The former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agent who inspired the hit film ‘Sound of Freedom’ said Friday he is ‘very seriously considering’ a run for the U.S. Senate in his home state of Utah to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney.

Tim Ballard made the announcement during an appearance on the digital show of former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer, where he said he had been approached by numerous ‘influential people’ for weeks about a potential run before Romney announced Wednesday he would not be running for re-election.

‘Since Sound of Freedom took out any opportunity for me to ever be an operator again — those days are done … They know my face. But starting several weeks ago, I’ve been asked by a lot of very influential people, names you would even know, asking me to throw in,’ Ballard said.

Spicer noted Ballard lived in Utah, which the former admitted was the very seat he was asked to look at running for.

‘I was very seriously considering it then. And now, I’ll be honest, even mores very, very seriously considering,’ Ballard said.

When asked what would get him into the race, Ballard said his ‘wife and prayer.’

‘So she says yes when you go home, you’re in?’ Spicer asked.

‘That’s how it’s always worked in the past. So even before Senator Romney announced his retirement, a lot of things were building up to this consideration. I was with the president of Honduras last week, and the president of Guatemala last week, and I was just listening to them in their plight, in their tears, over the plight of their people because of our border policies,’ Ballard said. 

‘We’re talking about millions of people being affected by forms of slavery because of the wind that our policies put into the sails of child traffickers. And I thought, there has to be something done — more done — at the federal level. So it just kept building and building and building. At the same time that’s happening I’m getting phone calls from people,’ he said. 

He added that confirmation Romney would not be running again took his consideration to the next level.

Special counsel Jack Smith have requested a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to impose a ‘narrowly tailored’ order restricting former President Donald Trump from making public statements that could ‘present a serious and substantial danger of material prejudicing this case.’

In a filing, Smith’s office accused Trump of engaging in a sweeping campaign of disinformation and harassment intended to intimidate prosecutors and undermine public confidence in the judicial system during his prosecution. 

‘In service of his criminal conspiracies, through false public statements, the defendant sought to erode public faith in the administration of the election and intimidate individuals who refuted his lies,’ the filing said.

‘The defendant is now attempting to do the same thing in this criminal case — to undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and prejudice the jury pool through disparaging and inflammatory attacks on the citizens of this District, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses,’ the filing said.

If approved by Judge Tanya Chutkan, the ‘well-defined restriction’ would prohibit Trump from making statements regarding the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses.

Trump has pleaded ‘not guilty’ in federal courts to all four federal charges stemming from Smith’s investigation into 2020 election interference and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. 

The 2024 GOP front-runner is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

Border Patrol agents in San Diego are releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants onto city streets as it struggles to deal with a surge of migrants into the area – just after similar releases had started in Arizona.

Video out of San Diego shows hundreds of migrants being released from buses, with migrants from China and Pakistan onto the streets. A conversation in the video shows a migrant speaking to a Border Patrol agent, who tells him he can do whatever he wants now.

‘You’re free to go on and do wherever you want. You’re free,’ the agent says.

‘It’s no problem if I go to Chicago?’ the migrant asks.

‘You can do whatever you want,’ the agent says.

This is after releases have been taking place in Arizona in the Tucson Sector for days as agents have been facing 2,000 encounters a day and images have emerged of packed shelters in places like Ajo.

Meanwhile, Texas is continuing to use razor wire to block migrants trying to enter illegally, as it fends off a challenge from the Biden administration seeking to stop it from building a buoy barrier in the Rio Grande. 

The border as a whole has seen multiple days this week of over 7,000 illegal crossings, and when combined with migrants who have come to the ports of entry, that number rises to over 9,000.

Sources told Fox News this week that early indications show migrant encounters for August on track to exceed 230,000, making it the sixth month this fiscal year over 200,000. Fox has reported on how Border Patrol leadership is setting ‘bookout’ targets to more quickly process migrants either into the interior or into deportation or removal.

It marks the latest difficult month for overwhelmed agents at the border, who are now in the third year of a migrant crisis which has affected not only border communities but also those deeper within the U.S. 

