A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

The FBI Never Vetted Nominees The Way You Think

We should all understand by now that the vaunted FBI “background check” – in the context of presidential nominees, not run-of-the-mill security clearances – is not what it’s been falsely portrayed as for decades. The notion of some big high-level vetting of nominees’ backgrounds sounds good, like a fancy form of due diligence. You want this job? Then you need to consent to throwing open your whole life to FBI scrutiny. But it was always less formalized and more subjective than commonly understood and described in news reports.

Garrett Graff has more on the broken vetting system:

Normally, transitions and administrations want desperately to know potential personnel vulnerabilities in advance. The entire point of a security check is to determine whether someone is already ethically compromised or has potential areas that an adversary could leverage to compromise them — from hidden affairs to gambling problems to substance abuse. At a fundamental level, a security check is about whether a potential nominee is worthy of public trust. You generally, as a point of good government, don’t want senior officials in sensitive positions open to compromise or blackmail.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, sees background checks differently — they want to hide and obfuscate the misdeeds, liabilities, weaknesses, conflicts-of-interest, corruption, and points of existing or potential compromise of their nominees until they’re safely ensconced in the highest level of the US government and already reading the nation’s most sensitive secrets.

As Graff notes, what has shifted that makes the whole edifice wobbly and unsustainable now is that in the past the president wanted the FBI to find any smoking guns, skeletons in the closet, or unexploded ordinance. It was in the president’s interest to smoke this stuff out before they invested their own political capital in a nominee, not to mention better for national security, the smooth operation of government, and a host of other substantive reasons. There was an alignment of interest between the president and the FBI that has broken down under Trump.

What we’re left with is a mechanism that pawns off the blame for unfit and risky nominees on the FBI, rather than affixing that responsibility where it firmly belongs: on the president and his team. The White House, the transition team, and senators all use the FBI for cover, dodging their own responsibilities. That’s not really the FBI’s fault, though I question whether it should be involved at all any longer. It’s in an impossible position, with its credibility and professionalism being used to provide political cover.

We’re 10 years into the Trump era, but we’re still slow to jettison the things that no longer serve a functional purpose and may in fact camouflage and obscure the truth of things. That’s understandable in part because it feels like we’re contributing to Trump’s destruction by tossing out things that used to work. The challenge is not to maintain the form of things as a substitute for the substance of things, especially when the substance has drained away and the form is only a facade masking malfeasance.

Good Read

TPM’s Josh Marshall on who bears the responsibility for confirming Trump’s dangerously unqualified nominees.

LIVE: Pam Bondi Confirmation Hearing

So much of Trump’s campaign of retribution, destruction, and corruption comes down to Pam Bondi serving as attorney general. We’ll be liveblogging her confirmation hearing, which begins at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Pete Hegseth Confirmation Hearing Takeaways

The joke nomination of Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary picked up crucial support from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) despite a flailing confirmation hearing in which Senate Republicans did everything they could to protect and shield the singularly unfit and unqualified nominee. If you missed the hearing, a sampling of the rundowns:

• Politico: Seven wild moments from Hegseth’s hearing
• Aaron Blake: 4 takeaways from Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing

Trump II Clown Show

• WaPo: Trump’s Energy pick rejects link between climate change and wildfires
• Politico: Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) airs doubts about Tulsi Gabbard nomination
• WSJ: Tulsi Gabbard’s Charm Offensive Draws Skepticism From Republican Senators:

In her meeting with Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), Gabbard couldn’t clearly articulate what the role of director of national intelligence entails, two Senate Republican aides and a Trump transition official said. When she met with Sen. Mike Rounds (R., S.D.), Gabbard seemed confused about a key U.S. national-security surveillance power, a top legislative priority for nearly every member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, conflating it with other issues, the aides said.

