#matt gaetz resigns from congress

[herinfluencerdeer]

REPUBLICANS TO HUDDLE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS TO ELECT MCCONNELL'S SUCCESSOR WEDNESDAY

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[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 23, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Dec 24, 2024

Today the House Ethics Committee released its report on its investigation of widely reported allegations that while in office, former representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) had engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, shared inappropriate videos on the House floor, misused state records, diverted campaign funds for his own use, and accepted a bribe or an impermissible gift.

The report says that the committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had, in fact, “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him”; “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl”; “used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions”; “accepted gifts…in excess of permissible amounts”; arranged official help for one of his sexual partners, whom he falsely identified to the State Department as a constituent, in getting a passport; tried to obstruct the committee’s investigation; and “acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House.”

The committee concluded that “there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

It “did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Representative Gaetz violated the federal sex trafficking statute. Although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel.”

Gaetz is a staunch ally of President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to put Gaetz in charge of the Justice Department. That appointment would have him responsible for law enforcement across the United States. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) tried hard to keep the report hidden once Trump had tapped Gaetz for attorney general, saying he “strongly request[ed] that the Ethics Committee not issue the report.”

The Ethics Committee at first deadlocked over releasing it, but Andrew Solender of Axios reported today that two Republicans on the committee, Representative Dave Joyce (R-OH) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), switched their votes to join the Democrats supporting the release of the report.

Ethics Committee chair Michael Guest (R-MS) and Representatives Michelle Fischbach (R-MN) and John Rutherford (R-FL) all opposed releasing the report, saying that they lost jurisdiction after Gaetz resigned, which he did when Trump announced his intention of putting him in the office of attorney general. In their comments in the report, they said they “do not challenge the Committee’s findings” but object to their disclosure.

Republican Party leaders were willing to put a man their own committee says likely violated state and federal laws into the position of the nation’s highest law enforcement officer. That scenario reflects the extraordinary danger of a country in which one party’s supporters see themselves as the country’s only legitimate governing party.

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon’s team worried that the Republican Party would hemorrhage voters in the upcoming midterm elections. That spring, Nixon announced that rather than ending the Vietnam War, he had sent ground troops into Vietnam’s neighbor Cambodia. In the protests that followed, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd at Kent State University, killing four protesters. Nixon’s clumsy suggestion that the protesters were responsible for the shooting began to turn middle-class white Americans, his key demographic, against him.

So Nixon’s advisors turned to a strategy they called “positive polarization.” They believed that dividing the country was a positive development because it stoked the anger they needed to get their voters to turn out. They deliberately turned against what they called “the media, the left, [and] the liberal academic community,” drawing voters to Nixon by accusing their opponents of being lazy, dangerous, and anti-American.

This polarization became a key technique of the Republican Party in the Reagan years, when talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh began to fill the airwaves with attacks on “feminazis,” liberals, and Black Americans who they claimed were trying to impose socialism on America. By 1990, a Republican group associated with then-representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) compiled a list of words for Republican candidates to use when talking about Democrats. They included “decay,” “sick,” “greed,” “corruption, “radical,” and “traitor.” In contrast, candidates were encouraged to refer to Republicans using words like “opportunity,” “courage,” “principle(d),” “caring,” and “peace.”

Over the past thirty years, Republicans appear to have come to believe that nothing is more important than making sure Republicans control the government. Less competition has given rise to states like Florida that are essentially controlled by the Republicans. This, in turn, means there is very little oversight of the party’s lawmakers, making obviously problematic candidates able to survive far longer than they would if there were opposition to highlight poor behavior.

It also means that party members appear willing to overlook deeply problematic behavior in their own lawmakers, who come to feel immune, while attacking Democrats for what Republicans claim is the same behavior. Notably, in February of this year, in a closed hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Gaetz badgered President Biden’s son Hunter over his drug use. Hunter Biden responded that he had been “absolutely transparent” about his drug use and asked: “What does that have to do with whether or not you're going to go forward with an impeachment of my father other than to simply try to embarrass me?”

The answer is that while the drug use of private citizen Hunter Biden did not affect the U.S. government, the drug use of congressmember Matt Gaetz did. In a healthy political system, political opposition would have called out his behavior long before he was tapped to become one of the most important figures in the government.

