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SecDef Nominee Denies Claim From 2017

More details emerged over the weekend about the sexual assault claim against Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for secretary of defense.

The WaPo was first with extensive new information about the circumstance of the alleged sexual assault, based on (i) a memo it obtained that was provided to the Trump transition team late Wednesday by a friend of the victim; and (ii) a statement from Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore.

The woman later reported the alleged assault to police, but no charges were ever filed:

According to the police statement, the complaint was filed four days after the encounter, and the complainant had bruises to her thigh. The police report itself was not released.

Hegseth settled the woman’s claim for an undisclosed amount, and she signed a nondisclosure agreement.

Trump is standing by Hegseth in the face of the undisclosed settlement of the sexual assault claim.

More On Hegseth’s Tattoos

• WSJ: How Hegseth’s Tattoo Got Him Barred From Working at Biden’s Inauguration
• WaPo: Pentagon pick left Guard after being reported as possible ‘insider threat’ due to tattoo

The Prospects For Matt Gaetz’ Nomination As AG

Surveying the backlash to the Gaetz nomination:

• “Republican U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin called on the House of Representatives on Sunday to share an unreleased ethics report into alleged sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl by Matt Gaetz.”–Reuters
• “More than half of Senate Republicans, including some in senior leadership positions, privately say they don’t see a path for former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be confirmed as attorney general and would not support him to lead the Department of Justice, according to multiple people who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity.”–NBC News
• “An attorney representing two women who testified to both federal and House Ethics investigators about Gaetz’s alleged misdeeds is coming forward with new details about what his clients told investigators. Lawyer Joel Leppard is set to do multiple network TV interviews Monday as he pushes for the release of the House Ethics report.”–Politico

As Bad As It Gets

Perhaps the biggest story of the weekend came from NBC News:

The Trump transition team is compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers who were directly involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan and exploring whether they could be court-martialed for their involvement, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the plan. 

Officials working on the transition are considering creating a commission to investigate the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, including gathering information about who was directly involved in the decision-making for the military, how it was carried out and whether the military leaders could be eligible for charges as serious as treason, the two sources said.

The Coming Corruption

Greg Sargent:

It’s often said that Trump campaigned expressly on a platform of authoritarian rule, but this also applies to corruption: He didn’t disguise his promises to govern in the direct interests of some of the wealthiest executives and investors in the country—and he won anyway. Trump and his allies will likely interpret this as a green light to engage in an extraordinary spree of unrestrained malfeasance.

Trump Launches Wave Of Media Lawsuits

The Guardian:

With only two months left until Donald Trump returns to the White House, the president-elect and convicted felon has been waging lawfare by a flurry of lawsuits against media companies and publishers that have been critical of him.

The lawsuits come amid growing fears of what a second Trump term would mean for press freedom as Trump intensifies his longstanding hostility against the media – which he called “the enemy camp” in his victory speech last week.

Trump Calls For ‘Investigation’ of Iowa Pollster

In a social media post, Trump bizarrely called for an investigation of retiring Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, whose late-in-the-race shock poll showed Kamala Harris in the lead in a state that ultimately went to Trump by a comfortable margin:

Trump calls for an investigation into Ann Selzer

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2024-11-17T22:01:50.791Z

Already Paying The Price Of Trump’s Retribution

“Multiple current and former senior Justice Department and FBI officials have begun reaching out to lawyers in anticipation of being criminally investigated by the Trump administration, according to three people with knowledge of their deliberations.”–NBC News

Quote Of The Day

National security attorney Mark Zaid, on what he’s advising his clients to do ahead of Trump II:

There are a small number of people who I have told, “Look, you should take a vacation outside of the country around the time of inauguration, just to see what happens. Just go on a routine vacation and see what plays out come Jan. 20, 21st, 22nd.” By that time, we’ll know who’s going to be [in senior administration roles] and whether they will be more fundamentalist about this issue than the general politician who’s appointed into a position that requires Senate confirmation.

NOT NORMAL

It is not normal for an incoming president to replace the FBI director, who has a 10-year term precisely to insulate them from partisan politics, but Donald Trump is widely reported to be considering firing Christopher Wray, whom Trump famously appointed after firing James Comey in 2017.

Among the supposed contenders to replace Wray if Trump goes through with the firing: the destructive and unqualified Kash Patel.

