: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has issued sweeping new orders to fast-track drone production and deployment, allowing commanders to procure and test them independently and requiring drone combat simulations across every branch of the military. 

As part of an aggressive push to outpace Russia and China in unmanned warfare, ‘the Department’s bureaucratic gloves are coming off,’ Hegseth wrote. ‘Lethality will not be hindered by self-imposed restrictions… Our major risk is risk-avoidance.’

In a pair of memos first obtained by Fox News Digital, Hegseth rescinded legacy policies that he believes restricted innovation. For the first time, commanders with the rank of colonel or captain can independently procure and test drones, including 3D-printed prototypes and commercial-off-the-shelf systems, as long as they meet national security criteria.

They can also operate and train with drones immediately, bypassing traditional approval bottlenecks, and are even authorized to test non-lethal autonomous UAS in controlled environments.

‘Small UAS resemble munitions more than high-end airplanes,’ one instruction stated. ‘They should be cheap, rapidly replaceable, and categorized as consumable.’

The memos redefine small drones (Group 1 and 2) as consumables — not durable military assets — removing them from legacy tracking systems and simplifying acquisition.

To date, Hegseth said, the Department of Defense has ‘failed to field UAS [unmanned aircraft system] at scale and speed.’ 

‘Small UAS are such critical force enablers that they must be prioritized at the same level as major weapons systems.’ 

Commanders are instructed to work with the FAA to ‘remove inappropriate range restrictions, fast-track and expand spectrum approval, and establish a variety of UAS training areas that include live fire, combined arms, and swarm testing.’

Training ranges will be expanded, with three new UAS national test sites mandated within 90 days.

Weaponization, long a sticking point, will also move faster: Weapons Boards must now respond to drone arming requests within 30 days, and battery certifications must be processed within a week.

While America’s adversaries have a ‘head start’ in the world of small UAS, Hegseth expect the U.S. to establish domain dominance by the end of 2027. 

‘Next year I expect to see this capability integrated into all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars,’ Hegseth said, adding that investment methods outlined in Trump’s Unleashing American Drone Dominance executive order are being investigated. 

The Pentagon will now build a ‘dynamic, AI-searchable Blue List,’ a digital platform cataloging approved drone components, vendors, and performance ratings. By 2026, this system will be run by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) and fueled by data from nightly AI retraining pipelines.

To jump-start the drone industry, the Pentagon will pursue advance purchase commitments, direct loans and other capital incentives within 30 days. Major purchases ‘shall favor U.S. companies,’ one memo said. 

The move comes at a time when the lethal capabilities of modern drone warfare have been proven on the ground in Ukraine and in the Middle East. 

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, drones have redefined modern warfare. Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have used unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to reshape tactics on the battlefield and gather real-time intelligence. What started as basic surveillance and artillery targeting has rapidly evolved into lethal deployments of so-called ‘kamikaze drones’ — loitering munitions designed to hover before zeroing in on targets deep behind enemy lines.

READ THE MEMO BELOW. APP USERS: CLICK HERE

Among the most prolific and controversial of these is Iran’s Shahed-136, a low-cost, GPS-steered drone supplied to Russian forces. Fired in large formations, the Shaheds have been instrumental in attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and residential zones, often bypassing expensive missile systems at a fraction of the cost. In response, Ukraine has modified commercial drones to deliver explosive payloads against Russian trenches, vehicles, and naval targets in the Black Sea.

Earlier this month, Israel relied heavily on drone strikes during Operation Rising Lion, coordinating them with manned air missions to target high-level Iranian military officials and nuclear infrastructure. Iran retaliated with its own barrage of drones.

The rapid adoption of drones has triggered major shifts in doctrine, spurred the development of electronic countermeasures and ignited debate over whether drones are poised to overtake manned aircraft as the dominant force in future air combat.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., is gearing up to subpoena the FBI and Justice Department for more information on last year’s assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.

