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      The Republican and Democratic parties are killing electoral reform across the US | David Daley

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      Ohio’s extreme gerrymanders have enabled more than a decade of corruption, lawless behavior and unpopular legislation passed by lawmakers safely insulated from the ballot box.Voters tried to fix it by bringing a citizen-led independent redistricting commission to the ballot. Due to Republican subterfuge, they ended up voting against themselves. With breathtakingly Orwellian tactics, Ohio Republicans twisted the ballot language and presented it to voters as an initiative that would require gerrymandering rather than end it.When Ohioians arrived at Issue One on their ballots, they were told that a yes vote would “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering”. Voters were understandably confused. So while redistricting reform won huge wins in the Buckeye state in 2015 and 2018, with more than 70% of the vote, this year 54% of Ohio voters rejected it.Most analyses of the 2024 elections have focused on the swing toward Republicans at the top of the ballot. But another trend could be more consequential: when citizens stood up across red, blue and purple states this year with reforms designed to strengthen democracy and make all elections more meaningful and competitive, the parties undermined them with brutal, deceptive tactics and submerged them in a swamp of dark money.It worked nearly every time. Unlike 2018, when pro-democracy reforms won big nationwide, this time, reformers were routed.This is frightening news. The vast majority of states – even the purple ones – are either safely Republican or Democratic, or have been gerrymandered that way. Ballot initiatives and citizen-driven reforms uniting voters across party lines have been a rare bright spot and showed a possible path to defeat extremism and entrenched one-party control. But not this year.This year brought defeats – and Ohio-style trickery – across the map, and on a wide variety of pro-voter reforms, including redistricting reform, ranked-choice voting and open primaries. One state, Missouri, even jumped ahead of reformers and banned them in advance with a new prohibition on ranked-choice voting and open primaries – cleverly rolled into an amendment headlined by a ban on “noncitizen voting”, which, of course, isn’t actually happening there or anywhere.Voters in Colorado, Nevada and Idaho advanced initiatives that would have created open primaries and advanced either four or five candidates to a ranked-choice general election. Reformers hoped to give growing numbers of independent voters a say in which candidates are on the ballot in November, and ensure that candidates need a majority to win – instead of a fraction of a fraction of voters in low-turnout, closed primaries.The parties and their dark-money allies pushed back, hard. In Idaho, rightwingers determined to maintain their grip on power ran ads filled with both lies and red meat to outrage the base. “They have open borders. They want open bathrooms. They need open primaries,” claimed one of the most ridiculous and misleading, but effective, mailers.Leonard Leo’s billion-dollar dark-money network – which, after capturing the US supreme court and multiple levels of the judiciary, has now cast its eye on locking in far-right minority rule in the states – dispatched its operatives to mislead voters with one dishonest claim after another about ranked-choice voting. In one especially rich claim, opponents funded by billionaires and the wealthiest rightwing foundations have created front groups to argue that ranked-choice voting would make it easier for the wealthy to buy elections.The true agenda is clear: to protect and defend extreme lawmakers who perform best in base-driven primaries with multiple candidates and a small, divided electorate. That’s why a constellation of groups with ever-shifting names – but with the same far-right foundations and even election deniers behind them – have engaged in this multimillion-dollar scare operation.In Nevada, both Democrats and Republicans (and their aligned groups) spent millions in a successful effort to defeat open primaries and ranked choice. The state’s political elites – the still powerful machine built by the late senator Harry Reid and the Maga state Republican apparatus – built an odd coalition to brand a heretofore popular political reform, incorrectly, as “unproven” and “complicated”.Some Colorado Democrats, and even advocates of ranked-choice voting elsewhere such as Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, sadly swallowed Leo’s talking points whole to ensure the party retained power in this growing Democratic bastion where a record half of registered voters are unaffiliated.Perhaps what’s happening here is no surprise. Citizens want to reclaim state legislatures that have been distorted by gerrymandering and captured by unrepresentative winners of party primaries. The powerful want to close off one of the last avenues for reform.After all, Ohio’s unbreakable gerrymander, now in its 14th year, is so extreme that only four of 99 state house races were within five points this year, and just one of 17 state senate races. Uncompetitive elections push all the action to low-turnout primaries, where the tiniest percentage of the base can select unrepresentative candidates to coast into the general – and then advance unpopular legislation such a six-week abortion ban once in office.Ohio’s supreme court rejected the state house and congressional maps as unconstitutional not once, not twice, but seven times. A cowed governor, Mike DeWine, conceded that the maps could have been “more clearly constitutional”, but went along with the party line anyway. Lawmakers lawlessly disobeyed, ran out the clock, then found Trump-appointed federal judges with longstanding ties to Leo and the Federalist Society to impose the gerrymandered maps.“It is hard to recognize Ohio,” the former governor Bob Taft, a Republican, told me. “The consequences of extreme gerrymandering have been obvious here.”Idaho’s far right, meanwhile, has captured much of a once-traditional Republican machinery and moved to relentlessly consolidate power. In 2018, voters found an end run around the legislature and used the initiative process to expand Medicaid. More than 60% of voters supported the measure, after lawmakers refused to accept Affordable Care Act dollars during multiple sessions.Lawmakers, recognizing that the initiative represented a last opportunity for the public to check a hijacked legislature, endeavored time and again to make one of the nation’s most difficult initiative processes even more onerous and to oppose efforts to open Idaho’s system to voices beyond their own. Then, when courts and determined citizens pushed forward anyway, the legislature drowned them out with the support of organizations funded not only by Leonard Leo but also the Koch brothers, the Bradley Foundation and DonorsTrust (“the dark-money ATM of the right”).There was one significant bright spot last Tuesday: Washington DC, which overwhelmingly adopted ranked-choice voting despite some misleading efforts by officials from the district’s dominant Democratic party.But the simple truth is that the structural reform we so desperately need has become harder, as those from both the left and the right who prefer to govern without majorities, and without persuading everyone to their side, recognize it as a threat. They won’t stop here, and they have said so.Leo and his henchmen, armed with dark money, having grabbed control of election machinery, will stop at nothing to expand their ill-won and ill-held power. These fights will arrive in more state capitols and in Congress. They are trying to steal control while hiding behind phoney names and untold billions.The good news is that their scam is easy to see through. The test for our democracy – and for reformers – will be how to rise to this new challenge in a polarized, partisan moment. No task will be harder. None is more important.

