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      Daniel Penny will be JD Vance’s guest at Army-Navy football game in Maryland

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      JD Vance, the vice-president-elect, confirmed that Daniel Penny, a Marine Corps veteran recently acquitted of homicide charges, will be his invited guest at the Army-Navy football game on Saturday in Maryland.Penny will watch the game from a suite alongside president-elect Donald Trump and other figures in Trump’s next administration, including his defence secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth.“I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage,” Vance posted on X, confirming news first reported by the non-profit publication Notus.The invitation follows Penny’s acquittal on Monday by a New York jury, which found him not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the 2023 death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old homeless man with a history of arrests, mental illness and medical conditions. Medical evidence revealed that Neely had sickle cell trait, an inherited genetic condition that under extreme physiological stress can potentially compromise blood oxygen transport, a factor Penny’s defence team argued could have contributed to his death.The case sparked nationwide controversy after Penny placed Neely in a chokehold on a New York City subway train in May 2023. Witnesses reported that Neely had been shouting and acting erratically, with one passenger, Juan Alberto Vazquez, telling NBC News at the time that Neely was making aggressive statements about not caring about potential consequences.It will be Penny’s first public appearance since his acquittal, and a high-profile event with deep ties to the military at that.Vance was vocal in his support of Penny, describing the prosecution as a “scandal” and praising the jury’s decision.“Daniel’s a good guy, and New York’s mob district attorney tried to ruin his life for having a backbone,” Vance posted on X.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPenny, in a sit-down interview with Fox News this week, maintained that he feared for his own safety and that of other passengers during the incident, describing himself as being in a “vulnerable position”.“The guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if he did do what he was threatening to do, I would never be able to live with myself,” Penny said. “I’d take a million court appearances and people calling me names and people hating me just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed.” More

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      Seth Meyers: ‘Trump’s fake populism was a con and it couldn’t be any clearer’

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      Late-night hosts talk Joe Biden’s act of clemency and Donald Trump becoming Time’s Person of the Year.Seth MeyersSeth Meyers could only laugh on Thursday evening at the image of Trump, just named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.The incoming president looked delighted – or, as the Late Night host put it, “like a Make-A-Wish kid who faked being sick until he got what he wanted”.“Before he was elected he toured the country telling grandpas in folding chairs he was just like them,” he added, “and as soon as he wins he’s on a fucking marble balcony on Wall Street rocking a bell like he just ate a 72-ounce steak in under an hour.”As for the cover, Meyers had concerns. “My only issue is this glamour shot of Trump in a pose I’ve literally never seen him take before,” he said. “I’ve only ever seen him screaming or hunched over, so apologies if I’m not buying Donnie Contemplation over here.”Moreover, “this guy has pretended for over a decade to be a populist champion of the working class and now he’s on literal Wall Street, getting pats on the back from the richest people in the country,” he said. “The only way that Trump’s hypocrisy could be any more on the nose is if he started doing campaign events with actual fat cats.”Case in point: though Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign to lower grocery prices, he told Time that “it’s hard to bring things down once they’re up … You know, it’s very hard.”“Fuck me, I can’t believe we really have to spend the next four years watching this idiot relearn how hard it is to be president,” said Meyers. “Yeah man, we know it’s hard. Everyone knows.”“Trump’s fake populism was a con and it couldn’t be any clearer,” he added. “The second that he won he started rubbing elbows with his rich Wall Street buddies and admitting that his promises were all BS.”Jimmy KimmelIn Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also lamented Trump’s Time magazine cover. “Sadly there’s no one left to roll it up and spank him with it,” he quipped. “Maybe Elon will do it for him? I don’t know.”According to Time, the Person of the Year distinction is bestowed on the person, group or concept that had the biggest impact for good or for ill. “Well, that’s him all right,” said Kimmel. “It was a no-brainer in every sense of the word.”As for Trump’s appearance at the New York Stock Exchange, “he jammed his little finger on that bell like it was the Diet Coke button in the Oval Office,” Kimmel joked.Kimmel also touched on Joe Biden’s last-minute act of clemency, commuting more than 1,500 criminal sentences. “Before this, the biggest act of clemency was on election night on November 5,” said Kimmel.“Joe Biden is handing out pardons like they’re Werther’s Originals,” he added. “He has no more malarkey to give right now.”Stephen ColbertAnd on The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also noted Biden’s clemency, in which he also pardoned 39 people. “Wow, I did not know he had 39 sons,” the host joked.The mass commutation is a tradition for all outgoing presidents, but Biden committed the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. “I believe that is an empathetic and generous act of forgiveness and hope – that will be knocked out of the headlines as soon as Trump threatens to bomb Manila because he cut himself on one of their envelopes,” said Colbert. “That’s coming. You know that’s coming.”Colbert also laughed at Pornhub’s year in review, which revealed generational trends, such as the fact that 18-to-24-year-olds spend, on average, 76 fewer seconds than any other age group on videos. “I guess young folks today don’t have the attention span,” Colbert quipped. “Back in the 90s, if you wanted to see boobs on your computer, you had to listen to this,” he added before a dial-up tone.The site also provided a map highlighting the most distinct searches in each state, such as Tennessee’s “chubby milf”, Delaware’s “mature” (“I assume in honor of Joe Biden,” Colbert joked), Maryland’s “girlfriend” (“dorks!”) and Pennsylvania’s “naked women”. “That’s clearly Amish teens on rumspringa getting their first crack at a computer,” Colbert noted. More

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      ‘What a circus’: eligible US voters on why they didn’t vote in the 2024 presidential election

