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.’

The Trump administration has repeatedly assigned additional job roles to Cabinet members and other officials amid government shake-ups as the president solidifies his agenda for the coming years, Fox News Digital found. 

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was the latest Trump official to be charged with an additional role on June 9. The Transportation chief and Trump ally now also serves as the administration’s acting NASA administrator, after the president pulled a former nominee’s name from consideration to lead NASA. 

Duffy, however, is not alone in taking on multiple roles within Trump’s second administration. Fox News Digital looked back on the various Trump Cabinet members and officials who have or are currently wearing multiple hats as the president works to realign the federal government to track with his ‘America First’ policies. 

Sean Duffy 

Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin, was tapped to oversee the Department of Transportation and was confirmed by the Senate on Jan. 28. Since his confirmation, Duffy has juggled a handful of crises related to tragic plane crashes — including the Potomac River mid-air collision on Jan. 29 — and air traffic control issues that plagued New Jersey’s Liberty International Airport earlier this year. 

Trump posted to Truth Social on Wednesday evening that Duffy would also serve as interim chief of NASA. 

‘I am pleased to announce that I am directing our GREAT Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, to be Interim Administrator of NASA,’ Trump wrote in his announcement. 

‘Sean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country’s Transportation Affairs, including creating a state-of-the-art Air Traffic Control systems, while at the same time rebuilding our roads and bridges, making them efficient, and beautiful, again. He will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time. Congratulations, and thank you, Sean!’

Duffy replaced Janet Petro, who has served as acting NASA administrator since Trump’s inauguration. The president had previously nominated an Elon Musk ally named Jared Isaacman to lead NASA, but pulled his nomination in June as Trump’s and Musk’s relationship hit the rocks over the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill.’

‘Honored to accept this mission. Time to take over space. Let’s launch,’ Duffy posted to X of the new role. 

Marco Rubio 

Rubio and the Trump administration came under fire from Democrats for the secretary of state holding multiple high-profile roles in the second administration, including Democrats sounding off on the national security council shake-up on Sunday news shows. 

‘There’s no way he can do that and do it well, especially since there’s such incompetence over at DOD with Pete Hegseth being secretary of defense and just the hollowing out of the top leadership,’ Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth said on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation.’ ‘There’s no way he can carry all that entire load on his own.’

‘I don’t know how anybody could do these two big jobs,’ Democrat Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said Sunday on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’

Rubio’s roles in the administration include leading the State Department; serving as acting archivist of the United States after Trump ousted a Biden-era appointee; serving as acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development as the admin works to dissolve the independent agency by September; and taking the helm as the interim national security advisor. Rubio’s role overseeing USAID concluded at the start of July when the State Department officially absorbed the agency. 

When asked about the trend of Trump officials wearing multiple work hats back in May, the White House reflected in comment to Fox News Digital on former President Joe Biden’s ‘disaster of a Cabinet.’ 

‘Democrats cheered on Joe Biden’s disaster of a Cabinet as it launched the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, opened the southern border to migrant criminals, weaponized the justice system against political opponents, and more,’ White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital in May. ‘President Trump has filled his administration with many qualified, talented individuals he trusts to manage many responsibilities.’ 

The Trump administration has repeatedly brushed off concern over Rubio holding multiple roles, most notably juggling both his State Department leadership and serving as acting national security advisor. Similarly, former President Richard Nixon in 1973 named then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger to simultaneously serve as secretary of state. 

‘You need a team player who is very honest with the president and the senior team, not someone trying to build an empire or wield a knife or drive their own agenda. He is singularly focused on delivering the president’s agenda,’ an administration official told Politico. 

Despite Democratic rhetoric that Rubio was taking on too many roles, the former Florida senator helped oversee the U.S.’ successful strikes on Iran in June, which destroyed a trio of nuclear facilities and decimated the country’s efforts to advance its nuclear program. 

Kash Patel

FBI Director Kash Patel, who railed against the ‘deep state’ and vowed to strip corruption from the federal law enforcement agency ahead of his confirmation, was briefly charged with overseeing the of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in February after the Biden-era director resigned in January. 

Patel was later replaced by Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll as acting ATF director in a job change that was publicly reported in April. 

‘Director Kash Patel was briefly designated ATF director while awaiting Senate confirmations, a standard, short-term move. Dozens of similar re-designations have occurred across the federal government,’ the White House told Reuters in April. ‘Director Patel is now excelling in his role at the FBI and delivering outstanding results.’

