“She Was a High School Student and There Were Witnesses.”

Florida Representative Matt Gaetz’s shocking attorney general nomination now has Dick Durbin demanding to see Ethics Committee receipts. 

The deeply divisive hardcore Trump loyalist was nominated for attorney general on Wednesday, leaving members of both parties aghast. Gaetz drew his colleagues’ ire after forcing out Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and has been accused of trafficking and having sex with a 17-year-old girl at a drug-fueled party in 2017. Gaetz’s friend Joel Greenberg has already confessed to having sex with the underage victim and claimed that Gaetz paid him to bring her. Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend has also told the court that he was indeed present at the party. Gaetz has repeatedly denied the allegations, which could potentially upend his nomination to the position of highest attorney in the land.  

The House Ethics Committee was investigating the Florida representative for these allegations, but that probe—which was slated to be released soon—closed as soon as Gaetz resigned from his House seat to prepare for the confirmation process.

After Gaetz’s resignation, Senate Democrat and Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin called upon the House Ethics Committee to “preserve and share their report and all relevant documentation on Mr. Gaetz with the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

“We cannot allow this valuable information from a bipartisan investigation to be hidden from the American people,” the Democratic senator said. “Make no mistake: this information could be relevant to the question of Mr. Gaetz’s confirmation as the next Attorney General of the United States.”

Conservatives would rather sweep the Ethics Committee investigation under the rug than allow Durbin to air out Gaetz’s very dirty laundry. Republican House Ethics Committee Chair Mike Guest explained to Punch Bowl’s Max Cohen that he didn’t have the jurisdiction to release the report. “What happens in ethics is confidential. We’re going to maintain that confidentiality,” he said. The other Republican senators on the committee—Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis, and Josh Hawley—agree. CBS News’s Robert Costas reported that Republicans don’t have much energy for “pushing back” against the controversial nomination. “Trump runs the show,” Costas wrote on X. “If Gaetz can reassure them, they’re open to backing him.”

But as Republicans move to hush Gaetz’s sex trafficking allegations, others note that this mess is likely far from over. “Mr. Gaetz’s likely nomination as attorney general is a perverse development in a truly dark series of events,” tweeted John Clune, the lawyer representing the underage victim. “We would support the House Ethics Committee immediately releasing their report. She was a high school student and there were witnesses.” 

Matt Gaetz’s sex trafficking allegations aren’t going away—but Republicans and those close to the embattled Florida man are doing everything they can to bury them. 

Rolling Stone reports that a “close friend” of the Florida representative asked a court to destroy records that detail the drug-fueled sex party that a trafficked 17-year-old and Gaetz allegedly attended in 2017. Christopher Dorworth, a friend of Gaetz caught up in the probe, filed two motions to have these details “stricken from the judicial record,” and Gaetz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The 17-year-old victim in the case has said that Gaetz attended the 2017 party. Another friend of Gaetz’s, former Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg, has already admitted to having sex with the victim when she was 17, even writing a confession stating that Gaetz paid him to bring women in for sex and that (at least) one of them was under 18. Other court documents have also placed Gaetz at the party based on testimony from his ex-girlfriend, NOTUS reported. Greenberg pleaded guilty to six federal charges: sex trafficking of a child, production of a false identification document, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, stalking, and conspiracy, in 2021. He is currently in prison.

Dorworth’s request comes after Gaetz was tapped by Trump to lead the Department of Justice in his new administration. The potential attorney general has been a hard-core Trump loyalist who has drawn the ire of his fellow Republicans, who referred to him as a childish, “disgraceful,” and “vile” person after his ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy just over a year ago. Then-Representative Markwayne Mullin, now a senator, candidly told CNN last year that Gaetz bragged about having sex with young women to other members on the floor of the House of Representatives. 

“We had all seen videos … of the girls that he had slept with,” Mullin said. “He’d crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night.” Mullin, now a Senator, has done a total 180 on this, saying on Wednesday that he “completely” trusts Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz.

