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      Judge revokes decision to retire, foiling Trump’s replacement plans

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      A US appeals court judge has taken the rare step of revoking his decision to retire from active service on the bench, depriving Donald Trump of the ability to fill a judicial vacancy.US circuit judge James Wynn, an appointee of Barack Obama on the fourth US circuit court of appeals based in Richmond, Virginia, disclosed his decision in a letter to Joe Biden on Friday.It marked the first time since Trump won the 5 November presidential election that a Democrat-appointed appellate judge has rescinded plans to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement for judges that creates vacancies presidents can fill.Two trial court judges have similarly done so, prompting complaints by conservatives including Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, who railed about an “unprecedented” spate of judges un-retiring post-election.Thom Tillis, the Republican senator who had fought to prevent Biden’s pick to fill Wynn’s seat from winning Senate confirmation, said on X that Wynn had engaged in a “blatant attempt to turn the judicial retirement system into a partisan game”.Wynn sent his letter a day after Biden’s nominee to succeed him, the North Carolina solicitor general Ryan Park, formally withdrew from consideration after his path to win Senate confirmation vanished.Senate Democrats and Republicans post-election cut a deal that cleared the way for votes on about a dozen of Biden’s remaining trial court nominees in exchange for not pushing forward with four appellate court nominees, including Park.A spokesperson for Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has said all four lacked sufficient votes to be confirmed.That left four seats without confirmed nominees that Trump could try to fill upon taking office on 20 January. But two vacancies were contingent upon two Democrat-appointed judges following through on their plans to leave active service.Those judges included Wynn, 70, who in January announced plans to take senior status contingent upon a successor being confirmed. On Friday, he told Biden he had changed his mind.“I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused,” Wynn wrote.The Article III Project, a group run by Trump ally Mike Davis, late Friday announced it had meanwhile filed judicial misconduct complaints against the two trial court judges who likewise rescinded retirement plans post-election.Those judges are the US district judge Max Cogburn in North Carolina and the US district judge Algenon Marbley in Ohio. Neither responded to requests for comment. More

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      Biden says he was ‘stupid’ not to sign Covid stimulus checks as Trump did

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      Joe Biden has voiced regret for not following Donald Trump’s example by putting his signature on Covid-19-era economic stimulus cheques sent to Americans during a speech about his record on the economy as he prepares to leave office.Five weeks after his vice-president, Kamala Harris, lost the presidential election to Trump, the US president suggested on Tuesday that his failure to put his name on the cheques may have contributed to voters blaming his administration for high prices even when the economy was improving.“Within the first two months of office I signed the American Rescue Plan,” Biden said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based thinktank. “And also learned something from Donald Trump – he signed checks for people, $7,400 for people because we passed the plan. I didn’t – stupid.”Trump was widely criticised after becoming the first president to have his name printed on cheques disbursed by the Internal Revenue Service – America’s federal tax authority – in 2020. The move followed legislation from Congress intended to ease the impact of the economic slowdown that resulted from the first wave of the Covid pandemic.“I’m sure people will be very happy to get a big, fat, beautiful check and my name is on it,” he said at the time.Anecdotal evidence suggested that he may have been given credit by voters that was denied to Biden for his response to the pandemic.Campaigning for Harris, Barack Obama told audiences that some voters had told him that “Donald Trump sent me a check during the pandemic” to explain their support for him.Biden interrupted his speech after about 10 minutes to tell the audience that his teleprompter had broken down, forcing him to speak unscripted. Such a move was notable as during his presidency, critics frequently remarked on Biden’s public appearances for an over-reliance on teleprompter-scripted deliveries, suspected by many as intended to guard against his tendency for verbal gaffes.His attempt at justifying his self-styled “Bidenomics” approach amounted to a rebuff to detractors – both Democrat and Republican – who blamed his administration for failing to counteract inflation and persistently high prices, even while job creation and growth rebounded strongly after the Covid-19 pandemic forced a widespread economic shut down.“We got back to full employment, got inflation back down, managed a soft landing that many people thought was not likely to happen,” Biden said. “Next month, my administration will end, and a new administration will begin. The new administration’s going to inherit a very strong economy, at least at the moment.”During the campaign, opinion polls repeatedly showed concerns over the economy topping voters’ priorities, with many voicing frustration over high fuel and grocery costs. The administration blamed fallout from the pandemic – which prompted the enactment of a $1.9tn stimulus plan early in Biden’s term aimed at reviving the economy – and on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.But Biden suggested Trump might squander his economic legacy by reverting to “trickle-down” economics amid indications that the president-elect intends to extend his 2017 tax cuts, which drastically slashed rates paid by corporations and the rich, while imposing tariffs on foreign imports.“By all accounts the incoming administration is determined to return the country to another round of trickle-down economics … once again causing massive deficits or significant cuts in basic programs,” Biden said.“I believe this approach is a major mistake. I believe we’ve proven that approach is a mistake over the past four years.” More