Daniel Driscoll 

Driscoll was sworn in as the 26th secretary of the Army in February. The secretary of the army is a senior-level civilian official charged with overseeing the management of the Army and also acts as an advisor to the secretary of defense in matters related to the Army. 

It was reported in April that Driscoll was named acting ATF director, replacing Patel in that role. 

‘Mr. Driscoll is responsible for the oversight of the agency’s mission to protect communities from violent criminals, criminal organizations, and the illegal trafficking of firearms, explosives, and contraband. Under his leadership, the ATF works to enforce federal laws, ensure public safety, and provide critical support in the investigation of firearms-related crimes and domestic and international criminal enterprises,’ his ATF biography reads. 

Ahead of Trump taking office, Republican Reps. Eric Burlison of Missouri and Lauren Boebert of Colorado introduced legislation to abolish the ATF, saying the agency has worked to strip Second Amendment rights from U.S. citizens. 

The ATF has been tasked with assisting the Department of Homeland Security in its deportation efforts under the Trump administration. 

Doug Collins 

Former Georgia Republican Rep. Doug Collins was sworn-in as the Trump administration’s secretary of Veterans Affairs in February, a Cabinet-level position tasked with overseeing the department and its mission of providing health, education and financial benefits to military veterans. 

Days after his confirmation as VA secretary, Trump tapped Collins to temporarily lead two oversight agencies: the Office of Government Ethics and the Office of Special Counsel. 

The Office of Government Ethics is charged with overseeing the executive branch’s ethics program, including setting ethics standards for the government and monitoring ethics compliance across federal agencies and departments. 

The Office of Special Counsel is charged with overseeing and protecting the federal government’s merit system, most notably ensuring federal whistleblowers don’t face retaliation for sounding the alarm on an issue they’ve experienced. The office also has an established secure channel to allow federal employees to blow the whistle on alleged wrongdoing. 

The Office of Special Counsel also enforces the Hatch Act, which bans executive branch staffers, except the president and vice president, from engaging in certain forms of political activity. 

Jamieson Greer 

Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson Greer, has also been tapped for multiple roles within the administration, in addition to help leading the administration’s tariff negotiations to bring parity to the U.S.’ chronic trade deficit with other nations. 

Greer took on Collins’ roles as acting director of the Office of Government Ethics and as acting special counsel of the Office of Special Counsel on April 1. 

Trump nominated conservative attorney Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel in May. 

Russell Vought 

Trump named his former director of the Office of Management and Budget under his first administration, Russell Vought, to the same role in his second administration. Vought was confirmed as the federal government’s budget chief in February. 

Days later, Vought was also named the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  

The CFPB is an independent government agency charged with protecting consumers from unfair financial practices in the private sector. It was created in 2010 under the Obama administration after the financial crash in 2008. Democrat Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren originally proposed and advocated for the creation of the agency.

The CFPB came under fierce investigation from the Department of Government Efficiency in February, with mass terminations rocking the agency before the reduction in force initiative was tied up in court. 

Ric Grenell 

President Donald Trump’s former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence under his first term, a pair of roles held at separate times in the first administration, currently serves as president of the Kennedy Center and special presidential envoy for special missions of the United States. 

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts serves as the national cultural center of the U.S. Trump notably serves as the center’s chair of the board, with Grenell saying the center will see a ‘golden age’ of the arts during Trump’s second administration through productions and concerts that Americans actually want to see after years of the performing arts center running in the red. 

Trump named Grenell as his special presidential envoy for special missions to the United States in December before his inauguration, saying Grenell will ‘work in some of the hottest spots around the world, including Venezuela and North Korea.’

In this role, Grenell helped lead the administration through its response to the wildfires that tore through Southern California in the last days of the Biden administration through the beginning days of the Trump administration. 

Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report. 

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the agency is poised to move ‘quickly’ after the Supreme Court shot down a lower court’s ruling blocking the Trump administration from implementing widescale reductions in force across the federal government. 

‘I think it’s fair to say that with everything else that happens [at the State Department], it will happen quickly,’ Bruce said when asked how soon the agency would begin issuing notices to department employees. ‘This is not going to be an extended wait for people who are listening and watching in this building, or fellow Americans at home and around the world, this will happen quickly.’

Bruce pointed out that, up to this point, the only reason there has been a delay in implementing force reductions at the Department of State, is because of the courts that have stepped in to try to halt the reforms.

‘There has been a delay – not to our interests, but because of the courts,’ Bruce added. ‘It’s been difficult when you know you need to get something done for the benefit of everyone. So it will be – it will be quickly.’ 

