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      House ethics committee fails to decide whether to release Matt Gaetz report

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      The House ethics committee deadlocked on releasing a report examining allegations of sexual misconduct against Matt Gaetz, the former Republican representative and Donald Trump’s choice to lead the US justice department, after the panel met behind closed doors on Wednesday.Emerging from the meeting after roughly two hours, most members of the panel declined to offer details on their discussion, but the Republican chair, Michael Guest, told reporters that there was “not an agreement by the committee to release the report”.Susan Wild, the top Democratic representative on the ethics committee, told reporters that the panel did hold a vote on the matter, but there was “no consensus”. Wild implied that the committee, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, broke along party lines and thus could not reach a decision. The panel plans to reconvene on 5 December, Wild added.The panel has previously said it was investigating claims that Gaetz “may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift”.Guest told reporters before the meeting on Wednesday that he had “some reservations” about releasing the report when it had not yet gone through a review process.“That is something that we will be talking about today, and that’s another reason I have some reservations about releasing any unfinished work product,” Guest said.The justice department launched its own inquiry into accusations that Gaetz engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, but the department closed its investigation last year without filing charges. Gaetz has consistently denied the allegations.Two women testified to congressional investigators that Gaetz paid them for sex and that he was seen having sex with the 17-year-old, a lawyer for the women has said.As the ethics committee is evenly split between the two parties, it would take only one Republican siding with every Democrat on the panel to have the report released. But prominent Republicans, including the House speaker, Mike Johnson, have cautioned against releasing the report on Gaetz, who resigned his seat immediately after Trump announced his nomination as attorney general.“I think that would be a Pandora’s box,” Johnson told CNN on Sunday. “I don’t think we want the House ethics committee using all of its vast resources and powers to go after private citizens, and that’s what Matt Gaetz is now.”Gaetz was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday with the vice-president-elect, JD Vance, meeting with some of the senators who will decide his fate. After his conversation with Gaetz, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist, indicated he was open to supporting the attorney general nominee and condemned the “lynch mob” raising concerns about the sexual misconduct allegations.“My record is clear. I tend to defer to presidential cabinet choices unless the evidence suggests disqualification,” Graham said in a statement. “I would urge all of my Senate colleagues, particularly Republicans, not to join the lynch mob and give the process a chance to move forward.”Other Republicans, including Senator Markwayne Mullin, have suggested the report should be at least made available to the senators who will vote on confirming Gaetz’s nomination.“I believe the Senate should have access to that,” Mullin told NBC News on Sunday. “Now, should it be released to the public or not? I guess that will be part of the negotiations. But that should be definitely part of our decision-making.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDemocrats have appeared open to the idea of releasing the report. Nearly 100 House Democrats signed a letter requesting the ethics committee’s findings be released, noting that there was some precedent for issuing reports on former members who resigned amid scandal.Representative Sean Casten, who led fellow Democrats in signing the letter, indicated on Wednesday that he would introduce a privileged resolution to require a full House vote on releasing the report. Casten would need the support of only a handful of Republicans to get the resolution approved in the House, where Gaetz has made enemies on both sides of the aisle.Democratic members of the Senate judiciary committee, which will hold Gaetz’s confirmation hearings, have also requested the FBI’s file on the attorney general nominee.“The Senate has a constitutional duty to provide advice and consent on presidential nominees, and it is crucial that we review all the information necessary to fulfill this duty as we consider Mr Gaetz’s nomination,” the Democrats wrote on Wednesday in a letter to the FBI director, which was obtained by Politico. “The grave public allegations against Mr Gaetz speak directly to his fitness to serve as the chief law enforcement officer for the federal government.”RThe representative Susan Wild, the top Democratic representative on the ethics committee, said on Monday that she supported the report’s release, echoing comments made over the weekend by a fellow Democrat on the committee, Rthe representative Glenn Ivey.“It should certainly be released to the Senate, and I think it should be released to the public, as we have done with many other investigative reports in the past,” Wild told reporters, peraccording to NBC News. “There is precedent for releasing even after a member has resigned.”If the ethics committee report is released, it could further damage Gaetz’s prospects of Senate confirmation, but Trump has floated the idea of installing his nominees via recess appointment to circumvent the confirmation process. 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      Trans congresswoman Sarah McBride responds to Capitol Hill bathroom ban

