Donald Trump has begun receiving intelligence briefings as president-elect, just months after a federal judge dismissed criminal charges against him for allegedly mishandling classified information.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence began providing briefings to the former president shortly after he won the election, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the Washington Post.
“ODNI is acting consistent with the tradition, in place since 1952, of providing intelligence briefings to the President-elect," the office said in a statement but did not comment specifically on the briefings.
Trump declined classified briefings before the election, saying he did not want to be accused of leaking classified secrets, and sources say he was "engaged" during briefings while president and asked about topics he heard about on television.
The former president was indicted in June 2023 with unlawful retention of classified information, a violation of the Espionage Act, after an August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, where FBI agents found a trove of sensitive materials the National Archives had ordered him to return after leaving the White House.
“As president I could have declassified it," Trump said, according to prosecutors. "Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret."
District judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July after ruling that special counsel Jack Smith had been unlawfully appointed, but Trump's election win likely means prosecutors' appeal of that ruling won't go to the U.S. Supreme Court.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined earlier this month to say whether president Joe Biden was concerned about Trump receiving classified briefings during the transition.
“I’m not going to get into speculation from here,” she said.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg released a letter written to New York Judge Juan Merchan agreeing that Donald Trump's sentencing should be postponed.
Bragg said that he would agree to stay proceedings so that Trump's team can file a motion to dismiss the entire indictment.
Trump's team wants the judge to stay all the proceedings. Doing so would keep the case open, which would then give Trump's Justice Department an opportunity to intervene on his behalf.
Bragg also said that while he agrees to a pause, he does not agree to dismiss the case outright.
"No current law establishes that a president's temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a posttrial criminal proceeding and where we are now, that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and based on unofficial conduct for which the defendant is also not immune," the letter says.
The next steps are for Trump's team to file a motion to dismiss and argue that before the judge.
Adam Klasfeld (@klasfeldreports.bsky.social)
bsky.app
Breaking:
Manhattan DA Bragg intends to OPPOSE Trump's motion to dismiss his New York criminal case, BUT—
Prosecutor do NOT object to pausing Trump's sentencing, which was scheduled for next week.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) vowed that "every single agency" in the federal government would be ripped "to shreds" after Republicans take control of the House, Senate, and White House.
During a Tuesday appearance on the War Room podcast, Greene railed against funding for the defense of Ukraine.
"There is the biggest paper shredding, file deleting, dumpster fire burning going on in every single department, especially in the Pentagon and the State Department," she opined. "They are covering up as much as they possibly can."
"These people are plotting war against us like never before," Greene said of Democrats. "We know our enemy. We've been fighting them for too many years."
Host Steve Bannon asked Greene to advise his audience on "the best way to combat the resistance that's already building."
"And the attitude and mindset is you don't let off the gas, you push that gas pedal down harder," Greene insisted. "And we go in every single agency, and we are going to gut them and rip them to shreds."
"There is no apologies," she added. "There is no reset. There is no unity. There's no unity because they don't want unity with us."
"Right now they're trying to figure out, they're gaming out what they're going to do, but they're embedding their people in as tight as they can, as tight as they can, while they're trying to be like, play a little nicey-nice to people like me."
President-elect Trump's sentencing in his criminal hush money trial was put on pause Tuesday, according to a new report.
Axios reported Judge Juan Merchan adjourned the sentencing, slated to take place in New York City on Nov. 26, as he considers how to move forward after Trump's Election Day victory.
No additional details were included on the case's docket, according to the report.
Merchan is also expected to rule Tuesday on Trump's demand for a new trial, the report noted.
Merchan paused the case for a week on Nov. 12 so Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office could file to the court what prosecutors believe to be appropriate next steps.
Trump's lawyers want to see the case dismissed. Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
He pleaded not guilty and called the prosecution a political witch hunt.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is introducing a binding resolution to ban transgender women from using women's restrooms in the House of Representatives, after Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware became the first openly transgender American to be elected to Congress. If passed, Congresswoman Mace says, it would require the Sergeant at Arms to enforce it. Speaker Johnson appeared noncommittal but reports say he may support it as a rules change.
But just three years ago, a few months into her first term as a member of Congress, Mace co-sponsored the GOP alternative to the LGBTQ Equality Act.
“I strongly support LGBTQ rights and equality,” Mace told the Washington Examiner's Brad Polumbo. “No one should be discriminated against.”
"I have friends and family that identify as LGBTQ," she added. "Understanding how they feel and how they’ve been treated is important. Having been around gay, lesbian, and transgender people has informed my opinion over my lifetime."