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      Senior Biden aide commits to giving Ukraine avalanche of military assistance

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      The White House has gamed out a last-minute strategy to bolster Ukraine’s war position that involves an avalanche of military assistance and sweeping new sanctions against Russia, according to a background briefing from a National Security Council spokesperson.National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with the head of the office of the Ukrainian president Andriy Yermak for more than an hour on Thursday, committing to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January, according to the briefing shared with the Guardian.The US is also pledging to support Ukraine’s manpower challenge, offering to train new troops at sites outside Ukrainian territory. This comes alongside a nearly finalized $20bn in loans, which will be backed by profits from immobilized Russian sovereign assets.The United States is tying that to a number of new sanctions to come in the coming weeks, all with the intent of complicating Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort and boosting Ukraine’s bargaining power at the negotiation table that could lay the groundwork for a future settlement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House’s latest move comes a little more than a month in advance of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the US may unload an all-new strategy for a ceasefire altogether.According to a Reuters report, the president-elect’s team is quietly developing a peace proposal for Ukraine that would effectively sideline Nato membership and potentially cede significant territory to Russia, signaling a dramatic shift from current US policy. Trump, for his part, has often stated that he would end the Ukraine and Russia war within 24 hours.Still, Ukrainian officials, including Yermak and Ambassador Oksana Markarova, have been meeting with key figures in Trump’s transition team this week, including JD Vance, Florida representative and potential National security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump’s pick for Russia and Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, in a bid to secure continued support.These meetings carry heightened urgency, particularly after House speaker Mike Johnson blocked a vote on $24bn in additional aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon has nonetheless committed to sending $725m in military assistance this week, the largest shipment since April. More

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      With his pardon of son Hunter, Joe Biden delivers a heartfelt hypocrisy

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      A loving act of mercy by a father who has already known much sorrow? Or a hypocritical political manoeuvre reminiscent of his great foe? Maybe both can be true.Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he had pardoned his son Hunter, who is facing sentencing in two criminal cases, is likely to have been the product of a Shakespearean struggle between head and heart.On the one hand, Biden is one of the last great institutionalists in Washington. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making,” he said in an unusually direct and personal statement on Sunday. To undermine the separation of powers goes against every fibre of his political being.On the other hand, Biden is nothing without family. His speeches are peppered with references to his parents. As a senator, he once took a train from Washington to Wilmington, Delaware, so he could blow out the candles on a birthday cake for his eight-year-old daughter, Ashley, at the station, then cross the platform and take the next train back to work.Biden was profoundly shaped by the death of his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, and 13-month-old daughter Naomi in a car accident and, much later, the death of his son Beau from brain cancer. In that context, Hunter’s status as the first child of a sitting president to face criminal charges will have pained his father in what Ernest Hemingway called “the broken places”.Hunter was convicted this summer of lying about his drug use when he bought a gun. Joe Biden categorically ruled out a pardon or commutation for his son, telling reporters: “I abide by the jury decision. I will do that and I will not pardon him.” Hunter also pleaded guilty in a separate tax evasion trial and was due to be sentenced in both cases later this month.Biden reportedly spent months agonising over what to do. The scales were almost certainly tilted by Donald Trump’s victory in last month’s presidential election. The prospect of leaving Hunter to the tender mercies of Trump’s sure-to-be politicised, retribution-driven justice department was too much to bear. Biden typically takes advice from close family and is likely to have reached the decision after talking it over during what was an intimate Thanksgiving weekend.“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son – and that is wrong,” the president said in a statement, calling it “a miscarriage of justice”.He added: “There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”Joe Biden’s defenders will certainly contend that, if Hunter had been an ordinary citizen, the gun case would not have come this far, and his father was simply righting that wrong. Republicans spent years hyping investigations into Hunter that failed to produce a shred of evidence linking his father to corruption.Eric Holder, a former attorney general, wrote on social media that no US attorney “would have charged this case given the underlying facts. After a five-year investigation the facts as discovered only made that clear. Had his name been Joe Smith the resolution would have been – fundamentally and more fairly – a declination. Pardon warranted.”It was also noted that this is hardly the first time pardons have smacked of nepotism. Bill Clinton as president pardoned his half-brother for old cocaine charges, and Trump pardoned the father of Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, for tax evasion and retaliating against a cooperating witness, though in both cases those men had already served their prison terms. Trump also used the dog days of his first presidency to pardon the rogues’ gallery of Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.And yet for many Americans there will be something jarring about the double standard of a president pardoning a member of his own family ahead of numerous other worthy cases. Republicans in the House of Representatives naturally pounced with more hyperbole about the “Biden crime family”.But there were also more thoughtful objections. Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, wrote on social media: “While as a father I certainly understand President Joe Biden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country. This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation.”Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman turned Trump critic, said on the MSNBC network: “Joe Biden repeatedly said he wouldn’t do this so he repeatedly lied. This just furthers cynicism that people have about politics and that cynicism strengthens Trump because Trump can say, ‘I’m not a unique threat. Everybody does this. If I do something for my kid, my son-in-law, whatever, look, Joe Biden does the same thing.’ I get it but this was a selfish move by Biden, which politically only strengthens Trump. It’s just deflating.”The Trump context is impossible to ignore in this moral maze. Next month he will become the first convicted criminal sworn in as president, though three cases against him have all but perished. He is already moving to appoint loyalists to the FBI and justice department.Michelle Obama once advised, when they go low, we go high. On Sunday Joe Biden, 82 and heading for the exit with little to lose, decided to go low. Perhaps it was what any parent would have done. More