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      Sarah McBride, the incoming congresswoman and first openly transgender person elected to the US House of Representatives, on Wednesday shared a statement on social media in response to the House banning trans people from using single-sex bathrooms on Capitol Hill that match their gender identity.Earlier in the day, the House speaker, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, issued a statement “regarding facilities throughout the US Capitol complex”.Johnson said: “All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings – such as restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms – are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.”He added: “It is important to note that each member office has its own private restroom, and unisex restrooms are available throughout the Capitol. Women deserve women’s only spaces.”McBride is due to be sworn in in January to represent Delaware after handily winning the seat in the election earlier this month, having been the first openly trans person elected to the state senate seat there in 2020.She had initially pushed back over proposed restrictions by saying the argument was a far-right-driven distraction from issues such as housing, healthcare and childcare.But on Wednesday, after Johnson’s announcement, McBride responded with a post on X: “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms, I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them … serving in the 119th Congress will be the honor of a lifetime, and I continue to look forward to getting to know my future colleagues on both sides of the aisle.”On Monday Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican representative, had introduced a bill to ban transgender people, including congressional members, officers and employees, from using single-sex bathrooms and other facilities on Capitol Hill that correspond to their gender identity.Mace told reporters that McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms, period, full stop” and called her a biological man, insisting that McBride “doesn’t get a say”, CNN reported.Mace’s bill comes as Republicans have attacked transgender people as part of a broader political culture-war strategy, limiting what bathrooms they can use and the youth sports teams they can play on. Fourteen states currently have laws that prohibit transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ rights group.Donald Trump leaned into such politics vigorously during the presidential election campaign.

      This article was amended on 20 November 2024 to remove a reference to a Bluesky post that had been attributed to Sarah McBride. A representative for McBride later said the account is not affiliated with the congresswoman-elect. More

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      Republican senator calls for release of Matt Gaetz ethics report to chamber

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      Discussion on Donald Trump’s selection of Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman who had been accused of sexual misconduct, for US attorney general continued on Sunday, with Republican senator Markwayne Mullin calling for an unreleased ethics report to be released to the Senate.Mullin told NBC’s Meet the Press that the Senate, which will oversee Gaetz’s confirmation hearings to become attorney general, “should have access to that” but declined to say if it should be released publicly.Gaetz resigned from his seat in Congress on Wednesday soon after the president-elect made his controversial pick, frustrating plans by a congressional ethics panel to release a review of claims against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct and illegal drug use. Gaetz denies any wrongdoing.Republican House speaker Mike Johnson repeated his position on Sunday that the survey should remain out of the public realm. Gaetz had faced a three-year justice department investigation into the same allegations that concluded without criminal charges being brought.Johnson said the principle was that the ethics committee’s jurisdiction did not extend to non-members of the House. “There have been, I understand, I think, two exceptions to the rule over the whole history of Congress and the history of the ethics committee,” Johnson told CNN, adding that while he did not have the authority to stop it “we don’t want to go down that road.”Trump’s selection of Gaetz, while successfully provoking Democrats’ outrage, is also seen as a test for Republicans to bend Trump’s force of will. Mullin has previously noted situations in which Gaetz had allegedly shown colleagues nude photographs of his sexual conquests and described him as “unprincipled”.But the senator said he had not made a decision on whether to support Gaetz in a confirmation vote. “I’m going to give him a fair shot just like any individual,” Mullin said.The pending report seems likely to emerge in some form after other senior Republicans, including senators Susan Collins, John Cornyn and Thom Tillis have all said they believe it should be shown to them.Separately, Pennsylvania Democratic senator John Fetterman repeated his advice to members of his own party to not “freak out” over everything Trump does, pointing out that for at least the next two years, Republicans can “run the table”.Fetterman, who won decisive re-election in the state this month, said he looked forward to reviewing some of Trump’s nominations but others “are just absolute trolls”, including Gaetz.For Democrats, who are still trying to figure out reasons for their devastating loss at the ballot box this month, their outrage at Trump’s nominations “gets the kind of thing that he wanted, like the freak out”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It’s still not even Thanksgiving yet and if we’re having meltdowns at every tweet or every appointment.”Democrats, Fetterman added, should be “more concerned” about Republicans being able “to run the table for the next two years. Those are the things you really want to be concerned about, not small tweets or, you know, random kinds of appointments.”But Democratic senator-elect Adam Schiff told CNN that Gaetz was “not only unqualified, he is really disqualified” to become the country’s top lawyer.“Are we really going to have an attorney general [with] … credible allegations he was involved in child sex-trafficking, potential illicit drug use, obstruction of an investigation? Who has no experience serving in the justice department, only being investigated by it,” Schiff said. More

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      When Will Democrats Learn to Say No?

