Trump said Lutnick will lead the “tariff and trade agenda,” an important role for president-elect, who has vowed to aggressively wield tariffs. Lutnick is a veteran of Wall Street and current CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial services company.

“I am thrilled to announce that Howard Lutnick, Chairman & CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, will join my Administration as the United States Secretary of Commerce,” Trump said in a statement. “In his role as Co-Chair of the Trump-Vance Transition Team, Howard has created the most sophisticated process and system to assist us in creating the greatest Administration America has ever seen.”

Trump has argued that tariffs can be used to bring in major revenue for the U.S., pressure nations around the world to comply with U.S. economic demands, and improve the job market in the U.S.

Lutnick has publicly promoted tariffs in the media, explaining how they can be a tool in negotiations with other countries, many of whom currently tariff U.S. products, pointing out for instance that 100% tariffs in Europe and Japan prevent U.S. automakers from selling in other countries. Many economists question whether higher tariffs will drive elevated inflation in the U.S.

Trump is daily announcing new picks for his administration.

So far, Trump’s choices include:

• Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce.
• Sean Duffy to lead the Department of Transportation.
• Chris Wright for Department of Energy Secretary.
• Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission.
• North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior.
• William Owen Scharf as Assistant to the President and White House Staff Secretary.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of U.S. Health and Human Services
• Former Congresswoman and veteran Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
• Former Congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs
• Jay Clayton as Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
• Former congressman Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.
• Veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.
• Veteran and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
• U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as Secretary of State.
• Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan as “border czar.”
• Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
• Former Congresswoman and current governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the “Department of Government Efficiency.
• William Joseph McGinley as White House Counsel.
• Steven C. Witkoff as Special Envoy to the Middle East.
• Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla. as national security advisor.
• Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel.
• Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. as ambassador to the U.N.
• Dean John Sauer as Solicitor General.
• Todd Blanche as Deputy Attorney General.
• Emil Bove as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General.
• Dan Scavino of the Trump campaign as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff.
• Susie Wiles, co-chair of the Trump campaign, as White House Chief of Staff.
• Stephen Miller as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor.
• James Blair of the Trump campaign as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political and Public Affairs.
• Taylor Budowich of the Trump campaign as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Personnel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree allowing and expanding the circumstances under which nuclear weapons may be used.

#BREAKING: Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree allowing and expanding the circumstances under which nuclear weapons may be used.

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) November 19, 2024

Maybe I’m smoking the hopium pipe on this one but the idea that Russia, after nearly three years of war with Ukraine, is ready to tangle with NATO seems absurd. But here’s the thing. If there’s a one percent chance that we’re on the verge of World War III, then we have to address it. Moreover, I would not put it past the UniParty Swamp and their puppet masters in the Globalist Elite Cabal to try to start a war before Donald Trump is inaugurated. This is, after all, 2024 and if we’ve learned anything this year it’s that the bad guys have no limits to their depravity. Here’s Snyder…

(The Economic Collapse Blog)—Now Joe Biden has really done it.  By giving the green light to long-range missile strikes deep inside of Russian territory, he has brought us closer to nuclear conflict than ever before.  As you will see below, Russian officials have become convinced that “NATO has gone to war with Russia”.  I feel like I am watching a slow-motion train wreck that I am powerless to stop.  I have been warning about this for so many years, and now it is here.  Steve Quayle, Henry Gruver, Dumitru Duduman, Marty Breeden and so many others have also warned America about what is coming.  If we stay on the path that we are on, nuclear weapons will be used.  Do we really want to go down that road?

The corporate media here in the United States is trying really hard to convince us that Joe Biden’s decision wasn’t really a big deal.

But the Russians sure do think that it was a big deal…

In Moscow, meanwhile, senior lawmaker Leonid Slutsky slammed Mr. Biden, accusing him of deciding “to end his presidential term and go down in history as ‘Bloody Joe’.”

Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov, meanwhile, told Russia’s state-run Tass news agency that Biden’s decision represented “a very big step toward the beginning of the third world war.”

The official newspaper of the Russian state, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, warned “the madmen who are drawing NATO into a direct conflict with our country may soon be in great pain.”

And according to the Washington Post, one former Kremlin official is warning that “Moscow now believes NATO has gone to war with Russia”…

A former Kremlin official told The Washington Post that Moscow now believes NATO has gone to war with Russia and that “they will proceed accordingly.” The official spoke on the basis of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

That is rather chilling. Of course that language echoes something that Vladimir Putin said himself back in September…

Putin had personally warned against the eventuality previously, issuing a warning in September that U.S. permission for Ukraine to fire American-supplied long-range missiles at his country, “would mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries, are parties to the war in Ukraine.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov referenced that previous statement by Putin when he was specifically asked how the Russian government is viewing the latest developments…

“And here the position of our President, the position of the Russian side, was very clearly and unambiguously formulated by our Head of State in his statement that he made in St Petersburg.

