November 14, 2024: Trump Nominates Rep. Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, Here’s What You Should Know. PLUS: Can Trump Bypass Senate Confirmation? Is Harris’ Campaign in Debt? And More.
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to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis.

Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Thursday, November 14th, and this is your final news rundown of the week. In today's episode, we'll touch on some more of Trump's cabinet picks. We'll talk through what recess appointments are and what that could mean for Trump bypassing Senate confirmation for his nominees. And then we'll finish with some quick hitters and rumor has it, which is my weekly segment where I either confirm, dispel, or add context to

to recent rumors. Before we get into today's stories, I do just want to make a quick note about the Department of Education discussion that you have all been so patiently waiting for. I originally wanted to get it done this week, but I simply just did not have the time to do all of the research.

You know, I try my best to do as much research as I can to get you the most accurate information. So I am going to push that discussion to Monday. I do have all of your questions noted and on hand for next week. So just stay tuned for that. And as always, if you love what you hear today, you are always welcome and encouraged to leave my show a review on whatever your preferred listening platform is. And now without further ado, let's get into today's stories.

Let's start with a few more of Trump's recent picks. So over the last few days, we've covered nine picks. And today we will add two more, starting with Representative Matt Gaetz, who Trump nominated for the position of U.S. Attorney General. Now, Gaetz is an interesting pick in the sense that Republican lawmakers are a bit conflicted

as to how they feel about it. And it's ultimately up to the Senate to confirm him for the position. But let's talk a little bit about what the US Attorney General does, and then we'll talk about Gaetz personally and why these lawmakers are conflicted.

First and foremost, the U.S. Attorney General is the head of the DOJ and the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government. The Attorney General represents the United States in legal matters and gives advice and opinions, as attorneys do, to the president as well as the other heads of executive departments when such advice is requested.

The attorney general is also in charge of appointing special counsels to look into cases and people. As we saw most recently, special counsel Jack Smith brought charges against Trump and special counsel Robert Herr investigated Biden's handling of classified documents. So those are special counsels appointed by the attorney general, currently Merrick Garland. But if Matt Gates is confirmed...

then he would be the new attorney general. As I said, the position of U.S. attorney general is one that is subject to Senate confirmation, as all cabinet seats are. This means that the simple majority of the Senate has to vote to confirm him. Now, you might be thinking, well, that's easy. Republicans now have the majority in the Senate and Gates is a Republican, so he's obviously going to be confirmed. But it's not that obvious. And this is why.

Gates has a reputation in Congress of being a far-right Republican. In fact, he was the congressman that brought that motion to oust Speaker McCarthy. McCarthy was thereafter replaced with Speaker Johnson, but that was the first time in U.S. history that a Speaker of the House was removed through a motion to vacate.

Since being elected to the House, Gates made, you know, he's made some allies on Capitol Hill, but he's also made some enemies, including within his own party. One Republican senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, quote, he will never get confirmed again.

Another Senate Republican said, quote, ain't going to happen. Another Senate Republican said Gates has a better shot of having dinner with Queen Elizabeth II than getting confirmed. And one lawmaker told Fox News that there were, quote, unquote, audible gasps in the room of Republican lawmakers when the news broke. Other lawmakers have voiced support for Gates, with one Republican senator saying that he supports the president's choice. Another Republican senator said the same.

So when we take into account numbers, all but four Republican senators would have to vote to confirm him for this position. And so far, at least three have voiced skepticism publicly. And one Democratic lawmaker said that he knows of five to 10 Republican senators that are considering voting against Gates. So we'll have to see what the Senate does here.

Now, as we know, Trump has promised retribution for the many investigations launched at him by the Biden administration's DOJ. And Gates himself was a target of an investigation by Biden's DOJ. So we don't know if that played into Trump's decision, but it is worth noting here.

Ultimately, the DOJ declined to bring charges against Gates over allegations that he violated sex trafficking laws during a trip that he took to the Bahamas with paid escorts.

That investigation began in 2021 and centered around allegations that Gates and an associate paid or gave gifts to underage girls and escorts in exchange for sex. Gates denied any wrongdoing. He called the investigation an extortion plot. Gates's associate ultimately pled guilty to sex trafficking of a minor and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. But the DOJ did end its investigation into Gates without pressing charges.

Gaetz was also the subject of an investigation by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee into separate allegations of sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl, illicit drug use, and misuse of campaign funds. In fact, the committee was preparing to vote on a quote-unquote highly critical report about Gaetz this Friday, which

But when Gates resigned from Congress yesterday in light of this nomination, the ethics investigation was dropped entirely due to the fact that the House no longer had jurisdiction to investigate him once he resigned.

That investigation also began in 2021, but later the committee deferred its investigation at the request of the DOJ, which was simultaneously looking into the allegations. And then once the DOJ concluded its investigation without bringing charges, the House Ethics Committee resumed its investigation again. But as I said, as of yesterday, that investigation is no longer.

