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      US House hearing with Secret Service descends into screaming match

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      A hearing examining the Secret Service’s response to the assassination attempts against Donald Trump went off the rails on Thursday, when a screaming match broke out between the agency’s acting director, Ronald Rowe, and a Republican representative.The hearing, hosted by the House taskforce established shortly after the first assassination attempt against Trump in July, was meant to explore the steps that the Secret Service has taken to improve security measures of protectees, but Pat Fallon, a Republican of Texas, took the questioning of Rowe in a different direction.Fallon displayed an enlarged photo from a commemoration of the September 11 attacks in New York, which both Joe Biden and Trump attended earlier this year. Fallon accused Rowe, who was standing directly behind Biden and Kamala Harris in the photo, of taking the place of the special agent in charge that day and endangering the president’s security for the sake of a photo op.Rowe replied that the special agent in charge had been just out of the picture’s view, and he attacked Fallon for politicizing the September 11 attacks.“I actually responded to Ground Zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center,” Rowe said.“I’m not asking you that,” Fallon interrupted, raising his voice. “Were you the special agent in charge?”Rowe yelled back: “I was there to show respect for a Secret Service member that died on 9/11.”Fallon suggested that Rowe, who is not expected to stay on as director once Trump takes office in January, had placed himself in better view to “audition” for the role in case Harris won the presidency.“Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes,” Rowe told Fallon.“I’m not,” Fallon replied. He accused Rowe: “You endangered President Biden’s life, Vice-President Harris’s life, because you put those agents out of position.”Rowe denied that charge, telling Fallon: “You are out of line.”The chair of the committee, Republican Mike Kelly, repeatedly banged his gavel until the shouting subsisted. The heated exchange came as the Secret Service faces intense scrutiny over its security practices, which attracted widespread condemnation following the assassination attempt against Trump.The agency was pilloried for failing to ensure proper safety precautions at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman wounded the then presidential candidate and fatally shot an attendee named Corey Comperatore. Rowe’s predecessor, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned amid bipartisan criticism of her agency’s handling of security at the rally.At the hearing on Thursday, Rowe described the events surrounding the assassination attempt as an “abject failure”.“July 13 was a failure of the Secret Service to adequately secure the Butler Farm Shows site and protect president-elect Trump,” Rowe said. “That abject failure underscored critical gaps in Secret Service operations, and I recognize that we did not meet the expectations of the American public.”Rowe offered his condolences to Comperatore’s family and outlined a series of changes his agency had pursued since the July attack, including creating an aviation unit for drone surveillance of protection sites and streamlining communication with local authorities.“Let me be clear: there will be accountability, and that accountability is occurring,” Rowe told the taskforce. “It is essential that we recognize the gravity of our failure. I personally carry the weight of knowing that we almost lost a protectee and our failure cost a father and husband his life.”Since its formation in July, the taskforce has conducted 46 interviews and reviewed roughly 20,000 pages of documents, Kelly reported on Thursday. The taskforce is expected to release a final report on its findings in the coming days. More

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      House ethics committee to vote on publication of Matt Gaetz report

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      The House ethics committee will on Thursday vote on whether its long-awaited report investigating allegations of sexual misconduct and potential illegal activities involving former Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz will be made public.The report in question details allegations that Gaetz engaged in illicit drug use, misuse of campaign funds and sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old girl, and allegations of obstructing the House investigation. Gaetz has consistently denied the claims.The move comes weeks after Gaetz’s resignation from Congress and his withdrawal as a potential Trump administration nominee when it became clear he did not have enough support from senators to survive a confirmation hearing. Democrats, led by Representatives Sean Casten and Steve Cohen, attempted to force the report’s release through privileged resolutions, arguing that transparency is crucial.Casten’s resolution, sent to the House two days before the vote, said that withholding the report would “undermine the committee’s credibility and impede the safety, dignity, and integrity of legislative proceedings”.But should the committee side with chair and Mississippi Republican Michael Guest, the vote would fall flat, following the argument that the panel’s investigative jurisdiction ends when a member leaves Congress.“He’s no longer a member,” Guest told reporters on Thursday. “He is no longer going to be confirmed by the Senate because he withdrew his nomination to be the attorney general.”But if the committee vote comes to an impasse – a possibility due to the 50-50 ideological split – a full floor vote would be brought to the House on Thursday night, putting all lawmakers on record.The decision would either grant or hide public access to a report that has been years in the making, and which allegedly contains detailed findings about claims of sexual misconduct involving an underage girl and potential drug use.The report’s potential revelations could have significant political implications, particularly as Gaetz is rumored to be considering a bid for Florida governor in 2026 or seeking another role in the incoming Trump administration.The investigation, which has gone on for years, gained additional scrutiny after Gaetz’s associate Joel Greenberg pleaded guilty in 2021 to paying women and an underage girl for sexual services. More

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      Biden library reportedly under threat by Democrats enraged by Hunter pardon

