Sources familiar with the matter say Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY), an establishment Republican congressman from New York, told colleagues he will vote for Democrat President Joe Biden over Republican frontrunner and former President Donald Trump next year, Breitbart News has learned exclusively. LaLota’s office, meanwhile, fervently denied the allegations.
Multiple sources familiar with the matter, including a senior GOP congressional aide who personally overheard LaLota say this to colleagues, confirmed to Breitbart News that LaLota told other GOP members at the Capitol Hill Club that he will vote for Biden over Trump assuming Trump wins the GOP nomination. The Capitol Hill Club is an exclusive gathering spot for GOP members right next door to the Republican National Committee, less than a block from the U.S. Capitol and where lots of members hang out after hours.
LaLota spokesman Will Kiley denied the allegations to Breitbart News.
“There’s zero truth to that story,” Kiley said in an emailed statement Friday. “The Congressman did not say that, nor has he ever. The Congressman was Trump Delegate in 2016, voted for him in 2016 and 2020 and will do so again in 2024 if he’s the nominee.”
LaLota is one of the 25 intransigent Republicans who caused the United States deep and significant pain when they on multiple occasions voted against the GOP conference’s then-nominee for Speaker of the House Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on the floor in October. LaLota’s intransigence caused instability and furthered chaos in the aftermath of the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and weeks into the chaos, which he personally helped propel, the House found a way out and was electing Jordan as Speaker. Instead, LaLota schemed with the other 24 intransigents to use his position in the Congress to cause harm to the American public with his actions by furthering the instability in Congress that eventually resulted in the election of now Speaker Mike Johnson.
The full list of the 25 intransigents is as follows:
- Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)
- Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
- Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR)
- Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY)
- Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL)
- Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-TX)
- Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA)
- Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY)
- Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL)
- Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX)
- Rep. John James (R-MI)
- Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA)
- Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA)
- Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX)
- Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL)
- Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID)
- Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN)
- Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO)
- Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA)
- Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY)
- Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR)
- Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY)
- Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
- Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. (R-NJ)
- Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY)
Johnson spokespersons Raj Shah and Taylor Haulsee have not replied to a request for comment on whether or not Speaker Johnson finds it acceptable that LaLota allegedly told members he would back Biden over Trump in 2024.
Part of LaLota’s publicly stated reasoning for blocking Jordan was due to his view — common among blue-state Republicans such as those from New York — that there needs to be a restoration of the State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions that were shrunk by the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. LaLota made several demands of Jordan — which Jordan eventually actually agreed to, giving them a vote on the matter — then never followed through on his end in voting for Jordan.
It does not appear that LaLota was able to secure any such commitment period from Johnson like those he secured from Jordan, which would suggest LaLota has been using SALT as a political weapon to further the agenda of the establishment rather than actually seeing real change on this front legislatively.
In addition to these deep, systemic, and serious problems with LaLota as a person, it appears as though LaLota has had major issues on the road to his election to Congress — some of which may still come back to bite him later. Many of those problems stem from LaLota’s time as a Suffolk County elections commissioner — including him getting kicked off the ballot as a GOP candidate for state Senate, costing Republicans a seat in Albany in the 2020 election that hampered national Republicans as they tried to lay the groundwork for the congressional districts set by the legislature in redistricting. LaLota was a candidate in 2020 for the state Senate in New York, but he was also a Suffolk County elections commissioner simultaneously. A Democrat lawsuit, which challenged him serving as the elections commissioner while also being a candidate there, was easily successful and paved the way for the unopposed general election victory of Democrat Sen. John Brooks. Brooks won without facing a general-election GOP opponent, and Democrats thereby ended up controlling the redistricting process in New York — which hurt Republicans in a big way. Eventually, in 2022, the Democrat Brooks would be defeated by Republican Steven Rhoads by more than 20 points — Brooks got less than 40 percent and Rhoads got more than 60 percent in that election — which signaled that, had LaLota been more responsible, Republicans probably would have done far better in November 2020 in New York State, which would not have made redistricting so difficult.
What’s more, LaLota faced serious allegations from an auditor during his time as a Suffolk County elections commissioner. Apparently, during the timeframe in which he was an elections commissioner, he was also attending law school during the day. During that timeframe, LaLota would regularly clock in as a government employee when he was supposedly also concurrently completing law school studies — allegedly stealing time from the taxpayers, which is a serious offense if found to be true.
A county comptroller audit in 2019 found that, with regard to LaLota and his Democrat counterpart, auditors were “unable to ensure the accuracy of the hours worked.” LaLota apparently offered to install a $500 biometric time clock to ensure the presence of himself and top employees at the office to show they were working the hours they claimed to be, but again the formal audit found serious concerns with LaLota’s practice of doubling as a law student and government employee.
“The audit, issued May 2, came after legislative Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory (D-Copiague) asked Kennedy in 2017 to review time sheets of GOP Commissioner Nicholas LaLota, who was taking day classes as a part-time student at Hofstra Law School while working a full-time county job,” Newsday’s Rick Brand wrote in a May 2019 report about the audit. “The audit found LaLota ‘does not utilize a daily attendance sheet and does not sign in when he arrives to work.’ LaLota said he ‘records actual hours worked on his Time and Accrual records,’ and also ‘records time spent on emails and phone calls while away from the office,’ the audit said.”
Regardless of how all of these things shake out, though, the fact that Speaker Johnson continues to refuse to do anything about the 25 intransigents who hurt the country with their repeated anti-Jordan votes is astounding and as Breitbart News has previously reported amounts to an amnesty and a clemency for their actions. More on the 25 intransigents is forthcoming.
LaLota in particular, again given his intransigence, is unlikely to have unified GOP support in any reelection bid. For now, he appears to be attempting another bid at Congress and running for reelection, but he will most likely face Democrat Nancy Goroff — who ran against former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), who left the seat when he ran for governor in 2022 — next year. Given the fact that LaLota infuriated conservatives by the joining the intransigents, he will not be getting much conservative grassroots backing in the future. What’s more, LaLota’s efforts to lead the charge among New Yorkers to oust now former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) — who was expelled from the House on Friday — are likely to further divide local GOP officials. It is even possible that top conservatives would help a Democrat such as Goroff against him given his grave and serious actions against the country. What Speaker Johnson does, if anything, about LaLota and the rest of the intransigents will define his speakership, and thus far Johnson has refused action — which has cost him serious support among House Republicans, as Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) told Politico this week that Johnson would lose between 60 and 80 House Republicans if a motion to vacate came up against him, a remarkable turnaround against the newly elected Speaker who was voted in unanimously just weeks ago.
