Congress still stunned after Trump picks Matt Gaetz as attorney general: Live updates

Trump announced on Wednesday that the Florida lawmaker, a staunch ally, will be his nominee for Attorney General when he takes office in January.

Gaetz and his associates were at the center of a sex trafficking investigation carried out by current Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The former Florida lawmaker was ultimately never charged with a crime but remained the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation regarding allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use.

The 42-year-old has denied all wrongdoing, and his resignation effectively ends their probe as he is no longer under their jurisdiction.

But, Gaetz’s resignation comes two days before the House Ethics committee was set to release a “highly damaging” report regarding their investigation, Punchbowl News reports.

More details from Katie Hawkinson.

Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn – who was in the running for Senate Majority leader – told reporters today that he “absolutely” wants to review an unreleased congressional ethics report on Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, according to Reuters news agency.

The president-elect’s nomination of Gaetz comes after the 42-year-old and his associates were at the center of a sex trafficking investigation carried out by current Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Gaetz was ultimately never charged with a crime but remained the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation regarding, among other claims, allegations of sexual misconduct.

However, the committee’s investigation is now over following Gaetz’s resignation, which Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said was effective immediately.

The satirical news publication The Onion won the bidding for Alex Jones’ Infowars at a bankruptcy auction, backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims whom Jones owes more than $1 billion in defamation judgments for calling the massacre a hoax.

“The dissolution of Alex Jones’ assets and the death of Infowars is the justice we have long awaited and fought for,” Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers.

The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform’s website; social media accounts; studio in Austin, Texas; trademarks; and video archive. The sale price was not immediately disclosed. The Onion said its “exclusive launch advertiser” will be the gun violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety.

Jones confirmed the news in a social media post on X.

Other eye-brow-raising picks include Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.

“I do think there’s a group of people who think that they are going to be able to screen out people, not on the basis of philosophy so much as on their attitude toward the president,” he said.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency might not be as plain sailing as they would hope.

Their plans to slash government spending and restructure federal agencies face roadblocks, experts have said.

Ramaswamy once said he had plans to cut the federal workforce by 75 percent on “day one,” while Musk has called for a 33 percent cut in federal spending.

Justin Schnitzer, a federal employment attorney, cautions that it won’t happen on day one.

“The maximalist numbers like 75 percent are unlikely to happen at all,” he said.

“Firings on this scale would bring government services across the country to a screeching halt, which would be unpopular with voters across the spectrum. Additionally, federal employees have rights and unjustified mass firings will result in justified mass appeals.”

Meanwhile, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of American Action Forum, told the Hill: “There’s the executive branch that might be in their way. The Congress might be in their way. The Constitution is a bit of an obstacle.”

“Other than that, clear sailing.”

A law professor says Gaetz faces a “monumental challenge” to get confirmed as attorney general.

“If Trump wanted to defibrillate the Justice Department, the Matt Gaetz nomination is the 100,000-volt option,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said in a post on X.

“Just a day after the announcement, this is shaping up as one of the most intense confirmation fights in congressional history,” he added.

Melania Trump is enjoying Elon Musk’s sudden constant presence around Mar-a-Lago, despite her husband Donald Trump teasing that the billionaire has overstayed his welcome, according to a source.

The president-elect and the tech billionaire have become somewhat inseparable since Trump was re-elected to the White House last week, with Musk now a fixture at his Palm Beach residence.

While some Trumpworld insiders are said to be rattled by this sudden closeness, a source told Page Six that the incoming first lady is a big fan of Trump’s self-styled “First Buddy” and likes him being around.

It comes as Trump reportedly said: “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him – at least until I don’t like him.”

Alina Habba, a lawyer who represented Donald Trump in a series of high-profile cases, has confirmed she will not be his White House Press Secretary despite reports she was the possible front-runner.

Panic had already set in at the Department of Justice prior to Matt Gaetz’s nomination to head up the agency.

Now the panic has gone into overdrive.

“This is completely wild. It’s so out of bounds, it’s just shocking,” one DOJ lawyer told Politico. “He’s there for one purpose: to enact retribution. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a grand vision about the future of the department. I can’t imagine how this isn’t going to scare people even more.”

“Everyone I’ve talked to, mostly lawyers, are losing their minds,” one DOJ attorney previously said.

One of Kamala Harris’s campaign aides has shed light on the real reason why the vice president didn’t end up appearing on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Harris’s team was in talks for her to appear on the most popular podcast in America, but the sitdown ultimately failed to materialize.

Rogan has since claimed that a series of demands from the campaign was the reason why it didn’t go ahead.

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