Sam Brinton, the embattled former senior Department of Energy (DOE) official, was arrested as a ‘fugitive from justice’ by Maryland police late Wednesday.

According to county records reviewed by Fox News Digital, Brinton was taken into custody in Rockville. A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) Police, which is the lead law enforcement agency for both Washington, D.C., area airports, said the arrest was related to the theft of airport luggage, the third such criminal case involving Brinton.

‘Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police executed a search warrant May 17 in Montgomery County, Maryland, in connection with allegations of stolen property in luggage from Reagan National Airport that was brought to the department’s attention in February 2023,’ James Johnson, a spokesperson for the MWAA, told Fox News Digital in an email.

‘With the assistance of Montgomery County Police, Samuel Otis Brinton, age 35, of Rockville, Maryland, was taken into custody Wednesday pending charges of Grand Larceny,’ Johnson said.

In an interview Thursday with The Daily Wire, which first reported the arrest, a witness who claimed to be Brinton’s neighbor said Brinton was arrested about an hour after four unmarked police cars arrived.

‘Montgomery County Police assisted in the arrest of Sam Brinton,’ Shiera Goff, a Montgomery County Police Department spokesperson, told Fox News Digital. ‘The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police are lead on this.’ 

‘Brinton was arrested at approximately 10 p.m. last night in their home on College Parkway,’ Goff added. ‘They are being held in the Montgomery County Central Processing Unit on a no-bond status as they await an extradition hearing. That’s all of the information we have on our end.’

The arrest comes a month after Brinton — who made headlines last year after being appointed to the position that oversees nuclear waste policy at the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy as a non-binary gender-fluid person — escaped jail time in two separate cases in Minnesota and Nevada involving luggage thefts.

Police charged Brinton in October with stealing a traveler’s baggage worth a total of $2,325 from the luggage carousel at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport after flying in from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16.

And in early December, Las Vegas prosecutors charged Brinton with grand larceny of an item valued between $1,200 and $5,000. Police accused Brinton of stealing a suitcase with a total estimated worth of $3,670 on July 6 at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. The bag contained jewelry valued at $1,700, clothing worth $850 and makeup valued at $500.

Brinton faced up to 15 years total for the two alleged thefts. However, in both cases, the presiding judges ruled jail time wasn’t necessary.

In addition, a female Tanzanian fashion designer based in Houston accused Brinton in February of wearing her custom designs that were packed in a luggage she reported missing in 2018. Houston police referred that case to the FBI.

The DOE on Dec. 12 announced that Brinton had departed the agency but wouldn’t comment on the reason for the departure.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to answer a question Friday related to Hunter Biden’s previous drug use and reported plans to use the Second Amendment as a defense should he be charged with a gun crime.

When asked during the White House press briefing whether someone who is a drug user should be able to possess a firearm, Jean-Pierre simply said, ‘I’m not going to get into a tit-for-tat on this. I’m just not going to.’

Hunter, a known past drug user who battled drug abuse and addiction, has been under investigation by the Justice Department, a portion of which involves a 2018 gun purchase. During that time, Hunter said he was a regular cocaine user.

Federal law prohibits drug users from owning guns, but a Supreme Court ruling last year that essentially broadened Second Amendment protections puts that prohibition into question – and Hunter’s lawyers could use the argument as part of his defense.

President Biden, Hunter’s father, however, previously criticized the SCOTUS decision his son’s legal team is preparing to use in his defense should he be charged, saying at the time that he was ‘deeply disappointed.’

‘Since 1911, the State of New York has required individuals who would like to carry a concealed weapon in public to show a need to do so for the purpose of self-defense and to acquire a license,’ Biden said in an official statement. ‘More than a century later, the United States Supreme Court has chosen to strike down New York’s long-established authority to protect its citizens.’ 

‘This ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all,’ he added.

First reported in Politico, Biden’s lawyers have already told DOJ officials that, if their client is charged with the gun crime, they will challenge the law under the Second Amendment, a person familiar told the publication. 

