House ethics committee opens investigation into George Santos – as it happened

In his defense against civil lawsuits connected to the January 6 insurrection, Donald Trump is getting no help from Joe Biden’s justice department, which told an appeals court it thinks cases against the former president over the violent attack should be allowed to go ahead. Meanwhile, the House ethics committee began its widely expected investigation into George Santos, the New York Republican who lied and lied and lied.

Here’s what else happened today:

• Ron DeSantis outlined how he could take policies implemented in Florida national, and cause “a complete upheaval of the deep state,” as he put it.

• Matt Schlapp, organizer of the Conservative Political Action Conference, does not want to talk about allegations he groped a Republican campaign staffer.

• Mike Pence is among Republicans giving CPAC a miss, and his (mutual) dislike for Trump is probably a big reason why.

• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is also in trouble with Congress’s ethics watchdog, though not yet as much as Santos.

• Biden supports statehood for Washington DC – to an extent.

Joe Biden and most Democrats in Congress support turning the majority of Washington DC – America’s only federal district – into the 51st state.

But that’s not stopping the president and some Democratic senators from joining with the GOP to stop Washington’s city council from implementing a new criminal code:

Washington DC has a unique relationship with Congress, which can vote to override decisions made by its 13-member city council – currently composed of 11 Democratic members and two independents.

Late last year, the council approved a new criminal code that advocates say represents a long-overdue modernization of its penalties and procedures for lawbreaking. But Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser opposed it, while Republicans in Congress pounced on the law to claim it is indicative of Democrats’ weakness on crime.

The city council overrode Bowser’s veto of the measure earlier this year, but the Republicans controlling the House last month voted to block its implementation, and there appears to be enough Democratic votes in the Senate for Republicans to stop its implementation there. Now that Biden has made clear he’ll sign legislation to block the new code, the council’s effort seems dead, at least for now.

Today in the Capitol, Joe Biden pulled a Joe Manchin when asked when he planned to run for a second term:

But unlike with Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat and frustrater of progressives who has remained coy on if he’d like to remain in the Senate, all signs point to Biden running again.

Nina Jankowicz, who resigned last year as director of the homeland security department’s disinformation governance board amid a flurry of threats and conspiracy theories that led to a pause in its operations, is raising money for a lawsuit against Fox News:

She accuses the network of spreading inaccurate information about her job, which led to threats against herself and her family, and her decision to resign from the government.

“I became the young, female, easy-to-attack public face of what Fox pundits were recklessly spinning as ‘men with guns [telling] you to shut up.’ Congressional Republicans and the right-wing media characterized me as an unhinged, partisan, unserious, dangerous fascist, despite my track record of measured, bipartisan work, including testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018 at the GOP chair’s invitation,” Jankowicz wrote on the GoFundMe she set up for the legal effort.

“My life has been irrevocably altered because Fox News repeatedly force-fed lies about me to tens of millions of their viewers. Tens of thousands have harassed me online. Hundreds have violently threatened me. I am far from the only American to experience this type of Fox-led hate campaign, and it must stop.”

As of the time of this post, Jankowicz had raised $4,435 of the $100,000 she is seeking to cover the cost of the lawsuit she wants to file against Fox News, as well as expenses related to other lawsuits filed against her, a protective order she sought against someone who was harassing her and a subpoena she expects from a Republican-led congressional panel.

George Santos is not alone in running afoul of Congress’s ethics watchdogs.

Fox News reports the House Office of Congressional Ethics has concluded Democratic lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may have broke the rules by accepting tickets to New York’s Met Gala two years ago:

Established in 2008, the House Office of Congressional Ethics reviews allegations against lawmakers and forwards their conclusions to the chamber’s ethics committee, which is composed of lawmakers. It’s up to that body to decide whether to act on the report.

The House ethics committee has opened an investigation into George Santos, the Republican lawmaker who admitted to lying about his résumé in his campaign to represent part of New York City’s suburbs in Congress’s lower chamber.

A statement from the committee’s GOP chair Michael Guest and Democratic ranking member Susan Wild said the panel voted to create a subcommittee to look into alleged misconduct by Santos. They specified it would investigate “whether Representative George Santos may have: engaged in unlawful activity with respect to his 2022 congressional campaign; failed to properly disclose required information on statements filed with the House; violated federal conflict of interest laws in connection with his role in a firm providing fiduciary services; and/or engaged in sexual misconduct towards an individual seeking employment in his congressional office.”

Republican Dave Joyce will chair the subcommittee, alongside Democratic ranking member Susan Wild. They’ll be joined by Republican John Rutherford and Democrat Glenn Ivey.