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      Senior Democrats are reportedly considering withholding contributions to Joe Biden’s future presidential library amid a mounting backlash over his decision grant a blanket pardon to his son Hunter.The threat has emerged as simmering anger among congressional Democrats – already building over the president’s insistence on seeking a second term before belatedly stepping aside as the party nominee in favour of Kamala Harris – has burst into the open over Sunday’s pardon, which Biden had previously vowed not to give.Axios reported that party grandees were considering taking out their “rage” on Biden’s library project. Planning for the library, in the president’s home state of Delaware, is being spearheaded by the White House deputy chief of staff, Annie Tomasini, and Anthony Bernal, senior adviser to Jill Biden, the first lady.“If they had their shit together, they would have been doing the work on this over the summer – right after he announced he was stepping aside,” the site quoted one unnamed Democrat as saying. “Now, it’s just too late. Hopefully they are rightsizing their expectations and budget!”Presidential libraries – a tradition begun by Franklin D Roosevelt – are generally funded by a combination of private donors, state and local governments, and university partners. Maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration, they are used to house presidents’ papers and documents after they leave office.A source familiar with Biden’s project played down the possibility of donations being withheld, telling Axios: “That sentiment hasn’t come up in a single donor conversation, and work is well under way.”However, the fact that it is being publicly mooted is a sign of the internal party disenchantment following the pardoning of Hunter Biden, 54, who was convicted of lying on gun ownership application forms and separate charges of tax evasion. He had been due to be sentenced on both convictions this month. The act of clemency came less than a month after a demoralising election defeat that many privately blame Biden for.Biden, in his statement, said his son “was treated differently” than other people who had been late paying taxes because they were undergoing addiction problems. Biden pardoned his son for all possible offences committed between 2013 and 2024 – foreclosing the possibility of the incoming Trump administration reopening a case against the younger Biden that might be driven by the president-elect’s often-repeated desire for “retribution” against his political enemies.The judge in the tax case, Mark Scarsi, accused the president of “rewriting history” in a ruling penned after the pardon. He added that Hunter Biden’s tax offences had been committed after the period of his drug and alcohol addiction.A procession of Democratic senators and congressmembers have publicly accused Biden of putting his feelings for his son above the national interest and handing Donald Trump an excuse to abuse the presidential clemency powers.Even Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the Senate and normally a loyal ally of the president, damned him with uncharacteristic reticence this week, telling reporters “I’ve got nothing for you on that” when asked his view.But party insiders say the outrage is a lightning rod for lingering resentment over Biden’s refusal to drop his bid for a second term until it was too late for Harris or other presidential contenders to be stress-tested in primaries and launch a well-prepared presidential campaign.“The pardon is simply a resentment delivery vehicle, like dressing on lettuce,” Philippe Reines, a veteran strategist who helped prepare Harris for September’s debate against Trump – which she was widely viewed to have won – told the New York Times.David Axelrod, a former adviser to Barack Obama, said the pardon gave “a free throw for people who think they can gain political advantage” from separating themselves from an unpopular, outgoing president.“But,” he added, “there’s also genuine concern and anger about the way the last year went down.” More

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      Hegseth vows to stay sober if confirmed as defense secretary; Trump signals pro-crypto stance with SEC pick Paul Atkins – live