Both New York City and Chicago have been sounding the alarm about their troubles with coping with the number of migrants that have come their way — either by themselves or with the assistance of Texas, which has run a bussing program to ‘sanctuary’ cities. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently warned that the crisis threatens to ‘destroy’ the city, as it copes with over 110,000 migrant arrivals since last year. 

Republicans in Congress are pushing for a border security to be passed in the Senate, having already passed the House. But that has shown little chance of receiving Democratic support, while a Democratic reform bill has been rejected by Republicans for the inclusion of an amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

FIRST ON FOX: A senior ethics attorney for President Biden donated to the campaign of a Virginia Democrat facing heat after livestreaming sex acts with her husband online, Fox News Digital has discovered.

According to a Fox News Digital review of state campaign finance records, Jeanne Duross, senior ethics counsel in the White House’s Presidential Personnel Office, donated $1,000 to Democrat Susanna Gibson’s campaign on Oct. 30, 2022. 

The Presidential Personnel Office helps ‘President Biden recruit, vet, and nominate thousands of highly qualified appointees who work to advance the Biden-Harris agenda in federal agencies across the U.S. government,’ the White House’s website states.

Gibson, a 40-year-old nurse practitioner and mother of two, has been in the middle of the firestorm after The Washington Post revealed Monday that she used a platform called Chaturbate to stream the sex acts with her husband and solicited ‘tips’ from viewers for performing specific actions that would go to a ‘good cause.’ 

The embattled Democrat posted over a dozen videos in September 2022 after officially entering the race in suburban Richmond for the House of Delegates in the 57th district.

Liberal advocacy groups such as Emily’s List, which pushes for Democratic female candidates, defended Gibson following the exposé. 

‘Susanna originally ran for office because of the overturning of Roe and she’s been very outspoken on standing up for reproductive rights,’ Emily’s List spokesperson Lauren Chou told The Associated Press. ‘People are coming out in support of Susanna because they know that Republicans are coming after her because she was standing up for them.’

Gibson has also said reports of her publicly streamed online activities were ‘an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me.’

‘My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up,’ she told CNN in a statement on Tuesday.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Duross’ donation to Gibson’s campaign.  

Fox News Digital’s Peter Hasson and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed the possibility of President Biden pardoning his son, Hunter, for the first time since the latter was indicted on federal charges for making false statements and unlawfully possessing a firearm.

‘Will the president pardon or commute his son if he is convicted?’ one reporter asked Jean-Pierre during Friday’s daily White House press briefing.

‘So I’ve answered this question before. It was asked of me not too long ago — a couple of weeks ago — and I was very clear, and I said no,’ Jean-Pierre responded.

Her answer was unchanged from the one she gave in July following Hunter’s first appearance at a Delaware federal court where the president’s sonded not guilty to tax charges pl. Jean-Pierre simply said ‘no’ when asked if the president would pardon his son if convicted.

Biden was indicted Thursday on federal gun charges out of Special Counsel David Weiss’ investigation. 

He was specifically charged with making a false statement in the purchase of a firearm; making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a federal firearms licensed dealer; and one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. 

These are the first charges Weiss has brought against the first son since being granted special counsel status. 

The charges come after an original plea agreement collapsed during Hunter’s July court appearance, when he was expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax as part of a plea deal to avoid jail time on the felony gun charge.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The Biden administration has unveiled new regulations expanding the authority of states and tribes to deny certification for various infrastructure activities including fossil fuel pipelines that may impact water sources.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the final rule in a move applauded by a wide range of Democratic governors who said it would strengthen their ability to protect the environment and weigh in on key federal permits. According to the EPA, the rule realigns the scope of a provision in the Clean Water Act of 1972, Section 401, which prohibits projects that result in any discharge into waters from being approved.

‘The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to supporting economically secure, healthy, and sustainable communities,’ EPA Administrator Michael Regan said Thursday in a statement.

‘To achieve this goal, we must protect our water resources while also making investments that move our nation forward,’ he continued. ‘With EPA’s final Clean Water Act Section 401 rule, we are affirming the authority of states, territories, and Tribes to protect precious water resources while advancing federally permitted projects in a transparent, timely, and predictable way.’