Not-A-Normal Transition

• House Speaker Mike Johnson ordered flags at the U.S. Capitol to fly at full-staff during the inauguration after Trump complained about the flags being lowered following the death of President Jimmy Carter.
• A U.S. government threat assessment of Trump’s inauguration obtained by Politico warned that is “an attractive potential target” for violent extremists but authorities have not identified any specific credible threats.
• Michelle Obama is skipping Trump’s inauguration.
• President Biden will give a farewell address to the nation tonight at 8 ET from behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

Picking Through Jack Smith’s Report

• TPM’s Josh Kovensky: “Tucked into ex-Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 137-page report on Donald Trump’s 2020 self-coup attempt, he explores a question that’s hung in the background of the case: Why wasn’t Trump ever charged with insurrection?”
• Politico: “A common sentiment on the left is that Garland was too deferential to Trump after Joe Biden took office and failed to unleash the full might of the department on the former president for nearly two years. … But Smith’s report emphasized that the Justice Department was aggressively investigating leads related to Trump long before the special counsel’s tenure began. Litigation tactics by Trump and his allies, Smith argued, were the key factors that slowed the process to a crawl.”
• Lisa Needham: “The report grounds the discussion of the right to vote in the Reconstruction era. Though Black voters were guaranteed the right to vote following the Civil War, whites engaged in assaults and acts of terror to prevent them from doing so. To address that, Smith explains, Congress passed the Enforcement Act of 1870 and established the DOJ that same year. That act was the predecessor statute of 18 U.S.C. § 241, the modern-day law Trump was charged with violating. That law makes it unlawful to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate someone from exercising a right secured by the Constitution — like voting and having your vote counted.”

House GOP Passes Anti-Trans Bill

Only two (or three, depending on how you count it) Democrats defected as the GOP-controlled House passed a bill barring transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

Abbott Publicly Threatens Aggie Prez

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) threatened to fire the president of Texas A&M over the university’s participation in a conference focused on networking and mentoring opportunities for “historically underrepresented students.” 

Costco Resists Anti-DEI Movement

WSJ: “In a steady parade of companies retreating from their diversity efforts, Costco Wholesale is standing out by holding fast.”

GOP Power Grab In Minnesota

Republicans in the Minnesota House pulled a fast – and possibly illegal – one yesterday.

State Democrats had boycotted the opening session to deprive Republicans of a quorum, prompting the presiding officer to suspend legislative business for the day. But Republicans proceeded to purport to elect their own House speaker anyway.

Mother Jones has a good rundown of the unusual series of events that have created complicated power dynamics over who will ultimately control the state House.

‘If You Want To Take It Outside, We Can Do That’

In her typical highly performative way, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) went off on Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) during a House committee hearing Wednesday:

Crockett: Somebody’s campaign coffers are struggling right now so she’s going to keep saying trans trans trans.. Child listen

Mace: I am no child! Do not call me a child. I am a grown woman. If you want to take it outside pic.twitter.com/o2EBHzcwoT

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 14, 2025

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A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

Why Didn’t Trump Go To SCOTUS?

Late last evening, President-elect Donald Trump made a final, half-hearted effort to block the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report. In a quick ruling, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied Trump’s request to extend her injunction blocking the report’s release.

After that, Trump did not seek further review from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court and thus Cannon’s injunction expired at midnight ET. Why Trump did not push the matter further, if for no other reason than to try to run out the clock as he has so many times before, is a curiosity for which I have no satisfying answer.

In the wee hours, the Justice Department turned over Volume I on the Jan. 6 case to Congress and then released it publicly. It contains no major revelations or surprises. That has been one of the surreal elements of the past week and a half of legal wrangling over the report’s release, and in a sense it’s a microcosm of the Trump era.

Extra and sometimes extreme effort is required to follow through with and maintain normal processes and procedures, in this case the release of a special counsel report. History shows they largely mirror the contours of the by-then-well-established cases as they played out in court and on appeal. They tend toward self-justification and rationalizing their existence, not blockbuster reveals. But the fight to release the report had the effect of raising the stakes of the report itself.

