A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Trump Wants This Guy At The Top Of The Chain Of Command
The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer published a new piece last evening about Pete Hegseth’s troubled tenure at two nonprofits before he became a Fox News host in 2017. The article, based on whistleblower accounts, paints a picture of Donald Trump’s presumptive nominee for defense secretary as frequently drunk in public at work events, overseeing workplace environments that were saturated in sexism, and engaging in mismanagement.
The new revelations come on top of Hegseth’s settlement of a 2017 sex assault claim against him that he did not initially disclose to the Trump transition team. Hegseth denies committing sexual assault in the previously reported case; and in a statement released on his behalf in response to The New Yorker article said he would not comment on its “outlandish claims.”
The Mayer piece is devastating:
A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.
Among the specific allegations:
- repeated public intoxication while “acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events”;
- trying to dance on stage with strippers at a strip club in Louisiana where he’d brought his team;
- sexually pursuing his organization’s female staffers, who were classified as either “party girls” or “not party girls”; and
- drunkenly chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!” at a bar in Ohio while on business there.
The New Yorker story is based in part on a previously undisclosed whistleblower report from his 2013-2016 tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America. Mayer spoke with some of the people involved in compiling the report and relied on other documents and accounts from those who were involved with the organizations during the times in question.
Can We Stay Focused On Trump Firing The FBI Director?
Donald Trump’s holiday weekend announcement glossed over the fact that he will fire FBI Director Christopher Wray before the end of his 10-year term. The rest of us don’t have to accept that gloss. The politically motivated firing of Wray as retribution is the scandal. It will be the second FBI director fired by Trump: Wray was appointed by Trump to replace James Comey, whom he fired in 2017.
Ever since Trump won the election, the coverage of his firing of the FBI director has been muted, framed more around the parlor game of who Trump will name as Wray’s replacement, with some concern about what this or that potential nominee could do to undermine the rule of law. But the firing of the FBI director on specious grounds as political payback for leading validly predicated investigations into Trump himself is itself undermining of the rule of law.
Kash Patel is an appalling figure who is as unqualified and dangerous as the failed Matt Gaetz was for attorney general. That, too, is a scandal. But before GOP senators are forced to defend the Patel nomination, they need to be made to answer for why they’re sanctioning Trump’s corrupt firing of the FBI director.
Joe Biden Pardons Hunter Biden
President Biden issued a sweeping pardon of his son Hunter Sunday night, bringing full circle a dominant story line of at least the last five years. The news of the pardon, first reported by NBC News and quickly followed by a written statement from the President, came after the Biden family huddled on Nantucket over the Thanksgiving weekend. Biden – who had repeatedly promised not to pardon Hunter – made the decision Sunday and didn’t waste any time in announcing it, Playbook reported.
It may sound like a copout, but I’m not convinced that the question of whether Biden should or should not have pardoned his son is the most illuminating way of assessing the entire debacle that led to Trump’s first impeachment, proceeded through a misguided special counsel investigation, and culminated with pardons on the eve of Hunter’s dual sentencings in federal courts on opposite coasts later this month.
Those who work on criminal justice issues and are focused on the fair, even, consistent awarding of pardons are understandably concerned in that context with the implications of the Hunter Biden pardon. It’s important to note, however, that hat is not the only context for this pardon. A separate category of reactions strike me as too credulous to take seriously: It clears the way for Trump to do bad things. As if Trump needed an excuse. A third category of responses defended the pardon unequivocally.
This is not going to be the first time in the Trump II era that we’re forced wrestle with the question of what extraordinary means are necessary and appropriate to confront the extraordinary threat to the rule of law and democracy that Donald Trump presents. While it is important to mark deviations from the norm and remember what norms we seek to restore, it does seem increasingly feckless to cling to those norms while they are decimated. But what standards take their place? Where do you draw the new line? What accountability is there under the new standards? Killing democracy to save it is obviously not the answer either.
I land at a tenuous and perhaps too easy conclusion that Trump’s erosion of the rule of law is what got us here in the first place, and the Hunter Biden pardon is another marker of how far down this slippery slope we’ve already fallen.
Trump II Clown Show
The Trump Fathers-in-Law
Donald Trump plans to name two of his children’s fathers-in-law to positions in his new administration:
- Convicted-but-pardoned-by Trump Charles Kushner, father of Jared Kushner, as ambassador to France; and
- Lebanese-born billionaire Massad Boulos, father-in-law of Tiffany Trump, as senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
Why We Keep Focusing On Russ Vought
IMPORTANT
All the signs are there that Trump II wil include a deeper slide into crony capitalism, putting pressure on corporate America, that it mostly resisted in Trump’s first term, to kowtow to the powers-that-be to protect its economic interests.
GOOD READ
TPM’s Josh Kovensky: How Trump’s Failed 2020 COVID Policy Birthed His 2024 Public Health Nominees
Crazy Story
WSJ: Chinese Ship’s Crew Suspected of Deliberately Dragging Anchor for 100 Miles to Cut Baltic Cables
Mass Deportation Watch
- WSJ: The Local Sheriffs Gearing Up to Help Trump Carry Out Mass Deportations
- Politico: California will not help Trump’s deportation plans, Sen. Alex Padilla says
- NBC News: Democratic-controlled cities are finalizing plans to oppose mass deportation
‘Recipe For Disaster’
TPM’s Khaya Himmelman: North Carolina GOP’s New Power Grab Is A ‘Recipe For Disaster’ For Elections
Thank You For Your Recollections
Since I first mentioned the imminent demise of the SS United States, I’ve received some wonderful recollections from readers of their experiences crossing the Atlantic aboard her. A couple more goodies:
TPM Reader BK:
I’m late adding my two cents, but my family took the SS United States
from New York to Southampton in February of 1964. (Within a day or two
after the Beatles went on the Ed Sullivan Show.) We were moving to
London. I was 6, and my brother and sister were 4 and 3.My parents chose to go by boat rather than air because they thought the
time zone change would be easier on us kids. I suspect they came to
regret it. First, my brother got chicken pox. Then, around day 3 or 4,
we ran into a tremendous storm that made the boat rock so much that the
ladders to the top bunks kept falling over. Already prone to motion
sickness — I had previously thrown up when watching a movie in the
theater, which was on the top deck so it swayed more — we couldn’t have
been more miserable.Other than that (Mrs. Lincoln) it was an awesome trip! The boat was
gleaming and there was plenty to do if you weren’t feeling sick; it’s
hard to see it so rusted now.
TPM Reader PW:
I too was a passenger on the S.S. United States back in 1962! I crossed from New York to Southhampton with my parents and brother to spend a year in England. My father finished what is still considered a definitive biography on the poet John Milton while my brother and I attended a Quaker boarding school which we loved and did not want to leave! My memories of the crossing were mostly that there was a constant flow of far too much food, the waves were gigantic compared to the little lake where we spent our summers, and some boy with romantic fantasies followed me around whenever I went exploring on my own!
I always enjoy discovering when the news of the day bumps into the personal experiences of TPM readers
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