States for years had previously used authority under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act to reject fossil fuel projects in their jurisdiction. For example, New York rejected permits for a natural gas pipeline in 2018 and, one year later, Oregon rejected certification for a natural gas export facility. 

However, former President Donald Trump issued an energy security and infrastructure executive order in 2019 that ordered the EPA to restrict states’ authority under the Clean Water Act.

The EPA then finalized regulations in 2020 rolling back how much states could intervene in federal permitting for activities potentially impacting water sources, a move that was ultimately challenged by Democratic-led states in federal court. The EPA’s regulations this week reverse the Trump administration’s actions.

‘EPA’s action will better protect New Mexico’s water quality at a time when federal and state protections are needed most,’ Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said after the Biden administration announcement. ‘New Mexico must do all it can to protect our most precious resource — our water.’

‘As Attorney General, I stood up to efforts to undermine this and now, as Governor, I’m grateful to see it restored,’ Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey added. ‘Massachusetts thanks the U.S. EPA for strengthening the partnership envisioned by the Clean Water Act with today’s rule, helping us fulfill our commitment to protecting waterways across Massachusetts.’

The Environmental Council of States, a nonprofit that works with state environmental agencies to push green policies, also endorsed the EPA’s action.

FIRST ON FOX: House Democrats appear to be behind another Biden-Harris ticket, even as President Biden is being discouraged against running by some on the left.

Fox News Digital asked Democratic House lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday if they think Biden should continue his quest for a second term following Washington Post columnist David Ignatius’ latest piece calling on the president to drop out of the race.

Ignatius cited the president’s age as a major factor in his opinion on another Biden candidacy.

Most of the House Democrats — save Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota — emphatically told Fox News Digital they were behind Biden for president.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Penn., told Fox News Digital she ‘absolutely’ believes Biden should run again and that the president ‘has done a great job.’

‘Go Joe Biden and Joe should run for re-election,’ said freshman Democrat Rep. Jonathan Jackson of Illinois.

Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Seth Moulton said Biden ‘is running’ and has ‘an incredible record.’

When asked if Biden’s age could be an issue in the next election, Moulton said that ‘is up for the American people to decide.’

Democrat Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz also told Fox News Digital that she was behind the Biden-Harris ticket.

Phillips — who has been outspoken on new blue blood entering the 2024 race — told Fox News Digital that what Ignatius wrote in his column ‘is on the minds of many.’

‘I think what it says about the Democratic Party is that there’s space and place for different opinions, there’s space and place to debate and deliberate what’s in both our party’s best interest and the country’s best interest,’ Phillips said.

The Minnesota Democrat said that he’s ‘never said anything about the president other than he’s a man of compassion’ and ‘a man of competence.’

Phillips said that he believes Biden ‘has done a darn good job’ in his first term in office and added that ‘competition is always healthy in politics.’

Some Democrats did not answer the question, including Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Greg Casar of Texas, and Don Davis of North Carolina.

The lawmaker’s comments come as Democrats from across the political spectrum are expressing hesitancy toward accepting that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris represent the best chance for a Democratic presidential ticket to win in 2024.

This week, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refused to say she believes Harris is Biden’s best running mate in 2024. 

‘He [Biden] thinks so,’ Pelosi said. ‘And that’s what matters.’ 

Pelosi added her name to a growing list of politicians and pundits on the left who have publicly expressed concerns over Biden’s age, his many gaffes, and Harris’ cratered favorability rating.

‘I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for re-election,’ Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, a favorite scribe of the liberal establishment, wrote on Tuesday, pointing to the fact that Biden would be 82 at the start of a second term. 

‘It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping [former President] Trump.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed reporting.

FIRST ON FOX: A group of 30 House Republicans is demanding to know what the Department of Justice (DOJ) is doing to combat the emergence of AI-generated child pornography on the internet.

‘We write to you with grave concern regarding increasing reports of artificial intelligence (AI) being used to generate child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) which are shared across the internet,’ Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., wrote in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

‘While recognizing the benefits of appropriate uses of AI, including medical research, cybersecurity defense, streamlining public transit, and may other applications, we believe action must be taken to prevent individuals from using AI to generate CSAM.’