Crucially, in such a system, state law enforcement would have pursued Gaetz, and his own party would have dropped him like a hot potato long before it had to face commentary like that of progressive journalist Brian Tyler Cohen, who today wrote: “Congratulations to Mike Johnson for trying to pressure the House Ethics Committee into burying a report that found the then-nominee for attorney general had engaged in sexual activity with a minor. Party of Family Values, am I right?”

The Republicans’ determination to hold on to the government at all costs showed in a different story that broke this weekend. Representative Kay Granger (R-TX) has been absent from Congress since midsummer. On Sunday, Carlos Turcios of the Dallas Express reported that he found the 81-year-old representative in a memory care and assisted living home. In the months since she went missing, her staff continued to submit material to the Congressional Record, making it look like she was still active.

Chad Pergram of the Fox News Channel reported that a senior Republican source explained why Granger retained her seat despite her incapacity. Referring to what Pergram called “the paper-thin [Republican] House majority,” the source said: “Frankly, we needed the numbers.”

Granger’s condition has reignited the national conversation about the age and capacity of our lawmakers, an issue very much on the table for the 78-year-old president-elect, whose own behavior has been erratic for a while now.

On Sunday, Trump spoke at Turning Point’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, where, as Aaron Rupar of Public Notice recorded, he entered as if he were at a professional wrestling event. He proceeded to deliver a speech much like his campaign speeches.

It had an important new element in it, though, that he had pioneered on social media the night before. He claimed that Panama is not treating the U.S. well, and threatened that he will “demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly, and without question.” On Sunday he posted on social media that he wants Greenland too. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, responded that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be. Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.” Prime Minister Mute B. Egede of Greenland said: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”

To my knowledge, Trump never mentioned taking the Panama Canal or Greenland during the campaign, and such dramatic action will likely undermine the principle that countries can’t just take over weaker neighbors. This principle is central to the United Nations, which holds that territorial integrity and sovereignty are “sacrosanct” and that members “shall refrain…from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” David Sanger and Lisa Friedman of the New York Times note that Trump’s aggression “reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world’s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy.”

In a healthy political system, pronouncements from an elderly president-elect that could upend 80 years of foreign policy would spark significant discussion from all quarters.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[luimnigh]

I remember Trump's first term being regularly punctuated by resignations of cabinet members, to the point where they began to be measured in Mooches, aka 11 days, after Anthony Scaramucci, the White House Communications Director, who only lasted that amount of time.

Matt Gaetz has lasted Negative 5.45 Mooches:

Also he resigned from Congress already so he's gone entirely.

[phoenixfeathersinfall]

The cabinet picks are starting to come out...

Susie Wiles for Chief of Staff

Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense

Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence.

Marco Rubio for Secretary of State.

Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. (He has resigned from Congress.)

Kristi Noem for Secretary of Department of Homeland Security.

Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel.

Steve Witkoff for Special Envoy to the Middle East

Elise Stefanik for ambassador to the UN

Lee Zeldin for EPA administrator

John Ratcliffe for CIA director

Bill McGinley for White House Counsel

Tom Homan for border czar

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy heading up a new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency.

USA Tumblrinas...the clown car is filling up and we can hear the squeaking shoes and honking noses of these largely incompetent and dangerous folks already. But most of them are, in fact, elected officials, which means they represent us. Start keeping track of them as you're able; you can tell them NO.

And remember: there is hope. Take a look at this video. Lawrence Tribe, one of the most prominent legal scholars in the country reminds us that the guard rails are not gone. That civil society has a very important function as we begin these uncertain days. That it's time to get involved.

[darkmaga-returns]

Despite leaving office to take the helm as host of The Matt Gaetz Show on One America News Network, former Congressman Matt Gaetz is getting dragged through the ringer one final time over alleged sexual assault violations.

Gaetz has been dogged over this scandal for years now, with vague claims of Venmo payments and seedy associates used to create a cloud of suspicion over Gaetz. Republican leaders called for him to resign, but Gaetz stood strong.

“Washington scandal cycles are predictable, and sex is especially potent in politics,” Gaetz wrote in response to the initial allegations. “Let me first remind everyone that I am a representative in Congress, not a monk, and certainly not a criminal.”

