A cross-party delegation of Australian politicians met with U.S. officials, members of Congress and civil rights groups in Washington, D.C., Wednesday to urge the U.S. government to abandon efforts to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is accused of publishing classified U.S. military documents.

The group of Australian lawmakers included former Deputy Prime Minister and National Party Leader Barnaby Joyce, Labor Party member of parliament Tony Zappia, Independent member of parliament Monique Ryan, Liberal Party Sen. Alex Antic and Greens Party Sens. Peter Whish-Wilson and David Shoebridge. 

Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, joined the delegation in Washington for its meetings with U.S. officials.

The delegation brought a letter signed by more than 60 members of parliament calling on the U.S. to drop charges against Assange, who is fighting against extradition to the U.S., where he could be sentenced to up to 175 years in an American maximum-security prison. 

He is facing 17 charges for allegedly receiving, possessing and communicating classified information to the public under the Espionage Act and one charge alleging a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. Assange would face trial in Alexandria, Virginia, if he is extradited to the U.S.

Speaking at a press conference outside the Justice Department Wednesday evening, members of the delegation said they are optimistic a resolution can be reached with the U.S. to secure Assange’s freedom, but they remain committed to continuing to pressure the U.S. until the prosecution comes to a conclusion.

‘We did not come here to pick a fight,’ Joyce told reporters. ‘We came here to present a case and to lobby for an outcome. And this is part of the process of making sure that people are aware of all the facts and the wider facts as we also have grown to know over a number of years. So, the delegation has come from every corner of the political spectrum, but we have arrived in Washington at the one spot, and that is, after 11 years, enough is enough.’

Assange has been held at London’s high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy April 11, 2019, for breaching bail conditions. He had sought asylum at the embassy in London since 2012 to avoid being sent to Sweden over allegations he raped two women because Sweden would not provide assurances it would protect him from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations were eventually dropped.

The delegation said it attempted to speak with Assange at Belmarsh but was denied visits. Members of the delegation said they have been in contact with Assange’s family.

The charges against Assange came in response to the 2010 publication of cables U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning leaked to WikiLeaks that detailed alleged war crimes committed by the U.S. government in the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, Iraq and Afghanistan. The materials also expose instances of the CIA allegedly engaging in torture and rendition.

WikiLeaks’ ‘Collateral Murder’ video showing the U.S. military gunning down civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists, was also published 13 years ago.

‘Literally, all sides of politics have come together and united on this one key message, which is that an Australian citizen, Julian Assange, should come home,’ Joyce said. ‘The only crime that we see that Julian Assange has been charged with is the crime of being a journalist, the crime of telling the truth. And the fact that it’s an Australian citizen that has been targeted by one of our closest friends and allies is a very real concern to us as politicians and to a growing part of the Australian public.’

U.S. prosecutors and critics of Assange have argued WikiLeaks’ publication of classified material put the lives of its sources and allies at risk. But, as members of the delegation stressed to Fox News Digital Wednesday, there is no evidence Assange’s work put anyone in danger.

Whish-Wilson told Fox News Digital after the press conference the case against Assange has already strained U.S.-Australian relations but stressed that U.S. officials have been receptive to the delegation’s concerns.

‘Julian Assange has suffered enough,’ Whish-Wilson said. ‘Regardless of what you think of his character or what he’s done, he’s already paid a heavy price. And I think from here on in, it’s going to be very interesting to see where that relationship goes. We are the closest friends, the closest allies of the U.S. That relationship should be based on mutual respect and mutual trust. So, while we have respect for the U.S., I think we expect the U.S. will also show respect for us by listening and acting.’

President Biden will host Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in late October, and the delegation said the prime minister is expected to bring up Assange’s case. Albanese has repeatedly called on the U.S. in recent months to end the prosecution of the Australian journalist.

The Obama administration decided not to indict Assange after WikiLeaks published the cables in 2010 because it also would have had to indict journalists from major news outlets who published the materials. Former President Barack Obama also commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses to seven years. 

But former President Donald Trump’s Justice Department later moved to indict Assange under the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.

‘If you look at what’s actually transpired here, the person who was responsible, we understand, for the leak had their sentence commuted. That was Chelsea Manning,’ Antic told Fox News Digital. ‘We are dealing with a situation where the publisher is now still being pursued under those circumstances. We have been saying we find it puzzling. I can’t see how there wouldn’t be a chilling effect on the free press if this was allowed to proceed.’

