Gaetz 'paid for sex' – attorney for witnesses
A lawyer who is representing two women who gave testimony to the ethics committee of the House of Representatives investigating Matt Gaetz has said in an interview that the former congressman paid the women to have sex with him.
The two women were adults at the time but also told lawmakers that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old at the same party she attended, ABC News reported.
Gaetz resigned from his position as a Republican representative for Florida last week immediately on being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to become US attorney general. That immediately shut down the congressional investigation and, despite pressure, the House has not yet agreed to release the report of the investigation to the public or the US Senate, the body that will have the job of confirming Gaetz’s appointment.
Florida-based lawyer Joel Leppard spoke to ABC News earlier today.
“Just to be clear, both of your clients testified that they were paid by [then] Representative Gaetz to have sex?” interviewer Juju Chang asked Leppard.
“That’s correct. The House was very clear about that and went through each. They essentially put the Venmo payments on the screen and asked about them. And my clients repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex,’” Leppard told Chang.
One of the clients, Leppard said, also told the House committee that at the party she was at in July 2017 as she went to the pool area she saw Gaetz having sex with a friend of hers, who was 17.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing throughout various investigations into his behavior amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The names of Leppard’s clients have not been disclosed.
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A Democratic incumbent on North Carolina’s supreme court held an extremely small lead over her Republican challenger as the last counties work to complete their official tallies.
Associate Justice Allison Riggs had trailed on election night by roughly 10,000 votes to Jefferson Griffin, a state court of appeals judge. But that margin dwindled last week as election boards in the state’s 100 counties reviewed information associated with tens of thousands of provisional and absentee ballots and added voting choices of those that qualified for counting to totals.
County boards held their local canvass meetings on Friday, and by the evening, Riggs had overtaken Griffin from the over 5.5m ballots cast for the race.
About 10 counties – including those where the cities of Winston-Salem and Fayetteville are located – didn’t complete their work Friday and most met again on Monday. With a few counties yet to close out their canvas Monday night, Riggs’ lead was fewer than 70 votes.
Should the advantage hold, Griffin would have until noon Tuesday to seek a statewide machine recount, in which ballots are run again through tabulator machines. A Griffin spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a text seeking comment.
Who is Sean Duffy, Trump's pick for Secretary of Transportation?
More now on Sean Duffy, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Transportation.
Duffy is a former reality TV star who was one of Trump’s most visible defenders on cable news – a prime concern for the media-focused president-elect, the Associated Press reports. Duffy served in the House for nearly nine years, was a member of the Financial Services Committee and was chair of the subcommittee on insurance and housing. He left Congress in 2019, and is now co-host of a show on Fox Business, the “Bottom Line.”
In his announcement Monday, Trump noted that Duffy is married to a Fox News host, calling him “the husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a STAR on Fox News.”
Trump said Duffy would use his experience and relationships built over the years in Congress “to maintain and rebuild our Nation’s Infrastructure, and fulfil our Mission of ushering in The Golden Age of Travel, focusing on Safety, Efficiency, and Innovation. Importantly, he will greatly elevate the Travel Experience for all Americans!”
Duffy in 2022 ruled out a run for Wisconsin governor, despite pleas from Trump to make a bid, saying he needed time to care for the needs of his family of nine children, posting on social media that his youngest child had a heart condition.
He is a former lumberjack athlete and frequent contributor to Fox News. He was featured on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston” in 1997. He met his future wife on the set of MTV’s “Road Rules: All Stars” in 1998.
He was a special prosecutor and Ashland County district attorney who won election to Congress as part of a tea party wave in 2010. He served until resigning in 2019.
A Georgia appeals court on Monday canceled oral arguments that were scheduled for next month on the appeal of a lower court ruling allowing Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis to continue to prosecute the election interference case she brought against Trump, the Associated Press reports.
Trump and other defendants had asked the Georgia court of appeals to hold oral arguments in the case, and the court had set those arguments for 5 December. But in a one-line order with no further explanation, the appeals court said that hearing “is hereby canceled until further order of this Court”.
A Fulton county grand jury in August 2023 indicted Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors, but Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty.
But with Trump to return to the White House in January, the future of the case against the once and future president was already in question even if the court of appeals ultimately says Willis shouldn’t be disqualified.
Trump and other defendants filed the appeal seeking to get Willis and her office removed from the case and to have the case dismissed. They argue that a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. Superior court judge Scott McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the court of appeals.
Anna Betts
Here is the story on Matt Gaetz coming under further scrutiny amid fresh allegations:
An attorney representing two women who he says testified before the House ethics committee has claimed that the former congressman Matt Gaetz paid both women for sex and that one of the women alleged she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a minor.
The new allegations were revealed by the attorney Joel Leppard during an interview with ABC News on Monday – less than a week after Gaetz resigned from Congress following his nomination by Donald Trump to serve as attorney general in his second administration.
In the interview, Leppard claimed that his clients were paid by Gaetz using Venmo and said that one of the women testified to the committee that she saw Gaetz at a house party in 2017 having sex with a 17-year-old girl.
“She testified that in July of 2017 at his house party, she was walking out to the pool area, and she looked to her right, and she saw Rep Gaetz having sex with her friend, who was 17,” Leppard said.
Ahead of the Senate’s consideration of Gaetz’s nomination, Leppard said that he believed “several questions demand answers”, adding: “What if multiple credible witnesses provided evidence of behavior that would constitute serious criminal violations?”
In a statement sent to ABC News, Alex Pfeiffer, Trump’s transition spokesperson, called the allegations against Gaetz “baseless”, adding that they are “intended to derail the second Trump administration”.