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      The 2024 US presidential election had been widely characterized as one of the most consequential political contests in recent US history. Although turnout was high for a presidential election – almost matching the levels of 2020 – it is estimated that close to 90 million Americans, roughly 36% of the eligible voting age population, did not vote. This number is greater than the number of people who voted for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.More than a month on from polling day, eligible US voters from across the country as well as other parts of the world got in touch with the Guardian to share why they did not vote.Scores of people said they had not turned out as they felt their vote would not matter because of the electoral college system, since they lived in a safely blue or red state. This included a number of people who nonetheless had voted in the 2020 and 2016 elections.While various previous Democratic voters said they had abstained this time due to the Harris campaign’s stance on Israel or for other policy reasons, a number of people in this camp said they would have voted for the vice-president had they lived in a swing state.“I’m not in a swing state, and because of the electoral college my vote doesn’t count. I could have voted 500,000 times and it would not have changed the outcome,” said one such voter, a 60-year-old software developer with Latino heritage from Boston.Having voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, he voted in 2020 but left the presidential slot blank “as a Quixotic protest against the electoral college and my preference for Bernie Sanders”, he said.He said he felt “heartbroken” over Joe Biden and Harris’s stance on Gaza. “If I were in a swing state I would always vote for Dems, though,” he added, echoing several others.A 40-year-old carpenter from Idaho who voted in the previous two elections because he then lived in the swing state of Arizona – giving his vote to Clinton and Biden – also said he did not vote this time because he felt his vote did not matter due to the electoral college system.“I didn’t find Harris compelling, just more of the same. Politicians from both parties seem unwilling to make the kind of fundamental economic and political changes that would make a meaningful difference for all people, namely a move towards a more democratic socialist system. That being said if we didn’t have the electoral college I probably would have voted for Harris,” he said.A large number of people said they abstained because no candidate represented working- or middle-class interests and people such as themselves, including several people who voted in the previous two elections but did not vote this time.Some people from swing states said they did not vote because both parties were too similar and did not address concerns of the common voter, among them John, a 29-year-old financial professional from Pennsylvania who is a registered independent, but voted for Clinton and Biden in the previous two elections.“What is the point [of voting]?,” he asked. “Aside from a handful of weaponized issues, the parties are nearly identical. They both hate the poor and serve only their donors.”A number of former Trump and Biden voters said they had not voted in this election as they disliked both candidates, among them Jared Wagner, a 34-year-old from Indiana who works in the trucking industry and said he had voted for Trump in 2016 but had abstained in both the 2020 and 2024 election.“I refuse to put my name on either candidate when I know neither of them are truly the best we have to offer. We need a major overhaul to the two-party system,” he said.
      “As a man with young children I worry about what kind of country they will grow up in. It terrifies me; we deserve better.”John, a 58-year-old from West Virginia, said he had voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, but had decided that not voting this November “felt most authentic and appropriate”.“I wasn’t apathetic about this election, I followed it closely,” he said. “But most of the candidates and issues left me cold and disinterested and seemed to be simply perpetuating the existing system, especially the status quo of authority and law and order, or rampant human development on the land.“On the presidential level, I was shocked and disgusted that the Harris campaign chose to completely ignore discussing climate change. Fundamentally, this election seemed to have very little to do with my interests and concerns.”Anne, a 65-year-old retired white woman from California, was among various people who said they had voted but not for any presidential candidate.She said she had always previously voted for the Democratic candidate, but could not bring herself to do so this time.“I did vote for all other down-ballot candidates and initiatives,” she said. “I would have voted for Harris had my vote made a difference, but I could not vote for a president who will continue the complete destruction of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank.”Various people said they did not vote for a presidential candidate in the 2024 election because they had only wanted to cast a positive vote for a candidate rather than merely an opposition one, and that neither candidate had offered a compelling vision for change.Among them was a 62-year-old professional working in process planning from Texas, who said he had voted for the Republican presidential candidate at every election between 1984 and 2016.“In 2020 I voted Libertarian as a protest vote,” he said. “This year I was so turned off by Trump’s low character, economic ignorance, disregard of our national debt, hostility to Ukraine and so on that I was trying to convince myself to vote for Harris. But her economic policy was just a grab bag of voter payoffs and she doesn’t care about the debt either.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“So I did not vote for president. I voted for Senate, congressman, and many other down ballot races. I split my ticket, too. I just no longer want to vote against anyone. I want to vote FOR someone. And none of the candidates for president wanted my vote enough.”A 35-year-old Black male voter from Portland, Oregon, who works at a gas station, said he disliked Kamala Harris but now regretted not voting for her, as he had thought Trump would lose the election.“I did not vote in 2016 or 2020 either because I did not like any of the candidates in those elections either. I last voted in 2012, for Obama,” he said.“I felt both candidates fell well short of the presidential standard, and didn’t feel I could cast a vote for either,” said a 47-year-old engineering manager and registered Republican from Texas.“VP Harris failed to demonstrate she was ethically or intellectually capable of executing the office, repeatedly failing to detail out her policies and generally running her campaign like a popularity contest – ‘collect enough celebrity endorsements, by paying them, and the masses will elect you,’” he said.Trump, he felt, “cares about the US and believes his own ideas will ‘save’ the country – but he’s a terrible human being. I don’t feel he represents a majority of Americans at all, but is more a reaction to some of the issues we face as a country.”Various people who did not vote in other recent elections either said that again this time no candidate was leftwing enough, among them 37-year-old Elly, a mother of four daughters from the midwest.“Bernie Sanders was the last candidate I was excited to vote for,” she said. “This election came down to two parties who have utterly abandoned everyday people and their problems with affordability and worries about climate change, but one party, the Republicans, were savvy enough to pretend they felt the collective pain of the common folks, whilst the Democrats mostly said ‘all is well.’ I couldn’t in good conscience support either side on the national level.”Several people who usually always voted Democrat in the past said the Harris campaign had been overly focussed on progressive identity politics for them to be able to lend it their support this election, such as Simon, a father from California in his 60s who had voted for Clinton in 2016 and for Biden in 2020 in protest against Trump, but had abstained this year due to Harris’s embracing of “trans ideology”, among other reasons.“I am not a fan of the Democrats, but I would have voted to keep Trump out of office if there was an economically literate, competent, law and order candidate who was willing to challenge the excesses of ‘woke’,” he said. “The Dems are out of touch on social issues, and have tacked too far to the left to appease a minority of progressives.“I support some policies that would be considered rightwing on immigration, but also investing in social housing, so I’m looking for candidates capable of taking difficult decisions based on rational analysis.”Leigh Crawford, a 56-year-old hedge fund manager from California, who had voted for Barack Obama in 2012, for Clinton in 2016 and for Biden in 2020, said he had abstained this time as both candidates were fiscally irresponsible in his view, because he strongly disliked Trump’s anti-immigration and pro-tariffs stance, and because Harris had been “pro-censorship” and “too tolerant of antisemitism”.Several people said they did not vote this time because of a growing disillusionment with the extreme polarization in US politics, including Chris, an architect in his 40s from Tennessee who had voted twice for Obama, and once for Trump in 2016, but had abstained in 2020 and 2024 as he had lost hope in politics.“Skip the debates, what a circus,” he said. “I’m so sick of hearing about politics.“The political system in the US is broken. Things are so polarized, there is no cooperation for the good of the people. There is just so much hate, even in everyday conversation with average people.“There is just so much of this ‘if I don’t win, I’m taking the ball and going home’ mentality. It just causes nothing to get accomplished.” More

