Will the FBI help the Republican Party force through a partisan redistricting plan in Texas, or not? The answer to that question is of vital importance to sustaining American democracy. Republican state legislative leaders want to redraw Texas’s congressional districts to give their party as many as five more seats in next year’s midterm elections.

The president’s recent demand that Texas and other Republican-controlled states engage in an irregular mid-decade redistricting effort is an unprecedented incursion into state authority. In Texas, Trump aims to transmute five House seats held by Democrats into five that Republicans could win handily in 2026.