• Republicans are pushing to enact DOGE cuts via "rescission."
• That's a procedure under which Congress approves spending cuts made by the president.
• It wouldn't be easy, especially with the GOP's slim majorities in the House and Senate.

If you're following DOGE, you may have begun to hear an unfamiliar word: Rescission.

That's the name for the type of bill that a growing number of GOP lawmakers, eager to assert control over Elon Musk's machinations in the executive branch, are hoping that President Donald Trump will send to Congress. It allows the president, if he can get a bare majority of both the House and Senate to agree, to rescind unspent funds that Congress already approved.

Ask Republicans about it, and they'll tell you that it's about "codifying" DOGE's efforts and ensuring that a future Democratic president can't just roll everything back.

"We don't want a repeat of 2021, where another administration comes in, reverses everything on energy, spending, the whole nine," Republican Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama told BI. "If we don't codify some of this stuff, then it's extremely likely that somebody down the road would reverse that."

There's another key reason they're pushing for rescissions, however: Much of the spending cuts that Musk and the Trump administration have been making may be illegal under the Impoundment Control Act, or ICA, a Nixon-era law that Trump has vowed to challenge in court.

The ICA allows for rescission votes, which makes the proposition attractive to lawmakers like Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who told BI last month that it would be "messier" for Trump to challenge the law.

"It will likely be challenged in court, and it'll go through a lot of different court deliberations 'til we finally get to what the conclusion is," Paul said. "Rescission won't be challenged in any way, and it's a much cleaner way of doing it."

That doesn't mean enacting DOGE cuts through rescissions would be a simple matter.

Things could get messy really quickly

Republicans already have a lot to do, legislatively, over the next several weeks and months.

Government funding runs out at the end of next week, and there are serious concerns that a shutdown could happen. Then there's the matter of passing a reconciliation bill, which could include significant cuts to Medicaid while enacting new tax cuts.

Rescissions would be yet another party-line legislative priority for Republicans — one that could fail, as it did when Trump tried to get Congress to rescind $15 billion in 2018.

Assuming Democrats unanimously oppose rescissions, given the party's broad opposition to DOGE, Republicans can currently only afford to lose one vote in the House and four votes in the Senate.

With a growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill pushing back on DOGE cuts that have affected their states, there's reason to believe some of them aren't willing to vote to make them permanent.

"You know, we all want to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse, "Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania, told BI. "But we have to do it with compassion. We have to be smart about it."

If Republicans aren't able to pass rescissions, it's unclear what happens next, with courts still ruling on the legality of the firing of federal workers and Trump's freezing of federal funds.

And that's not even considering DOGE's shuttering of agencies like USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, both of which were created by Congress.

"All that does is cut spending," Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said of rescissions. "It doesn't really codify policy."

FIRST ON FOX: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson are demanding the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) turn over records relating to former President Joe Biden’s use of a personal email address to conduct official government business and relating to his family’s financial dealings. 

Grassley, R-Iowa, and Johnson, R-Wis., penned a letter to the acting general counsel of NARA demanding the records, which they have been seeking from the agency since 2021. 

FLASHBACK: NATIONAL ARCHIVES TO HAND OVER 62,000 BIDEN RECORDS TO HOUSE GOP, INCLUDING EMAILS USING ALIASES

"Since 2021, we have conducted oversight of Joe Biden’s use of multiple pseudonyms and personal email addresses for official government business when he served as vice president," they wrote. "Despite our multiple requests for information, the Biden White House failed to respond." 

Grassley and Johnson reminded that they have sent five letters to NARA requesting documents that they say are "vital" to their oversight work. 

"Although former President Biden is no longer in office and he pardoned his son Hunter and other family members, we believe it is of importance to review these records so the American people have a full accounting of Joe Biden and his family’s activities while Joe Biden was in government," they wrote. 

The senators are demanding all records in NARA’s possession referencing Hunter Biden and his business partners, including Devon Archer and Christopher Heinz; their Chinese and Russian business associates; and their joint-ventures and groups that they worked with, including Rosemont Seneca, Rosemont Capital, Bohai Harvest, Blue Star Strategies, CEFC China Energy, Hudson West and more. 

FLASHBACK: BIDEN WAS IN DIRECT CONTACT WITH HUNTER’S BUSINESS PARTNERS USING EMAIL ALIAS AS VP

They also are demanding records of to or from the office of the vice president — when Biden was serving in the Obama administration — referencing those individuals and those companies. 

Grassley and Johnson also are demanding all records including Joe Biden’s pseudonyms and email addresses, including: "[email protected]; [email protected]; JRB Ware; and 67stingray." 

They also want "all records encompassed in the nine boxes of records." 

Grassley and Johnson have been investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings since 2019. Specifically, the senators were investigating Hunter Biden’s business dealings with Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings. 