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      in Elections

      Six Republicans in Nevada again charged for 2020 fake elector scheme

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      Six Republicans in Nevada have again been charged with submitting a bogus certificate to Congress that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the presidential battleground’s 2020 election.Aaron Ford, the state’s attorney general, announced on Thursday that the fake electors case had been revived in Carson City, the capital, where he filed a new complaint this week charging the defendants with “uttering a forged instrument”, a felony.A Nevada judge dismissed the original indictment earlier this year, ruling that Clark county, the state’s most populous county and home to Las Vegas, was the wrong venue for the case.Ford, a Democrat, said the new case was filed as a precaution to avoid the statute of limitations expiring while the Nevada supreme court weighs his appeal of the judge’s ruling.“While we disagree with the finding of improper venue and will continue to seek to overturn it, we are preserving our legal rights in order to ensure that these fake electors do not escape justice,” Ford said.“The actions the fake electors undertook in 2020 violated Nevada criminal law and were direct attempts to both sow doubt in our democracy and undermine the results of a free and fair election. Justice requires that these actions not go unpunished.”Officials have said it was part of a larger scheme across seven battleground states to keep the former president in the White House after losing to Joe Biden. Criminal cases have also been brought in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.Trump lost in 2020 to the president by more than 30,000 votes in Nevada. An investigation by then Nevada secretary of state Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.The defendants are state the Republican party chair Michael McDonald; the Clark county Republican party chair Jesse Law; the national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; the national and Douglas county committee member Shawn Meehan; the Storey county clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area.In an emailed statement to the Associated Press, McDonald’s attorney, Richard Wright, called the new complaint a political move by a Democratic state attorney general who also announced on Thursday that he plans to run for governor in 2026.“We will withhold further comment and address the issues in court,” said Wright, who has spoken often in court on behalf of all six defendants.Attorneys for the others did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.Their lawyers previously argued that Ford improperly brought the case before a grand jury in Democratic-leaning Las Vegas instead of in a northern Nevada city, where the alleged crimes occurred. More

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      in US Politics

      Inspector general finds no FBI agents were involved in January 6 attack – US politics live

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      The justice department inspector general found no evidence that employees of the FBI were involved in the January 6 attack, but did fault the bureau for not better communicating with its offices nationwide ahead of the joint session of Congress that descended into mayhem four years ago when Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol.In a report released today, the inspector general said: “The FBI effectively carried out its tactical support function on January 6.” However, it faulted the federal law enforcement agency for not checking in with its field offices, which could have corroborated reports that extremist groups were planning to travel to Washington DC.“The FBI did not canvass its field offices in advance of January 6, 2021, to identify any intelligence, including CHS reporting, about potential threats to the January 6 Electoral Certification,” the inspector general wrote.“FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, who was Associate Deputy Director at the time, described the lack of a canvass prior to January 6 as a ‘basic step that was missed,’ and told the OIG that he would have expected a formal canvassing of sources to have occurred, through the issuance of an intelligence collection product, because it would have been the most thorough approach to understanding the threat picture prior to January 6.”Rightwing activists have alleged that FBI agents were involved in, or even instigated, the insurrection at the Capitol that took place after Trump addressed a crowd of his supporters on the White House ellipse.The inspector general found “no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6”.However a total of 26 FBI informants – known as confidential human sources (CHS) – were in the crowd, some of whom entered the Capitol or other restricted areas, the report says:
      We determined that of the 26 CHSs who were in DC on January 6 in connection with the events of January 6, 4 entered the Capitol during the riot; an additional 13 entered the restricted area around the Capitol, which was a security perimeter established in preparation for the January 6 Electoral Certification; and 9 neither entered a restricted area nor entered the Capitol or otherwise engaged in illegal activity. None of the CHSs who entered the Capitol or a restricted area has been prosecuted to date.
      Joe Biden issued a sweeping batch of sentence commutations that affected nearly 1,500 people, as well as 39 pardons. The acts of clemency came after the president drew criticism for pardoning his son Hunter Biden, who was about to be sentenced on tax evasion and gun charges. A recently released public opinion poll found most Americans don’t approve of Biden’s decision to pardon his son, but they also are not on board with Donald Trump’s plan to pardon defendants facing charges or convicted over the January 6 attack. Nonetheless, the president-elect told Time magazine in an interview conducted as he was named its “person of the year” that issuing those pardons would be among the first things he will do once he takes office. Trump also promised to make good on campaign promises to expand oil and gas production and carry out mass deportations, while declining to rule out a return of the family separation policy from his first term that was widely condemned as cruel.Here’s what else happened today:

      Trump campaigned on lowering grocery prices, but no longer sounds so sure that he can pull it off.

      An inspector general report found that no FBI agents took part in the January 6 insurrection, though about two dozen informants were at the Capitol or in the crowd. It also said the bureau should have communicated more with its Washington DC field offices about threats to the joint session of Congress held that day.

      Kari Lake, a failed Republican candidate for governor and senator in Arizona and multi-time election denier, has been named by Trump to lead Voice of America.

      The president-elect stopped by the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell this morning and celebrate being named Time magazine’s “person of the year”.