When he bought the gun in 2018, Biden filled out a federal form on which he allegedly claimed that he was not ‘an unlawful user of, or addicted to’ any ‘controlled substance,’ Politico reported in 2021. However, according to Biden’s 2021 memoir, he frequently used crack cocaine at the time.

The scenario could put Hunter and conservative Republicans on the same side of trying to bolster pro-Second Amendment legal precedent.

Fox News’ Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

A federal lawsuit filed Friday directly challenges an Arkansas law banning librarians and booksellers from exposing minors to explicit or otherwise ‘harmful’ media. The law, slated to take effect Aug. 1, has drawn the ire of librarians’ associations, publishers, and writers’ groups.‘Act 372 forces bookstores and libraries to self-censor in a way antithetical to their core purposes,’ the lawsuit, filed by a coalition that includes Little Rock’s Central Arkansas Library System, alleged.

A federal lawsuit filed Friday challenges an Arkansas law that would subject librarians and booksellers to criminal charges if they provide ‘harmful’ materials to minors.

A coalition that includes the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock filed the challenge to the law, which takes effect Aug. 1. The law also creates a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids.

The lawsuit comes as lawmakers in an increasing number of conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books. The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years the American Library Association has been tracking such efforts.

The lawsuit said the fear of prosecution under Arkansas’ law, which Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed in March, could prompt libraries and booksellers to no longer carry titles that could be challenged.

‘Act 372 forces bookstores and libraries to self-censor in way antithetical to their core purposes,’ the lawsuit said.

EveryLibrary, a national political action committee, has said it’s tracking at least 121 proposals introduced in state legislatures this year targeting libraries, librarians, educators and access to materials. The group said 39 of those proposals would allow for criminal prosecution.

‘This vaguely written and sweepingly broad directive leaves librarians and booksellers in Arkansas without a clear understanding of what they are legally obligated to do,’ said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, one of the groups representing the coalition in the lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union is also representing the coalition.

The lawsuit names the state’s 28 local prosecutors as defendants, along with Crawford County in west Arkansas. A separate lawsuit filed last month challenged the Crawford County library’s decision to move children’s books that included LGBTQ+ themes to a separate portion of the library.

‘I am representing the 28 prosecutors named in this lawsuit, and I look forward to defending the constitutionality of Act 372,’ Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a statement.

Writers’ group PEN America and publisher Penguin Random House sued a Florida school district Wednesday over its removal of books about race and LGBTQ+ identities.

The plaintiffs challenging Arkansas’ restrictions also include the Fayetteville and Eureka Springs Carnegie public libraries, the American Booksellers Association and the Association of American Publishers.

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Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is set to attend a ‘very intimate’ fundraiser hosted by a left-wing politician who supports the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, critical race theory (CRT), has a history of anti-police rhetoric and believes ‘white supremacy’ has a ‘stranglehold’ on society.

Baldwin, who is up for re-election in 2024 in the battleground state of Wisconsin, will be celebrated at a San Francisco reception on Sunday among hosts with a long record of left-wing activism, according to a flyer for the fundraiser. The event seeks to collect individual contributions between $250 and $3,300 to support the Democratic senator. 

Bay Area city council member Carolyn Wysinger, who is co-hosting the fundraiser, backs several controversial groups. She recently slammed the Los Angeles Dodgers for uninviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an anti-Catholic group of ‘queer and trans nuns,’ to their June Pride night.

‘3-0 is what LA fans get for sitting back as the Dodgers banned the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their Pride Night to please religious zealots,’ Wysinger wrote in a Facebook post. ‘Black Lesbian Jesus is not pleased and until y’all do right by the gays a broom will be comin yalls way….’

The Dodgers have since reinvited the group, despite concerns from religious organizations over their protests that include pole dancing on crosses and using the phrase ‘go and sin some more.’ 

Wysinger also spoke at a ‘Drag Up! Fight Back!’ event that sought to ‘protect trans kids’ and claimed ‘Right-wing GOP Christian Nationalists’ are calling for the ‘imprisonment and even death of LGBTQ people,’ according to a flyer for the gathering on Do The Bay.

