Free Republic

Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., died Tuesday after a more than two-year bout with pancreatic cancer, NBC News confirmed. Hastings, who served in the House for nearly three decades, was 84. Throughout his career, he held several key committee assignments and leadership positions, most recently as vice chairman of the Rules Committee. After the congressman’s death, Democrats hold a narrow 218-211 advantage in the House, giving the party a small margin for error in passing legislation. Six seats are vacant. Hastings, a former federal district court judge, was impeached in 1988 amid accusations of bribery and perjury. The Senate voted to...

Alcee Hastings was appointed to be a federal judge in 1979. In 1981, he was accused of soliciting bribes and obstructing justice ... A special committee of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals began a .. three-year investigation ended with the panel concluding that Hastings did indeed commit perjury, tamper with evidence, and conspire to gain financially by accepting bribes. ... He was impeached by the United States House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate. He was kicked out of his judgeship in 1989. .... Four years later he ran for the U.S. House — a federal office —...

Who better to set the rules for Trump’s impeachment trial than a guy who has actually been impeached? That’s right, the Democrats, in all their infinite wisdom, appointed Alcee Hastings as the vice chair of the rules committee. Hastings went through an impeachment trial in 1988 on a bevy of crimes he committed while serving as a federal judge. Playing in the Democrat sandbox, the disgraced ex-judge was elected to congress by the crazed liberals. ... Here's something you don't see every day: Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge impeached and removed from the bench for taking bribes, participating in...

One of the cocky Democrats responsible for writing the party’s widely-criticized, “unfair” impeachment rules that were voted on this week is reportedly a habitual rule breaker who’s been caught employing his own girlfriend in his congressional office. That Democrat is House Rules Committee vice-chair Alcee Hastings of Florida, who this week joined his fellow equally cocky Democrats in stonewalling efforts by Republicans to install just a modicum of fairness in their otherwise unfair and unjust impeachment rules. Cocky Dems stonewall GOP over unfair impeachment rules during contentious meeting https://t.co/6puPuUlcpO — Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) October 31, 2019 According to an investigation...

Hastings's longtime girlfriend also received a promotion; has been paid maximum congressional salary for six straight years A convicted money launderer employed by Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings (Fla.) in one of his Florida district offices received a pay increase for "part-time" work last year, new salary data filings show. Additionally, Hastings's longtime girlfriend Patricia Williams appears to have received a promotion, though she did not get a raise since she is already receiving the maximum salary that is allowed to be paid to congressional staffers. Dona Nichols Jones, who has been listed as working in Hastings's Palm Beach County Office...

Also employs girlfriend's daughter and a convicted money launderer Rep. Alcee Hastings (D., Fla.) continues to pay his longtime girlfriend the maximum congressional salary of $168,411, and has paid her nearly $2.4 million in salary since 2000. Hastings also employs his girlfriend's daughter and the wife of a former staffer who was previously convicted of money laundering. Patricia Williams, the longtime girlfriend who served as co-counsel during Hastings' impeachment trial as a federal judge in the 1980s, has worked out of the congressman's office since 1993. Williams started working for Hastings as a staff assistant and has since been promoted...

NJDC guest Alcee Hastings denounces all gun owners and hunters as racists and anti-Semites Democratic Congressman Warns Jews, Blacks to Beware of Palin by Stephen Clark Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings on Wednesday warned two minority groups to beware of Sarah Palin because "anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks." Hastings, who is black and a Democrat, made the comment in Florida at a panel discussion hosted by the National Jewish Democratic Council. The group recently criticized Palin's invitation to an anti-Iran rally held during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad's visit...

Per "Florida congressman points to Palin to rally Jews to Obama," Rep. Alcee Hastings denounced hunters and gun owners as racists and anti-Semites, and by implication beer-swilling NASCAR-watching pickup-truck-driving redneck white trash. This is consistent with Obama's own description of Pennsylvanians as "bitter" small down people who "cling to guns and religion," and the common reference to working people as "white trash" on Obama's own Web site. Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about...

"There are no short-term answers. And I know that there's going to be long-term pain. I predict to you that gas prices will be as much as $5 before the end of this year and they will go to $6 at some point next year," he said during an interview with reporters and editorial writers at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "When they go to $6 it will fluctuate between $5 and $6 and more for some time to come. That's the harsh reality no matter what law we pass," he said. "I get tired of hearing people, politicians, friends of...

WASHINGTON — Florida Democratic Rep. Alcee L. Hastings resigned from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday. Hastings submitted his resignation to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after seven years on the panel. "The work that we do on this Committee is often difficult and usually thankless. But it is absolutely critical to the safety and protection of the American people," Hastings said in a statement. "Today, more than ever in the history of this nation, congressional oversight of America’s intelligence community is needed. We can not continue to allow this president, or any president, to operate unchecked and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, impeached as a federal judge in 1989 on corruption charges, dropped his bid under pressure on Tuesday to chair a congressional panel designed to help protect America's security, a party aide said. Hastings took the action after being told by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in line to head the U.S. House of Representatives when the new Congress convenes in January, that she would not give him the coveted job, the aide said. As House speaker, Pelosi decides who in her party serves on the committee that helps oversee federal efforts to protect...

U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch picked up the endorsement of a key black member of Congress and the state Democratic Party's highest-ranking woman Monday in the race to succeed Florida Sen. Bob Graham. Deutsch, of Pembroke Pines, received the backing of U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown during a stop in her Jacksonville area district. Brown was among the first black members elected to Congress from Florida since the post-Civil War era and could help Deutsch court black voters in the August 2004 primary. Deutsch told reporters that Brown's endorsement was "a real serious statement in terms of what I expect to happen...