“I have never, ever paid for sex. And second, I, as an adult man, have not slept with a 17-year-old,” Gaetz added. “It comes as no surprise that my political opponents want to sensationalize and criminalize my prior sex life just as I am getting engaged to the best person I’ve ever known. It is regrettable that the battle of ideas should thus become so personal. But then again, when your ideas suck, you need to stoop this low.”

Gaetz’s response was a masterclass in how to deal with fake scandals created by the swamp. He never wavered, and the public appreciated his strength voting him back into office in two straight election cycles. I have personal insight into the bogus nature of this scandal as I was roped into it through reporting from the fake news media.

[tomorrowusa]

Matt Gaetz, Trump's former nominee for US Attorney General, is out of work. He resigned his House seat in the 118th Congress and won't take his seat in the 119th Congress.

So he needs some income to pay for typical expenses like food, housing, and hush money. For now, he's raising money by offering his services on Cameo.

The Florida Republican Matt Gaetz has made his first big move since withdrawing from consideration to be Donald Trump’s attorney general – by starting an account on Cameo, the website that lets ordinary people pay for video messages from celebrities, dubious or otherwise. The news website Semafor first reported the move on Friday. The revelation came a day after Gaetz withdrew from the confirmation process, under fire over a House ethics committee investigation of allegations of misconduct including allegedly paying an underage girl for sex – all of which Gaetz vehemently denies. “I served in Congress,” the page said, the past tense pointing to Gaetz’s resignation last week, pre-empting release of the ethics report, and announcement on Friday that he would not seek to return next year. “Trump nominated me to be US attorney general (that didn’t work out),” the page said. “Once I fired the House speaker.” [ ... ] Cameo offers users a chance to pay for messages to mark holidays, say happy birthday, send a pep talk, get advice, ask a question or, perhaps appealing to fans of Gaetz, to “roast someone” with pointed abuse. [ ... ] On Friday, Gaetz began by charging $250 a video but soon raised that price to $500. One social media user noted that Gaetz was thus charging “about the same rate as George Santos” – the serial fabulist, admitted fraudster and elected Republican who turned to Cameo amid the scandal that saw him expelled from Congress last year.

Making money by offering services online is not unusual. But in the case of Gaetz, OnlyFans seems like it would be a much better fit.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

Fresh off his resignation from Congress after his nomination for attorney general went up in flames due to his penchant for allegedly paying minors for sex at drug-fueled parties, former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida now says he is thinking about running for governor of the Sunshine State.

“I have a compelling vision for the state,” Gaetz told the Tampa Bay Times, confirming speculation that Gaetz was not yet done with elected office and could be plotting a comeback. “I understand how to fix the insurance problem, and it’s not to hand the keys to the state over to the insurance industry. If I run, I would be the most pro-consumer candidate on the Republican side.” It's unclear if Gaetz could make it through a Republican primary, given the hefty load of baggage he carries. The House Ethics Committee released a report in December that found, among other things, that Gaetz paid for sex with a 17-year-old high school student. “The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” House Ethics Committee investigators wrote in the report.

[...] What Gaetz has going for him in a potential gubernatorial bid is that he is popular among the MAGA faithful—which constitutes a big chunk of the Republican electorate that will choose the GOP nominee. Florida’s governor’s race will be open, as current Gov. Ron DeSantis is term limited. Also a wildcard is whether Donald Trump, who likes Gaetz and nominated him to be his attorney general, would throw his support behind Gaetz's possible gubernatorial bid. If he did, Gaetz would immediately be the GOP front-runner. However, given his baggage, Gaetz is likely one of the few Republican candidates who could make Florida's governor race competitive for Democrats in a general election. “*anyone* other than Matt Gaetz would be clearly favored to win Florida in any environment at this point. Gaetz is the only person who would make it a tossup, and I'd take the under on him if I had to, even at those odds,” Lakshya Jain, an election handicapper, wrote in a post on X. While he mulls over a bid, Gaetz is currently hosting a show on the little-watched right-wing propaganda network One America News, which has terrible production value and a makeup staff that makes Gaetz look like an airbrushed pumpkin.

Could Matt Gaetz be making a comeback, this time for Florida Governor?