Johnson, who chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was a co-author of last year’s bipartisan Senate Homeland Security Committee report on the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pa.

But that report was not the final product. Now he’s plowing ahead with the investigation that he described as ‘maddening’ because of the roadblocks and barriers he has faced along the way. And last night, he approved a subpoena to get more information from the FBI and Department of Justice.

‘I’d like our report to be bipartisan, but everybody else seems to have been moving on here and not particularly interested in an investigation. I am,’ Johnson said. ‘Whether I have the other officers involved or not, I’m moving forward, which is why I approved a subpoena.’

Johnson accused the FBI and DOJ of ‘not sharing with us,’ and said that he needed documentation to move forward with his investigation and that he was ‘not getting it.’

‘We’re continuing to be stonewalled, and I’m not happy about it,’ he said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI and Justice Department for comment.

Nearly a year ago, gunman Thomas Crooks fired off eight rounds from a rooftop near the stage of Trump’s rally, grazing the then-presidential candidate on the ear and killing one rally attendee, firefighter Corey Comperatore, and wounding others before being slain.  

The previous preliminary report was the product of a joint investigation with the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which at the time were led by Senate Democrats when they controlled the majority.

That report found that failures in the U.S. Secret Service’s ‘planning, communications, security, and allocation of resources for the July 13, 2024, Butler rally were foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt that day.’

Johnson reiterated that he hoped the final report, and his subpoena push, would be a bipartisan effort.

‘I’m hoping they all join on. But again, if not … I’ve got unilateral subpoena power, so, I will issue that subpoena,’ he said. ‘But if the other officers join in, great.’

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reflected on her role on the Supreme Court during an event in Louisiana over the weekend, saying she enjoyed making her opinion known through court cases.

‘I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues, and that’s what I try to do,’ Jackson said.

Jackson, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, made the remarks during a sit-down with ABC News on stage during the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans as part of a tour for her book, ‘Lovely One.’

Despite being the most junior justice, Jackson has made her voice heard in the high court by going out of her way to write her own dissents in high-profile cases, even if she is not the principal dissenter, as she did in a recent major decision in which the Supreme Court found universal injunctions from judges were unlawful.

‘I write separately to emphasize a key conceptual point: The Court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law,’ Jackson wrote in defense of universal injunctions.

In a biting rebuke, Justice Amy Coney Barrett responded in her majority opinion that Jackson’s remarks were ‘at odds’ with more than 200 years of court precedent and the Constitution and that they were not worth dwelling on.

Recently, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal justice who often sides with Jackson in prominent cases, went out of her way to disagree with Jackson in an emergency order that permitted President Donald Trump’s sweeping federal job cuts.

Jackson indicated during the interview that the justices have good relationships with one another. She noted that they have a ritual by which they shake each other’s hands before walking out into the courtroom and that some also have lunch together weekly.

‘The rule at lunch is that you don’t talk about cases, so you learn about people’s families and sports and books and movies and that kind of thing, and you get to know them outside of work,’ Jackson said.

Jackson, a Harvard Law School graduate and former federal judge, has also attracted attention for how frequently she chimes in during oral arguments. Analyses by the Empirical SCOTUS blog found Jackson spoke more than any of her colleagues during arguments in the 2022 and 2023 court terms.

‘It’s funny to me how people focus on how much I talk at oral argument,’ Jackson said during the interview.

‘I was always this person on the bench,’ Jackson said. ‘And so it’s been a bit of an adjustment, because, as a trial court judge, you have your own courtroom, so you can go on as long as you want. And, so, trying to make sure that my colleagues get to ask some questions has been a challenge for me, but I’ve enjoyed it. I really have.’

An effort to advance a blistering sanctions package against Russia and its trade partners is again gaining steam in the Senate, and this time it appears that President Donald Trump is on board.

A sanctions bill advanced by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., was largely sidelined as the Senate sprinted to hit its July 4 deadline to pass Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ but has come roaring back into the limelight now that the grueling reconciliation process has been put to bed.