Grassley and Johnson released a report in September 2020 saying that Obama administration officials "knew" that Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma was "problematic" and that it interfered "in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine."

Hunter Biden joined Burisma in April 2014 and, at the time, reportedly connected the firm with consulting firm Blue Star Strategies to help the natural gas company fight corruption charges in Ukraine. During the time Hunter Biden was on the board of the company, Joe Biden was vice president and was running U.S.-Ukraine relations and policy for the Obama administration. 

Meanwhile, Fox News Digital exclusively reported in 2023 that Biden, as vice president, used alias email accounts 327 times during a nine-year period — 2010 to 2019 — to correspond with his son and his business associate Eric Schwerin. 

GRASSLEY, JOHNSON DEMAND ANSWERS AFTER FBI SAID HUNTER BIDEN PROBE ADVANCED RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION

Most of that email traffic took place while Biden was vice president. Fifty four of the emails were "exclusively" between Joe Biden and Schwerin, who House Republicans describe as "the architect of the Biden family’s shell companies." 

The information came amid the House Republican impeachment inquiry against Biden to determine whether he had any involvement in his son’s business dealings. Biden repeatedly denied having any involvement, despite evidence placing him at meetings and on phone calls with his son and his foreign business partners.

In 2024, House lawmakers released their final report, spanning 292 pages, saying that Biden had engaged in "impeachable conduct." They said he had "abused his office" and "defrauded the United States to enrich his family."  

WERE UNDERCOVER SOURCES FROM OTHER DOJ AGENCIES PRESENT ON JAN. 6? GRASSLEY, JOHNSON DEMAND ANSWERS

Republicans said there is "overwhelming evidence" that Biden had participated in a "conspiracy to monetize his office of public trust to enrich his family." They alleged that the Biden family and their business associates had received tens of millions of dollars from foreign interests by "leading those interests to believe that such payments would provide them access to and influence with President Biden." 

In the summer of 2023, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to federal gun charges as part of a plea deal that collapsed before a federal judge in Delaware. In a stunning reversal, Hunter Biden was forced to plead not guilty and sat for a trial this year. 

Before his trial for federal tax crimes, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty. 

Before leaving office, Biden announced a blanket pardon for his son, applying to any offenses against the U.S. that Hunter Biden "has committed or may have committed" from Jan. 1, 2014, to Dec. 1, 2024. 

Biden’s pardon of his son came after months of vowing to the American people that he would not do so. 

And hours before leaving office on Jan. 20, the president issued pardons for his brother Jim Biden and brother's wife, Sara Jones Biden; younger sister Valerie Biden Owens and her husband, John Owens; and his brother Francis Biden. 

The president argued that his family could be subject to "politically motivated investigations" after he left office.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a member of the newly created Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) senatorial caucus, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that one of the first hearings he wants to hold as chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations would focus on "the corruption of science" within the public health system.

Johnson said he hopes the MAHA caucus will "restore integrity" to the scientific community while adhering to recently confirmed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s other agenda items.

"That's just foundational, we have to do that first," Johnson said. "I think we need to give the … COVID injection injured a fair hearing."

EVERYTHING TO KNOW ABOUT MAHA

Created in December by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas – who is also a physician – the MAHA caucus "will focus on nutrition, access to affordable, high-quality-nutrient-dense foods, improving primary care, and addressing the root causes of chronic diseases," acting as a congressional arm for implementing RFK Jr.'s agenda.

So far, the only other members of the caucus are Republicans, but Johnson said the MAHA movement is largely nonpartisan. Other issues Johnson hopes the coalition will explore are the childhood vaccine schedule and potential theories behind the cause of autism.

"We haven't even been allowed to ask these questions," Johnson said. "I'd like to hold a hearing on what questions remain unanswered, what science needs to be conducted with integrity to start answering these questions."

SLEEP SPECIALIST BACKING RFK JR'S MAHA MOVEMENT PUSHES TO CHANGE SCHOOL START TIMES IN AMERICA

"We can certainly reveal the fact that there are legitimate questions that are outstanding that the American people want answers to in a completely nonpartisan way," he said.

Johnson said the HHS and scientific community were "captured by Big Pharma" and Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fauci is currently facing the ire of Republicans for unanswered questions about taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research.

He said MAHA's goal is "to end that corporate capture of federal health agencies" and "reinstall in federal agencies their real mission, which is on behalf of the American public."

And a new bill he said he may introduce could address that by restoring "doctors to the top of the treatment pyramid" instead of having their hands tied by associations and health groups.

"We should have a bill, and I would call it ‘Right to Treat,’" Johnson said. "Right now, they're being crushed at the bottom of the pyramid, and the pyramid starts with people like Anthony Fauci, basically non-practicing physicians, telling doctors how to take care of their patients. That's completely backwards. We need to re-establish doctors at the top of the treatment pyramid."

