NEW: Marjorie Taylor Greene is still trolling a congressional colleague — the mother of a transgender daughter — with an anti-trans poster from across their Capitol Hill hallway by @TinaSfon ($) @thisisinsiderbusinessinsider.com/marjorie-taylo…
Rep. Marie Newman (D-ILL) says she hasn't spoken with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) since their initial dust up. Nor has her staff spoken with Greene's staffers about the issue, to Newman's knowledge.
"I'm not surprised at [Greene's] behavior at all because I think she's going to continue to display the disrespectful behavior. She always has," Newman told @thisisinsider on Wednesday.
Newman: "What's really surprising is that she's in Congress. That's the real surprise here. I'm shocked every day based on her disregard for Americans of all sorts. It's sort of shocking that she's here. So I'm not surprised that the inaccurate & disrespectful sign is still up."
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NEW: In 2014, long before becoming the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation, Matt Gaetz pushed Florida to enact what he called a "scorched earth" policy toward sexual predators. by @rbravender ($) @thisisinsiderbusinessinsider.com/matt-gaetz-sex…
Gaetz, then 31 years old, served as chair of the Florida House of Representatives' Criminal Justice subcommittee. He cosponsored bills that increased the mandatory prison time for convicted sexual offenders, calling it some of the most important work his subcommittee would do.
Now that Gaetz himself is under fed investigation, his record is getting renewed attention. Insider watched 11+ hours of archived hearings in the Florida House to understand how the up-and-coming pol talked about issues like sentencing sex offenders & sex trafficking.
SCOOP: Brian Netter, a former clerk for SCOTUS Justice Stephen Breyer, has stepped down as a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown to become a top official in DOJ's civil division, per 2 people familiar with his move. by @cryanbarber ($) @thisisinsider businessinsider.com/doj-lawyer-wom…
Netter is corporate lawyer who recently represented the World Cup-winning women's national team in an equal pay case against US Soccer. He'll have a top role at Justice overseeing the defense of Biden administration policies in court.
Court challenges have already started. On Thursday, a group launched by ex-Trump WH aide Stephen Miller joined Texas's AG in a case accusing the Biden admin of exposing Americans to COVID infections by allowing migrants who cross the US-Mexico border to be released into the US.
"I think the truth is Garland wants an investigation of Trump like he wants a hole in the head. It's the last thing he wants as attorney general," one former top Justice Department official told Insider. ($) @thisisinsiderbusinessinsider.com/biden-trump-ju…
In interviews, former Justice Department officials said the department would have to balance the strength of any case charging Trump against the perception, however fair, that the prosecution was politically motivated.
For the department to bring a case, they said the evidence against Trump would need to be overwhelming to render a decision not to prosecute — based strictly on his status as a former president — untenable.
NEW: DOJ appears to be taking a backseat to state & local investigators as they pursue investigations competing for the distinction of being the first to turn former President Trump into a criminal defendant. by @cryanbarber & @WARojas ($) @thisisinsiderbusinessinsider.com/biden-trump-ju…
As Merrick Garland has settled in as attorney general, there have been no public signals of his department pursuing Trump. At the same time, state and local prosecutors in NY & Georgia have only ramped up their scrutiny of Trump as a businessman and his actions as president.
"I think the truth is Garland wants an investigation of Trump like he wants a hole in the head. It's the last thing he wants as attorney general," one former top Justice Department official told Insider.
NEW: Chuck Schumer's flip phone is 1 of the hardest working artifacts in DC. In reality, his most prized assets in the evenly-divided Senate are VP Harris' tiebreaker vote, & arcane budget rules that allow him to overcome GOP opposition. by @WARojas ($) businessinsider.com/senate-schumer…
Ask Schumer & of course he'll insist the partisan route is not his preferred method. "I'm trying to have the Senate be far more bipartisan than it was," he told reporters Tuesday in reference to a pending anti-Asian hate crimes bill the GOP is now interested in collaborating on.
"When the Senate's given the opportunity to work, it can," Schumer added.
NEW: Robert Mueller has receded from the headlines since overseeing the Russia investigation, but his proteges are positioned to steer DOJ through the Biden administration as it seeks to shed the political turmoil of the Trump era. by @cryanbarber ($) businessinsider.com/robert-mueller…
The Senate is expected to confirm Lisa Monaco on Tuesday to be deputy attorney general. She served as Mueller's top aide during his tenure leading the FBI.
Monaco's confirmation would reunite her with another onetime Mueller aide, John Carlin, who has served since the beginning of the Biden administration as the acting deputy attorney general.