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      Pete Hegseth is back on Capitol Hill as he seeks to reassure Republican senators of his ability to lead the defense department despite a steady trickle of troubling reports about his personal conduct.Over the weekend, the New Yorker reported that Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was known to drink excessively. It quoted a former staffer at a veterans non-profit that he led saying: “I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary.”The Hill reports that Hegseth told Roger Wicker, a Republican senator who will chair the armed services committee, that he will stay sober if he gets the defense secretary job. Speaking to reporters, Wicker said: “I think that’s probably a good idea.”Donald Trump will sit down for an interview with Kristen Welker, host of NBC’s Meet the Press, for an interview that will air on 8 December, NBCUniversal announced in a press release on Wednesday. The interview will be filmed this Friday and will be the president-elect’s first network interview since the election, NBC’s press release added.Trump has been notoriously antagonistic toward mainstream American news networks like NBC in the past. In September 2023, he threatened to sue Comcast, NBC’s parent company, over what he described as “Country Threatening Treason”.In a post on Truth Social on 24 September 2023, Trump said:
      I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I WIN the Presidency of the United States, they and others of the LameStream Media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and event.
      Several people close to Donald Trump, including some he has chosen to serve in his cabinet, are encouraging the president-elect to pardon Edward Snowden, the Washington Post reports.A former National Security Agency contractor, Snowden fled to Hong Kong in 2013 and handed over tens of thousands of top-secret documents to media outlets, including the Guardian. He has since been in exile in Russia. Trump almost pardoned Snowden before leaving office in 2021, but ultimately decided not to.Here’s more on his latest thinking on the matter, from the Post:“I decided to let that one ride, let the courts work it out,” Trump said 10 months after leaving office, when asked about pardons for Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “I was very close to going the other way.”But advocates for clemency for Snowden, including several of Trump’s picks for top Cabinet posts, are hopeful that Trump is now closer to pardoning the former spy, who has been living in Moscow for more than a decade to avoid a 2013 Justice Department indictment.Matt Gaetz, the former congressman who withdrew last month as Trump’s nominee for attorney general, said the Snowden pardon has been a topic of discussion among people working on Trump’s presidential transition since the election, though he said he had not spoken about it with Trump during that time. Gaetz is hopeful that the future president will deliver.“I advocated for a pardon for Mr Snowden extensively. That did not give Mr Trump any apprehension in his nominating me. I would have recommended that as attorney general,” Gaetz said Monday. “I have discussed the matter with others in and around the transition, and there seemed to be pretty broad support for a pardon.”Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary pick, Robert F Kennedy Jr., campaigned for president on the promise of a “day one” pardon of Snowden and building a Washington monument in his honor. Director of National Intelligence pick Tulsi Gabbard sponsored a 2020 House resolution with Gaetz calling for the government to drop charges against Snowden.Kenneth Chesebro, a little-known lawyer who played a key role in developing the fake electors scheme, is asking a Georgia judge to withdraw his guilty plea in the wide-ranging election interference case filed by Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney.Chesebro pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to file false documents, agreeing to serve five years of probation, serve 100 hours of community service, pay $5,000 in restitution and write an apology to the citizens of Georgia. He also agreed to turn over all evidence in his possession and serve as a witness in the case.But in September, Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee threw out the charges that Chesebro had pleaded guilty to, which were related to filing false statements in federal court. State-level prosecutors did not have the authority to file those charges, McAfee ruled in September.“In Georgia, a defendant cannot plead guilty to a charge that does not constitute a crime,” Chesebro’s lawyer wrote in a court filing on Wednesday.The Georgia case has been on hold since earlier this year when the defendants in the case sought to have Willis removed from it over her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the case’s lead prosecutor. McAfee ruled that Willis could continue as long as Wade resigned, which he did. Trump and other defendants appealed that ruling.The case is not expected to go to trial any time soon and it is unclear whether it will be dismissed entirely after Trump won the presidency.Pete Hegseth’s chances of becoming defense secretary will likely be determined by Joni Ernst, a Republican senator from Iowa who is also the first female combat veteran to serve in the chamber, the New York Times reports.Hegseth is expected to meet today with Ernst, a victim of sexual assault who has supported a bill to change how the military handles such attacks.The former Fox News host was investigated in connection with a sexual assault in Monterey, California, in 2017. Though no charges were brought, it has been reported that he reached a financial settlement with his female accuser. Hegseth has also faced allegations of creating a hostile workplace environment for women when he was involved in veterans non-profits.Pete Hegseth is back on Capitol Hill as he seeks to reassure Republican senators of his ability to lead the defense department despite a steady trickle of troubling reports about his personal conduct.Over the weekend, the New Yorker reported that Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was known to drink excessively. It quoted a former staffer at a veterans non-profit that he led saying: “I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary.”The Hill reports that Hegseth told Roger Wicker, a Republican senator who will chair the armed services committee, that he will stay sober if he gets the defense secretary job. Speaking to reporters, Wicker said: “I think that’s probably a good idea.”Donald Trump has nominated cryptocurrency lobbyist Paul Atkins to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, a sign that his administration will take a friendlier approach to the digital assets that have boomed in value in recent years despite concerns about their financial risks.In a post on Truth Social announcing the appointment, Trump wrote:
      Paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations. He believes in the promise of robust, innovative capital markets that are responsive to the needs of Investors, & that provide capital to make our Economy the best in the World. He also recognizes that digital assets & other innovations are crucial to Making America Greater than Ever Before.
      Atkins served as an SEC commissioner during George W Bush’s presidency, and currently co-chairs the Token Alliance, an initiative of the Chamber of Digital Commerce intended to inform policymakers about digital assets. He also runs Patomak Global Partners, a risk management firm.Under Joe Biden, the SEC has been chaired by Gary Gensler, a critic of cryptocurrencies who will step down when Trump is inaugurated – a day the digital asset industry is very much looking forward to.Donald Trump announced Bill McGinley as White House counsel only three weeks ago, but today assigned him the new position in the “department of government efficiency”, swapping him for David Warrington instead. No reason was given for the switch-up.Warrington, a partner at Dhillon Law Group, represented Trump on cases such as those involving the effort to remove him from the ballot due to the role he played in the 6 Jananuary 2021 attack on the US Capitol.Warrington is the latest of Trump’s personal attorneys to take up a role in the administration. The veteran marine also led the Republican National Lawyers Association and worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.“He is an esteemed lawyer and Conservative leader,” Trump said.Trump appointed William “Bill” Joseph McGinley as counsel to a newly created non-government agency, the “department of government efficiency” (“Doge”), headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Doge, named after the Dogecoin meme cryptocurrency, is meant to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies”, according to Trump.McGinley was White House cabinet secretary during Trump’s first term, a role meant for coordinating policy and communications strategy.“Bill will play a crucial role in liberating our Economy from burdensome Regulations, excess spending, and Government waste,” Trump said in a statement announcing the new appointment. “He will partner with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget to provide advice and guidance to end the bloated Federal Bureaucracy. Bill is a great addition to a stellar team that is focused on making life better for all Americans. He will be at the forefront of my Administration’s efforts to make our Government more efficient and more accountable.”Adam Boheler will serve as lead hostage negotiator for the administration, a role which will come into focus during future conversations with Israel and Hamas.Trump said yesterday on Truth Social there will be “HELL TO PAY” if the hostages in Gaza are not released by the time of his inauguration.Negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza have not been met with success. At least 44,466 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza health ministry, many of whom are women, children and elderly people.Donald Trump nominated healthcare executive Adam Boehler as special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, “with the personal rank of Ambassador”.“Adam worked for me as a Lead Negotiator on the Abraham Accords team. He has negotiated with some of the toughest people in the World, including the Taliban, but Adam knows that NO ONE is tougher than the United States of America, at least when President Trump is its Leader. Adam will work tirelessly to bring our Great American Citizens HOME,” Trump said in a statement.“Adam was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the first CEO of the United States Development Finance Corporation. He went to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.“Congratulations to Adam, his wife, Shira, and their four beautiful children, Ruth, Abraham, Esther, and Rachel!”The supreme court spent two and a half hours hearing oral arguments over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care, which members of the court’s six-justice supermajority appear inclined to uphold. An attorney for the state argued that the law protects “minors from risky, unproven medical interventions”, while the Biden administration’s top lawyer said: “Tennessee made no attempt to tailor its law to its stated health concerns.” The American Civil Liberties Union also spoke against the law, with its lawyer Chase Strangio making history as the first openly transgender person to argue before the supreme court. A decision is expected in the coming months.Here’s what else has gone on today so far:

      Pete Hegseth’s nomination as defense secretary is reportedly teetering amid reports of excessive drinking, financial mismanagement and a sexual assault allegation. Donald Trump is said to be considering Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, to replace him for the job of leading the Pentagon, but has announced no decision yet.

      Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, defended her son in an interview with his former employer Fox News, saying: “He doesn’t misuse women.”