[s1eepingsapphic]

Is this a joke?

Thursday, November 14th, 2024

Hi friends, this is a (occasional) daily segment where I share with you the most baffling headlines out of the Trump Administration. I will also accompany sources to provide the level of threat and if possible, background on what this means for all of us.

Matt Gaetz

Yesterday I posted about the Trump Administration selecting Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as the pick for Attorney General. After his nomination, Matt Gaetz resigned effective immediately. Friends, they are trying to paint this as he is confident he will receive the position and assisting the house in having a filled seat by Jan. 3rd. However, as many news sources are reporting, this is very convenient timing for the senator who is an alleged pedophile and has faced human sex trafficking investigations, with a report from the Ethics Committee to be released sometime this week.

What does his resignation mean?

The Ethics Committee investigation will likely end, as he is no longer a member of congress.

With resignation, Florida will have a special election to replace. This number could increase with Trump selecting Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz.

Will he become attorney general?

“Republican senators have already expressed doubts that Gaetz could get confirmed as attorney general, as the pick gets fierce pushback across the party.” (X)

“Gaetz's combative style has earned him enemies in Congress, and his reputation could prove an obstacle to his confirmation in the Senate. Some senators greeted his nomination with surprise.” (X)

Who would replace Matt Gaetz?

Call To Action:

We simply can’t afford to assume that all of this will fail on its own. Email your senators. Show them YOU know the facts and that someone like Matt Gaetz can not be the AG for an already corrupt elect-administration.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Bramhall

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 3, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 04, 2025

Today a new Congress, the 119th, came into session. As Annie Karni of the New York Times noted, Americans had a rare view into the floor action of the House because the party in control sets the rules for what parts of the House floor viewers can see. Without a speaker, there is no party in charge to set the rules, so the C-SPAN cameras recording the day could move as their operators wished.

Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives and the Senate. All eyes were on the House, where Republicans will hold 219 seats. Initially, though, that number will be 218: The seat to which Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was elected will be empty since he resigned from the previous Congress and, after the House Ethics Committee released a report saying there was “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had broken state and federal laws, apparently decided to focus on his new media show rather than return to the House. When the clerk announced that Gaetz would not take a seat in the 119th Congress, applause broke out.

The Democrats hold 215 seats, and everyone showed up to opening day, including Dwight Evans (D-PA), who has been absent since suffering a stroke last May, and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who fell and broke her hip on a congressional trip to Luxembourg in mid-December. Scott MacFarlane reported that Pelosi, who received a hip replacement at the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, entered the chamber smiling. C-SPAN reported that she had replaced her trademark high heels with flats.

Notably, there are fewer women in the 119th Congress than in the previous one, and there will be no women chairing committees in the Republican-dominated House.

The first problem for the Republicans to solve was the election of a House speaker. It took 15 ballots to elect Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) when the Republicans took control of the House in 2023, and McCarthy had made so many concessions to the far right that they were able to remove him from office just ten months later, the first time in history that a party removed its own speaker in the middle of a session. Then they cycled through four candidates and four votes before settling on backbencher Mike Johnson (R-LA) for speaker. But while Johnson’s evangelical Christianity and support for Trump’s Big Lie about having won the 2020 presidential election indicated he was an extremist, Johnson immediately infuriated the far-right wing of the Republican Party by agreeing to fund the government without incorporating their extreme demands.

Far-right members want to use the need to fund government operations as leverage to get what they want. In a memo before today’s vote, they claimed that Trump and the Republicans hold a “historic mandate,” although in fact Trump won less than 50% of the vote in one of the smallest margins in U.S. history. They have said publicly they would not vote for Johnson as speaker again, likely to extract concessions that give them more power, but Johnson vowed not to make any concessions to them.

Trump was mad at Johnson for backing the passage just before Christmas of a continuing resolution to fund the government without getting rid of the debt ceiling as Trump demanded. But, likely recognizing that the House needs to be organized before it can count the electoral votes that will make him president, Trump endorsed Johnson on social media and worked the phones to support him before today’s vote.

In the first ballot today, all 215 Democrats voted for Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), with him and former House speaker Pelosi sharing a hug when she voted for him. A number of Republicans declined to vote initially, then 216 voted for Johnson while three others voted for someone else, leaving Johnson two votes short of the 218 he needed to be elected.