      David Daley is the author of the new book Antidemocratic: Inside the Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections as well as Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count More

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      Mike Johnson reportedly opposes releasing results of Matt Gaetz misconduct investigation – live

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      Politico reports that the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said he is against the ethics committee releasing its report into drug use and sexual misconduct by Matt Gaetz, the former representative nominated by Donald Trump to serve as attorney general.“I’m going to strongly request that the ethics committee not issue the report, because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson said, hours after returning from a visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “And I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”The committee had reportedly been near to releasing its inquiry, but Gaetz’s resignation has thrown into question whether such a report can be made public once a lawmaker exits the House. Some senators from both parties have said it should be shared with them, so they can assess Gaetz’s candidacy to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.Iran sent a message to the Biden administration in October stating it was not attempting to kill Donald Trump while he was president, aiming to reduce tensions with the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal.The message, delivered through an intermediary, followed a September warning from the Biden administration that any Iranian attempt on Trump’s life, then a Republican presidential candidate, would be considered “an act of war.”Since Trump’s election victory last week, some Iranian former officials, analysts, and media figures have encouraged Tehran to engage with the president-elect and adopt a more cooperative stance, despite Trump allies’ promises to reintroduce a hardline approach against Iran.The news comes the same week Elon Musk, whom Trump named as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, reportedly met with Iran’s UN ambassador to discuss how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.A former Virginia lawmaker has pleaded guilty to felony gun and drug charges and been sentenced to time already served in jail, according to the Associated Press.Matt Fariss, who had served in the House of Delegates as a Republican since 2012 before running unsuccessfully last year as an independent, pleaded guilty Wednesday to meth possession and having a firearm while possessing an illegal drug, the Lynchburg News & Advance reported.Judge Dennis Lee Hupp sentenced Fariss in Campbell circuit court to three years in prison and suspended all but 20 days, according to the News & Advance.The appointment of a US health secretary with anti-vaccine views could cause deaths and have profound consequences around the world, global health experts fear.Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s pick for the position, has a history of spreading misinformation on vaccines and questioning the science of HIV and Aids.His nomination has been greeted with bemusement and alarm. One global health activist, speaking on background, said the move was akin to making the disgraced doctor Andrew Wakefield, who falsely claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism, the UK’s health secretary.Prof Sir Simon Wessely, a regius professor of psychiatry at King’s College London, said of the move: “That sound that you just heard was my jaw dropping, hitting the floor and rolling out of the door.”Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said there was real concern that Kennedy might use the platform “to pursue the same anti-science positions on life-saving public health interventions that he has advanced previously”.He added: “If this makes families hesitate to immunise against the deadly diseases that threaten children, the consequence will be fatal for some.”Kat Lay and Kate Connolly explained what the latest appointment could mean:After Donald Trump nominated him to lead the interior department and the new National Energy Council, North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, wrote on X:
      I’m deeply grateful to President @RealDonaldTrump for this amazing opportunity to serve the American people and achieve ENERGY DOMINANCE!
      Expect that energy dominance to involve a lot of fossil fuels. Here’s more on what environmentalists fear Burgum as interior secretary could portend for fighting the climate crisis:The Guardian’s Alice Herman has more on defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, who concerns experts for his adherence to a number of rightwing ideologies:Extremism experts are sounding the alarm about Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, whose writings and online presence reveal someone immersed in a culture of rightwing Christianity, political extremism and violent ideation.The Fox & Friends host, who has served in the US army but has no experience in government, drew shock from Pentagon officials when Trump nominated him. Hegseth’s books on American culture and the military, his commentary on Fox and his frequent posts on social media showcase his far-right ideology. On these platforms, Hegseth telegraphs paranoia and anger toward “leftists”, an ultra-masculine Maga persona and apparent revulsion toward service members who do not fit his vision – including women.“The thing that really worries me, is both the ideology of Christian nationalism and what that’s going to mean for the kind of policies he tries to put in place for the defense department,” said Thomas Lecaque, a historian focusing on religion and political violence.Donald Trump said in a statement that he will appoint Doug Burgum as both interior secretary and the head of a new National Energy Council.Trump announced the North Dakota governor would head up the department that handles oil and gas drilling on federal lands, rattling environmentalists who fear Burgum will pursue policies that will exacerbate the climate crisis.“I am thrilled to announce that Doug Burgum, the Governor of North Dakota, will be joining my Administration as both Secretary of the Interior and, as Chairman of the newly formed, and very important, National Energy Council, which will consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy,” Trump said.“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation. With U.S. Energy Dominance, we will drive down Inflation, win the A.I. arms race with China (and others), and expand American Diplomatic Power to end Wars all across the World.”Much can change between now and whenever the Senate begins considering Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general, likely after Donald Trump is sworn in on 20 January.But the Wall Street Journal reports that perhaps as many as 30 Republican senators will not support the former representative’s nomination:
