Recap
House Democrats officially elected two new leaders, Hakeem Jeffries as minority leader and Peter Aguilar as caucus chair. Jeffries is the first non-white representative to lead a party in Congress.
David Cicilline, a House Democrat from Rhode Island, unexpectedly announced his run to be minority whip. Cicilline is running against longtime Democratic whip Jim Clyburn and said that leadership needs more LGBTQ+ representation.
Joe Biden spoke at the Department of the Interior’s tribal summit and affirmed federal support for tribal nations and communities.
The House voted to impose a labor agreement on rail workers in order to avert a strike.
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell suggested the Fed will continue to raise interest rates, though at a slower pace if inflation continues to go down.
US attorney general Merrick Garland praised yesterday’s conviction of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and vowed to hold January 6 attackers accountable.
The chair of the Georgia Republican party cannot share lawyers with 10 other fake electors, a judge ruled. The AP reports:
The chair and other fake electors cannot share lawyers in matters related to a special grand jury investigation into possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election in the state.
A special grand jury was seated earlier this year to aid the investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis into whether Republican former President Donald Trump and others committed crimes through their efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Willis has made clear that she is interested in the actions of 16 Republicans who signed a certificate declaring falsely that Trump had won and also declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors, even though Biden had won the state, and a slate of Democratic electors was certified. Willis has said in a court filing that she notified lawyers for those 16 people that they are targets of her investigation, meaning that they could face criminal charges.
Eleven of those fake electors, including Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer, are represented by two lawyers who are paid by the party, Holly Pierson and Kimberly Debrow. Willis’ team in October filed a motion seeking to disqualify the two from representing all of those clients, saying it represented a conflict of interest.
They argued that, if Pierson and Debrow continue to represent any of the 11, “there is a serious possibility of future ethical problems concerning confidentiality of information obtained in the course of their representation thus far.”
Updated