It was a dramatic rejection not only of Johnson, but also of Trump, who had posted that “[a] win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party, and yet another acknowledgment of our 129 year most consequential Presidential Election!!—A BIG AFFIRMATION, INDEED. MAGA!” But his candidate still could not get the votes he needed from within his own party to run the House.

Scenes like this explain why I remain astonished by the persistence of the narrative that the Democrats are divided while the Republicans are in lockstep.

After the initial vote but before it was gaveled to a close, Johnson went into his office with eight members of the far-right Freedom Caucus, while Trump and incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles called the holdouts. When they emerged, two of the members who had voted for people other than Johnson switched their vote to him, giving him the votes he needed to become the speaker of the 119th Congress. One of the holdouts, Ralph Norman (R-SC) was the man who urged Trump to declare “Marshall Law” on January 17, 2021, to keep President-elect Joe Biden from taking over the presidency.

As soon as they had voted for Johnson, eleven far-right representatives sent a letter to their colleagues saying they had voted for Johnson because they wanted to make sure they didn’t mess up the January 6 counting of Trump’s electoral votes. But they warned that if Johnson didn’t reduce the deficit by enacting “real” spending cuts, stop working with Democrats, and only entertain measures supported by a majority of Republicans, they would challenge his speakership.

For his part, Democratic leader Jeffries said to the House: “Our position is that it is not acceptable to cut Social Security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut veterans' benefits, or cut nutritional assistance from children and families in order to pay for massive tax breaks for billionaires and wealthy corporations.”

So Johnson is speaker again, but he’s already caught between the MAGAs demanding significant budget cuts and the Democrats’ promise to call attention to every one of those cuts. And popular anger at billionaires seems to be increasing daily: today Pulitzer-Prize-winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes left the Washington Post after her editor killed a cartoon criticizing the tech and media leaders who have been currying favor with Trump. “[E]ditorial cartoonists are vital for civic debate,” she wrote, and after watching colleagues overseas “risk their livelihoods and sometimes even their lives to…hold their countries’ leaders accountable,” she chose to leave so she could continue to speak truth to power.

This afternoon, Judge Juan Merchan ordered Trump to report in person or virtually for sentencing in the election interference case in which a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies related to payments he made to film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public with the story of their sexual encounter before the 2016 election. Trump had tried to get the case dismissed because he had been elected president. His spokesperson called the sentencing order a “witch hunt.”

Merchan indicated he would not sentence Trump to serve time in jail.

Meanwhile, at the White House today, President Joe Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to five Korean War veterans who may have been denied the nation’s highest award for military valor because of their race or ethnicity, and upgraded awards of the Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor for two veterans of the Vietnam War. Specialist Fourth Class Kenneth J. David was the only one of the men who could receive the honor personally. Biden also awarded fourteen individuals with the National Medal of Science and nine people and two organizations with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He also awarded the Medal of Valor to eight public safety officers for acting above and beyond the call of duty. The awards went to officers who ran toward gunfire to save children during the Nashville Covenant School shooting, swam through freezing water to save a drowning woman, and rushed into burning buildings to rescue women and children.

Biden honored the military personnel for their bravery, and the scientists for their “discoveries that are helping us meet the climate crisis, treat crippling disease, create lifesaving vaccines, pioneer the way we communicate, and significantly improve our understanding of the universe and our place within it.” But it was his remarks about the eight public safety officers awarded the Medal of Valor for acting above and beyond the call of duty that stood out.

He called in the press and said: “Folks, I wanted you to come in because…I think it’s very important that the public see them and know who they are…. There’s a lot fewer empty chairs around the kitchen table and dining room table because of what these guys did.” Biden thanked their families, “because if you’re the spouse of a firefighter or a police officer, you always worry about that phone call,” and told the award recipients: “You’re the best America has to offer.”

Yesterday, Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, given to those “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens,” to twenty Americans including former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who served on the January 6 committee. Today, Trump attacked Cheney and others who investigated the events of January 6, 2021, as “dishonest Thugs.”