      Trump can afford to lose the support of no more than three GOP senators on his most contentious picks, assuming all Democrats are opposed, in a chamber that will be split 53-47 in the new Congress. People familiar with discussions among Senate Republicans said that far more than three of them are prepared to vote no if the matter comes to a vote, and some said there was already talk of trying to convince Trump to pull Gaetz, or get Gaetz to voluntarily withdraw his name.
      ‘It’s simply that Matt Gaetz has a very long, steep hill to get across the finish line,’ said Sen Kevin Cramer (R, ND). ‘And it will require the spending of a lot of capital, and you just have to ask: if you could get him across the finish line, was it worth the cost?’
      Cramer said he didn’t think Gaetz would have the votes to be approved by the Judiciary Committee, much less to be confirmed by the full Senate.
      One person familiar with the conversations among Republican senators said ‘significantly more than four’ of them are opposed, which would be enough to tank Gaetz’s chances. ‘People are pissed,’ the person said.
      Other estimates ranged from more than a dozen Republican ‘no’ votes to more than 30. ‘It won’t even be close,’ another person said.
      ‘It’s going to be very difficult,’ said Sen Markwayne Mullin (R, Okla), when asked if Gaetz could win the votes necessary for confirmation. Mullin, a close Trump ally, said he would keep an open mind because he trusts Trump to pick his cabinet. But he said Gaetz will have to go through the vigorous vetting process required of any nominee, and said the former Florida congressman might decide to opt out and withdraw.
      “We’ve seen a lot of nominees, when they go through the process, they’re like, ‘You know, it’s not going to happen,’ and they pull out,” Mullin said.
      In an interview with CNN, Mike Rounds, a Republican senator from South Dakota, said that the chamber should be able to see the House ethics committee’s report into Matt Gaetz.“We do have a process in place which includes the ability to get that type of information, in many cases. And what we want to do is make good decisions based upon all the relevant facts and information that we can get,” Rounds said.“We should be able to get a hold of it, and we should have access to it one way or another, based on the way that we do all of these nominations.”Politico reports that the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, said he is against the ethics committee releasing its report into drug use and sexual misconduct by Matt Gaetz, the former representative nominated by Donald Trump to serve as attorney general.“I’m going to strongly request that the ethics committee not issue the report, because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson said, hours after returning from a visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “And I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”The committee had reportedly been near to releasing its inquiry, but Gaetz’s resignation has thrown into question whether such a report can be made public once a lawmaker exits the House. Some senators from both parties have said it should be shared with them, so they can assess Gaetz’s candidacy to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.Donald Trump has also appointed his top ally Sergio Gor as assistant to the president and director of the presidential personnel office.Gor was the CEO of Winning Team Publishing while also serving for the pro-Trump Super Pac Right for America, the Trump-Vance campaign said.Commenting on the nominations of Steven Cheung (as White House communications director) and Gor, Trump said:
      Steven Cheung and Sergio Gor have been trusted advisors since my first presidential campaign in 2016, and have continued to champion American First principles throughout my first term, all the way to our historic victory in 2024 … I am thrilled to have them join my White House as we, Make America Great Again.
      Donald Trump has appointed his campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung as the next White House communications director.Replacing Ben LaBolt, Cheung will be tasked with steering Trump’s strategy of selling his presidency to the American people.In a statement on Friday, the Trump-Vance campaign said:
      Steven Cheung will return to the White House as assistant to the president and director of communications. Cheung was director of communications on the Trump-Vance 2024 presidential campaign and previously served in the Trump White House as director of strategic response.
      Donald Trump will appoint his main campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, as the White House communications director, Politico reports, citing someone familiar with the matter.Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Cheung was Trump’s primary vessel to mainstream media outlets, frequently defending the president-elect and remaining close to his side at campaign events and rallies.Environmental groups are sounding the alarm over Donald Trump’s nomination of North Dakota’s governor, Doug Burgum, as interior secretary.Since 2016, the former businessman has been governor of North Dakota, which is the third-largest oil and natural gas producer in the country. Burgum, if confirmed by the Senate, would manage US federal lands including national parks and wildlife refuges, as well as oversee relations with 574 federally recognized Native American tribes.The Sierra Club, the country’s largest non-profit environmental organization, said: “It was climate skeptic Doug Burgum who helped arrange the Mar-a-Lago meeting with wealthy oil and gas executives where Donald Trump offered to overturn dozens of environmental rules and regulations in exchange for $1bn in campaign contributions.”Similarly, the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation policy organization focused on land and energy issues across the western states, said: “Doug Burgum comes from an oil state, but North Dakota is not a public lands state. His cozy relationship with oil billionaires may endear him to Donald Trump, but he has no experience that qualifies him to oversee the management of 20% of America’s lands.”For the full story, click here:Donald Trump has not nominated anyone new for his cabinet yet today, but many names are flying around for top posts. Larry Kudlow could reportedly return to his old job heading the National Economic Council, or even the treasury, while Mike Rogers, who just lost election to the Senate from Michigan, may be tapped to lead the FBI. Meanwhile, we have learned more about Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary nominee. He was reportedly involved in a sexual assault investigation in 2017 – a surprise to Trump’s transition team – but no charges were ever filed. The president-elect has taken to announcing his nominations in the later half of the day, so perhaps we will hear from him this afternoon.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      Dick Durbin, the outgoing Senate judiciary committee chair, warned that Trump’s justice department will use its powers to “seek vengeance”.

      Mike Pence came out against Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead the health department, citing the nominee’s support for abortion.

