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11/22/2017 07:59 AM EDT


By Heather Caygle (hcaygle@politico.com or @heatherscope)

CONYERS DIGS IN AFTER HARASSMENT ALLEGATIONS - The House Ethics Committee is investigating allegations that Rep. John Conyers sexually harassed female staffers after Conyers confirmed settling a case with one former aide Tuesday while another dropped her lawsuit after a judge ruled it wouldn't be confidential. Conyers (D-MIch.) denied the allegations in a statement and said he will cooperate with the probe but did not offer to resign or relinquish his top spot on the House Judiciary Committee. House Democratic leaders issued a series of very similar statements calling the allegations "disturbing" but did not go further than calling for an ethics investigation into Conyers' alleged behavior.
More from Bres and your Huddle host: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208fc5aade34d874815d4c4ea7ecdae97a2a79aa8dc291d394ec6e0d2b9cc778a745f3f541845bf3a260

Second accuser: Conyers' former scheduler claims he made repeated unwanted sexual advances toward her including "'rubbing on her shoulders, kissing her forehead, covering and attempting to hold her hand' as well as on some occasions urging her to come to his home," BuzzFeed reports. The woman, Maria Reddick, sought nearly $110,000 in back pay and damages, calling Conyers "a repeated and habitual offender," Bres reports. Reddick dropped her lawsuit earlier this year after a judge refused to seal the complaint.

The Detroit Free Press editorial board: "John Conyers must resign." "It is the kind of behavior that can never be tolerated in a public official, much less an elected representative of the people. And it means that whatever Conyers' legacy will eventually be, his tenure as a member of Congress must end - now," the board wrote. Read more: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208fe6375e4fdeedf6ad779ede515a2c109dbe0d9416b1f1cdcf146a687dc2bba4770245983549e9b50c

Wondering how Congress' confusing sexual harassment reporting policies work? Elana has you covered, answering some of the top questions about how Capitol Hill handles and settles complaints. Read her explainer: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208f6f61276cc4a67590d7d5201469396f97c1f67110174f8fd930bbd10cc9005e4e354e3ea3c5704dba

Related: Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) told CNN that Conyers is not one of the two current members of Congress she said last week have engaged in sexual harassment. More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208f236ba7f040e1241e631cc9a88213f6fa3197fb94fb5833142536f2046ddeb05b60ae540c933bf3c5

TRUMP EMBRACES MOORE AMID SCANDAL - President Donald Trump refused to criticize Roy Moore on Tuesday for allegations he sexually assaulted or pursued teenage girls, giving the struggling Alabama Senate candidate what could be a necessary lifeline ahead of the Dec. 12 race. "I do have to say, 40 years is a long time," Trump said, referring to the allegations, which date back to the 1970s. "Roy Moore denies it. That's all I can say. He denies it." Trump went on to criticize Democratic candidate Doug Jones as "soft on crime," although Jones prosecuted two Ku Klux Klansmen involved in the deadly 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

Trump's near-endorsement of Moore on Tuesday followed days of behind the scenes chatter with aides in which the president expressed doubt about Moore's accusers, Alex Isenstadt reports. "The White House advisers said the president drew parallels between Moore's predicament and the one he faced just over a year ago when, during the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Trump confronted a long line of women who accused him of harassment. He adamantly denied the claims." More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208fbe5afeb86ddb02046dc4d28a03f31e2719c8945f91db314729df89f41be82dd8f04298a9ca01bdeb

TV Time: Jones, meanwhile, has gone up with a 30-second ad on the accusations facing Moore that quotes Ivanka Trump, Jeff Sessions and Sen. Richard Shelby. "On Roy Moore's disturbing actions, Ivanka Trump says, 'There's a special place in hell for people who prey on children, and I have no reason to doubt the victims' accounts,'" the narrator in the 30-second ad says. Daniel Strauss with more: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208f86da7ceb5e45b23e6c0a3ac6a80e150336e47e78e41192d8491a95398d0e287d0aff735f16fe3ee4

GUYS, THANKSGIVING IS SO CLOSE. And then it's time for the Iron Bowl! Thanks for reading Huddle on this Wednesday, Nov. 22, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill. And a big Roll Tide ahead of Saturday's game vs. Auburn.