Trump Transition Bypasses FBI For Some Background Checks

“President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs, people close to the transition planning say.”–CNN

The Trump II Clown Show

A good reminder from historian Kevin Kruse that Trump’s announcement of his expected cabinet nominees is coming at a breakneck speed that far exceeds the pace of his predecessors and his own first administration. Among Trump’s latest personnel moves:

• Chris Wright, Energy secretary
• Brendan Carr, FCC chairman
• Steven Cheung: White House communications director
• Karoline Leavitt: White House press secretary

An Election Is Not A Jury Verdict

Randall Eliason: Trump’s New York Sentencing Must Proceed

Keep An Eye On Pennsylvania …

“In at least four counties — Bucks, Philadelphia, Centre and Montgomery — local election officials are acting in open defiance of a ruling from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that arrived weeks before the election. The court found that mail ballots that are missing the date on the outer envelope, or have the wrong date, cannot be counted for this election.”–NYT

Wave Of Offensive Texts Expands To Hispanics And LGBTQ

The campaign of racists texts sent soon after the election to Black people has expanded to include Hispanics and LGBTQ communities. The texts include false claims that they have been “selected for deportation or to report to a re-education camp,” the FBI warned.

Neo-Nazis March In Ohio

A small group carrying the Nazi flag marched Saturday in a neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio.

The Stunning Pronatalist Argument Against Abortion

Linda Greenhouse:

The attorneys general of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri, seeking to establish the states’ standing to challenge the federal government’s liberalized rules for medication abortion, claim that expanded access to the abortion pills is “causing a loss in potential population or potential population increase,” and that “decreased births” were inflicting “a sovereign injury to the state itself.” This remarkable assertion comes on Page 189 of the states’ 199-page complaint, as astonishing a legal document as I have ever read.

You Can Find Me at Bluesky

If you’re making the transition to Bluesky, you can find me here. Hope to see you there.

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DOJ’s Darkest Era

Matt Gaetz as attorney general.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal attorney, as deputy attorney general, the second in command who runs the Justice Department on a day-to-day basis.

Emil Bove, another of Trump’s personal lawyers, installed as No. 3.

It is a crippling mix of incompetence, disregard for the rule of law, conflicts of interest, and divided loyalties that would send the Justice Department down a flawed and uncertain course seen perhaps only once before, in the darkest days of Watergate.

What Will Become Of The Gaetz Ethics Report?

The House Ethics Committee was supposed to meet privately this morning, but that meeting has reportedly now been cancelled. It leaves in further doubt whether the committee’s completed report on now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and his alleged sexual misconduct will be released either publicly or to senators considering his nomination to be attorney general.

Meanwhile, ABC News reports that the underage woman with whom Gaetz allegedly had sex testified to the House Ethics Committee she was 17 years old when their encounter happened.

Hegseth Had Previous Sexual Assault Allegation

The nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense already faced all kinds of problems, but Vanity Fair’s Gabe Sherman reports that the Trump transition team was caught off guard by an allegation of sexual assault arising from a 2017 incident in Monterey, California:

According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said.

On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.”

The Trump II Clown Show Continues …

• Robert F. Kennedy Jr: secretary of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, NIH, FDA
• Former SEC chairman Jay Clayton: U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York
• Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND): Interior secretary

Fun Times

TPM’s Josh Kovensky: Friend of Don Jr.’s Who Hawks Trump Merch To Run White House Personnel Office

Don’t Forget About Tulsi Gabbard

WSJ: “President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead powerful U.S. spy agencies has often seemed to embrace Washington’s adversaries and questioned key American intelligence judgments, raising alarm among veteran intelligence officials and the wider national-security establishment.”

Let’s Not Fool Ourselves About Senate Republicans

Is the Gaetz nomination in real trouble? Perhaps:

• WSJ: Gaetz Nomination Seen as Doomed by Some Senate Republicans
• WaPo: Republican senators say Matt Gaetz has ‘steep’ climb to nomination

But take this reporting from CBS News’ Roberta Costa:

What I’m hearing privately from a few key GOP senators: yes, they’d prefer to not have a messy fight over Gaetz. Not their favorite. But they also don’t have a lot of energy for pushing back. Trump runs the show, they say. If Gaetz can reassure them, they’re open to backing him.

