Nadler, J Rep

merri ok see jud comm

---

AN 10 25

During a Cabinet meeting Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asserted that “children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it’s highly likely because they’re given Tylenol.”

President Donald Trump added: “There’s a tremendous amount of proof or evidence. I would say as a non‑doctor, but I’ve studied this a long time.”

A clip from the meeting spread rapidly on social media, with many users reacting to their remarks with disbelief, ridicule and alarm.

Medical authorities have sharply criticized the administration for overstepping scientific validity, warning that simplified claims may mislead patients and cause confusion.

Earlier, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued a statement challenging the secretary's claim and said there is no clear evidence that prudent use of acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol) during pregnancy causes autism.

IFrame Content

RFK Jr.'s Thursday remarks were criticized by some as "antisemitic."

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) wrote on the social platform X: "This is an antisemitic remark. I call on all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to clearly denounce it."

Matt Bennett, EVP for Public Affairs at Third Way,wrote: "'Circumcision causes autism because of Tylenol' is the weirdest MadLib in the history of presidential cabinet meetings."

Journalist Carla Marinucci wrote: "Did @RobertKennedyJr just suggest 'children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism' presumably because of Tylenol? Again, throwing out wild unsupported theories — irresponsible."

Political organizer Melissa Byrne wrote on X: "Some direct anti-semitism in the Cabinet Room."

Writer Noah Rothman reacted to the news and wrote: "What a sentence."

Author Eric Michael Garcia, who wrote the book We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation,reacted to the remarks and saidin a post on X: "DO I NEED TO WRITE ANOTHER PAPERBACK EDITION OF MY BOOK?"

---

6 25

ref gothamist

In a dramatic incident captured on video, U.S. Department of Homeland Security police Wednesday handcuffed one of Rep. Jerry Nadler aides in the congressmember's Manhattan office, which is in the same federal office building as an immigration courthouse.

In the video, which was shared with Gothamist and filmed by a person who was monitoring activity in immigration court, DHS officers entered Nadler’s district office and accused staff members of “harboring rioters.” A Nadler staffer is seen crying and being handcuffed. Another officer is at a door trying to enter a private area of the office while a staffer asks for a warrant.

DHS later said in a statement that “one individual” — the woman seen being handcuffed — had blocked police from performing a security check they intended to do based on information there were protesters in the lawmaker’s office. Later that day, protesters gathered outside of the federal building, demonstrating against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. [vid]

The staff member was not arrested and not charged with any crime, both Nadler's office and a DHS spokesperson confirmed. In a brief telephone interview, the staffer who'd been handcuffed said that “everything resolved” and declined to comment further.

Initially, Nadler’s office would not comment on what led up to the chaotic incident. But after Gothamist broke the story Friday, the congressman posted a statement on X.

“While no arrests were made and the situation was quickly deescalated, I am alarmed by the aggressive and heavy-handed tactics DHS is employing in New York City and across the country," the statement said. "The decision to enter a congressional office and detain a staff member demonstrates a deeply troubling disregard for proper legal boundaries."

Two people who were at the courthouse to monitor ICE activity said the confrontation came after ICE officers threatened to arrest them and other advocates, and a Nadler staffer invited the advocates inside.

Nadler’s office is on the sixth floor in the same Varick Street building as federal immigration court, which is on the fifth floor. The building also houses DHS and other federal offices.

{Last week, Robert Gottheim, Nadler’s co-chief of staff, confirmed there was no arrest but otherwise declined to comment on the unusual event that resulted in federal agents entering the office of a Democratic member of Congress, accusing office staffers of criminal wrongdoing and handcuffing a staffer.}:

The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between Democratic lawmakers and the executive branch over federal immigration enforcement, including Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Rep. LaMonica McIver arrests earlier this month in connection with protests outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center in Newark.

There have been an increasing number of arrests at immigration courthouses across the country in recent days. The Trump administration, promising the largest deportation effort in the nation’s history, announced in January it would no longer treat venues such as courthouses and schools as “protected” sites off-limits to immigration enforcement.

At another immigration courthouse in the city, at 290 Broadway, ICE officers last week arrested a 20-year-old Bronx high school student after an immigration judge dismissed the student’s pending deportation case. The student, from Venezuela, is the first New York City public school student to be detained by ICE during Trump’s second term, according to the city education department.