      Trump announced a slew of new appointments to top administration jobs, including army secretary and Nasa administrator. Among those picked was former federal inmate Peter Navarro, who will be a top White House trade adviser.
      Members of the supreme court’s conservative supermajority appeared willing to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors in just-concluded oral arguments.Biden administration solicitor general Elizabeth Prelogar as well as American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chase Strangio argued that the Tennessee law, known as SB 1, ran afoul of constitutional protections against sex discrimination, and that it jeopardizes the mental health of minors by forcing them to go through puberty before they can access gender-affirming care once they turn 18.But conservative justices questioned whether by rejecting the law, they would create a situation whereby a young person would use the care to transition genders, then regret it later on. They also questioned whether the constitution addressed the sort of situation that the Tennessee law deals with.“You say there are benefits from allowing these treatments, but there are also harms, right, from allowing these treatments, at least the state says so, including lost fertility, the physical and psychological effects on those who later change their mind and want to detransition, which I don’t think we can ignore,” said Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative justice.Other members of the six-justice conservative bloc made similar points, which is more than enough to issue a ruling upholding Tennessee’s law, and likely those of the more than two dozen other states with similar measures on the books.As the arguments wrapped up, conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Tennessee solicitor general Matthew Rice about how the state’s law should be viewed in the context of state’s rights.“You are not arguing that the constitution take sides on this question … you are arguing that each state can make its own choice on this question. So, from your perspective, as I understand it, it’s perfectly fine for a state to make a different choice, as many states have, than Tennessee did and to allow these treatments,” Kavanaugh asked.“That’s correct,” Rice replied, arguing that the question of how to regulate such care is one best left to legislatures to determine, not the courts.“We think that’s because of what your honor has pointed out, that no matter how you draw these lines, there are risk and benefit, potential benefits and harms to people on both sides, and the question of how to balance those harms is not a question for the judiciary, it’s a question for the legislature,” he said.Liberal supreme court justices were openly skeptical of the Tennessee law.The state’s solicitor general Matthew Rice began by arguing that there are risks to gender-affirming care, leading justice Sonia Sotomayor to cut in: “I’m sorry, councilor, every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin. There is always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that’s going to suffer a harm.”Sotomayor argued that the law creates a “sex-based difference” in who can receive medical care, but Rice said he disagreed, arguing that the law is instead regulating different medical procedures.“We do not think that giving puberty blockers to a six-year-old that has started precocious puberty is the same medical treatment as giving it to a minor who wants to transition. Those are not the same medical treatment,” he said.Currently before the court is Tennessee’s solicitor general, Matthew Rice, who is arguing in favor of the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.“Tennessee lawmakers enacted SB 1 to protect minors from risky, unproven medical interventions. The law imposes an across-the-board rule that allows the use of drugs and surgeries for some medical purposes, but not for others. Its application turns entirely on medical purpose, not a patient’s sex. That is not sex discrimination,” he began.“The challengers try to make the law seem sex-based this morning by using terms like masculinizing and feminizing, but their arguments can … conflate fundamentally different treatments, just as using morphine to manage pain differs from using it to assist suicide, using hormones and puberty blockers to address a physical condition is far different from using it to address psychological distress associated with one’s body.”Back at the supreme court, liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was concerned that if the court upheld the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care, it would undermine decisions that outlawed forms of racial discrimination.She specifically cited the landmark Loving v Virginia decision of 1967, which found laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional.“We’re just sort of doing what the state is encouraging here in Loving, where you just sort of say, well, there are lots of good reasons for this policy, and who are we, as the court, to say otherwise? I’m worried that we’re undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases,” Jackson said.“I share your concerns,” ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio replied. “If Tennessee can have an end run around heightened scrutiny by asserting at the outset that biology justifies the sex-based differential in the law, that would undermine decades of this court’s precedent.”Donald Trump has announced nominees for several top administration roles, including army secretary, Nasa administrator and advisers dealing with trade and hostages held overseas.Among those selected was Peter Navarro, who served four months in prison earlier this year after being convicted of contempt of Congress. Trump appointed Navarro as senior counsel for trade and manufacturing, a role similar to one he held during the first Trump administration. Here’s what the president-elect said in making the appointment:
      I am pleased to announce that Peter Navarro, a man who was treated horribly by the Deep State, or whatever else you would like to call it, will serve as my Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing. During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire American. He helped me renegotiate unfair Trade Deals like NAFTA and the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), and moved every one of my Tariff and Trade actions FAST …
      The Senior Counselor position leverages Peter’s broad range of White House experience, while harnessing his extensive Policy analytic and Media skills. His mission will be to help successfully advance and communicate the Trump Manufacturing, Tariff, and Trade Agendas.
      The president-elect announced three other appointments:

      Daniel Driscoll to serve as army secretary. An Iraq war veteran, Driscoll was most recently serving as an adviser to vice-president-elect JD Vance.

      Adam Boehler as special envoy for hostage affairs. Boehler was involved in negotiating the Abraham accords that normalized relations between Israel and some Arab states, and Trump said he “will work tirelessly to bring our Great American Citizens HOME”.

      Jared Isaacman as Nasa administrator. The billionaire was earlier this year the first private citizen to perform a spacewalk from a capsule from Elon Musk’s firm SpaceX.
      The justices are now hearing from Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, who is also the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the supreme court.Strangio said that the court should rule against the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Here’s his opening statement:
      On its face, SB 1 bans medical care only when it is inconsistent with a person’s birth sex. An adolescent can receive medical treatment to live and identify as a boy if his birth sex is male, but not female, and an adolescent can receive medical treatment to live and identify as a girl if her birth sex is female, but not male.
      Tennessee claims the sex-based line drawing is justified to protect children, but SB 1 has taken away the only treatment that relieved years of suffering for each of the … plaintiffs, and, critically, Tennessee’s arguments that SB 1 is sex-neutral would apply if the state banned this care for adults too, by banning treatment only when it allows an adolescent to live, identify or appear inconsistent with their birth sex. SB 1 warrants heightened scrutiny under decades of precedent because the sixth circuit failed to apply that standard, this court should vacate and remand. More

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      Donald Trump’s legal team pushes for hush-money case to be dismissed – US politics live