The duo’s bill would slap up to 500% tariffs on countries buying energy products from Moscow, effectively placing Russia’s war machine in a chokehold by imposing duties on oil, gas, uranium and other exports, largely purchased by China and India, which account for nearly three-quarters of Moscow’s energy business.

But the bill hit a snag at the White House, where Trump maintained that he wanted to continue peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, and also wanted more flexibility on the proposed penalties in the bill.

However, there’s been a tonal shift in Trump’s opinion of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Graham believes that Trump is now on board with the plan.

‘My goal is to get them on the president’s desk before the August break. We got 85 co-sponsors,’ he said. ‘There’s a waiver in the bill to give the president leverage. I told the president last week about it. He thinks the bill will be helpful. So we’ll get it to him.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

On the changes that are coming to the bill, Blumenthal said the waiver authority making its way into the legislation was working out ‘technical issues’ on how the stringent sanctions would affect the world’s financial system, how America’s allies could be impacted, and providing Trump more flexibility over how the sanctions are levied against Russia’s trade partners.

‘Trump is seeing what we’ve all recognized, which is that Putin is playing the United States for free,’ he said of the president’s change in tone toward Putin.

‘He’s stalling and stonewalling, continuing his aerial reign of terror on Ukrainian civilians and his atrocities against kidnapped children,’ Blumenthal continued. ‘The president is simply reflecting the fact that Putin has no interest in peace. He wants domination.’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wants to get the bill on the floor by the end of the month, and noted that the upper chamber was working in conjunction with the House and the White House to ‘get it in a form where it’s ready.’

Still, he said it was an ‘open question’ as to when Graham and Blumenthal’s bill could get a vote.

‘I think it’s an important message to send, especially now, and I think it’s leverage that we need,’ Thune said.

While the bill does have broad bipartisan support within the Senate, and the backing of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., not every Senate Republican is on board with the plan.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., charged that the measure was ‘not a Russian sanctions bill. It’s a worldwide embargo tariff bill.’

He argued that the bill would institute ‘500% tariffs’ to any country that does business with Russia, and noted that there are a handful of European Union countries that are dependent on Russian oil and gas.

Paul also charged that slapping China with such a hefty sanction would lead to no more trade with the country.

‘It’s the worst, most economically illiterate bill ever to be presented in modern history,’ he said. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reflected on her role on the Supreme Court during an event in Louisiana over the weekend, saying she enjoyed making her opinion known through court cases.

‘I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues, and that’s what I try to do,’ Jackson said.

Jackson, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, made the remarks during a sit-down with ABC News on stage during the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans as part of a tour for her book, ‘Lovely One.’

Despite being the most junior justice, Jackson has made her voice heard in the high court by going out of her way to write her own dissents in high-profile cases, even if she is not the principal dissenter, as she did in a recent major decision in which the Supreme Court found universal injunctions from judges were unlawful.

‘I write separately to emphasize a key conceptual point: The Court’s decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law,’ Jackson wrote in defense of universal injunctions.

In a biting rebuke, Justice Amy Coney Barrett responded in her majority opinion that Jackson’s remarks were ‘at odds’ with more than 200 years of court precedent and the Constitution and that they were not worth dwelling on.

Recently, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal justice who often sides with Jackson in prominent cases, went out of her way to disagree with Jackson in an emergency order that permitted President Donald Trump’s sweeping federal job cuts.

Jackson indicated during the interview that the justices have good relationships with one another. She noted that they have a ritual by which they shake each other’s hands before walking out into the courtroom and that some also have lunch together weekly.

‘The rule at lunch is that you don’t talk about cases, so you learn about people’s families and sports and books and movies and that kind of thing, and you get to know them outside of work,’ Jackson said.

Jackson, a Harvard Law School graduate and former federal judge, has also attracted attention for how frequently she chimes in during oral arguments. Analyses by the Empirical SCOTUS blog found Jackson spoke more than any of her colleagues during arguments in the 2022 and 2023 court terms.

