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In today’s issue:
- Felony election case dismissed against Trump
- What Rubio could mean for Latin America
- Trump announces Canada, Mexico tariffs
- Israel, Hezbollah close in on cease-fire
President-elect Trump’s electoral victory on Nov. 5 shifted the scales of justice.
And just as the president-elect celebrated closure of significant legal entanglements, he announced plans to hike tariffs by 25 percent on products from Canada and Mexico on Jan. 20, and perhaps 10 percent on goods from China, igniting controversy about U.S. economic policy and the risk of higher prices for consumers.
The dismissal Monday of a major felony case against Trump did not exonerate the former president. The Justice Department said it had no choice because its policy bars prosecution of a sitting president and compelled it to seek to dismiss two major cases in which Trump has argued he was a victim of political attacks.
Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith on Monday folded his cards and a federal judge hours later granted Smith’s motions for the dismissal of the criminal election interference case against the president-elect.
Smith’s final task may be to file a report. He will resign from the department before Trump can fire him. The president-elect during his campaign threatened to investigate the special counsel and blasted him as “a crooked person.”
Trump’s election-year journeys through federal and state courts helped him raise money for his presidential campaign and for his legal bills and shaped a narrative that Trump repeated month after month — that he was wrongly accused and being used as a legal target by President Biden and Vice President Harris during their respective bids for election.
Smith never presented the government’s evidence in court accusing the former president on Jan. 6, 2021, of seeking to unlawfully disrupt the certification of his election defeat. The evidence alleging Trump’s retention of classified and other materials hidden at Mar-a-Lago when they should have been at the National Archives was not presented in court.
Trump’s legal team filed streams of procedural and other motions and successfully pushed court proceedings toward Election Day. The Supreme Court issued a major ruling in July saying former presidents enjoy limited immunity from prosecution. That opinion recasts the way presidents are — or are not — held accountable by prosecutors and muddies the constitutional underpinnings of the office well into the future.
The New York Times: The end of the Trump cases leaves the limits on presidential criminality unclear.
Trump’s transition spokesperson in a statement called the upshot Monday “a major victory for the rule of law” and an important step in ending “the political weaponization of our justice system.”
Meanwhile, Smith won Monday in a Texas case in which a judge rejected Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request for a court order to force Smith to preserve all of the records from his Trump investigation. Republican members of Congress also have issued calls for the Justice Department records to be preserved.
The only criminal evidence heard in court against Trump this year was in Manhattan, where he was indicted by a jury on 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records to mask hush money payments to a porn star in 2016, during Trump’s first presidential campaign.
The hush money case in Manhattan is in limbo (The Hill). New York Judge Juan Merchan has set deadlines of Dec. 2 for Trump to file a motion to dismiss the case, and Dec. 9, for the prosecutor’s response.
New York: Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York since 2021 who has prosecuted Wall Street criminals, will resign before Trump is inaugurated. Trump’s pick for the position is former Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Jay Clayton.
Pennsylvania: District Attorney Larry Krasner of Philadelphia dropped a civil lawsuit against Elon Musk and his super PAC, America PAC, to which Musk committed more than $70 million.Krasner, a Democrat, had sued Musk and the group because of their attempt to stage what Krasner called an illegal lottery in which Musk’s group gave away $1 million every day until Election Day in exchange for swing-state voters signing a pro-Constitution petition. Krasner said Musk’s contest violated election law. Shortly before Election Day, a Pennsylvania judge declined to halt the contest. Trump won the state with 50.4 percent of the vote.
SMART TAKE FROM THE HILL’S BOB CUSACK:
One of Trump’s most interesting Cabinet appointments was his selection of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) to lead the Labor Department.
For decades, Republican presidents have tapped business-friendly Labor Department nominees while Democrats nominated leaders who are backed by unions.
Late last week, Trump threw everyone a curveball with the Chavez-DeRemer nod. Organized labor came out lauding the pick while industry groups went quiet. Chavez-DeRemer, a moderate Republican, narrowly lost her reelection bid earlier this month.
She is one of only three Republicans to co-sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which calls for increasing penalties on employers who break labor law and makes it easier to unionize. The PRO Act is the No. 1 legislative priority for the labor movement.
Trump, however, doesn’t support the PRO Act and he, of course, will be Chavez-DeRemer’s boss if she is confirmed. But her nomination is another sign that Trump has significantly changed the Republican Party with his populist message. And it’s made a lot of people in the nation’s capital nervous.
