Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Thursday that the FBI has approved his request for federal law enforcement to help locate Texas state Democratic lawmakers who left the state in an effort to block GOP redistricting efforts.
"I am proud to announce that Director Kash Patel has approved my request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating runaway Texas House Democrats," Cornyn said in a statement.
Cornyn thanked President Donald Trump and Patel for "supporting and swiftly acting on my call for the federal government to hold these supposed lawmakers accountable for fleeing Texas."
"We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities," he added.
The announcement comes after Cornyn sent a letter to Patel on Tuesday urging that "the FBI has tools to aid state law enforcement when parties cross state lines, including to avoid testifying or fleeing a scene of a crime."
Trump said Tuesday that federal authorities might need to get involved. Asked by a reporter whether the federal government and FBI should help find and arrest the state lawmakers, Trump said, "they may have to."
A day earlier, an administration official told NBC News that there were no plans to use federal agents to arrest Texas lawmakers who had left the state. That official said Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, "can handle his own state."
Abbott said Monday that he had ordered state authorities to arrest the lawmakers who left Texas.
It's unclear exactly what role the FBI would play given that no criminal warrants have been filed against the Texas lawmakers. The Texas House speaker issued civil warrants, but federal agents would not have the authority to act on those.
A federal law enforcement official familiar with the situation told NBC News that as of Thursday morning, FBI agents had not taken any actions to attempt to locate the Texas lawmakers.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Cornyn’s office deferred to the FBI for further details about the request. Spokespersons for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment.
NBC News has reached out to the Texas House Democratic Caucus for comment.
Many of the state legislators who left Texas have been speaking in public at news conferences and in interviews in different states, including New York, Massachusetts and Illinois.
On Wednesday, Texas legislators were evacuated from a suburban Chicago hotel after a threat. A bomb squad did not find a device, police said.
Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are locked in a competitive Republican primary race for Cornyn’s Senate seat. Trump has not yet made an endorsement in the primary, which is set for May 2026.
Paxton on Monday said that it was “imperative" that the Democratic legislators "be swiftly arrested, punished, and face the full force of the law for turning their backs on the people of Texas.”
Democratic legislators left Texas last weekend in an effort to deny Republican lawmakers a quorum as they tried to push forward a redistricting plan that could allow the GOP to pick up five seats in Congress next year.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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