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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

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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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      Trump’s deportation plan would hurt families and economy, Senate hears

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      Donald Trump’s vow to carry out the largest deportation campaign in American history would separate families and hurt the economy, witnesses testified during a Tuesday Senate hearing, as a top Republican on the committee warned that undocumented people living in the country should “get ready to leave”.The president-elect has outlined an aggressive second-term immigration agenda that includes plans to declare a national emergency and deploy the US military to round up and expel millions of people living in the country without documentation. Trump has also vowed to end humanitarian protections for millions of people who fled violence, conflict or other disasters in their home country.The hearing, convened by Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee, set out to explore the economic and human toll of a large-scale deportation operation. But the session also revealed the ideological tensions that have for decades thwarted legislative attempts at immigration reform.“If you’re here illegally, get ready to leave. If you’re a criminal, we’re coming after you,” said Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the Senate judiciary committee. When Republicans assume the Senate majority next year, Graham promised his party would bring forward a “transformational border security bill” that would expand capacity at detention centers, boost the number of immigration officers and “finish the wall”.Many of Trump’s most controversial immigration policies, including family separation, proved deeply unpopular during his first term in office. But a post-pandemic rise in global migration led to a surge of asylum claims at the US-Mexico border during the early years of the Biden administration. Americans strongly disapproved of Biden’s handling of the issue, and ranked immigration as a top election issue.The November election was a “referendum on the federal border policies for the Biden-Harris administration”, the senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and the ranking member on the judiciary committee’s immigration subcommittee, declared during the hearing.The Democratic senators insisted that there were areas of common ground between the parties – repeatedly stating their support for the removal of immigrants with criminal records and the need for better controls at the border. And they emphasized the broad support for protecting Dreamers, people brought to the country as children.“Instead of mass deportations, [let’s have] mass accountability,” said the senator Dick Durbin, the committee’s Democratic chair. “Let’s fix our broken immigration system in a way that protects our country and honors our heritage as a nation of immigrants.”Democrats turned to their witnesses – an immigration expert, a retired army major general and an undocumented prosecutor – to make the case that mass deportations would do far more harm than good.“The president-elect’s mass deportation plans would crash the American economy, break up families and take a hammer to the foundations of our society by deporting nearly 4% of the entire US population,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan American Immigration Council, testified to the committee.An analysis by his group estimates that it would cost nearly $1tn to carry out Trump’s mass deportation plan and slash the annual GDP by between 4.2% and 6.8% – a level on par with the recession of 2008. Asked how Trump’s plans could impact Americans financially, Reichlin-Melnick said it would exacerbate inflation and cause food prices to rise.“A single worksite raid in 2018 under the Trump administration at a beef plant in Tennessee led to ground beef prices rising by 25 cents for the year that the plant was out of operation following the raid,” he said.Randy Manner, a retired US army major general and anti-Trump Republican, cautioned against using US troops to assist with a politically decisive domestic mission that he warned could undermine military readiness and erode public trust in the institution.“The US military is the best trained in the world for its war fighting mission, but it is neither trained or equipped for immigration enforcement,” he said.Among the witnesses invited to testify was Foday Turay, an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia who fled Sierra Leone as a child and testified that he did not know he was undocumented until he went to apply for a driver’s license. He is shielded from deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.As a father, a husband, an immigrant and a prosecutor, Turay said the threat of mass deportations would affect him “on a personal level, on a community level and on a societal level.“If I were to be deported, my wife and our son would be left without money to pay the mortgage. My son would also be without a father,” he said. He also warned that the widespread deployment of immigration agents could chill the ability of law enforcement to pursue criminals.“As a prosecutor, I know how delicate the ties between law enforcement and immigrants can be if immigrants are afraid to cooperate with the police or prosecutors like myself because they’re afraid of deportation,” he added. “Mass deportation hurts all of us, our families, our community and our society.”Republicans invited Patty Morin, the mother of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was beaten, raped and killed in August 2023 during a hiking trip. Officials say the suspect in her death was in the US illegally after killing a woman in his native El Salvador. Trump, with the support of the Morin family, has cited the murder as part of his appeal for stricter border controls.“The American people should not feel afraid to live in their own homes,” Patty Morin told the committee. “We need to follow the laws that are already on the books, we need to close our borders. We need to protect American families.”Seeking common ground, the Democratic senator Peter Welch of Vermont asked Morin if she would support a deportation policy that targeted undocumented people with a criminal record while pursuing a legal remedy for those who have lived and worked in the US with no criminal record.“Are we saying it’s ok to come to America in an unlawful way?” Morin replied. “There has to be some kind of a line, a precedent, of what is lawful and what isn’t lawful.”The senator Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who has been sharply critical of Trump’s immigration proposals, accused his Republican colleagues of distorting data and conflating fentanyl deaths with immigration. Citing federal statistics, he said the vast majority – more than 80% – of people prosecuted for trafficking the drug into the country were US citizens.“If that’s a concern, then let’s address the heart of the concern and not just use it as a sound bite to further attack immigrants,” he said.Ahead of the hearing, Padilla was among a group of Democratic senators who sent a letter to the president urging Biden to extend humanitarian protections to certain groups and to expedite the processing of applicants for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which shields from deportation undocumented people brought into the US as children.“We urge you to act decisively between now and the inauguration of the president-elect to complete the important work of the past four years and protect immigrant families,” the letter said.Earlier this week, the White House released a memo outlining Biden’s priorities for his final days in office that did not include any reference to immigration-related actions. More

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      Trump promises ‘fully expedited approvals and permits’ to billionaire investors in the US – live

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      As he closed his speech at the Brookings Institution, Joe Biden singled out Project 2025 as being particularly harmful, and said he hoped Donald Trump does not follow the rightwing blueprint’s proposals to remake the US government.“I pray to God the president-elect throws away Project 2025. I think it’d be an economic disaster for us and the region,” Biden said.Trump has publicly repudiated Project 2025, but since winning re-election has appointed conservatives involved in drawing up the document to positions in his incoming administration. Here’s more on what they might do:We’re pausing this blog for now. Thanks for following along.