Members of the delegation pointed to how Assange is the only journalist facing prosecution for publishing material that other news outlets also published. The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País worked with Assange on the publication of excerpts from more than 250,000 documents he obtained in the Cablegate leak. 

Last year, the editors and publishers of these U.S. and European outlets wrote an open letter calling for the U.S. to drop the charges against Assange.

‘Australians are very confused as to why you would pardon the whistleblower and then go after the publisher,’ Whish-Wilson told Fox News Digital. ‘We also know that other publications here in the U.S. have also published some of these large leaks as well, prior to WikiLeaks. And the Department of Justice is not seeking their indictment on criminal offenses, but they’re going after Julian Assange.’

The Australian politicians also cited polling Wednesday showing nearly 90% of Australians believe the charges against Assange should be dropped. 

‘Most Australians feel that, as a publisher and journalist, he hasn’t committed any crimes and feel that the charges that they laid against him by the Trump administration weren’t warranted and that the exhibition of the extradition proceedings by the U.S. should be dropped,’ Ryan told Fox News Digital.

‘We think that it’s really important that we speak to the representatives of the Department of Justice and the State Department, but also to politicians,’ she added. ‘But we need to make sure people understand how Australians feel. We’re not sure that people do. Obviously, there are situations that go on for a long time, and people are no longer particularly seeing them … in terms of having them aware of the nature of the charges against them.’

The State Department declined to comment to Fox News Digital. The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., led a letter to the Justice Department earlier this year demanding that it drop charges against Assange. Fox News Digital reached out to Tlaib’s office for comment about the Australian delegation but did not hear back in time for publication.

The delegation told Fox News Digital it met with a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers supporting its cause, and the delegation will meet with more U.S. officials and members of Congress Thursday. The Australian politicians are also meeting with representatives of civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.

‘We’re in touch with Julian Assange’s family and legal team and look forward to continuing our conversations with them,’ FIRE General Counsel Ronnie London said in a statement to Fox News Digital. ‘We remain concerned about the threat to press freedom posed by the use of the Espionage Act in contexts like this.’

During the Trump administration, the CIA allegedly had plans to kill Assange over the publication of sensitive agency hacking tools known as ‘Vault 7,’ which the agency said represented ‘the largest data loss in CIA history,’ Yahoo reported in 2021. The CIA had discussions ‘at the highest levels’ of the administration about plans to assassinate Assange in London and allegedly followed orders from director Mike Pompeo to draw up kill ‘sketches’ and ‘options,’ according to the report.

The agency also had advanced plans to kidnap and rendition Assange and had made a political decision to charge him, according to the report.

‘It’s fascinating about this issue, not just in Australia. We’ve got some hard right politicians here. We’ve got some hard left politicians. We’ve got centrists, and that’s exactly what we’re experiencing in the U.S.,’ Whish-Wilson told Fox News Digital. ‘This is an issue that cuts.

‘It gets libertarians exercised. It gets social justice campaigners exercised. And I think that’s what makes it really unique. It’s not very often that you … it’s a conviction issue, right? So, if you’re a conviction politician, no matter what color or what political persuasion, it’s bringing people together. And I think that’s a good thing.’

WikiLeaks also published internal communications in 2016 between the Democratic National Committee and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign that revealed the DNC’s attempts to boost Clinton in that year’s Democratic primary.

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FIRST ON FOX: Catholic Bishop Robert Barron and commentator Chris Rufo share a hope that the ‘extremism of a lot of the woke ideology’ is prompting a promising backlash despite dominating conservative fears.

‘My Hope Is that in what 20 years, 30 years, 40 years people will look back at this time and say ‘oh my goodness, that woke extremism was so unhealthy,’’ said Word on Fire ministries’ Barron during an hour-long conversation with Rufo on Bishop Barron Presents.

Barron, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Winona–Rochester in Wisconsin, discussed the ideological threat of critical race theory (CRT), Marxism and transgender ideology with Rufo, who is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in an interview shared with Fox News Digital ahead of its Thursday release on Barron’s popular YouTube channel.

Rufo is among the most prominent activists against CRT and transgender ideology, and has been accused by critics of sparking widespread moral panic among conservatives. 

Barron, one of the most vocal Roman Catholic prelates in the U.S., faced criticism in recent years for speaking against ‘woke’ ideology. But his opposition to CRT is against the theory’s framing of fundamentally racist structures, collective guilt and revolutionary struggle.