"I feel like it’s my duty to speak up on these issues, and to sponsor legislation on these issues, because I want people on both sides of the aisle to know that there are Republicans that care," Mace continued. "That we are compassionate. There are many of us that want equality for everybody."
Congresswoman Mace ran on a platform that included highlighting that she was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, a public senior military college.
She has often referred to that fact, as she did at the Republican National Convention in July.
NANCY MACE: "Twenty-five years ago, this high school dropout became the FIRST woman to graduate from the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina!"
"A college campus where we don't BURN American flags, we SALUTE them!" pic.twitter.com/M14PhEiBzi
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 17, 2024
And she has used her graduation from what was once a male-only institution to attack transgender women.
Women deserve to keeping having firsts, winning trophies, breaking records, and glass ceilings.
As the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel, I will always be a voice for women.
We don’t just identify as women—we are women. pic.twitter.com/4hDM9q4wGx
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) October 30, 2024
Mace's House resolution claims, "allowing biological males into single-sex facilities, such as restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms designed for women, jeopardizes the safety and dignity of Members, officers, and employees of the House who are female."
Late Tuesday morning Mace targeted McBride, telling reporters when asked, "Sarah McBride doesn't get a say in this. This is a biological man trying to force himself into women's spaces and I'm not going tolerate it. You have the radical left that are trying to erase women and erase women's rights. I'm the first woman to graduate from The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. If some guy in a skirt came by and said, no, that's my achievement, I'm gonna be there and standing in the way and saying, 'hell, no.' I'm not gonna allow men to erase women or women's rights, and I'm gonna be standing up here."
"This is about women, this is about girls, it is about our rights and being protected in our private spaces. I don't wanna see a man in a women's restroom. That's not a thing, and it's not going to be a thing up here. It's not gonna be a thing anywhere across the country either," she concluded, appearing to suggest she would try to make the ban national.
Over the past 24 hours Mace has also flooded her official government and personal social media accounts on X with dozens of her attacks on transgender women, including these:
"Biological men do not belong in private women’s spaces. Period. Full stop. End of story."
"Women's bathrooms are for biological women. Not men in a mini skirt."
"I don’t want people with penis’s [sic] showing them off in our locker room."
"The radical Left is calling me a 'threat.' You’re damn right I am. I am a threat to anyone who wants to strip women and girls of their rights," she also wrote. Mace previously had co-sponsored legislation stating that life begins at conception, which would effectively ban abortion. She also says she is "pro-life" and supports bans on abortion after an unspecified amount of time.
And she made clear that her resolution—which does not ban transgender men from men's restrooms—was drafted for one person, writing: "McBride, a biological male, does not get a say in women's private spaces."
Congresswoman-elect Sarah McBride on Monday evening appeared to respond to Mace's resolution, by taking the high road.
"Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness," she wrote.
But minutes later she added a more-direct response: "This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars. Delawareans sent me here to make the American dream more affordable and accessible and that’s what I’m focused on."
Critics are blasting Mace.
"Please note that Nancy Mace didn't do this until there was a specific Representative elected by the voters, a colleague to whom she hopes to deny basic human dignity. An awful, cowardly thing to do, but her desire for attention is a bottomless pit that can never be filled," charged Aaron Fritschner, Deputy Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA).
"Whatever your views on trans issues, Nancy Mace is doing what Nancy Mace does: trying to get attention. Every lawmaker—including Sarah McBride, the incoming trans rep—has a restroom in their office. This is a solution in search of a problem, because Mace is a performance artist," wrote Billy Binion a reporter for the libertarian magazine Reason. "Nancy Mace has passed one bill—a law that changed the name of a post office in Hilton Head. This is the same person who showed up to the Capitol wearing a scarlet letter so she could show off for the cameras. She spends taxpayer money performing & trying to get attention."
"For Nancy Mace," remarked Christina Reynolds of Emily's List, "the cruelty and exclusion is the point. I hope voters from her district will call her office and remind her that they expect her to work for them, not to attack their coworkers to score points with MAGA extremists."
Meanwhile, Tuesday morning, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested he was unwilling to discuss Mace's resolution, at least for now.
"I'm not going to address plans on that," he said when asked if he wanted to add Mace's resolution into the House rules package. "I’m not going to engage in this. We don't look down upon anyone."
Reporter: Do you plan on bringing Nancy Mace’s transgender bill and putting it into the rules package?
