Free Republic

A former staffer to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) reportedly resigned last summer in protest of Gillibrand's handling of her sexual harassment complaint against one of the senator's top aides. Politico reported Monday that the unidentified female staffer said the older male aide repeatedly made unwanted advances and sexist comments about other women in the office. The accusations that her office mishandled a sexual harassment complaint could cast a shadow on Gillibrand, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who has been a vocal defender of sexual harassment victims and a leader in "Me Too"-related reform efforts on Capitol Hill.

Former President Jimmy Carter urged Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to run for president in an Instagram Live video on Sunday. Booker, who is known for his social media savvy, took to the platform to film a road trip through Georgia with civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) ahead of MLK Day. After the two lawmakers attended a church service led by Carter in his hometown of Plains, Booker featured the former president in a video. “I’m very glad to have you here this morning, and I hope you come back,” Carter said. “And I hope you run for president.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y. ) is weighing in on rapper Cardi B’s feud with conservative commentator Tomi Lahren. “Why do people think they can mess with Bronx women without getting roasted?” The lawmaker tweeted. “They act as though our borough hasn’t been perfecting the clapback game since the Sugarhill Gang … y’all just found it on Twitter.”

Former national security adviser Susan Rice has penned a highly critical op-ed tearing into President Trump over foreign policy. The piece, “The Threat in the White House,” was published Sunday in The New York Times and details what she calls “dangerous dysfunction” in the Trump administration. In the op-ed, Rice wrote that the U.S.’s national security decisionmaking process is “more broken” than at any time since 1947, when the National Security Act become law.

Television producer Ryan Murphy is announcing a multimillion-dollar initiative to help elect pro-LGBTQ candidates and vote out anti-LGBTQ incumbents. Murphy, the producer behind hit shows “Glee,” “American Horror Story” and “Pose,” announced the project while accepting an award at the TrevorLive gala, according to NextNowNext. The new organization, which he said he will launch in 2020, is named “Pose Gives Back,” a nod to his latest television project, which has more transgender series regulars than any other show in history. “I’m going to create and fund, with corporate sponsorship, a multimillion-dollar organization that targets anti-LGBTQ candidates running for office,” Murphy...

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was expected to retire in the coming months, is stepping down, according to multiple reports. A career civil servant who was appointed deputy director in 2016, McCabe has been a frequent target of Republicans alleging systemic bias against President Trump at the top tiers of the bureau. McCabe oversaw the controversial investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. The GOP has accused him of a conflict of interest in that case because his wife accepted nearly $500,000 in political donations from Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe in a...