      Scott Bessent, a hedge fund founder, and Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team, are also reportedly in the running to head up the treasury.
      The outgoing Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee Dick Durbin warned that Donald Trump’s appointees to top justice department posts are a sign that he will direct prosecutors and law enforcement to retaliate against his political opponents.Durbin singled out the president-elect’s nomination of Todd Blanche, who defended Trump in his hush-money trial in New York, as deputy attorney general, and John Sauer, who argued before the supreme court in his immunity case, as solicitor general:
      Coupled with the announcement that he intends to nominate former Congressman Matt Gaetz to be attorney general, these selections show Donald Trump intends to weaponize the justice department to seek vengeance. Donald Trump viewed the justice department as his personal law firm during his first term, and these selections – his personal attorneys – are poised to do his bidding.
      The American people deserve a justice department that fights for equal justice under the law. This isn’t it.
      Democrats are losing control of the Senate at the beginning of next year, and it will be up to the incoming Republican majority to confirm Trump’s appointees. More

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      Mike Pence urges Senate Republicans to reject RFK Jr for US health secretary

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      Mike Pence, the former vice-president, urged Senate Republicans on Friday to reject Donald Trump’s choice of Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary – although he cited Kennedy’s support for abortion rights, while other critics are most outraged at his stance against vaccines.Pence’s comments came as public alarm mounted among Democrats and in health circles about Kennedy, while there were bipartisan warnings that another of Trump’s choices, the far-right congressman Matt Gaetz for attorney general, faces “an uphill battle” to win confirmation in the US Senate, despite Republicans winning the majority in the upper congressional chamber.Pence cited his conservative views on abortion for his opposition to Kennedy’s elevation to secretary of health and human services (HHS).“The Trump-Pence administration was unapologetically pro-life for our four years in office. There are hundreds of decisions made at HHS every day that either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it, and HHS under our administration always stood for life,” Pence said in a statement released by his conservative non-profit, Advancing American Freedom.“I believe the nomination of RFK Jr to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades.”Prominent medical professionals have joined leading Democrats in speaking out against Kennedy, who has embraced a multitude of debunked health-related conspiracy theories, and whose proposed elevation to the government’s top health job represents “a clear and present danger to the nation’s health” and “a catastrophe”, according to some critics.“I think this is an extraordinarily bad choice. He does not plan to lean on evidence and rigorous analysis to make decisions but instead to use his own ideas,” Dr Ashish Jha, Covid-19 coordinator for the Biden White House and dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, told CNN.Dr Richard Besser, former acting director of the powerful US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told the network that Kennedy’s views criticizing childhood vaccines, including the false claim that they cause autism, were “dangerous”.“Frankly, I find it chilling. He has done so much to undermine the confidence that people have in that incredible intervention,” he said.Trump has been assembling a cabinet for his second term in office, making announcements this week from his residence in Florida, and on Thursday named Kennedy to lead HHS and its associated agencies.He praised the politician, a former independent presidential candidate and outcast from the Democratic Kennedy political dynasty, at a black-tie gala at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday night.“If you like health and if you like people that live a long time, it’s the most important position,” he said. Directly addressing Kennedy, who was in the ballroom of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private resort club, he added: “We want you to come up with things and ideas, and what you’ve been talking about for a long time.”Democrats were quick to express outrage. The California representative Robert Garcia called it “fucking insane” and described Kennedy as “a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist”.The Massachusetts representative Jake Auchincloss promised to “fight back in Washington to protect the integrity” of federal public health agencies if Kennedy is confirmed by the Senate.“RFK Jr is a conspiracist & quack who threatens the health of Americans. He’s not simply angling for more sunshine & exercise (no one disagrees with that). He seeks to overturn evidence-driven, peer-reviewed research on medicines & more,” Auchincloss posted to X.Shares in several of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies and vaccine manufacturers, including Moderna, AstraZeneca and GSK, plummeted on Friday in reaction to the news.Kennedy has previously said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” but told NBC in a post-election interview that he “won’t take away anybody’s vaccines”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump on Thursday nominated a vocal ally of his to be interior secretary – Doug Burgum, the Republican North Dakota governor. The role would put him in charge of national parks and public lands, and he has strong links to the fossil fuel industry, where many companies have strong appetites for government permits to drill and mine on federal land.Republicans will have a majority of at least 53-47 seats in the chamber during the next Congress, but even so, two other of Trump’s picks are already receiving bipartisan pushback: Gaetz and the former Democratic congresswoman turned Republican Tulsi Gabbard, named for director of national intelligence. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton once described her as a “favorite of the Russians”.Gaetz resigned as a US representative for Florida on Wednesday, in effect suspending the planned release on Friday of a report by the House of Representatives ethics committee into allegations of sexual misconduct, including that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl, which he has denied. His nomination as the nation’s leading law enforcement officer was seen by some as a direct challenge by Trump to the incoming Republican Senate majority to defy his authority.“For me the message to the administration is simply that Matt Gaetz has a very long, steep hill to get across the finish line and it will require the spending of a lot of capital,” North Dakota’s Republican senator Kevin Cramer told the Washington Post.“That ethics report is clearly going to become a part of the record.”On Friday, Joni Ernst, Republican senator for Iowa, also said the report was expected to feature prominently in a confirmation hearing. “We’ll talk about it for certain, but I know he’s going to have an uphill battle [for confirmation],” she told NBC News.Other Republicans demanded the release of the report, including Washington congressman Dan Newhouse and Texas senator John Cornyn.Meanwhile former defense secretary and Republican US senator Chuck Hagel published an opinion piece in the New York Times challenging Trump’s controversial nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, as a potential “danger” to political independence, good ethics and progress towards equality in the US military. He also questioned the potential for Trump to sidestep Senate confirmations.Trump has signaled he could resort to rare recess appointments, the archaic process allowing a president to install his nominees while Congress is not in session. More

