TV News LIES

The House Ethics Committee is investigating Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) over allegations that she may have engaged in “improper reimbursement practices” and violated House rules.

The committee wrote in a statement on Monday that they had received a referral from the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Conduct (OCC), which reviews allegations of misconduct against members of Congress.

The board of the OCC had written in a report that there is “substantial reason to believe” that Mace had “engaged in improper reimbursement practices,” recommending that the committee further review the allegation. The report alleges that Mace’s requests for reimbursement had exceeded the total of her D.C. property expenses during several months in 2023 and 2024, “amounting to an excess of 9,485.46.”

The chairman and ranking member of the House Ethics Committee wrote in a statement that it had “extended its review of the matter.”

“The Committee notes that the mere fact of conducting further review of a referral, and any mandatory disclosure of such further review, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred, or reflect any judgment on behalf of the Committee,” the statement says

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Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) shared the names of the six men he claimed were “likely incriminated” in the Epstein files on the House floor Tuesday.

Khanna’s comments come as the Justice Department has been under fire for how it has handled redactions in the documents, in some cases failing to conceal the names of victims while in other instances shielding the identities of those exchanging salacious emails with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who together co-sponsored the bill that mandated the public release of the files, both went Monday to review the unredacted version of the files now available to lawmakers at a Justice Department office. The duo told reporters that in their two-hour review they saw six names they thought could face criminal culpability based on the content of the files, with Massie describing the group as being “likely incriminated.”

Khanna, after revealing the six names on the House floor, said, “Now my question is, why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public? And if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files.”

“Now my bill is clear. The Epstein Transparency Act requires them to unredact those FBI files, and yet the Justice Department said to me and to Congressman Massie, ‘We just uploaded whatever the FBI sent us.’ And guess what? The FBI sent scrubbed files. That means the survivor statement to the FBI naming rich and powerful men who went to Epstein’s Island, who went to his ranch, who went to his home and raped and abused underage girls or saw underage girls being paraded — they were all hidden. They were all redacted. It’s a little bit of a farce.”

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President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats struck a deal to avert a prolonged shutdown for most of the federal government, according to the president and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office.

The agreement will fund all of the government except for the Department of Homeland Security through next September. DHS will operate on a short-term funding bill for two weeks while lawmakers negotiate changes after public outrage over the Minneapolis shootings, sources said.

The Senate is aiming to vote today. The House, which returns to Washington on Monday, would then need to pass the legislation and send it to Trump’s desk for his signature.

Until the deal is finalized by both chambers, funding will temporarily lapse for multiple agencies starting tomorrow. The impact is expected to be minimal since most federal employees don’t work on the weekend.

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Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor said Friday that a judge lacks the authority to appoint a neutral expert to oversee the public release of documents in the sex trafficking probe of financier Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer was told in a letter signed by U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton that he must reject a request this week by the congressional cosponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act to appoint a neutral expert.

U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, say they have “urgent and grave concerns” about the slow release of only a small number of millions of documents that began last month.

In a filing to the judge they said they believed “criminal violations have taken place” in the release process.

Clayton, though, said Khanna and Massie do not have standing with the court that would allow them to seek the “extraordinary” relief of the appointment of a special master and independent monitor.

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The Department of Homeland Security blocked federal lawmakers from visiting an immigration detention facility in Minneapolis this weekend under a new visitation policy from the head of the department.

Under federal law, members of Congress have the right to make unannounced visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. A D.C. federal court ruling affirmed this last month, saying it applies to facilities that are funded by regular congressional appropriations.

But in a Jan. 8 memo from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem obtained by NPR, Noem instructs her staff that visits should be requested at least seven days in advance. She said the detention facilities are run with money from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a different bucket of federal funds, and therefore the policy on unannounced visits doesn't apply to them.

The new policy seemed to have been cited on Saturday to block the visit of three Minnesota congresswomen to an ICE detention facility in Minneapolis.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a reconciliation measure that Congress passed last summer with only Republican support, allocated some $45 billion for immigration detention centers as many were operating over their capacity. It also provided about $30 billion to hire more ICE personnel, for transportation costs, and to maintain ICE facilities, among other spending.

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Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was hospitalized on Thursday after suffering facial injuries from a fall during a walk near his home in Western Pennsylvania.

According to a Fetterman spokesperson, the Pennsylvania Democrat was transported to a Pittsburgh hospital “out of an abundance of caution.”

“During an early morning walk, Senator Fetterman sustained a fall near his home in Braddock,” the spokesperson said.

“Upon evaluation, it was established he had a ventricular fibrillation flare-up that led to Senator Fetterman feeling light-headed, falling to the ground and hitting his face with minor injuries,” the spokesperson added. “He is doing well and receiving routine observation at the hospital. He has opted to stay so doctors can fine-tune his medication regimen.”

The spokesperson also noted that Fetterman made a self-deprecating joke about his face following the fall.

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