Marjorie Taylor Greene Finally Had a Good Idea

In response to calls for the House Ethics Committee to release the results of its investigation into former Representative Matt Gaetz, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says everything should be released. 

The far-right Georgia congresswoman posted on X Tuesday morning in an attempt to defend Donald Trump’s choice of Gaetz as attorney general. Gaetz is alleged to have trafficked in and had sex with an underage girl at a 2017 party, and tried to bury the committee’s report by resigning from Congress last week.  

Greene wants every House Ethics Committee report released, including sexual harassment and assault claims, as well as reports that House Republicans probably don’t have access to, such as “the entire Jeffrey Epstein files, tapes, recordings, witness interviews.”

Transparency is a worthy goal, but Greene is most likely trolling with her post. House Republicans aren’t likely to listen to her “all or nothing” approach, even if House Republicans rally to support Gaetz. Right now, Republican senators are still not entirely on board, and the incoming Senate will likely have just a three-seat GOP majority. Still, they should: Releasing every House Ethics report would be a victory for transparency and, well, ethics. 

With each day, worse details about Gaetz emerge, with a new report Monday revealing that Gaetz allegedly paid two women for sex, according to the lawyer who represented them before the Ethics Committee. Even Fox News doesn’t think the former Florida congressman has a shot. But Greene and her MAGA allies on Capitol Hill will keep pushing as long it is what their dear leader Trump wants.  

The Senate is scheduled to vote on joint resolutions of disapproval to block weapons sales to Israel on Wednesday, and protesters have filled the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington calling on senators to support the resolutions. 

Several protesters donned red T-shirts reading “Stop Arming Israel” and “Fund Housing, Not Genocide” as police confiscated banners colored black, red, and green for Palestine, displaying slogans such as “Fund Education, Not Genocide.” 

Protests also took place outside of the building, as participants chanted “1. We are the people. 2. We won’t stop fighting. 3. For Gaza’s freedom. Now, now, now!” even as other protesters were arrested.  

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the resolutions in September, saying that “we must end complicity in Israel’s illegal and indiscriminate bombing campaign, which has caused mass civilian death” in a letter to his fellow senators. As of Tuesday, seven senators, including Sanders, have expressed support for the effort.  

Israel’s brutal war in Gaza has killed more than 44,700 Palestinians, including at least 17,492 children, and injured more than 104,008. These are all likely undercounts, as the actual death toll could exceed 186,000, according to a July study from the medical journal The Lancet. Thousands of bodies are trapped under rubble in Gaza, and official figures don’t take indirect deaths into account, such as those due to the destruction of infrastructure, including hospitals and food distribution systems.  

Last month, 99 health workers who worked in Gaza sent President Biden a letter saying that they had “witnessed crimes beyond comprehension,” urging a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. The U.S. provided 69 percent of Israel’s conventional weapons imports between 2019 and 2023, and gives Israel $3.8 billion in military aid every year as part of a 10-year agreement. 

The Biden administration has refused to entertain even the possibility of halting weapons aid or using it as leverage for a cease-fire, even as Israel’s bombing has created a humanitarian catastrophe. The Senate resolutions are unlikely to succeed in stopping weapons shipments to Israel, but they are another reminder of America’s ability to halt the killing even as politicians refuse.  

Rudy Giuliani is trying to get the date of his defamation trial pushed back so he can attend the inauguration of his former client Donald Trump.

A trial to enforce Giuliani’s payment to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two poll workers in Georgia’s 2020 election whom Giuliani was found guilty of defaming, is set to begin on January 16, just a few days before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

In a letter filed Monday, Moss and Freeman’s attorney Aaron Nathan urged the judge to deny Giuliani’s request, and hit back at Giuliani’s attorney Joseph Cammarata’s implication that there would be “no harm to the Plaintiffs by a delay of a few days.”

Cammarata, who stepped into the role less than a week ago after Giuliani’s previous lawyers quit, had said that Giuliani had “plans” to be “present” at the presidential inauguration. “In Defendant counsel’s words, ‘there are inauguration events planned for, I believe, January 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, 2025,’” Nathan wrote.

Nathan also argued that Giuliani’s former lawyers’ requests to withdraw from the case should be denied. The legal duo, Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, had argued that they were entitled to walk away from the case, citing a New York rule that grants attorneys the ability to withdraw when a client “insists upon taking action with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement.”

Giuliani owes Moss and Freeman close to $150 million for defamation and has delayed turning over any of his assets by attempting to file for bankruptcy and claiming he didn’t know where his assets were. Last week, Giuliani turned over the first of his assets to Freeman and Moss: his luxury watches, a diamond ring, and a 1980 Mercedes-Benz.

But it seems that Giuliani is still hoping Trump will swoop in and save him from the expensive consequences of his own actions.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has agreed to postpone Donald Trump’s sentencing for his hush-money case. But while his lawyers want the felony convictions thrown out together, prosecutors aren’t willing to toss the case just yet. 

The district attorney’s office wrote a letter to Judge Juan Merchan admitting that Trump probably won’t be sentenced anytime soon given his recent presidential victory. The office wants Merchan to let the felony convictions stand, while also going back to the drawing board on sentencing until the president-elect’s term is up in four years. 

This case involves the $130,000 in hush-money payments that Trump had his adviser Michael Cohen make out to adult film actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election, buying her silence for an affair she had with Trump a decade earlier. A jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts. 

This is the latest in a devastating series of legal victories for Trump, as his other three indictments—the Georgia election interference case, the federal election interference case related to January 6, and the classified documents case—have all been put on freeze, at least until he’s done with his second term as president. This is just as Trump intended, as his strategy of avoiding justice by winning the election has worked beautifully.   

Trump’s lawyers still want the charges in all these cases to be dropped entirely based on the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of broad presidential immunity. 

“The clock ran out,” CNN senior political analyst Elie Honig said. “We like to say no person is above the law in this country, but the fact is one person largely is, and that’s the president, because of the immunity ruling and because of the DOJ policy.” 

In the hush-money trial, Trump’s sentencing has been delayed repeatedly thanks to the immunity ruling and the election. It still remains to be seen what Merchan ultimately decides after the Manhattan district attorney’s filing.

Donald Trump’s team apparently missed that Pete Hegseth, the president-elect’s choice for secretary of defense, paid off a woman accusing him of sexual assault. 

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Monday that while vetting Hegseth, Trump’s staff missed the payoff because it was a “private settlement.” On Saturday, Hegseth’s lawyer confirmed the payoff after being contacted by The Washington Post. 

“They did do a vet, we are told,” Haberman said. “This did not show up, this issue, because it was a private settlement, according to the people who were briefed on what took place. Trump really likes Pete Hegseth. But this did introduce the thing Trump doesn’t like, which is an element of surprise and a negative headline.” 

The vetting by Trump’s team, however, is skipping FBI background checks, which have historically been a part of the presidential appointment process. Instead, Trump’s team is using private companies because they are trying to speed up the process and avoid revelations that could be used by their opponents.  

But avoiding a security process that has been used since the Eisenhower administration has backfired in the case of Hegseth, and has also likely kept any security issues from being revealed about Trump’s other choices, such as Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, who has a controversial past. Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., also has a history of actions that call into question his ability to obtain a security clearance.   

Trump appears to be standing by his pick of Hegseth despite the sexual assault allegations, potentially setting up a showdown with Senate Republicans. His choice of attorney general, Matt Gaetz, has also faced opposition due to a House Ethics Committee investigation into the former congressman over allegations that he had trafficked in and had sex with an underage girl at a 2017 party. It appears that weeks after his election, Trump is already testing his limits as president.