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Gaetz-gate: Navigating the President-elect's most baffling Cabinet pick
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., may be done with Congress. But Congress is not done with him. And as President-elect Trump’s pick to serve as Attorney General, Gaetz is apparently not done with Congress, either.
Gaetz negotiated with Mr. Trump to become Attorney General on a flight to Florida – just hours after the incoming President spoke to House Republicans in Washington last week. Mr. Trump then made Gaetz his pick and the Florida Republican resigned.
What wasn’t known at the time was that the House Ethics Committee was on the precipice of releasing a report investigating allegations of “sexual misconduct” and “illicit drug use” by Gaetz. Gaetz stopped cooperating with the House investigation over the summer. The FBI probed Gaetz for years – but dropped its inquiry in February.
The Ethics Committee dashed a planned meeting where it likely would have published information about its inquest regarding Gaetz on Friday. But since Gaetz is no longer a Member of Congress, the committee supposedly is powerless to act.
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO POTENTIALLY RELEASING THE ETHICS COMMITTEE REPORT ON GAETZ
With Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., named President-elect Trump’s unlikely pick for Attorney General, a glaring question looms ahead: what will become of the Ethics Committee’s report on alleged improprieties by the congressman? (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., said the following on Wednesday when asked about the Gaetz probe – but before the Florida Republican resigned.
“Once the investigation is complete, then a report will be issued – assuming that at that time, that Mr. Gaetz is still a Member of Congress. If Mr. Gaetz were to resign because he is taking a position with the administration as the Attorney General then the Ethics Committee loses jurisdiction at that point. Once we lose jurisdiction, there would not be a report that would be issued. That’s not unique to this case,” said Guest.
Other Ethics Committee members tried to sidestep discussion of Gaetz.
“I’m not making any comments on that. I’m on the Ethics Committee so I’m staying clear of that,” said Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla.
“Can you still release the report?” asked Rachel Scott of ABC.
“Nope. Sure can’t,” replied Rutherford, turning toward Scott.
A NARROW MARGIN: TRUMP TAPS HOUSE REPUBLICANS FOR HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION
That is generally how the House Ethics Committee rolls when it comes to outstanding investigations involving former Members.
But it is not a hard and fast rule.
Fox has found that the Ethics Committee released the information on its probe into potential influence peddling by the late Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., after his death in 2010.
The House Ethics Committee has reportedly released its findings on former Reps. John Murtha, D-Penn., and Bill Boner, D-Tenn., after their departures from office. (Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images | CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)
The Ethics Committee also released a 699-page report on former Rep. Bill Boner, D-Tenn., after he left office in 1987. The committee found that Boner used campaign funds to travel to Hong Kong and may have used his office to influence a defense contractor.
The Ethics Committee investigated former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., after he was caught sending inappropriate messages to House pages in 2006. Foley abruptly resigned from the House. But the ethics panel hauled in a host of bipartisan Congressional leaders for closed door depositions to determine what they may have known about Foley’s activities.
That said, there is a way on the floor to dislodge an Ethics Committee report.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GAETZ HOUSE ETHICS REPORT?
There is a mechanism called “question of privileges of the House.” A lawmaker could take the floor under this procedure, making the argument that keeping the Gaetz ethics report under wraps impugns the dignity and integrity of the House. The House would be required to vote on such a motion. If successful on the floor, the ethics panel could be compelled to release the report.
Yours truly asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., if Democrats might try to dislodge the Gaetz report from the Ethics Committee.
Pergram: “Could you envision a scenario where Democrats try to somehow dislodge this ethics report through a parliamentary maneuver?”
I asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., if his party planned on finding a way to dislodge the Gaetz report from the Ethics Committee. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Jeffries: “The Ethics Committee is an incredibly bipartisan committee. It’s the only committee in the Congress that is evenly divided. And it has a long history of having principled individuals on it. And I defer at this moment to whatever course they decide to take. And I hope they take a course that is bipartisan.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee will study the credentials of Gaetz, run background checks and ultimately hold a confirmation hearing before voting the nomination to the floor for a vote. It could also block the nomination as well.
Senate Majority Whip and Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., formally asked the House Ethics Committee to send over the report as it reviews the fitness of Gaetz for the job.
