December 2, 2024 - Presidential transition news

President-elect Donald Trump says he intends to nominate firebrand loyalist Kash Patel to serve as FBI director.

In a podcast interview in September, Patel heavily criticized the FBI, calling for the agency’s headquarters to be dismantled and turned into a “museum of the deep state.”

CNN’s Victor Blackwell speaks with Politico White House reporter Daniel Lippman on the confirmation process ahead for Patel:

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin announced he is challenging New York Rep. Jerry Nadler to be the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee according to a letter obtained by CNN —setting up an intraparty fight over the coveted post.

The panel is expected to play a key role in the next Congress under House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan, who is a crucial ally of President-elect Donald Trump.

President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks to reporters as he leaves the Russell Senate Office Building on November 21, 2024 in Washington, DC.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, was pushed out as the head of two veterans’ advocacy organizations amid internal allegations of mismanagement and personal misconduct, The New Yorker reported Sunday.

A whistleblower report obtained by the magazine alleged that, during his time leading one of those nonprofit advocacy groups, Hegseth was repeatedly intoxicated at work events and gatherings with staff. It also alleges that he sexually pursued female staffers, and that the organization ignored another staffer’s alleged sexual misconduct.

The report is the latest scrutiny into Hegseth, a veteran and former Fox News host with no prior government experience, ahead of what’s expected to be a tough Senate confirmation process. It comes on the heels of reports detailing a sexual assault allegation from 2017, which Hegseth has denied and in which no charges were filed.

Asked by CNN for comment about the magazine’s reporting, a Hegseth adviser said, “We’re not going to comment on outlandish claims laundered through the New Yorker by a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth’s. Get back to us when you try your first attempt at actual journalism.” Hegseth’s team had provided The New Yorker with an identical statement.

The seven-page whistleblower report was compiled by former employees of Concerned Veterans for America, the advocacy group where Hegseth was president from 2013 to 2016, and sent to its senior management in February 2015, The New Yorker reported. The magazine did not name the employees, and CNN has not independently reviewed the report.

Read more about the allegations against Hegseth.

Donald Trump selected billionaire Massad Boulos to serve as his senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs — the second time in as many days the president-elect has chosen a family member for a key post.

Though Trump didn’t mention it in his announcement Sunday, Boulous is the father-in-law of the president-elect’s daughter, Tiffany, and was heavily involved in campaign outreach to Muslim communities during the campaign.

On Saturday, Trump named real estate developer Charles Kushner to serve as the next US ambassador to France. Kushner is the father of Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and was pardoned by Trump in 2020 following a 2005 conviction on federal charges.

The extraordinary selection of his daughters’ fathers-in-law for two critical posts underscores how Trump will continue his precedent of leaning on trusted family members in his second term.

Some background: Trump has long turned to his family members to serve in political roles, raising questions about conflicts of interest and nepotism.

From 2017 to 2021, his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, served as senior advisers with West Wing offices, providing input on a range of issues. Kushner was one of the lead negotiators of the Abraham Accords, a pact that normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and is expected to continue to advise Trump on Middle East issues from outside the White House. Ivanka Trump has said she does not plan to return to Washington in any formal capacity.

Donald Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, ran the family real estate business during his first term but emerged as key surrogates on the 2024 campaign trail. The president-elect’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, meanwhile, was installed as co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

First lady Jill Biden deliver remarks in the East Room of the White House on October 16 in Washington, DC.

First lady Jill Biden on Monday said “of course” she supports President Joe Biden’s decision to offer a full pardon for their son Hunter Biden over the weekend — something the president and White House had repeatedly said they would not do.

Asked during an event kicking off the holiday season if she supports the president’s decision, the first lady said, “of course I support the pardon of my son.”

It’s the first on-camera comments from a member of the Biden family following the news Sunday that the president pardoned his son. He faced sentencing this month for federal tax and gun convictions.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on November 21, 2024 in Washington, DC.

The White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday said President Joe Biden would not have pardoned his son, Hunter, had Kamala Harris won the 2024 election — before immediately walking back her statement.

Asked abroad Air Force One whether the president would have made that decision had Harris won the election, Jean-Pierre said: “I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna get into, into the election. It is a no–I can answer that, it’s a no, and what I can say—.”

A reporter cut the press secretary off: “It’s a no? This would not have happened if Harris hadn’t lost the election? A pardon would not have happened if Harris hadn’t lost the election?”

Jean-Pierre responded: ”I can speak to where we are today, and so I can’t speak to hypotheticals here. Where we are today, the president made this decision over the weekend. He thought about it, he wrestled with it.” She reiterated Biden made the decision because he believed his son was being targeted for political reasons.