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      Trump health secretary choice is ‘courting catastrophe’, says rights group – as it happened

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      Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump claimed that Americans have been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies” and that Kennedy will “will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”In response to Kennedy’s nomination, Public Citizen, a progressive nonprofit organization focusing on consumer advocacy, said: “Robert F Kennedy Jr is a clear and present danger to the nation’s health. He shouldn’t be allowed in the building at the department of health and human services (HHS), let alone be placed in charge of the nation’s public health agency.”“Donald Trump’s bungling of public health policy during the Covid pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of lives. By appointing Kennedy as his secretary of HHS, Trump is courting another, policy-driven public health catastrophe,” the organization added.Apu Akkad, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, called the announcement a “scary day for public health”.This blog is closing now but you can continue to read our latest US political coverage here. Thank you for reading.Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

      Donald Trump nominated Robert F Kennedy, Jr to lead the Health and Human Services department. If confirmed, Kennedy – who has gained notoriety for being one of the most persistent and successful purveyors of misinformation about vaccines – would be in charge of the department that oversees the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy joined forces with Trump and promised to “Make American Healthy Again” after dropping his own presidential bid. Public health experts warn that his involvement in the US health and medical infrastructure could have devastating consequences.

      Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr as US secretary of health and human services prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.

      Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York. The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.

      Two prominent senators have called for the House ethics committee to share with them its investigation into Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump nominated to serve as attorney general in his administration. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress shortly after, likely stopping the release of the report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but the Democratic senator Dick Durbin and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn said the document should be shared with them, if Gaetz’s nomination is to proceed.

      Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year in a putsch backed by Gaetz, said the ex-congressman “won’t get confirmed” as attorney general.

      Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said that before either is confirmed, the FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence. She is known for her tolerant view of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both US adversaries.

      Nikki Haley said she was never interested in serving in Trump’s cabinet. She was UN ambassador during his first term, but Trump recently said he would not bring her back into his government.

      The Onion is buying conspiracy theory hub InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction, after its creator Alex Jones was hit with a massive defamation judgment from families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.

      Social media platform Bluesky picked up more than 1 million new members on Thursday, continuing a surge to the platform as former X users leave the platform. Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

      Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.

      Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency – at zero pay.

      Trump announced Dean John Sauer as solicitor general. Sauer was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 to 2023. Sauer has also worked on Trump’s legal team before, arguing his presidential immunity case.

      Trump announced his former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Collins ran for Senate in 2020, finishing third in the primary. He also, per the Hill, “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results.”

