OnPolitics: Lindsey Graham has COVID-19

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., watches during the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., watches during the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020.

It's a new month (and a new week), OnPolitics readers!

Distressing news: FBI agents have used provocative photographs of young female bureau staffers to lure suspected predators in child sex trafficking investigations, an internal Justice Department review found.

More disturbing news: U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham announced Monday that he has tested positive for COVID-19 after being vaccinated for the virus. (Reminder: Vaccinated people who do become infected are far less likely to become seriously ill than unvaccinated people who become infected.)

The fallout from the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot continues. A D.C. police officer who responded to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building has died by suicide, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, the third officer to do so.

It's Mabinty, with the news out of Washington.

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AOC calls out Democrats on eviction moratorium

President Joe Biden on Monday challenged all landlords to hold off on evictions for the next 30 days and said he's asked his administration to consider the possibility of unilaterally extending a moratorium even in the face of legal concerns.

The president also called on all states and cities to extend or put in place policies to freeze evictions for at least the two months.

The moves after U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, blamed Democratic leadership for allowing the nation's eviction moratorium to expire and said the White House wasn't being "forthright" about its desire for Congress to act until it was too late.

"We asked the Biden administration for their stance, and they were not being really forthright about that advocacy and that request until the day before the House adjourned," she said in an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "The House was put into a needlessly difficult situation."

The Democratic-controlled House adjourned Friday without extending the moratorium that was put in place to help renters amid the coronavirus pandemic. It expired at midnight Saturday, leaving progressive Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez outraged and demanding that the House return from its August recess.

Real quick: Stories you might have missed

Alexander Vindman tells his story

Alexander Vindman, the White House staffer who sparked former President Donald Trump's first impeachment, details his side of the story – and his own "American story," as a 3-year-old émigré from the Soviet Union who made it to an office in the White House – in a book to be published Tuesday by Harper Books.

"Here, Right Matters" depicts a narcissistic, mercurial president who seemed to have little interest in the substance of national security policy, surrounded by aides whose priorities were currying favor and protecting his back.

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with USA TODAY Thursday at his home in suburban Washington, Alexander Vindman discussed:

  • How his father, then a solid Trump supporter, urged him not to testify against the president.

  • How even after congressional investigations, the transcript released of Trump's controversial phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy doesn't include two important comments that are in Vindman's handwritten notes.

  • How he struggled after being fired from the National Security Council by the Trump White House and, in his view, was largely abandoned by the military in which he had served for two decades.

How to handle a firestorm: Alexander Vindman offered advice to Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn

Hope August brings you tons of joy! — Mabinty

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sen. Lindsey Graham says he has COVID-19 afer being vaccinated