White House appointees: James Braid will lead the Office of Legislative Affairs. Matthew Brasseaux will lead the Office of Political Affairs. Alex Latcham will head the Office of Public Liaison.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:
▪ Trump’s Cabinet, if confirmed, is set to be one-third women and include some historic firsts.
▪ A new Consumer Reports investigation found that sophisticated wire transfer scams targeting bank customers are becoming more common and that victims are rarely reimbursed by banks for their losses.
▪ The Biden administration Tuesday proposed providing Medicare and Medicaid drug coverage for anti-obesity drugs, which could help millions of Americans — but with major federal budget implications. The issue will soon shift to the Trump administration.
LEADING THE DAY
© The Associated Press | Evan Vucci
LATIN AMERICA: Trump’s nomination of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) to become the first Hispanic secretary of State has caught the attention of Latin America, a region not accustomed to having a Western Hemisphere expert leading U.S. diplomacy.
The three-term GOP senator and former presidential candidate, a well-known hawk on policy toward authoritarian regimes like Cuba and Venezuela, will interact with a region that’s undergone a seismic shift in its politics, with key U.S. allies gravitating toward rivals like Havana and Caracas. But Rubio could also have limited resources to deal with the region, writes The Hill’s Rafael Bernal, with red-hot geopolitical challenges in Europe and the Middle East and the ever-looming threat of Chinese expansion in the Pacific on his plate.
“If he has a team that represents his vision, which I believe, again, is in the best interest of democracy in the region, then Secretary of State Rubio can go down in the books as the guy who performed the oversight in the transition to a democratic Cuba and maybe recovering democracy in the Western Hemisphere,” said Hugo Acha, director of research and outreach for the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba.
Reuters: Trump’s transition team is putting together a wide-ranging energy package to roll out within days of his taking office that would approve export permits for new liquefied natural gas projects and increase oil drilling off the U.S. coast and on federal lands. He will also seek to roll back tax credits for electric vehicles and clean power plant standards and replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
TAXES: Major differences are emerging between Senate and House Republicans as they gear up for next year’s negotiations to extend Trump’s signature legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports budget hawks in the House are already starting to put the brakes on elements of Trump’s tax package, worried that a massive increase in the deficit will fall flat with voters.
Senate Republicans want to extend Trump’s tax cuts another 10 years, but House Republicans are pushing for a shorter extension to avoid sticker shock for House conservatives who could wind up derailing the package, which won’t have any Democratic support in either chamber.
“We’ve got to figure what the House can pass and what we can pass but we are having those discussions as we speak,” said incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.)
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: Trump will enter office with a wider array of investments and potential conflicts of interest than during his first term, setting the stage for greater scrutiny of his dealings. Since leaving office, Trump has augmented his business ventures, launching a social media platform that stands to benefit from his return to the White House while getting involved in cryptocurrency and signing new deals across the globe.
“There are a number of ways that he has expanded and broadened his portfolio, particularly in social media and in crypto, where the president of the United States has lots of ability to make policy decisions that would benefit his financial bottom line and do so potentially to the detriment of the American public,” said Donald Sherman, chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) asserts that Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn tried to shake him down. Epshteyn denies it. “It was important to me to protect the president because I was concerned about the ethics of what was happening,” Greitens told CBS News. According to a Trump legal team review, Epshteyn asked potential administration nominees to give him monthly consulting fees in exchange for advocating for them to Trump.
The scathing review found that among those whom Epshteyn had unsuccessfully solicited for payment was Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary. Epshteyn is reported to be clinging to thin ice inside the president-elect’s transition team, with an internal recommendation that his access to Trump be limited.
▪ The New York Times: Meet Natalie Harp, 33, Trump’s “human printer.” A devoted aide who funnels information she finds directly to him and helps with his social media posts, she will be by his side in the White House. Not everyone in Trump’s circle is on board with that idea.
▪ The Hill: Trump urged Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis to run in the special election for former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R) seat in Florida’s 1st Congressional District.
The Democratic National Committee on Feb. 1 will hold an election for a new party chair. The party will hold four forums to pick its top officer posts, and it will elect vice chairs, a treasurer, a secretary and a national finance chair before the vote. The current party leader, Jaime Harrison, is not seeking a second term.
WHERE AND WHEN
- The House will meet for a pro forma session at 9 a.m. The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. for a pro forma session.
- The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will depart the White House at 1:45 p.m. and join first lady Jill Biden for travel to Nantucket, Mass., for Thanksgiving. They will return on Saturday.
