HELENA — Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s office has blocked a proposed ballot measure that would have specifically protected access to abortion in the Montana Constitution.
Knudsen’s office issued a ruling this week calling the proposed amendment legally insufficient, saying it violates Montana’s requirement that unrelated constitutional changes be voted on separately.
HELENA — On Wednesday, a U.S. House committee held its first hearing in an impeachment inquiry against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas – and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen was brought in as a witness in that hearing.
Republicans in the House have accused Mayorkas of disregarding his duty through his handling of the surge of migrants at the southern border. The House Committee on Homeland Security’s initial hearing was titled “Havoc in the Heartland: How Secretary Mayorkas’ Failed Leadership Has Impacted the States.” Knudsen was one of three Republican state attorneys general who testified about a spike in drug-related and violent crime that they believe can be traced to what they see as inadequate border security.
(The Center Square) – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen testified on Wednesday before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security about how border policies implemented by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have caused Montanans to die and emboldened cartel criminal activity.
Knudsen cited examples of how he said Mayorkas has violated his oath of office and urged Congress to impeach him. He testified at the first hearing held this month called for the purpose of impeaching Mayorkas.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, along with 20 other states, initiated a lawsuit on Thursday against the Federal Highway Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation, challenging a recently finalized emissions rule. The rule mandates that states and major metropolitan areas establish decreasing emissions targets for vehicles on the road. However, the lawsuit, filed in Kentucky, argues that the federal government lacks the authority to impose such a rule.
The lawsuit contends, “Regulatory action cannot be used in this manner. Just because the president believes that reducing on-road CO2 emissions is key to addressing climate change… does not mean the agencies can compel the states to administer a federal administrative regulatory program absent statutory authority
(The Center Square) – Montana officials are warning people about the dangers of human trafficking and how to identify and report suspected cases.
Attorney General Austin Knudsen, whose office put out the public service announcement, says ending human trafficking is a top priority.
“At the Montana Department of Justice, we are increasing our investigations and committed to holding human traffickers accountable,” Knudsen said in a press release.
The attorney general’s office says possible signs of human trafficking include young people who are hesitant to engage in conversation or make eye contact, people with difficulty responding to questions about their name or location, people wearing clothing that don’t match the climate, and people accompanied by “a dominating person or someone they seem fearful of” at the time.
FIRST ON FOX — Republican Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is prepping a lawsuit against the Biden Administration over its gun violence executive order, saying the president “should know better” than to enact “draconian gun control measures.”
Knudson tells Fox Digital that his office is waiting for the Biden Administration to act on its order — which President Biden calls a “whole-of-government approach” to “pursue every legally available and appropriate action” to combat gun violence.
The White House said it wants to utilize federal agencies to promote red flag laws, expand background checks and collect more information on federally licensed firearms dealers.
“They don’t dare say it out loud, but what they’re talking about is going after private firearm transactions and trying to require Americans to do a background check on every private firearms transfer,” said Knudson. “Well, as nice sounding as that might be, what do we know about criminals? They don’t follow the law, and they don’t get their firearms from retailers. They steal guns.”
Montana’s attorney general, Austin Knudsen, terminated his state’s relationship to Motley Rice LLC, a similar cash cow for Democrats, in 2021. Iowa and Kansas have now made it a trend to reform how their legal officers conduct the states’ business. Other states with trial lawyer contracts still in place include Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, one of several Republicans who welcomed the news, said in a statement on Thursday that the major credit companies “came to the correct conclusion.”
“However, they shouldn’t just ‘pause’ their implementation of this plan – they should end it definitively,” he added.
While all the top payment networks had said they would adopt the new code only the smallest, Discover, had given a public timetable for doing so, in April, and said it was only following the lead of others.
HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen announced a nearly 11,000 percent increase in fentanyl seizures by anti-drug task forces in Montana since 2019. Additionally, triple the amount of fentanyl was seized in 2022 compared to 2021, obliterating previous records. The number of firearms found alongside drug shipments is also increasing.
In 2022, Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task forces seized a total of 206,955 dosage units of fentanyl in Montana – an increase of nearly 10,800 percent since 2019 when they seized 1,900 dosage units and more than triple last year’s total of 60,577 dosage units.
“The amount of illicit fentanyl coming across the southern border has skyrocketed. This poison is killing Montanans,” Attorney General Knudsen said. “Our narcotics agents and troopers are getting more fentanyl off the roads than ever before, but we need additional tools and resources to keep it out of our communities.”
These quantities are from the six RMHIDTA Montana task forces and are not all includes of drugs seized by all law enforcement in the state. Attorney General Knudsen oversees the Montana Department of Justice’s narcotics bureau and Montana Highway Patrol criminal interdiction teams that participate in the task forces.
MISSOULA, Mont. — The state of Montana saw some shocking numbers for fentanyl drug trafficking and use.
Attorney General Austin Knudsen said in the last four years, fentanyl seizures have jumped 10,800%.
In 2022, officials seized 206,955 doses of the dangerous drug, a massive increase from 1,900 doses in 2019.
Law enforcement officers are also finding more firearms alongside drug shipments.
FIRST ON FOX: Montana’s Republican attorney general threatened to sue a nonprofit organization of state attorneys if it didn’t return taxpayer money amid accusations of growing liberal bias in the group.
AG Austin Knudsen sent a pointed letter with a 90-day deadline to the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) following an exodus of members as questions swirl about the group’s finances and a supposedly liberal agenda despite labeling itself as nonpartisan.
“There is no doubt in my mind now that NAAG is an unreliable and improper financial steward, and that Montana’s share of the money at NAAG needs to come home,” Austin Knudsen wrote in the letter, which was dated Wednesday and obtained by Fox News Digital.
When President Joe Biden delivers his annual message to Congress Tuesday, we have little doubt that he will once again proclaim—as he has the past two years—that “the state of the Union is strong.”
But that is far from the truth.
What he’s certain not to mention is the historic crisis at the border that has been raging for two years, created and perpetuated by his and his administration’s open-border policies. Most recently, the crisis has included nine consecutive months where illegal border crossings exceeded 200,000, with the number in December exceeding 250,000—the most ever recorded. In total, the record-breaking influx of illegal immigrants in 2022 amounted to more than twice the population of Montana or half the population of Alabama.
Admittedly, taking responsibility for anything, let alone the worst border crisis in the history of our country, would be a lot to expect from this president. However, if he cares at all about Americans’ safety, he must start taking this crisis and its collateral consequences seriously, especially how the chaos at the border has enabled a deluge of deadly drugs and a wave of violent crime to sweep into and across our country.
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