It remains to be seen if these allegations will derail Gaetz’s confirmation process. But one of the judges on the case, Daniel Irick, thinks it should. 

“This is a case of public importance,” Irick said in August, according to NOTUS. “It is one that there may be media interest in, and it’s one that involves important issues.… I’m not seeing any confidentialities that would really overwhelm the First Amendment right for the public to see this case, especially when a plaintiff brings claims in relation to their marriage and spouses and the kind of intimate issues in this case which are laid out in extreme detail in the … complaint. I am unlikely to seal anything because it all seems relevant.”

As attorney general, Gaetz will be fully empowered to carry out Trump’s—and his own—incindiary mandate, litigating culture wars and carrying out personal vendettas. Republican Senator Thom Tillis put it aptly: “I’m sure it’ll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation.”  

Senator Tommy Tuberville threatened to oust Republican senators who don’t vote to approve former Representative Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be the next attorney general.

During an interview on Fox Business Wednesday, the Alabama senator criticized Republicans reluctant to get behind Donald Trump’s recent mind-boggling nomination of Gaetz, who is the subject of a multiyear House Ethics Committee investigation for sexual misconduct, among a spate of other allegations.

When asked whether Gaetz would be confirmed by the Senate, Tuberville replied, “I don’t know, you’re finding all the swamp creatures coming out right now.”

“Everybody’s got an opinion up here, but at the end of the day, President Trump was elected by an enormous vote and he deserves a team around him that he wants, it’s not us to determine that,” Tuberville said. In reality, vetting the president’s Cabinet appointees is one of the Senate’s main responsibilities.

“We’ve got 53 votes in the Senate, we can confirm with 51. I’ve already seen where a couple of ‘em says, ‘I’m not voting for him.’ Wait a minute, you are not the United States of America, you have one vote in the U.S. Senate, you did not get elected president,” Tuberville continued, still appearing totally confused about what his job actually requires him to do.

“If you want to get in the way, fine. But we’re gonna try and get you out of the Senate too if you try to do that,” Tuberville added.

It’s a big 180 for Tuberville, who upon hearing that Gaetz had been nominated Wednesday, had initially responded, “Holy cow,” adding that he did not see this one coming.

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump is pushing for Senate leadership to approve recess appointments, which might allow him to install whoever he wants to his Cabinet without Senate approval. This could be really handy for forcing through his unsavory and unqualified picks, like Gaetz, and Fox and Friends host Pete Hegseth, with his arguably white supremacist tattoos and extremist rhetoric.

Rudy Giuliani’s attorneys are walking off the job.

The disgraced New York politico’s lead counsel, Kenneth Caruso, and attorney, David Labkowski, dropped him as a client on Wednesday, declaring in a motion in federal court that they had reached a “fundamental disagreement” with Giuliani.

The legal duo argued that they were entitled to peel away from their client, citing a New York rule that grants attorneys the ability to withdraw when a client “insists upon taking action with which the lawyer has a fundamental disagreement,” when the client insists on “presenting a claim or defense that is not warranted under existing law and cannot be supported by good faith argument,” or when “the client fails to cooperate in the representation or otherwise renders the representation unreasonably difficult for the lawyer to carry out employment effectively.”

Giuliani’s spokesperson, Ted Goodman, told The Independent that the Donald Trump ally had not been made aware of his legal representation’s recusal.

“Surely Mr. Caruso would talk to the mayor, or at the very least inform him, of such a decision,” Goodman told the publication.

Giuliani is still in court proceedings as he tries to worm his way out of paying up some $150 million in damages that he owes to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, a pair of 2020 Georgia poll workers that he repeatedly defamed while pushing Trump’s Georgia election conspiracy.

Last week, the former gang-busting federal prosecutor tried out a new legal defense, arguing in a Manhattan courthouse that he couldn’t possibly hand over his assets to Freeman and Moss because he simply didn’t know where they were. Some of those assets include his Manhattan penthouse, a famously immovable object, as well as his Mercedes convertible, which he was seen driving in Florida on Election Day.