Jean-Pierre largely declined to add anything new to the pardon announcement, repeatedly referring reporters to the original statement announcing the move on Monday.

More on Hunter Biden pardon: Asked directly whether the White House lied to the American people with their repeated assurances that Biden would not use the presidential power to pardon his son, Jean-Pierre responded: “First of all, one of the things that the president always believes is to be truthful to the American people.”

Jean-Pierre added as she, Biden and reporters traveled to Africa on Monday: “And I would encourage everyone to read in full the president’s statement. I think he lays out his thought process.”

She declined to say whether the elder and younger Biden discussed a pardon this weekend. She said Biden “wrestled” with the decision, “and what he saw was that his son was being singled out.”

Remember: Jean-Pierre originally told reporters on November 7 — the day after the election — that Biden had no plans to pardon his son, but CNN earlier reported that White House aides senses the possibility of a pardon becoming more distinct since Trump’s victory last month.

CNN’s Kayla Tausche contributed reporting to this post.

Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks will be on Capitol Hill this week meeting with senators behind closed doors as they prepare for their upcoming confirmation fights.

Trump’s attorney general pick, Pam Bondi, choice for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, and his pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, another key administration role, are all expected to meet with senators this week, two sources familiar with the meetings said.

Bondi will meet with GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to a statement released by his office on Monday.

Vice President-elect JD Vance helped organize several of the meetings, however he is not currently expected to shepherd the picks on Capitol Hill or sit in on the meetings, according to one source familiar with the meetings.

Vance previously escorted Trump’s former attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, as well as Hegseth around Capitol Hill and attended many of their meetings with senators.

This post has been updated with additional reporting. CNN’s Morgan Rimmer and Manu Raju contributed reporting to this post.

President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to impose stiff tariffs against America’s three biggest trading partners is widely expected to push prices higher, which would set the stage for the Federal Reserve to stop cutting interest rates and possibly raise them instead.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a recent speech in Dallas that it is still too early to consider how Trump’s tariff plans would affect the US economy. Campaign rhetoric is one thing, but enacted policy is another. Trump, however, says he won’t waste any time, threatening last week to slap 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10% duty on Chinese goods on the first day of his second term on January 20.

Trump’s tariffs would almost certainly push up prices for imported goods like avocados, cars and tequila. That would affect about $1.5 trillion of goods that flow throughout North America, according to an estimate from the International Monetary Fund.

Wall Street has already shown some concern over the possibility of inflation reigniting under a second Trump term, with bond yields ratcheting higher leading up to Election Day and in the weeks after.

On the bright side, since persistently high inflation, induced by hefty tariffs, would prevent the Fed from lowering borrowing costs, cash-like and bond investments could keep some of their luster for a little longer, too.

Read more about what the plan could mean for interest rates and the economy.

President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, ensures he avoids jail time and clears his criminal record in two separate cases: federal tax and firearm charges.

Hunter Biden was convicted by a jury in June of illegally buying and possessing a gun as a drug user, after a gut-wrenching trial that delved into his drug abuse and family dysfunction.

He then pleaded guilty in September to nine tax offenses, stemming from $1.4 million in taxes that he didn’t pay while spending lavishly on escorts, strippers, cars and drugs.

Special counsel David Weiss, who was appointed by Donald Trump as US attorney for Delaware, began investigating Hunter Biden in 2018 and filed both indictments in 2023. As president, Joe Biden had the authority to shut down the probe or direct the Justice Department to dismiss the charges — but he kept his pledge to stay out of the matter.

Both criminal cases revolved around Hunter Biden’s decadeslong struggle with drug and alcohol addiction, which he discussed openly, including in his 2021 memoir. From the start, Hunter Biden’s lawyers argued that he was being targeted by overzealous prosecutors who caved to public pressure from Trump and congressional Republicans.

“I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport,” Hunter Biden said in a statement Sunday night.

Hunter Biden could have faced up to 25 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000. President Biden and his team had previously ruled out pardoning Hunter Biden.

President Biden justified the pardon by pointing out that few people are charged with the addiction-related gun offenses “without aggravating factors,” such as using the weapon as part of a violent crime. He also argued that many people who pay back all of their late taxes, like Hunter did, are allowed to revolve their problems through civil enforcement, instead of facing criminal charges.

This is the latest instance of an outgoing president using the pardon power to help a family member: Shortly before they both left office, Bill Clinton pardoned his brother and Donald Trump pardoned the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.

President Joe Biden made history Sunday when he granted a pardon to his son Hunter Biden for criminal convictions on gun and tax charges.