      Jeff Bezos, the billionaire Amazon and Washington Post honcho, plans to meet with Trump next week, while Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta donated $1m to the president-elect’s inauguration fund.
      Monmouth University pollsters also asked Americans if they thought Donald Trump would unite the country during his presidency, or divide it further.Forty-four per cent of respondents said it would wind up more divided, while 34% said it would become more united.Trump won last month’s election decisively, besting Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris in all seven swing states and the popular vote – the first time a Republican has done so since 2004. Since then, he has not made baseless allegations of fraud, as he did following his election loss in 2020, and the Monmouth poll shows Americans mostly believe the vote was fair.Eighty-three per cent of respondents described the election as “fair and square”, and 12% said he won due to voter fraud.Americans are divided on whether to take Donald Trump seriously on his threats to suspend some laws and parts of the constitution and go after his political enemies, a Monmouth University poll released today found.Among 1,006 adults surveyed in recent days, 48% believe he will make good on the threat, while 47% think it is “more of an exaggeration”.Were he to follow through, 52% said it would bother them “a lot”, 22% “a little” and 22% “not at all”.Here’s more on what Trump has said he would like to do to his enemies:Joe Biden today announced 39 pardons, and nearly 1,500 grants of clemency – two distinct types of relief from criminal convictions that a president is empowered to grant. Here’s more on what the actions mean, from the Guardian’s Sam Levine:Joe Biden pardoned 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes on Thursday, also announcing that he had commuted the sentences of almost 1,500 people who have already been released from prison.The White House said on Thursday the commutations all relate to people who were released from prisons and placed in home confinement during the Covid pandemic who will now have their sentences reduced. The 39 people being pardoned will have their guilty verdicts wiped entirely.The announcement, what the White House is calling the single largest act of presidential clemency on a single day in modern US history, comes after Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter earlier this month for any federal crimes “he committed or may have committed” between 1 January 2014 and 1 December 2024 has brought renewed focus on the expansive power the US constitution gives the president to grant official clemency.It’s a power that presidents have deployed since George Washington, who pardoned those involved in the Whiskey Rebellion, to Donald Trump, who pardoned his political allies.For years after January 6, rightwing conspiracy theorists claimed that Arizona man Ray Epps was in fact a government agent who tricked Trump supporters into attacking the Capitol. No proof of that ever emerged, and earlier this year, Epps was sentenced to probation for his actions during the riot. Here’s more on that, from the Associated Press:A man targeted by rightwing conspiracy theories about the US Capitol riot was sentenced on Tuesday to a year of probation for joining the January 6 attack by a mob of fellow Donald Trump supporters.Ray Epps, a former Arizona resident who was driven into hiding by death threats, pleaded guilty in September to a misdemeanor charge. He received no jail time, and there were no restrictions placed on his travel during his probation, but he will have to serve 100 hours of community service.He appeared remotely by video conference and was not in the Washington courtroom when chief judge James Boasberg sentenced him. Prosecutors had recommended a six-month term of imprisonment for Epps.Epps’s sentencing took place in the same building where Trump was attending an appeals court hearing as the Republican former president’s lawyers argued he is immune from prosecution on charges he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost.The Fox News Channel and other rightwing media outlets amplified conspiracy theories that Epps, 62, was an undercover government agent who helped incite the Capitol attack to entrap Trump supporters.A major part of Donald Trump’s campaign was lowering prices that had risen at historic rates during Joe Biden’s presidency.But, unlike with gravity, what goes up in economics does not necessarily come down. Year-on-year consumer price inflation has declined from its peak of more than 9% in mid-2022 to under 3%, but economists say that does not necessarily mean every price increase will reverse.Asked about his plan to lower grocery prices in his Time magazine interview, Trump sounded less sure than he did on the campaign trail. “If the prices of groceries don’t come down, will your presidency be a failure?” Time asked. Trump replied:
      I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down.
      In his interview with Time Magazine, Donald Trump suggested that he would pardon many people who faces charges or was convicted for their involvement in the January 6 attack.“I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were non-violent, I think they’ve been greatly punished. And the answer is I will be doing that, yeah, I’m going to look if there’s some that really were out of control,” Trump said.Asked what he would do about those convicted of committing “violent acts”, Trump replied:
      Well, we’re going to look at each individual case, and we’re going to do it very quickly, and it’s going to start in the first hour that I get into office. And a vast majority of them should not be in jail.
      Despite the FBI’s Washington field office (WFO) and domestic terrorism operations section, both of which were involved in preparations for January 6, not canvassing their field offices ahead of the joint session of Congress, the inspector general finds they did not miss any specific threats.Instead, they missed information that would have corroborated reports they were already aware of. From the report:
      Although the WFO and Domestic Terrorism Operations Section at FBI Headquarters did not direct field offices to canvass their CHSs in advance of January 6, our review of documented CHS reporting in FBI field offices as of January 6 did not identify any potentially critical intelligence related to a possible attack on the Capitol on January 6 that had not been provided to law enforcement stakeholders prior to January 6.
      Additionally, our review of information in the FBI’s possession as of January 6, in addition to the then-documented CHS reporting, did not identify any potentially critical intelligence that had not been provided to, or was not otherwise known to, law enforcement stakeholders prior to January 6. Nonetheless, as numerous FBI officials told us, CHS information can be used to corroborate other sources of reporting to help the FBI develop as complete an understanding as possible of the threat picture in advance of an event like the January 6 Electoral Certification, and the FBI therefore should have canvassed its field offices for any relevant CHS information in advance of January 6.
      The justice department inspector general found no evidence that employees of the FBI were involved in the January 6 attack, but did fault the bureau for not better communicating with its offices nationwide ahead of the joint session of Congress that descended into mayhem four years ago when Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol.In a report released today, the inspector general said: “The FBI effectively carried out its tactical support function on January 6.” However, it faulted the federal law enforcement agency for not checking in with its field offices, which could have corroborated reports that extremist groups were planning to travel to Washington DC.“The FBI did not canvass its field offices in advance of January 6, 2021, to identify any intelligence, including CHS reporting, about potential threats to the January 6 Electoral Certification,” the inspector general wrote.“FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, who was Associate Deputy Director at the time, described the lack of a canvass prior to January 6 as a ‘basic step that was missed,’ and told the OIG that he would have expected a formal canvassing of sources to have occurred, through the issuance of an intelligence collection product, because it would have been the most thorough approach to understanding the threat picture prior to January 6.”Rightwing activists have alleged that FBI agents were involved in, or even instigated, the insurrection at the Capitol that took place after Trump addressed a crowd of his supporters on the White House ellipse.The inspector general found “no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on January 6”.However a total of 26 FBI informants – known as confidential human sources (CHS) – were in the crowd, some of whom entered the Capitol or other restricted areas, the report says:
      We determined that of the 26 CHSs who were in DC on January 6 in connection with the events of January 6, 4 entered the Capitol during the riot; an additional 13 entered the restricted area around the Capitol, which was a security perimeter established in preparation for the January 6 Electoral Certification; and 9 neither entered a restricted area nor entered the Capitol or otherwise engaged in illegal activity. None of the CHSs who entered the Capitol or a restricted area has been prosecuted to date.
      Joe Biden issued a sweeping batch of sentence commutations that affected nearly 1,500 people, as well as 39 pardons. The acts of clemency came after the president drew criticism for pardoning his son Hunter Biden who was about to be sentenced on tax evasion and gun charges. A recently released public opinion poll found most Americans don’t approve of Biden’s decision to pardon his son, but they also are not on board with Donald Trump’s plan to pardon defendants facing charges or convicted over the January 6 attack. Nonetheless, the president-elect told Time magazine in an interview conducted as he was named its “person of the year” that those pardons would be among the first things he will do once he takes office. Trump also promised to make good on campaign promises to expand oil and gas production and carry out mass deportations, while declining to rule out a return of the family separation policy from his first term that was widely condemned as cruel.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      Kari Lake, a failed Republican candidate for governor and senator in Arizona and multi-time election denier, has been named by Trump to lead Voice of America.

      Trump stopped by the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell this morning and celebrate being named Time magazine’s “person of the year”.