Cheney responded: “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic—to protect the America we love from you.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[fulminare-aeternus]

🖕😎🔥

IN RELATED NEWS:

[ridenwithbiden]

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST. BLAMING THE 'DYSFUNCTION' THEIR OWN PARTY CREATES "Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who announced last month he would not run for re-election, will resign from Congress early, he confirmed in a statement Friday.

Gallagher’s departure before the end of his term in January is another blow to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Republicans, who have been struggling to govern and demonstrate stability in this Congress.

2 sources familiar with the matter told NBC News of Gallagher's plan to resign early Friday. The Wisconsin Republican then released a statement announcing that he will depart April 19.

Gallagher informed Johnson of his decision earlier this week. Johnson, in a post on X, praised Gallagher's "extraordinary work in the House" and for "courageously exposing the threat Beijing poses to the U.S."

His resignation could cause more headaches for House Republicans. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who also is not seeking re-election, is resigning from Congress on Friday, cutting the GOP’s minuscule majority to 218-213. When Gallagher leaves, the majority would further shrink to 217-213, meaning Republicans could only afford a single defection on any vote if Democrats vote together.

Gallagher’s decision to leave April 19 also means that there will not be a special election to fill his seat. Under Wisconsin state law, vacancies after the second Tuesday in April are filled in the general election, so Gallagher’s replacement will be decided in November and his seat will remain empty until January.

A source close to Gallagher said the decision to leave was in the works and not related to anything happening in House lately. Gallagher has a young family that he and his wife hope to grow and the House schedule is not conducive to that, the source said.

Gallagher, 40, an Iraq War veteran, is the chairman of the select committee investigating the Chinese Communist Party, and serves on the Intelligence Committee. It’s highly unusual for a committee chairman to resign in the middle of the term.

But Gallagher, an institutionalist first elected to Congress in 2016, has grown frustrated with his own party. He was one of three Republicans who voted against the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last month.

He is one of several top Republican chairmen who are not running for re-election in November following a tumultuous House session.

Earlier Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., filed a motion to oust Johnson from the speakership over his handling of funding the government, though no vote is scheduled yet. It follows a similar motion, made by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., that successfully toppled then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last fall.

Meanwhile, shortly after the House passed its final government funding package for fiscal year 2024 on Friday, retiring Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, said she would step down as chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, setting off an early battle among Republicans to succeed her in the powerful post. Unlike Gallagher and Buck, Granger said she will serve out her House term, which ends in January.

In his statement, Gallagher said he worked closely with GOP leaders on the timing of his announcement — shortly after the House voted to avert a shutdown — and looks forward to Johnson naming a new China committee chairman.

"I will forever be proud of the work I did on the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, chairing the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and chairing the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party," Gallagher said. "It has truly been an honor to serve in the House of Representatives."

[yetisidelblog]

@upontheshelfreviews 

@greenwingspino

@one-time-i-dreamt

@tenaflyviper

@akron-squirrel

@ifihadaworldofmyown

@justice-for-jacob-marley

@voicetalentbrendan

@thebigdeepcheatsy

@writerofweird

@what-is-my-aesthetic 

@ravenlynclemens

@bogleech

[darkmaga-returns]

Has Matt Gaetz Been Set-up for Eviction from Public Life?

Paul Craig Roberts

I have had a horrible thought. Of all of Trump’s appointees, Matt Gaetz and Robert Kennedy will be the most difficult to get confirmed. And Gaetz has resigned from the House of Representatives where he is the most effective member against the ruling establishment. Was his appointment as Attorney General a trick to get him out of public life?

Robert Kennedy’s appointment was said to be in doubt because  he would be hard to confirm, but so would Gaetz. Gaetz’s high profile powerful position  scares to death the corrupt Justice (sic) Department, the corrupt FBI, the corrupt Democrats, and the corrupt ruling elites.

Perhaps the Senate will let Trump have his appointments without confirmation as recess appointments, so non-confirmation is not an issue.

It is revealing that there were no confirmation worries about Trump’s appointments of his Zionist war cabinet. Some claim that it is not a war cabinet, that Stefanik, Waltz, Rubio, and Hegseth have been cured of their Zionism by Israel’s massacre of Palestinians. Perhaps, but I have not heard a recantation from a single one of the “die-for-Israel” crowd. Certainly, Huckabee, sent by Trump as ambassador to Israel, and Witkoff, sent by Trump as his Special Envoy to the Middle East, will not take exception to Israel’s claim to title to Palestine. So how are they going to bring about any Israeli restraint? Isn’t it curious that Trump didn’t appoint anyone inclined to rein-in Israel?