A showdown is brewing between Bernie Sanders and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has been accused of frustrating efforts by the company’s employees to unionize. Here’s the latest on the dispute, from the Guardian’s Michael Sainato:

Starbucks is under fire over the company’s response to unionization efforts as senator Bernie Sanders threatens to call its chief executive before his committee on alleged labor violations and staff petition for it to end “intimidation” of organizers.

Sanders, chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee, announced on Wednesday that the committee will be voting on whether to issue a subpoena to compel Starbucks chief Howard Schultz to testify about Starbuck’s federal labor law violations, and to authorize a committee investigation into labor-law violations committed by major corporations.

“For nearly a year, I and many of my colleagues in the Senate have repeatedly asked Mr Schultz to respect the constitutional right of workers at Starbucks to form a union and to stop violating federal labor laws,” Sanders said in a press release confirming the 8 March vote.

“Mr Schultz has failed to respond to those requests. He has denied meeting and document requests, skirted congressional oversight attempts, and refused to answer any of the serious questions we have asked. Unfortunately, Mr Schultz has given us no choice but to subpoena him.”

The move came after 44 employees at Starbucks headquarters in Seattle and 22 additional anonymous employees signed on to a petition calling on the company to reverse a return-to-office mandate and “to commit to a policy of neutrality and respect federal labor laws by agreeing to follow fair election principles, and allow store partners, whether pro- or anti-union, to decide for themselves, free from fear, coercion, and intimidation.”

A Republican US congressman from Texas reportedly faces censure from his state party this weekend, because he:

• Voted in support of same-sex marriage.

• Voted for a gun safety measure introduced in response to the Uvalde elementary school shooting, in which 19 children and two adults were killed.

• Voted against the Republican House majority’s rules package.

The San Antonio Report details proceedings against Tony Gonzales, who won the 23rd congressional district in 2020. It said he did not immediately comment.

For the San Antonio Report (tagline, “Nonprofit Journalism for an Informed Community”), Andrea Drusch describes other points on which Gonzales has angered his own party, including “numerous complaints about [his] approach to border security, such as repeating ‘the Democratic canard that supporters of border security are anti-immigrant’”.

A censure vote is expected on Saturday, Drusch reports, adding: “If the resolution is successful, members of the [State Republican Executive Committee] would be able to choose between several options to punish Gonzales, according to party rules.

“They could simply discourage Gonzales from running for reelection as a Republican, or they could lift the restriction on party officials campaigning against him, as is required for current GOP officeholders.

“Perhaps of greater consequence, they also could prohibit Gonzales from receiving financial help from the party.”

Among expert reactions to the news that the Department of Justice says Donald Trump does not have immunity in civil cases relating to January 6, this from Norm Eisen, a Brookings fellow, CNN analyst and former ethics tsar in the Obama White House, is interesting:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}DoJ has just filed a brief rejecting Trump’s claim (in a civil case) that he is absolutely immune from legal accountability [over his] attempted coup … [The brief is] important in its own right – and because signals weakness of his likely defense in the coming criminal case in Georgia.

The case in Georgia concerns Trump’s attempted election subversion there. Indictments are believed to be imminent, not least because the foreperson of the grand jury which considered the case dropped very large hints last week.

Dana Nessel, the Democratic attorney general of Michigan, said earlier she was among targets of a man charged with threatening to kill state officials who are Jewish.

“The FBI has confirmed I was a target of the heavily armed defendant in this matter,” Nessel wrote. “It is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my Hate Crimes and Domestic Terrorism Unit takes plots to murder elected officials.”

The Associated Press reports that Jack Carpenter III, of Tipton, Michigan, tweeted on 17 February that he was returning to his home state to “carry out the punishment of death to anyone” who is Jewish in Michigan government “if they don’t leave, or confess, and now that kind of problem. Because I can legally do that, right?”

According to the criminal complaint against Carpenter, he also declared a new country – “New Israel” – around his home.

He was arrested in Texas four days later. According to prosecutors, when Carpenter was “arrested in his vehicle, [officers] found approximately a half-dozen firearms and ammunition”.

The complaint against Carpenter did not name any alleged targets.

The US justice department has said Donald Trump is not entitled to absolute immunity in civil lawsuits related to the US Capitol attack on 6 January 2021, which he incited in an attempt to stop certification of his election loss to Joe Biden and which is now linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides.