      Jeff Bezos, the billionaire Amazon and Washington Post honcho, plans to meet with Trump next week, while Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta donated $1m to the president-elect’s inauguration fund.
      Democrats may have lost the presidency in the November election, but they made inroads at the state level, including in North Carolina. Regarded as one of the most closely divided in the country, the GOP lost its supermajority in the state legislature last month, and so has moved to strip powers from the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:On the brink of losing their supermajority in the state legislature, North Carolina Republicans overrode a gubernatorial veto on Wednesday to enact a new law that gives them control over elections in the state and strips the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general of some of their powers.Currently, North Carolina’s governor appoints the five members of the state board of elections, allowing him to select a three-person majority from his party. The new law transfers that appointment power to the state auditor. A Republican won control of the state auditor race this fall for the first time in more than a decade.The bill also changes how local election boards in each of North Carolina’s 100 counties would be appointed. Currently the state board appoints members and the governor appoints the chair. Under the new law, the auditor-appointed state board would still pick the local boards, but the auditor would pick the chair. Taken together, the new law would give Republicans control over both the state and local boards of elections.Lawsuits are expected challenging the changes, which were tucked into a bill that allocates more than $200m in relief money for Hurricane Helene. The money will not be immediately availableand the funds cannot be spent until the legislature acts again, according to the Associated Press.The outgoing governor, Roy Cooper, and the incoming governor, Josh Stein, both Democrats, have criticized the measure as a power grab. Republicans are poised to lose their supermajority in the state legislature next year.Americans don’t know much about Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the defense department, nor Tulsi Gabbard, who the president-elect has nominated as director of national intelligence.But those who do have opinions of them generally do not see them positively, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found.Both Hegseth and Gabbard have attracted controversy, albeit for different reasons. The defense secretary nominee has been accused of sexual assault, and stories have circulated of him mistreating women and cheating on his wives, mismanaging finances at charities he was involved in, and drinking excessively.Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who recently left the party, is under fire for statements supportive of resigned Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and Russian president Vladimir Putin – both US adversaries.Here’s what the AP/NORC poll discovered about them. Regarding Hegseth:
      Hegseth is still an unknown quantity for many Americans. About 4 in 10 don’t know enough about him to give an opinion, according to the poll. But his selection is viewed more negatively than positively among Americans who do know who he is. About 2 in 10 U.S. adults approve of Hegseth being picked for Trump’s Cabinet, while 36% disapprove and about 1 in 10 don’t know enough to have an opinion.
      He has higher support among Republicans, but it’s not overwhelming. Many Republicans do not have an opinion of Hegseth: About 4 in 10 say they don’t know enough about him. About one-third of Republicans approve of him as a pick, and 16% disapprove. Another 1 in 10 Republicans, roughly, are neutral and say they neither approve nor disapprove.
      Those approval numbers among Republicans are at least slightly lower for Hegseth than any of the other names included in the poll.
      And Gabbard:
      Gabbard is as unknown as Hegseth is, but Americans are a little less likely to disapprove of her nomination. About 2 in 10 Americans approve of Trump’s pick of Gabbard, while about 3 in 10 disapprove. The rest either do not know enough to say – about 4 in 10 said this – or have a neutral view.
      Approval is slightly higher among Republicans than Hegseth’s, though. About 4 in 10 Republicans approve of the choice, while very few disapprove and 16% have a neutral view. Similar to Americans overall, about 4 in 10 Republicans don’t know enough to say.
      Democratic representative Bennie Thompson, the former chair of the House committee invesigating the January 6 attack, says that he would accept a preemptive pardon if one were issued by Joe Biden.“It’s his prerogative. If he offers it to me or other members of the committee … I would accept it, but it’s his choice,” Thompson said on CNN this morning.The comments came after president-elect Donald Trump told NBC in an interview that members of the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol should go to jail.“Everybody on that committee … for what they did, yeah, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said.The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief, Michael Whitaker, will resign on inauguration day and will not continue as the head of the agency in a second Trump administration, according to reports.Politico reported the news this morning, citing two officials with direct knowledge of Whitaker’s plans. Whitaker reportedly informed his staff of his departure plans during a meeting on Thursday morning.Whitaker was confirmed as the FAA administrator by the Senate on 24 October 2023. FAA administrators generally serve for five years.Meta has donated $1m to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, the company confirmed on Thursday.The donation appears to be the latest effort by the social media company and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to improve relations with the incoming president, and comes just weeks after Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.Meta confirmed its donation to the Guardian on Thursday but did not provide details regarding the reason for the contribution.Read more about it here:Donald Trump says he plans to meet with Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos next week.In brief remarks before the president-elect rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange this morning, he spoke with CNBC and said:
      Mark Zuckerberg’s been over to see me, and I can tell you, Elon [Musk] is another, and Jeff Bezos is coming up next week. I want to get ideas from them. Look, we want them to do well. We want everybody [to do well], and we want great jobs, fantastic salaries.
      More reactions to the decision by Joe Biden to commute the sentences of almost 1,500 people and pardon 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes, are coming in.Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who is the chair of the Senate judiciary committee, said in a statement:
      The President took an important step by commuting the sentences of these men and women. In far too many cases in our justice system, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime” Durbin added. “I have long advocated for criminal justice reform to address these inequities and commend President Biden for this act of mercy and for his leadership.
      These individuals have successfully returned to their communities and reunited with their families. I urge the President to continue using his pardon power during his remaining time in office to address miscarriages of justice, just as the founders of this democracy intended.
      Lauren-Brooke Eisen, the senior director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, said that the decision was a “vital recognition of the excessively punitive nature of our criminal justice system”.In a statement Eisen added:
      There are thousands more who deserve the same, and we hope to see additional clemencies granted before the end of his term,” Eisen added.
      In addition to the group of people included in today’s announcement, the Brennan Center and a coalition of allies have been calling on the president to commute the sentences of the more than 40 people on federal death row to life without parole, and to thousands of people who are serving unfairly long, racially disparate drug sentences.” More

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      Ontario leader threatens to halt energy exports to US if Trump imposes tariffs