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      When Donald Trump held a rally in the Bronx in May, critics scoffed that there was no way he could win New York State. Yet as a strategic matter, asking the question “What would it take for a Republican to win New York?” leads to the answer, “It would take overperforming with Black, Hispanic and working-class voters.”Mr. Trump didn’t win New York, of course, but his gains with nonwhite voters helped him sweep all seven battleground states.Unlike Democrats, Mr. Trump engaged in what I call supermajority thinking: envisioning what it would take to achieve an electoral realignment and working from there.Supermajority thinking is urgently needed at this moment. We have been conditioned to think of our era of polarization as a stable arrangement of rough parity between the parties that will last indefinitely, but history teaches us that such periods usually give way to electoral realignments. Last week, Mr. Trump showed us what a conservative realignment can look like. Unless Democrats want to be consigned to minority status and be locked out of the Senate for the foreseeable future, they need to counter by building a supermajority of their own.That starts with picking an ambitious electoral goal — say, the 365 electoral votes Barack Obama won in 2008 — and thinking clearly about what Democrats need to do to achieve it.Democrats cannot do this as long as they remain crippled by a fetish for putting coalition management over a real desire for power. Whereas Mr. Trump has crafted an image as a different kind of Republican by routinely making claims that break with the party line on issues ranging from protecting Social Security and Medicare to mandating insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, Democrats remain stuck trying to please all of their interest groups while watching voters of all races desert them over the very stances that these groups impose on the party.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kevin McCarthy predicts Senate won’t confirm Matt Gaetz as attorney general

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      The former Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy is predicting that Donald Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general will be rejected by the Republican Senate next year.“Gaetz won’t get confirmed, everybody knows that,” McCarthy said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday. Gaetz orchestrated the successful effort to oust McCarthy from his leadership role last year.The comments come amid growing calls by both Democrats and Republicans for the House ethics committee to release its report into Gaetz, from their investigation looking into allegations he engaged in sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other ethical breaches.The House investigation in effect ended on Wednesday, after Gaetz announced that he would be resigning from Congress following the announcement that Trump would be nominating him to be US attorney general.Picking Gaetz to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer in the justice department sent shock waves through Washington DC and nationwide on Wednesday.Lisa Murkowski, the Republican senator of Alaska, said that she didn’t think the nomination was “serious” and that she was “looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious”.The Republican congressman Max Miller of Ohio also told Axios that Gaetz had “a better shot at having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than being confirmed by the Senate”.On Thursday morning, Dick Durbin, the Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee, called on the House ethics committee to share and preserve its report on Gaetz.“The sequence and timing of Mr Gaetz’s resignation from the House raises serious questions about the contents of the House ethics committee report” Durbin said. “We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people.”Durbin added that the information in the report could be relevant to Gaetz’s confirmation as the next US attorney general.The Republican senator John Cornyn also joined calls for the House ethics committee to release their report on Gaetz on Thursday, saying that he “absolutely” wanted to review the report examining the allegations.“I don’t want there to be any limitation at all on what the Senate could consider,” Cornyn told reporters, according to Reuters. When asked if that meant he wanted to see the ethics report, he replied: “Absolutely.”Gaetz was also investigated by the justice department in a sex-trafficking case, though the department ultimately declined to bring charges last year.Gaetz has insisted throughout both investigations that he was innocent of any wrongdoing.One of the lawyers representing an alleged victim of Gaetz’s said in a statement that Gaetz’s “likely nomination as Attorney General is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events” adding: “We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.”Though McCarthy is predicting that Gaetz will not get confirmed as attorney general, there is a mechanism by which Trump could technically bypass a Senate vote, and make a recess appointment, which is when a president can make an appointment without a vote in the Senate while the upper chamber is in recess. Past presidents have used this method, often as a way to circumvent political divides that would slow nominations. More

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      How a Republican trifecta makes way for Trump’s rightwing agenda