That the Democrats stood down from stealing the presidency in 2024 doesn’t mean they didn’t steal House and Senate seats. The Republicans barely did well enough to change a thin Democrat Senate majority into a thin Republican majority, and it seems there was little, if any, change in the House. In contrast, when Reagan won in 1980 the Republicans captured 12 Democrat seats in the Senate. It is suspicious that Trump’s convincing win did not carry over into Congress.

Trump is taking Republican members of Congress as appointees into his administration. Republican governors can appoint replacements until the next election, but the appointed replacements might be vulnerable as they were not elected. Matt Gaetz was secure in his base. Will his appointed replacement be as secure?

We can be thankful that Trump has appointed some officials who fight for the correct causes.  We can keep hoping that Trump will make a difference.

[ivankahasbeentreatedsounfairly]

By The Editorial Board

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Nov. 14, 2024

Donald Trump has demonstrated his lack of fitness for the presidency in countless ways, but one of the clearest is in the company he keeps, surrounding himself with fringe figures, conspiracy theorists and sycophants who put fealty to him above all else. This week, a series of cabinet nominations by Mr. Trump showed the potential dangers posed by his reliance on his inner circle in the starkest way possible.

For three of the nation’s highest-ranking and most vital positions, Mr. Trump said he would appoint loyalists with no discernible qualifications for their jobs, people manifestly inappropriate for crucial positions of leadership in law enforcement and national security.

The most irresponsible was his choice for attorney general. To fill the post of the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, the president-elect said he would nominate Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Yes, that Matt Gaetz.

The one who called for the abolishment of the F.B.I. and the entire Justice Department if they didn’t stop investigating Mr. Trump. The one who was among the loudest congressional voices in denying the results of the 2020 election, who said he was “proud of the work” that he and other deniers did on Jan. 6, 2021, and who praised the Capitol rioters as “patriotic Americans” who had no intention of committing violence. The one whose move to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 paralyzed his own party’s leadership of the House for nearly a month.

Mr. Gaetz, who submitted his letter of resignation from Congress on Wednesday after his nomination was announced, was the target of a yearslong federal sex-trafficking investigation that led to an 11-year prison term for one of his associates, though he denied any involvement. The Justice Department closed that investigation, but the House Ethics Committee is still looking into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, improper acceptance of gifts and obstruction of government investigations of his conduct. Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker, blamed Mr. Gaetz for his ouster, on the grounds that Mr. Gaetz “wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old.”

This is the man Mr. Trump has selected to lead the 115,000-person agency that he has called the most important in the federal government, a position whose enforcement role could cause the most trouble for any president with corrupt intent. Even for Mr. Trump, it was a stunning demonstration of his disregard for basic competence and government experience, and of his duty to lead the executive branch in a sober and patriotic way. It will now be up to the Senate to say he has gone too far and reject this nomination.

Mr. Trump’s list of appointments is just getting started but already includes two other unqualified nominations that he announced this week: former Representative Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, and Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense.

Ms. Gabbard, who previously represented Hawaii in the House and regularly appears on Fox News, is not only devoid of intelligence experience but has repeatedly taken positions in direct opposition to American foreign policy and national security interests. She has appeared on several occasions to side with strongmen like President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Mr. Hegseth, a co-host of “Fox & Friends,” is perhaps even more unqualified, given the gravity — not to mention the budget — of the post he would assume. He enjoys some support from enlisted service members and veterans, but outside of serving two tours as an Army infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as time in Guantánamo Bay, Mr. Hegseth has no experience in government or national defense.

“He’s never run a big institution, much less one of the largest and most hidebound on the planet,” the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal wrote Wednesday. “He has no experience in government outside the military, and no small risk is that the bureaucracy will eat him alive.” The board went on to call Mr. Hegseth a “culture warrior” at a time when there are much bigger security issues for the Pentagon to be focused on.

