U.S. News

Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-FL) legal troubles just got worse, according to a Politico report late Wednesday. Federal prosecutors are looking into whether Gaetz obstructed justice when he held a phone call with a witness in the sex crimes case against his friend Joel Greenberg.

Two sources told Politico that the witness was one of a group of women who were in Gaetz's life around the time he and Greenberg were partying it up in Florida. A phone call between Gaetz's ex-girlfriend and the witness added Gaetz to the phone call. It's unknown what was said, but that call has become part of a possible obstruction of justice charge.

Don Lemon introduced a segment about President Donald Trump's Justice Department obtaining phone records from the New York Times, CNN and Washington Post immediately after being sworn into office. But he cracked up once he announced the two panelists whose faces were filled with disgust.

That news adds to the report that Trump believes that he'll suddenly take over the presidency in August while QAnon cultists are advocating a coup.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) is so terrified of the lawsuit by Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) that he has been hiding from process servers for almost a month, just to avoid being subpoenaed.

Brooks was among many Republicans who spoke at the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally that led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A Stanford Law graduate mocked the right-wing group The Federalist Society, so the student chapter is suing him and filed a complaint against him.

Slate.com reported Wednesday that the Stanford law student, Nicholas Wallace, sent a satirical flyer to a student listserv that was for debate and political commentary. It promoted a satirical event that would discuss the legal case for inciting an insurrection hosted by the local chapter of the Federalist Society.

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the Biden administration is revealing a secret seizure of four of its reporters' phone records under a 2017 Trump administration investigation into leaks.

"It was the latest in a series of revelations about the Trump administration secretly obtaining reporters' communications records in an effort to uncover their sources," reported Charlie Savage and Katie Benner. "Last month, the Biden Justice Department disclosed Trump-era seizures of the phone logs of reporters who work for The Washington Post and the phone and email logs for a CNN reporter."

McKinley Senior High School head football coach Marcus Wattley and seven asst. coaches in Canton, Ohio are on paid leave after forcing a 17-year old player, a Hebrew Israelite, to violate his faith and eat pork as punishment for missing practice after he sustained an injury, The Washington Post reports.

The student, who is not being named, was forced to sit in the middle of a gymnasium and eat a pepperoni pizza with his fellow players egging him on. Not only would his position on the team be jeopardized if he refused, but his fellow players would also be subjected to punishment because of his actions.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that former President Donald Trump has remained obsessed with the idea that GOP-led ballot "audits" around the country could prove he was the real, even though his advisers have urged him to let it go — in part because a group of hardcore friends, including the host of a far-right TV program, have convinced him it's still possible.

This follows reports that he is convinced he could be "reinstated" as president later this year.

Former Breitbart staffer turned Democratic consultant Kurt Bardella explained how Republicans want to pretend they're fierce and powerful, but the reality is that they're "weak" and "fragile" little snowflakes.

MSNBC's Joy Reid asked how Republicans keep playing the victim over the tiny cloth mouth and nose coverings that are required for anti-vaccine people. One shop owner began offering yellow stars modeled off of those the Nazis made Jews wear during the Holocaust. Instead, however, the star signified an anti-vaccine person.

According to The Uprising, new photo evidence has surfaced that former President Donald Trump met with a Florida-based CEO who helped organize "Patriot Caravans" to Washington, D.C. on the day of the Capitol riot — over three months after the riot took place.

"The Uprising has obtained a photo showing former President Trump meeting with Jeff Brain, CEO of the social media site Clouthub," reported Hunter Walker. "According to the source who provided the picture, the pair met at Trump's private club, Mar-a-Lago, on April 21 while Brain was there meeting with investors to seek funding for his site."

On Wednesday, writing for Coda, Isobel Cockerell reported that a new study suggests social media platforms make as much as $1.1 billion per year off the disinformation spread by anti-vaccine groups.

"Anti-vaccine content creates a vast amount of engagement for leading technology platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, with an estimated total social media audience of 62 million people. The arrangement works both ways, with the anti-vax industry earning up to $36 million a year," said the report. "The Center for Digital Hate, based in Washington D.C., has called on social media companies to deplatform leading anti-vaxxers, who are responsible for the majority of vaccine misinformation generated online. The Center's CEO, Imran Ahmed, said that the $36 million estimate was conservative and that their real profits could be much higher."

MSNBC host Joy Reid walked through the specifics on why Fox News host Tucker Carlson is pretending to be against Jim Crow-era policies while playing a Jim Crow Republican role.

Speaking Wednesday, Reid explained that Fox and the GOP's anxiety about masks and vaccines is another example of the fragile victimhood the GOP loves to embrace.

Democrats have ridiculed Republicans for the past several months for not having any real policy ideas, but now even a Washington Post columnist is joining in with examples.

Writing Wednesday, Philip Bump cited Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), who appears to have abandoned all attempts at policy initiatives for owning the "libs."