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      With the confirmation that Republicans have won a majority in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump and his party will now have a governing trifecta in Washington come January, giving the new president a powerful perch to enact his rightwing agenda.Even without majorities in both chambers of Congress, Trump’s victory in the presidential race already gave him significant control over US foreign policy and the makeup of the federal government, both of which he is seeking to overhaul.But a Republican trifecta in Washington will give Trump much more sweeping authority to implement his legislative priorities. As the Guardian has outlined through the Stakes project, Trump’s plans include extending tax cuts, rolling back landmark laws signed by Joe Biden and advancing a conservative cultural agenda.One of Republicans’ most oft-repeated campaign promises is that they will extend the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017, many of which are set to expire at the end of 2025. An analysis from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that making the tax cuts permanent would cost $288.5bn in 2026 alone and disproportionately benefit the highest-income households. The highest-income 20% of Americans would receive nearly two-thirds of that tax benefit, compared with just 1% for the lowest-income 20% of Americans.Perhaps the most haunting possibility for Democrats is that Republicans would use their governing trifecta in Washington to enact a nationwide abortion ban. Trump has said he would veto such a policy, but his repeated flip-flopping on the issue has raised questions about that claim. Research has shown that existing abortion bans have forced doctors to provide substandard medical care, and they have been blamed for the deaths of at least four women: Josseli Barnica, Nevaeh Crain, Candi Miller and Amber Thurman.With majorities in both chambers, Republicans could also allocate vast resources to assist Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants, which became a central plank of his re-election platform. While US courts have affirmed that presidents have much leeway when it comes to setting immigration policies, Trump will need Congress to appropriate extensive funds to carry out such a massive deportation operation.In a worrying sign for immigrant rights advocates, Trump said after his victory on Tuesday that his deportation program would have “no price tag”, doubling down on his commitment to the project.“It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not – really, we have no choice,” Trump told NBC News. “When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here.”In addition to advancing Trump’s platform, Republicans would almost certainly be looking to unravel key portions of Biden’s legacy, including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA marked the country’s most significant response yet to the climate crisis and has spurred significant energy-related investments in many districts, prompting some Republicans to suggest that Congress should preserve some of the law’s provisions while repealing others.That quandary reflects a potential problem for Republicans in full control of Congress: what will they do with the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? When Republicans last held a governing trifecta, during Trump’s first two years in office, they tried and failed to repeal and replace the ACA. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, recently suggested that there would be “no Obamacare” if his party won full control of Congress, according to a video published by NBC News.But he seemed to caveat that statement by telling supporters: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”In recent years, both parties have experienced the pains of governing with narrow majorities, and those problems could reappear in the new Congress. During Biden’s first two years in office, his legislative proposals were repeatedly blocked in the Senate despite Democrats holding a majority because of the concerns of two centrist members of their caucus, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen Republicans held a 52-48 majority in the Senate in 2017, they still failed to repeal and replace the ACA because three members of their conference opposed the proposal. Two of those members – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – are still in the Senate today and may be resistant to various components of Trump’s agenda, particularly a potential abortion ban.And although Republicans have won the House, their narrow majority could exacerbate issues that played out in the last session of Congress, when the conference’s inner turmoil repeatedly brought the chamber to a standstill. Johnson will have to corral a fractious conference that has repeatedly clashed over government funding, foreign aid and the debt ceiling.Despite the potential challenges of narrow majorities, Trump and his Republican allies have made clear at every turn that they will use their newly expanded power to its maximum effect.“The mandate that has been delivered shows that a majority of Americans are eager for secure borders, lower costs, peace through strength, and a return to common sense,” Johnson wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter sent last week. “With unified Republican government, if we meet this historic moment together, the next two years can result in the most consequential Congress of the modern era.”With the country torn between joy and revulsion over the prospect of seeing Trump’s agenda implemented, much will be riding on Republicans’ ability to remain unified. More

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      Republicans secure House majority in yet another blow to Democrats