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      Biden proposes Medicare and Medicaid cover weight-loss drugs for 7.4m people

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      The Biden administration is proposing to make “miracle” weight loss drugs free for low-income people and retirees, in a move aimed at tackling America’s chronic obesity problem but which throws down a gauntlet to the incoming president, Donald Trump.The proposal, unveiled on Tuesday, would see expensive drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound covered by Medicaid and Medicare, the federal government programs for the poor and the elderly.It would come at a hefty cost to the public purse. The drugs would be covered for anyone qualifying as obese, a definition that currently fits 40% of the US population. Currently, coverage is only given when patients have other conditions that is caused by obesity, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.Xavier Becerra, the US health and human services secretary, called the move a “game changer”.“It helps us recognize that obesity is with us,” he told the Washington Post. “It’s severe. It’s damaging our country’s health. It’s damaging our economy.”But the proposed reform amounted to a challenge to Trump’s incoming administration, which would have to decide whether to implement the change a few days after taking office in January. Trump has sworn to slash the federal budget.It also paved the way for a likely conflict between two of Trump’s health sector nominees: Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has been proposed as the health and human services secretary, and Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician who has been nominated to run Medicare and Medicaid.Kennedy has vowed to promote healthy eating and improve fitness in the battle against obesity, and has fiercely criticised weight loss drugs, blaming them for obscuring the causes of ill health.He recently claimed to Fox News that covering a drug like Ozempic for every overweight American would cost $3tn a year.“If we spend about one-fifth of that, giving good food, three meals a day, to every man, woman and child in our country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight for a tiny fraction of the cost,” he said.“There’s a huge push to sell this to the American public. They’re counting on selling to Americans because we’re so stupid and so addicted to drugs.”Oz has taken a different tack, praising Ozempic on social media last year. “[F]or those who want to lose a few pounds, Ozempic and other semaglutide medications can be a big help,” he wrote. “We need to make it as easy as possible for people to meet their health goals, period.”Beccera estimated that 3.4 million people on Medicare and 4 million on Medicaid would become eligible for the drugs under the new rule.But other research suggests that far more people may qualify. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency Oz has been nominated to head, has estimated that 28 million recipients suffer from obesity.A recent Congressional Budget Office analysis estimated that federal spending would rise by $35bn between 2026 and 2034 by allowing Medicare alone to cover weight-loss medications.People can lose between 15% and 25% of their body weight thanks to the drugs, which imitate the hormones that regulate appetites. A month’s supply can cost around $1,000. More

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      Biden will attend Trump’s inauguration in January, says White House