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      The Trump transition team said it has entered a memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Justice.“This is the next step in the ongoing preparation of senior administration officials for the purpose of serving in President Trump’s administration,” the statement said. “This allows the transition team to submit names for background checks and security clearances.”The brief statement didn’t make clear whether the transition has given up on delaying or privatizing background checks for its cabinet nominees.Earlier, those familiar with the tram’s plans had indicated that Trump’s appointees would skirt full FBI vetting and delay receiving classified briefings until after Trump was sworn in.Trump’s lawyers had noted that the US justice department was poised to abandon Trump’s federal cases and referred to a departmental memo that bars prosecution of sitting presidents.“As in those cases, dismissal is necessary here,” their filing argued. “Just as a sitting president is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as president-elect.”Special counsel prosecutors who were pursuing the federal cases against Trump indeed filed paperwork on 25 November asking for their dismissal – citing justice department policy that his team has repeatedly invoked.“It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting president,” wrote Molly Gaston, the top deputy for special counsel Jack Smith.“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind.”Manhattan prosecutors have argued against dismissal in prior court papers and have suggested a solution that would obviate any concerns about interrupting his presidency – including “deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of defendant’s upcoming presidential term”.The dismissal pitch came after Judge Juan Merchan’s decision on 22 November to indefinitely postpone the president-elect’s sentencing so lawyers on both sides can argue over its future, given Trump’s victory in the recent presidential election.While Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly pushed for dismissal to no avail, his impending return to the presidency has presented an opportunity for them to make their case once again.Merchan said in his postponement decision that Trump’s lawyers had a 2 December deadline to file their argument for dismissal. Prosecutors had a week to submit their response.Trump’s lawyers have been calling on Merchan to toss the case outright after he defeated Kamala Harris on 5 November. In previous papers seeking permission to file a formal dismissal request, Trump’s attorneys said that dismissal was required “in order to facilitate the orderly transition of executive power”.Todd Blanche, Trump’s main attorney and selection for deputy US attorney general, as well as Emil Bove, his choice for principal associate deputy attorney general, said that Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office “appears to not yet be ready to dismiss this politically motivated and fatally flawed case, which is what is mandated by the law and will happen as justice takes its course”.Donald Trump’s lawyers have asked a New York state judge to dismiss the criminal case against him, in which he was convicted of 34 felony counts involving hush money.Trump’s lawyers have argued that sentencing in the case would cause “unconstitutional impediments” to Trump’s ability to govern.The lawyers also cited Joe Biden’s sweeping pardon of his son Hunter Biden in their argument. The filing reads:
      Yesterday, in issuing a 10-year pardon to Hunter Biden that covers any and all crimes whether charged or uncharged, President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and ‘treated differently.’
      President Biden argued that ‘raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.’ These comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden’s own DOJ.
      Already, Judge Juan Merchan has indefinitely postponed Trump’s sentencing.The Trump transition team said it has entered a memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Justice.“This is the next step in the ongoing preparation of senior administration officials for the purpose of serving in President Trump’s administration,” the statement said. “This allows the transition team to submit names for background checks and security clearances.”The brief statement didn’t make clear whether the transition has given up on delaying or privatizing background checks for its cabinet nominees.Earlier, those familiar with the tram’s plans had indicated that Trump’s appointees would skirt full FBI vetting and delay receiving classified briefings until after Trump was sworn in.Pete Hegseth, whom Donald Trump named as his pick to lead the defense department, had multiple affairs while married to his first wife, Vanity Fair reports.Such behavior could have violated military rules governing Hegseth, who served in the army national guard, and also strike another blow to his reputation as Republican senators consider whether he should lead the Pentagon. Other media outlets in recent days have reported on an accusation of sexual assault against Hegseth, which he denies, as well as claims that he abuses alcohol, mismanaged finances at two charities he was involved in and created a hostile environment for women.Here’s more, from Vanity Fair’s story:
      Hegseth and Schwarz’s young marriage was short-lived. In December 2008, Schwarz filed for divorce after Hegseth admitted that he cheated on her, according to four sources close to the couple. (APM Reports previously revealed that the infidelity was listed as grounds in the couple’s divorce proceedings.) The sources told me that Hegseth’s infidelity left Schwarz emotionally and psychologically scarred. ‘She was gaslighted by him heavily throughout their relationship,’ one of the sources told me. ‘As far as everyone else was concerned, they were viewed by many as this all-American power couple that were making big things for themselves.’ (Schwarz declined to comment. Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, did not respond to a detailed list of questions for this story, and instead provided a statement that impugned my record as a reporter.)
      At the time Schwarz filed for divorce, Hegseth was dating Samantha Deering, whom he met while working in Washington, DC, at Vets for Freedom, a group that lobbied to maintain the military’s “counterinsurgency” strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2010, Hegseth married Deering, with whom he has three kids. In 2017, Deering filed for divorce after Hegseth fathered a child with his Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet. Hegseth and Rauchet married in 2019 at Trump’s golf course in Colts Neck, New Jersey.
      Speaking of Kamala Harris, the Atlantic published a lengthy interview with four top players in the vice-president’s failed campaign for the White House, in which they discuss what went wrong.The general conclusion of the piece is that it would have been difficult for any Democrat to win, given how unhappy much of the United States was with Joe Biden’s leadership. But the president’s decision to end his bid for a second term just over three months before election day made it unlikely that Harris would be able to turn the situation around – and indeed, she was not able to.It also underscores that Democrats have work to do to win back voting blocs that once supported the party but appear to be defecting in increasing numbers to the GOP.From the piece:
      In a race shaped so profoundly by fundamental forces of disaffection with the country’s direction, could anything have changed the outcome? As the Democratic strategist Mike Podhorzer has argued, more voters might have ranked their hesitations about Trump higher if the Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court had not blocked any chance that the former president would face a criminal trial before this election on the charges that he tried to subvert the previous one. Plouffe pointed to another what-if potentially big enough to have changed the result: Biden’s withdrawal from the race much earlier rather than only after his disastrous debate performance in June. If Biden had dropped out last winter, Plouffe argued to me, Democrats could have held a full-fledged primary that would have either produced a nominee more distant from his administration or strengthened Harris by requiring her to establish her independence. Looking back at what contributed to Trump’s victory, Plouffe said pointedly, Biden’s choice not to step aside sooner was ‘the cardinal sin.’
      Even so, Plouffe acknowledged, ‘I’m not sure, given the headwinds, any Democrat could have won.’ For all the difficulties that the atmosphere created for Harris, the election unquestionably raised warning signs for Democrats that extend beyond dissatisfaction with current conditions. It continued an erosion that is ominous for the party in its support among working-class nonwhite voters, particularly Latino men. And as Flaherty, the deputy campaign manager, told me, the Republican Party’s win powerfully demonstrated that it – or at least Trump himself – has built more effective mechanisms for communicating with infrequent voters, especially young men who don’t consume much conventional political news.
      Something Donald Trump might do once he takes office is pardon people convicted over the January 6 insurrection.Despite that, the justice department is continuing those prosecutions, and just announced that Matthew Brent Carver of Kentucky had pleaded guilty to a charge of “felony offense of obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder” in the attack that occurred nearly four years ago. Here’s what the department says Carver did:
      Around approximately 2:45 pm, law enforcement officers, including members of the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)—who were performing their official duties at the Capitol on January 6—gathered and formed a police line towards the southern end of the Upper West Terrace. Several minutes later, around 2:47 pm, these officers moved in tandem towards the northern end of the Upper West Terrace in an effort to clear and secure the Upper West Terrace.
      As the officers advanced, they ordered protesters to “Move Back! Move Back!” while they attempted to secure the Upper West Terrace. Around 2:48 pm, as the police line approached the northern end of the Upper West Terrace, Carver emerged from the crowd, assumed an aggressive stance towards the approaching officers, and yelled, “Come on! Bring it!”
      Seconds later, Carver approached an MPD officer, grabbed the officer’s baton, and attempted to pull the baton away from the officer and, in doing so, also pulled the officer out of the police line and into the crowd of rioters. Carver was then pulled back into the crowd. Shortly afterward, the police line reformed and continued to push the protesters out of the Upper West Terrace, and Carver eventually made his way out of restricted permitter.
      The FBI arrested Carver on Jan. 30, 2024, in Kentucky.
      And a look at how many people have faced charges over the attack:
      In the 46 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,561 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 590 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony. The investigation remains ongoing.
      Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and other top Democrats spent the past four years arguing to voters, unsuccessfully, that Donald Trump represents a unique threat to democracy and must never be put in power again.Speaking to Newsmax, Trump adviser Jason Miller turned their rhetoric on its head, by arguing that the incoming president will be good for democracy worldwide:
      Democracy is going to be in such better standing around the world, because you have to have a strong American presidency if you want to have strong democracy around the world, where you see peace in the Middle East, where you get the Russia-Ukraine conflict resolved. And finally, we’re going to get back to where we have peace and prosperity … for everybody.
      Speaking to the conservative Newsmax network, top Donald Trump adviser Jason Miller said that the incoming president will take aggressive actions over his first 100 days in office, including cracking down on migrants and spurring more oil and gas drilling.“President Trump is … moving really fast here. I mean, even by Thanksgiving, he had his entire cabinet picked,” Miller said. He said several top advisers including incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and “border czar” Tom Homan “are putting together the executive orders and the policies. As President Trump said, we’re going to drill, baby, drill and secure the border – those will be day one priorities.”Miller continued:
      This first 100 days is going to be nonstop. There’s so many things that he’s ready to do. Because, again, we’ve never had a second-term president step in that is ready to go. In fact, we’ve never had a first-term president, never had president in history who’s so ready to go on day one, who knows exactly what they want to do. So, if you voted for President Trump, [you] should be pretty enthused that we’re gonna have the country back on track.
      As he wrapped up his speech on the outskirts of Angola’s capital, Luanda, a reporter asked Joe Biden for his comment on the declaration of martial law in South Korea.“I’m just getting briefed on it,” Biden replied.A spokesperson for the national security council said earlier that they were “seriously concerned” by the declaration, but Biden has not yet commented.As South Korea’s surprise martial law announcement sends shock waves across the country and beyond, another war abroad is also commanding the US’s attention, the Guardian’s Andrew Roth reports. Joe Biden is scrambling to “put Ukrainian forces in the strongest possible position” before Donald Trump, who has threatened to cut off all aid to Ukraine, assumes the highest level of office in the nation.The Biden administration is rushing military equipment to Ukraine in a last-ditch effort to shore up the country’s defenses against the Russian invasion before Donald Trump assumes the US presidency in January.The newly announced $725m in assistance will include Stinger anti-air missiles, anti-drone weapons, artillery shells and long-range Himars rocket munitions, and anti-armour missiles, as well as spare parts and other assistance to repair damaged equipment from US stocks, the state department said.The new shipments of weapons come as Ukraine is desperately seeking to stabilise its frontlines in both the east of the country, where Russia has made grinding progress toward the crucial logistics town of Pokrovsk, as well in the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukrainian forces are bracing themselves for an assault by Russian and North Korean troops.South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, declared martial law today, and accused the country’s main opposition party of being anti-state, North Korea sympathizers.A spokesperson for the US national security council told CNN that the US was not given a warning from the South Korean president before he declared martial law.“We are seriously concerned by the developments we are seeing on the ground in the ROK [Republic of Korea].”The US state department’s principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a press conference today: “We are watching the recent developments in the ROK with grave concern. We are seeking to engage with our Republic of Korea counterparts at every level … This is an incredibly fluid situation.”You can read more about this development on our South Korea blog here.Donald Trump has reportedly offered the job of deputy secretary of defense to a billionaire investor whose firm has taken stakes in companies that do business with the Pentagon. Should Stephen Feinberg accept the nomination, it will be the latest to stir controversy, particularly among Democrats concerned that his nominees lack experience, have conflicts of interest or will pursue dangerous policies. Meanwhile, the fallout from Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden continues. A Delaware federal judge cited the pardon in ending Hunter Biden’s prosecution on charges related to lying to buy a gun, while a top Trump adviser refused to say if the incoming president would opt to pardon himself of recently dismissed charges over allegedly hiding classified documents and plotting to overturn the 2020 election.Here’s what else has happened today:

      Chuck Schumer will continue to lead Democrats in the Senate after a close-door election by his colleagues. He will be the minority leader starting next year, when Republicans take control of the chamber.

      Traveling in Angola, Biden was asked about his decision to pardon his son. He refused to answer, and has not said anything else about the decision since making it public on Sunday evening.

      Democrats who might seek the presidency in 2028 did not want to share with Politico their views on Hunter Biden’s pardon. Party officials seeking to lead the Democratic National Committee were more talkative.
      Donald Trump has offered the post of deputy secretary of defense to Stephen Feinberg, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of investment firm Cerberus Capital Management, which has stakes in companies that do business with the military, the Washington Post reports.It is not clear if Feinberg accepted the job, the Post reports, and Trump has not yet publicly announced the nomination.Cerberus this year disclosed an investment in M1 Support Services, which provides military aircraft training and maintenance services. In 2018, Cerberus took a majority stake in Navistar Defense, which manufactures military vehicles.Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth will be back on Capitol Hill today, meeting with Republican senators who will consider his appointment.Politico reports that he is scheduled to meet Eric Schmitt of Missouri, Ted Budd of North Carolina and James Risch of Idaho. Hegseth will also probably run into plenty of reporters who will be asking about his drinking, treatment of women and financial management of two veterans non-profits he reportedly was forced out of.A judge has ordered an end to Hunter Biden’s prosecution on charges of lying about his drug use when buying a gun, after Joe Biden pardoned him on Sunday.Delaware federal judge Maryellen Noreika terminated the case against Hunter Biden in a decision issued today, after a jury found him guilty of three gun-related charges earlier this year. Biden was also pardoned of tax fraud charges leveled against him in California, which he pleaded guilty to. He was awaiting sentencing in both cases before the controversial presidential pardon.Here’s more about the gun case: More