      Trump named his own lead attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position in the Department of Justice. Trump has nominated far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
      As Donald Trump secured victory in the US presidential election, an unexpected phenomenon began trending on social media: young American women declaring their commitment to “4B”, a fringe South Korean feminist movement advocating the rejection of marriage, childbirth, dating and sex.The movement has sparked intense global interest, with millions of views on TikTok and viral X posts heralding it as a women’s rights revolution.Yet within South Korea itself, the picture is more complex and in some places the feminist movement is under attack.“I had never heard of 4B until recently”, says Lee Min-ji, an office worker in Seoul who was surprised at all the international attention. “I understand where all the anger comes from, but I don’t think avoiding all relationships with men is the solution”.Park So-yeon, a publishing professional in Seoul, says she does not date because she is prioritising her professional life.“Like me, most of my female friends are more focused on their careers than dating right now, but that’s not because of 4B, it’s just the reality of being a young professional in Korea,” she says.Janelle Bynum will serve as Oregon’s first Black member of Congress after the Democrat flipped a US House seat from the Republicans.Bynum, a state representative who was backed and supported by national Democrats, ousted Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer. The win was a boost for Democrats who won back the seat after Republicans flipped it red for the first time in roughly 25 years during the 2022 midterms.“It’s not lost on me that I am one generation removed from segregation. It’s not lost on me that we’re making history. And I am proud to be the first, but not the last, Black member of Congress in Oregon,” Bynum said at a press conference last Friday.“But it took all of us working together to flip this seat, and we delivered a win for Oregon. We believed in a vision and we didn’t take our feet off the gas until we accomplished our goals.”Here are the best, worst and weirdest graphics from the US election:Social media platform Bluesky picked up more than 1 million new members on Thursday, continuing a surge to the platform as former X users escape misinformation and offensive posts.Including Thursday’s arrivals, Bluesky has seen an influx of 2.5m new accounts in the wake of the US election to reach more than 16 million users worldwide, the platform said.Bluesky has also overtaken Meta’s Threads to reach number one in Apple’s app store and enjoyed its “highest traffic day ever” on Thursday, according to Bluesky developer Daniel Holmgren.The site suffered a brief outage on Thursday, with some users reporting significant delays when trying to load feeds and notifications. Spokesperson Emily Liu said the outage was the result of an internet provider’s fiber cable being cut and not related to the surging demand, which Bluesky’s team was “prepared to meet”.Social media researcher Axel Bruns told the Guardian earlier this week the platform offered an alternative to X, formerly Twitter, including a more effective system for blocking or suspending problematic accounts and policing harmful behaviour.“It’s become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else,” he said.You can read more about Bluesky here:Donald Trump has wasted no time in assembling his incoming cabinet, issuing a flurry of nominations this week that – in some cases – have further heightened fears that his return to the White House will lead to an extremist agenda.The roster of names has inevitably drawn comparisons with Trump’s 2016 victory, when he was reported to have devoted relatively little attention to a transition effort. Back then, his picks were described as “conventional” and the incoming cabinet was said have been broadly in line with that of a traditional Republican.Eight years on and the shape of the Trump 2.0 White House so far has spurred serious concerns about public health and reproductive rights, and left military leaders “stunned” and former intelligence experts “appalled”.Some senators have already expressed doubt that some of Trump’s nominees will garner sufficient votes to be confirmed – even in the Republican-majority chamber which holds the power to deny his appointments.So how do Trump’s cabinet nominees in 2024 compare with those he made in 2016?Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.As Trump prepares to address conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Musk, the world’s richest man, has been assisting in discussions with foreign officials, establishing himself as the country’s most influential civilian come January.Earlier this month, Musk reportedly made a guest appearance on a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink.“He’s now engaging the Iranians,” said Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, about Musk. “And the Iranians have not engaged Americans in direct negotiations since before Trump left the nuclear deal, so this could be a very big deal.”California’s Democratic representative Robert Garcia called the nomination “fucking insane”, writing on X: “He’s a vaccine denier and a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist. He will destroy our public health infrastructure and our vaccine distribution systems. This is going to cost lives.”Alastair McAlpine, a pediatric physician at British Columbia’s children’s hospital, wrote: “It is hard to overstate what a terrible decision this is. RFK Jr has no medical training. He is a hardcore anti-vaccine and misinformation peddler. The last time he meddled in a state’s medical affairs (Samoa), 83 children died of measles.”The conservative pundit and lawyer George Conway also commented on Kenedy’s nomination, along with that of Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz.“Very little of what Trump does these days amazes me. Any one of the last three of Trump’s Cabinet-level picks (Gabbard as DNI, Gaetz as AG, RFK Jr for HHS), standing alone, would arguably have been the worst in American history. The fact that Trump made all three in a span of roughly 24 hours is astonishing,” Conway wrote.Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump claimed that Americans have been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies” and that Kennedy will “will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”In response to Kennedy’s nomination, Public Citizen, a progressive nonprofit organization focusing on consumer advocacy, said: “Robert F Kennedy Jr is a clear and present danger to the nation’s health. He shouldn’t be allowed in the building at the department of health and human services (HHS), let alone be placed in charge of the nation’s public health agency.”“Donald Trump’s bungling of public health policy during the Covid pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of lives. By appointing Kennedy as his secretary of HHS, Trump is courting another, policy-driven public health catastrophe,” the organization added.Apu Akkad, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, called the announcement a “scary day for public health”.More now on Robert F Kennedy Junior, Trump’s nominee to oversee key US health agencies:Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit anti-vaccine group he led until becoming a presidential candidate, flooded American Samoa with vaccine misinformation ahead of a devastating measles outbreak there in 2019.The position to lead the US health department needs Senate approval. If approved, experts say vaccines will be “the first issue on the table”.Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said even if public policies remain unchanged, should authorities with the imprimatur of the federal government speak out against vaccines, “that discourages people who might otherwise be vaccinated, and at that point that’s as bad as not having a vaccine at all”.The effects are not theoretical. As recently as last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report that found fewer than one in six healthcare workers had received updated Covid-19 vaccines in the 2023-24 respiratory virus season, and under half had received flu shots.Childhood vaccinations have also dipped since the pandemic. Vaccination hesitancy and misinformation were both cited as major reasons by researchers.“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, pertussis [whooping cough], measles,” said Osterholm. “We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades.”RFK Jr has also recommended removing fluoride from drinking water, although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments.Trump has announced another pick for his administration: Dean John Sauer as solicitor general. Sauer was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 to 2023. Sauer has also worked on Trump’s legal team before, arguing his presidential immunity case.From the New York Times: “As Missouri’s solicitor general, Mr Sauer took part in a last-ditch effort to keep Mr. Trump in power after his defeat in the 2020 election, filing a motion on behalf of his state and five others in support of an attempt by Texas to have the supreme court toss out the results of the vote count in several key swing states.“He also joined in an unsuccessful bid with Texas in asking the supreme court to stop the Biden administration from rescinding a Trump-era immigration program that forces certain asylum seekers arriving at the southern border to await approval in Mexico.”In a statement, Trump said:
      I am pleased to announce that Dean John Sauer will serve as Solicitor General of the United States in my Administration. John is a deeply accomplished, masterful appellate attorney, who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia in the United States Supreme Court, served as Solicitor General of Missouri for six years, and has extensive experience practicing before the US Supreme Court and other Appellate Courts.
      Most recently, John was the lead counsel representing me in the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States, winning a Historic Victory on Presidential Immunity, which was key to defeating the unConstitutional campaign of Lawfare against me and the entire MAGA Movement. John was a Rhodes Scholar, graduated from Duke University, Oxford University and is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Harvard Law School. John will be a great Champion for us as we Make America Great Again!
      Trump is announcing another flurry of names for his administration, including in a statement sent out minutes ago, former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.Collins ran for Senate in 2020, finishing third in the primary. He also, per the Hill, “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results.”Trump’s statement reads:
      I am pleased to announce my intent to nominate former Congressman Doug Collins, of Georgia, as The United States Secretary for Veterans Affairs (VA). Doug is a Veteran himself, who currently serves our Nation as a Chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command, and fought for our Country in the Iraq War. We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need. Thank you, Doug, for your willingness to serve our Country in this very important role!
      Donald Trump has named his own lead attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position in the Department of Justice. Trump has nominated far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general.In a statement, the president-elect said:
      I am pleased to announce that Todd Blanche will serve as Deputy Attorney General in my Administration. Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long. Todd prosecuted gangs and other federal crimes as a Chief in the Southern District of New York United States Attorney’s Office, clerked for two Federal Judges, and graduated with Honors from law school, while working full time at the SDNY. Todd is going to do a great job as we, Make America Great Again.
      Donald Trump has continued to nominate loyalists with dubious qualifications to his upcoming administration. The most significant nomination of the day of of Robert F Kennedy, Jr to lead the Health and Human Services department.If confirmed, Kennedy – who has gained notoriety for being one of the most persistent and successful purveyors of misinformation about vaccines – would be in charge of the department that oversees the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Kennedy joined forces with Trump and promised to “Make American Healthy Again” after dropping his own presidential bid. Public health experts warn that his involvement in the US health and medical infrastructure could have devastating consequences.

      Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York. The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.

      Two prominent senators have called for the House ethics committee to share with them its investigation into Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump nominated to serve as attorney general in his administration. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress shortly after, likely stopping the release of the report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but the Democratic senator Dick Durbin and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn said the document should be shared with them, if Gaetz’s nomination is to proceed.

      Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year in a putsch backed by Gaetz, said the ex-congressman “won’t get confirmed” as attorney general.

      Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said that before either is confirmed, the FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence. She is known for her tolerant view of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both US adversaries.

      Nikki Haley said she was never interested in serving in Trump’s cabinet. She was UN ambassador during his first term, but Trump recently said he would not bring her back into his government.

      The Onion is buying conspiracy theory hub InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction, after its creator Alex Jones was hit with a massive defamation judgment from families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
      Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency – at zero pay.In a new X post on Thursday that doubled as a job announcement and another one of Musk’s trolling attempts, the account for the newly formed Doge wrote: “We don’t need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”The name of the department, which is not part of the federal government, harkens back to a meme of an expressive shiba inu dog.“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants,” the statement added.In a separate post, Musk chimed in on the callout, saying: “Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero.”“What a great deal!” Musk, the richest man in the world, wrote with a laughing emoji. He has promised to reduce federal bureaucracy by a third and cut $2tn from US government spending, an endeavor he said “necessarily involves some temporary hardship”. More

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      Trump expected to announce RFK Jr as his pick to lead US health department

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      Donald Trump has announced he will nominate former independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr as the US secretary of health and human services (HHS) in his administration.Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, will be a contentious pick to lead the US health department, and the role will need to be confirmed by the Senate.Trump, in a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, claimed Americans have “for too long” been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health”.“HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country,” the president-elect wrote. “Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”Kennedy had attempted to win the White House himself during the 2024 presidential election but his bid never took off in the polls. After ending his attempt, he eventually endorsed Trump, who promised to put him into an influential position when it comes to health policy.Kennedy became one of Trump’s top surrogates, which came as a surprise to some observers as he is the scion of a famous Democratic dynasty and has had a long history of environmental activism often in causes which Trump will likely do great damage to.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHowever, Kennedy has also become well-known for his anti-vaccine beliefs and embrace of other conspiracy theories around health and wellness issues.His campaign was marked by at times bizarre scandals that ranged from part of his brain had been eaten by a worm to admitting to staging a dead bear corpse in Central Park as the victim of a hit-and-run accident.Kennedy’s nomination to Trump’s government is likely to boost already strong fears that he is keen on appointing extremists and loyalists to his administration rather than experts and technocrats. It follows on jobs for hard-right Stephen Miller on the issue of immigration, Fox News star Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense and scandal-plagued Maga loyalist Matt Gaetz as attorney general. More

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      Fears mount over Trump’s second term amid flurry of shock selections

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      Fears that Donald Trump’s second presidency will be more extreme than his first have intensified amid a flurry of senior nominations that opponents have criticised as going from bad to worse.Dismay over some of the president-elect’s early picks escalated to outrage after the far-right Florida congressman Matt Gaetz was unveiled as his selection to be attorney general – a position Trump has previously said he views as the most important in his administration.The choice provoked disbelief, even among Republicans, and has fueled concerns that Trump is intent on carrying out mass firings at the Department of Justice in retribution for criminal investigations it instigated against him.Trump reportedly chose Gaetz, 42, after the congressman – who himself was subject to a two-year justice department investigation into suspected sex-trafficking that ended without charges – told Trump: “Yeah, I’ll go over there and start cuttin’ fuckin’ heads.”Others considered for the post were dismissed as too concerned with legal concepts or constitutional niceties.Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer in Trump’s first presidency, called Gaetz’s nomination “a big f… you to America”.“Matt Gaetz is just simply unqualified … academically, professionally, ethically, morally and experientially,” he told CNN this week.The nomination followed two other shock appointments: Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Fox News’s Pete Hegseth as defence secretary.Gabbard, 43 – a former Democratic member of Congress turned Republican – would oversee America’s vast intelligence complex despite past accusations of being a Russian asset or spouting Kremlin talking points.Her nomination followed repeated vows by Trump to purge intelligence chiefs who he considers to be part of a “deep state”.Army veteran Hegseth, 44, has railed against “woke” leadership in the military. He was nominated following reports Trump was considering issuing an early executive order that would establish a “warrior board” empowered to recommend the removal of generals and admirals deemed to lack “requisite leadership qualities”.Some observers saw these nominations as a deliberate challenge to Senate Republicans, who on Wednesday elected John Thune to replace the retiring Mitch McConnell as Senate leader after the party won a 53-47 majority in the chamber in last week’s general election.The Senate is constitutionally responsible for vetting senior appointments in confirmation hearings. Forecasts have already rolled in noting that Gaetz in particular would struggle to win acceptance.But Trump has urged the Senate to circumvent such hearings by allowing him to make recess appointments in what is seen as an early test of Thune’s independence.“These choices seem designed to poke the Senate in the eye,” Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice – a non-partisan law and policy institute – told the New York Times. “[They] are so appalling they’re a form of performance art.”The three latest nominees overshadowed concerns about Trump’s appointees on immigration, a key issue which he has highlighted by vowing mass deportations of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.Tom Homan, a hardline former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been chosen as border czar, while Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, who earned notoriety by admitting that she shot her own dog, has been nominated as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.Trump has chosen an even more immoderate figure, Stephen Miller – the architect of the child separation policy for migrant families in his first presidency – as his deputy White House chief of staff for policy, a brief certain to include immigration.Trump had also raised eyebrows with his choice of Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, as US ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has previously championed internationally illegal Israeli settlements and has said Israel has a “title deed” to the West Bank, which the Palestinians want as part of a future state; he calls the West Bank by its Hebrew name, Judea and Samaria.Steve Witkoff, a golfing partner who was with Trump at his West Palm Beach golf club at the time of a second failed assassination attempt in September, has been chosen as Middle East envoy.Elise Stefanik, a New York representative whose pugnacious questioning about antisemitism brought down two female Ivy League university heads, will be ambassador to the UN, a body she has frequently criticised.Some nominations are relatively uncontroversial, including Marco Rubio, a senator for Florida, as secretary of state, and Susie Wiles, a veteran Republican operative and senior campaign adviser, as White House chief of staff. 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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      Trump fake-elector scheme: where do five state investigations stand?