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      President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, a White House spokesperson said on Monday.“The president promised that he would attend the inauguration of whomever won the election,” said Andrew Bates, senior deputy press secretary at the White House, Reuters reported.“He and the First Lady are going to honor that promise and attend the inauguration.”The president-elect did not attend Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, which came days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.Earlier this month, the US president welcomed Trump back to the White House – another tradition Trump eschewed after losing the 2020 election- with Biden promising a transfer of power that is “as smooth as it can get”.“We’re looking forward to having, like we said, a smooth transition. We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, what you need, and we’re going to get a chance to talk about some of that today,” Biden said earlier this month. “Welcome back.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s decision to skip Biden’s inauguration was not without precedent, but he was the first president to skip his successor’s inauguration in more than 150 years and his then outgoing administration was represented by then outgoing vice-president Mike Pence. More

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      Lame duck Biden pardons Thanksgiving turkeys as the world burns

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      This is the way Biden world ends. Not with a bang but a gobble.Joe Biden, 82, once the defender of democracy and saviour of America’s soul, is heading for the door, about to trade the nuclear codes for golf clubs and beach loungers. Power is as fickle as fame.But on a crisp, sunny Monday he pulled off one last win over old rival Donald Trump by drawing surely the biggest crowd ever seen at the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardoning. And he knows how obsessed Trump is with crowd sizes.“They tell me there’s 2,500 people here today,” said Biden, standing at the presidential lectern on the south lawn and quipping, “looking for a pardon.”He laughed and so did the crowd. When a downbeat Trump held this event at the end of his own presidency in 2020, there were shouted questions such as “Mr President, will you be issuing a pardon for yourself?” Biden has ruled out a last-minute pardon for his son, Hunter, convicted on federal gun charges.But a mischief-maker with a dark sense of humour might have named this year’s turkeys Nancy and Barack, after the two Democrats who hastened the president’s exit from the election race after his disastrous TV debate against Trump.Instead the two white-plumed birds, raised in Minnesota, were called Peach and Blossom, named after the official state flower of Biden’s home state, Delaware.Wearing his trademark aviator sunglasses, Biden, marking his final holiday season at the White House, could not resist remarking: “And by the way, Delaware has a long history of growing peaches. In fact, the peach pie in our state is one of my favorite. It’s a state dessert!”He added: “Peach blossom flower also symbolises resilience, which is, quite frankly, fitting for today.”It was ostensibly a comment about the turkeys’ resourcefulness in avoiding the Thanksgiving dinner table. Some might also have detected a poignant acknowledgement that, even Biden talked turkey, a man his allies branded a fascist is down at Mar-a-Lago preparing to hammer America’s democratic institutions all over again.George HW Bush made it an annual tradition to formally pardon a Thanksgiving turkey, though tales of the birds being spared from dinner tables go back to Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. Biden recalled that, in the past four years, he has continued the tradition by pardoning Peanut Butter and Jelly, Chocolate and Chip and Liberty and Bell. “And today, Peach and Blossom will join the free birds of the United States of America.”As he continued, Peach could be heard gobbling. “Yeah, I hear you,” Biden said, as the crowd laughed. “Peach wants to speak a little bit here.”Peach weighs 41lbs, loves to eat tater-tot-topped hotdish, enjoys cross-country skiing, dreams of seeing the Northern Lights and lives by the motto, “Keep calm and gobble on”, the president quipped. Blossom weighs 40lbs, loves to eat cheese curds and watch boxing, dreams of visiting each of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes and lives by the motto: “No fowl play, just Minnesota nice”.The turkeys had travelled 1,100 miles over 16 and a half hours, listening to their favourite music, including the song Living on a Prayer. Biden added: “Well, fellas, your prayer is going to be answered today. Based on your temperament and commitment to being productive members of society, I hereby pardon Peach and Blossom.”And so the lame duck pardoned the turkeys.As is customary, Biden then promised to close on a more serious note. He acknowledged that this would be his last time speaking here as president during this season. “So, let me say to you: It’s been the honour of my life. I’m forever grateful.”There were characteristic reflections on those who have lost loved ones, the importance of family and how America is the greatest country on earth. “And that’s not hyperbole,” he added, as if anticipating dissenters. “We are.“No matter what, in America, we never give up. We keep going. We keep the faith. We just have to remember who we are. We’re the United States of America. There is nothing, nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.”It is a line that Biden uses often at the end of his speeches. But on Monday it sounded like a plea from a man whose legacy is imperilled. With Trump’s promise of mass deportations, gutting of the federal bureaucracy and “America first” isolationism, a presidency that once seemed so consequential is at risk of fading fast.Despite the big crowd, Biden’s turkey farewell felt more muted than that of Barack Obama who, despite the knowledge that Trump was looming, managed to remain cheerful fire off a “a corny-copia of dad jokes about turkeys”. Obama that day seemed demob happy; Biden like a man in denial.Peach and Blossom will now head to an agricultural centre in Minnesota to help promote the state and educate future farmers. Biden, riding off into a sunset of his own, may find retirement brings far less peace. More