MATT GAETZ’S NOMINATION ROCKS CAPITOL HILL
“The sequence and timing of Mr. Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House Ethics Committee report,” said Durbin. “This information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States and our Constitutional responsibility to advise and consent.”
Democrats weren’t the only ones trying to pry loose the report.
“I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation, including, whatever the House Ethics Committee generated,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, seems keen to unearth the Gaetz report’s findings, saying there should “not be any limitation” on what the Senate Judiciary Committee can investigate. (Reuters)
Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., serves on the Ethics Committee. He hinted that the panel should consider dispatching the report to the Senate.
“I think the Senate certainly had a right to request it. I can’t talk about our internal deliberations. But the information that they’ve requested, I think it’s totally reasonable,” said Ivey. “In fact, I think it’s essential for them to get that kind of information before they make a decision.”
On Friday, Johnson noted that he “doesn’t control the Ethics Committee.”
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE MEANING OF A REPUBLICAN SENATE – AND WHAT’S AHEAD FOR THE HOUSE
But Johnson went further than he had before about his views on releasing the report.
“We should stick to the tradition of not releasing a report on a former Member of the House because it would open a dangerous Pandora’s box,” said Johnson.
Johnson reaffirmed that during an appearance on Fox News Sunday when asked about releasing the report.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., cautioned against releasing the Ethics Committee’s findings, citing precedent and the potential opening of a “dangerous Pandora’s Box.” (Getty Images)
“I think this would be a breach of protocol that could be dangerous for us going forward in the future,” said the Speaker.
It’s possible the Senate Judiciary Committee could subpoena the report from the Ethics Committee. And as suggested earlier, there is a way to dislodge the report from the panel via a vote on the House floor. Such a scenario would put a lot of Republicans in a tough spot. They may fear that voting to release the report could put them on the wrong side of incoming President Trump. That’s to say nothing of the prospective Attorney General.
But Gaetz isn’t liked by his former House colleagues. In fact, some Republicans may have more disdain for the former Florida Congressman than Democrats. That’s partly because it was Gaetz who single-handedly triggered a vote last year to remove former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. That maneuver pitched the House into three weeks of chaos.
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Gaetz is no longer a Member of the House. But that doesn’t matter. The fight over the ethics report is just getting started. And that’s spurring just as much pandemonium as if Gaetz were still a Member.
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Kennedy Center will close for 2 years for renovations in July, Trump says, after performers backlash
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he will move to close Washington’s Kennedy Center performing arts venue for two years starting in July for construction.
Trump’s announcement on social media Sunday night follows a wave of cancellations since Trump ousted the previous leadership and added his name to the building.
Trump announced his plan days after the premiere of “Melania” a documentary of the first lady was shown at the storied venue. The proposal, he said, is subject to approval by the board of the Kennedy Center, which has been stocked with his hand-picked allies. Trump himself chairs the center’s board of trustees.
“This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center, one that has been in bad condition, both financially and structurally for many years, and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment,” Trump wrote in his post.
Leading performing arts groups have pulled out of appearances, most recently, composer Philip Glass, who announced his decision to withdraw his Symphony No. 15 “Lincoln” because he said the values of the center today are in “direct conflict” with the message of the piece.
Earlier this month, the Washington National Opera announced that it will move performances away from the Kennedy Center in another high-profile departure following Trump’s takeover of the U.S. capital’s leading performing arts venue.
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Minnesota citizens detained by ICE are left rattled, even weeks later
Aliya Rahman is detained by federal agents near the scene where Renee Macklin Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer on Jan. 13 in Minneapolis.
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It’s a video many saw on social media soon after it happened: Officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dragging a woman out of her car and forcing her to the ground.
The woman in the video is Aliya Rahman, a Bangladeshi-American and a U.S. citizen. The day she was arrested, Rahman was on her way to the doctor, when she came across an ICE operation and a group of people protesting. She said the ICE officers told her to move her car, but the scene was chaotic and she received multiple instructions at once.
The Department of Homeland Security said in an earlier statement they arrested Rahman because she “ignored multiple commands.” But Rahman, who is autistic and also recovering from a traumatic brain injury, says it sometimes takes her a moment to understand auditory commands. Before she knew it, the officers were carrying her away by her limbs.

“I thought I might well die,” Rahman said. She was placed in an SUV with three ICE officers.