Barron said the U.S. will be ‘on dangerous ground politically’ as culture moves away from the Declaration of Independence’s sense of inalienable rights. ‘Real equality is that we’re all children of God together our rights are going to even us because they’re dependent upon the Creator’s will,’ Barron said.

While many Republican politicians have joined the crusade against ‘wokeness,’ others have softened on the term. 

‘I don’t like the term ‘woke’ because I hear, ‘Woke, woke, woke,” said Republican primary frontrunner and former President Donald Trump during a campaign stop in Iowa this summer. ‘It’s just a term they use. Half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.’

In his book ‘America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything’ Rufo writes that the roots of CRT and wokeness are found in Marxism and nihilism, but presented in moral — even Christian — ‘marketing terms.’ 

Activists take ‘revolutionary literature and launder them through euphemism, passing them through the organs of legitimation — the academic journals and the university programs — into the K-12 School curriculum, into the diversity training curriculum in companies, into public policy using those same ideas,’ Rufo told Barron. 

At the university level, critical race theory began permeating academic institutions in the 1960s and ’70s, when according to Barron Catholic and conservative intellectuals ‘didn’t present our own point of view with confidence.’ 

‘Coming out of this very rich intellectual tradition there was kind of a hand-wringing quality to a lot of Catholic intellectual life and [that] opened the door too to the invasion of these other points of view that were not wringing their hands — they were evangelizing very effectively at a time when we had sort of stopped evangelizing,’ Barron said.

The success of what Rufo called the ‘cultural conquest’ has been pervasive, but not at every level. 

At the local level, Rufo sees promise in education movements away from public schools toward charter schools and homeschooling, often making drastic job or life changes to do so. 

In local and broader policy fights, Rufo also sees promise. 

‘This is not a conflict at heart between left and right,’ Rufo said. ‘This is a contest between the permanent bureaucracy and let’s say elite institutions that are seeking to impose these ideologies from the top down and then the broad middle class that opposes them.’

As more people contest the charters and funding for ‘woke’ programs, Rufo said more politicians will turn aside. 

‘That’s going to be a brutal it’s going to be a difficult and it’s going to be, in a metaphorical sense, a bloody fight,’ Rufo said.

In his 1993 book ‘Faces at the Bottom of the Well,’ Derrick Bell — hailed sometimes as the godfather of critical race theory — argued that ‘racism is an integral permanent and indestructible component of our society.’ 

‘If that’s true, if [racism is] so baked into our society then the only solution is a complete destruction of the society,’ Barron said. ‘It’s not a matter of reforming [society], calling it to conversion like in [Dr. Martin Luther] King’s case summoning its own best qualities,’ Barron said. The ‘only solution is a revolutionary violence that destroys the entire society, and that is a Marxist inspired strategy,’ he added.

Bell wrote that recognizing systemic racism throughout society should not cause ‘disabling despair.’ 

For Bell, resistance to the overarching structure helped achieve freedom at a human level, even if it never overturned structures ‘deeply poisoned with racism.’ Bell quoted 20th century psychoanalyst and Marxist Frantz Faron: ‘In the World through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself.’

The self-creation, self-identification motif is something Barron called fundamentally anti-Christian, and he connected it to transgender ideology. 

‘Pope Francis — I can tell you this from direct experience — he told us when I was a bishop out in California ‘I want you to stand against the gender ideology,’ because it’s repugnant to the Bible and to our anthropology, and we’re on dangerous ground when we start playing that game of my existence completely trumps essence,’ Barron said.

An appointee on a committee advising Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg once declared ‘ALL CARS ARE BAD’ but has a long record of complaining about public transit on social media.

‘Even in late September a train car with no a/c is killer,’ Andrea Marpillero-Colomina posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2011. ‘Smells like stale doritos.’

Marpillero-Colomina was appointed last month to the Advisory Committee on Transportation and Equity (ACTE), which focuses on advising Buttigieg on civil rights and equity. Her social media history criticizing cars was highlighted shortly after her appointment, but additional posts show she also has grievances about public transportation, including tourists, cleanliness, disorganization and safety. 

HOW CLIMATE ALARMISM IS MAKING PEOPLE CHILDLESS BY CHOICE:

‘There are tourists on my subway car and I am reminded how annoying and how bad at respecting personal space these people are…’ she posted in November 2021. 