However, while Bruce indicated the agency would be moving ‘quickly,’ she declined to provide any specific timeline. 

She also declined to provide specifics around whether a court order that followed the Supreme Court’s decision authorizing the Trump administration’s reductions in force, which seeks to resolve a dispute over whether the administration must publicly share the reasoning for their reorganization efforts, might slow down the process. 

The court order seeking to determine whether the Trump administration must publicly share the details of their planned reforms and reductions in force across the government was signed by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston. 

It was Illston’s previous ruling in May that temporarily blocked the Trump administration from implementing its executive agency reforms, which the Supreme Court overturned this week.

Illston’s May ruling stemmed from lawsuits initiated by labor unions and advocacy groups, which argued the president’s February work reduction executive order was an overreach of power and undermined certain civil service protections.

The Trump administration repeatedly has assigned additional job roles to Cabinet members and other officials amid government shake-ups as the president solidifies his agenda for the coming years, Fox News Digital found. 

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was the latest Trump official assigned an additional role Wednesday. The Transportation chief and Trump ally now also serves as the administration’s acting NASA administrator after the president pulled a former nominee’s name from consideration to lead NASA. 

Duffy, however, is not alone in taking on multiple roles within Trump’s second administration. Fox News Digital looked back on the various Trump Cabinet members and officials wearing multiple hats as the president works to realign the federal government with his ‘America First’ policies. 

Sean Duffy 

Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin, was tapped to oversee the Department of Transportation and was confirmed by the Senate Jan. 28. Since his confirmation, Duffy has juggled a handful of crises related to tragic plane crashes, including the Potomac River midair collision Jan. 29 and air traffic control issues that plagued New Jersey’s Liberty International Airport earlier in 2025. 

Trump posted to Truth Social Wednesday evening that Duffy would also serve as interim chief of NASA. 

‘I am pleased to announce that I am directing our GREAT Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, to be Interim Administrator of NASA,’ Trump wrote in his announcement. 

‘Sean is doing a TREMENDOUS job in handling our Country’s Transportation Affairs, including creating a state-of-the-art Air Traffic Control systems, while at the same time rebuilding our roads and bridges, making them efficient, and beautiful, again. He will be a fantastic leader of the ever more important Space Agency, even if only for a short period of time. Congratulations, and thank you, Sean!’

Duffy replaced Janet Petro, who has served as acting NASA administrator since Trump’s inauguration. The president had previously nominated an Elon Musk ally named Jared Isaacman to lead NASA but pulled his nomination in June as Trump’s and Musk’s relationship hit the rocks over the ‘big, beautiful bill.’

‘Honored to accept this mission. Time to take over space. Let’s launch,’ Duffy posted to X of the new role. 

Marco Rubio 

Rubio and the Trump administration came under fire from Democrats for the secretary of state holding multiple high-profile roles in the second Trump administration, including Democrats sounding off on the national security council shake-up on Sunday news shows. 

‘There’s no way he can do that and do it well, especially since there’s such incompetence over at DOD with Pete Hegseth being secretary of defense and just the hollowing out of the top leadership,’ Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation.’ ‘There’s no way he can carry all that entire load on his own.’

‘I don’t know how anybody could do these two big jobs,’ Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’

Rubio’s roles in the administration include leading the State Department, serving as acting archivist of the United States after Trump ousted a Biden-era appointee, serving as acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development as the administration who works to dissolve the independent agency by September and taking the helm as the interim national security advisor. Rubio’s role overseeing USAID concluded at the start of July when the State Department officially absorbed the agency. 

When asked about the trend of Trump officials wearing multiple work hats in May, the White House reflected in a comment to Fox News Digital on former President Joe Biden’s ‘disaster of a Cabinet.’ 

‘Democrats cheered on Joe Biden’s disaster of a Cabinet as it launched the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, opened the southern border to migrant criminals, weaponized the justice system against political opponents and more,’ White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital in May. ‘President Trump has filled his administration with many qualified, talented individuals he trusts to manage many responsibilities.’ 

The Trump administration repeatedly has brushed off concerns over Rubio holding multiple roles, most notably juggling both his State Department leadership and serving as acting national security advisor. Similarly, former President Richard Nixon in 1973 named National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger to simultaneously serve as secretary of state. 

‘You need a team player who is very honest with the president and the senior team, not someone trying to build an empire or wield a knife or drive their own agenda,’ an administration official told Politico. ‘He is singularly focused on delivering the president’s agenda.’ 