“It says everything very clearly. I simply recommend that you read these words of the President once again.”

Wow.

War with Russia is here.

Sergey Markov was asked if Vladimir Putin would actually use nuclear weapons once long-range missiles start falling deep inside Russian territory, and he warned that in a worst case scenario “nuclear war happens before Christmas of this year”…

Asked if Putin would use nuclear missiles in response, Mr Markov said ‘not now’ and said it was more likely that bases in eastern Europe could be hit by smaller, tactical nuclear missiles.

But he added: “I think Biden, Macron and Starmer want escalation which could lead to, from my understanding, in the worst scenario, the nuclear war happens before Christmas of this year.

“Probably you will not be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ because you will stay in the hole trying to hide away [your] family from the nuclear catastrophe. It can develop very, very quickly.”

Personally, I don’t think that it will happen quite so fast. But we are definitely on a road that leads to nuclear war.

After Biden’s announcement, U.S. Representative Thomas Massie stated that Biden had just committed an impeachable offense…

By authorizing long range missiles to strike inside Russia, Biden is committing an unconstitutional Act of War that endangers the lives of all U.S. citizens. This is an impeachable offense, but the reality is he’s an emasculated puppet of a deep state.

I agree with Massie 100 percent.

But there won’t be a move to impeach Biden now.

Most Republicans in Congress are way too lily-livered to do anything like that.

Donald Trump Jr. was also horrified by Biden’s decision…

Trump Jr., 46, tweeted that the “military-industrial complex” is trying to undermine his dad before he takes office by pushing the war further into chaos.

“The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” he tweeted.

Yes, Joe Biden is still in the White House, but this was a decision that Donald Trump should have been allowed to make.

Trump needs to come out and immediately denounce what Biden has done, but if he does that he will be accused of “colluding with Putin” and that is something that Trump very much wants to avoid. But Trump can’t be concerned about what others will think at this point.

We are literally on the brink of nuclear war, and we are running out of time to reverse course. In fact, Sweden is so concerned about the possibility of nuclear war that it has “issued five million pamphlets warning its citizens to stockpile food and water”…

Sweden has issued five million pamphlets warning its citizens to stockpile food and water – just hours after Volodymyr Zelensky’s chilling video address to Vladimir Putin warned US missile strikes “will speak for themselves.”

If our leaders had any sense, they would be doing the same thing.

But instead, they keep assuring us that the Russians are bluffing and that they would never actually use nuclear weapons.

In the end, we shall see who was bluffing and who was not.

Interestingly, on Monday it was being reported that Internet cables under the Baltic Sea have been “suddenly disrupted”…

Two undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been suddenly disrupted, according to local telecommunications companies, amid fresh warnings of possible Russian interference with global undersea infrastructure.

A communications cable between Lithuania and Sweden was cut on Sunday morning around 10:00 a.m. local time, a spokesperson from telecommunications company Telia Lithuania confirmed to CNN.

Did the Russians do that? Were they trying to send us a message?

I just wrote about how vulnerable our undersea Internet cables are last week.

Cutting two cables is not going to disrupt much, but what if the Russians started cutting dozens of cables?

We really are in uncharted territory. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, because right now the road that we are on only leads to pain.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

In response to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton’s post on Truth Social that Trump was “prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program,” Trump replied “TRUE!!”

“On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program … in the history of our country,” Trump said at one of his final campaign events in Pittsburgh on Nov. 4, a day before the election. “I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded … and we will put the vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail.”

Officially, there are an estimated 11 million illegal migrants living in the US (and some say upwards of 20 million) who entered the country during the Biden administration. Trump has tapped Tom Homan, former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to serve as his “border czar,” as well as South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to secure the border and expel those living in the country illegally.

Homan said last weekend that he will prioritize “the worst first” in targeted deportations.

Immigration advocates, meanwhile, are preparing to counter Trump in court, Axios reports.

“We’re ready to fight” mass raids and deportations “both at the legal level, at the advocacy level, and (by) going to the streets,” according to Maribel Hernández Rivera, director of policy and government affairs for border and immigration at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

“One of the things that we strongly believe is that when the American people realize what this threat means, they’re not going to go for it.”

