONS

Before Atkins arrived at the agency, the SEC argued to the White House that the voluntary cuts lessened the need for dismissing staff en masse, as the administration had done at other agencies, according to a memo obtained by Reuters.

The agency since then has offered more voluntary workforce reductions and the Trump administration has placed limits on agencies’ ability to rehire after staffing cuts.

Democrats and other critics have accused the SEC of dropping enforcement actions as a political favor to crypto companies that have made political donations favoring Trump, himself an entrepreneur in the industry.

Atkins briefly acknowledged the SEC’s actions could be limited in cases in which the president had granted pardons.

“If the president has pardoned someone or given clemency, then it becomes very difficult,” he said.

He rejected accusations of undue political influence, adding that the decision to drop cases had been made by the agency’s acting chair before Atkins’ swearing-in and mostly concerned matters of failing to register securities with the commission, which he said policymakers viewed as “regulation through enforcement.”

Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington Editing by Rod Nickel.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

It was a top issue at the ballot box in 2024 that boosted President Donald Trump and Republicans to sweeping victories.

But in the wake of new political backlash over Trump’s unprecedented illegal immigration crackdown, the latest polling on the issue raises warning signs for Republicans and suggests immigration may come back to take a bite out of the GOP in this year’s midterm elections, as the party defends its slim House and Senate majorities.

National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina told Fox News Digital that when it comes to the issue of immigration, “I think it’s going to be very helpful for us going into the election.”

But new polling — conducted before Thursday’s announcement that the Trump administration was winding down the massive deployment earlier this year of masked federal immigration agents in Minnesota, but after last month’s fatal shootings by those agents of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — suggests otherwise.

SIGNIFICANT DRAWDOWN: BORDER CZAR MAKES MAJOR IMMIGRATION ANNOUNCEMENT

President Donald Trump’s administration deployed a couple of thousand federal agents to Minnesota earlier this year as part of an operation to crack down on illegal immigration.(Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

The president’s approval on immigration stands at 38% in an AP-NORC poll conducted Feb. 5-8. That’s a drop from 49% last March, just over a month into the president’s second term in the White House.

A similar 38% gave the president a thumbs up on immigration in the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, which was in the field Jan. 29-Feb. 2. That’s down from 44% in mid-December.

WHAT THE LATEST FOX NEWS NATIONAL POLLING SHOWS

And Trump stood at 40% approval in the latest NBC News Decision Desk poll, a drop from 49% last April. The survey questioned respondents from Jan. 27-Feb. 6.

And the most recent Fox News national poll, conducted Jan. 23–26, indicated the president’s approval on handling border security at 52%-47%, but his approval on immigration underwater at 45%-55%.

Anti-ICE protesters gathered in Minnesota on Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026.(AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

A common theme in all these polls: while Republicans continue to strongly support the president and their party on immigration, independents are joining Democrats in strongly disapproving.

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it was unwinding its immigration operation in Minnesota, amid ongoing protests and continued opposition from top Democrats in the blue-leaning state.

“A significant drawdown has already been underway this week, and will continue to the next week,” border czar Tom Homan said.

But he added that “as a result of our efforts here, Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals.”

MORE THAN HALF SAY HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY KRISTI NOEM NEEDS TO GO: POLL

Pointing to Trump’s swift actions a year ago, veteran Republican strategist Colin Reed noted that “shutting down the southern border was such a major accomplishment and achieved so quickly and effectively that many voters have forgotten just how bad things got under the Biden Administration.”

“It’s an issue that resonated powerfully across the political spectrum, and one that should and can be a political tailwind heading into November,” he added.

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But Reed highlighted that “regardless of the cause, the recent events in Minnesota were not helpful to the White House or Republican brand, and they were wise to change course and bring down the temperature.”

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has highlighted the president’s sagging approval ratings on immigration and polls showing rising disenchantment with the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

DNC chair Ken Martin, in a statement Thursday to Fox News Digital, charged that the Trump administration had created “political theater, flooding communities with masked agents and creating a culture of fear where Americans across the country and across the political spectrum are afraid to go to the grocery store or to pick up their kids at school.”

“Americans don’t support what ICE is doing, and the DNC will continue to hold this administration accountable, highlighting these horrendous assaults by ICE and marching towards the midterms to put a check on the abuses of this administration,” Martin emphasized.

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But Hudson is taking aim at what he calls a false narrative from the mainstream media.

“There’s a whole lot of that coming out of the mainstream media right now, and it’s just not true,” he told Fox News Digital. “People are going to feel more secure at home because of these efforts. President Trump’s doing the right thing.”

The new AP/NORC poll indicates Republicans with a slight edge over Democrats on the immigration issue.

Asked if immigration will still be a winning issue in the midterms, the House GOP campaign chief said: “It’s a promise made, a promise kept, that we are getting these dangerous criminals out of your neighborhood.”

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in the swing state of New Hampshire. He covers the campaign trail from coast to coast.

Texas airport shutdown shows troubling FAA-Pentagon disconnect, senators say

February 12, 2026 3:40 PM UTC / Reuters

By David Shepardson and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) – U.S. senators on Thursday criticized the brief shutdown of El Paso airport over safety concerns around the use of a military laser-based anti-drone system, saying at a hearing that the incident exposed an unacceptable lack of coordination between the Federal Aviation Administration and the Pentagon.