It’s far from certain Mr. Hegseth could even obtain the security clearances required for the job. He has said he was one of a dozen National Guard members removed from service at President Biden’s inauguration in 2021 because of concerns that he was an extremist — possibly because of a tattoo he wears that is popular among white supremacists.

These are some of the most consequential roles in government, protecting the country from military and terrorist threats, investigating domestic criminal conspiracies, and prosecuting thousands of federal crimes every year. Yet to fill them Mr. Trump has resorted to people whose only eligibility for office is an apparent willingness to say yes to his every demand.

Mr. Gaetz in particular has joined Mr. Trump in expressing a commitment to exacting vengeance against anyone they believe has done them wrong. Mr. Trump began his campaign by saying “I am your retribution,” and Mr. Gaetz broadcasts nothing so much as that. He has no business leading an agency with the role of combating crime, fraud, violations of civil rights and threats to national security, among many other things.

In Mr. Trump’s first term, the department was protected by career prosecutors and other civil servants who understood that their primary obligation was to the dictates of the Constitution, not to the whims of the president. But Mr. Trump has promised to purge people like that from his second administration.

The possibility of extreme appointments like these was the reason the Constitution gives the Senate the right to refuse its consent to a president’s wishes. Last week, Republicans won control of the chamber. Now they will be confronted with an immediate test: Will they stand up for the legislative branch and for the American system of checks and balances? Two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, have already expressed strong skepticism of Mr. Gaetz’s nomination, and others have declined to express their support.

Mr. Trump clearly expects the Senate to simply roll over and ignore its responsibilities. He wants to turn the leaders of major important agencies into his deputies, remaking the federal government into a Trump Inc. organization chart entirely subordinate to him. He recently demanded that the Senate give him the ability to make recess appointments, a way of bypassing the Senate’s consent process when the chamber is adjourned for 10 days or more.

Even Republican senators refused to consent to that demand during his first term, to preserve their constitutional role, and on Wednesday Senate Republicans voted to reject as their leader Rick Scott of Florida, who said he would have no problem allowing recess appointments. Instead they chose John Thune of South Dakota, who is far more likely to uphold his chamber’s right to refuse consent of president nominations.

In Mr. Trump’s second term, senators will immediately be confronted with an extreme set of appointments even worse than those of the first term. That makes all the more important that they preserve the ability to say no.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/opinion/editorials/matt-gaetz-nomination-senate.html

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alex Samuels at Daily Kos:

Embattled ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was allegedly found to have paid multiple women—including a 17-year-old high school student—for sex and to have consumed illegal drugs while in office, according to a report from his former peers. Gaetz, who resigned from the House in November as part of his brief stint as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, bowed out of consideration for the role once it became clear that even his fellow Republicans wouldn’t support his bid. A damning, comprehensive investigative report from the House Ethics Committee, whose final draft was analyzed by CBS News and other outlets, make it clear why.

Investigators found that Gaetz allegedly violated several state laws related to sexual misconduct while in office. The Committee released the 37-page report Monday, even as Gaetz sought a restraining order. “The Committee determined there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress,” panel investigators wrote, according to CBS News. The committee reports speaking with more than a half-dozen witnesses who attended various parties and trips with Gaetz between 2017 and 2020, when he was representing Florida’s 1st Congressional District. “Nearly every young woman that the Committee interviewed confirmed that she was paid for sex by, or on behalf of, Representative Gaetz,” the panel’s report reads. Gaetz has vehemently denied any wrongdoing and has not been criminally charged. In a Wednesday post to the social media platform X, the former representative said that he “NEVER had sexual contact with someone under 18.” In the same message, he also made the eyebrow-raising admission that he “often sent funds to women I dated—even some I never dated but who asked.”

[...] According to CNN, the ethics panel reviewed transactions Gaetz made—often using mobile payment service apps, including PayPal or Venmo—to over a dozen women. “From 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use,” reads the report, which lists over $90,000 in payments to 12 women.

The ethics report naming former Congressman and soon-to-be OANN host Matt Gaetz features drug use, payments for sex, and more.

See Also:

The Guardian: Matt Gaetz ethics report finds evidence he paid for sex with minor

HuffPost: Matt Gaetz Paid Thousands For Drugs And Sex, House Ethics Report Shows