The power to grant pardons for federal crimes is uniquely bestowed by the Constitution on only the US president: “… he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

Presidents have doled out pardons to friends and donors, to political allies, and to make political points, but no president until Biden has pardoned his son.

Only two other presidents have pardoned family members:

“It is supposed to inspire unity and justice,” a last resort for people who have been failed by the system. Now, the risk is a normalization of pardons as a sort of perk of access.

Read the full analysis.

The House task force investigating the assassination attempts into President-elect Donald Trump will hold its final hearing and vote to release its final report on Thursday, a spokesperson told CNN.

The public hearing will be with Acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe, the spokesperson said.

The bipartisan task force will also vote on its final report on Thursday, which is expected to be made public that day, the spokesperson added.

The panel had one hearing in September focusing on the law enforcement response to the first assassination attempt against Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Kash Patel speaks during a Turning Point Action 'United for Change' campaign rally for Donald Trump in Las Vegas, on October 24.

President-elect Donald Trump was wavering in recent days between two candidates to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray: Kash Patel and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, sources told CNN.

Trump had long slated Patel into a top national intelligence role or at the Department of Justice, but some people close to Trump, including those working on his transition, had made the case that perhaps the controversy that would likely accompany Patel’s Senate confirmation process made him a better fit for deputy director of the FBI rather than director.

But those closest to Trump, including his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as his incoming deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, encouraged the president-elect to pick Patel, arguing he was the only choice to properly reform the bureau that Trump himself views as being rooted in bias against him.

Trump interviewed both Bailey and Patel at his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this month, and regularly talked to them by phone as he weighed his decision. But Trump wasn’t impressed with Bailey during their in-person interview, the sources said, arguing Bailey did not fit the mold of the legal bulldog the President-elect wants at the helm of the FBI.

As of late last week, some close to Trump believed it was a “toss up” between Patel and Bailey as to who the president-elect would pick, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

But some in Trump’s inner circle were not happy with either option, the source said, adding a third unknown candidate would have likely emerged in the next week or two if Trump didn’t make a decision before then.

Patel, in particular, is not viewed as a consensus choice for the job, the source said, noting that it was always going to come down to what Trump wanted and, potentially, the last person he spoke to on a given day.

House Speaker Mike Johnson slammed President Biden’s full and unconditional pardon of his son Hunter, posting that trust in the justice system has been “almost irreparably damaged” and “real reform cannot come soon enough.”

Biden’s pardon of his son is the latest instance of an outgoing president using the pardon power to help a family member. Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother and Donald Trump pardoned the father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

In the end, President Joe Biden acted as a father.

The decision to issue a blanket pardon for his son Hunter will forever be a part of the president’s legacy. Across an extraordinary five decades in public life, with a long rise from the Senate to the Oval Office, his Sunday night declaration puts an exclamation point – and a question mark – on Biden’s tenure in a changing era of American politics.

For Biden, family has long come above nearly everything. His relentless pledge to not pardon his son was delivered before he stepped away from running for a second term, so it remained an open question – despite White House denials – whether he would uphold his promise or choose to protect his son from any forthcoming punishment from President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

The Sunday night announcement will be freshly scrutinized as a new week – and a new political era – dawns in Washington. Even as Republican outrage poured in, for Biden, it was an exercise of his fleeting executive authority that underscored how his family comes first.

The president made clear he was worried, above all, about what fate could befall his son in his successor’s new administration.

It’s a monumental moment for Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who is poised to take his leave from a far different Washington from the one he spent more than half a century in.

Read the full analysis.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers will return to the state Capitol on Monday to begin a special session to protect the state’s progressive policies ahead of another Trump presidency.

The Democratic governor, a fierce critic of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, is positioning California to once again be the center of a resistance effort against the conservative agenda. He is asking his Democratic allies in the Legislature, who hold supermajorities in both chambers, to approve additional funding to the attorney general’s office to prepare for a robust legal fight against anticipated federal challenges.

California sued the first Trump administration more than 120 times to various levels of success.

Trump often depicts California as representing all he sees wrong in America. Democrats, which hold every statewide office in California and have commanding margins in the Legislature and congressional delegation, outnumber registered Republicans by nearly 2-to-1 statewide.

He also waded into a water rights battle over the endangered delta smelt, a tiny fish that has pitted environmentalists against farmers and threatened to withhold federal aid to a state increasingly under threat from wildfires. He also vowed to follow through with his campaign promise of carrying out the mass deportation of immigrants without legal status and prosecuting his political enemies.

Read the full story here.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to incoming Senate GOP Leader John Thune urging a thorough confirmation process for each of Donald Trump’s nominees, including “standard FBI background-investigation materials, scheduling hearings and markups in the committees of jurisdiction, and considering nominees on the Senate floor.”