Volume II, on the Mar-a-Lago case, is not being released because for now the prosecution of Trump’s former codefendants continues. But that prosecution is likely to be corruptly deep-sixed by the Trump DOJ, and Volume II is at risk of never being released to the public.

One minor point on the overnight coverage, which largely focused on Smith’s assessment that he would have won a conviction of Trump had the case gone to trial. The coverage largely treated that assertion like Smith’s ultimate conclusion in the report rather than a predicate to seeking an indictment in the first place. Prosecutors aren’t supposed to bring cases they don’t think they can win.

Surveying The Wreckage

And so it is that the work of Jack Smith has now come to an end, with the most serious crimes a president has even been accused of remaining untried in a court of law. The constellation of factors that led to this point is well known. Among the most critical were the Roberts Court’s unprecedented decisions on the Disqualifications Clause and on presidential immunity combined with Trump’s historic re-election. The damage done to the rule of law, the constitutional structure, and the norms and traditions that gird democracy have been incalculable. The consequences of this miscarriage of justice and breakdown in the rule of law will be reverberating in unknowable and unforeseeable ways for decades.

None of that is Jack Smith’s fault. His prosecution of both cases against Trump were sharply and professionally handled. There were no obvious self-owns or major missteps. He seemed to anticipate correctly the challenges each case posed legally and prepared accordingly. What was within his power to control, he handled well. His office was sufficiently resourced, and some of the best and brightest minds that the Justice Department has to offer contributed to the prosecutions and the complex appellate work involved.

Smith and the members of his team now face years of uncertainty over the threats Trump has repeatedly levied at them and over whether they will be targeted by the incoming Trump administration. In his cover letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland accompanying the report, Smith devotes a few poignant lines to the personal toll those threats have taken on the members of his team and their families:

The intense public scrutiny of our Office, threats to their safety, and relentless unfounded attacks on their character and integrity did not deter them from fulfilling their oaths and professional obligations. These are intensely good people who did hard things well. I will not forget the sacrifices they made and the personal resilience they and their families have shown over the last two years. Our country owes them a debt of gratitude for their unwavering service and dedication to the rule of law.

As our democratic institutions are undermined, they provide less support and protection for the individuals who staff them. Smith and his team — like the prosecutors, investigators, and judges in all the Trump cases — have already paid a personal price no one should have to pay. The threats, the bullying, and the promises of retribution will linger for years. As Smith wrote to Garland:

While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters. I believe the example our team set for others to fight for justice without regard for the personal costs matters. The facts, as we uncovered them in our investigation and as set forth in my Report, matter. Experienced prosecutors know that you cannot control outcomes, you can only do your job the right way for the right reasons.

Not everyone is up for the rigors of public service in this environment. They can hardly be blamed. But it makes the efforts of people like Smith and his team all the more commendable.

The Other Special Counsel Report

As the legal battle over the Jack Smith report trundled toward its conclusion, the Justice Department released Special Counsel David Weiss’ report on his prosecutions of Hunter Biden.

LIVE: Hegseth Confirmation Hearing

The first confirmation hearing of a Trump nominee gets underway at 9:30 a.m. ET with Pete Hegseth appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. TPM’s Kate Riga is in the hearing room and TPM will be liveblogging the proceedings.

To prep for the shitshow of Senate Republicans turning a blind eye to Hegseth’s lack of qualifications and of fitness to serve as defense secretary, a rundown of key new stories:

• Nashville Tennessean: Why Pete Hegseth nomination is a milestone for the rightwing Christian movement he follows
• The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer: The Pressure Campaign to Get Pete Hegseth Confirmed as Defense Secretary
• WaPo: FBI did not interview Hegseth accuser ahead of hearing, people familiar say

Headline Of The Day

WSJ: Zuckerberg Debuts ‘Real Mark’ in Push to Woo Trump

Los Angeles Fire Threat Still At Dangerous Levels

Here are the key wind details through Wednesday. #cawx #EatonFire #PalisadesFire pic.twitter.com/27iV8qbpuN

— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) January 14, 2025

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