Hours after the confrontation involving the Nadler staffers and DHS police, around 6:30 p.m., police arrested nearly two dozen demonstrators they allege blocked traffic outside the building, an NYPD spokesperson said.

In the demonstration, mutual aid volunteers assisting immigrants tried to block ICE vans transporting detained immigrants from leaving the building, according to organizers. Eighteen protesters were issued criminal summons, and five people were arrested and charged, the NYPD spokesperson said.

In the video of the confrontation at Nadler’s office, the handcuffed staff member says that there were constituents present in the office for a meeting. Those constituents later identified themselves in interviews with Gothamist as immigrant rights advocates monitoring activities in the building, including outside the federal immigration courtrooms.

The video does not capture any interactions between Nadler’s staff and DHS police before the staffer was handcuffed. But two advocates who were present as the events unfolded described officers questioning people as they left immigration court and threatening advocates as they intervened. Both people asked Gothamist not to use their names, saying they fear retaliation by the federal government.

The advocates said they were outside an immigration courtroom where plainclothes ICE officers were questioning people as they were leaving their court appearances. The advocates said they were advising the immigrants of their rights. The officers, in turn, threatened the advocates with arrest for loitering, according to the two advocates who spoke with Gothamist.

According to the two advocates, ICE officers then arrested one of the advocates in the courthouse; DHS did not respond to further inquiries about what transpired. Then, the two advocates said, a Nadler staffer invited them and a third advocate up to the lawmaker’s office, which is on the floor above the courthouse. They were there for about 20 minutes before the DHS police entered, the two advocates said.

An officer is heard in the video of the encounter claiming the handcuffed Nadler aide, seen crying, had pushed a DHS officer. Another officer is also seen entering an area of the lawmaker’s office, over the objections of a Nadler aide, who asked for a warrant before acceding to the demand.

The advocates said they did not witness any staff member pushing a DHS officer. They said the aide who was handcuffed had declined the officer entry to a more private part of the office. The courthouse as well as the government offices are generally open to the public.

The video shows the handcuffed staff member asking officers, “What’s your problem?” She adds, without further clarifying, “They’re here for a meeting. They’re constituents.”

A DHS officer urged her, “Do not resist. Stop resisting.”

The DHS statement on Thursday made no mention of Nadler’s office harboring rioters, as the DHS officer claims in the video. Thursday’s statement said that DHS officers were responding to information that protesters were inside Nadler’s office. Out of concern for Nadler’s employees, the statement said, the officers went to the lawmaker’s office “to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those present.”

The statement said the officers “were granted entry and encountered four individuals,” but did not specify who the four were. After stating their intent to conduct a “security check,” the statement said, one of the individuals became “confrontational and physically blocked” access to the office and had to be detained in the hallway in the federal building. But the statement says that no arrests were made and all “were released without further incident.”

*Ben Feuerherd contributed reporting.

---

AN 6 25

During his first presidency, Donald Trump spent a lot of time fighting with conservative appointees who resisted parts of his agenda — from John Bolton (national security adviser) to Jeff Sessions (U.S. attorney general) to Rex Tillerson (secretary of state) to Gen. John F. Kelly (White House chief of staff). Trump's third White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, even ended up endorsing presidential nominee Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

But Trump's second presidency is much different. This time, he made a point of surrounding himself with hardcore MAGA loyalists—who, the Washington Post's Philip Bump argues in his June 2 column, are making a concerted effort to bully and intimidate opponents and create a climate of fear.

Trump, Bump warns, has a "range of dishonest actors" at his disposal. And they range from White House adviser Stephen Miller to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem to immigration czar Tom Homan.

"What President Donald Trump wants is to put big deportation numbers on the scoreboard," Bump explains. "Recent reporting suggests that senior administration officials, including adviser Stephen Miller, are leaning on DHS to remove more people, faster. Trump’s 2024 campaign promised to focus on removing the massive population of criminal undocumented immigrants in the U.S. But, in part because his claims about the scale of the problem have consistently been hyperbolic, the (Trump) Administration is instead resorting to deporting just about anyone it can conceivably fit into the system."

