U.S. News

On Tuesday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," former federal prosecutor Elie Honig called the new report that former Florida county tax collector Joel Greenberg is cooperating with the DOJ against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) since last year, "the worst news Gaetz can possibly get."

Gaetz is reportedly facing investigation for sex trafficking and misuse of campaign money to fund his sexual encounters.

The New York Times and Orlando Sentinel revealed Tuesday that former tax collector Joel Greenberg was cooperating with the Justice Department in the ongoing investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

Gaetz has maintained that he is innocent of all allegations and that they are politically motivated. He has further said that he is being targeted by the Justice Department in an extortion plot around the allegations. Each time the scandal has been mentioned, Gaetz has used that scheme as an excuse. But in the past weeks, Americans learned that Gaetz gave money to Greenberg, who then gave it to three different women. The description for the money was "school" and "tuition." Gaetz hasn't explained why he was giving young women tuition money.

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that the inspector general for the Capitol Police has determined officers were told to hold back from using key riot control methods during the pro-Trump invasion of the complex on Jan. 6.

"In a 104-page report, the inspector general, Michael A. Bolton, criticized the way the Capitol Police prepared for and responded to the mob violence on Jan. 6," reported Luke Broadwater. "Mr. Bolton found that the agency's leaders failed to adequately prepare despite explicit warnings that pro-Trump extremists posed a threat to law enforcement and civilians and that the police used defective protective equipment. He also found that the leaders ordered their Civil Disturbance Unit to refrain from using its most powerful crowd-control tools — like stun grenades — to put down the onslaught."

On Tuesday, KSHB reported that Missouri state Rep. Rick Roeber has submitted his resignation, effective Friday.

Roeber, who ran to replace his deceased wife in the state House in 2020, was embroiled in controversy when his adult children came forward during the election with graphic details of physical and sexual assault at his hands. He was elected anyway, but his children made a plea to now-GOP state House Speaker Rob Vescovo to prevent him from being seated. Roeber was banned from the GOP House caucus pending an ethics investigation.

It was revealed Tuesday that former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg has been cooperating against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) since last year, reported the New York Times.

Greenberg, who was a close friend of Gaetz's, reportedly received $900 from the Florida congressman via the money app Venmo. He then turned to pay three women $300 each, one of whom had just turned 18. According to the descriptions, the reasons for the money were "tuition" and "school."

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Mike Lee (R-UT) took the unusual position against the so-called "free market" on Tuesday, when they proclaimed their intentions to bring down corporations that they don't like.

The move came after corporations announced that they opposed Republican voter suppression laws, like the one in Georgia that spurred Major League Baseball to move the All-Star Game to Denver, Colorado. More CEOs are coordinating on a larger effort to pass a voting rights bill that will allow all American citizens equal access to the polls.

On Fox News Tuesday, in a segment first flagged by The Daily Beast, comedian and activist John Stewart appeared on Martha MacCallum's show to discuss his efforts to push legislation that would expand medical benefits for veterans and first responders sickened by exposure to "burn pits."

During the course of the interview, MacCallum tried to turn Stewart's cause into an attack on President Joe Biden, by implying that his sweeping infrastructure proposal is money that could have been spent on burn pit victims.

Vanity Fair reporter Abigail Tracy recalled the first time she sat with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in his office.

According to her tale, Gaetz reminisced about his first year in office and how, as a virtual nobody, he would stack up against people who have laundry lists of achievements. With a smirk of arrogance, he told her, "But we have managed to get it right since then."

On Tuesday, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale published a lengthy debunking of a lie circulating on right-wing social media pages that Black Lives Matter activists "stormed" the Iowa State Capitol, in the same way that pro-Trump insurrectionists attacked the U.S. Capitol.

"A group of right-wing websites and social media personalities, some with hundreds of thousands of followers, claimed that Black Lives Matter protesters 'stormed' Iowa's state Capitol last week," wrote Dale. "Some of them explicitly claimed that the protesters had forced their way into the building," and, he noted, David Harris Jr. wrote this event was "exactly" like the "Stop the Steal" riot.

In a post to Twitter this Tuesday, CNN legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig called on people to review the 9:29 video of Derek Chauvin putting his knee on George Floyd's neck and ask themselves, "Is this a reasonable use of force?"

"Do it again," he wrote. "Another minute of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd. Pause. 'Still reasonable?' Floyd says he can't breathe. Pause. 'Still reasonable?' Floyd goes silent. Hit pause. 'Still reasonable?' Floyd goes limp. 'Still reasonable?'"

After President Donald Trump lost his 2020 election, Republicans have looked for ways to stack the deck against Democratic voters to ensure it's more difficult to vote.

Such is the case in Michigan, where one GOP proposal would go so far as to ban links on the Secretary of State's website for people searching for vote-by-mail applications, reported The Guardian's voting rights reporter Sam Levine.

Six years ago, CEO Dan Price revealed that he would raise the minimum salary of employees in his company to $70,000 a year. Right-wing media at Fox News and Fox Business laughed at him, mocked him, called him a socialist, and predicted that his company would fail and his staff would be on the bread line in short order. It was Dan Price who got the last laugh.

Doing a round of interviews, Price revealed that not only has his company not failed, it has flourished. The company, which handles credit card processing, has grown from doing $3 billion to $10 billion, he said, tripling their revenue.

A Florida woman who slurred a Muslim family in a drug store says she's actually the victim in the encounter.

Nahla Ebaid was on vacation in Fort Lauderdale last month with her husband and some friends when the incident took place at Walgreens, where customer Luba Bozanich lashed out at them after a cashier asked her to wear a mask inside the store, reported WPLG-TV.