Low energy! It suggests that spending the next three months on pins and needles over whether the Republican-controlled Senate will block any of Donald Trump’s nominees for his new administration seems like misspent energy on a fool’s errand. That’s true not only because GOP senators are not eager to have a showdown with Trump, but because there’s no indication that Trump’s replacements for any failed nominations will be much better.

Quote Of The Day

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), to fellow senators: “Vote with President Trump, this is the last chance we’re going to have to save this country, and if you want to get in the way, fine, but we’re going to try to get you out of the Senate, too, if you do that.”

More Low Energy Deference To Trump

In a first, two federal judges in DC delayed key deadlines in Jan. 6 cases in anticipation that Trump may pardon the defendants. The decisions amounted to declaring “Why bother?” even as other federal judges have declined to derail cases on the basis of speculation and conjecture about what Trump will do. How long will the two judges who ordered delays wait to see what Trump does?

This come against the back drop of attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz doing as much as anyone to rewrite the history of Jan. 6.

Elon Musk Watch

One of the most important stories to track in the Trump II presidency will be whether corporate America holds the line, which it largely did in his first term, or begins to collapse into crony capitalism. Even before Trump’s win, Elon Musk foreshadowed an erosion into corruption, favoritism, and pay-to-play:

• NYT: Elon Musk Met With Iran’s U.N. Ambassador, Iranian Officials Say
• Politico: Musk’s sway over Trump could devastate electric vehicles — except his own
• NYT: Elon Musk Helped Elect Trump. What Does He Expect in Return?

GREAT READ

M. Gessen:

For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.” Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn’t interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect’s appeal in terms of something more primal: “Trump promises that you don’t have to think about other people.”

No Joke

WaPo: Go bags, passports, foreign assets: Preparing to be a target of Trump’s revenge

Makes You Want To Weep

The lead paragraph in this Politico story just flipped political journalism’s script on the economy, without batting an eye: “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris could not sell voters on the strength of the economy. Now, Donald Trump is poised to enter the White House with booming markets and solid growth. Expect him to reap the political rewards.”

2024 Ephemera

• PA-Sen: An automatic recount was triggered, with Sen. Bob Casey (D) trailing Dave McCormick (R) by fewer than 25,000 votes statewide.
• AZ-Sen: GOP nominee Kari Lake is still not conceding that she lost to Rep. Ruben Gallego (D).
• WI-Sen: GOP nominee Eric Hovde still hasn’t conceded to Sen. Tammy Baldwin and is considering seeking a recount.
• WaPo: Inside the Republican false-flag effort to turn off Kamala Harris voters

You Can’t Make This Up

The Onion bought Alex Jones’ InfoWars out of bankruptcy and almost immediately shut down the conspiracist website. The proceeds of the auction sale go to the families of the Sandy Hook victims who to satisfy their $1.5 billion judgment against Jones for claiming the school shooting was a hoax.

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It’s Going To Get Worse Before It Gets Better

In seismic move Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump announced the stunning decision to make the supremely unqualified, deeply compromised, and unfit Matt Gaetz his attorney general, placing in charge of the Justice Department a man who until last year was under criminal investigation for sex trafficking by the department he would lead.

I thought I had steeled myself for a series of horrific nominations that could not shock or surprise me. I was wrong.

The unfortunately named Matt Gertz, a media watchdog who is frequently confused online with Matt Gaetz, captured the whirlwind of the previous 24 hours:”Matt Gaetz pick is so crazy people have forgotten the Tulsi Gabbard pick which was so crazy people had forgotten about the Pete Hegseth pick. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.”

The selection of Gaetz, who is nearly universally loathed, including among Republicans, caused even the toadyish WSJ editorial board to blanch: “He’s a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get. … He’s a nominee for those who want the law used for political revenge, and it won’t end well.”

Trump’s pick of Gaetz presents the Senate GOP with a stark choice: either defy Trump or be humiliated into confirming the most atrocious pick for attorney general in the nation’s history.

Will Senate Republicans Roll Over?