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      Republicans have secured a majority in the US House of Representatives, extending their hold on the lower chamber and delivering a governing trifecta in Washington that could give Donald Trump sweeping power to enact his legislative agenda.The Associated Press determined on Wednesday evening that Republicans had won at least 218 seats in the 435-member House after a victory in Arizona, a call that came more than a week after polls closed across the US and as Trump made cabinet announcements that sent shockwaves through Washington.The call ensures Republicans will continue to have a large say in key matters such as government funding, debt ceiling negotiations and foreign aid, and it spells an end to Democrats’ hopes that the lower chamber could serve as a blockade against Trump’s agenda.Republicans had already won the White House and regained a majority in the Senate, so their victory in the House provides them with the last component of their governing trifecta. Although they will have a slim majority, Republicans have indicated they will use their trifecta to maximum effect when the new Congress is seated in January.“We have to deliver for the people, and we will,” the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, told Fox News last week. “President Trump wants to be aggressive. He wants to go big and we’re excited about that. We’re going to get to play offense.”Trump’s selection of at least three House Republicans to join his administration further complicates the math for Johnson. Trump had already tapped the New York representative Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and Mike Waltz, the Florida representative, to fill the role of national security adviser. On Wednesday, Trump announced he would also nominate Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman of Florida, as his attorney general.A rightwing firebrand, Gaetz was a thorn in the side of former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, eventually leading the successful charge to oust McCarthy from his role. Reaction to Gaetz’s nomination ranged from puzzled to outraged, even from members of the president-elect’s own party.Despite the increasingly narrow majority, Johnson brushed off concerns about how Trump’s picks might affect House Republicans’ ability to legislate.“We have an embarrassment of riches,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “We have a really talented Republican conference. We’ve got really competent, capable people here. Many of them could serve in really important positions in the new administration, but President Trump fully understands and appreciates the math here, and it’s just a numbers game.”View image in fullscreenDemocrats unsuccessfully campaigned on a need to curtail the current “dysfunction” in Congress, after Republicans’ narrow majority repeatedly brought the House to a standstill.When Republicans took control of the House in January 2023, it took 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker, as roughly 20 hard-right members withheld support from their conference’s nominee. Nine months later, McCarthy was ousted after eight of his Republican colleagues voted with House Democrats to remove him as speaker.After McCarthy’s departure, Johnson, then a relatively unknown Republican member from Louisiana, ascended to the speakership following a tumultuous election.Over the past year, Johnson stretched himself thin to appease members of his ideologically diverse conference. His efforts fell short for some, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right member from Georgia. Greene attempted to oust Johnson as speaker in May, but that resolution was easily quashed by a chamber seemingly exhausted by the turmoil that defined this session of Congress.Despite those hurdles, Republicans were able to keep their hold on the House and on Wednesday, Johnson won the Republican nomination to stay in the job as speaker and is on track to keep the gavel after a full House vote in the new year.Trump gave Johnson a welcome boost during a meeting with House Republicans in Washington, when he endorsed the speaker’s bid to extend his tenure and indicated that Johnson has his full support. Johnson returned the praise by celebrating Trump as a “singular figure in American history”.“They used to call Bill Clinton the comeback kid,” Johnson said. “[Trump] is the comeback king.”Although Democrats fell short in their campaign to flip the House, they touted the party’s ability to mitigate its losses in a difficult national environment. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, pointed to the party’s gains in his home state of New York as evidence of their effort.“Donald Trump did better than almost any other Republican presidential candidate in modern political history here in New York state and even won several of the districts that we either held or flipped. And notwithstanding that, we were able to defeat three Republican incumbents,” Jeffries told Spectrum News’ NY1 last week. “And so, I think that there are lessons to be learned from this election in all directions, and we will certainly do an after-action analysis at the appropriate time.”That postmortem may help Democrats win back a majority in the 2026 midterm elections, but for now, they must face the reality of a fully Republican Congress ready and willing to do Trump’s bidding. More

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      Matt Gaetz Resigns From Congress After Trump Picks Him for Attorney General

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      Representative Matt Gaetz, the hard-right Republican provocateur, resigned from Congress on Wednesday after being tapped by President-elect Donald J. Trump to be the attorney general, effectively ending a House investigation into allegations he engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.Even as Republicans on both sides of the Capitol expressed shock at Mr. Gaetz’s selection and skepticism about whether he could be confirmed, his rapid exit brought to a close an inquiry that has hung over his head for years.Mr. Gaetz, who led the successful effort last fall to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, is one of the most reviled members of his conference. For two years, the Justice Department looked into allegations that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and possibly violated federal sex trafficking laws. The department closed its investigation last year without filing any charges against Mr. Gaetz.Still, the House Ethics Committee opened an inquiry in 2021 into the sexual misconduct allegations along with claims that Mr. Gaetz misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, accepted impermissible gifts under House rules, and shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, among other transgressions.With his departure from Congress, the committee no longer has jurisdiction to investigate Mr. Gaetz. It was not immediately clear whether it would still release its findings. Tom Rust, the chief counsel and staff director for the panel, declined to comment.Mr. Gaetz has tried to turn the allegations against him into a badge of honor. “I am the most investigated man in the United States Congress,” Mr. Gaetz said of the ethics inquiry when it began, insinuating that the inquiry was merely punishment for undermining Mr. McCarthy’s leadership.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More