      In a speech billed at promoting his economic accomplishments, Joe Biden warned Donald Trump against imposing tariffs and cutting taxes – two of the key planks of his successful re-election campaign. The president also defended America’s dominant role in global affairs, and said implementing Project 2025 would result in “economic disaster”.

      Earlier in the day, Senate Democrats convened a hearing meant to explore the implications of Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Senate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin said such deportations “would damage our economy and separate American families”. Lindsey Graham, the top-ranking Republican on the committee, promised senators would get to work on a “transformational border security bill” as soon as Trump takes office.
      Here’s what else happened today:

      Adam Schiff, a Democratic former member of the January 6 committee, said he did not think it was necessary for Biden to issue pre-emptive pardons to the panel’s members, despite Trump’s threats to jail them.

      Mitch McConnell, the 82-year-old outgoing Senate Republican leader, suffered a fall, but has been cleared to get back to work.

      The New York attorney general, Letitia James, reportedly told Trump’s attorneys she will keep pursuing the $454m-plus judgment levied against him for business fraud.

      Matt Gaetz is joining rightwing broadcaster One America News Network as an anchor.

      Trump was up late last night, writing weird stuff about Canada.
      Adam Schiff, a Democratic former member of the January 6 committee, said he did not think it was necessary for Joe Biden to issue pre-emptive pardons to those involved in the bipartisan House investigation of the attack on the Capitol.In an interview over the weekend, Donald Trump alleged that the committee had destroyed its evidence, and the committee members “should go to jail”. The committee’s report and its supporting documents remain publicly available online.Speaking at the Capitol, Schiff, who was just sworn in as a senator representing California, said:
      I don’t think the incoming president should be threatening his political opponents with jail time. That’s not the kind of talk we should hear from the president in a democracy. Nor do I think that a pardon is necessary for the members of the January 6th Committee.
      We’re proud of the work we did in that committee. It was fundamental oversight obligation to investigate the first attempt to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power in our history.
      Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was injured in a fall today, but has been cleared to get back to work, his office said.“Leader McConnell tripped following lunch. He sustained a minor cut to the face and sprained his wrist. He has been cleared to resume his schedule,” a spokesperson for the long-serving Senate Republican leader said.McConnell, 82, is in his final weeks leading the party in the Senate. John Thune will be the GOP leader next year, when the party takes the majority in the chamber.Last year, reports emerged that McConnell had suffered multiple falls, and he also repeatedly appeared to freeze up in public. He is expected to continue serving as a senator representing Kentucky through 2026, when his current term expires.Further deepening his unusually close ties with billionaires, Donald Trump has promised “fully expedited approvals and permits” to people who invest $1bn or more in the United States.Writing on Truth Social, Trump said:
      Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!
      Trump has nominated several billionaires to his cabinet, and put the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of the quasi-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency”. Here’s more about that:Dozens of Nobel laureates have banded together to urge the Senate to reject Robert F Kennedy Jr, the conspiracy theorist who Donald Trump nominated to lead the department of health and human services. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait:Seventy-seven Nobel laureates have signed a letter urging the US Senate to reject Robert F Kennedy Jr as Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, arguing that he is unfit and would put American public health “in jeopardy”.It is believed to be the first time in living memory that Nobel prize winners have united against a presidential cabinet pick, and comes against a backdrop of Kennedy’s public support for discredited theories, including a claim that childhood vaccines cause autism.In their letter, prize winners in the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics and economics castigate Kennedy for a “lack of credentials” and point out that he has been “a belligerent critic” of some of the agencies that he would oversee, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).“The proposal to place Mr Kennedy in charge of the federal agencies responsible for protecting the public health of American citizens and for conducting the medical research that benefits our country and the rest of humanity has been widely criticised on multiple grounds,” the laureates say in the letter, first obtained by the New York Times.Donald Trump’s picks for FBI director and attorney general have former federal prosecutors worried, the Guardian’s Peter Stone reports:By tapping two combative ultra-loyalists to run the FBI and the justice department, Donald Trump has sparked fears they will pursue the president-elect’s calls for “revenge” against his political foes and sack officials who Trump demonizes as “deep state” opponents, say ex-justice department prosecutors.Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, who Trump has nominated to run the FBI and Department of Justice, respectively, have been unswerving loyalists to Trump for years, promoting Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden was due to fraud.Patel was a top lawyer on the House intelligence panel under rightwing member Devin Nunes for part of Trump’s first term and then held a few posts in the Trump administration including at the national security council advising the president.Bondi, a recent corporate lobbyist and an ex-Florida attorney general, defended Trump during his first impeachment and was active on the campaign trail during the late stages of his 2024 run.Patel and Bondi have each echoed Trump’s calls for taking revenge against key Democrats and officials, including ones who pursued criminal charges against Trump for his aggressive efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat and his role in inflaming the January 6 attack on the Capitol that led to five deaths.Trump has lavished praise on both picks, calling Patel a “brilliant lawyer” and “advocate for truth”, while hailing Bondi as “loyal” and “qualified”. But critics say their rhetoric and threats are “incredibly harmful to public trust” in the two agencies undermining the integrity of the FBI and justice department, and potentially spurring violence.Alternatively, Merchan could choose to uphold the verdict and proceed to sentencing or delay the case until Trump leaves office.Trump will be the first president, former or current, to be a convicted criminal.In more Trump legal news, the president-elect might lose his months-long fight to reverse his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, the Associated Press reports.Prosecutors are trying to convince Judge Juan M Merchan, acting justice of the New York state supreme court in New York county, to preserve Donald Trump’s hush money criminal conviction before he becomes president. This way, the case would be permanently suspended, allowing Trump’s conviction to stand and bar any attempts to appeal.Trump’s legal team has urged Merchan to dismiss the case and argue letting it go on would cause unconstitutional “disruptions” to his presidency.Some background: Trump has been convicted of manipulating documents to conceal a $130,000 payment to pornographic film actor Stormy Daniels in order to quiet her claim that they had sexual relations more than a decade ago. Trump denies any wrongdoing.Here’s more, from the AP:
      Prosecutors are urging a judge not to throw out President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money criminal conviction but suggesting a willingness to end the case in a way that would preserve the verdict while avoiding punishment or a protracted legal fight.
      In court papers made public on Tuesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office proposed an array of options for keeping the historic conviction on the books, including asking Judge Juan M. Merchan to consider treating the case the way he would when a defendant dies.
      That would effectively put the case into a permanent state of suspended animation. Trump’s conviction would stand, but everything would freeze, including any appeal action. It is unclear if that option is viable under New York law.
      “As applied here, this Court could similarly terminate the criminal proceeding by placing a notation in the record that the jury verdict removed the presumption of innocence; that defendant was never sentenced; and that his conviction was neither affirmed nor reversed on appeal because of presidential immunity,” prosecutors wrote in an 82-page filing.
      Among the other options prosecutors proposed was delaying sentencing until after Trump leaves office in 2029. However, they were adamant that the conviction should stand, arguing that Trump’s impending return to the White House should not upend a jury’s finding.
      In a speech billed at promoting his economic accomplishments, Joe Biden warned Donald Trump against imposing tariffs and cutting taxes – two of the key planks of his successful re-election campaign. The president also defended America’s dominant role in global affairs, and said implementing Project 2025 would result in “economic disaster”. Earlier in the day, Senate Democrats convened a hearing meant to explore the implications of Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Senate judiciary committee chair Dick Durbin said such deportations “would damage our economy and separate American families”. Lindsey Graham, the top-ranking Republican on the committee, promised senators would get to work on a “transformational border security bill” as soon as Trump takes office.Here’s what else is going on:

      New York attorney general Letitia James reportedly told Trump’s attorneys she will keep pursuing the $454m-plus judgment levied against him for business fraud.

      Matt Gaetz is joining rightwing broadcaster One America News Network as an anchor.

      Trump was up late last night, writing weird stuff about Canada.
      As he closed his speech at the Brookings Institution, Joe Biden singled out Project 2025 as being particularly harmful, and said he hoped Donald Trump does not follow the rightwing blueprint’s proposals to remake the US government.“I pray to God the president-elect throws away Project 2025. I think it’d be an economic disaster for us and the region,” Biden said.Trump has publicly repudiated Project 2025, but since winning re-election has appointed conservatives involved in drawing up the document to positions in his incoming administration. Here’s more on what they might do:With Donald Trump mulling pulling the country back from its international alliances and commitments, Joe Biden argued that it was essential that the United States remains dominant in global affairs.“If we do not lead the world, what nation leads the world?” Biden, his voice raised, said in a speech to the Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington DC thinktank. “Who pulls Europe together, who tries to pull the Middle East together? How do in the Indian Ocean? What do we do in Africa? We, the United States, lead the world.”Referring to economic policies pursued by his administration and others that Trump has vowed to reverse, Biden said: “My hope and belief is that the decisions and investments that are now so deeply rooted through the nation, it’s going to be politically costly and economically unsound for the next president to disrupt.”Joe Biden singled out Donald Trump’s proposals to impose steep tariffs on US allies and rivals alike and to extend tax cuts enacted during his first administration as policies that would undermine the economy’s health.“By all accounts, the incoming administration is determined to return the country … [to] trickle-down economics, and another tax cut for the very wealthy that will not be paid for, or if paid for, is going to have a real cost, once again, causing massive deficits or significant cuts in basic programs of healthcare, education, veterans benefits,” Biden said.“On top of that, he seems determined to impose steep, universal tariffs on all imported goods brought to this country on the mistaken belief that foreign countries will bear the cost of those tariffs, rather than the American consumer. Who do you think pays for this? I believe this approach is a major mistake. I believe we’ve proven that approach is a mistake over the past four years, but … we will know in time what will happen.”Joe Biden has generally refrained from criticizing Donald Trump since his presidential election victory, but subtly needled his Republican successor in a speech where the president defended his economic record.“Next month, my administration will end, and a new administration will begin. Most economists agree the new administration is going to inherit a fairly strong economy, at least at the moment, an economy going through fundamental transformation that’s laid out a stronger foundation and a sustainable, broad-based, highly productive growth,” Biden said. “It is my profound hope that the new administration will preserve and build on this progress.”Later on, Trump singled out Trump for criticism over his handling of the pandemic. “The previous administration, quite frankly, had no plan, real plan, to get us through one of the toughest periods in our nation’s history,” Biden said.And though Trump campaigned on tearing up Biden’s legislative accomplishments – and has the votes to do it, thanks to Republican victories that will give them control of Congress – the president predicted that undoing his 2022 effort to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure will be impossible, since it benefits so many red states.“We had infrastructure week for four years, nothing got built,” Biden said, in yet another dig at Trump.“Everybody said when I wanted to have an infrastructure bill that mattered, over $1.3tn, we’d never get it done. We got it done. The next president has a gameplan I laid out, and by the way, he’s going to find, since I made a promise I’d invest as much in red states as blue, he’s gonna have trouble not doing it. He’s gonna have a lot of red state senators that are opposed to all of it and voted for it deciding it’s very much in their interest to build the facilities that are on the block.”A Senate hearing on mass deportations ended on a bitter note, with a series of back-and-forths between Republicans on the committee and a majority witness invited to testify about the cost and economic impact of removing millions of immigrants from the labor force.Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, repeatedly testified that he did not support “open borders” despite Republican senators claiming he did.Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana spent his allotted time questioning Reichlin-Melnick about old tweets while Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, called him a part of the problem. A pre-election report published by the American Immigration Council, which supports comprehensive immigration reform, found that mass deportations on the scale Donald Trump has proposed would cost at least $315bn and would hurt the economy, especially in key industries like agriculture and constructionThe exchanges underscored just how polarized Congress is over the issue and how little appetite there is for compromise in an area that was at the heart of Trump’s re-election pitch. In a sign that Democrats are scrambling for a response, several senators stressed their agreement with Republicans and Trump that immigrants with a criminal record should be deported, while also talking about the importance of protecting Dreamers.Matt Gaetz, who resigned his seat in Congress after Donald Trump nominated him as his attorney general, only to withdraw his nomination after reports emerged of sexual misconduct, has joined the One America News Network (OAN), a rightwing outlet.Starting in January, Gaetz will host a one-hour prime-time show aptly titled “The Matt Gaetz Show”, and also co-host a video podcast, the network announced.“OAN is blazing a trail in media, embracing not just traditional news but the platforms where Americans are going – streaming, apps, podcasts, and social media. I couldn’t be more thrilled to join OAN’s forward-thinking team and be part of this revolutionary expansion,” Gaetz said in a statement.New York attorney general Letitia James has told Donald Trump’s attorneys that she will continue pursuing a $454m civil fraud judgment her office won against the president-elect, despite his looming inauguration, the Hill reports.Trump’s lawyers had asked her to support vacating the judgment, citing his presidential election victory. In a letter in response, James said: “Mr. Trump’s upcoming inauguration as the next president of the United States has no bearing on the pendency of defendants’ appeal in this action. “An appeals court heard arguments in September in Trump’s challenge to the civil fraud judgment, which centered on claims that he inflated his wealth to secure better lending conditions. Here’s more: More

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      The Guardian view on Trump’s threat to the media: time to pass the Press Act

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      Fears of a press crackdown under Donald Trump’s second term deepened with his nomination of Kash Patel as FBI director – given his calls for retribution against journalists. Yet a rare chance to protect press freedom has emerged. The bipartisan Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (Press) Act, the strongest press freedom legislation in US history, is on the brink of a vote. While President-elect Trump has urged Republicans to block it, the Senate could still deliver it to Joe Biden before the lame-duck session ends in January.The Press Act would ban secret government demands for journalists’ communications from tech giants such as Google or Verizon and protect reporters from jail for refusing to reveal sources. For investigative reporters to do their jobs – holding government officials to account for corruption and wrongdoing – they need to be able to protect the confidentiality of their sources. With courts recently weakening already-imperilled “reporter’s privilege” protections, this bill would finally give journalists in the US federal protections comparable to those afforded to other relationships where confidentiality is paramount, such as lawyers and clients, doctors and patients, and spouses.The bill has something for both Democrats and Republicans to like. The Press Act’s broad and nonpartisan definition of “journalist” takes into account the modern media landscape: you don’t have to work full-time for a mainstream media organisation to be covered. Freelancers, independent reporters writing Substack newsletters and even journalists posting primarily to social networks such as X would be included. It protects right-leaning journalists just as much as anyone at the New York Times or the Guardian.It also has commonsense national security exceptions (like preventing a terrorist attack or an imminent threat of violence) without diluting the bill’s strong protections. It’s worth remembering that Democratic administrations have abused their powers to go after the first amendment rights of journalists just as much as Republicans. The Obama administration brought a record number of prosecutions against whistleblowers, and was implicated in several government spying scandals, including secretly targeting journalists at the Associated Press and Fox News.Even the Biden administration, before reversing course after public outrage, continued pursuing at least some of the surveillance orders against news outlets that the first Trump administration initiated. That’s why, in an age of extreme political polarisation, the Press Act is about as bipartisan as it gets. The House passed the bill early in 2024 unanimously, with several prominent Republicans publicly touting its importance. The bill also has powerful co-sponsors in the Senate, ranging from Democrats such as Ron Wyden and Dick Durbin, the judiciary committee chair, to Trump-supporting Republicans like Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham.Even the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson supports the bill, as he made clear in a recent interview he did with the former Fox News and CBS reporter Catherine Herridge, who was subpoenaed to reveal a source for a story she wrote several years ago. She was recently in front of the DC court of appeals, where her lawyers argued that forcing reporters to reveal their sources in court sends a chilling effect to countless others around the country. For the bill to pass, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, must make it a priority. The lame-duck session is only a few weeks long; if senators don’t act now, we may not have this opportunity for another decade or more.