In response, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman said that the idea that neither Giuliani nor anyone else in the world has knowledge about the location of his assets was “farcical,” reported Reuters.

Amazingly, the $148 million debt is just the tip of the iceberg for Giuliani’s legal woes. Over the past year, the former Trump attorney unsuccessfully filed for bankruptcy, lost his accountant over his insurmountable debts, begged Trump for help settling his seven-figure legal fees (he refused), had his WABC radio show canceled for spewing 2020 election lies, and miserably started his own coffee brand, “Rudy Coffee,” in an effort to funnel in some extra cash. He ultimately lost his bankruptcy case due to his outlandish spending habits, with the presiding New York judge branding the former city mayor a “recalcitrant debtor.”

Giuliani is also under the gun for a lawsuit from his former legal representation, who accused him of failing to pay his bill and allegedly only dishing out $214,000 of nearly $1.6 million in legal expenses. Giuliani, meanwhile, claimed he was stiffed by his favorite client, Trump, to the tune of millions of dollars.

But wait, there’s more: The MAGA henchman is also one of 19 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case and was named in April in an Arizona indictment charging another slew of Republican officials and Trump allies for their alleged involvement in a scheme to overturn the state’s 2020 presidential election results. In October, an Arizona judge torched a legal filing Giuliani made in the case, ruling that the ex–Trump aide had “not one scintilla” of evidence to question the legitimacy of a grand jury assigned to his lawsuit.

But if the ex–Trump attorney can drag out his legal woes for long enough to obtain a pardon from Trump during the MAGA leader’s forthcoming second administration, he may not have to pay up at all.

Alex Jones’s conspiracy-laden media properties, including the website InfoWars, have been purchased at a bankruptcy auction by an unlikely entity: the satirical news outlet The Onion. 

The satirical magazine, which refers to itself as “America’s Finest News Source,” had the backing of the families of eight victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, who successfully sued Jones for defamation in 2022. The Onion now owns all of InfoWars’ intellectual property, including its website, social media accounts, production equipment, as well as customer lists and inventory. 

“The Onion is proud to acquire Infowars, and we look forward to continuing its storied tradition of scaring the site’s users with lies until they fork over their cold, hard cash,” Onion CEO Ben Collins told CNN. “Or bitcoin. We will also accept bitcoin.” 

The Onion will close down InfoWars and reboot the website, NBC reports, citing a person close to the sale. In a video posted to X, Jones seemed to hold out hope that his media properties were not lost, claiming, “They’re supposed to have a court order.” 

In order to help The Onion’s bid, the Sandy Hook families “agreed to forgo a portion of their recovery to increase the overall value of The Onion’s bid, enabling its success,” they said in a statement. Jones and InfoWars repeatedly alleged various false details about the school shooting, claiming that it was a “false flag” operation staged with “crisis actors,” in which no children were actually killed. Jones’s lies led to his listeners and fans harassing the family members of the children and teachers who were killed.

In true Onion fashion, the website posted a fake article announcing the news from a made-up CEO of their parent company Global Tetrahedron, Bryce P. Tetraeder, praising InfoWars as “an invaluable tool for brainwashing and controlling the masses.”

“Make no mistake: This is a coup for our company and a well-deserved victory for multinational elites the world over,” the article said.  

Shortly after Donald Trump made the shocking announcement to nominate Representative Matt Gaetz for attorney general on Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that Gaetz had already resigned from his congressional seat.

While the Florida representative’s sudden exit may appear to be premature, as Gaetz still needs to be confirmed to the position by the very same Republican senators he pissed off by voting to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year, it seems that Gaetz had another reason to cut his tenure short.

Gaetz’s resignation came just two days before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing a report outlining its multiyear investigation into the MAGA Republican over his alleged sexual misconduct and drug use, according to Punchbowl News.

Gaetz’s departing his seat means that the House Ethics panel has lost its jurisdiction over him and must end its investigation. Representative John Rutherford, who sits on the committee, said Thursday that the ethics report “can’t” be released but did not explain why.