The protest, where children were photographed in attendance, featured adult drag performances and members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Wysinger is directly involved with CRT efforts, which Democrats have long maintained are not being implemented in K-12 educational institutions.

The left-wing politician was a fellow, and later participant, at the African American Policy Forum’s Critical Race Theory Summer School, which pushes the teaching of CRT in K-12 schools.

‘I’m SO excited to join [African American Policy Forum’s] CRT Summer School!’ Wysinger wrote last July on Twitter. ‘As a 2020 inaugural fellow, I’m glad to be back with Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw & 160 CRT profs. As attacks on CRT advance, now more than ever we must have the tools necessary to fight for a multiracial democracy.’

The 2022 CRT Summer School sessions were designed to address why CRT ‘has been deployed as an entering wedge into dismantling the commons, public institutions, and racial and social progress since the mid 20th century,’ its website states.

The sessions also analyzed ‘why the particular assaults on CRT and racial justice education land differently to even those whom we count as our allies.’ The sessions aimed to ‘educate constituents about what CRT is and what it was before right-wing operatives distorted and defamed it.’

Wysinger’s controversial viewpoints extend even further. She has a record of anti-police rhetoric and suggested that ‘racist police violence’ is a ‘public health emergency.’ 

‘The public-health emergency that is racist police violence requires me to speak out more than ever, because Pride is a defense of Black bodies and always has been,’ she wrote in a 48Hills opinion piece in 2020.

Wysinger later added that ‘white supremacy’ has a ‘stranglehold’ on society.

‘Folks that know that racist police violence is an issue, but can’t do the one thing it takes to break the system, the one thing it takes to break the stranglehold of white supremacy on society, the one thing it takes to stop anti-Blackness from being taught worldwide: Stop centering whiteness,’ she wrote.

While serving as board president of San Francisco Pride, Wysinger and her colleagues banned the San Francisco Police Officers Pride Alliance from wearing their uniforms while marching in an LGBTQ parade.

Also expected to be in attendance at Baldwin’s fundraiser is Gretchen Sisson, the lead investigator for the University of California, San Francisco’s Abortion Onscreen program who in 2022 sought to normalize abortion through implementing more ‘abortion plot lines’ in television.

‘We hope these shows and others continue to build on these depictions by giving main characters abortion plotlines instead of only guest actors and working to reflect the reality of abortion patients in the U.S,’ Abortion Onscreen’s 2022 report read.

Sisson, who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates, has also said her money gets her ‘access’ to politicians. 

‘The traditional idea is that donors give money because they want to be in proximity to power. I would never deny that being a major donor is a major power and gives me access,’ Sisson told San Francisco Magazine in 2019. ‘But that’s not why I do it. I don’t care about being close to power. I care about changing what power looks like.’

Baldwin’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the fundraiser.

The Newtown, Connecticut Board of Education has voted to keep ‘Blankets’ and ‘Flamer’ — two books on sexuality that garnered formal complaints for their explicit nature — on its shelves.Debate over the books’ prospective banishment caused a local political crisis, with two Republican board members, Janet Kuzma and Jennifer Larkin, resigning over it.‘This process has monopolized our time and attention for two months,’ Democratic board member Allison Plante said of the debate.

A Connecticut board of education has voted two keep two books on its town’s high school shelves after weeks of acrimonious debate over book-banning that culminated in the resignation of two Republican board members.

The remaining members of the Newtown Board of Education unanimously agreed Thursday night on a compromise motion that rejected banning the books ‘Blankets’ by Craig Thompson and ‘Flamer’ by Mike Curato, with the caveat that school administrators create a process ‘to support choices of individual parents and guardians’ on whether their children will have access to the books.

As with similar debates across the country, some parents had called for banning the books because of their sexual content. School officials in March said they received nine official complaints against ‘Flamer’ and one against ‘Blankets.’

‘Blankets’ is an autobiographical story that deals in part with sexual abuse. ‘Flamer,’ around which much of the debate was centered, is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel about a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality.