- Vice President Harris is in San Francisco. She and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her campaign running mate, will hold a thank-you conference call with supporters.
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken will participate in the second of a two-day meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers near Rome focused on Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East.
ZOOM IN
© The Associated Press | Eric Thayer
California will step in and provide rebates to eligible residents who buy electric vehicles if Trump ends the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Monday. The Golden State is gearing up for protracted battles with the incoming administration. Trump is expected to try once again to block California’s authority to set auto emissions limits that are stricter than federal standards.
“We will intervene if the Trump administration eliminates the federal tax credit, doubling down on our commitment to clean air and green jobs in California,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future — we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute.”
Meanwhile, bird flu has been detected in a batch of raw milk sold in California stores, and the state’s Department of Public Health said Sunday that the public should not drink it. Raw and unpasteurized milk has come in the spotlight recently in part due to Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, has suggested raw milk “advances human health.”
But health agencies disagree. “Unpasteurized milk can pose a serious health risk,” the Food and Drug Administration has said, and “raw milk can be a source of foodborne illness,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.
▪ Barron’s: Here’s what five experts said Trump should do about bird flu.
▪ New York magazine: America’s alarming bird-flu strategy: Hope for the best.
▪ CNN: Egg prices are going even higher. This time it’s avian flu and the holidays.
States and deportations: Incoming Trump immigration czar Tom Homan threatened to revoke federal funding for states that refuse to “cooperate” with Trump’s plans to conduct mass deportations.
Texas and medicine: The Texas ob-gyn exodus, by The New Yorker’s Stephanie Taladrid.
Florida and education: Conservatives in Florida have moved to subtler tactics to uproot liberal “indoctrination” in higher education. One way? Removing subjects like sociology from core requirements.
ELSEWHERE
© The Associated Press | Hussein Malla
CEASE-FIRE: Israel and Lebanon have agreed to the terms of a cease-fire agreement to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a senior U.S. official told Axios. The parties have not yet announced an agreement. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Monday “we are close.”
“We think we have a deal. We are on the goal line but we haven’t passed it yet. The Israeli Cabinet needs to approve the deal on Tuesday and something can always go wrong until then,” the U.S. official said. Israel’s security cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is expected to meet today to discuss a tentative deal with Hezbollah.
This would pave the way for a cease-fire declaration by Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The draft agreement includes a 60-day transition period during which the Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon, as well as a U.S.-led oversight committee to monitor implementation and address violations. Additionally, the U.S. has agreed to give Israel a letter of assurances that includes support for Israeli military action against threats from Lebanon, and for action to disrupt actions such as the reestablishment of a Hezbollah military presence near the border.
Reuters: Rainstorms flood tents of Gaza’s displaced as Israel steps up strikes.
UKRAINE: As Kyiv prepares for the looming uncertainty of Trump’s second term, officials and business executives are coming up with ways to sell the idea that a strong Ukraine is useful to their political goals — and expressing cautious optimism that he may act faster and more decisively than Biden.
Despite Trump’s assertions that the conflict must end quickly — and is costing U.S. taxpayers too much money — hope persists among Ukrainian officials that he will help end the war in a fair way for Kyiv. But Trump’s rhetoric has stirred fears that the incoming president could abruptly cut U.S. support for Ukraine’s military and push it to cede territory to Russia.
The Hill: Canada’s military chief is working to soften the expected blowback from Trump’s return to office, as Ottawa trails the majority of NATO allies in reaching the targeted 2 percent of gross domestic product for defense spending. NATO allies not spending enough on defense is a major feature of Trump’s criticism of the alliance.
OPINION
■ The first step for Democrats: fix blue states, by The Washington Post editorial board.
■ Bessent’s Treasury gauntlet, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.
THE CLOSER
© The Associated Press | Susan Walsh
And finally … 🦃 President Biden’s final official turkey pardoning event at the White House on Monday for gobblers Peach and Blossom was a whimsical crowd-pleaser with a plug for U.S. agriculture ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
With 55 days left until his half-century on the political stage ends, Biden sounded like a man absorbing each moment.
“It’s been the honor of my life. I’m forever grateful,” he said.
Bestowing public mercy on visiting turkeys captured headlines in 1989 with former President George H.W. Bush. Gazing at a handsome white bird in the Rose Garden as cameras clicked and animal rights advocates picketed, Bush said, “Let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy — he’s granted a presidential pardon as of right now — and allow him to live out his days on a children’s farm not far from here.”
Turkeys presented to previous presidents for the holidays also found their way to farms rather than being served on White House china.
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