They’re asking Garland about whether his department has ‘the necessary authority’ to crack down on the growing issue and whether ‘gaps in the current criminal code’ make it harder for law enforcement officials to pursue those who create and possess AI-generated CSAM. The lawmakers are also asking the DOJ to launch an internal inquiry into the troubling material.

‘The first reports of AI being used to exploit children for the purpose of generating CSAM surfaced in 2019, when it was revealed that AI could generate obscene, personalized images of minors under the age of 18,’ they said.

The lawmakers cited an October 2020 report by the MIT Technology Review that warned of an AI app that was being used to digitally ‘undress’ images of women, predominantly underaged girls.

But AI technology has only grown more widespread and sophisticated since then, with diffusion model apps like Midjourney and DALL-E making it easy for most online users to generate fake images or alter existing ones. Midjourney has banned words related to human anatomy from prompts in an effort to prevent creation of AI-generated pornography.

The Washington Post reported in June that using the AI technology to create CSAM of children who do not exist still violated child pornography laws, according to DOJ officials, but did not mention specific incidents of someone being charged for possession of such items.

‘This report is deeply concerning, and we seek to understand what steps can be taken to address this perverted application of AI,’ the lawmakers’ letter said.

In addition to Good, the letter is also signed by Reps. Ken Buck, R-Colo.; Ben Cline, R-Va.; Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.; and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., among others.

Earlier this year, the attorneys general of all 50 states wrote to Congress urging it to expand current rules on child pornography to cover AI and set up ‘an expert commission to study the means and methods of AI that can be used to exploit children specifically.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ for comment.

An official with the Republican National Committee (RNC) confirmed Thursday that the third GOP presidential debate will be held in Miami, Florida, in early November.

The news comes following speculation the next debate would be held at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, however the RNC official confirmed to Fox News Digital that would not be the case.

According to CNN, who first reported the location, NBC News and Salem Media are in talks to host the debate, people familiar with the matter told the outlet.

The first Republican debate was hosted by Fox News and held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Aug. 23 with eight candidates in attendance. Former President Donald Trump, the front-runner in the race, did not attend.

The second Republican debate will be hosted by Fox Business and Univision, and will be held in Simi Valley California at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Sep. 27 from 9 to 11 p.m. ET.

So far, six candidates have qualified for the debate, including:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantisEntrepreneur Vivek RamaswamyFormer South Carolina Gov. Nikki HaleyFormer Vice President Mike PenceSouth Carolina Sen. Tim ScottFormer New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

Trump has met each of the requirements to participate, except for signing the pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee should it be a different candidate.

The RNC has not yet announced the requirements to qualify for the Miami debate.

Fox News’ Kyle Morris contributed to this report.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham says state Republicans are fundraising off her back amid her controversial gun order in the state’s capital that has riled the GOP, members of her own party and gun rights groups. 

‘I’m still waiting on a thank-you note from the New Mexico GOP,’ she wrote Thursday on X, formerly known as Twitter. ‘Way to use my call to action around gun violence as a fundraiser instead of using it as an opportunity for immediate action to save New Mexican lives.’

The remark came after the state Republican party sent fundraising notices related to the opposition to Grisham’s order announced last week that temporarily bans the open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque. 

In response, the National Rifle Association (NRA) filed a lawsuit Thursday in the state’s Supreme Court.

‘Please rescind your unlawful and blatantly unconstitutional orders and uphold your oath to defend the constitutional rights of those in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County. Until then, we’ll see you in court,’ NRA-ILA Executive Director Randy Kozuch wrote to Lujan Grisham on Thursday, according to a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital. 

On Tuesday, the Republican Party of New Mexico said it also plans to sue the governor. 

‘We’re filing a lawsuit against @GovMLG and the Secretary of Health for violating the rights of New Mexicans! America is not a totalitarian nation! We will not stand for the governor’s unconstitutional actions,’ it posted on social media. 

As the ban continues to elicit criticism, a federal judge has temporarily blocked parts of the public health order for at least 30 days. 

Grisham cited the city’s spike in gun violence for the move. New Mexico placed third among states with the highest firearm mortality rates in 2021, according to the most recent data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The state had a firearm death rate of 27.8 deaths per 100,000 people. Only Louisiana and Mississippi recorded more deaths, with 29.1 and 33.9, respectively.