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Without proof, top Trump adviser accuses January 6 committee of destroying evidence – as it happened

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      Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, went on CNN earlier today to defend the president-elect’s assertion that the bipartisan House committee tasked with investigating the January 6 insurrection destroyed evidence.Trump used that claim to then argue that the lawmakers who took part in the investigation should go to jail. The assertion appears factually wobbly, since the committee’s report and its evidence remains easily accessible online.Asked in the CNN interview if Trump would have Kash Patel, his nominee to lead the FBI, go after the committee members, Miller responded:
      I do have to take issue with saying that the select committee didn’t go and destroy records. They have wiped everything out …
      Other committees have looked through and said that those records are gone, that they don’t exist, that they’re not there. Even Republicans who are now in charge have said that those records are gone, that they’re not there. So I would completely take issue with that. We’re going to have to agree to disagree, but they got rid of it.
      But he seemed to moderate Trump’s comments slightly, arguing that the president-elect expects Patel and Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, “to apply the law equally”:
      He wants everyone who he puts into key positions of leadership, again, whether that’s Pam Bondi as the AG, Kash Patel, the FBI, or anybody else, to apply the law equally to everybody. Now, that means, if you’re somebody who’s committed some very serious crimes, who’s committed very serious felonies, who’s, for example, leaked confidential information, in direct violation of laws that are in place, well, then, obviously, that sets you up for different things …
      But as far as the politics aspect, if you listen to the entire interview with President Trump, he said he’s going to leave that up to the law enforcement agents in charge, including Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.
      Donald Trump this weekend made clear he would pardon rioters facing charges or convicted of involvement in January 6, while saying members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the violence “should go to jail”. That prompted a response from its vice-chair, Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who rejected his criticism, saying: “Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power.” Meanwhile, the supreme court turned aside an effort by Trump’s attorneys to lift the gag order imposed on him in his hush-money case.Here’s what else happened today:

      Jason Miller, a top adviser to Trump, said the House committee that investigated January 6 destroyed evidence, but provided no proof for his claim. He also slightly walked back Trump’s quip that the lawmakers involved should be jailed.

      Markwayne Mullin, a Republican senator, said the January 6 committee members do not “have a reason to be afraid now”, but that their work is worth of investigating.

      Jim Clyburn, a veteran Democratic congressman, warned that Trump’s comments should be taken seriously, adding that they were reminiscent of the rhetoric that led to the rise of Jim Crow.

      Two senators proposed a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on supreme court justices, but it faces long odds.