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      Biden must Trump-proof US democracy, activists say: ‘There is a sense of urgency’

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      The skies above the White House were cold and grey. Joe Biden greeted the championship winning Boston Celtics basketball team, quipping about his Irish ancestry and tossing a basketball into the crowd. But the US president could not resist drawing a wider lesson.“When we get knocked down, we get back up,” he said. “As my dad would say, ‘Just get up, Joe. Get up.’ Character to keep going and keep the faith, that’s the Celtic way of life. That’s sports. And that’s America.”Such events continue to be among the ceremonial duties of a “lame duck” president with waning influence. Biden has cut a diminished figure in recent months, first surrendering his chance to seek re-election, then finding himself sidelined by the doomed presidential campaign of his vice-president, Kamala Harris.But with his legacy imperiled by Donald Trump, the president is facing calls to mitigate the oncoming storm. Advocacy groups say Biden, who turned 82 this week, can still take actions during his final two months in office to accelerate spending on climate and healthcare, secure civil liberties, and Trump-proof at least some fundamentals of US democracy.Trump’s signature campaign promise was a draconian crackdown on illegal immigration. He has nominated officials including Tom Homan and Stephen Miller, architects of family separations at the southern border during his first term, and vowed to use the US military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.The plans include mandatory detention, potentially trapping immigrants in inhumane conditions for years as they fight deportation. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is leading an opposition effort, urging Biden to halt the current expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention facilities, especially those with records of human rights abuses.Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU national prison project, said Ice detention facilities “characterised by abusive conditions, pervasive neglect and utter disregard for the dignity of people in their custody” are key to Trump’s logistical plan.Dozens of people have died in Ice detention facilities – mostly owned or operated by private prison corporations – over the past four years, according to the ACLU, and 95% were likely preventable if appropriate medical care had been provided. Yet the Biden administration has backed new Ice detention facilities in states where they did not existed before, such as Kansas, Wyoming and Missouri.“We are calling on the Biden administration to take action now, in the final days of the administration, to halt any efforts to expand immigration detention and to shut down specifically abusive facilities once and for all,” Cho told reporters on a Zoom call this week. “We don’t need to put down runway for the Trump administration to put in place these mass detention and deportation machines.”She warned: “We know that the anti-immigrant policies of a second administration are going to be far more aggressive than what we saw in the first term, and mass arrest and detention is going to become perhaps the norm to create and carry out these deportation operations unless we can do all we can to put a halt to them.”View image in fullscreenAnother crucial area for Biden to make a last stand is criminal justice. In his first term, Trump oversaw the execution of more people than the previous 10 presidents combined. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, then imposed a moratorium on federal executions in 2021.Trump has indicated his intention to resume such executions and even expand the death penalty. His nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, issued a public apology in 2013 while serving as Florida’s top law enforcement officer after she sought to delay the execution of a convicted killer because it conflicted with a fundraiser for her re-election campaign.Cassandra Stubbs, director of the ACLU’s capital punishment project, told reporters via Zoom that Trump said “he will work to expand the death penalty. He’s going to try to expand it to people who do not even commit killings. He’s called for expanding the death penalty to his political opponents.“But perhaps most dangerously in Project 2025 [a policy blueprint from the Heritage Foundation thinktank] – and we believe every word of it is this – he promised to try to kill everyone on death row, and the reason why we have to believe this and take it so seriously is the record that Donald Trump left where he, in a span of six months, carried out 13 executions.”The ACLU and other groups are therefore pressing Biden to commute the sentences of all individuals on federal death row to life in prison, fulfilling a campaign promise and preventing potential executions under Trump. Commuting “is really the thing that Biden can do to make it harder for Trump to restart executions”, Stubbs added.Pastor Brandi Slaughter, a board member of the pressure group Death Penalty Action, told reporters this week: “We know what the next president plans to do if any prisoners are left under a sentence of death under the Biden administration. We’ve been there, we’ve done that.”Biden has also received 8,000 petitions for clemency from federal