Republican board members Janet Kuzma and Jennifer Larkin resigned amid the controversy on Wednesday. Larkin cited the need for a better work-life balance, while Kuzman addressed the controversy, citing in her resignation letter ‘abhorrent’ behavior by people attending public meetings.

‘I am resigning due to the complete lack of condemnation of this behavior by leadership at all levels,’ wrote Kuzman, who had proposed a compromise that would have required all students 16 and younger to receive written parental permission before reading the books.

‘I pray for our community to regain a sense of civility in the face of differing opinions,’ she added.

Both sides of the issue reported being harassed by those with opposing opinions.

The Newtown Republican Town Committee issued a statement Thursday saying, ‘There is something horribly wrong in our community when town volunteers and even private citizens who send an email, speak at a meeting or write a letter to the editor are subject to harassment.’

Librarian Suzanne Hurley said at a May 2 meeting that she and her colleagues had been accused of negligence and incompetence by ‘keyboard warriors.’

The number of attempts to ban or restrict books across the U.S. last year was the highest in the 20 years the American Library Association has been tracking such efforts.

EveryLibrary, a national political action committee, said it’s tracking at least 121 different proposals introduced in state legislatures this year targeting libraries, librarians, educators and access to materials.

During the debate in Connecticut, school officials noted that ‘Flamer’ has been in the school library since last year and has never been checked out. ‘Blankets’ has been at the library since 2013 and was checked out once, they said.

Before Thursday’s vote, Newtown board member Allison Plante, a Democrat, acknowledged fatigue over the issue.

‘This process has monopolized our time and attention for two months,’ said Plante, who proposed the compromise that was approved. ‘Please, please support this motion.’

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A New Hampshire man has been charged with threatening to kill a U.S. senator, federal prosecutors announced Friday.

Brian Landry, 66, of Franklin, is accused of calling and leaving a threatening voicemail at a district field office of a senator on May 17, stating that he was a veteran sniper and was coming for the senator if the senator didn’t change.

Landry admitted to federal investigators that he had called the senator’s office but did not recall exactly what he said, the U.S. attorney’s office said. It was not immediately known if he is being represented by an attorney. Prosecutors did not reveal the senator’s identity.

If convicted, Landry faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

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President Biden addressed the nation Friday evening, just one day after Congress passed a bill to raise the government’s borrowing limit in bipartisan fashion after weeks of tense negotiations between himself and Republican House leaders.

‘My fellow Americans, when I ran for president, I was told the days of bipartisanship were over and that Democrats and Republicans could no longer work together. But I refused to believe that, because America can never give in that way of thinking,’ Biden said. 

‘That’s why I’m speaking to you tonight, to report on the crisis averted and what we’re doing to protect America’s future. Passing this budget agreement was critical. The stakes could not have been higher,’ he said.

‘If we had failed to reach an agreement on the budget, there were extreme voices threatening to take America, for the first time in our two hundred forty-seven year history, into default on our national debt. Nothing, nothing would have been more irresponsible,’ he added. 

Biden went on to detail what effects a default in the debt the nation could have incurred, and described the bill’s passage as very good news for American people. ‘No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they need,’ he said.

The bipartisan deal will suspend the debt limit with no cap until Jan. 1, 2025, slashes non-defense spending to near fiscal year 2022 levels, pulls back on new funding set to go towards the IRS in addition to clawing back some unspent COVID-19 pandemic-era funds. The bill also caps spending increases at 1% for the following year.

With the bill’s passage and Biden’s expected signature, Washington will avoid a default on government debt, which the Treasury Department was predicting could happen on June 5.

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Connecticut lawmakers voted Friday to tighten the state’s marriage laws, prohibiting anyone under age 18 from being issued a marriage license under any circumstance.

The legislation cleared the Senate unanimously, following a 98-45 bipartisan vote last month in the House of Representatives. It updates a 2017 anti-child marriage law that advocates contend created a dangerous loophole, leaving young people at risk of coercion and sexual abuse.