Read the full story here:
Trump allies attack Biden for allowing Ukraine to use US missiles inside Russia
Andrew Roth
Trump allies have lashed out angrily at Joe Biden for his decision to permit Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to launch attacks inside Russia for the first time, in what the Kremlin has termed an “escalation” in the war.
Key Trump surrogates, including his son Donald Trump Jr, hardline congressional Republicans, and other backers have accused Biden of seeking to spark “world war three” before Trump’s presidential inauguration in January.
“The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” wrote Donald Trump Jr on X.
Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, who was seen as a potential candidate for secretary of state, wrote: “No one anticipated that Joe Biden would ESCALATE the war in Ukraine during the transition period. This is as if he is launching a whole new war. Everything has changed now – all previous calculations are null and void.”
Other Republicans to sound off included the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Utah senator Mike Lee, who said: “Joe Biden has just set the stage for World War III. Let’s all pray that it doesn’t come to this.”
Trump nominates former congressman and Real World cast member Sean Duffy as transportation secretary
Donald Trump has announced former Wisconsin congressman Sean Duffy as his nomination for secretary of transportation.
Duffy is known for having been a cast member on the reality show, The Real World. His wife, Rachel Campos-Duffy, hosts Fox and Friends Weekend, and was also a cast member on The Real World.
In his statement, Trump writes of Duffy:
Sean has been a tremendous and well-liked public servant, starting his career as a District Attorney for Ashland, Wisconsin, and later elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.
…
He will prioritize Excellence, Competence, Competitiveness and Beauty when rebuilding America’s highways, tunnels, bridges and airports. He will ensure our ports and dams serve our Economy without compromising our National Security, and he will make our skies safe again by eliminating DEI for pilots and air traffic controllers.
The husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a STAR on Fox News, and the father of nine incredible children, Sean knows how important it is for families to be able to travel safely, and with peace of mind.
Today so far
Between Matt Gaetz news and more information about potential Trump cabinet picks, it’s been a busy afternoon. Here are some of the highlights from the world of politics.
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A lawyer who is representing two women who gave testimony to the ethics committee of the House of Representatives investigating Matt Gaetz has said in an interview that the former congressman paid the women to have sex with him.
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Donald Trump appears to be planning to attend a SpaceX Starship rocket launch on Tuesday in the latest indication of influence of the company’s founder, Elon Musk, on the president-elect and his orbit.
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The field of potential appointees to lead the Trump administration’s treasury department has widened to include Marc Rowan who founded and runs one of the nation’s largest public equity firms, and Kevin Warsh a central banker who from 2006 to 2011 served as a governor for the Federal Reserve, Reuters reports.
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Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, is vowing to get as much information about Matt Gaetz to his colleagues in the Senate to show “how dangerous he would be” if he becomes the US’s next attorney general.
Pennsylvania’s supreme court has ruled on a hotly contested US Senate election between democratic incumbent Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick. In a win for the current leader in the race, the high court says that counties cannot count mail-in ballots that lack a correct handwritten date on the return envelope, the Associated Press reports.
Though the AP called the race in favor of McMormick, who as of Monday leads by 17,000 votes out of the seven million that have been counted so far, the margin that McCormick is ahead by is within the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.
Due to “logistical issues” Joe Biden was left out of a photo with other world leaders at the G20 summit in Rio De Janeiro on Monday. Those in the photo include Chinese president, Xi Jinping, Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, and French president, Emmanuel Macron.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, also missed the picture. She, Biden, and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau were photographed in separate candid photos.
Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, is vowing to get as much information about Matt Gaetz to his colleagues in the Senate to show “how dangerous he would be” if he becomes the US’s next attorney general.
In a post to X on Monday afternoon Durbin, who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, described Gaetz as “the least qualified person and most radical person ever nominated to be Attorney General” in a separate post.
As the Trump administration continues to take form, the field of potential appointees to lead the treasury department has widened to include Marc Rowan who founded and runs one of the nation’s largest public equity firms, and Kevin Warsh a central banker who from 2006 to 2011 served as a governor for the Federal Reserve, Reuters reports.
Two others in the running for the seat are Scott Bessent, the founder of the capital management firm Key Square who has said he wants the US dollar to remain the world’s reserve currency and use tariffs as a negotiating tactic, and Howard Lutnick who leads Cantor Fitzgerald.
Trump ally Elon Musk publicly threw his support behind Lutnick in a post on X that argues that Lutnick “will actually enact change”.
Gaetz 'paid for sex' – attorney for witnesses
A lawyer who is representing two women who gave testimony to the ethics committee of the House of Representatives investigating Matt Gaetz has said in an interview that the former congressman paid the women to have sex with him.
The two women were adults at the time but also told lawmakers that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old at the same party she attended, ABC News reported.
Gaetz resigned from his position as a Republican representative for Florida last week immediately on being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to become US attorney general. That immediately shut down the congressional investigation and, despite pressure, the House has not yet agreed to release the report of the investigation to the public or the US Senate, the body that will have the job of confirming Gaetz’s appointment.
Florida-based lawyer Joel Leppard spoke to ABC News earlier today.
“Just to be clear, both of your clients testified that they were paid by [then] Representative Gaetz to have sex?” interviewer Juju Chang asked Leppard.
“That’s correct. The House was very clear about that and went through each. They essentially put the Venmo payments on the screen and asked about them. And my clients repeatedly testified, ‘What was this payment for?’ ‘That was for sex,’” Leppard told Chang.
One of the clients, Leppard said, also told the House committee that at the party she was at in July 2017 as she went to the pool area she saw Gaetz having sex with a friend of hers, who was 17.
Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing throughout various investigations into his behavior amid allegations of sexual misconduct. The names of Leppard’s clients have not been disclosed.
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