Originally created under the Obama administration, ACTE is made up of 23 experts serving two-year terms, according to a press release. Marpillero-Colomina was selected from a pool of more than 240 applicants.

Marpillero-Colomina is also the sustainable communities program director for GreenLatinos. The nonprofit is made up of ‘Latino/a/x leaders’ working to ‘demand equity and dismantle racism’ and ‘resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation,’ according to its website.

In October 2022 Marpillero-Colomina posted about a ‘psychotic man’ on the subway and tagged New York City Transit.

‘We’d all be dead by now if he had decided to act,’ Marpillero-Colomina wrote in a follow-up post when asked for a description of the man.

‘I don’t know — tall, Black, wearing ill-fitting shoes and a green hat… generally I try not to look at people behaving insanely and suggest you don’t put your riders in danger by asking them to..’ she replied to the city transit’s account.

A few hours later, she asked the New York City Police Department to ‘do something one of these days about the mentally unwell people all over the subway system.’

In another post about the safety of public transit, she said her late night rules include using cars with other people — preferably women — and avoiding the first or last car on a subway ‘so you can’t get trapped as easily.’

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Marpillero-Colomina criticized passengers without masks.

‘I hope all the people who don’t wear masks on the subway enjoy the extra special hell they are all ending up in together,’ she posted in June 2022.

The next month, she she asked ‘why everyone who doesn’t wear a mask on the subway IS NOT DEAD YET.’

‘Ooh my favorite! A man on the subway who has not heard of headphones or wearing a mask,’ another July 2022 post read.

In other posts, Marpillero-Colomina complains about the subway’s cleanliness and disorganization, including one where she said she gets panicked when she sees people accidentally ‘dragging their coats on the floor of the subway.’ Another called service changes ‘nonsensical’ and ‘completely insane.’

She took a break from lambasting the New York City subway in July 2021 and turned to Amtrak.

‘THE ENTIRE AMTRAK SHOULD JUST BE A QUIET CAR,’ she posted.

But in March 2021, she said in another post that ‘Everyone’s crazy because they spend all their time alone in their cars.’

Marpillero-Colomina told Fox News she didn’t have time to comment, and the Department of Transportation responded only with unsolicited information about the 2021 infrastructure law.

FIRST ON FOX: New images obtained by Fox News Digital shed light on the Biden administration’s planned ID for illegal immigrants, as officials look for ways to track the volume of migrants being released into the U.S.

Fox News, along with other outlets, reported last year on the ICE Secure Docket Card program last year, which Immigration and Customs Enforcement said will ‘modernize various forms of documentation provided to provisionally released noncitizens through a consistent, verifiable, secure card.’

Migrants who arrive at the border illegally and are not removed but instead released into the interior are often given a number of documents depending on their situation. The images show a card with room for a photograph, a QR code and identifying information and security details, as well as the ICE logo in the top left corner.

ICE said the ID will have a photograph, biographic identifiers and ‘cutting-edge’ security features, with the aim being to ‘improve current, inconsistent paper forms that often degrade rapidly in real-world use.’ The agency said the program was still in development and would be considered for further expansion pending the outcome of the pilot. 

The card could be used to check in and schedule reporting meetings with ICE. The agency hopes that it can be used in the field to easily verify an alien’s identity and to see if they are deportable. But the program has alarmed conservatives, who see it as part of an agenda for welcoming, rather than removing, those in the country illegally.

‘ICE is a federal law enforcement agency, not the DMV. When will Congress wake up and put an end to these open-borders, anti-enforcement programs that defy the agency’s mission and enable the crisis?’ RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) and a visiting adviser at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital this week.

‘ICE should be arresting, detaining, and removing those who come here illegally, not doling out social services,’ he said.

That echoes concerns expressed by lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee last year, who said they feared that it is ‘yet another Biden Administration move encouraging illegal immigration by rewarding illegal immigrants for breaking our laws.’

They also fear that the card will include QR codes that link to court documents and other information that they say raises security concerns ‘as well as questions regarding the likelihood that significant taxpayer resources will be diverted from immigration enforcement to uploading documents into and maintaining a secure system.’

ICE has pushed back against those concerns, with a spokesperson telling Fox last year that the ID would not be an official form of federal identification and would only be used for DHS agencies

‘Moving to a secure card will save the agency millions, free up resources, and ensure information is quickly accessible to DHS officials while reducing the agency’s FOIA backlog. For provisionally released noncitizens, the digital modernization will provide ongoing access to important immigration documents through the secure card and connected portal.’