Despite Democratic rhetoric that Rubio was taking on too many roles, the former Florida senator helped oversee successful U.S. strikes on Iran in June, which destroyed a trio of nuclear sites and decimated the country’s efforts to advance its nuclear program. 

Kash Patel

FBI Director Kash Patel, who railed against the ‘deep state’ and vowed to strip corruption from the federal law enforcement agency ahead of his confirmation, was briefly charged with overseeing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in February after the Biden-era director resigned in January. 

Patel was later replaced by Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll as acting ATF director in a job change that was reported publicly in April. 

‘Director Kash Patel was briefly designated ATF director while awaiting Senate confirmations, a standard, short-term move. Dozens of similar re-designations have occurred across the federal government,’ the White House told Reuters in April. ‘Director Patel is now excelling in his role at the FBI and delivering outstanding results.’

Daniel Driscoll 

Driscoll was sworn in as the 26th secretary of the Army in February. The secretary of the army is a senior-level civilian official charged with overseeing the management of the Army and also acts as an advisor to the secretary of defense in matters related to the Army. 

It was reported in April that Driscoll was named acting ATF director, replacing Patel in that role. 

‘Mr. Driscoll is responsible for the oversight of the agency’s mission to protect communities from violent criminals, criminal organizations, and the illegal trafficking of firearms, explosives, and contraband,’ his ATF biography states. ‘Under his leadership, the ATF works to enforce federal laws, ensure public safety, and provide critical support in the investigation of firearms-related crimes and domestic and international criminal enterprises,’

Ahead of Trump taking office, Republican representatives Eric Burlison of Missouri and Lauren Boebert of Colorado introduced legislation to abolish the ATF, saying the agency has worked to strip Second Amendment rights from U.S. citizens. 

The ATF has been tasked with assisting the Department of Homeland Security in its deportation efforts under the Trump administration. 

Doug Collins 

Former Georgia Republican Rep. Doug Collins was sworn in as the Trump administration’s secretary of Veterans Affairs in February, a Cabinet-level position tasked with overseeing the department and its mission of providing health, education and financial benefits to military veterans. 

Days after his confirmation as VA secretary, Trump tapped Collins to temporarily lead two oversight agencies, the Office of Government Ethics and the Office of Special Counsel. 

The Office of Government Ethics is charged with overseeing the executive branch’s ethics program, including setting ethics standards for the government and monitoring ethics compliance across federal agencies and departments. 

The Office of Special Counsel is charged with overseeing and protecting the federal government’s merit system, most notably ensuring federal whistleblowers don’t face retaliation for sounding the alarm on an issue they’ve experienced. The office also has an established secure channel to allow federal employees to blow the whistle on alleged wrongdoing. 

The Office of Special Counsel also enforces the Hatch Act, which bans executive branch staffers, except the president and vice president, from engaging in certain forms of political activity. 

Jamieson Greer 

Trump’s trade representative, Jamieson Greer, has also been tapped for multiple roles within the administration, in addition to helping lead the administration’s tariff negotiations to bring parity to the chronic U.S. trade deficit with other nations. 

Greer took on Collins’ roles as acting director of the Office of Government Ethics and as acting special counsel of the Office of Special Counsel April 1. 

Trump nominated conservative attorney Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel in May. 

Russell Vought 

Trump named his former director of the Office of Management and Budget under his first administration, Russell Vought, to the same role in his second administration. Vought was confirmed as the federal government’s budget chief in February. 

Days later, Vought was also named the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  

The CFPB is an independent government agency charged with protecting consumers from unfair financial practices in the private sector. It was created in 2010 under the Obama administration after the financial crash in 2008. Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren originally proposed and advocated for the creation of the agency.

The CFPB came under fierce investigation from the Department of Government Efficiency in February, with mass terminations rocking the agency before the reduction in force initiative was tied up in court. 

Ric Grenell 

President Donald Trump’s former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence under his first term, a pair of roles held at separate times in the first administration, currently serves as president of the Kennedy Center and special presidential envoy for special missions of the United States. 

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts serves as the national cultural center of the U.S. Trump notably serves as the center’s chair of the board, and Grenell said the center will see a ‘golden age’ of the arts during Trump’s second administration through productions and concerts that Americans actually want to see after years of the performing arts center running in the red. 

Trump named Grenell as his special presidential envoy for special missions to the United States in December 2024 before his inauguration, saying Grenell will ‘work in some of the hottest spots around the world, including Venezuela and North Korea.’