      Chuck Grassley, the Iowa Republican who will chair the Senate judiciary committee next year, sent the FBI director and his deputy a letter saying they should resign for not cooperating with Congress and politicizing the bureau.
      Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary is back on Capitol Hill for more meetings with Republican senators, including Joni Ernst, whose views on him are seen as vital to his chances of confirmation.Ernst, a combat veteran and sexual assault survivor, has signaled hesitance with confirming Hegseth, after reports emerged of his excessive drinking and poor treatment of women, including a sexual assault allegation.Hegseth and Ernst met again today, but it wasn’t clear if the senator had made up her mind about Trump’s Pentagon pick. As he left her office, Hegseth said that it was a “very good meeting”, but little else.Chuck Grassley, the long-serving Iowa senator who will chair the chamber’s judiciary committee next year, has called for the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and his deputy to resign, saying they politicized the agency and refused to cooperate with him.Should Wray and his deputy FBI director, Paul Abbate, heed Grassley’s call, it would clear the way for Senate Republicans to confirm the former defense official Kash Patel to the job. Patel has drawn concern for calling for the imprisonment of journalists and vowing to radically downsize the FBI.In a letter sent to Wray, Grassley wrote:
      Rather than turn over a new leaf at the FBI, you’ve continued to read from the old playbook of weaponization, double standards, and a relentless game of hide-and-seek with the Congress. As your tenure as FBI director comes to an end, I want to take this opportunity to tell you where you went wrong, for the benefit of the bureau and that of your successor.
      Grassley went on to criticize Wray and Abbate for not being forthcoming enough on a range of matters, including sexual harassment claims made by female FBI employees, the vetting of evacuees from Afghanistan, and its agents’ search of Mar-a-Lago for classified materials Donald Trump was accused of hiding there.Grassley concludes:
      For the good of the country, it’s time for you and your deputy to move on to the next chapter in your lives. I’ve spent my career fighting for transparency, and I’ve always called out those in government who have fought against it. For the public record, I must do so once again now. I therefore must express my vote of no confidence in your continued leadership of the FBI. President-elect Trump has already announced his intention to nominate a candidate to replace you, and the Senate will carefully consider that choice. For my part, I’ve also seen enough, and hope your respective successors will learn from these failures.
      If they do not step down, Trump has the power to fire them.In his interview with NBC, Donald Trump also mulled putting his health secretary nominee, Robert F Kennedy Jr, in charge of researching the very vaccines he has pushed conspiracy theories against. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait:Donald Trump has said Robert F Kennedy Jr, his nominee for health secretary, may investigate a supposed link between vaccines and autism – despite a consensus among the medical establishment debunking any such connection.In a wide-ranging interview with NBC, the US president-elect claimed an investigation was justified by the increasing prevalence of autism diagnoses among American children over the past 25 years.“When you look at what’s going on with disease and sickness in our country, something’s wrong,” Trump said after the interviewer, Kristen Welker, asked him if he wanted to see some vaccines eliminated – a position for which Kennedy has argued.“If you take a look at autism, go back 25 years, autism was almost nonexistent. It was, you know, one out of 100,000 and now it’s close to one out of 100.”According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one out of every 36 children in the US were diagnosed with autism in 2020, compared with one in 150 in 2000.Kennedy, a noted vaccine sceptic, has repeatedly peddled discredited theories that the conditions is caused by childhood vaccinations.“I do believe that autism does come from vaccines,” he said in a 2023 Fox News interview in which he called for more vaccine testing.“We should have the same kind of testing place or control trials that we have for other every other medication. Vaccines are exempt from pre-licensing control trials, so that there’s no way that anybody can tell the risk profile of those products, or even the relative benefits of those products before they’re mandated. We should have that kind of testing.”Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, went on CNN earlier today to defend the president-elect’s assertion that the bipartisan House committee tasked with investigating the January 6 insurrection destroyed evidence.Trump used that claim to then argue that the lawmakers who took part in the investigation should go to jail. The assertion appears factually wobbly, since the committee’s report and its evidence remains easily accessible online.Asked in the CNN interview if Trump would have Kash Patel, his nominee to lead the FBI, go after the committee members, Miller responded:
      I do have to take issue with saying that the select committee didn’t go and destroy records. They have wiped everything out …
      Other committees have looked through and said that those records are gone, that they don’t exist, that they’re not there. Even Republicans who are now in charge have said that those records are gone, that they’re not there. So I would completely take issue with that. We’re going to have to agree to disagree, but they got rid of it.
      But he seemed to moderate Trump’s comments slightly, arguing that the president-elect expects Patel and Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, “to apply the law equally”:
      He wants everyone who he puts into key positions of leadership, again, whether that’s Pam Bondi as the AG, Kash Patel, the FBI, or anybody else, to apply the law equally to everybody. Now, that means, if you’re somebody who’s committed some very serious crimes, who’s committed very serious felonies, who’s, for example, leaked confidential information, in direct violation of laws that are in place, well, then, obviously, that sets you up for different things …
      But as far as the politics aspect, if you listen to the entire interview with President Trump, he said he’s going to leave that up to the law enforcement agents in charge, including Pam Bondi and Kash Patel.
      The idea is not new. Similar bills, like the Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act of 2023, which was introduced in the US house of representatives and has more than 60 co-sponsors, also calls for 18-year terms for supreme court justices and the establishment of a process for the president to appoint a new justice every two years.Another bill introduced this year by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, called the Judicial Modernization and Transparency Act, also called for overhauling the supreme court. But unlike the amendment proposed by Welch and Manchin, this would not limit their terms, but rather the total number of justices, allowing for expanding the court from nine to 15.The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law says supreme court justices are getting appointed at younger ages and living longer than they used to, which means they are sitting on the court longer than usual.Donald Trump appointed more justices during his first term than Barack Obama or George W Bush did during each of their two-term presidencies respectively.About two-thirds of Americans support imposing term limits on the members of the nation’s highest court, according to the results of the the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey released in September.Although Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who co-authored the proposed amendment to limit the supreme court justice terms with Welch, is seen as an obstructionist by Democrats, this latest proposal is a popular idea within the party.The progressive House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last year said: “We have a broad level of tools to deal with misconduct, overreach and abuse of power in the supreme court [that] has not been receiving the adequate oversight necessary in order to preserve their own legitimacy.“And in the process, they themselves have been destroying the legitimacy of the court, which is profoundly dangerous for our entire democracy.”Manchin left the party in May and registered as an independent after criticism for pushing against Joe Biden’s ambitious legislative goals, like those related to tackling the climate crisis or taxing the wealthy.Senator Pete Welch of Vermont took to X to announce his amendment to impose term limits on supreme court justices. He wrote:
      No other major democracy in the world gives lifetime seats to judges who sit on their highest court. It leads to divisive confirmation processes and reduced trust from the public.
      Donald Trump this weekend made clear he would pardon rioters facing charges or convicted of involvement in January 6, while saying members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the violence “should go to jail”. That prompted a response from its vice-chair, Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who rejected his criticism, saying: “Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power”. Meanwhile, the supreme court turned aside an effort by Trump’s attorneys to lift the gag order imposed on him in his hush-money case.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      Markwayne Mullin, a Republican senator, said the January 6 committee members do not “have a reason to be afraid now”, but that their work is worth of investigating.

      Jim Clyburn, a veteran Democratic congressman, warned that Trump’s comments should be taken seriously, adding that they were reminiscent of the rhetoric that led to the rise of Jim Crow.