Remember: The president-elect has floated the idea of using recess appointments to confirm his nominees, bypassing the Senate vote. Thune has not ruled out backing this plan if they run into major roadblocks on the nominations.

President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter deepened an entanglement of politics and the rule of law that has tarnished faith in American justice and is almost certain to worsen in Donald Trump’s second term.

The Sunday evening move was a stunning development since Biden came to office vowing to restore the independence of the Justice Department, which had been eroded during Trump’s first term, and because he had repeatedly said he wouldn’t pardon his son.

Now, weeks before he leaves the White House, Biden has wielded presidential power to absolve his son ahead of sentencings later this month over a pair of gun and tax convictions that emerged from the due process of law.

His decision came days after special counsel Jack Smith moved to dismiss the federal cases against Trump — over election interference and the hoarding of classified documents — on the grounds that presidents can’t be prosecuted.

Taken together, the convergence of legal controversies raises questions about the bedrock notion that underpins the system of justice in the United States that everyone — even presidents and their families — are equal before the law.

The political impact of Sunday night’s announcement could be profound. Already, Republicans are arguing the Hunter Biden pardon shows that the current president, and not the next one, is most to blame for politicizing the system of justice by meting out favorable treatment to his son. Their claim may not be accurate, but it can still be politically effective.

Read the full analysis.

Migrant crossings along the US southern border fell in November, according to a senior US official, amid threats by President-elect Donald Trump to levy consequences against US partners over migration.

The Biden administration grappled with surges along the US-Mexico border, but Homeland Security officials have credited President Joe Biden’s executive action clamping down on asylum access at the border for the dramatic decline in crossings. The administration has also credited new legal pathways for migrants, arguing that it’s curbed the flow of people looking to illegally cross into the US.

In November, US Border Patrol encountered around 47,000 migrants along the southwest border, down from more than 56,000 in October, according to the official. The number of people unlawfully crossing the northern border also dropped from around 1,300 in October to 700 in November, the official said.

Trump and his allies have frequently criticized Biden over his handling of the US southern border, including asylum restrictions that mirror those of Trump’s first term.

More context: Last week, Trump threatened tariffs on Mexico and Canada over their handling of migration, a call back to his first term when he similarly tried to impose consequences on neighboring countries over the situation on the US border. Trump spoke with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the heels of his threat.

President Joe Biden started informing staff of his decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden on Saturday evening, a source familiar with the matter said.

Shortly before the president departed Nantucket, Massachusetts on Saturday, a meeting with staff was scheduled for when he arrived back in Washington, D.C. The president shared his decision in that meeting with senior aides, some attending in person but most by phone, the source said. First Lady Jill Biden was also on hand for the meeting.

The president told staff to prepare to release a statement about the pardon on Sunday, the source said, and staff regrouped on Sunday morning to iron out the details.

The decision came after the president and first lady spent the Thanksgiving holiday with Hunter, his wife Melissa and their son Beau along with Biden’s daughter Ashley. Biden’s other grandchildren, including Hunter’s daughters, did not join the family in Nantucket this year.

Hunter and his son Beau attended Mass with his father in Nantucket on Saturday evening.

Biden’s daughter Ashley posted about the decision in an Instagram story overnight.

“Thank you, Dad! What they have tried to do to my brother is cruel + politically motivated. Period.” Ashley Biden wrote on social media with a photo of Hunter and his son Beau. “Proud Sister + Daughter.”

Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI and an ardent supporter of the president-elect, has vowed to help dismantle the same organization he’s poised to lead.

The former public defender is widely viewed as a controversial figure and one whose value to the president-elect largely derives from their shared disdain for established power in Washington.

Putting him in charge of the FBI would require forcing out current director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, before his 10-year term expires in three years — a future move that has already prompted bipartisan criticism.

Vows to take on the “deep state”: In his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” Patel lays out his case against what he refers to as “the deep state” — an amorphous term he says includes elected leaders, journalists, Big Tech tycoons and “members of the unelected bureaucracy” — calling for “a comprehensive housecleaning” of the Justice Department, which he claims has protected high-ranking members of the Democratic Party while unjustly targeting Republicans and their allies.

Trump has praised the book as a “blueprint to take back the White House and remove these Gangsters from all of Government,” according to promotional endorsements.

Patel has heavily criticized the FBI, and in a podcast interview in September, he called for the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC, to be dismantled and turned into a “museum of the deep state.”

Read more about Patel here.

President-elect Donald Trump had dinner Sunday evening with Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The two dined at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, according to a post on X from Trump adviser Margo Martin, who shared a photo of the two dining together.