Johnson: I’m not going to engage in this. pic.twitter.com/YQIzQmgkBA
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 19, 2024
But Punchbowl News and NBC News' Melanie Zanona reports Johnson may have made a commitment to Mace to ban transgender women from women's restrooms on Capitol Hill:
"I’m told Speaker Mike Johnson has committed to Nancy Mace that he will not allow biological men in women’s bathrooms & locker rooms in the Capitol next year, by adding a provision in the House Rules package. Mace is still reserving the right to file it as privileged resolution or amend it if that doesn’t happen though."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accused the first transgender member of Congress of "physical assault" for using the bathroom corresponding to her gender.
After Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-DE) was elected, Greene appeared on Steve Bannon's War Room, where she misgendered the new member and made baseless claims of mental illness.
Greene said she attended a House Republican conference meeting and demanded Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) address the "war on women by mentally ill men pretending to be women."
"What are we going to do to keep him from coming in our bathrooms?" she said, misgendering McBride.
Greene insisted that McBride using the bathroom was "an assault."
Several studies have found no evidence to support claims that transgender people pose an increased safety threat in bathrooms.
"I'm not kidding you," Greene opined. "It is like a physical assault for a man to come in, charging into our private places, bathrooms, locker rooms, our gyms, places that are designated specifically for women only."
Greene revealed that Johnson planned to ban McBride from women's bathrooms.
"It's time for men in this country to defend women," she said. "I am so fed up with it, Steve."
McBride responded to anti-trans commentary on X Monday night.
"Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness," McBride wrote.
"We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars."
A hacker reportedly gained access to a file containing "damaging" testimony against President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz.
The unidentified hacker accessed a secure link among lawyers whose clients testified against the Florida Republican, according to a knowledgable source who spoke to the New York Times.
"The file is said to include sworn testimony by a woman who said that she had sex with Mr. Gaetz in 2017 when she was 17, in addition to testimony by a second woman who said that she had witnessed the encounter," the Times reported. "The material does not appear to have been made public by the hacker."
The Department of Justice dropped its investigation of Gaetz last year with no charges filed against the former congressman, the report noted.
Gaetz resigned last week when Trumpannounced his nomination, a day before the House Ethics Committee was set to vote on releasing its report on the allegations, reports show.
"The files were downloaded by a person using the name Altam Beezley at 1:23 p.m. on Monday, according to the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly," the Times reported. "A lawyer connected to the case sent an email to the address associated with Altam Beezley, only to be informed in an automated reply that the recipient does not exist."
The documents also include information under seal with the DOJ and House Ethics Committee, which is scheduled to meet Wednesday to decide whether to release the Gaetz report, according to the Times.
"The hacked trove of documents stems from an altogether different source: a civil suit being pursued by a friend of Mr. Gaetz’s, Christopher Dorworth, a Florida businessman," the newspaper reported. "Mr. Dorworth filed the suit against both the woman who says she had sex with Mr. Gaetz when she was a minor and Joel Greenberg, an erstwhile ally of Mr. Gaetz who is serving an 11-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to federal sex trafficking charges involving the woman."
Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross lashed out at one-time colleagues Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough after they met with President-elect Donald Trump.
In a Tuesday post on the Threads social media platform, Cross addressed the hosts of MSNBC's Morning Joe after their trip to Mar-a-Lago.
"So after letting [Trump] call into their show routinely in 2016 and joking and laughing with him," she wrote, "they went to meet with him this week huh? They never face the consequences we do. It's all just cables fodder for them. They're propped up as the 'flagship show' like it's normal."
"We know better," she continued. "But sure. You guys keep watching them if you like."
Cross included a quote from her 2020 book "Say It Louder."
"With Trump, the networks were enjoying great gains in viewership thanks to lapses in judgement by people who treated intolerance, xenophobia, and misogyny as though it was something to be laughed at and not taken literally of seriously," the quote said.
The nomination of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill, where the former congressman has made many enemies and fallen under investigation for alleged sex trafficking. Now some senators are demanding the release of a House Ethics Committee report on that inquiry.
The Florida Republican resigned last week as soon as Trump announced his nomination, which complicates the release of that panel's findings, but former ethics chairman Charlie Dent published an op-ed for MSNBC arguing that Gaetz's exit from Congress should not prevent the public from learning what lawmakers found.
"Ordinarily, nominees for Cabinet positions are thoroughly vetted to identify any potential obstacles to confirmation," wrote Dent, a Republican former congressman from Pennsylvania. "Trump has eschewed any pretense of a normal vetting process and instead has sought an attorney general nominee prepared to torch the very department he would lead. Not to quibble about Gaetz’s qualifications, but he has scant experience as a lawyer and was the subject of a lengthy sex crimes investigation by the Justice Department that resulted in no charges filed against him."
