President Donald Trump says that the FBI ’may have to’ get involved in the situation.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked the FBI to intervene to help bring back state House Democrats who left Texas earlier this week to block the GOP from advancing a congressional redistricting map, prompting President Donald Trump to say that the federal government may have to get involved.
In a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday, Cornyn said he wants the bureau to “take any appropriate steps to aid in Texas state law enforcement efforts to locate or arrest potential lawbreakers who have fled the state” before referring to the Democrats who left.
Dozens of Texas state House Democrats left for other states, including Illinois and New York, this week, preventing state Republicans from doing business in the House on Monday. The remaining representatives voted to issue civil arrest warrants to the Democrats, while Gov. Greg Abbott ordered their arrest later that day.
“I request the FBI’s assistance, as federal resources are necessary to locate the out-of-state Texas legislators who are potentially acting in violation of the law,” Cornyn told Patel in the letter, adding that the FBI can help Texas state law enforcement when “parties cross state lines, including to avoid testifying or fleeing a scene of a crime.”
Cornyn, who is up for reelection in the 2026 midterms, then expressed concerns that the Democratic legislators had “solicited or accepted funds to aid in their efforts to avoid their legislative duties” and “may be guilty of bribery or other public corruption offenses.
During a news conference on Tuesday, Trump was asked about whether the FBI could get involved. “They may have to,” Trump said.
On Sunday, Abbott cited an opinion by the state’s attorney general that Texas district courts may determine whether legislators have forfeited their offices “due to abandonment,” saying that would empower him to “swiftly fill vacancies.”
But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running in the Republican primary for Cornyn’s seat, told podcast host Benny Johnson on Monday that it would be a “challenge” to prosecute the Democrats who left the state, noting that his office would have to go to court in “districts that are not friendly to Republicans.”
It would be “different” in every state House district, he said. “We’d have to go sue in every legislator’s home district.”