prisoners serving non-death penalty sentences that he could either reduce or pardon. The former senator has long been criticised for his role in drawing up a 1994 crime law that led to the incarceration of thousands of Black men and women for drug offences.This week, members of Congress including Ayanna Pressley and James Clyburn led 64 colleagues in sending a letter to Biden urging him to use his clemency power “to reunite families, address longstanding injustices in our legal system and set our nation on the path toward ending mass incarceration”.They were joined at a press conference on Capitol Hill by Maria Garza, 50, from Illinois, a prison reform advocate who spent 12 years in a state prison. She said in an interview: “There is a sense of urgency because a lot of the people that are sitting waiting for clemency are people that have de facto life sentences that will die in prison if they don’t [receive clemency]. A lot of their unjust sentencing was because of the 1994 crime bill that he was the founding father of.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMitzi Wall, whose 29-year-old son Jonathan is incarcerated on a seven-and-a-half-year federal cannabis charge, called on Biden to keep a campaign promise to grant clemency to more than 4,000 people in federal prison for nonviolent cannabis crimes.“We voted for President Biden,” she said. “He gave us hope and we’re asking him to do nothing more than keep his promise.”Wall, 63, from Maryland, added: “President Biden was partly responsible for writing the 1994 crime bill that thrust families into abject poverty and pain. I know he feels bad about that and he can right that wrong with the power of the pen. I’m appealing to him as a father whose son [Hunter] could very possibly be going to prison.”In other efforts to protect civil liberties, the ACLU is recommending a moratorium on all federal government purchases of Americans’ personal data without a warrant. It is also asking Congress to pass the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act to prevent potential abuse of surveillance technologies under the Trump administration.Meanwhile, Trump has pledged to rescind unspent funds in Biden’s landmark climate and healthcare law and stop clean-energy development projects. White House officials are working against the clock to dole out billions of dollars in grants for existing programmes to minimise Trump’s ability to rescind or redirect these funds. Earlier this month, the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, announced more than $3.4bn in grants for infrastructure projects across the country.Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, notes that Trump will have the power of impoundment to stall the money flowing out of the government and can order rescissions to programmes funded by Congress.“The singular thing that Joe Biden can do is expedite the flow of federal dollars in all the programmes,” Schiller said.“Any money that is supposed to leave the treasury to go to schools, food safety, environmental protection – anything that is not yet distributed needs to get distributed. It’s like emptying literally the piggy bank before you go on a trip. President Biden needs to be literally getting as much money out the door in the hands of state, local and community organisations as he can.”Another priority for the White House is getting Senate confirmation of as many federal judges as possible, given the potential impact of the judiciary in challenging Trump administration policies. The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organisation, noted: “Federal judges restricted hundreds of Trump administration policies during his first term, and will likely play a significant role in determining the trajectory of his second.”Senate Republicans forced numerous procedural votes and late-night sessions this week in attempt to stall confirmations. Eventually a deal was struck that will bring Biden within striking distance of the 234 judicial confirmations that occurred in Trump’s first term – but four of Biden’s appellate court nominees will not be considered.The outgoing president could also engage with Democratic-led states and localities to bolster protections and establish “firewalls” against Trump’s agenda, particularly in areas such as immigration. These collaborations could involve reinforcing sanctuary city policies and providing resources to states that are likely to face pressure from the Trump administration.Chris Scott, former coalitions director for Harris, said: “What will be interesting is how or what can President Biden to work with states, especially where we have Democratic leadership in place, to be able to brace themselves and arm themselves with more protection. We already have places like a Michigan or Illinois where you have governors vowing to make sure that they have protections – even in the Trump presidency.”As Barack Obama discovered before handing Trump the keys to the Oval Office in 2017, however, lame duck presidents can only do so much. Trump will come into office with a flurry of executive orders, a supportive Congress and fewer guardrails than the first time around.Bill Galston, a former adviser in the Bill Clinton administration, said: “On January 20 Donald Trump will control all the instruments of government and, at that point, it’ll be up to the courts – and public opinion – to restrain him.” More