You’ll Never Guess Who Doesn’t Want the Gaetz Report Released

One of Matt Gaetz’s closest allies in Congress, Representative Jim Jordan, thinks the House Ethics Committee report about Donald Trump’s attorney general nominee should not be released. 

On Fox News Thursday night, Laura Ingraham asked Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, what would happen regarding the committee’s report on Gaetz that was scheduled to be released Friday. Jordan defended his former House colleague.

 “Well, it’s my understanding that it’s not supposed to go public. So if it’s not supposed to under the rules, it shouldn’t go public,” Jordan said. He spoke approvingly of Gaetz taking the attorney general position. 

“There are very few people who have the cross-examination skills he does, and I want someone in the Justice Department who’s not going to say moms and dads in school board meetings need to be investigated,” Jordan added.   

Jordan’s defense of Gaetz suggests that Trump’s nominee still has allies on Capitol Hill, at least in the House of Representatives, and that they will try to defend him if details from the report or the report itself become public. The choice of Gaetz as the nation’s top law enforcement official has drawn backlash from Republican senators, even unpopular ones like Ted Cruz, which is not unexpected when one is under investigation for allegations of trafficking and having sex with a 17-year-old girl. 

Jordan, it should be noted, has been accused of ignoring accusations of widespread sex abuse while coaching wrestling at Ohio State University. 

Gaetz also has extremist Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on his side, who hopes that Gaetz would prosecute vaccine “crimes against humanity.” But her opinion matters little in a Senate confirmation process, where Gaetz will have to win over a narrow Republican Senate majority. Trump may have to resort to recess appointments to get Gaetz confirmed. 

Historically, presidential Cabinet picks are background-checked by the FBI—but Donald Trump’s administration has instead opted to rely on private companies to examine his appointments, a decision that could allow him to practically shoe-in some of his most controversial candidates.

Trump and his team are attempting to avoid a process that they believe is both excessively slow and intrusive, and which turns up dirt that could later be turned into political leverage by their opponents, according to sources that spoke with CNN.

The FBI has conducted the president’s background checks since President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration, providing critical security clearance to confirm that malicious foreign agents aren’t infiltrating the highest rungs of government.

But the decision to move away from traditional security expectations has the dual effect of helping the incoming administration circumvent a particularly grueling process for a pool of candidates who are, by all means, dangerously bizarre and inexperienced.

His choice for director of national intelligence, former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, regularly amplifies Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. Her role would have her oversee 18 intelligence agencies, but critics—even in the House Intelligence Committee—have drawn attention to the danger of her nomination considering her particular affinity for foreign dictators like Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s pick for attorney general, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, has been the subject of several major controversies. Perhaps most notably, he was the subject of a House Ethics investigation that accused him of sex trafficking a minor, and was also faced with a related investigation by the Justice Department. (The conveniently timed appointment—and Gaetz’s subsequent resignation—had the added benefit of killing the House investigation into Gaetz’s alleged misconduct with women and minors.) Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing.

And Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a virulent vaccine conspiracy theorist with a wild history that included propping up a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park for fun—to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Last week, it was leaked that the administration did not believe Kennedy would pass the bar for a security clearance—but that could all change with Trump’s decision to veer away from the federal standard.

National security experts in Washington believe that the decision to outsource the clearances is further evidence that Trump—who has a known history of benefiting from Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election—“doesn’t want harmony.”

They “don’t want the FBI to coordinate a norm; they want to hammer the norm,” Dan Meyer, a national security attorney, told CNN.

Fox & Friends co-host Pete Hegseth, who was nominated by Donald Trump to be the next secretary of defense, was previously investigated for sexual assault, Vanity Fair first reported Thursday.

Susie Wiles (who has been tapped to be Trump’s next chief of staff) was briefed on the allegations Wednesday night. Hegseth allegedly acted inappropriately with a woman in Monterey, California, in 2017, two sources told Vanity Fair.

The allegations were serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers approached Hegseth about them Thursday, one transition source told Vanity Fair.

Hegseth assured Wiles that the interaction had been consensual, and testimony that said otherwise was “he said, she said,” the transition source said.