Air travelers in Texas were stranded and medical evacuation flights were disrupted late on Tuesday, the FAA abruptly said it was shutting down the airport for 10 days, an unprecedented action involving a single airport. After about eight hours, the agency reversed course and lifted the shutdown early on Wednesday.

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The sudden closure of the airport, which serves 4 million passengers a year, caused mass confusion. Officials from different agencies have offered varying and sometimes conflicting accounts of the circumstances that led to it.

“We have a real problem of coordination between DOD and FAA, so we need to resolve that,” Senator Maria Cantwell, top Democrat on the Commerce Committee, said at the hearing, originally scheduled to probe the January 2025 Washington, D.C., collision between a passenger jet and a U.S. Army helicopter that killed 67 people.

Government and airline officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FAA closed the airspace due to concerns that the Army counter-drone system could pose risks to commercial air traffic.

The FAA told the Pentagon late Tuesday it would move forward with closing the airport for 10 days unless defense officials agreed to delay testing of the military system. FAA officials said a required safety analysis had not been completed.

Three U.S. military officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection had been using the technology without issues before Tuesday’s shutdown and expressed confusion as to why the shutdown was deemed necessary.

The Pentagon has not publicly given a detailed explanation of what happened.

‘THIS CAN’T HAPPEN AGAIN’

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who oversees the FAA, said the closure had been prompted by a drone incursion by a Mexican drug cartel.

However, a drone sighting near an airport would typically lead to a brief pause on traffic, not an extended closure. The Pentagon says there are more than 1,000 such incidents each month along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Senator Ben Ray Lujan, a New Mexico Democrat, said on Thursday that the failure by President Donald Trump’s administration to answer questions about what happened was unacceptable.

“They said they were going to shut down air traffic for 10 days without calling the White House, without calling the Department of Defense,” Lujan said at the hearing. “We need people to coordinate… That can’t happen again.”

Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas who chairs the Commerce Committee, said he wants a classified briefing to understand what happened that could occur as soon as later Thursday.

Last month, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded that systemic FAA failures led to the deadly 2025 accident. The NTSB recommended dozens of changes at both the FAA and the Army.

NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy told the committee that the Army and FAA had failed to properly work together going back years before the fatal crash.

“I will say there has been miscommunication, or no communication, between at least the Army and FAA for years now,” she said.

Reporting by David Shepardson and Idrees Ali in Washington Editing by Scott Malone, Rod Nickel and David Gregorio

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Trump UN aviation ambassador nominee Jeffrey Anderson faces tax scrutiny | Fox News

Retired Delta captain’s confirmation has dragged since July 2025

By Emma Colton
Fox News

Published February 12, 2026 1:26pm EST

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President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) office focused on aviation is facing heightened scrutiny for hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes that were not disclosed in official ethics documents obtained by Fox News Digital.

Jeffrey Anderson, a retired Delta Air Lines captain and U.S. Navy veteran, was nominated to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization in July 2025. The International Civil Aviation Organization is a U.N. office based in Canada that is charged with overseeing international aviation standards, including issues related to safety, navigation and environmental protection.

The administration has backed him as “highly qualified” for the role and a “great choice to represent the President’s America First foreign policy agenda in the international aviation community,” in a statement to Fox News Digital in 2025 as his tax issues and past support of Democrats came to light.

The role is a Senate-confirmed post, with Anderson’s nomination sitting before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

TRUMP PICK FOR UN AVIATION OFFICE HAS LONG HISTORY DONATING TO DEMS, NIKKI HALEY

Now, Anderson has signed his ethics agreement and disclosure forms, but mentions of the now-paid off liens are not included, Fox News Digital found.

Fox News Digital obtained Anderson’s IRS Certificates of Release of Federal Tax Lien that show he and his wife had multiple federal tax liens stemming from tax years 2013–2019, with unpaid assessed balances totaling approximately $426,000. The liens were related to “small business/self employed” taxes, according to the documents.

A federal tax lien is “the government’s legal claim against your property when you neglect or fail to pay a tax debt,” according to the IRS.

The liens, filed in two Georgia counties, were not released until October 2025 after payment was fulfilled. One IRS Certificate of Release of Federal Tax Lien shows liens tied to the 2012–2018 tax years totaling $354,791.63 and later released on Oct. 15, 2025, according to the documents obtained by Fox Digital. A second release shows a lien tied to tax year 2019 totaling $71,313.11 and released Oct. 29, 2025.

Anderson’s Public Financial Disclosure Report, called OGE Form 278e, however, only lists a single mortgage in the liabilities section — not any disclosures of federal tax liens or IRS liability, according to the documents obtained by Fox News Digital. The OGE Form 278e does detail boilerplate and detailed information on Anderson’s assets, past employment and income.

The Office of Government Ethics’ guidance for OGE Form 278e instructs filers to report liabilities over $10,000 owed at any time during the reporting period.

Anderson signed the OGE Form on Aug. 14, 2025, according to the document obtained by Fox News Digital.

