Trump team signs agreement on background checks for nominees; lawyers push for hush-money case dismissal – as it happened

We’re closing this blog down now. Thanks for reading. You can read the latest story here:

Donald Trump’s transition team belated signed a memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Justice, which will allow the FBI to conduct background checks on the president-elect’s nominees. But it remains unclear whether Trump will send all his picks for vetting, given that his team had indicated it would avoid or delay complete background checks, relying instead on internal vetting.

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers have asked for a dismissal of the hush-money case, in which he was convicted on 34 felony counts, invoking Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son, Hunter, in their argument

Here’s more:

• Trump has reportedly offered the job of deputy secretary of defense to Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire investor whose firm has taken stakes in companies that do business with the Pentagon.

• Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the defense department, had multiple affairs while married to his first wife, Vanity Fair reported. 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.

• Hegseth is also facing sexual misconduct allegations, as well as allegations of financial mismanagement and aggressive drunkeness at previous workplaces. Republican senator Lindsay Graham said these allegations were “disturbing” and would be hard to defend.

• Trump’s pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, Florida sheriff Chad Chronister, has withdrawn from consideration just two days after being nominated. The sheriff had three decades of experience in law enforcement but was little known outside Florida.

• Fallout from 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.

• Chuck Schumer will continue to lead Democrats in the Senate after a closed-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.

Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump, who have previously engaged in bitter public feuds, are now warming to each other as Zuckerberg seeks to influence tech policy in the incoming administration, Emily Swanson reports:

The Meta CEO dined at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida last week, talking technology and demonstrating the company’s camera-equipped sunglasses, Fox News reported.

“Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a participant in this change that we’re seeing all around America,” Stephen Miller, a top Trump deputy, told Fox.

Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, agreed with Miller. Clegg said in a recent press call that Zuckerberg wanted to play an “active role” in the administration’s tech policy decisions and wanted to participate in “the debate that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological sphere”, particularly on artificial intelligence. Meta declined to provide further comment.

The weeks since the election have seen something of a give-and-take developing between Trump and Zuckerberg, who previously banned the president-elect from Instagram and Facebook for using the platforms to incite political violence on 6 January 2021. In a move that appears in deference to Trump – who has long accused Meta of censoring conservative views – the company now says its content moderation has at times been too heavy-handed.

Clegg said hindsight showed that Meta “overdid it a bit” in removing content during the Covid-19 pandemic, which Zuckerberg recently blamed on pressure from the Biden administration.

Read the full story here:

Even more details are emerging about Pete Hegseth’s alcohol use, with NBC building on earlier reports that Trump’s pick to lead the defense department had issues with drinking excessively in professional environments.

NBC reports:

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees who spoke with NBC News.

Two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during Hegseth’s time as a co-host of ‘Fox & Friends Weekend,’ which began in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him before he went on air. Those same two people, plus another, said that during his time there he appeared on television after they’d heard him talk about being hungover as he was getting ready or on set.

An earlier report from the New Yorker detailed whistleblower accusations that Hegseth was forced out of leadership roles at two military veterans organizations after allegations of financial mismanagement, aggressive drunkenness and sexist behavior.

Earlier today Republican senator Lindsey Graham told reporters that allegations of Hegseth’s misconduct were “disturbing” and would be hard to defend.

“Some of these articles are very disturbing. He obviously has a chance to defend himself here. But some of this stuff is going to be difficult. Time will tell,” Graham said.

Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, Florida sheriff Chad Chronister, has withdrawn from consideration.

He wrote in a statement:

To serve as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration is the honor of a lifetime. Over the past several days, as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in, I’ve concluded that I must respectfully withdraw from consideration. There is more work to be done for the citizens of Hillsborough County and a lot of initiatives I am committed to fulfilling. I sincerely appreciate the nomination, outpouring of support by the American people, and look forward to continuing my service as Sheriff of Hillsborough County.

Chronister, 56, had worked in the sheriff’s office that the Tampa area for more than 30 years, but was little known outside of Florida.

Weeks after Arizona voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution, Arizona’s attorney general, Kris Mayes, has agreed that the state will not enforce its 15-week abortion ban while a new lawsuit over the law plays out.

The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in Maricopa county superior court on behalf of Arizona abortion providers, argues that Arizona’s 15-week ban is now unconstitutional and should be overturned.

In legal documents signed by Mayes and that will be filed alongside the lawsuit after the court formally accepts the case, Arizona agreed with providers not to prosecute people under the ban until 30 days after the litigation has wrapped up – a move that permits abortion providers in the state to resume performing abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy.

“For two years, physicians’ hands have been tied when a patient needs to end a pregnancy after 15 weeks, including when they face serious pregnancy complications. But today we can once again provide care to people who want to end their pregnancy,” Dr Eric Reuss, one of the abortion providers who filed the lawsuit, said in a statement.

“We hope the courts will quickly recognize the harms of Arizona’s ban and strike it down once and for all.”

The lawsuit marks the latest effort by advocates to make good on the pro-abortion rights ballot measures passed by seven states in the November elections. While these measures amended states’ constitutions to protect or expand abortion rights, they did not actually rewrite pre-existing state laws.

Read the full story here:

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.