Currently in Connecticut, a 16- or 17-year-old may get a marriage license if their local probate court judge approves a petition filed on the minor’s behalf by their parent or guardian. Current state law also allows emancipated minors to marry at 16 or 17, something that will end under this new legislation as well.

The bill moves to Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont’s desk. A spokesperson said Friday the governor plans to sign the legislation into law.

Despite Friday’s unanimous Senate vote, there was criticism of the legislation in the House — including whether it’s needed given the small number of teen marriages in Connecticut, and the fact a probate judge can deny a license if they believe a young person is being coerced into marrying.

But Democratic Sen. Herron Gaston of Bridgeport spoke from personal experience about the importance of the legislation during Friday’s Senate debate. He described about how his sister was married to a 50-year-old man when she was 17 years old and living on the island of St. Lucia.

‘I’ve seen the devastating impact it has had on her physically, how it deprived her of her innocence and of her childhood,’ he said. ‘She bore five children from this marriage and eventually had to flee from the island of Saint Lucia and down to Florida in order to get away from her abuser.’

Some advocates for the legislation, dressed in wedding gowns with chains around their wrists, watched Friday’s proceedings from the Senate gallery. They noted all week how neighboring states, including Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, have already adopted the 18-year-old marriage requirement.

Connecticut is one of several states across the country this year that moved to raise the minimum age to legally marry to 18, including Vermont. Bids to raise the minimum marriage age in West Virginia and Washington stalled.

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Former President Donald Trump took a not-so-subtle swing at former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday, mocking his expected entry into the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination by pointing to his dismal approval rating while governor.

During an exclusive Fox News Town Hall in Iowa, the location of the first contest in the presidential primaries, Trump questioned why Republicans like Christie continued to jump into the already crowded field of candidates seeking to challenge his front-runner status.

‘I don’t know why people are doing it. They’re at one percent. Some are at zero,’ Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. ‘I hear Chris Christie’s coming in. He’s at – he was at 6% in New Jersey, which is – I love New Jersey, but 6% approval rating in New Jersey. What’s the purpose? And he’s polling at zero.’

Trump’s attacks come after news broke Wednesday that Christie is planning to officially launch his presidential campaign next week. It would be the former governor’s second run for the presidency after an unsuccessful bid during the 2016 Republican primaries.

Christie left office with an approval rating near the single digits following a number of scandals that made him one of the least popular governor’s in New Jersey history. Similarly, he hasn’t had much of an impact on Republican primary voters in the race so far, as the few polls that have included him show him in the low single digits or less.

Trump went on to also mock fellow Republican candidates already in the race, like former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who he called ‘Aida,’ and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is currently seen as the former president’s main rival in the race.

‘This guy, nobody knows who the hell he is. Never good,’ Trump said of Hutchinson. ‘You know, it’s fine, but I don’t understand what they’re doing.’ 

‘Now maybe there’s something wrong, but when you’re at 1% or less –  1%, it says 1% with an arrow pointing left. There’s one guy who’s at zero with an arrow pointing left that means he’s at less than zero. It is what it is,’ he added. 

‘I really go after the one whose second, and I think the one whose second has gone down so much and so rapidly that I don’t think he’s going to be second that much longer. I think he’s going to be third or fourth,’ he said, referencing DeSantis.

Sources familiar with Christie’s thinking say that Christie will formally launch his campaign at a town hall at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics, next Tuesday, June 6.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Ohio parents could soon see more taxpayer money in their pockets to help send their schoolchildren to private and religious schools, or fund homeschooling, under changes to a voucher program that Republican state lawmakers and the governor must hammer out by month’s end.

Ohio has had some form of vouchers since 1996, but learning setbacks prompted by pandemic-era education disruptions, cultural battles over gender and race, and a national movement for parental rights have led to a larger push in Ohio and other states to make them more widely available.

Advocates applaud it as expanding school choice, while opponents say such programs divert funding from public schools and violate Ohio’s constitution.

Here’s a look at where things stand and where they could go:

The Current System

School vouchers are state-funded and distributed through the Ohio Department of Education’s EdChoice Scholarship Program. Children are eligible if they attend certain underperforming public schools or come from low-income households — at or below 250% of the federal poverty level, or about $75,000 a year for a family of four.

