Johnson allies beg Trump to assist him maintain job, as report highlights Gaetz intercourse and drug claims: Live
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Allies of Speaker Mike Johnson are urging Donald Trump to reaffirm his support for the Republican leader of the House of Representatives in the hope of heading off a messy battle for the role in the new year.
Should other contenders for the speakership emerge with any significant support following last week’s spending bill battle, it could delay the certification of the president-elect’s own victory, according to some lawmakers.
Democrats have also said that they won’t step in and rescue Johnson this time.
The House Ethics Committee report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida “determined there is substantial evidence” that the former congressman “violated House Rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”
Gaetz sued the committee to block the release of the report that found that he paid thousands of dollars to more than a dozen women — including a 17-year-old girl — for sex, but on Monday, drafts had already been published in several news outlets.
Finally, there is continued international incredulity over Trump’s desire to see the US retake the Panama Canal and buy Greenland, with the latter’s prime minister saying his country will “never be for sale.”
Watch: Ethics report finds ‘substantial evidence’ Matt Gaetz violated statutory rape law
‘We are not for sale’: Greenland prime minister balks at Trump’s renewed play for territory
The leader of Greenland has flat-out rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s renewed interest in purchasing the massive Arctic island from Denmark, insisting that the territory is not on the market.
“Greenland is ours,” the territory’s prime minister Múte Egede said in a statement on Monday. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”
Justin Barangoa reports.
Biden to decide on US Steel acquisition after no consensus on national security risks
A powerful government panel on Monday failed to reach consensus on the possible national security risks of a nearly $15 billion proposed deal for Nippon Steel of Japan to purchase U.S. Steel, leaving a decision to President Joe Biden, a longtime opponent of the deal.
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Who is Matt Gaetz’s wife, Ginger? The woman proudly standing by her man amid sex allegations
Ginger Gaetz beams as she stands beside her husband in loved-up photos curated on her Instagram page.
She also stood by him after he announced he was withdrawing from the process of becoming Trump’s next attorney general.
Read more:
Biden signs defense bill despite objections to ban on transgender health care for military children
President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law a defense bill that authorizes significant pay raises for junior enlisted service members, aims to counter China‘s growing power and boosts overall military spending to $895 billion despite his objections to language stripping coverage of transgender medical treatments for children in military families.
Biden said his administration strongly opposes the provision because it targets a group based on gender identity and “interferes with parents’ roles to determine the best care for their children.” He said it also undermines the all-volunteer military’s ability to recruit and retain talent.
“No service member should have to decide between their family’s health care access and their call to serve our nation,” the president said in a statement.
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Eric Trump posts Amazon shopping cart of other countries
Further adding fuel to the fire over his father’s comments about the US taking over the Panama Canal, adding Canada as a 51st state, and purchasing Greenland, Eric Trump posted the following to his X account this evening:
Who are the three federal death row inmates Biden chose not to save?
Biden, whose (in)famous 1994 crime bill expanded the list of crimes eligible for a death sentence, framed the decision as part of his wider commitment to criminal justice reform.
“I’ve dedicated my career to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system,” Biden said in a statement. “Today, I am commuting the sentences of 37 of the 40 individuals on federal death row to life sentences without the possibility of parole. These commutations are consistent with the moratorium my administration has imposed on federal executions, in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.”
The commutation decision falls short of Biden’s original, and unprecedented, broader 2020 campaign promise to seek to entirely eliminate federal capital punishment, and Monday’s announcement leaves in place three death sentences for some of the most notorious killers in recent U.S. history.
Josh Marcus looks at who they are.
Gaetz was Trump’s first choice to be attorney general
He resigned from Congress after he received the nomination, then dropped his name from the running for the top job at the Department of Justice amid renewed scrutiny and imminent release of the report.
But lawmakers ultimately voted to release the report after all. The former congressman, who has denied all misconduct allegations, raged that “the people investigating me hated me” and gave him “no chance to ever confront any accusers.”
Speaker’s allies call for Trump to back him to avoid another round of Republican civil war
Should other contenders for the speakership emerge with any significant support following last week’s spending bill battle it could delay the certification of the president-elect’s own victory.
So far, there has been silence on the matter from Mar-a-Lago since Friday night’s vote on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through mid-March — a struggle that did not bode well for Johnson’s future.
Read on…
Source: independent.co.uk