      Two senators proposed a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on supreme court justices, but it faces long odds.
      The Democratic senator Peter Welch and independent senator Joe Manchin have proposed a constitutional amendment that would impose term limits on supreme court justices, saying such a move is necessary to restore faith in the nation’s highest court.“The current lifetime appointment structure is broken and fuels polarizing confirmation battles and political posturing that has eroded public confidence in the highest court in our land. Our amendment maintains that there shall never be more than nine justices and would gradually create regular vacancies on the Court, allowing the President to appoint a new justice every two years with the advice and consent of the United States Senate,” said Manchin, who is weeks away from concluding his 14 years of representing West Virginia.The senators cited one of many surveys that found dismal approval ratings for the court, where conservatives have a six-justice supermajority and liberals a three-justice minority. Welch, a recent arrival in the chamber who represents Vermont, said:
      Taking action to restore public trust in our nation’s most powerful Court is as urgent as it is necessary. Setting term limits for Supreme Court Justices will cut down on political gamesmanship, and is commonsense reform supported by a majority of Americans.
      Here’s how their proposal would work:
      The amendment would institute nonrenewable, 18-year terms for new U.S. Supreme Court Justices, with a new term starting every two years …
      The proposed amendment would not adjust the tenure of sitting Justices, but rather institute a transition period to maintain regular vacancies as current Justices retire. During that period, 18-year terms will begin every two years, regardless of when a current Justice leaves the bench. Once a current Justice retires, the newly appointed Justice will serve out the remainder of the next open 18-year term. The amendment would not change the overall number of Justices on the Court.
      It’s unlikely the idea will go far, particularly with Republicans in January assuming the majority in the chamber tasked with confirming the president’s appointments to the supreme court.It’s also proven difficult to win ratification of constitutional amendments. None has been approved since 1992, and the process typically requires the approval of supermajorities in the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as the legislatures in three-fourths of states.Police in Pennsylvania are reportedly questioning a man in connection with the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, in New York City last week.News of Thompson’s murder was greeted with sympathy and cheers on some corners of social media, particularly from people who are critical of the insurer’s treatment of its customers. Over the weekend, the Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reacted to that sentiment by saying it is a sign that the US healthcare system needs real reform. Here’s more:
      Progressive congressperson Ro Khanna has sympathy for the murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson – yet at the same time is not surprised that the killing reignited a national dialogue about inequities in the US healthcare system, he said in an interview on Sunday.
      ‘It was horrific,’ the California Democrat said on ABC This Week with respect to the slaying of Thompson, whose survivors include his widow and two sons ages 16 and 19. ‘I mean, this is a father we’re talking about – of two children, and … there is no justification for violence.
      ‘But the outpouring afterwards has not surprised me.’
      Khanna told the show’s host, Martha Raddatz, that he agreed with fellow liberal and US senator Bernie Sanders when he wrote recently on social media: ‘We waste hundreds of billions a year on health care administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured. Health care is a human right. We need Medicare for all.
      ‘After years, Sanders is winning this debate,’ Khanna said, referring to the Vermont senator’s support for a single-payer national health insurance system seen in other wealthy democracies. More

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      Pope Francis and advocates add to pleas for Biden to clear federal death row

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      Pope Francis has called for commutations for people on death row in the US, as religious leaders, civil rights groups and current and former prosecutors urge Joe Biden to take executive action on capital punishment.In his Sunday prayer, Pope Francis, who has been a vocal death penalty opponent, said: “It comes to my heart to ask all of you to pray for the prisoners in the United States who are on death row. Let’s pray that their sentence would be commuted [or] changed.”On Monday, advocates fighting against capital punishment released letters from hundreds of leaders asking the president to clear federal death row before Donald Trump returns to office, with pleas from Black pastors, Catholic leaders, former prison officials, leading civil rights groups and mental health advocates.Biden has been facing intensifying pressure to grant clemency to people with death sentences after he recently announced that he was using his executive authority to pardon his own son.Advocates expect the incoming administration to be deadly if Biden doesn’t take action. In the final year of Trump’s first term, the US government executed 13 people in rapid succession, killing more people in the federal system than under the previous 10 presidents combined. The rushed process claimed the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, prevented defendants from presenting new evidence, and involved execution methods that lawyers said were torturous.Some of Trump’s first-term executions happened despite objections from prosecutors and victims, and took place after the US supreme court quickly overruled lower-court decisions halting the proceedings.The Catholic Mobilizing Network, which represents 30,000 advocates, including bishops and dioceses, urged Biden, who is Catholic, to commute every federal death row sentence, writing: “We know that the federal death row, just as in the states, is marred by significant arbitrariness, including racial bias and the imposition on vulnerable individuals such as those with intellectual disability, brain damage, and serious mental illness. There is also a risk that innocent people will be put to death.”Biden has previously opposed capital punishment and issued a moratorium on executions when he became president, but he has not yet indicated whether he will commute sentences.There are 40 men currently on federal death row, and 38% of them are Black, although Black people comprise 14% of the US population. Nearly one in four of the men were 21 or younger at the time of the crime. And 43% of them come from only three states – Missouri, Texas and Virginia.In another letter released on Monday, 38 current and former district attorneys, attorneys general and former US prosecutors and justice department officials laid out the flaws in capital punishment.“We know that we have not always executed the worst of the worst, but often instead put to death the unluckiest of the unlucky – the impoverished, the poorly represented, and the most broken,” they wrote. “Time and again, we have executed people with long histories of debilitating mental illness, childhoods marred by unspeakable physical and mental abuse, and intellectual disabilities that have prevented them from leading independent adult lives. We have also likely executed the innocent.” The group also pointed to studies demonstrating that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to violence and does not reduce crime.A group of current prison officials, including some whom have overseen executions, pointed to the harms correctional staff face when carrying out capital punishment: “We have witnessed the depression, suicide, substance abuse, domestic turmoil, and other manifestations of trauma in our colleagues that study after study has documented among correctional staff who are impacted by executions, and on those close to them.”Families of murder victims also pleaded with Biden, writing that the death penalty “wastes many millions of dollars that could be better invested in programs that actually reduce crime and violence and that address the needs of families like ours”.Others now urging Biden to act include the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a coalition of Latino advocacy organizations and the Innocence Project.Trump intensified his pro-death penalty rhetoric during his campaign, calling for executions of “everyone who gets caught selling drugs”. And Trump allies, through the rightwing manifesto Project 2025, have called for the expansion of capital punishment and for the US to do “everything possible to obtain finality” for the 40 people on federal death row.In an interview before the election, Billie Allen, who is on federal death row and has long maintained his innocence, recounted to the Guardian what it was like to witness rapid executions under Trump’s first term: “I came in at 19. These are people I grew up with. I’m seeing them be carried out, never to return again, never to see them smile or hear them laughing.”He said he wished wished people recognized death row defendants were capable of change: “The majority of people here become better men for themselves, their family and friends and supporters.” More