The ethics committee customarily defers its own investigations while the Justice Department investigates a sitting member of Congress, and the panel resumed or continued its probe of Gaetz after the agency announced it lacked evidence to continue its inquiry. He then abruptly resigned to block the release of what Dent said was most likely a "damning report."
"Once a member of Congress resigns from office, the House Ethics Committee loses jurisdiction over the matter," Dent wrote. "Remember, too, that an ethics investigation is not a criminal investigation but rather an inquiry to determine whether a member has violated House rules.
"The committee can issue various sanctions on a member, including a reprimand, censure and, in the most extreme cases, expulsion. Sometimes during the course of an investigation, the committee finds potential criminal wrongdoing and refers the matter to the Justice Department for consideration and review."
"Gaetz thought his resignation could block the report’s release and avoid having disturbing details from the report going public," Dent added. "Well, not so fast."
There's no House rule prohibiting the committee from releasing a report on a departed member, and Dent cites several examples of that happening in the past, when the panel issued a report on teen sex allegations against Rep. Don Lukens (R-OH) in 1990, misuse of campaign funds allegations against Rep. Bill Boner (D-TN) in 1987, and sexual misconduct allegations against Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in 2006.
"The precedent of post-resignation disclosure is particularly stronger surrounding sexual misconduct by members," Dent wrote.
Lawmakers typically leave quietly when forced to resign in disgrace and aren't usually nominated to the top law enforcement position in the nation, and Dent said the Senate deserves to see the ethics committee findings before voting on whether Gaetz should be confirmed as attorney general.
"Please spare us the drama," Dent wrote. "It’s time to release the report."
President-elect Donald Trump has been generating considerable controversy with the cabinet picks for his incoming administration — picks that range from former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (who is Trump's choice for U.S. intelligence director and has openly defended Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine) to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (who has drawn widespread criticism in the medical field for his anti-vaxxer views and is Trump's pick to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).
But the pick that is generating the most shockwaves of all is former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who Trump would like to see replace Democrat Merrick Garland as U.S. attorney general.
In an opinion column published by MSNBC's website on November 18, Frank Figliuzzi — who spent 25 years as an FBI special agent and is now a national security analyst for MSNBC and NBC News — argues that outgoing President Joe Biden should order background checks and comprehensive investigations of Trump's cabinet picks. Biden will remain in office until January 20, 2025, when Trump will be sworn in for his second non-consecutive term as president.
"We had fair warning," Figliuzzi explains. "Last month, The New York Times reported that then-candidate Donald Trump's advisers were telling him to skip FBI background investigations for his high-level selections for nominees. Last week, CNN, citing 'people close to the transition planning,' reported that Trump doesn't plan to submit the names of at least some of his Cabinet-level picks for FBI vetting."
The former FBI special agent adds, "Whether you're Republican, Democrat or independent, and regardless of whether you're energized or enraged by Trump's controversial picks, you should be concerned about the possibility of a vetting process that’s really no process at all."
Biden, Figliuzzi emphasizes, needs to thoroughly "investigate the people Trump says he wants to put in office." And, he notes, the outgoing president has only two months to do it.
"Biden should be neither ashamed nor afraid to thoroughly investigate Trump's picks, given the signs that Trump may not," the former FBI special agent warns. "Through executive order, he should mandate that the FBI conduct background investigations on Trump's picks and instruct the FBI to begin the process now. The U.S. Senate should use its power to request the same of the FBI. The clock is ticking."
MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski stunned and outraged many of their viewers this week by announcing they went to Mar-a-Lago for a personal sit-down with Donald Trump — painting it as an effort to get back in the loop and into a place where they have the access to hold him accountable.
But according to CNN's "Reliable Sources," this may not be the whole story.
Rather, according to the report, the two anchors may have been trying to ingratiate themselves with the president-elect to avoid his retribution.
A pair of sources privy to the behind-the-scenes decision making told CNN that "Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration. Knowing that Trump has threatened retribution against his perceived political opponents, and that Trump has promoted lies about Scarborough and Brzezinski in the past, the MSNBC hosts decided to reach out to the President-elect."
These two sources "generally agreed with Joe and Mika's impression of the situation at hand — namely, that the incoming Trump administration could use its wide-ranging powers to punish people deemed enemies."