IFrame Content

Bump notes that the intimidation tactics of Trump and his allies range from the arrests of Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-New Jersey) and Judge Hannah Dugan to DHS agents accusing Rep. Jerry Nadler's (D-New York) staff of "harboring rioters" and even handcuffing a Nadler staffer.

"In San Diego," Bump observes, "heavily armed immigration officers conducted a raid at a restaurant. When observers attempted to halt the arrests, the federal agents allegedly used a stun grenade against the crowd. That incident was perhaps the most extreme of a number of tense, aggressive encounters between immigration officials and the public over the past four months…. It also seems clear that some agents understand they won’t be held accountable for their actions."

Bump adds, "Detaining a staffer in member of Congress' office in search of 'rioters' from a nonexistent riot doesn't comport with a liberal democracy."

Nadler told the New York Times, "The Trump Administration is really using totalitarian or even authoritarian practices. We have to fight them. We don't want to be a fascist country."

Bump laments, "This is the reality. Immigrants are cast as dangerous when they aren't. Governmental power is abused without accountability. All of it at Trump’s whim — very much to Nadler's 'authoritarian' point."

*Philip Bump's full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required)

---

an 7 24

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) threw cold water on Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) after he claimed the media was "colluding" against conservatives.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Jordan contended that the Global Alliance for Responsible Media had conspired with its members to avoid advertising on conservative outlets.

"They came together, agreed to limit advertising on certain platforms and news outlets that millions— millions of Americans choose to read, watch, and listen to," Jordan claimed. "They collude to make sure that no other advertisers support any news outlets, platforms, or creators that these massive companies don't agree with."

"And these people do not like conservatives," he insisted. "They will use their cartel to eliminate competition based on internal biases of these massive companies, and they will deprive Americans of the content that they actually want to consume."

Nadler pointed out that Jordan's hearinghad "nothing to do with antitrust laws, since the majority's allegations wither under even the most basic antitrust analysis."

"This is instead another dangerous effort by the majority to bully companies into promoting and supporting far-right extremist views, views that brands understandably do not want to be associated with," Nadler explained. "In this case, the majority seeks to undermine companies' First Amendment rights and to make it harder for them to avoid monetizing online and offline harm through advertising."

The Democratic lawmaker noted that advertisers wanted to avoid "funding of terrorist organizations, the promotion and distribution of foreign propaganda materials, and the promotion and distribution of racist, hateful, and discriminatory content."

Nadler pointed out that Republicans wanted to force advertisers to run ads on "platforms like Twitter, now known as X, True Social, Breitbart, and The Daily Wire, even though those sites are rife with adult content, hate speech, false information, misinformation, and racist and violent propaganda."

EXCLUSIVE:Trump's 'secretary of retribution' has a 'target list' of 350 people he wants arrested

The congressman told Jordan that The Daily Wire, run by Republican witness Ben Shapiro, had generated $220 million in revenue last year.

"His website has over 15 million followers across his main social media handles, including on sites that are members of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, known as GARM, the target of today's hearing," Nadler said. "This hardly sounds like the victim of a conspiracy to suppress content."

"Under the direction of the chair, the committee is abusing its oversight authority," he added. "The Republicans are so committed to the belief that conservative content, in quotes, is being censored, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they will do anything to undermine the efforts of platforms to moderate their own content, which the Supreme Court recently affirmed is an exercise of their First Amendment rights."

Watch the video below from the House Judiciary Committee.

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Committee_on_the_Judiciary

---

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/29/steven-donziger-sentencing-nadler-chevron/

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-is-bulldozing-democracy-and-democrats-have-no-plan-to-stop-him/

take senate abol fillib

"When Democrats control the Senate in the next Congress, we must abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court," Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts tweeted over the weekend, a call supported by House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York.

---

an 1 24

in 2020, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-New York) was not only critical of then-President Donald Trump, but also, of some of his loyalists — including veteran GOP operative Roger Stone. And Mediaite's Diana Falzone, along with The New Republic and The Guardian, is reporting that Stone was so angry with Nadler and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) that year that he made threatening remarks about them.

Falzone reports that Mediaite has obtained a copy of a recording in which Stone, in a Florida restaurant, is heard telling ally Sal Greco, "It's time to do it. Let's go find Swalwell. It's time to do it. Then, we'll see how brave the rest of them are. It's time to do it. It's either Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let's go find Swalwell and get this over with. I'm just not putting up with this s*** anymore."