Trump faces civil cases brought by congressional Democrats and US Capitol police officers who fought his supporters on January 6. His lawyers have urged dismissal. A Washington DC appeals court asked the Department of Justice for its opinion.

Trump argued that he could not be sued for statements made before the riot, when he was still president, because presidents enjoy wide-ranging protections when performing their official duties.

Government lawyers disagreed, saying in a new court filing: “Speaking to the public on matters of public concern is a traditional function of the presidency, and the outer perimeter of the President’s Office includes a vast realm of such speech.

“But that traditional function is one of public communication. It does not include incitement of imminent private violence.

“In the United States’ view, such incitement of imminent private violence would not be within the outer perimeter of the Office of the President of the United States.”

Trump is the subject of an ongoing Department of Justice investigation, led by the special counsel Jack Smith. The House January 6 committee, which disbanded when Republicans took control after the midterms, made four criminal referrals of Trump to the DoJ.

Lawyers for Trump have until 16 March to respond to the DoJ brief about civil cases.

Gisele Barreto Fetterman, wife of the Pennsylvania Democratic senator John Fetterman, who remains hospitalised for treatment for depression, has responded to attacks from rightwing figures including the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who claim she has pushed her husband too far.

Barreto Fetterman tweeted: “In the worst moments of our lives, women are told it’s their fault. In case you need to hear it today: It’s. Not. Your. Fault. I will keep living and fighting with love. We all need more of it.”

She accompanied her message with a link to a Washington Post column by Monica Hesse, under the headline “How Gisele Fetterman became the right wing’s favorite super villain”.

Hesse’s column highlights Carlson’s segment on John Fetterman and Joe Biden on Tuesday, in which he said the senator was too ill and the president too old to fill their respective offices.

Saying “a woman, a spouse, who loved her husband” would keep him away from campaigns, Carlson called Dr Jill Biden “a ghoulish, power-seeking creep”.

His guest, Candace Owens, said: “Absolutely. These women are monsters.”

Hesse cited comments from another Fox News host, Laura Ingraham (“Jill Biden and Gisele Fetterman should be ashamed of themselves”), radio host Jesse Kelly (“Who’s the bigger elder abuser, Jill Biden or Gisele Fetterman?”) and the rightwing Washington Examiner, which ran a column under the headline “Jill Biden and Gisele Fetterman are failing their husbands”, in which the writer said the two men were “arguably victims of terrible women”.

Hesse wrote: “It’s not hard to guess why pundits are going after Jill and Gisele instead of Joe and John. Attacking someone who is ill or elderly simply because they are ill or elderly is beyond the pale in our culture (for now, at least), even for those pundits whose flexible morals usually find a way to drain-snake around any barricades of decency.

“But by placing blame on the wives, these commentators get to spread harmful messages against the president and senator while having plausible deniability against charges of ableism. The commentators are not – heavens, no – throwing mud at these poor men. They are merely scolding the women who should know better. It’s ableism, with a little sexism, as a treat.”

Read the whole column here.

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference is happening outside Washington DC, but while Donald Trump will make an appearance just before it wraps up Saturday, many top Republicans are avoiding the event. These include the party’s leaders in Congress, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who is seen as the strongest challenger against the former president for the GOP’s presidential nomination next year. Up the road in Baltimore, House Democrats are plotting their strategies for the months to come, while awaiting word of whether Joe Biden plans to run for office again.

Here’s what else has happened today so far:

• DeSantis outlined how he could take policies implemented in Florida national, and cause “a complete upheaval of the deep state,” as he put it.

• CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp does not want to talk about allegations he groped a Republican campaign staffer.

• Mike Pence is among Republicans giving CPAC a miss, and his (mutual) dislike for Trump is probably a big reason why.

In more lighthearted news about Democratic presidents, the Associated Press reports Barack Obama is honoring the retirement of the woman behind one the most popular chants from his first presidential campaign:

Marking the retirement of the woman credited with popularizing the chant “Fired up, ready to go!” that epitomized his campaigns, Barack Obama said her energy played a key role in lifting his spirits and his candidacy for president first time round.

“It was early in my campaign, and I wasn’t doing that good,” Obama recalled in a video provided by the Obama Foundation, harking back to a 2007 campaign stop in Greenwood, South Carolina, on a dreary, rainy day.

But the small crowd, Obama said, was transformed as Edith Childs led them in the rousing back-and-forth chant: “Fired up, ready to go!”

“Leadership and power and inspiration can come from anywhere,” Obama said in the video to mark Childs’ retirement after 24 years on the Greenwood county council.

“It just has to do with spirit, and nobody embodied that better than Edith.”