The secretive panel has been investigating Gaetz since 2021 over a slew of allegations, including sexual misconduct, sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, and converting campaign funds for personal use.

Gaetz was previously investigated by the Justice Department over allegations that he’d engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a 17-year-old girl and violated sex-trafficking laws, but no charges were ever formally filed against him. Now Gaetz will head the agency that once tried to investigate him.

After Gaetz’s nomination to run the Justice Department was announced Wednesday, many Republicans in Congress were left in a state of shock. Current and former DOJ officials called his pick “insane” and “stunning,” and one person called him “the least qualified person ever nominated for any position in the Department of Justice,” according to NBC News.

Gaetz’s sudden resignation also demonstrates just how serious Trump is about his demand for Senate leadership to approve recess confirmations, which would allow him to appoint Cabinet members without investigation or approval from Congress.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump is wasting no time making a punch line out of some of his key allies, including Elon Musk.

During his first meeting with Republican lawmakers on the Hill as president-elect, Trump asserted his power over Musk, mocking the tech billionaire for sticking around for so long.

“Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him,” Trump said Wednesday. “Until I don’t like him.”

The world’s richest man has reportedly spent “nearly every single day” of the last week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, according to CNN. Musk has been spotted golfing with the president-elect, dining with him and his wife, Melania, and has even been in the room while Trump phones world leaders, hopping on calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell argued that Trump’s comments about Musk were an assertion of his dominance, played before a room that has to play along.

“Everyone laughed,” said O’Donnell. “They laughed that uncomfortable laugh. But they laugh when Donald Trump makes a joke about someone on his team, a joke that everyone knows is true, a joke that paints that person as pathetic, as Donald Trump’s personal sense of superiority demands that he do.”

O’Donnell also suggested that Musk’s new role in the government—co-leading a new agency, the Department of Government Efficiency, otherwise known as “DOGE”—is basically a joke in itself, with Musk’s responsibilities being tantamount to a “fake job” with little more power than that of a lobbyist on K Street.

Musk will be the likely benefactor of his extended stay with the president-elect, whose opinion is famously swayed by whomever he last interacted with. But, according to tech journalist Kara Swisher, the relationship between the two self-imagined strongmen is destined to flame out.

“They’re both narcissists, and there can be only one narcissist as head of the country, and that’s Donald Trump who just won the election,” Swisher said on Monday. “You know he owes things to Elon, but at some point, you know if he takes too much of the attention—think about Steve Bannon. You remember he was on the cover of that magazine, and how quickly he got out, even though he was critical to Trump’s first campaign and he was right in the middle of the White House, and then he wasn’t.

“Trump goes through people like tissues, essentially,” Swisher noted. “And even if it’s Musk, they’re going to clash at some point.”

Israel is preparing a cease-fire plan regarding its bombing of Lebanon as a gift to the incoming Donald Trump administration, The Washington Post reports.

The Post reports, citing three Israeli sources, that Ron Dermer, the Israeli minister of strategic affairs, told Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner on Sunday that Israel was quickly preparing a cease-fire deal to give the president-elect an early win when he takes office in January. Dermer visited Trump and Kushner on Sunday at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate before a visit to President Biden at the White House. There is no indication Israel will end its bombing of Lebanon before January.

It’s no secret that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported Trump over Kamala Harris, and a quick peace deal would raise suspicions that Netanyahu was holding off ceasing hostilities before the election to help Trump’s prospects. Trump has supported Israel’s brutal bombing campaigns in both Lebanon and Gaza, reportedly telling Netanyahu to “do what you have to do” in a phone call early last month.

In a video statement Sunday, Netanyahu said he had spoken to Trump three times in the preceding days, saying that he saw “major opportunities ahead for Israel, especially in advancing peace.” This is quite a different tack than what Netanyahu has been saying for the past year, as Israeli forces have killed at least 44,383 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, including more than 16,765 children.

