Trump cupboard reside: Police report particulars Pete Hegseth intercourse assault claims; Ethics panel deadlocked on Gaetz report

Republicans have found themselves stuck pretty badly between a rock and a hard place, reports Eric Garcia from Congress.

Here’s more on the president-elect finding time to sell luxury items during a cost of living crisis rather than picking a treasury secretary, his latest venture following hot on the heels of the gold high-top sneakers, NFTs, “MAGADonald’s” T-shirts and Bibles he hawked to his acolytes on the campaign trail.

The South Carolina Republican appeared on Newsmax yesterday to promote her Capitol Hill bathrooms bill and declared: “It is offensive that a man in a skirt thinks that he’s my equal.

“He’s forcing his genitals into women’s restrooms.”

Which is interesting, as her views on the issue were not always quite so abhorrent:

The world’s leading cryptocurrency has topped $96,000 for the first time, reaching a record-high value of just over $97,522.

Several digital coins, including bitcoin, have been on a record-breaking price rally of late amid what’s being called a “Trump bump” of crypto frenzy.

Vishwam Sankaran reports.

Here’s James Liddell on the Fox presenter snearing about Joe Biden’s birthday yesterday, with Watters once more inadvertently revealing in the process that he is a man in desperate need of a hug.

The would-be attorney general joined Vice President-Elect JD Vance in DC yesterday to make his case for the job to Republican senators in person, afterwards assuring the press he had a wonderful time and could not wait to have his personal life poured over in the upper chamber of Congress.

The former United Nations ambassador in Trump’s first administration raised major concerns about Gabbard, who was picked as director of national security, and RFK Jr, who has been nominated Health and Human Services secretary, during her SiriusXM show Nikki Haley Live on Wednesday.

Here’s James Liddell on what she had to say.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will be looking to the Supreme Court to unilaterally gut federal agencies and cut funding.

The two men – the world’s richest person and a wealthy biotech entrepreneur who briefly ran for president – have been tapped to lead a panel of outside advisers to make those recommendations.

Their newly created “Department of Government Efficiency” (or DOGE) will be guided by a pair of Supreme Court rulings that legal scholars have warned will turn the courts into weapons against federal regulations that right-wing groups have spent years trying to undermine.

Here’s more from Alex Woodward.

Florida Representative Byron Donalds and attorney Alina Habba, two regular cable news spokespeople for the campaign that have conspicuously not been nominated to roles yet, were out on TV last night parroting the party line on Hegseth and Gaetz – and perhaps making a case for themselves with Trump in the process.

Much less helpful regarding Gaetz were Lindsey Graham and Carlos Gimenez, who were not exactly offering ringing endorsements of his candidacy.