Before the meeting on Thursday, one high-level MAGA insider familiar with the allegation opined that Hegseth “wasn’t vetted.” A senior transition source denied that claim. “Hegseth was vetted, but this alleged incident didn’t come up,” they said.

News of Hegseth’s alleged misconduct comes on the heels of Trump nominating Matt Gaetz, who has been the subject of investigations into alleged sexual misconduct and sex trafficking, as his next attorney general. Gaetz’s nomination was reportedly the result of one conversation on Trump’s plane Wednesday morning. The Florida Republican’s nomination was announced later that day.

Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, responded to the allegation against his client on Thursday. “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it,” he said, per Vanity Fair.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung released a statement addressing the claims about Hegseth. “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”

Since being appointed, the 44-year-old television host has been criticized for his lack of high-level military experience, his blatant misogyny, extremist Islamophobic rhetoric, and his spate of tattoos with white nationalist connotations.

Even America’s most spineless senator doesn’t want Matt Gaetz to be attorney general.

In a Thursday Newsmax appearance, Texas Republican Ted Cruz was asked for his thoughts on President-elect Trump’s potential nomination of the loathed and embattled MAGA Representative Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general.

The senator initially dodged the question, instead accusing Joe Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department and “infecting” it with partisan bias. He eventually addressed Gaetz, avoiding any advocacy of the nominee.

“I will say that was a pick that was, I think, very surprising to the entirety of the Senate. And so we’ll assess the nominee on the merits, said Cruz. “But there is a process that will unfold that examines a particular nominee’s background, their experience, and their suitability for a role.”

Cruz was much warmer to the idea of his “dear friend” Senator Mike Lee as the attorney general pick, and reiterated the seriousness of the position.

“I don’t know that there’s a more important position in this Trump administration than the attorney general,” said Cruz. “And so I think it’s critical to have someone there who will follow the law, who has integrity, who is a constitutionalist, and who has the courage to root out the incredible partisanship and weaponization that has infested this DOJ.”

Gaetz grew unpopular within the Republican Party’s elected leadership after his destabilizing ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. His attorney general nomination is currently jeopardized by a House Ethics Committee probe into allegations of trafficking and having sex with a 17-year-old girl at a drug-fueled party in 2017. Gaetz resigned from Congress in an effort to end the investigation, but it is expected to be leaked in the coming days.

Elon Musk is apparently trying to broker some kind of agreement between the United States and Iran.

The tech mogul and world’s richest man met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York on Monday, The New York Times reports, citing two anonymous Iranian officials. The meeting, held in a secret location, reportedly focused on how to defuse tensions between the two countries and lasted for over an hour.

The two officials said the meeting was “positive” and “good news,” according to the Times. Neither Donald Trump’s campaign nor Musk commented on the meeting. In the past week, Musk has been spending a lot of time with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, and also traveled to Washington with him.

This raises the question of whether Musk was meeting with Iranian officials on Trump’s orders. According to the Times, Musk requested the meeting and the ambassador picked the location. The president-elect included the tech CEO on a phone call last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy only hours after Trump won the election, so it wouldn’t be Musk’s first dip into Trump’s foreign policy communications.

Musk has reportedly engaged in secret talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a Wall Street Journal report last month, and Russia is allied with Iran. Trump also has a worrying relationship with Putin and Russia, which raises questions about whether Musk’s Monday meeting also has to do with Russia.

The meeting could also signal a change in tone between Iran and the United States. Relations between the two countries have not been positive since Trump’s first term, when he infamously dissolved the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by the Obama administration and approved the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020. U.S. support for Israel’s brutal war against Gaza and Lebanon under the Biden administration has not helped matters either, especially since Iran backs the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the stated target of Israeli bombing.

Trump has been a staunch supporter of Israel’s war and attacked President Biden for insufficient support of the country, which considers Iran its top enemy. A Washington Post report Wednesday said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking to give Trump an inauguration gift of a cease-fire with Lebanon. Maybe Trump hopes to make a grand show of “good deals” in the Middle East to start off his presidency. Or, as was the case in his first presidential term’s foreign policy efforts, his overtures may end up going nowhere.