Trump Wants To Install His Personal Lawyers In Top DOJ Posts
INSIDE: Matt Gaetz ... Pete Hegseth ... RFK Jr
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
DOJ’s Darkest Era
Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal attorney, as deputy attorney general, the second in command who runs the Justice Department on a day-to-day basis.
Emil Bove, another of Trump’s personal lawyers, installed as No. 3.
It is a crippling mix of incompetence, disregard for the rule of law, conflicts of interest, and divided loyalties that would send the Justice Department down a flawed and uncertain course seen perhaps only once before, in the darkest days of Watergate.
What Will Become Of The Gaetz Ethics Report?
The House Ethics Committee was supposed to meet privately this morning, but that meeting has reportedly now been cancelled. It leaves in further doubt whether the committee’s completed report on now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and his alleged sexual misconduct will be released either publicly or to senators considering his nomination to be attorney general.
Meanwhile, ABC News reports that the underage woman with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex testified to the House Ethics Committee she was 17 years old when their encounter happened.
Hegseth Had Previous Sexual Assault Allegation
The nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense already faced all kinds of problems, but Vanity Fair’s Gabe Sherman reports that the Trump transition team was caught off guard by an allegation of sexual assault arising from a 2017 incident in Monterey, California:
According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said.
On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”
The Trump II Clown Show Continues …
Robert F. Kennedy Jr: secretary of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, NIH, FDA,
Former SEC chairman Jay Clayton: U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York
Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND): Interior secretary
Fun Times
TPM’s Josh Kovensky: Friend of Don Jr.’s Who Hawks Trump Merch To Run White House Personnel Office
Don’t Forget About Tulsi Gabbard
WSJ: “President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead powerful U.S. spy agencies has often seemed to embrace Washington’s adversaries and questioned key American intelligence judgments, raising alarm among veteran intelligence officials and the wider national-security establishment.”
Let’s Not Fool Ourselves About Senate Republicans
Is the Gaetz nomination in real trouble? Perhaps:
WSJ: Gaetz Nomination Seen as Doomed by Some Senate Republicans
WaPo: Republican senators say Matt Gaetz has ‘steep’ climb to nomination
But take this reporting from CBS News’ Roberta Costa:
What I’m hearing privately from a few key GOP senators: yes, they’d prefer to not have a messy fight over Gaetz. Not their favorite. But they also don’t have a lot of energy for pushing back. Trump runs the show, they say. If Gaetz can reassure them, they’re open to backing him.
Low energy! It suggests that spending the next three months on pins and needles over whether the Republican-controlled Senate will block any of Donald Trump’s nominees for his new administration seems like misspent energy on a fool’s errand. That’s true not only because GOP senators are not eager to have a showdown with Trump, but because there’s no indication that Trump’s replacements for any failed nominations will be much better.
Quote Of The Day
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), to fellow senators: “Vote with President Trump, this is the last chance we’re going to have to save this country, and if you want to get in the way, fine, but we’re going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you do that.”
More Low Energy Deference To Trump
In a first, two federal judges in DC delayed key deadlines in Jan. 6 cases in anticipation that Trump may pardon the defendants. The decisions amounted to declaring “Why bother?” even as other federal judges have declined to derail cases on the basis of speculation and conjecture about what Trump will do. How long will the two judges who ordered delays wait to see what Trump does?
This come against the back drop of attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz doing as much as anyone to rewrite the history of Jan. 6.
Elon Musk Watch
One of the most important stories to track in the Trump II presidency will be whether corporate America holds the line, which it largely did in his first term, or begins to collapse into crony capitalism. Even before Trump’s win, Elon Musk foreshadowed an erosion into corruption, favoritism, and pay-to-play:
NYT: Elon Musk Met With Iran’s U.N. Ambassador, Iranian Officials Say
Politico: Musk’s sway over Trump could devastate electric vehicles — except his own
NYT: Elon Musk Helped Elect Trump. What Does He Expect in Return?
GREAT READ
For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.” Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn’t interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect’s appeal in terms of something more primal: “Trump promises that you don’t have to think about other people.”
No Joke
WaPo: Go bags, passports, foreign assets: Preparing to be a target of Trump’s revenge
Makes You Want To Weep
The lead paragraph in this Politico story just flipped political journalism’s script on the economy, without batting an eye: “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could not sell voters on the strength of the economy. Now, Donald Trump is poised to enter the White House with booming markets and solid growth. Expect him to reap the political rewards.”
2024 Ephemera
PA-Sen: An automatic recount was triggered, with Sen. Bob Casey (D) trailing Dave McCormick (R) by fewer than 25,000 votes statewide.
AZ-Sen: GOP nominee Kari Lake is still not conceding that she lost to Rep. Ruben Gallego (D).
WI-Sen: GOP nominee Eric Hovde still hasn’t conceded to Sen. Tammy Baldwin and is considering seeking a recount.
WaPo: Inside the Republican false-flag effort to turn off Kamala Harris voters
You Can’t Make This Up
The Onion bought Alex Jones’ InfoWars out of bankruptcy and almost immediately shut down the conspiracist website. The proceeds of the auction sale go to the families of the Sandy Hook victims who to satisfy their $1.5 billion judgment against Jones for claiming the school shooting was a hoax.
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tRump claiming the Biden economy as his was no surprise, as he was referencing the soaring stock markets on the campaign as merely a reflection of how polls were forecasting a tRump win, and of course the financial community was reacting appropriately.
Well, yeah, Gaetz at Main Justice would be a shitshow by definition, but quite honestly, who among us could truthfully defend Merrick Garland's DOJ and his appallingly inept leadership? Garland and his No. 2 deMarco hardly covered themselves in pro-democracy glory, and good - bloody - riddance to that whole crowd...with the notable exception of the superb Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prolegar, who was an absolute star in her appearances at SCOTUS, arguing cases for the people.
This is all so fekking depressing...people are so stupid. Like there's no conflict of interest between having Trump's personal (and incompetent) lawyers working for him at the DoJ??? Huh? The Senate has POWER what the hell, so they mean they haven't the energy for a fight with Trump... Funny how they had all kinds of energy to fight with judicial appointments under Turtleface and the like while Biden was President. Grrrr.