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      Raskin seeks to lead Democrats on House judiciary in ‘fight of our lives’ against Trump

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      Jamie Raskin, the Maryland congressman who spearheaded the second impeachment of Donald Trump, has announced a bid to unseat a veteran Democratic colleague from a key role in a Capitol Hill committee as part of a party drive to sharpen its opposition in preparation for Trump’s return to the White House.After days of speculation, Raskin said he would challenge Jerrold Nadler of New York for the post of ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives’ judiciary committee.The move signals Democratic conviction that the committee could become one of the most important Capitol Hill forums in which to combat Trump’s stated goal of installing loyalists at the justice department and FBI with the brief of purging supposedly disloyal officials and pursuing retribution against political enemies.The Republicans will control the House with a wafer thin majority – expected to be 220-215, with one race from last month’s election still to be officially called – when Congress returns in the new year, further raising the stakes of effective committee opposition.Raskin, currently the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, announced he was challenging 77-year-old Nadler, who he acknowledged as a friend, in an open letter.“We are in the fight of our lives. The stakes have gone way up since the election,” Raskin wrote. “House Democrats must stand in the breach to defend the principles and institutions of constitutional democracy. We dare not fail.”Explaining the key role of the judiciary committee, he added: “This is where we will wage our front-line defense of the freedoms and rights of the people, the integrity of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and the security of our most precious birthright possessions: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and democracy itself.”Raskin, who played a leading role in the House investigation into the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, had been urged by colleagues to run amid doubts over Nadler’s ability to combat Trump’s agenda, as advanced by the committee’s pugnacious Republican chair, Jim Jordan.A former constitutional law professor, Raskin, 61, played the role of leading impeachment manager against Trump following the riot. The House impeached the then sitting president for his role in the episode. A Senate trial the following month failed to garner the two-thirds majority vote to convict that would have barred him from seeking office again.Nadler has been criticised by colleagues for a pedestrian speaking style that sticks to talking points, whereas Raskin is widely seen as more spontaneous and combative.The New York Times reported that Nadler had expressed anger to Raskin – who he previously supported to be the party’s leading figure on the oversight committee – at the prospect of a challenge.Among those having reportedly urged Raskin to mount a challenge has been Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, who continues to wield influence in the party’s congressional caucus.Nadler’s challenge is part of a broader attempt by Democrats to replace some of their most senior ranking figures with younger faces on key committees.Raúl Grijalva, 76, the ranking Democrat on the House natural resources committee, announced on Monday that he was withdrawing after being challenged for the position by Jared Huffman, 60, who has promoted himself as being able to “limit the damage from Trump’s Project 2025 agenda”. More

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      What is a presidential pardon and how has it been used in the US?

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      Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter on Sunday 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.What is the pardon power?The presidential pardon power is explicitly outlined in the US constitution.Section 2 of article II says that the president has the power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment”. The president’s power only applies to federal crimes, not state ones. It also does not apply to cases of impeachment.The founders took the pardon power from England, where there was a longstanding tradition of the king’s ability to issue mercy pardons. There was some debate about whether Congress should be required to give approval of pardons and whether there should be an exception for treason, but Alexander Hamilton pushed the constitutional convention to include a broad pardon power solely vested in the president. “As men generally derive confidence from their numbers, they might often encourage each other in an act of obduracy, and might be less sensible to the apprehension of suspicion or censure for an injudicious or affected clemency. On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men,” he wrote in Federalist no 74, one of a series of essays to promote the ratification of the constitution.When it came to treason, he argued that the president could deploy the pardon power as a tool to negotiate and unify the country. “In seasons of insurrection or rebellion, there are often critical moments, when a welltimed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquillity of the commonwealth; and which, if suffered to pass unimproved, it may never be possible afterwards to recall,” he wrote.Bernadette Meyler, a law professor at Stanford University who studies British and US law, described it as “the one emergency power written into the constitution, other than the suspension of habeas corpus.“It’s one thing that is a concession to the idea that there might be certain unforeseen circumstances that the president would have to intervene in,” she said. “It goes along with the president’s control also over the army and navy and military power because, in the context that it was being contemplated, it was really being thought about as another tool within the ability to control domestic unrest.” How has the pardon power been used?George Washington issued the first pardons in 1795 to two men who were involved in the Whiskey Rebellion, a violent uprising in Pennsylvania to protest a tax on whiskey and other alcohol products by the nascent federal government.A key moment in the pardon power came after the civil war, when president Andrew Johnson issued “a full pardon and amnesty” to any person “who, directly or indirectly, participated in the late insurrection or rebellion” during the civil war. This and similar pardons around the same time led the US supreme court to interpret the pardon power to allow the president to grant broad amnesty to a group of people and not just for specific crimes already committed, Meyler said.After Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in the 1970s after Watergate, Gerald Ford issued a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes.In 1977, Jimmy Carter issued a mass pardon for those who had dodged the draft for the Vietnam war. At the end of his term in 1992, George HW Bush pardoned six people involved in the Iran-Contra affair, including the former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger.In his last day in office in 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother and gave an extremely controversial pardon to Marc Rich, a fugitive convicted of financial crimes whose ex-wife had been a major donor to Democrats and the Clinton campaign. Barack Obama granted clemency to more than 1,700 people while in office, including hundreds who had been convicted of non-violent drug offenses.Who did Donald Trump pardon?Trump did not hesitate to use the pardon power during his presidency to help political allies. He pardoned Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared. The elder Kushner had pleaded guilty years earlier to tax evasion and witness tampering (Trump has now tapped him to be ambassador to France).He pardoned his political adviser Steve Bannon, who faced charges of defrauding donors on a charity related to building a wall at the southern border. He also pardoned Paul Manafort, who served as a top official on his 2016 campaign, and Trump ally Roger Stone.Trump pardoned the former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, the conservative personality Dinesh D’Souza, and Elliott Broidy, a major Republican donor. He also pardoned the rapper Lil Wayne and Alice Marie Johnson, a woman who had spent decades in prison for drug offenses but earned considerable attention after Kim Kardashian took on her cause.Trump has said he will issue a mass pardon for those involved in the January 6 attacks, a move that would end years of work by the justice department to investigate and criminally prosecute those involved in the attacks.Do other countries have a pardon power?The power to pardon is one that widely exists around the world, said Andrew Novak, a professor at George Mason University who is the author of Comparative Executive Clemency: The Constitutional Pardon Power and the Prerogative of Mercy in Global Perspective.But the United States is somewhat unique in allowing its chief executive the ability to pardon without having to get input or sign-off from others.“Biden can grant a pardon without input from anybody, which is much more of like a medieval English king conception of the pardon power, which is kind of ironic,” he added. “We have kind of an old-fashioned conception of the pardon power, at least generally.”“Having this unlimited pardon power that’s more similar to like 1700s England than it is to the current state of affairs in the western world,” he added. “In most countries in Europe, and the comparators in the developed world, they require input from someone else.” That requirement for input, Novak said, can somewhat limit a pardon being used to serve political or personal interests, the way it can be used in the US.Many countries also don’t allow for a pardon before conviction, Novak said, and there has been a movement over the last few decades in other countries for more transparency to ensure that proper processes are followed.About half of constitutions around the world limit the pardon power to something that can only occur after conviction, are only for specified offenses, or require an executive to consult others, Novak said. It’s uncommon for countries to have a ban on self-pardoning or pardoning a family member, he added.“Maybe it’s not common because the circumstance doesn’t arise very often,” he said. “The pardon power has always been a corruption risk going back to medieval times and can be used for many forms of self-dealing, like shielding one’s close associates or supporters.”The US founders understood impeachment to be an important check on the pardon power, Meyler said. “As we’ve seen it’s extremely hard to actually convict on an impeachment so that has proved to be really a fictional limitation on the president’s power.” More