Trump has repeatedly attacked the press for critical coverage and fact-checking, famously calling them the "enemy of the people" and even saying at a recent rally that he uses the press as human shields against assassins.
Scarborough and Brzezinski have been sharply critical of Trump during the campaign season, with Brzezinski even calling him an "aging BS artist." Trump, for his part, has often targeted them specifically in his attacks on the press, and has even pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Scarborough murdered a staffer while he was a Republican member of Congress.
All of this comes as experts set off alarm bells over Trump's selection of former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a loyalist who has often endorsed Trump's legal revenge schemes on his political enemies and has himself faced ethics investigations, to head up the Justice Department — a move that even took many Republican senators aback.
The kind of man Stephen King would depict luring unsuspecting children into sewers is the kind President-elect Donald Trump would pick for the secretary of education, a political columnist argued Tuesday.
Salon writer Amanda Marcotte on Tuesday made the case that Trump is actively seeking out men accused of sexually assaulting women for top positions in his administration or, as she calls it, his "cast of dangerous clowns."
"It's not just that Trump doesn't care about sexual assault," wrote Marcotte. "He appears to see it as a bonus if one of his nominees or allies has faced such allegations."
Three men Trump has tapped for Cabinet have faced sexual assault accusations, reports show.
The three men have publicly denied the accusations.
Marcotte argued Tuesday that the denials — and the accusations — don't matter to Trump or his voters.
"He expects his base voters to see these ... like they see him, as an aspirational figure," Marcotte wrote. "And not because they believe they're innocent men done wrong, either. The ability to commit crimes — even sex crimes — and get away with it is part of the allure of Trumpism."
Marcotte argued Trumpism came as response to the #MeToo movement that sought to hold men such as film mogul Harvey Weinstein — the convicted rapist Trump recently complained had been "schlonged" — accountable for attacking women.
"Defending a man's 'right' to have sex with underage girls would be making good on a campaign promise," she wrote. "It's tempting to hope this will anger the public and result in consequences for Trump, but frankly, that's unlikely."
Business leaders are nervous about the economic impact of two of Donald Trump's signature campaign promises — and some of them are hoping they can talk him out of going through with them, according to an analyst.
The president-elect has vowed to impose stiff tariffs on imported goods and deport millions of migrants, which economists say would likely increase inflation. MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire told "Morning Joe" that Wall Street is worried.
" Trump prizes the economy most of all," Lemire said. "That's his favorite metric whether or not his presidency is a success, and for both on this idea of deportation and the tariffs idea, they're linked here. There is some belief that business leaders and others will talk him out of it and say, 'Look, you'll ruin the economy if you do these things, it will damage your presidency.' That's possible."
However, there's no indication that Trump or his advisers are backing off their plans, which the president-elect confirmed could include declaring a national emergency and ordering the military to assist in the deportations.
"Maybe it will narrow, but at least right now they're talking big," Lemire said. "They're acting like they're going to go through it, and these are, again, the signature promises of his campaign. Maybe, yes, maybe he'll cut a deal, maybe he'll make it smaller. Maybe he'll take the win and move on to something else, but maybe not. A lot of people in this country are afraid he'll do exactly what he says."
The president-elect has also authorized tech billionaire Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to make drastic cuts to federal spending, which would likely cast millions of government workers out of their jobs, and MSNBC's Claire McCaskill said that poses deep threats to the economy.
"Elon Musk is talking about cutting two-thirds of the federal workforce," McCaskill said. "Well, by the way, does he know that two of the largest employers in the federal workforce are the Pentagon and Homeland Security? If you take those agencies and set them aside and cut the workforce, then we're talking about people who deliver payments to the American citizens. We're talking about the Medicare system that delivers payments on behalf of Americans.
"We're talking about Social Security that delivers payments on behalf of America. So there really is this disconnect between how realistic a mass deportation is in light of other things they say they're going to do and how it will look to America if they erect these large holding facilities with the money they take from the military, which, by the way, they tried with the wall. He declared a national emergency and diverted Pentagon funds to do, what, 20 miles, 100 miles? He didn't build it, but he built some of it."
"It really is a head-scratcher," McCaskill added. "They will be very savvy about using, deporting people who have been convicted of crimes or charged with crimes. They'll do really smart photo-ops with those folks, and there's about a million of those people in the country. Most of it's low-level crime, some of it is not. That's what they will do first and the big splashes they'll use to try to convince Americans that he's doing some mass deportation. But I think [to be determined] on the idea he could do a mass deportation, and I don't think the American public will stand for it."
Adam Klasfeld (@klasfeldreports.bsky.social)