The program marks one of a number of efforts by the administration to tackle the ongoing crisis at the border, which has shown signs recently of escalating.

Officials have been overwhelmed at the border in recent weeks as numbers have shot up through August and September. Multiple border sectors have been overwhelmed and have resorted to street releases of migrants in Tucson and San Diego.

On Wednesday, thousands of predominantly Venezuelan migrants surged into Eagle Pass, Texas and gathered under a bridge in Eagle Pass in the hope of being processed and released into the U.S. 

Critics have blamed the crisis on the administration’s policies, including its moves to narrow enforcement priorities for ICE. The administration has said Congress needs to provide more funding and reform a ‘broken’ immigration system. 

FIRST ON FOX: Former Biden administration officials are entangled in a Michael Bloomberg campaign to block petrochemical projects nationwide while some organizations in the effort have collected millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed federal grants, records reviewed by Fox News Digital show. 

The billionaire Democratic donor and former New York City mayor’s charity, Bloomberg Philanthropies, launched its $85 million Beyond Petrochemicals campaign last year in an effort to block the development of proposed petrochemicals projects in Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. At the time, Bloomberg said the campaign would help combat emissions and the climate crisis broadly.

‘Petrochemical plants poison our air and water — killing Americans and harming the health of entire communities. And with many heavily-polluting new projects planned around the U.S., we’re at a critical moment for stopping them,’ Bloomberg said. 

‘Communities around the country are standing up to confront the petrochemical industry and defend their right to clean air and water,’ he continued. ‘This campaign will help ensure more local victories, support laws that protect communities from harm, and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling the climate crisis.’

But the California-based Resources Legacy Fund — a left-wing dark money group with a history of funding environmental campaigns — has funneled money to Beyond Petrochemicals, according to Bloomberg’s group. Several individuals linked to the Resources Legacy Fund have served high-level stints in Biden’s administration, with one of them specifying petrochemicals as a primary area of concern.

For example, in early September, Gina McCarthy, President Biden’s former White House national climate adviser, joined the Resources Legacy Fund’s board of directors. The group’s president Avi Garbow lauded McCarthy and said she was among the ‘nation’s most respected voices on issues related to climate change.’

McCarthy’s former role likely affords her a pipeline to Biden’s White House. During her final days in the role, she met with environmental leaders, including at least three individuals at groups now involved with Bloomberg’s Beyond Petrochemicals campaign, such as the Environmental Defense Fund, EarthJustice, and We Act for Environmental Justice.

McCarthy also recently joined the Bloomberg-backed climate change advocacy group America Is All In as its managing co-chair, where she supports ‘cities, states, businesses and institutions to scale climate action across the country,’ the group wrote in August. 

The former Biden official has identified the petrochemicals sector as a primary focus area for America Is All In, including the ‘growth of plastics and dealing with plastic pollution,’ E&E News reported. 

In addition, Garbow, the president of the Resources Legacy Fund, has also previously served in the Biden administration. Garbow took a six-month role as senior counselor to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan in 2021.

On his LinkedIn profile, Garbow states he took a leave of absence ‘at the request of the White House’ to ‘help ensure that the Administration and EPA were positioned at the outset to successfully pursue an aggressive, protective, durable, and equitable environmental and climate agenda, and return EPA to its mission of protecting public health and the environment for all Americans.’

Under Regan’s leadership, the EPA has taken sweeping actions targeting the petrochemical industry in an effort to curb emissions and fight global warming. And, on behalf of the EPA, the Department of Justice has filed environmental litigation against petrochemical facilities in Louisiana.

‘For generations, our most vulnerable communities have unjustly borne the burden of breathing unsafe, polluted air,’ Regan said in April in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, upon announcing a slate of new regulations targeting the petrochemical industry. 

‘When I visited St. John the Baptist Parish during my first Journey to Justice tour, I pledged to prioritize and protect the health and safety of this community and so many others that live in the shadows of chemical plants.’

Overall, the multibillion-dollar petrochemical industry is particularly prominent in Louisiana where it is a key driver of jobs and investment. The industry is also a central reason why the state is the third-largest consumer of petroleum and largest consumer of petroleum per capita in the nation, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Petrochemicals such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polymer and ethylene glycol are key components of products like cars, ropes, pipes, artifical turf, playground equipment and antifreeze.

