“Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to replace Christopher Wray as director of the FBI, has threatened to “come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens” and “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” What exactly does he mean by that? Given the position that Patel will hold if he is confirmed by the Senate, the answer could have serious implications not only for the anti-Trump journalists he has in mind but also for freedom of the press generally.”
“Right-wing populism is a strange bird, an ideology that’s not grounded in any enduring economic or philosophical principles. It mainly entails using the government to address a variety of ill-formed social, nationalistic, and cultural grievances. Former British politician David Gauke was spot on when he says that populism amounts to little more than “a willingness by politicians to say what they think the public wants to hear.”
That’s why President-elect Donald Trump’s recent appointments reflect a mish-mash of conflicting opinions. Many conservatives were, for instance, shocked by his selection of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R–Ore.) as Labor Secretary given that her pro-union positions aren’t different from those advocated by President Joe Biden.”
A lot of the public were Googling if Biden dropped out right before the election. Maybe a primary would have helped informed the public about Democratic candidates’ positions.
“the Treasury Department issued another reminder about the cost of doing nothing to change course. The national debt hit $36 trillion—less than four months after surpassing the $35 trillion mark.
Evenly divided, that means every American is now six figures in the red, thanks to the decisions made in Washington, D.C., over the past few decades. The trajectory ahead looks no better. The federal government is on pace to run multitrillion-dollar deficits for the foreseeable future—and that’s the rosy scenario, which assumes no recessions, wars, pandemics, and the like. Measured against the size of the U.S. economy, the debt is approaching the record high set in the final year of World War II. The rising debt means higher annual interest payments that will complicate the federal budget, likely require higher taxes, and make everyone poorer.”
“It is now clearer than ever that Garland was a highly questionable choice to serve as attorney general from the start. From the outset of the Biden presidency, it was readily apparent that Garland had little desire to investigate and potentially prosecute Trump.
The most comprehensive accounts on the matter, from investigative reporting at The Washington Post and The New York Times, strongly indicate that the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation and public hearings in 2022 effectively forced Garland to investigate Trump and eventually to appoint Smith in November of that year — nearly two years after Trump incited the riot at the Capitol.
There are many people — including many Democratic legal pundits — who have continued to defend this delay and may continue to do so, so let me be very clear: Those people are wrong.
It was clear after Trump’s loss in 2020 — even before Jan. 6 — that his conduct warranted serious legal scrutiny by the Justice Department, particularly in the area of potential financial crimes. But that probe, which could and should have been pursued by Biden’s U.S. Attorney and aspiring attorney general in Manhattan, somehow never materialized.
It was also clear — on Jan. 6 itself — that Trump may have committed criminal misconduct after his loss in 2020 that required immediate and serious attention from the Justice Department.
The formation of the Jan. 6 committee in early 2021 did nothing to change the calculus. There too, it was clear from the start that there would still need to be a criminal investigation to deliver any meaningful legal accountability for Trump.
In fact, the warning signs for where this could all end up — where the country finds itself now — were clear by late 2021, less than a year into Biden’s term. The public reporting at the time indicated (correctly, we now know) that there was no real Justice Department investigation into Trump and his inner circle at that point, even though the outlines of a criminal case against Trump — including some of the charges themselves that were eventually brought nearly two years later — were already apparent.
As a result, the Biden administration and the Garland Justice Department were running an extremely obvious risk — namely, that Trump would run for reelection and win, and that any meaningful criminal accountability for his misconduct after 2020 would literally become impossible. That, of course, has now happened. It was all eminently predictable.
Garland’s defenders over the years — including many Democratic lawyers who regularly appear on cable news — claimed that Garland and the department were simply following a standard, “bottom-up” investigative effort. Prosecutors would start with the rioters, on this theory, and then eventually get to Trump.
This never made any sense.
It did not reflect some unwritten playbook for criminal investigations. In fact, in criminal cases involving large and potentially overlapping groups of participants — as well as serious time sensitivity — good prosecutors try to get to the top as quickly as possible.
The Justice Department can — and should — have quickly pursued the rioters and Trump in parallel. The fact that many legal pundits actually defended this gross dereliction of duty — and actually argued that this was the appropriate course — continues to amaze me.”
…
“None of this, however, excuses the Republican political and legal class for their role in all this as well. In fact, Trump could not have pulled it off without a great deal of help from them too.
Start with Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans in 2021. They could — and should — have voted to convict Trump after his second impeachment, which would have prevented him from running again for the presidency. Instead, McConnell and almost every other GOP senator let him off the hook.
Trump then proceeded to execute perhaps the most remarkable political rehabilitation in American history, but which should not have been nearly such a surprise. He never seemed to lose his grip on the party and in fact strengthened it over the course of 2021, as the likes of Kevin McCarthy and others quickly rallied around him.
The Republican presidential primaries also proved, in the end, to be a boon for Trump in his legal fight. By the time they concluded, Trump had been indicted by the Justice Department and local prosecutors in Manhattan and Fulton County. Under the traditional rules of politics, this should have provided incredible fodder for his adversaries and essentially killed his campaign.