Some final personal notes about Gates. He is 42 years old. He went to law school at William and Mary Law School, graduated in 2007, and started working in private practice before ultimately getting into politics. He followed in his dad's footsteps. Gates sat in Florida's House of Representatives from 2010 to 2016 before eventually taking a seat on Capitol Hill in 2017, and that is where he has been since.

Now let's move on to Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence.

In yesterday's episode, I spoke about John Ratcliffe being chosen as Trump's CIA director. And I mentioned that Ratcliffe was previously the director of national intelligence, which is actually who the CIA director reports to. But now that Ratcliffe is the CIA director, he will be reporting to Tulsi Gabbard, who is or is the nominee for the director of national intelligence.

So first, a little bit about the role, and then we'll talk about her personally. The director of national intelligence oversees the entire intelligence community. The DNI also directs the national intelligence program and acts as the principal advisor to the president, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council.

As for Gabbard personally, she is 43 years old, a native of American Samoa, a military veteran, and a former Democrat turned independent turned Republican. She left the Democratic Party in 2022 after representing Hawaii in Congress for eight years, and she even ran for the Democratic Party's 2020 presidential nomination.

Over the last few years, she's been critical of the Biden administration and eventually left the Democratic Party, but has managed to create and maintain allies on both sides of the aisle. She is the honorary co-chair of Trump's transition team, and RFK Jr. actually considered her as a running mate in this election, but she ultimately turned down his offer. She

She has also claimed that she was put on a secret terror watch list by the Biden administration after her and her husband were pulled aside by TSA as they were boarding a flight. She said she was told it was a random selection, but says it's happened more than seven times, which to her is no coincidence.

She also said that federal air marshal whistleblowers have come forward and revealed that she was in fact added to a secret terror watch list run by the TSA called Quiet Skies. She thinks it's because of her criticism of the Democratic Party and more specifically VP Harris. But Republican lawmakers have sent letters to TSA requesting information on this and have not yet received a response. So that's a little bit about Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz.

Now let's talk about a related topic, which is recess appointments. So we've been talking a lot about Trump's picks and Senate confirmations, right? So Trump's cabinet picks are subject to Senate confirmation. They essentially go before the Senate. They submit background materials. They answer questions from senators. And all of this is done in hopes of being confirmed for the position. As I stated earlier, you need a simple majority of the Senate.

But yesterday, while Senate Republicans were holding their leadership race, Trump wrote on X in part, quote,

End quote. As we know, that leadership, and I say as we know because I talked about this yesterday, the leadership position was won by Senator Thune. But let's talk about this. Recess appointments. First, what are they? In the simplest of terms, a recess appointment is a temporary presidential appointment that happens while the Senate is on recess and therefore bypasses Senate confirmation.

Now, this clause of the Constitution was adopted back at the Constitutional Convention without dissent and without debate as to the intent and scope of its terms. That has left the United States with some unanswered questions. The clause is generally understood to allow the president to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the government during periods where the Senate isn't in session and therefore unable to perform its constitutional advice and consent function.

Over the years, many presidents have utilized this clause, not just for their cabinet, but also judges and justices. President Theodore Roosevelt made 193 recess appointments during a split-second intercession in 1903, literally like when the second session of Congress was scheduled to begin immediately upon the expiration of the first.

More recently, President Reagan made more than 150 recess appointments. President George W. Bush made 171. President Clinton made 139. In most of those cases, the Senate was controlled by the opposite party of the president.

But this whole recess appointment process changed a bit in 2014 when President Obama tried to recess appoint four members of the National Labor Relations Board. His appointments were challenged and the Supreme Court got involved. And what the Supreme Court said is this. It was a unanimous decision and they said, one, the recess appointments power applies when the Senate leaves town for a break either in the middle of an annual sitting or a break at the end of each annual session.

Two, a president can fill a vacancy during a recess even if that vacancy occurred well before the recess began. Three, the Senate's recess has to last at least 10 days. Four, it's up to the Senate whether they do take a recess. And five,

the Senate could convene these short sessions called pro forma sessions where really no business happens, but they happen during this 10 day recess to avoid these recess appointments. So that's the deal with that. Now, it wouldn't be totally out of the norm for Trump to take advantage of this. The only thing that would be unusual compared to historical recess appointments is Trump essentially asking the Senate to recess so that he can make these appointments. But

But two final notes I want to make here. Number one is that if these recess appointments are made, the appointed individuals would hold their positions until 2026 when the Senate's session ends. At that point, the Senate would carry out the confirmation process.

And two is that the Senate would have to recess at some point on or after inauguration day when the Biden administration officially ends and the cabinet seats become vacant. Because as of right now, those seats are not vacant. They are filled. And the recess appointments clause only kicks in once there is a vacancy. So with all of that said, let's take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll go through quick hitters and rumor has it.

Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that brief intermission. Let's get into quick hitters, starting with the first one, which is that the DOJ announced the findings of a 16-month investigation into the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, finding that the jail fails to adequately protect incarcerated people from violence by other inmates, that detention officers use force without adequate justification, and that living conditions and medical and mental health care do not meet constitutional standards.

From here, the DOJ will likely file a lawsuit in federal court seeking court-ordered remedies to try to fix the issues present at the jail.