In this role, Grenell helped lead the administration through its response to the wildfires that tore through Southern California in the last days of the Biden administration through the beginning days of the Trump administration. 

Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report. 

The State Department informed U.S.-based employees on Thursday that it would soon begin laying off nearly 2,000 workers after the recent Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to move forward with mass job cuts as part of its efforts to downsize the federal workforce.

The agency’s reorganization plan was first unveiled in April by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to eliminate functions and offices the department considered to be redundant. In February, President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing Rubio to revamp the foreign service to ensure that the president’s foreign policy is ‘faithfully’ implemented.

Employees affected by the agency’s ‘reduction in force’ would be notified soon, Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources Michael Rigas told employees in an email on Thursday.

‘First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States,’ Rigas said in the email.

‘Every effort has been made to support our colleagues who are departing, including those who opted into the Deferred Resignation Programs … On behalf of Department leadership, we extend our gratitude for your hard work and commitment to executing this reorganization and for your ongoing dedication to advancing U.S. national interests across the world,’ he added.

The department did not specify on Thursday how many people would be fired, but in its plans to Congress sent in May, it had proposed laying off about 1,800 employees of the 18,000 estimated domestic workforce. Another 1,575 were estimated to have taken deferred resignations.

The plans to Congress did not state how many of these workers would be from the civil service and how many from the foreign service, but it did say that more than 300 of the department’s 734 bureaus and offices would be streamlined, merged or eliminated.

Once affected staff have been notified, the department ‘will enter the final stage of its reorganization and focus its attention on delivering results-driven diplomacy,’ Rigas said in the email to colleagues.

The expectation is for the terminations to start as soon as Friday.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters earlier on Thursday that the only reason there had been a delay in implementing force reductions is because the courts have stepped in, as she said the mass layoffs would be happening quickly.

‘There has been a delay – not to our interests, but because of the courts,’ Bruce noted. ‘It’s been difficult when you know you need to get something done for the benefit of everyone.’

‘When something is too large to operate, too bureaucratic, to actually function, and to deliver projects, or action, it has to change,’ she said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

A former top White House advisor is slated to appear before House Oversight Committee investigators on Friday as GOP lawmakers probe whether ex-President Joe Biden’s top aides covered up evidence of his mental and physical decline.

Ashley Williams, who served as deputy director of Oval Office Operations during the Biden administration, is expected to sit with investigators behind closed doors for a transcribed interview around 11 a.m. Friday.

If she appears, Williams will be the third member of the former president’s White House inner circle summoned in Comer’s probe in recent weeks.

In addition to whether senior aides covered up Biden’s alleged decline, Comer is looking at whether any presidential orders were signed via autopen without the former commander-in-chief’s knowledge.

Any allegations of wrongdoing so far have been denied by the ex-president’s allies.

But Republican investigators have pointed to Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate and subsequent revelations in the media that there were more concerns from Biden’s inner circle about his fitness for office than previously known.

Williams was one of three then-Biden aides called before Comer’s House Oversight Committee in July 2024 to discuss the former president’s mental state, but the White House at the time called it a ‘baseless political stunt’ to NBC News.

Her expected appearance on Friday comes two days after ex-Biden White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor briefly sat down with investigators on Wednesday.

O’Connor’s encounter with the committee lasted roughly 30 minutes, with the doctor invoking the Fifth Amendment for all questions except his name.

‘It’s clear there was a conspiracy to cover up President Biden’s cognitive decline after Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Biden’s physician and family business associate, refused to answer any questions and chose to hide behind the Fifth Amendment,’ Comer said in a statement after O’Connor’s appearance.

‘Dr. O’Connor took the Fifth when asked if he was told to lie about President Biden’s health and whether he was fit to be President of the United States. Congress must assess legislative solutions to prevent such a cover up from happening again. We will continue to interview more Biden White House aides to get the answers Americans deserve.’

O’Connor’s lawyers said he did so out of concerns that House investigators would violate doctor-patient privilege.

‘This Committee has indicated to Dr. O’Connor and his attorneys that it does not intend to honor one of the most well-known privileges in our law – the physician patient privilege. Instead, the Committee has indicated that it will demand that Dr. O’Connor reveal, without any limitations, confidential information regarding his medical examinations, treatment, and care of President Biden,’ the attorney statement said.

‘Revealing confidential patient information would violate the most fundamental ethical duty of a physician, could result in revocation of Dr. O’Connor’s medical license, and would subject Dr. O’Connor to potential civil liability. Dr. O’Connor will not violate his oath of confidentiality to any of his patients, including President Biden.’