Instead, his most prominent primary opponents — his opponents — came to his defense. As the prosecution in Manhattan came into focus, for instance, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis belittled the effort as “some manufactured circus by some Soros-DA.” Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy both said that they would pardon Trump if elected.
It was no surprise, then, that Republican primary voters rallied around Trump. Perhaps it was inevitable, but it was certainly made easier by the fact that Trump’s supposed adversaries were all endorsing his legal defense as well as his false claims about the prosecutions themselves.
Last but most certainly not least: The Republican appointees on the Supreme Court bailed Trump out this year — in the heart of the general election campaign and when it mattered most.”
…
“The six Republican appointees — three of whom, of course, were appointed by Trump himself — sided with Trump on both counts.
They first slow-walked Trump’s appeal on immunity grounds this year and then created a new doctrine of criminal immunity for Trump that had no real basis in the law — effectively foreclosing the possibility of a trial before Election Day. It was a gross distortion of the law in apparent service of the Republican appointees’ partisan political objectives.”
“Nunes previously served as a Republican lawmaker from California and was chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
“Devin will draw on his experience … and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Trump said Saturday in a Truth Social post.
The board “has access to all information necessary to perform its functions,” according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as well as direct access to the president.
Nunes has led Trump Media since late 2021. His selection to lead the Intelligence Advisory Board further ties the company to the incoming Trump administration. Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, and Kash Patel, who has been tapped to become FBI director, both sit on Trump Media’s board alongside the president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr.”
“Trump’s decision to nominate Patel has proven particularly controversial, since his principal qualification appears to be his sycophancy toward Trump. (A Trump transition spokesperson said, “Kash Patel has served in key national security positions throughout the government. He is beyond qualified to lead the FBI and will make a fantastic director.”)
Many observers, including former federal law enforcement officials, oppose Patel’s nomination on the grounds that he would likely use the FBI to pursue Trump’s political opponents and that he might substantially corrupt the culture and professionalism of the bureau. To some, Patel calls to mind the specter of J. Edgar Hoover, the infamous FBI director whose nearly 50-year stint running the agency until 1972 was marked by egregious abuses of power — including illegal surveillance, blackmail and the harassment of political dissidents.
Patel clearly lacks the qualifications, experience and temperament to lead the agency. But how worried should the American public really be about him at the helm of the FBI?
The truth is that there are stronger internal and external safeguards in place against law enforcement abuses than during the Hoover era. He will indeed face some constraints because of the culture and bureaucracy of the FBI. But they may not contain him. And he will have plenty of opportunity to damage the bureau and its work — and to use and abuse the FBI for political ends. His nomination poses a considerable and unjustifiable risk to the country.”
“Jeff Bezos, Larry Fink and Donald Trump’s Treasury pick Scott Bessent all agree: Turbocharging economic growth is the best route to reining in the U.S.’s massive $36 trillion debt. History is not on their side.
Bessent warns that this is the “last chance” for the country to grow its way out of the record debt without becoming a “European-style socialist democracy.” Fink, who heads the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, urged the incoming administration in an Election Day op-ed to promote artificial intelligence and infrastructure investments to grow the economy and tame the deficit. And Amazon founder Bezos told economic power brokers at the DealBook Summit this month that the only way to solve the problem is to expand the economy by 3 to 5 percent a year while simultaneously trimming annual deficits.”
…
“That’s a tall order that few modern presidents have managed to achieve for any sustained period. Bill Clinton famously generated budget surpluses while the economy soared at rates of more than 4 percent in the late 1990s. Ronald Reagan brought down deficits in 1984 and 1987 but otherwise ran up the red ink. And Trump himself will face even more significant challenges if he follows through on tax and tariff pledges that budget forecasters say could add $4.1 trillion to $15.6 trillion to the debt over the next decade.
Trump promised during the campaign that a combination of lower taxes, more energy production, looser regulations and punishing tariffs would generate “explosive” growth to pay down the debt. And government budgets would shrink by “trillions,” he said, with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy tasked with tackling government waste.
But Trump has also vowed that he won’t touch entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are by far the chief drivers of the debt and are projected to be insolvent by the mid-2030s. Imposing tariffs on imports could trigger reprisals that would harm growth, and even if they didn’t, many economists believe it would take a historic economic boom to meaningfully address the country’s fiscal challenges.
“You can’t improve this with growth,” said Tom Porcelli, the chief U.S. economist at PGIM Fixed Income. “You’d have to have 5 percent growth for a pretty decent amount of time to have any real notable impact.””
…
” Fiscal watchdogs and credit-rating agencies have been clanging alarms for years about the U.S.’s growing debt, which is the accumulation of annual budget deficits. Rising deficits — which can be inflationary and push up interest rates — could become more acute as the population ages and spending for mandatory entitlement programs climbs. Even steep cuts to discretionary federal programs wouldn’t make a meaningful dent in the debt without extensive structural reforms.”