“I heard the laughing driver radio in, ‘we’re bringing in a body,’” she recalled. It took her a second to realize they meant her.
In recent days, federal officials have signaled a willingness to reduce the large number of immigration agents in Minnesota, though they say any decrease will depend on state and local cooperation. Even if a draw-down occurs, they’ll leave behind a changed community, including many citizens questioned and detained by immigration officers in recent weeks.
Rahman was taken to the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, where immigration agents have brought detainees before releasing them or sending them out of state. While at Whipple, Rahman experienced a severe headache, and asked for medical care for more than an hour. Eventually, she passed out. She says she woke up in a downtown hospital, where doctors told her she had suffered a concussion.
Her arrest was more than two weeks ago, but she can’t shake the fear.
“I do not feel safe being in my own home, driving these streets,” she said. “And even then, I am in a significantly better place than a lot of the other folks who have been detained.”

Rahman is far from the only U.S. citizen in Minnesota with such a story.
ChongLy Scott Thao, a Hmong man and U.S. citizen, was pulled from his home wearing only sandals, underwear and a blanket around his shoulders. Thao said the immigration agents drove him “to the middle of nowhere” and photographed him. He told reporters he feared they would beat him. They later brought him back to his house.
Mubashir Khalif Hussen, a Somali-American and U.S. citizen, also was detained by ICE.
“I wasn’t even outside for mere seconds before I seen a masked person running at me full speed,” Hussen said at a news conference last month. “He tackled me. I told him, ‘I’m a U.S. citizen.’ He didn’t seem to care. He dragged me outside to the snow while I was handcuffed, restrained, helpless and he pushed me to the ground.”
Hussen is now suing the Trump administration as part of a class action lawsuit, accusing it of racial profiling. According to the lawsuit, ICE eventually released Hussen outside the Whipple building, telling him to walk the seven miles back to where they detained him.
In a statement to NPR, the Department of Homeland Security said “allegations that ICE engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless and categorically FALSE.”

But Walter Olson, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, says many legal experts are coming to a different conclusion.
“This is no longer just a series of accidents that could have been due to someone being badly trained or being a bad apple. This is a systematic assault on constitutional rights,” he said.
The Fourth Amendment protects people from being stopped without reasonable suspicion and arresting without probable cause, a higher standard. Courts in the U.S. have decided skin color alone does not meet either bar.
Last fall, however, the Supreme court ruled that “apparent ethnicity” could be used to determine reasonable suspicion, as long as there were other factors too. Legal experts say the decision may give ICE more discretion.
Olson says even if the Minnesota immigration crackdown eases, these same concerns could arise elsewhere. He noted that judges ruled against the federal government during its crackdowns in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland.
“And they were not led to call off or rethink the campaign. They just regrouped and came back to another state,” Olson said.
Even citizens who were not arrested but still questioned are rattled after run-ins with immigration officers. Luis Escoto, the owner of El Taquito Taco Shop in West St. Paul, said immigration agents surrounded his wife Irma’s car in their restaurant’s alley when she went out to get more lettuce before the dinner hour. Escoto ran outside.
Luis Escoto poses for a portrait inside of his restaurant, El Taquito in West St. Paul, Minnesota.
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“I said, ‘Hey, hold on. That’s just my wife,’” Escoto said. “They said, ‘We need proof of U.S. citizenship,’ and I said, ‘She’s a U.S. citizen.’”
Luis and Irma Escoto are both citizens. Escoto showed one of the officers their passport cards, which he still had in his wallet after a recent trip to Mexico.
“He said, ‘Well, next time she should carry that all the time, because if she doesn’t have proof of citizenship we’re going to arrest her,’” Escoto recalled.
The immigration agents left. But weeks later, Escoto is still shaken and angry. Some of his customers are now escorting him and his wife home each night when the restaurant closes.
When he became a citizen 35 years ago, Escoto said he was nervous because the government took away his green card. He asked the judge about it.
Irma Escoto poses for a portrait inside of her restaurant, El Taquito in West St. Paul, Minnesota.
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“I said, ‘Sir, what happens if the immigration officers stop me?’ And he said ‘Well, today you’re proud to be a United States citizen,’” Escoto said.
The judge told him you don’t need documentation when you’re a citizen. But now, Escoto said, that doesn’t seem so true anymore.
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