All of this comes after another grand jury also rejected a charge against former FBI Director James Comey, another of Trump’s targets for retribution, in his initial indictment.

The emerging picture seems to confirm just how thinly constructed the allegations in Trump’s retribution campaign are. And the whole thing, much like his redistricting effort, looks like it could be fizzling because an institution — in this case, the criminal justice system — isn’t bowing to his will.

More GOP lawmakers break with Trump

The story is similar with Trump’s efforts to target Democrats who warned military service-members about the Trump administration potentially giving illegal orders. Trump accused a half-dozen Democrats like Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona of seditious and even treasonous behavior, and he even invoked the death penalty.

But Trump’s retaliation efforts there also suffered a major blow Thursday. After the Navy delivered a report on Kelly that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had requested, Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker signaled to CNN that there was no there there.

Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, departs after attending a classified briefing,

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

The Mississippi Republican said it wasn’t appropriate for the military to even try to punish Kelly, much less sanction him for sedition or treason.

And Indiana wasn’t even the only legislature to deliver Trump a rebuke on Thursday. So too did the US House, where 20 House Republicans voted to overturn Trump’s executive order that stripped federal workers of collective bargaining rights.

While the legislation appears unlikely to become law, it’s rare for Republicans to vote so directly against something Trump wants or has done. And those voting against him weren’t just moderates.

And finally, there’s another key debate in Washington where lawmakers appear to be on a very different page from Trump – and don’t seem to be moving, despite his efforts.

News broke Thursday that Trump was nominating Lindsey Halligan, who was disqualified in the James and Comey cases, to be confirmed as US attorney. Her confirmation would give her power to seek these kinds of indictments for Trump.

There’s a big problem, though: Under its longstanding “blue slip” rule, the Senate doesn’t confirm nominees like her unless they have the approval of senators in the state at issue. And Virginia has two Democratic senators who will not give Halligan such approval.

Trump’s been waging a longstanding pressure campaign to get Senate GOP leadership to scrap this rule, which he also re-upped Thursday on social media.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune holds a press conference following the GOP weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Annabelle Gordon/Reuters

But his renewed push was met with a pretty quick dismissal by key Republicans. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said there are “way more Republican senators who are interested in preserving that [rule] than those who aren’t.” Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, meanwhile, suggested the real problem was that the White House wasn’t sending him enough nominees for judiciary posts. “ATTN WH; SEND MORE NOMS,” the Iowa Republican posted on X.

The episode encapsulated an emerging trend with Trump in which he seems to just throw something at the wall and hope it sticks.

But that doesn’t seem to be serving him as well anymore, particularly as institutions and even his fellow Republicans summon some willpower and courage to resist him.

And Thursday was a pretty bad day for Trump on that front.

One of the more remarkable moments in the history of our system of checks and balances came after the 2024 election.

Despite President Donald Trump having been elected with less than a majority of the popular vote (49.8%), congressional Republicans spoke about his victory as a landslide for the ages. Some of them even argued that Congress should effectively give up its prerogatives and do whatever the all-conquering Trump told them to do.

“Whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word,” Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas said last year. “If Donald Trump says jump three feet high and scratch your head, we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. And that’s it.”

The problem with that – beyond the fact that Congress is supposed to be a powerful branch of government in its own right – is that Trump didn’t seem to want lawmakers, who are also elected, to do much of anything. In fact, Trump mostly seemed to want the legislative branch to go away and let him govern through executive action.

The result: Only 47 bills passed by Congress have been enacted this year, according to GovTrack. That puts this Congress on track to be by far the least productive in modern history.

But a year after Trump’s election and with next year’s midterms looming, this arrangement is showing signs of wearing on some congressional Republicans.

Suddenly, the people elected to legislate seem to want to actually, you know, legislate – to pass things they like. (Some aren’t running for reelection and may feel like they have nothing to lose. Others may want something to show for themselves next year, when Trump is not on the ballot, but they are.)

We’ve seen this most conspicuously on discharge petitions.

Until recently, discharge petitions – in which a lawmaker can force a vote on something by getting 218 members of the House to sign the petition – were viewed as something of cockamamie legislative Hail Mary. They rarely worked, because members of the majority wouldn’t sign something that was viewed as an affront to leadership.

But that’s changed rather rapidly, and not just with the recent effort to force a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files. We’ve now seen five successful discharge petitions in the last two years – more than in the previous 30 years combined, according to Politico.

The most recent effort to force a vote was Wednesday, when 13 House Republicans joined with all Democrats to vote to overturn a Trump executive order stripping collective bargaining rights from federal workers. (The measure is very unlikely to become law, but it’s a remarkable, symbolic vote against Trump.)

And Republicans, who are in charge, have increasingly turned to discharge petitions as the means to get something – anything – done. Even right now, there are key discharge petitions in-play on banning stock trading by members of Congress, Russia sanctions and, as of Wednesday, extending Obamacare subsidies. All could force votes on items with bipartisan support that GOP leadership has resisted allowing votes on.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks during a House Homeland Security hearing on Thursday.

Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a top Trump-ally-turned-critic who is resigning from Congress soon, announced Wednesday that she was signing the latter two petitions and could even sign ones she might disagree with. The reason? Because lawmakers should be able to vote on things, she said.

“As a duly elected Member of Congress, I believe my colleagues should have the ability to bring legislation to the floor for a vote,” the Georgia Republican said on X, adding: “This is a result of House leadership blocking Members from governing.”

Other members of Congress have made similar comments of late.

Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, another outspoken Republican who joined Greene in signing the Epstein files discharge petition, wrote a New York Times op-ed this week titled, “What’s the Point of Congress?” She argued that Democrats actually use their power to pass legislation, but Republicans refuse to.

Other Republicans have put a pro-Trump spin on this. They’ve argued that Congress should be passing more legislation, but specifically legislation to enact his agenda – even though the president hasn’t really spent a lot of time recently agitating for that.

“Congress really has to act,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told Semafor on Wednesday. “I think you’ve seen a Congress that has not been as enthusiastic about his agenda as I would like.”

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana made similar comments during the government shutdown.

“We passed one big, beautiful bill — then nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada,” Kennedy told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham last month, adding: “We’ve been sitting on our ice-cold, lazy butts instead of passing his agenda.”

The implication seems to be: Hey Trump, you should want us to pass stuff, right?

And, while it’s still early, there are signs that Congress is asserting itself – at least somewhat – when it comes to the Trump administration’s legally dubious strikes on alleged drug vessels, with even Republicans raising concerns about a so-called double-tap strike that killed survivors.

This screengrab taken from a video posted by the Defense Department shows the boat targeted on September 2, shortly before the first strike.

Defense Department

The new defense policy bill — which the House advanced on Wednesday — includes a provision that would limit Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if the Pentagon doesn’t turn over to Congress video of its boat strikes.

In other words, the legislature is using some leverage to try and make the executive branch do something – a novel concept in this era.

We’ve also seen a number of Republicans emphasize the need for something that Congress has generally avoided over the past 11 months: genuine oversight of the Trump administration’s controversial actions.

CNN’s Manu Raju asked former House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul on Wednesday whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should testify, and McCaul said he should.

“We are a separate but equal branch of government under Article I of the Constitution,” the Texas Republican noted.

That’s an attitude that’s been largely absent over the last 11 months. Recent events don’t mean Congress is back to actually doing things – not hardly. But it does suggest lawmakers are a little restless.

A coalition of blue states is suing the Trump administration over its fee of $100,000 for H-1B Visas, several Democratic attorneys general announced on Friday.

The Trump administration announced in September that it would be implementing the fee for H-1B visas, citing that the program for the visas is overused. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, joined by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell and New York Attorney General Letitia James and others, is leading the suit.

H-1B visas allow foreign professionals to seek work in professions that are considered to be more specialized. Applicants must hold a bachelor’s degree or a similar equivalent to be eligible for the visa.

The liberal attorneys general allege that new policy and fee, which is implemented by the Department of Homeland Security, is out of bounds of what is authorized by Congress for the program.

“Congress has refined this program, setting caps, establishing fees, enhancing enforcement and strengthening protections, but what Congress has never done is authorize a president to impose a six-figure surcharge designed to dismantle the program entirely,” Bonta said at a press conference on Friday.

Bonta said the visa fee will create financial burdens on state and private employers, creating a barrier to filling job vacancies.

He also underscored just how many employees in the United States rely on the H-1B visa program, citing the thousands of health care professionals, educators and researchers, among other occupations, that use the program. Bonta claimed nearly 30,000 educators nationwide hold an H-1B visa, and 17,000 H-1B visa holders last year were health care professionals.

Bonta said during the press conference the state of California has filed 49 lawsuits against the Trump administration since they took office in January.

“The bottom line is, no presidential administration can rewrite immigration law,” Bonta said. “No president can destabilize our schools, our hospitals and universities on a whim, and no president can ignore the co-equal branch of government, of Congress, ignore the Constitution or ignore the law.”

CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment on the lawsuit. The Justice Department declined to comment.

The suit names Trump as a defendant, along with the National Park Service, the Department of Interior, and the General Services Administration, along with officials who work in those agencies. The case is assigned to District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee.

“President Trump has full legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House – just like all of his predecessors did,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to CNN.

While Trump announced months ago his plans to replace the East Wing with the new ballroom — a necessary addition, he says, to accommodate large events — the demolition proceeded without an extensive public review process.

“No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever — not President Trump, not President Joe Biden, and not anyone else,” the complaint from the trust says.

In October, the group addressed a letter to the administration “respectfully” urging it to “pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes, including consultation and review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, and to invite comment from the public.”

The two commissions the letter was addressed to — the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts — have in the past reviewed proposed additions to the White House. That includes changes to the perimeter fence and the construction of a new tennis pavilion within the past decade.

The current chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, Will Scharf, who also serves as Trump’s staff secretary, said during a meeting of the commission last month that its jurisdiction covers construction, but not demolition — suggesting the body would eventually be involved in the project, but not until after the East Wing was demolished.

At an early December NCPC meeting, Scharf said he has been told by colleagues at the White House that the ballroom plans will be submitted to the agency this month.