However, the petrochemical industry has long been target of environmentalists who argue it is responsible for harmful emissions and pollution negatively impacting surrounding communities’ health.

Mark Kleinman, senior communications officer for Resources Legacy Fund, told Fox News Digital the organization is ‘proud to work with the nation’s leading thinkers and advocates to protect the health of communities and build a cleaner, more prosperous future.’

‘RLF serves as fiscal sponsor for the Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign, which means RLF provides administrative and grantmaking support,’ he added.

The group did not address questions regarding individuals associated with it having worked in the Biden administration. 

Furthermore, representatives from Beyond Petrochemicals attended a July meeting with Michal Freedhoff, who serves as the assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, to urge them ‘to ban vinyl chloride,’ according to Ohio’s WFMJ.

Broadly, Beyond Petrochemicals seeks to leverage research, litigation, legislation, and stakeholder engagement to achieve its goals, which include blocking ‘the expansion of more than 120 proposed petrochemical and plastic projects’ in Louisiana, Texas, and the Ohio River Valley.’ 

It also seeks to establish ‘stricter rules for existing plants to safeguard the health of American communities,’ Bloomberg Philanthropies’ website states.

While Bloomberg Philanthropies says ‘over 50 partners’ are involved with the campaign, the website currently only identifies 18 by name. According to records, seven of those groups have garnered a combined $15.3 million in government grants from the Biden administration — with one group receiving a bulk of that sum. 

The EPA recently awarded a $13 million grant to the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, a Beyond Petrochemicals coalition member that seeks to develop ‘minority leadership in the areas of environmental, social, and economic justice along the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor and Gulf Coast Region,’ its website states. 

The group received the grant as part of an effort to help ‘underserved and overburdened communities across the country access funds from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda for a variety of activities to advance environmental justice,’ the EPA said in an August announcement.

Bloomberg Philanthropies did not respond to a request for comment.

FIRST ON FOX: Two veteran Republican congressmen are demanding answers from the heads of West Point and the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) regarding a event they say ‘encouraged partisanship,’ promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and bashed conservative lawmakers.

Republican Reps. Michael Waltz of Florida and Jim Banks of Indiana sent letters to U.S. Military Academy (USMA) and USAFA superintendents Lt. Gens. Steven Gilland and Richard Clark regarding the event, and a cadet’s question to a panel at the USMA’s Annual Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Conference.

At the August 30 conference, a USAFA cadet in uniform reportedly asked how DEI teachings can be ‘safeguarded’ by U.S. military academies and their cadets. The cadet also ‘spoke contemptuously of Members of Congress for performing their constitutional oversight duties,’ according to Waltz and Banks.

‘So, the United States Air Force Academy has a diversity and inclusion minor that teaches classes on gender, race, and nationalism in the class, and these teachings have been incredibly controversial across the U.S. with an outright ban in Florida and the superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy being questioned for it in Congress and the video going viral,’ the cadet asked, according to a report of the incident.

‘Can cadets and service academies safeguard the teachings of these topics, or, if we get a particularly bad batch of congressmen, are these teachings like, screwed?’ the cadet said.

Banks, the chairman of the Anti-Woke Caucus and the Military Personnel Subcommittee, told Fox News Digital he disagrees ‘with the cadet’s remarks,’ but sees ‘why he thought they were appropriate, given he made them at a left-wing political conference.’

‘The issue is that the U.S. Military Academy is hosting partisan, DEI events in the first place,’ Banks said.

In the letter, Waltz — the chairman of the House’s military readiness subcommittee — wrote that the conference ‘was hosted by USMA and attended by personnel from the U.S. Air Force Academy, USMA, U.S. Army officers, U.S. Air Force officers, as well as USMA faculty, civilian professors, Veterans Affairs staff, NASA staff, and professional DEI speakers.’

The congressmen noted the audio recording of the cadet’s question and wrote that, per ‘the recording, the crowd in attendance erupted in laughter at the cadet’s comments, and it is not apparent that any senior officer attempted to correct or counsel the cadet, nor did anyone take the opportunity to educate the group of cadets regarding civilian oversight of the military or the constitutional duty of elected officials to conduct legislative oversight.’

‘As veterans, we find USMA and the U.S. Air Force Academy’s apparent acquiescence of demeaning statements aimed at Congress troubling and emblematic of the increasing politicization of our academies,’ the Republicans wrote.