‘It’s funny to me how people focus on how much I talk at oral argument,’ Jackson said during the interview.

‘I was always this person on the bench,’ Jackson said. ‘And so it’s been a bit of an adjustment, because, as a trial court judge, you have your own courtroom, so you can go on as long as you want. And, so, trying to make sure that my colleagues get to ask some questions has been a challenge for me, but I’ve enjoyed it. I really have.’

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) sat down with Fox News Digital to address a barrage of attacks from Democrats and the media as he heads toward his Senate confirmation.

Paul Ingrassia, a Cornell Law School graduate from Long Island, New York, was nominated by President Trump at the end of May to lead OSC, a nonpartisan, independent agency mainly responsible for investigating and protecting federal whistle-blowers, and enforcing the Hatch Act, which restricts federal employees from using federal funds for political gain.

Ingrassia, who is just 30 years old and served as White House liaison to the Department of Justice before being reassigned to the Department of Homeland Security in Trump’s second term, has faced heavy criticism from Democrats and the mainstream media leading up to his Senate confirmation hearing.

Concerns mainly surround his young age paired with antisemitic allegations, which Ingrassia has sternly denied. 

‘I’m not an antisemite,’ Ingrassia said on a call with Fox News Digital. ‘The hit piece and the smears that are being propagated by CNN is just a total lie.’

‘The fact that they’re smearing me as a Holocaust denier, I think it’s disgusting,’ Ingrassia continued. ‘I grew up in New York, New York, where there were within my own neighborhood survivors of the Holocaust three houses down from me and I [listened] to their stories. I understand that we can never go through something like that ever again.’

Ingrassia is alleged to have ties with fringe figure Nick Fuentes, an openly outspoken antisemite and Holocaust denier. 

Trump’s OSC nominee previously posted to X that Fuentes should be allowed to speak at a Talking Point USA conference last year, arguing that ‘conservatives should always uphold the first amendment,’ referring to Fuentes as a ‘dissident’ voice. 

But when asked about antisemitism broadly, Ingrassia made clear that his views on the matter do not align with those of Fuentes.

‘I’ve done a lot currently in my role as a White House liaison to advance Jewish patriots and many jobs across the federal government,’ Ingrassia told Fox. ‘I think what happened on Oct. 7 was, you know, an atrocity, a tragedy, and I never want to see something like that happen again.’

CNN also claimed that various Jewish advocacy groups didn’t know who Ingrassia was and did not endorse him, with one of those groups being the Zionist Organization of America. However, the organization’s national president was quick to dispute the claim. 

‘A CNN article [said] that I never endorsed Paul Ingrassia for his nomination of a position with OSC,’ Morton Klein, national president for the Zionist Organization of America, told Fox News Digital. 

‘In fact, I merely stated that I didn’t clearly recall endorsing him. But upon further reflection, I now recall that I did endorse him during a recent Newsmax interview. And since then, I’ve had further conversations with Paul Ingrassia which only strengthened my support of having him confirmed.’

‘He also made clear to me that he finds ‘Fuentes views on denying the Holocaust and viciously and inappropriately condemning the Jewish State of Israel abhorrent and despicable,’’ Klein said. 

CNN also quoted Jonathan Burkan, a Trump-appointed member of the Holocaust Memorial Council, as another Jewish advocate who does not support Ingrassia.

But Burkan told Fox News Digital: ‘On a personal level, I know Paul to be a good man who is not an antisemite nor a Holocaust denier.’

‘I am confident based on my conversations with him that he is a friend and an ally of the Jewish community, and anything to the contrary is a vicious and disgusting smear against him.’ 

The timeline for Ingrassia’s Senate confirmation hearing and confirmation is unclear, but he will likely face questions surrounding similar topics when facing Congress. 

Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News Digital covering breaking news. Story tips can be sent to Preston.Mizell@fox.com and on X @MizellPreston