Programming note: Huddle will be taking Thursday and Friday off to eat all of the things but we'll be back in your inboxes Monday, Nov. 27.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR! POLITICO is partnering with women-led businesses in the DC-metro area to offer a full week of exclusive perks in conjunction with the 5th annual Women Rule Summit! Join the fun at participating businesses during Women Rule Week (November 27 - December 1) for exclusive deals and tweet 5x using #WomenRule for a chance to win two free tickets to the Summit on December 5th! Listen to the latest Women Rule podcast featuring Glamour Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive HERE.

TUESDAY'S MOST CLICKED: Ben Schreckinger's deep-dive into Sen. Rand Paul's mysterious fight with his next-door neighbor - leaving the Kentucky Republican with six broken ribs - was the winner to end this short workweek.


ONE HURDLE DOWN, MANY TO GO - Sen. Lisa Murkowski supports language in the GOP tax bill to repeal Obamacare's individual mandate, a key step in Republican leaders' efforts to ensure they have her vote when the tax rewrite comes to the floor next week. "I have always supported the freedom to choose," Murkowski wrote in an op-ed for the Daily News-Miner, an Alaska newspaper. But "a spokesperson for Murkowski told POLITICO that the comments should not be construed as support for the tax bill, which does not yet appear to have sufficient support to pass the chamber," Dan Diamond reports. More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208f0247ffbc48e978eac0524a0fab56ac154a2634c8a59da3952c3ce1b04922312c2b760c9d02869d88

FBI INVESTIGATING BOB BRADY - The FBI is investigating Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.) for allegedly hiding payments to a 2012 primary opponent to persuade him to drop out of the race, according to a search warrant unsealed in federal court. Brady's top aides had already been indicted in the investigation but the search warrant, in which the FBI asked for access to Brady's email account, is the clearest indication that he's also a target of the federal probe. The search warrant "also lays out the potential charges that Brady might face should he be indicted - a list that includes wire fraud, lying to the FBI and making an illegal campaign contribution," Jeremy Roebuck reports for the Philadelphia
Inquirer. More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208fb667db5025e70a129863ae338902864fca689edb6fa112d3b71401a3fc82b41465ce423000a3855f

HAPPY THANKSGIVING HUDDLE READERS - Just in time for the big day, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) sent around his family's green bean casserole recipe. "It's a big hit at our house, one I'm grateful for every year," he wrote in an email blast. The robust recipe includes corn, Ritz crackers and almonds, among other things. Check it out: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208f4b553f81134a5d3e1c0d380591a79751fb18a8abc03d3ee8bc39fd804de3142a1c21b9e6ca368cf5 And for a little more fun, here's Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Tim Scott (R-N.C.) "hanging out" with pardoned turkey after the president's annual pardoning ceremony Tuesday. "So you just call turkey bacon, bacon?" Scott says to the friendly fowl. The (cleverly photoshopped) bird also hangs out in the
Capitol rotunda and rides the metro. The video: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208fd2290191970306cc50c2e65b1a97a1f264ddedee4ebcb0f00e9d4eb3238e49fd0b0f94f489bd32e0

ROHRABACHER HAS A RUSSIAN CODE NAME - California GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, an avowed Russia sympathizer, is so important to the Kremlin that it gave him a code name, the New York Times reports. Now the FBI, Senate Intelligence Committee and special counsel Robert Mueller are interested in interviewing him about separate meetings he had with WikiLeak's Julian Assange and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. "And back home in Southern California, where Democrats and Republicans alike smell blood, the 15-term congressman is facing his toughest re-election contest in decades, with well-funded candidates from both parties lining up to unseat him," Nicholas Fandos writes. Rohrabacher
shrugs it all off: "'I feel like I'm in good shape politically,' he said breezily during an interview last week." As for the investigators? "He said he would talk to them when scheduling allows." More: http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=3ec464b0dc76208ffa16d56a0122d813e8d68008a895bae33ac5023104169b1059dd1ae62fe43932a97c4f4608daa0f0

TODAY IN CONGRESS - The House and Senate are both out until after Thanksgiving.

AROUND THE HILL - Put that out-of-office note on early y'all, it's turkey time.

TUESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - My wonderful colleague Seung Min Kim was first to guess that then-Sen. Larry Craig served on the Senate Ethics Committee in 1995 when Sen. Bob Packwood was expelled for sexual harassment. Craig was later admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee after he was embroiled in an undercover sex sting.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - SMK with today's question: What president signed a resolution that officially established Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November? The first person to answer correctly gets a mention in the next edition of Huddle. Send your best guess my way: hcaygle@politico.com.

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