The reaction to the Gaetz news among Senate Republicans was rich, but it’s not at all clear that they can muster the resolve to block the nomination of someone even as outrageously flawed as Gaetz. A sampling:

• “Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a 50-year veteran of Congress, stood speechless for 30 seconds when reporters grilled him on whether the widely disliked Gaetz deserved to be confirmed.”–Punchbowl
• “‘I don’t think he’s a serious candidate,’ Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who also has broken with Mr. Trump frequently, said of Mr. Gaetz.”–NYT
• On whether Gaetz can be confirmed: “That’s what I am wondering,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.) told the WSJ: “I need to think about that one.”

Other GOP senators were much more circumspect about Gaetz. In the declaration by Sen. Susan Collin’s that she was “shocked” lay the seeds of so many previous capitulations.

One of Gaetz’s detractors in the House was practically gleeful about the prospect of Gaetz going through a Senate confirmation vetting. “I’m surprised that Matt would do this to himself,” Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) told the NYT. “I want to go get a big bag of popcorn and pull up a front-row seat to that show.”

The Reaction To Gaetz At DOJ

You won’t be surprised by the internal dismay over the Gaetz pick at the Justice Department, which was already braced to be broken, undermined, and eroded by a Trump II presidency.

NBC News has an excellent rundown of some of the reaction:

• “OMG”
• “truly stunning”
• “insane”
• “What the f— is happening?!” asked a senior Justice Department official.
• “How many other prospective attorneys general had previous experience as the subject of a criminal investigation?”
• “absolutely unbelievable”

A quick civics reminder: The attorney general doesn’t just oversee Main Justice and the 94 U.S. attorneys but also the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshalls, Bureau of Prisons, and host of other units and programs. Gaetz would be helming the bulk of federal law enforcement.

Gaetz Abruptly Resigns From Congress

Adding to the tumult of the afternoon, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) immediately resigned his seat, apparently to try to short circuit a House Ethics Committee report on his alleged misconduct that was expected to be released within days. The committee, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, doesn’t have jurisdiction over non-members, but the consensus appears to be that it could still vote to release its completed report on Gaetz. That would take at least one Republican joining with committee Democrats.

Tulsi Gabbard As DNI?!?!

The U.S. intel community was separately reeling over Trump’s pick of former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the Democrat-turned-Republican with a soft spot for conspiracy theories and Russia.

A senior former intelligence official told Politico the choice was a “left turn and off the bridge.”

Among Gabbard’s many strange comments and moves over the years was that trip to Syria she took in 2017.

The brain worms are real with this one.

Don’t Forget Pete Hegseth!

Before Wednesday afternoon, Pete Hegseth as defense secretary looked like the Trump pick most likely to run into Senate Republican headwinds. The Pentagon was stunned by the pick, too.

TPM’s Hunter Walker took a dive into Hegseth’s writings while an undergraduate at Princeton, where he crusaded against the “glorification of diversity” and “the homosexual lifestyle.”

House Officially Remains In GOP Control

Enough House races were called to determine that the House majority will be narrow but remain in Republican hands.

Thune Elected New Senate Majority Leader

Senate Republicans elevated the current No. 2, Sen. John Thune (R-SD), to the lead spot.

Jack Smith Seeks To Pause MAL Appeal

Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked the 11th Circuit to pause his appeal of the dismissal of the Mar-a-Lago criminal case until Dec. 2 while the Justice Department figures out next steps in light of Trump’s election. This follows Smith’s similar move in the Jan. 6 case in DC and comes as Smith is expected to wind down the cases and step down as special counsel before Trump’s inauguration.

House Chair Detained For Public Intoxication

“House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul was detained by police at Dulles International Airport earlier this month in an incident that he described as ‘the result of a poor decision’ to mix Ambien and alcohol.”–Semafor

The Toll Of Florida’s Book Ban In Public Schools

WaPo:

“Florida school districts axed about 700 books from school libraries in the 2023-2024 school year, according to a Florida Department of Education list. …

Some of the removed titles that are works of classic literature, including “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut and “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, according to PEN America’s online tracker.

ICYMI

From over the weekend: “A group of people carrying Nazi flags demonstrated outside a community theater performance of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ in Livingston County, Michigan, in a display of antisemitism.”–CNN

Keeping An Eye On This …

The FBI raided the home and the seized the phone Wednesday of the founder and CEO of Polymarket, the election-betting site where a French national put down tens of millions of dollars on a Trump win. It’s not clear what the FBI is investigating.

Happy Anniversary To TPM!

Josh Marshall started TPM on Nov. 13, 2000, during the Florida recount.

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