Trump made overtures to Arab American communities in Michigan in the weeks leading up to the election, campaigning in Dearborn, the country’s largest Arab-majority city. The move paid off, with Trump winning a majority of voters not only in Dearborn but also in the battleground state of Michigan.

Would a peace deal only covering Lebanon placate those voters? There is no mention of Gaza in the Post’s report, and Netanyahu has not said anything about a forthcoming cease-fire, let alone a peace deal, regarding Israel’s bombing campaign in the territory. But Trump will gladly take anything he can call a win while continuing to enable Netanyahu’s actions.

President-elect Donald Trump surprised Republican lawmakers on Wednesday when he chose Florida Representative Matt Gaetz to serve as his attorney general—including many of the senators needed to push through his confirmation.

The antagonistic, deeply partisan MAGA cheerleader must now earn votes from the same Republicans who reviled him for forcing out Speaker Kevin McCarthy just over a year ago. And it’s not looking like he has a lot of support.

Senator Jon Cornyn reportedly audibly snorted upon hearing news of Gaetz’s nomination. “I don’t know the man other than just his public persona,” he later told Washington Post correspondent Liz Goodwin.

Senator Susan Collins said she was “shocked” by the news of his pick, and Senator Lisa Murkowski said, “This one was not on my Bingo card.” But even Trump’s biggest supporters in the chamber were surprised. “Holy cow,” said Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, adding that he too did not see this one coming.

Senator Joe Manchin said that “no one could believe it” when the news broke on the Senate floor.

Politico reporter Meridith Lee Hill said she saw a House Republican laughing so hard at the pick that he began crying. When asked if he believed Gaetz has the character and experience needed to be attorney general, GOP Representative Mike Simpson replied, “Are you shittin me, that you just asked that question? No! But hell, you’ll print that and now I’m going to be investigated.”

Gaetz, one of the most outspoken MAGA representatives, has been described by his Republican colleagues in the past as a childish, “disgraceful,” and “vile” person. He is currently under a House ethics investigation for sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, after allegations that he had sex with a minor.

Whether Trump loyalists or Liz Cheney-ites, Republicans throughout Congress were shocked at Trump’s nomination of Gaetz. Perhaps Republican Senator Thom Tillis put it best: “I’m sure it’ll make for a popcorn-eating confirmation.”

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump plans to appoint Representative Matt Gaetz to the post of attorney general, the president-elect announced on Truth Social Wednesday, and the Florida congressman has already gleefully accepted the position.

The news is a surprise, considering that Gaetz was not among the names discussed for the position, which included right-wing activist Mike Davis and Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who quickly dismissed Trump’s classified documents case.

Gaetz has been a staunch supporter of Trump, showing up to the president-elect’s New York hush-money trial in May and leaping to Trump’s defense in media appearances. But, he also has a questionable reputation, having escaped federal charges over allegations of sexual misconduct with an underage girl.

Gaetz is the target of a House Ethics Committee investigation over those allegations as well as reports of illicit drug use. The Florida representative led the effort to oust former Representative Kevin McCarthy from the House speakership in part because he wished to block the ethics probe. If he were to survive Senate confirmation and become attorney general, the ethics investigation would disappear.

While Gaetz has a law degree as well as an active law license, he does not appear to have any prosecutorial experience, which might be another obstacle in his confirmation process.

Trump will expect his attorney general to protect him from any legal cases or challenges, even though the position actually entails leading the Justice Department as the country’s top law enforcement official. A Republican attorney general will also be tasked with implementing conservative goals, such as implementing the right-wing Project 2025 manifesto.

Gaetz’s lack of prosecutorial experience may doom his chances, and Senate Republicans may not think he is up to the task. Several Republicans are already expressing shock and disapproval including Senators John Cornyn, Charles Grassley, and Susan Collins, among many others. It remains to be seen if Gaetz will win over enough Republican senators to be confirmed, or if the allegations against him will torpedo the nomination.

This story has been updated.