The program, which parents must apply for, provides $5,500 for K-8 students and $7,500 for grades 9-12 to fund tuition.

More than 60,000 students use EdChoice as of 2023 at an annual cost of nearly $350 million, according to Ohio’s Office of Budget and Management.

Competing Proposals for Change

In January, via his version of the state budget, GOP Gov. Mike DeWine announced a proposal to increase income eligibility for vouchers to those at or below 400% of the federal poverty level, or about $111,000 for a family of four.

The Republican-dominated Ohio House cleared its version of the $88 billion budget in April, which raised the eligibility threshold to up to 450% of the federal poverty level, or $135,000 for a family of four, sending the bill to the GOP-led Senate to debate.

Hints at where negotiations could lead may be found in similar, competing voucher bills in the two chambers.

Dubbed ‘backpack bills’ because the funding follows students wherever they go, both legislative proposals seek to make vouchers available to all of Ohio’s K-12 students, regardless of income, whether their schools are considered underperforming and even if they already attend chartered private schools.

The House bill would further extend the vouchers to unregulated, non-chartered private school and homeschooled students.

The Costs of Change

How much money the state could spend on the program is not entirely clear.

The budget office estimates that DeWine’s proposal would add $50 million to the current program’s cost of nearly $700 million over the next two years.

The cost projection is based on scholarship program trend data and the estimated spaces available at participating private schools for public school students.

Meanwhile, lawmakers’ analysts at the nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission estimate extending voucher eligibility could cost up to an additional $344 million over the next two years. That’s assuming that all of the approximately 30,000 newly income-eligible students already attending private schools take vouchers.

Analysts also estimate that the Senate’s voucher proposal would cost $528 million per year if the over 90,000 newly eligible students already attending private schools use vouchers. That would not include eligible public-school children.

But the House bill could cost a whopping $1.13 billion annually, the commission estimates. That figure includes more than 185,000 students already attending private schools or being homeschooled, but not those in public schools.

No state analysis addresses the impact the additional costs could have on current public school funding.

Like DeWine’s approach, the lawmakers’ proposals could have lower costs if not all students seek vouchers. After all, many parents love their public school systems and private schools lack the capacity to accept every newly eligible child.

Advocates and Opponents

Advocates for vouchers applaud them as a way to make all schools in Ohio better by making different types of schools compete.

They also allow parents the freedom to choose, said Troy McIntosh, executive director of the Ohio Christian Education Network, rather than having their ZIP code choose for them.

Opponents, including Democrats and teachers’ unions, fear that as more state money is directed to private schools, less will be available to support the public schools that serve about 80% of Ohio’s children.

Voucher supporters say they aren’t concerned about the price and believe that high-cost estimates predict an unlikely outcome — that every eligible child will take a voucher.

But opponents point out that except for the administration’s estimate, no analysis takes into consideration the cost of public school students using vouchers to attend private schools.

There are also accountability concerns with how taxpayer dollars are used for private entities, said Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association. Unlike public schools, private schools don’t have to tell the state how students are performing or how they’re using funds.

Lawsuits, Investigations

A lawsuit on behalf of students and over 100 school districts with the Vouchers Hurt Ohio coalition calls the governor’s existing voucher program unconstitutional.

It argues that by providing funds to private school systems, the program violates the Ohio Constitution’s call for a common school system that benefits all students, as private schools can turn away students based on intelligence, athletic ability or religious faith.

Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost previously tried to have the case dismissed on grounds that it couldn’t cite any specific harm to public schools as a result of providing funds to the EdChoice program. A judge denied the dismissal request and the case remains pending.

The Ohio Senate recently asked the GOP state Auditor Keith Faber to investigate how much money those schools are using to fund the lawsuit. Faber agreed and sent out a survey asking public schools to disclose such funds.

But that move sparked immediate outcry, with voucher opponents calling the survey an act of witness intimidation by lawmakers. Republican Senate President Matt Huffman called it finding out ‘what the hell is going on.’

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