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      After the 2020 election, a group of 84 people in seven states signed false documents claiming to be electors for Donald Trump. This year, despite the fact that four states have brought criminal charges against the fake electors, 14 of them will now serve as real electors for the president-elect.The 14 once-fake-and-now-real electors were selected by state Republican parties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada. They will meet in their state capitols on 17 December to cast their ballots for Trump.Prosecutors in many of the states where fake electors signed false documents are moving forward with charges, as the federal charges against Trump for election subversion and other alleged crimes are up in the air after his re-election.Five of the seven states pursued charges related to the issue. Authorities in New Mexico and Pennsylvania did not pursue charges because the documents the false electors there used hedged language that attorneys said would likely spare them from criminal charges.The fake electors in some instances are high-profile Republicans: people in elected office, in official party roles, prominent members of external conservative groups.Here’s where the state cases stand.ArizonaKris Mayes, the Democratic attorney general for Arizona, said on Sunday that her office will not be dropping any charges related to the fake electors.A grand jury in Arizona charged 18 people involved in the fake electors scheme, including the 11 people who served as fake electors and Trump allies Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb and Mike Roman. Some of the fake electors are high profile: two state senators (Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern), a former state Republican party chair (Kelli Ward) and a Turning Point USA executive (Tyler Bowyer).“I have no intention of breaking that case up. I have no intention of dropping that case,” Mayes told MSNBC. “A grand jury in the state of Arizona decided that these individuals who engaged in an attempt to overthrow our democracy in 2020 should be held accountable, so we won’t be cowed, we won’t be intimidated.”Arizona charged people in April 2024, so the case is still in its early stages.GeorgiaGeorgia’s case will be the most watched, especially if all federal charges against Trump are dropped. It is the only state case where Trump himself is charged, though he will seek to have the charges dropped because of the supreme court’s presidential immunity ruling, or at least paused until he’s no longer in office. Several of the 19 people charged pleaded guilty and received probation and fines.Fake electors David Shafer, Cathleen Latham and Shawn Still were charged in the criminal racketeering case, but not all of the fake electors in Georgia were charged – many were granted immunity to cooperate with the case.The US supreme court rejected an attempt by Meadows on Tuesday to move the case to federal court.The next step is set for December: the Georgia court of appeals will hear arguments on whether prosecutor Fani Willis can continue on the case herself despite a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor on the case. A lower court previous ruled that she could continue.MichiganSixteen fake electors were charged in Michigan in mid-2023. One of them agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and had his charges dropped in return.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe case is working its way through the court process, with the last of the defendants sitting for examinations in October as the judge decides whether the case should go to trial.Six of those charged will serve as Trump’s actual electors this year. Attorneys for those fake and now real electors have said their role this year shouldn’t have any bearing on their legal cases.NevadaSix Trump electors in Nevada were charged at the end of 2023 with state forgery crimes for their roles in the scheme.In June, Clark county district court judge Mary Kay Holthu dismissed the case, saying it was in the wrong venue and should not have been filed in Las Vegas. Democratic attorney general Aaron Ford vowed to appeal the ruling, but defense attorneys have said the charges are now outside the statute of limitations.“My office’s goal remains unchanged – we will hold these fake electors accountable for their actions which contributed to the ongoing and completely unfounded current of distrust in our electoral system,” Ford said. “Our drive to seek justice does not change with election results. We are committed to see this matter through, either through winning our appeal or filing anew before the new year. This is not going away.”Two of the fake electors will again serve as Trump electors this year: Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican party, and Jesse Law, chair of the Republican party of Clark county.WisconsinThe fake elector scheme allegedly began in Wisconsin, where pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro is from.Those who served as fake electors did not get criminally charged in Wisconsin, though three people involved in the scheme – Chesebro, Roman, and James Troupis – were charged in June by the state attorney general for their role in orchestrating the scheme.The state’s fake electors settled a civil lawsuit in 2023 that required them to agree not to serve as electors when elections involve Trump and to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. Some of the electors have publicly claimed they were misled about the purpose of the alternate slates. More