(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)WASHINGTON The Office of Congressional Ethics has recommended no further action against a Florida congressman who is paying a donor and former legal client $5,000 a month to rent space for his district office. The independent office has ended a preliminary investigation after finding insufficient evidence to continue the case against Rep. Matt Gaetz. The two-term lawmaker has said he did nothing wrong and that the lease is at or below market rate.The Office of Congressional Ethics opened the inquiry after news reports about the leasing arrangement surfaced in April. The office is a nonpartisan entity that reviews allegations of misconduct against House members, officers and staff, and makes recommendation to the House Ethics Committee. Merrill owns Empire Partners, L.L.C, the company that has billed him for the rent since Gaetz took office in 2017.

Berman's office is looking into the business dealings of Rudy Giuliani, Trumps personal lawyer and a former New York mayor. Berman, a Republican lawyer and donor to Trump, was tapped by the administration in 2018 as the U.S. attorney for SDNY. He reportedly met with Trump before being assigned as the top federal prosecutor job in Manhattan. Trump told reporters it was all up to the attorney general. At the time, Trump added: I wasnt involved.It's not the first ouster of a U.S. attorney from the SDNY. Preet Bahara, a former federal prosecutor appointed by President Barack Obama, announced that he was fired in March 2017, shortly after Trump took office.

WASHINGTON The ousted former U.S. attorney for Manhattan will sit down with the House Judiciary Committee next week for a closed-door interview as the panel investigates politicization in the Justice Department. Berman left his job last month after an extraordinary standoff in which he refused to resign until Trump himself fired him. Attorney General William Barr had attempted to force him to resign under pressure, but he refused to go. The Judiciary Committee is investigating the politicization and is scheduled to hear from Barr himself at the end of the month. The White House nominated Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton, a well-connected Wall Street lawyer with virtually no experience as a federal prosecutor, to replace Berman.

The firm, Blackfords LLP, said U.S. authorities requested the help of the son of Queen Elizabeth II for the first time in January after having investigated Epstein for 16 years. Berman has instead said that Andrew has provided zero cooperation to the American investigators who want to interview him as part of their sex trafficking probe. Andrew has flatly denied he had sex with a teenager who says she was trafficked by Epstein. The woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, has said Epstein forced her to have sex with Andrew in 2001, when she was 17. Epstein killed himself in a U.S. jail last summer as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.

That has raised fears in law-enforcement circles that the head of the office, Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, could be in the crosshairs of the President. In recent months, the name of a top Justice Department official -- Ed O'Callaghan, a former New York federal prosecutor -- has been discussed in Washington as a possible nominee to replace Berman, according to Justice Department officials. A spokeswoman for the New York office declined to comment. That has left the door open to discussions in Washington about a possible nominee, perhaps O'Callaghan, who oversaw Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation and is a popular figure among alumni of the New York office. Barr was briefed on the investigation into the Giuliani associates in February, and supported the prosecution, according to a US Justice Department official.