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      The leader of Canada’s largest province says he’s prepared to halt energy exports to the United States, warning that other premiers “need to be ready to fight” as threats escalate ahead of possible American tariffs.The Ontario premier, Doug Ford, says he’s weighing options to fight back against a 25% levy on all Canadian goods that the US president-elect Donald Trump has pledged to implement when he assumes office.Following a meeting with the nation’s premiers and the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Ford said other leaders were also drawing up lists of exports that could be halted.“But we will go to the full extent, depending how far this goes, we will go to the extent of cutting off their energy, going down to Michigan, going down to New York state and over to Wisconsin,” said Ford. “I don’t want this to happen, but my number one job is to protect Ontario, Ontarians and Canadians as a whole.”Canada’s most populous province is also among the most vulnerable to American tariffs because roughly 85% of its exports – including billions in automotive parts – are sent to a handful of US states. As a result, Ford has emerged as the Canadian politician most vocal about the devastating effects the tariffs would have on hundreds of billions of shared trade.“We need to be ready. We need to be ready to fight,” said Ford. “This fight is coming 100% on January 20 or January 21.”Ford’s threat aims to highlight both the integrated nature of North American economies and also to put pressure on state governors. But is unclear how much Ford could follow through on his pledge to cut electricity exports, given that premiers do not make international energy policy.Canada supplies roughly 60% of all American oil imports and even more of its electricity imports. In 2022, Canada’s revenue from electricity exports to the United States hit a record high of C$5.8bn. Quebec is the largest exporter, with Ontario following second at 13.9m megawatt-hours of power sent south.“We will use every tool in our tool box to fight back,” said Ford. “We can’t sit back and roll over. We just won’t as a country. And isn’t this a shame, our closest friends and allies.”Trump threatened last month to apply the devastating levies of 25% on all goods and services from both Mexico and Canada, vowing to keep them in place until “such time as drugs, in particular fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country!”Last week, Trump seemed to take joy in the panicked response from Canadian officials, calling Trudeau Canada’s “governor” of a potential “51st” state. More

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      Meta donates $1m to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund

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      Meta has donated $1m to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund, the company confirmed on Thursday.The donation, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, appears to be the latest effort by the social media company and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to improve relations with the incoming president, and comes just weeks after Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.Meta confirmed its donation to the Guardian on Thursday but did not provide details regarding the reason for the contribution.During the dinner last month at Mar-a-Lago, the Meta CEO reportedly congratulated the president-elect on his victory and the two “largely exchanged pleasantries”, according to the New York Times.Zuckerberg also reportedly met with Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, the Wall Street Journal reported, and other incoming White House advisers, such as Stephen Miller.A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, told the BBC at the time that Zuckerberg was “grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration”.“It’s an important time for the future of American Innovation,” the statement added.Zuckerberg’s team informed Trump’s inaugural team about Meta’s plans to contribute to the inaugural fund before meeting the president-elect for dinner at Mar-a-Lago, according to the Wall Street Journal.The donation by Meta seems to mark a shift for the company, as Meta did not make any contribution to Trump’s 2017 or Biden’s 2021 inaugural fund.Over the last several years, the relationship between Trump and Meta has been strained. Trump has accused the company of unfairly censoring him and other conservative voices on its platforms.In March of this year, Trump referred to Facebook as “an enemy of the people” during an interview with CNBC. He stated: “I think Facebook has been very dishonest. I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially concerning elections.”After the January 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021, Meta suspended Trump from posting on its platforms. Two years later, in 2023, the company restored his account with certain restrictions in place. However, in July of this year, those restrictions were lifted.Earlier that month, in a post on Truth Social, Trump said that if he’s elected in November, “election fraudsters” would be imprisoned, and referred to Zuckerberg.“If I’m elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time” Trump wrote. “We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!”.And in a book titled Save America, Trump accused Zuckerberg of “plotting” against him during the 2020 election and “steering” Facebook against him.But over the summer, the New York Times reported that Mark Zuckerberg and Trump had several private phone calls. In one of those calls, Zuckerberg reportedly wished Trump well following the assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, and expressed that he was “praying” for him.In a July interview with Bloomberg, Zuckerberg publicly praised Trump’s reaction to the Pennsylvania assassination attempt – when he stood up and began pumping his fist in the air – and described the moment as “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life”.Zuckerberg expressed regret around some of his past political activities in a letter to Congress in late August and accused the Biden administration of pressuring Meta in 2021 into censoring more Covid-19 content than he was comfortable with.He did not endorse any candidate for the 2024 election, and has stated that he wants to stay away from politics.Trump told a podcast in October that he liked Zuckerberg “much better now”, adding: “I actually believe he’s staying out of the election, which is nice.”After Trump’s election victory in November, Zuckerberg congratulated him and said he was looking forward to working with the president-elect.“We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country. Looking forward to working with you and your administration,” he wrote.Earlier this month, reports indicated that Zuckerberg was seeking an “active role” in the Trump administration’s tech policy decisions.Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, who is also a former UK deputy prime minister, also added that Zuckerberg wanted to participate in “the debate that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere”. More

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      Trump says FBI chief Wray’s resignation will ‘end the weaponization’ of justice department – US politics live