In some other news, FBI agents raided the home of Polymarket CEO Shane Coplin yesterday, just a week after the election betting platform predicted Trump's victory. The FBI seized Coplin's phone and other electronic devices, but allegedly did not provide him with a reason for the raid. Coplin seems to think the FBI is acting on media reports that accuse Polymarket of market manipulation and rigging its polls in favor of Trump.

Notably, as of today at 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time, Copeland has not been arrested and has not been charged. A satirical website called The Onion purchased Alex Jones's InfoWars site today at auction. The auction was part of bankruptcy proceedings following Alex Jones's defamation of families associated with the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Back in 2022, these families sued Jones after he made on-air remarks about the shooting being performed by actors following a script that was written by government officials wanting to push for gun control.

The Onion's purchase, which was backed by these families, means the Onion will now own InfoWars IP, including its website, customer lists and inventory, certain social media accounts, and production equipment. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Spirit Airlines is preparing to file for bankruptcy after its merger talks with Frontier Airlines fell through and after mounting losses and debt. According to the Wall Street Journal's report,

And

And finally, former government and military officials told a congressional panel yesterday about their experiences with UFOs. The hearing Wednesday is the latest in Congress's push for transparency around UFOs, having held its first hearing in 2022.

A former Pentagon official testified at the hearing yesterday that the United States and some of its adversaries are in possession of unidentified anomalous phenomena and are keeping it secret to, quote, hide the fact that we are not alone in the cosmos. End quote. In March of this year, the Pentagon released a report saying there is not a United States government cover up to hide extraterrestrial UFOs or alien remains in its possession.

And finally, Rumor Has It, my weekly segment where I either confirm, dispel, or add context to recent rumors. We'll do four rumors today, and we're going to go through them quickly, which actually reminds me. So yesterday, I issued a reminder that my episodes are usually between 15 and 20 minutes now that I'm podcasting four days a week. Lately, they've been longer just because of the election. And I got a lot of messages telling me, you know, don't worry about the length of the episodes. We love that you do longer episodes. And I agree. The longer episodes are great.

But the reason the episodes are between 15 and 20 minutes usually is because I only have so much time in my day before I have to get the episodes out and I have to start recording, editing, all that stuff. So I've been working overtime lately to crank out all of this heavy, dense, substantive material. And I was just saying that soon I will have to go back to my regular episode length just for my own sanity. But anyway, let's get into the rumors and clear some things up.

Rumor has it that a FEMA employee told disaster relief workers to skip homes with Trump signs following Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. This is true, and this worker has since been fired. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said in a statement, quote,

End quote.

The fired employee has since told a journalist that the workers skipped the homes because of FEMA's policy to avoid, quote, potentially hostile situations, end quote.

Rumor has it that the Harris campaign is now $20 million in debt after spending $1 billion on the campaign. This is true as per a member of the DNC Finance Committee who sat down recently with News Nation. Lindy Lee said that the campaign is $20 million in debt despite taking on at least $1 billion. It is important to note here that there hasn't been a clear answer across the board as to the amount of debt. Other campaign members have cited lower numbers like $6 million and

The one consistency, though, is that the campaign is in fact in debt. On NewsNation, Lee was specifically speaking about the fact that the Democratic Party needs a quote unquote postmortem assessment after what was a quote unquote shellacking in this election. She said that she loves Harris, but the way the campaign was run and the way the finances were handled, quote, left much to be desired, end quote.

According to Ad Impact, which is a company that provides advertising intelligence and data solutions, roughly $654 million was spent on ads, and FEC filings seem to confirm that many of the payments went towards media buys and text message outreach.

FEC filings also show roughly $20 million spent on concerts and celebrity appearances. Now, there's also been this related rumor that Oprah was paid $1 million for hosting a town hall for Harris. Oprah, though, says that she wasn't paid. What we know from the FEC filings is that Oprah's production company, Harpo Productions, received two payments of $500,000 on October 15th. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it went to Oprah herself.

it does tell us that her production company was paid $1 million by the Harris campaign. Moving on, rumor has it that Harris won all states without voter ID laws. This is false. While it is true that she did win a majority of the states without voter ID laws, 12 to be exact, Pennsylvania and Nevada also do not require all voters to show ID at the polls, and those states went to Trump.

And finally, rumor has it that racist text messages were sent to black men, women, and students following the election, telling them that they had been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation. This is true, and the FBI has confirmed. The messages included iterations of the following, quote, greetings, you have been selected to pick cotton.

cotton at the nearest plantation. Be ready at 12 p.m. sharp with your belongings. Our executive slaves will come get you in a brown van. Be prepared to be searched down once you've entered the plantation. You are in Plantation Group W.

End quote. A spokesperson at the University of Alabama confirmed in a statement that some black students there also reported receiving similar texts. A photojournalist received a text in Virginia and said his cousin in Richmond received a similar text, and Virginia's attorney general similarly confirmed that the text messages had been sent.

So that is what I have for you tonight. I hope you have a fantastic weekend and I will be back with you again on Monday.