On July 10, 2020, Nadler tweeted comments critical of Trump and Stone, posting, "A jury found Roger Stone guilty. By commuting his sentence, President Trump has infected our judicial system with partisanship and cronyism and attacked the rule of law. @House Judiciary will conduct an aggressive investigation into this brazen corruption."

A Mediaite source told the publication, "Stone had been at war with Nadler and Swalwell for years. He just hates them."

Swalwell and Nadler have both been members of the House Judiciary Committee, which Nadler formerly chaired.

The Guardian's Martin Pengelly reports, "Swalwell is a prominent anti-Trump voice and a magnet for Republican attacks. As Judiciary chair, Nadler oversaw Trump's first impeachment, for seeking political dirt in Ukraine. In 2020, Nadler said the (Judiciary) Committee would investigate Trump's commutation of Stone's sentence on seven counts related to attempts to obstruct the investigation of Russian election interference in 2016. Stone was sentenced to 40 months but never went to prison."

The New Republic's Tori Otten notes, "Stone, a notorious conservative political operative, has long been a loyal Trump adviser and ally. Video footage released in August revealed that Stone began strategizing to overturn the 2020 election at least as early as November 5 — two days before the vote had been called."

*Read Mediaite's full report at this link.

===

---

zoe

w/ nadler demand info on military swat to sanct cities

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/impeachment-endgame-buckle-up-its-gonna-get-uglier/

no lnx

...So it looks like it’s going to be up to Republican members on the committee to make his case for him. Judging from what we’ve heard from various prominent Republicans over the weekend, we can expect that this next phase will see a ratcheting up of resistance to the proceedings and more antics from the backbenchers on the Judiciary Committee. They have some real characters who are ready to turn this into a wild and crazy trip down the rabbit hole.

We don’t yet know how Nadler plans to run the hearings but I think everyone hopes he follows Schiff’s example. A draft of possible impeachment proceedings from September indicates that Nadler plans to allow committee staffers “designated by the chairman and ranking member” to “ask questions of witnesses for a total of one hour, equally divided across the parties (in addition to the normal questions from members),” so it’s likely that the hearings will at least have an hour or so of meaningful exchanges.

But that’s going to be tough. This committee is one of the most rancorous in the House and it has twice as many members as the Intelligence Committee. Many of them are showboating egomaniacs on a good day. Both Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, who were highly combative during the Intelligence Committee hearings, also sit on Judiciary, so we can expect more of their red-meat performances. And we can be sure that Trump’s most loyal guard dog, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, along with borderline crackpot Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, will be looking for ways to upend the proceedings.

As Judiciary member Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told Fox News on Sunday, “it’s a bunch of brawlers sometimes on the Judiciary Committee, so it should get pretty hot and under the collar as we go along. I don’t think things have been done the way they’ve been done in the past, Mike, and so it causes some rancor and it should be pretty — much more feisty, I would say than the Intel Committee was.”

Nadler has his hands full, to say the least. But if anyone thinks that the circus atmosphere will be over once the House votes on impeachment and it moves to the more staid and dignified Senate, they should think again. Republican senators are behaving little better than Gaetz and Gohmert. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has vowed to call Hunter Biden to testify on the premise that “we’re not going to live in a country where only one party gets investigated.” (Which must have made Bill Clinton shake his head in wonderment, considering that Graham was one of the House managers of his impeachment trial.)

But Graham has to battle another Southern senator for the role of most outrageous Trump defender. That would be Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, who has been currying favor with Trump by appearing on the Sunday shows making rash claims about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election.

Ben Rhodes

@brhodes

Republicans literally spreading Russian disinformation manufactured on some troll farm. https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1201183435554992129 …

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

.@SenJohnKennedy: Dr Hill is entitled to her opinion

TODD: When does opinion become fact?

K: I believe reports Poroshenko worked for Clinton

T: My goodness, you just did exactly what the Russian op is trying to get Americans to do! Are you worried you've been duped?

K: No.

Embedded video

This is crazy talk, but it’s very likely where the impeachment process is headed both in the House and the Senate. The most sober and dignified part of the process is probably behind us, unfortunately.

Heather Digby