TRUMP AND A HEALTHIER AMERICA WELCOMED BY DOCTORS: 'NEW GOLDEN AGE'

RFK Jr. was confirmed by the Senate last week in a 52-48 vote, nearly entirely along party lines. Kennedy's controversial hearings focused on his previous public statements about vaccines. Kennedy has been critical of "Big Pharma" and "Big Food" on the campaign trail during his own independent bid for the presidency and continues in the MAHA movement under Trump's administration.

"Our country is not going to be destroyed because we get the marginal tax rate wrong. It is going to be destroyed if we get this issue wrong," Kennedy said of the increase in chronic illnesses. "And I am in a unique position to be able to stop this epidemic."

Since RFK Jr.'s swearing-in, Trump has issued sweeping firings across several federal departments, including HHS, leading to a protest led by federal employees outside HHS in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

EXCLUSIVE: Senate Republicans are demanding answers on whether confidential human sources from Justice Department agencies beyond the FBI were used on Jan. 6, 2021, while also questioning whether Inspector General Michael Horowitz thoroughly reviewed classified and unclassified communications between handlers and their sources, warning that without that review, there may be a "major blind spot" in his findings. 

Horowitz last week released his highly anticipated report that there were more than two dozen FBI confidential human sources in the crowd outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but only three were assigned by the bureau to be present for the event. Horowitz said none of the sources were authorized or directed by the FBI to "break the law" or "encourage others to commit illegal acts." 

But now, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., are demanding further information from Horowitz, writing to him in a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital that it is "unclear" if his office reviewed the use of confidential human sources by other DOJ components during the Capitol riot. 

DOJ IG REVEALS 26 FBI INFORMANTS WERE PRESENT ON JAN. 6

"This IG report was a step in the right direction, but Senator Johnson and I still have questions the Justice Department needs to account for," Grassley told Fox News Digital. "The American people deserve a full picture of whether Justice Department sources from its component agencies, in addition to the FBI, were present on January 6, what their role was, and whether DOJ had knowledge of their attendance." 

Grassley told Fox News Digital that Horowitz and his team "must redouble its efforts to make sure it has reviewed all relevant information and provide a sufficient response to our inquiry." 

Johnson told Fox News Digital he believes the report made public last week "may have only provided a fraction of the story regarding the presence and activities of confidential human sources or undercover federal agents in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021." 

"I urge the Inspector General’s office to be fully transparent about their work to ensure that Congress and the public have an accurate and complete understanding about what it actually reviewed," Johnson said.

DOJ INSPECTOR GENERAL DOES NOT DENY FBI INFORMANTS WERE AMONG JAN 6 CROWD

In their letter to Horowitz, Grassley and Johnson noted that the inspector general’s office received more than 500,000 documents from the Justice Department and its components as part of its investigation. 

"According to the report, your office obtained: CHS reporting, thousands of tips provided to the FBI, investigative and intelligence records from the FBI case management system, emails, instant messages, and phone records; contemporaneous notes of meetings and telephone calls; chronologies concerning the lead-up of events to January 6; after-action assessments; training materials and policy guides; and preparatory materials for press conferences or congressional testimony as well as talking points," they wrote. 

Grassley and Johnson told Horowitz "it is vital" that his office "more precisely explain what records it sought and received from all DOJ component agencies." 

Grassley and Johnson are demanding answers on whether Horowitz obtained evidence on whether other DOJ component agencies had tasked or untasked undercover confidential human sources in the Washington, D.C., area or at the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. 

TRUMP SAYS WRAY RESIGNATION 'GREAT DAY FOR AMERICA,' TOUTS KASH PATEL AS 'MOST QUALIFIED' TO LEAD FBI

They are also asking if all communications were obtained between DOJ component agency handlers and confidential human sources or undercover agents present in the D.C. area, and whether he has received classified and unclassified non-email communication platforms used by the FBI. 

Grassley and Johnson are also demanding Horowitz share all FD-1023 forms, or confidential human source reporting documents, used in the investigation with them. 

As for his initial report, Horowitz "determined that none of these FBI CHSs was authorized by the FBI to enter the Capitol or a restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6." 

The report revealed that the FBI had a minor supporting role in responding on Jan. 6, 2021 – largely because the event was not deemed at the highest security level by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

Horowitz, though, said the FBI took significant and appropriate steps to prepare for that role. 

According to the report, there were a total of 26 confidential human sources in the crowd that day, but only three of them were assigned by the bureau to be there. 

One of the three confidential human sources tasked by the FBI to attend the rally entered the Capitol building, while the other two entered the restricted area around the Capitol. 

If a confidential human source is directed to be at a certain event, they are paid by the FBI for their time.