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      Conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead FBI, faces Senate blowback

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      Donald Trump’s plan to nominate as FBI director the “deep state” conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, a virulent critic of the bureau who has threatened to fire its top echelons and shut down the agency’s headquarters, is facing blowback in Congress as US senators begin to flex their muscles ahead of a contentious confirmation process.Politicians from both main parties took to the Sunday talk shows to express starkly divergent views on Patel, whom Trump announced on Saturday as his pick to lead the most powerful law enforcement agency in the US. The move is dependent on the incumbent FBI chief, Christopher Wray, who Trump himself placed in the job in 2017, either being fired or resigning.It is already clear that confirming Patel through the US Senate is likely to be less than plain sailing. Mike Rounds, a Republican senator from South Dakota, indicated that Patel could face a tough confirmation battle.Rounds pointedly sang the praises of the existing FBI director in an interview with ABC’s This Week. He said that Wray, who still has three more years of his 10-year term to serve, was a “very good man”, adding that he had “no objections about the way that he is doing his job right now”.The senator also emphasised the separation of powers between president and Senate, signaling possible trouble for Patel. Rounds said he gave presidents “the benefit of the doubt”, but also emphasised that “we have a constitutional role to play … that’s the process”.Other Republican senators rallied to Patel’s side. Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, told CBS’s Face the Nation that he believed Patel would be confirmed.“Patel is a very strong nominee to take on the partisan corruption of the FBI.”Bill Hagerty, a Republican senator from Tennessee, said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he would vote to confirm Patel. “Kash is the best at uncovering what’s happened to the FBI and I look forward to seeing him taking it apart,” he said.Patel is a Trump loyalist who has published children’s books featuring “King Donald”. He has long denigrated the FBI as a pillar of what he calls the “deep state” or the “corrupt ruling class”.In an interview with Shawn Ryan in September, Patel vowed to “shut down” the FBI’s headquarters in Washington DC and reopen the building the following day as a “museum of the deep state”.He has also threatened to use the power of federal law enforcement to go after those he claims are responsible for corrupting the federal government, a list of whom he published in his memoir. Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s current national security adviser, was among that list: Patel called him “one of the corrupt actors of the first order”.Sullivan was asked by ABC’s This Week whether he was worried personally about Patel’s potential leadership of the FBI, given the threats against him. He declined to comment, saying he was wholly focused on keeping the country safe in the remaining 50 days of his term in office.But he did highlight that Biden had kept Wray on as FBI chief, despite having inherited the official from Trump. Sullivan said that Wray served “with distinction, entirely insulated from politics or the partisan preferences of the current sitting president. This is a good, deep bipartisan tradition that President Biden has adhered to.”Jamie Raskin, a House Democrat from Maryland, challenged the claim by Trump and Patel that the FBI had been politically weaponised under Biden to go after Republicans. He pointed out on CNN’s State of the Union that over the past four years the FBI had prosecuted the disgraced Democratic senator from New Jersey, Bob Menendez, and the Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar.“I think that’s what they mean when they talk about politicization in the deep state – anybody who doesn’t do the will of Donald Trump,” Raskin said.According to an Axios report on Sunday, Trump had initially planned to appoint Patel as deputy FBI director but changed his mind after his pick to head the agency, the state attorney general of Missouri, Andrew Bailey, failed to impress him. Raising Patel to the number one position makes the move far more politically loaded.Despite the storm he is generating, Trump shows no sign of moderating his leadership choices for his upcoming administration. Over the weekend he tapped Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner and a convicted felon whom Trump pardoned in 2020, as US ambassador to France.On Sunday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he had chosen his daughter Tiffany’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, to be senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs. Boulos, a Lebanese billionaire, was active in Trump’s presidential campaign as a liaison with Arab American and Muslim leaders.Trump has also picked a county sheriff, Chad Chronister, from Florida to head the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The agency will have a key role in attempting to fulfill Trump’s pledge to staunch the cross-border flow of fentanyl and other drugs into the US, which is already causing diplomatic tensions with Canada and Mexico.Chronister’s father-in-law, Edward DeBartolo, was pardoned by Trump three years ago on a 1998 conviction for involvement in a gambling fraud case. DeBartolo, the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers American football team, was fined $1m and suspended by the NFL for a year. More