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      Biden has been wrecking his legacy, but he still has time to do the right things | Judith Levine

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      President Joe Biden seems intent on demolishing his legacy.For months, the Democrats begged him to drop out of the presidential race. He defied them until the 11th hour. Kamala Harris lost.For years, capital punishment opponents pressed him to make good on his 2020 pledge to abolish the death penalty. In the past few weeks, they’ve been begging him to commute the death sentences of the 40 people on federal death row before Trump delivers them what Project 2025 icily calls “finality”. During his last term, Trump dispatched one woman and 12 men – more executions in six months than during the preceding 40 years.Biden has not responded to the pleas of the condemned. Instead, he pardoned Hunter, granting his son immunity from prosecution for any crime he “has committed or may have committed” between 2014 and 2024. The pardon, which experts call unprecedented in scope, not only breaks another vow (and “cements his legacy as liar-in-chief”, Fox News gleefully reports). It also hands Trump cover to use the Department of Justice to shower mercy on his fellow crooks and assorted sycophants and ruin his foes.And now Biden is considering preemptive pardons for the dozens of law-abiding public servants whom Trump is threatening with retaliatory criminal prosecution. Further abusing his office, tarring these people’s reputations with rumors of guilt, Biden is, in short, out-Trumping Trump.At the start, Biden called himself a human rights champion. Speaking at the state department shortly after his inauguration, he proclaimed that “upholding universal rights, respecting the rule of law and treating every person with dignity” would be “the grounding wire of our global policy – our global power”. There was no asterisk indicating an exception for Palestine.Yet since 7 October 2023, while Democratic opposition to the war in Gaza has grown to a majority, the Biden administration has drawn, and trampled, one line after another in Israel-Palestine’s sand. A year and a week into the war, on 13 October 2024, the US secretaries of state and defense – though, pointedly, not the president himself – signed a letter to the then Israeli secretary of defense Yoav Gallant threatening unspecified “implications for US policy” if Israel did not implement a list of “concrete measures” to end the starvation, disease and arbitrary displacement – to “reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory” in Gaza, “starting now and within 30 days”.Thirty days passed. The conditions were not met. The Democrats lost the election, in some part due to disaffection over the war. Bernie Sanders brought a resolution to the US Senate floor to withhold military aid to Israel, citing US law prohibiting it to countries that use the weapons to commit war crimes. The White House quietly lobbied against the resolution, claiming that “disapproving arms purchases for Israel … would put wind in the sails of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas at the worst possible moment”. With nearly 44,000 Palestinians killed and 2 million displaced, it was unclear when a better moment might be.The next day, the international criminal court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Gallant and the presumed-dead Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri (known as Mohammed Deif), alleging the same war crimes and crimes against humanity that Sanders cited in support of his resolution.And barely a week later, Biden asked Congress to approve a $680m arms package for Israel, which it did. The package included the weapons the Israel Defense Forces had been using to wipe out entire families, with no apparent military objective.What else has the president been doing since the election to burnish his memory in the world’s eyes? He recognized National Family Week, National Apprenticeship Week and National Impaired Driving Prevention Month. He pardoned two Thanksgiving turkeys. And oh, yes, he brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, leaving the IDF undistracted from pulverizing every structure and living thing in Gaza.Biden is capable of changing his mind. In 1974, for instance, he opined that he didn’t “think a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body”. In 1994, he boasted of his steadfast record – “no fewer than 50 occasions” – of voting against federal funding for abortion. He reversed that stance in 2019, and, running for president in 2020, promised to “protect women’s constitutional right to choose”. The candidate had noticed that states were “passing extreme laws” against abortion. “Circumstances have changed,” he said – again, too late.There are a few explanations for this almost petulant farewell performance. Perhaps Biden is mad at the Democrats for pushing him aside. Perhaps Mr Nice Guy is the same obnoxious misogynist who interrogated Anita Hill during Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 confirmation hearings and declined to take testimony from three other women who alleged that Thomas had sexually harassed them too. Perhaps Biden is not really “driven” by human rights, as Politico’s Nasal Toosi concluded earlier this year, though he’ll tack them on if they don’t interfere with other realpolitik or economic goals.Or perhaps he’s entered the later stages of dementia and, in the muddle, switched parties.But the hell with explanations. The question is: now what? Circumstances have changed. Biden is a lame duck, free to do what he wishes. Trump is the next president. Biden’s legacy may be shot – and what’s not shot, Trump will shoot down or take credit for. But the president still has time to do the right things. He could start by saving a few, or a few thousand, lives.

      Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books More