Anderson’s OGE Form 278e and a separate ethics document sent by Anderson to the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser were added to the Office of Government Ethics’ system tracking financial and ethics disclosures Sept. 21, 2025, Fox News Digital found.

Fox News Digital repeatedly reached out to the State Department, specifically inquiring why Anderson did not disclose the liens on the liabilities section of the OGE 278e, if he filed an amended financial disclosure to add any IRS liability or lien after the initial filing, and when the administration was first notified of the liens.

The ICAO ambassador operates under the authority of the secretary of state when confirmed.

“We support the president’s nominee and look forward to having him confirmed,” a State Department spokesperson told Fox Digital of Anderson Wednesday.

A review of other nominees listed on the OGE disclosure database shows individuals have amended their ethics disclosures amid the vetting process. Anderson’s file does not reflect any public amendments to his initial disclosures.

Public financial disclosure is a core piece of the nomination vetting process. Federal ethics rules and guidance generally require nominees to disclose major outstanding liabilities during the reporting period.

Nominees for Senate-confirmed ambassador posts typically are cleared through a multistep White House process that can include FBI background checks and federal ethics review of financial disclosures, with the State Department helping compile and process the nomination package before it is formally sent to the Senate.

“Everyone has setbacks. That’s not the problem,” a former Trump official told Fox Digital about the matter. “The problem is lying to Congress and misleading President Trump. Jeffrey Anderson stiffed the IRS for more than $426,000, carried federal tax liens for years, then tried to slip through Senate confirmation by hiding them on a sworn disclosure. Federal tax liens aren’t optional, and they don’t magically disappear.”

The former official added that most “Americans don’t just come up with half a million dollars to make a scandal vanish,” while arguing “Anderson’s record of donating to anti-Trump politicians” tees up a nomination that will collapse on itself.

TRUMP NOMINATES SEASONED MILITARY LEADERS TO HEAD VITAL GLOBAL COMMANDS

ICAO ROLE HAS GONE UNFILLED FOR YEARS

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Anderson’s nomination to serve in the office follows years of it sitting dormant of U.S. leadership. The role was last filled by former ambassador, famed pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who stepped down in 2022.

Sullenberger gained widespread applause in 2009, when the US Airways pilot landed Flight 1549 on the Hudson River after a bird strike disabled both engines and saved 155 people — an event known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.”

Anderson’s nomination has been dragging since July 2025, with it returned to the president on Jan. 3, 2026 under Senate Rule XXXI, a technical rule, and Trump resending Anderson’s nomination to the Senate days later.

Anderson’s nomination has received pushback from the Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents nearly 80,000 pilots across the U.S. and Canada, arguing his “only” qualification was supporting an effort to raise the mandatory pilot retirement age.

The union opposes increasing the mandatory retirement from 65 years of age to age 67, arguing it “would leave the United States as an outlier in the global aviation space and create chaos on pilot labor, and international and domestic flight operations,” the group’s statement in July 2025 read.

International aviation rules prohibit airline pilots older than 65 from flying. Some global airline groups have called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to consider raising the international pilot retirement age to 67, citing staffing pressure and that retaining veteran pilots would only bolster airline safety.

Anderson also has had close financial ties to Democrats and other politicians frequently hostile toward Trump and his policies, Fox News Digital previously reported.

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“Jeffrey Anderson isn’t a Trump Republican at all; he’s a liberal sleeper who slipped through the cracks of PPO (Presidential Personnel Office),” a former Trump official told Fox Digital of Anderson’s political donations and tax history in August 2025.

Anderson made a handful of small-dollar donations to Republican Nikki Haley during the 2024 campaign cycle, when the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. ran against Trump, whom she slammed as “unhinged” while on the campaign trail before dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump as the GOP nominee for president.

The former pilot also donated to the former Democratic opponent who tried to unseat then-Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in the 2024 cycle, according to donation filings previously reported by Fox News Digital. Anderson’s political donations to Democrats stretch back years, including in 2017 when he donated to Democrats, such as former House candidate Dan Ward in Virginia and former Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon.

Texas Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, who serves as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation, told Fox Digital in August 2025 that Anderson will help usher in “the Golden Age of aviation” if confirmed.

“Mr. Anderson served as a naval aviator and has more than three decades of experience as a pilot for Delta,” Nehls said in August. “He is, without a doubt, qualified to represent the United States of America at ICAO, where his first-hand experience with the aviation industry will play a crucial role in advancing President Trump’s mission of ushering in the Golden Age of aviation.”

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“I am fully supportive of President Trump and his America First agenda. I have been fully vetted by the White House and appreciate the approval of the President, House Aviation Chair Troy Nehls and House T&I Chair Sam Graves, among others. I look forward to advancing American interests as the next Permanent Representative to ICAO,” Anderson wrote in a direct message on LinkedIn to Fox Digital in August 2025, while adding that Trump is seeking to “move effectively forward in a space negligently left vacant by Biden.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on the timeline of disclosure but did not receive a reply.

Fox New Digital reached out to Anderson for comment on the timeline of the tax liens and ethics filings but did not receive a reply.