highdesert wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 4:30 pm That's some crazy shit, but Gaetz hasn't been confirmed yet. Gaetz let his law license in FL expire last I read, but I don't know that an attorney general even has to be a lawyer. US DOJ has plenty of lawyers on staff. Ministers of justice in some countries aren't lawyers, ministers of health aren't always physicians.

That's the 3rd Florida politician Trump has appointed: Waltz his national security adviser; Rubio his secretary of state; and Gaetz his atty gen.

n a surprise announcement, President-elect Donald Trump said he intends to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to be his attorney general despite his ongoing problems with the House Ethics Committee.

Trump Considers His Lawyer Todd Blanche For Deputy Attorney General: Reports

President-elect Donald Trump might name his lead criminal defense lawyer Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general, CNN and ABC News reported Wednesday.

Blanche represented Trump in the New York hush money case in which he was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He also was part of Trump’s defense teams in the two federal cases Special Counsel Jack Smith led over Trump’s efforts to undo the 2020 election results and his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Smith is now winding down those cases.

Trump’s possible choice of Blanche would position the lawyer as the No. 2 of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who has been tapped by Trump to lead the Justice Department. Both roles require Senate confirmation.

“Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

CDFingers wrote: Fri Nov 15, 2024 9:46 am Berkshire-Hathaway has a huge cash position to take advantage of the coming chaotic market due to foolish orange policies. Inflation will grow. The deficit will grow. Unemployment will grow. Berkshire-Hathaway will increase ownership of key stocks. They just sold tons of Apple and will buy more back after the crash. You watch. Orange helps only the rich like this. The rest of us are used to fuel bleach burnouts at funny car racetracks. We doan need no steenkin' law enforcement.

Buckle up.

CDF

Mike Johnson Will ’Strongly Request’ Ethics Committee Bury Its Gaetz Report

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Mo.) said it would set “a terrible precedent” if the House Ethics Committee were to release its report on the sex trafficking allegations against former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), according to Politico.

“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 told the outlet. The ethics committee lost its power to investigate Gaetz when he quit his post in anticipation of becoming Trump’s attorney general, if confirmed by the Senate.

Senators from both parties have expressed a desire to read what’s in the report, saying they should have all available information on which to base their decision.

While the committee was expected to vote today on whether or not to make the report public, that meeting has been “postponed,” according to Chair of the House Ethics Committee Michael Guest, Politico reported.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-tr ... 3590b78578

Lawmaker says latest Trump news should worry 'every American citizen'

Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) on Friday raised alarms about former President Donald Trump's efforts to forgo FBI background checks for his cabinet picks.

Appearing on CNN, Spanberger was asked by host John Berman about reports that Trump's transition team is skipping over the FBI and has hired a private firm to conduct background checks on highly controversial nominees such as Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard.

"This is an alarming step that, frankly, should alarm every American citizen who wants the basic function of government to work, who wants to ensure that the FBI, as you were reporting earlier, is able to investigate terrorist threats," she said. "The fact that they would avoid a traditional background check process to me means they know they can't pass it, and what it means is that information that would be available to the FBI just won't even be considered."

Gabbard in the past has raised eyebrows for parroting Kremlin talking points about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and many critics have cited her as someone who is particularly unfit to serve as the United States' director of national intelligence.

However, Berman pointed out to Spanberger that people like Gabbard and Kennedy on the campaign trail with Trump and then asked her if she believed that this wasn't what Americans had voted for.

"It's interesting because people continue to be surprised," she replied. "And I will say these nominations, they are shocking, absolutely, because the individuals you mentioned are wholly unfit to lead the vast organizations that do things like protect the American public from the next global pandemic."

The expression “The worse, the better” is often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, and captures a sort of messianic nihilism — the dream that escalating misery will hasten the fall of a corrupt order. Usually, I find this ethos despicable; in my experience, suffering only begets more suffering. I’m making an exception, however, for Donald Trump’s nomination of the former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz to be attorney general, a flagrant provocation that is, like a pulpy B movie, so bad it’s good.

While Trump’s choice of Gaetz to lead the Justice Department is a clear sign that his second administration will be catastrophically chaotic, vengeful and corrupt, that should never have been in doubt. Trump made no secret during his campaign of his desire to persecute his political enemies. Anyone he chose as attorney general would share his interest in turning the justice system into the enforcement arm of the MAGA movement. The selection of Gaetz just rips the mask off. With it, Trump is trolling not just his defeated opponents but many of his craven establishment supporters. It’s like Caligula trying to make his horse a consul.

Of all the people Trump was considering for A.G., Gaetz is unique mainly for how much he is hated by other Republicans, and not just moderate ones. In the final months of the last Trump administration, the Justice Department opened an investigation into whether Gaetz had a relationship with an underage girl that violated federal sex trafficking laws. Though that inquiry was closed without charges, the House opened an ethics investigation into him. It was reportedly set to vote on releasing a damning report on Friday, which Gaetz may have tried to pre-empt by resigning, though it could still become public.

When Gaetz was accused of sleeping with the girl, “there’s a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him,” Markwayne Mullin, a very conservative Republican senator from Oklahoma, told CNN last year. His colleagues, said Mullin, had seen videos “of the girls that he had slept with,” which Gaetz allegedly showed off on the House floor. After Gaetz forced Kevin McCarthy out as House speaker, throwing his party into disorder, Mike Rogers, a Republican congressman from Alabama, seemed ready to physically attack him and had to be restrained by colleagues.