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      Christopher Wray’s plans to step down as FBI director once he takes office will “end the weaponization” of federal law enforcement, Donald Trump said.Referring to the justice department as “the United States Department of Injustice”, Trump said of Wray, the outgoing FBI director whom he appointed in 2017: “I just don’t know what happened to him.” The president-elect has repeatedly claimed the bureau has become politicized, after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago resort and found classified documents. He’s also criticized the justice department under Joe Biden, whose attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead Trump’s prosecution on charges of hiding classified documents, and attempting to overturn the 2020 election.Here’s more from Trump:
      The resignation of Christopher Wray is a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice. I just don’t know what happened to him. We will now restore the Rule of Law for all Americans. Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause, worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me, and has done everything else to interfere with the success and future of America. They have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them.
      Montana’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors has been temporarily blocked by the state supreme court on grounds that it is likely to violate the right to privacy enshrined in the state’s constitution.The top court in Montana sided on Wednesday with an earlier district court decision blocking SB 99, the ban introduced last year by the Republican-controlled state legislature. The decision will allow under-18 transgender girls and boys to continue gender-affirming medical treatment pending a full trial.Montana’s supreme court justices agreed with the district court judge Jason Marks who put a stop to the ban in September 2023, just days before it came into effect. Marks ruled: “The legislature has no interest … to justify its interference with an individual’s fundamental privacy right to obtain a particular lawful medical procedure from a healthcare provider.”The decision to allow gender-affirming treatment to continue for the time being was greeted with delight by the young plaintiffs and advocacy groups. Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat who is the first out trans member of the state legislature, said on social media: “Montana has a constitutional right to privacy, including in our healthcare decisions. Today our constitution continues to protect individuals from government overreach.”Zephyr was propelled into the national limelight in the spring of 2023 when she spoke passionately against the ban in the Montana house. She was banished from the chamber by the Republican leadership prompting large protests.Montana is among at least 26 states that have introduced bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors. By contrast, 15 states have enacted protections for under-18s seeking treatment.The state’s supreme court ruling comes at a critical moment in the nationwide battle over medical care for trans youth. Earlier this month the US supreme court heard oral arguments in a landmark case brought by the ACLU and others against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming hormonal therapies for trans minors.Read the full story here:Attorney general Merrick Garland praised Wray for his service.“The director of the FBI is responsible for protecting the independence of the FBI. from inappropriate influence in its criminal investigations. That independence is central to preserving the rule of law and to protecting the freedoms we as Americans hold dear,” Garland said in a statement.Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, has been on Capitol Hill promoting his candidacy.“We look forward to a very smooth transition at the FBI and I’ll be ready to go on day one,” he told reporters.It is unclear the level of support Patel can expect, even from Republicans, for his nomination. The firebrand loyalist has said he sees the department he would lead as part of a “deep state” and pledged to shut its Washington headquarters.The Democratic chair of the Senate select committee on intelligence, Mark Warner, had a measured response to the resignation of FBI chief Christopher Wray.“As we look ahead to the process of confirming a new leader for the FBI, it is essential that the next director be someone who shares director Wray’s commitment to fairness, transparency, and the rule of law, so that the men and women of the FBI can continue their vital work safeguarding national security, fighting crime, and ensuring justice for all,” he said.Independent senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who became notorious for opposing major parts of Joe Biden’s legislative agenda during the first half of his term, have prevented Democrats from appointing a majority on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).Manchin and Sinema, both former Democrats who left the party this year and in 2022, respectively, voted against reappointing Lauren McFerran to a five-year term on the NLRB, which enforces labor laws and oversees unionization efforts. Together with opposition from Senate Republicans, McFerran’s nomination failed, preventing the Democrats from having a majority of their appointees on the board through 2026. Instead, her seat will become open next week, and is likely to be filled by an appointee picked by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate’s incoming Republican majority.Manchin and Sinema’s votes were a parting shot to Democrats, after both opted to retire rather than seek another term in the Senate. Biden’s allies are rushing to approve as many federal judges and other appointees as possible before the GOP takes the majority in January, with an eye towards frustrating Trump’s ability to enact the sorts of radical policies he campaigned on implementing.In his post cheering Christopher Wray’s plan to depart as FBI director, Donald Trump also sang the praises of Kash Patel, his nominee to lead the bureau:
      Kash Patel is the most qualified Nominee to lead the FBI in the Agency’s History, and is committed to helping ensure that Law, Order, and Justice will be brought back to our Country again, and soon. As everyone knows, I have great respect for the rank-and-file of the FBI, and they have great respect for me. They want to see these changes every bit as much as I do but, more importantly, the American People are demanding a strong, but fair, System of Justice. We want our FBI back, and that will now happen. I look forward to Kash Patel’s confirmation, so that the process of Making the FBI Great Again can begin.
      Patel has promised to make radical changes to the bureau, including dramatically downsizing its Washington headquarters, and opening investigations of journalists and others who have been critical of Trump. Republican senators have thus far signaled support for his nomination.Here’s more about Patel’s ideas, and the concerns that have been raised about them:Christopher Wray’s plans to step down as FBI director once he takes office will “end the weaponization” of federal law enforcement, Donald Trump said.Referring to the justice department as “the United States Department of Injustice”, Trump said of Wray, the outgoing FBI director whom he appointed in 2017: “I just don’t know what happened to him.” The president-elect has repeatedly claimed the bureau has become politicized, after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago resort and found classified documents. He’s also criticized the justice department under Joe Biden, whose attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead Trump’s prosecution on charges of hiding classified documents, and attempting to overturn the 2020 election.Here’s more from Trump:
      The resignation of Christopher Wray is a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice. I just don’t know what happened to him. We will now restore the Rule of Law for all Americans. Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause, worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me, and has done everything else to interfere with the success and future of America. They have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them.
      The Senate judiciary committee’s outgoing Democratic chair, Dick Durbin, had this to say about Christopher Wray’s announcement that he will step down as FBI director once Donald Trump takes office:
      The FBI is critical to our nation’s security and our families’ safety. It will soon embark on a perilous new era with serious questions about its future. I want to thank Director Wray for his service to our nation, and all the men and women of the FBI for their continued efforts to protect our security and liberty.
      The committee is set to consider Donald Trump nominee Kash Patel’s qualifications for the FBI director job – but when it do so sometime next year, it’ll be Trump-aligned Republicans in the majority, not the Democrats.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US was “looking at the question” of whether there was evidence of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces committing genocide in Darfur when asked by Democratic congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove this afternoon at a House foreign affairs committee.Kamlager-Dove said a genocide determination was “overdue” as she pressed Blinken on what was causing the delay. Blinken said: “In terms of atrocities, war crimes, we’ve been making determinations already; we’re looking at the question of genocide. Whether we complete that review in the time we have left, I can’t tell you.”Blinken also said that Sudan, which has been at war since April 2023, was the “worst humanitarian situation in the world by orders of magnitude”, adding that modest progress had been made on getting aid into the country.Progressive thinktank Public Citizen called on Christopher Wray to rethink his decision to resign as FBI director once Joe Biden’s presidency ends.“FBI director Christopher Wray should stay. He should rethink his decision to resign and finish out his 10-year term,” the group’s co-president Robert Weissman, said in a statement.He continued:
      It is especially important that Wray stays in office in light of Donald Trump’s announced intention to appoint Kash Patel to the position. Patel is not only unqualified, he is a danger to America. Patel has already announced his intention to weaponize the FBI against Trump’s perceived enemies – threatening a return to the agency’s most sinister history, or worse.If Donald Trump fires him, so be it. But Wray should not aid and abet the effort to weaponize the FBI by bowing out in advance.
      Christopher Wray announced his resignation plans in a message to FBI employees today, Reuters reports.“After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” Wray said, according to a statement from the bureau seen by Reuters.The FBI director, Christopher Wray, will resign once Donald Trump takes office, Reuters reports.Trump appointed Wray to a 10-year term leading the federal law enforcement agency in 2017, but has since criticized him for the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago resort for classified documents and other actions the president-elect says are proof the bureau has been “weaponized” against him. After winning the presidential election, Trump nominated former national security official Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, who has so far received a positive reception from Senate Republicans.Patel’s nomination was a clear warning to Wray that if he did not resign, he would be fired.Donald Trump will be Time magazine’s person of the year this year, picking up the accolade for a second time, Politico reports.Trump previously won the honor in 2016, when he won his first term as president. Politico reports he beat out Kamala Harris, Elon Musk, Benjamin Netanyahu and others for the title, and will celebrate by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow.Here’s more, from Politico:
      Last year, pop superstar Taylor Swift won the honor. To mark the magazine cover reveal, Time CEO Jessica Sibley rang the opening bell.
      Trump was also named Time Person of the Year in 2016 after he won the presidential election. He joins 13 other U.S. presidents who have received the recognition, including President Joe Biden.
      A short list for Time Person of the Year was announced Monday on NBC’s “The Today Show” and included Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris, Kate Middleton, Elon Musk and Benjamin Netanyahu.
      Time already announced NBA star Caitlin Clark as Athlete of the Year, Elton John as Icon of the Year and Lisa Su of Advanced Micro Devices as CEO of the Year.
      A spokesperson for Time said the magazine “does not comment on its annual choice for Person of the Year prior to publication. This year’s choice will be announced tomorrow morning, Dec. 12, on Time.com.”
      Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace yesterday said she had been assaulted by an activist who supports transgender rights, but witnesses to the incident say no such attack occurred, and they are puzzled as to why police made an arrest.The Washington Post and the Imprint report that the alleged attack took place at an anniversary celebration for a child welfare law, which Mace attended. The man who police would later go on to arrest on a charge of assaulting a government official, James McIntyre, is a former foster child who now advocates for their rights. Far from attacking Mace, he went up and shook her hand and spoke to her, the reports say.From the Imprint:
      At tonight’s event, Mace, who co-chairs Congress’ bipartisan foster care caucus, joined a group of legislators at a House reception celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999. The act created the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood, legislation that significantly expanded federal support for foster youth who leave the system after turning 18 without a permanent home.
      In her remarks at the House event, Rep. Mace told the crowd that while she was not an adoptee or former foster youth, she had been a victim of sexual abuse as a child. She called the dozens of advocates and foster youth in attendance — McIntyre among them — “the cream of the crop.”
      “I look forward to working with each and every one of you. God bless you, I will be praying for you,” Mace said.
      As she finished her comments and moved to leave the room, McIntyre approached her near an exit door, witnesses said.
      Elliott Hinkle, a former foster youth and advocate for LGBTQ rights, said McIntyre shook her hand, and made a comment about how many transgender youth are in foster care, adding: “They need your support.”
      “From what I saw, it was a normal handshake and interaction that I would expect any legislator to expect from anyone as a constituent,” said Hinkle, a consultant who has advised the federal government on issues affecting youth in foster care.
      Later, Hinkle said, one of Mace’s aides returned to the reception and asked McIntyre his name and whether he would repeat what he had told the legislator. Two other people who witnessed the interaction confirmed that description of the brief episode.
      McIntyre left the celebration, but he was later summoned back to the Rayburn Building by police.
      Donald Trump’s nominees for powerful cabinet positions are back on Capitol hill to make their cases to the Republican senators who will decide if they get the job. Pete Hegseth is making the rounds, after picking up apparent support from a senator who had grown wary of the defense secretary nominee following the emergence of a sexual assault allegation and stories of excessive drinking and poor treatment of women. Nominee for FBI director Kash Patel is also on the Hill, but his ex-boss, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, says he’s unqualified to lead the bureau because he inflated his résumé and was known for exaggerations and fibs.Here’s what else has been happening:

      Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman who introduced a bill to bar the first-ever openly transgender House lawmaker from using the bathroom that corresponds with her gender identity, said she was attacked. Capitol police confirmed the arrest of an Illinois man on a charge of assaulting a public official.

      Conservative activists have launched a pressure campaign, which includes threats to launch primaries, against lawmakers who are less than enthusiastic in their support Trump’s cabinet picks.

      John Fetterman has become the first Democratic senator to join Trump’s X-like Truth Social. In his first post, he called both the president-elect’s hush-money case and the prosecution of Hunter Biden “bullshit”.
      Former national security adviser John Bolton said Kash Patel, whom he supervised during his time in Donald Trump’s first administration, is the wrong choice to lead the FBI.Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bolton says Patel inflated his résumé and was prone to exaggerations or outright fibs that jeopardized national security:
      Rep Devin Nunes pushed Mr Patel for the National Security Council staff after Republicans lost the House in 2018. Notwithstanding Mr Patel’s lack of policy credentials, the president ordered him hired. NSC staff has long been divided into directorates responsible for different policy areas. Charles Kupperman, my deputy, and I placed Mr. Patel in the International Organizations Directorate, which had a vacancy.
      Some five months later, we moved him to fill an opening in the Counter-Terrorism Directorate. In neither case was he in charge of a directorate during my tenure as national security adviser or thereafter, as he contends in his memoir and elsewhere. He reported to senior directors in both cases and had defined responsibilities. His puffery was characteristic of the résumé inflation we had detected when Mr Trump pressed him on us. We found he had exaggerated his role in cases he worked on as a Justice Department lawyer before joining Mr Nunes’s committee staff. Given the sensitivity of the NSC’s responsibilities, problems of credibility or reliability would ordinarily disqualify any job applicant.
      He proved to be less interested in his assigned duties than in worming his way into Mr Trump’s presence. Fiona Hill, NSC senior director for Europe, testified to Congress during Mr Trump’s first impeachment hearings that Mr Patel, at that time assigned to the International Organizations Directorate, participated in a May 2019 Oval Office meeting on Ukraine, and that he had engaged in various other Ukraine-related activities. Whatever he did on Ukraine while an NSC staffer, at least during my tenure, was unrestrained freelancing. (He has denied any communication with Mr Trump on Ukraine.)
      He also said Patel nearly compromised a hostage rescue mission by falsely stating that approval for US troops to enter a country had been granted:
      According to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s memoir, during an October 2020 hostage-rescue mission, Mr Patel, then in the Counter-Terrorism directorate, misinformed other officials that a key airspace-transit clearance had been granted. In fact, Mr Esper writes, the clearance hadn’t been obtained, threatening the operation’s success, and his team “suspected Patel made the approval story up” but wasn’t certain. Typically, Mr Patel’s version of this episode in his memoir denies any error – though, ironically, it also boasts of his acting beyond the authority of NSC staffers. Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also knew the day’s details, including about the clearance issue. He hasn’t spoken publicly about the incident. He should.
      Bolton, who was national security adviser from 2018 to 2019 and has since broken with Trump, said the president-elect likely nominated Patel simply because he would do whatever he is told – a dangerous qualification for a FBI director:
      Too many of Mr Trump’s personnel selections evidence his assiduous search for personal fealty, not loyalty to the Constitution. Kash Patel’s nomination as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation squarely fits this pattern.
      Also expected on Capitol Hill today is Kash Patel, a former defense official whom Donald Trump nominated to lead the FBI.Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said he would be meeting with Patel this morning.Yesterday, Patel met with several Republican senators, who generally praised him, despite his plans to radically change the FBI and potentially use it to go after Trump’s opponents.After their meeting yesterday, Senator Thom Tillis said on X:
      Kash Patel is the real deal. President Trump campaigned on the promise to enforce our laws equally and fairly and restore the integrity of the FBI. I look forward to supporting @Kash_Patel ’s confirmation.
      Senator Tommy Tuberville expressed a similar sentiment:
      Just met with the next FBI Director, @Kash_Patel. He will support our law enforcement officers and get the FBI back to working for the PEOPLE again. More