‘The apparent failure of any senior officer to correct the highly inappropriate behavior of scorning lawful, civilian authorities amounts to turning a blind eye to conduct that could be a violation of Article 88 of the UCMJ,’ they continued.

Waltz and Banks added that ‘the recording reinforces and validates the statements of a number of cadets who have reached out to our offices over the last several years.’

The congressmen wrote that some cadets as well as their families ‘feared that voicing a dissenting opinion’ on DEI or critical race theory teachings ‘even in an academic setting or seminar’ will lead to ‘mockery by their peers, faculty, and would be detrimental to their fledgling military careers.’

‘As we discussed during a Congressional hearing this year, I hope you will ask yourselves as commanders, why these cadets are so uncomfortable sharing their concerns with their chain of command,’ the Republicans wrote.

The congressmen also torched USMA’s DEI speaker selection for its annual conference, writing that the speakers, ‘as well as the nature of the conference itself, suggests that USMA fostered an environment that encourages partisanship.’

‘One of the speakers on the panel titled ‘Diversity in National Security: Views from Academia and Practice’, Dr. Nakissa P. Jahanbani, has a history of divisive public statements,’ the lawmakers wrote, pointing to social media posts from the speaker attacking former President Trump.

‘On social media, she has blamed the ‘rise in anti-black, immigrant hate’ on former President Trump’s ‘bigoted opinions’ and stated that ‘white identity and grievances,’ explain his political success,’ the lawmakers wrote.

‘Another participant on that panel, Dr. Rachel Yon, has published ‘classroom exercises’ based on the work of Derrick Bell, who has been described as the ‘Godfather of Critical Race Theory.’ A third member of the same panel was Zainab Ahmad, a former federal prosecutor who worked on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s very controversial investigation into the Trump campaign, the premise of which was later discredited by the Durham report.’

‘Given the example that has been set at an official USMA event, it’s not surprising that a cadet felt it acceptable to attack elected officials while in uniform,’ the lawmakers added.

The lawmakers asked the superintendents if the cadet in question was counseled ‘on appropriate references to elected officials while in uniform’ and if the academies ‘condone the highly partisan statements of the conference’s guest speakers.’

Banks and Waltz are currently investigating race-based admissions to military service academies — which was a controversial exclusion in the Supreme Court’s recent overturn of race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

Though she appears on a schedule prepared prior to the event, Ahmad told Fox News Digital that she ‘did not attend the conference,’ 

Neither the USMA and USAFA nor the rest of the speakers highlighted by the congressmen in the letter immediately responded to Fox News Digitals’ requests for comment.

Pro-life groups are vowing to put pressure on former President Donald Trump after the leading Republican 2024 candidate did an about-face on abortion and began opposing some restrictions.

Trump turned on the pro-life movement over a matter of days this week, labeling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ six-week ban ‘a terrible thing’ and abandoning a push for federal-level restrictions. Now, many within the pro-life movement are prepared to pressure Trump back into the fold.

‘Are pro-lifers going to allow themselves to be a cheap date?’ Patrick Brown, a fellow with the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Life and Family Initiative, told Politico. ‘Are they going to sit back and take it when candidates are denigrating the cause they dedicated their life to?’

‘He won’t feel pressure until it’s applied, and we’re willing to apply it,’ Kristi Hamrick, chief policy strategist with Students for Life of America, told the outlet. ‘You cannot ignore the human rights issue of our time and still get our vote.’

Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action called Trump’s move ‘[p]athetic and unacceptable,’ saying the former president was ‘actively attacking the very pro-life laws made possible by Roe’s overturning.’

‘Heartbeat Laws have saved thousands of babies. But Trump wants to compromise on babies’ lives so pro-abort Dems ‘like him.’ Trump should not be the GOP nominee,’ she wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Trump GOP primary contenders have capitalized on his reversal, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warning pro-life voters that Trump is preparing to ‘sell you out.’

‘Anytime he did a deal with Democrats, whether it was on budget, whether it was on the criminal justice ‘First Step Act,’ they ended up taking him to the cleaners, and so, I think if he’s going into this thing, he’s gonna make the Democrats happy with respect to the right to life. I think all pro-lifers should know that he’s preparing to sell you out,’ DeSantis told Iowa Radio.

‘Protecting babies with heartbeats is not terrible. Donald Trump may think it’s terrible. I think protecting babies with heartbeats is noble and just, and I’m proud to have signed the heartbeat bill in Florida, and I know Iowa has similar legislation,’ DeSantis added.