That said, Trump’s team is looking to craft executive orders that can withstand legal challenges in order to avoid a similar defeat to his first-term Muslim ban, Politico reports. The incoming administration also plans to end the parole program for undocumented immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Trump’s 2017 executive order on border security, signed on Jan. 25, 2017, directed the Department of Homeland Security to close the border and to take several other immediate steps, including building more sections of the U.S.–Mexico border wall and adding 5,000 Border Patrol agents.

That initial order also called for revamping the way that the government handled illegal immigrants’ asylum claims, detentions, and deportations.

The GOP has held on to control of the House, securing the 218 seats needed for a majority with five races still yet to be called, according to The Associated Press. However, Trump has already selected three Republican House representatives to serve in his presidential cabinet, resulting in special elections that could reduce the GOP’s already razor thin majority in the chamber.

“There will not be a minute to waste, you can see his resolve already in how quickly he’s making really smart picks,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Tuesday following Trump’s nominations of Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for Ambassador to the United Nations and Republican Florida Rep. Mike Waltz for National Security Adviser. “I know he’s already pulled a few, really talented people out of the House, hopefully no more for a little while until special elections can come.”

Rep. @SteveScalise on President-elect Trump: "I know he's already pulled a few really talented people out of the House, hopefully no more for a little while…" pic.twitter.com/gTnOWgMxor

— CSPAN (@cspan) November 12, 2024

The day after Scalise made the comment, Trump nominated former Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for U.S. Attorney General, with Gaetz stepping down from congress shortly thereafter.

The process of filling vacancies in Florida can take months, as state law does not stipulate a specific amount of time within which the governor must call a special election, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. The replacement of former Democratic Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings following his death in 2021, for example, took roughly nine months.

If the three GOP vacancies remain unfilled when the 119th Congress begins on Jan. 3 and the Democratic party wins the five remaining uncalled races — four of which are currently within 1.5 percentage points — House Republicans could start the session with a 215-217 seat minority.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not expected to slow walk filling Waltz and Gaetz’ seats, writing on X that he had “instructed Secretary of State Cord Byrd to formulate and announce a schedule for the upcoming special elections immediately.”

Florida’s special election process takes at least six weeks from when the governor begins the process, according to the Tallahassee Democrat, meaning Gaetz’ seat could be filled early on in the new congress. If Waltz leaves around Inauguration Day, his seat would not be filled until at least March.

Unlike Florida, New York law requires Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul call a special election within ten days of when Stefanik leaves the House, with the election to be held between 70 and 80 days after the call is made. As a result, if Stefanik leaves on Jan. 20 the special election would be held in April.

Gaetz resigned and indicated he would not be sworn in to the new Congress. It is unclear when Waltz and Stefanik will put in their notice.

While the vacancies could temporarily weigh on the GOP House majority, the seats are considered to be in safe districts. Gaetz, Waltz and Stefanik all won re-election by more than 20 percentage points in November, according to the AP.

Regarding the special election to replace Stefanik, New York State Republican Party spokesman David Laska told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “this is a safe Republican seat. We expect to retain it comfortably, irrespective of how much resources the DCCC chooses to waste on the race.”

Laska went on to address the GOP majority broadly, telling the DCNF: “The Republican House majority will remain intact, delivering President Trump a trifecta to implement the overwhelming mandate he and Republicans received from the American people last week.”

Republican Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez echoed a similarly confident sentiment regarding the Florida special elections.

“Florida is now a Safe Republican state blessed with a bounty of GOP talent,” Gimenez told the DCNF. “The Members of Congress selected to serve in the Trump Administration, hail from rock-solid Republican districts where the eventual GOP Congressional nominee is surely to win the General Election. Speaker Johnson has been an exceptional leader & is actively working with all those involved to ensure our GOP majority is not impacted by these nominations. Our Members understand that we must vote in unison to pass President Trump’s agenda through Congress & protect our nation!”

The Florida GOP and Scalise’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Johnson’s office did not provide original comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

They’re desperate and terrified because they need Trump if they have any hope of surviving as a network. So, they sent their most famous married show hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, to beg Trump to help them with their ratings.

Of course, they claimed it was to “open communications” moving forward, as if this is some grand gesture of goodwill instead of their attempt to mitigate an existential threat. In reality, they played on Trump’s ego and kissed the ring like Amerigo Bonasera asking Vito Corleone for help in the opening scene of The Godfather.

“Be my friend?” he asked.

Joe and Mika asked the same.

Joe Scarborough and his wife, Mika, just announced that they met with President Trump on Friday for the first time in seven years and agreed to open communications moving forward.

Any thoughts? pic.twitter.com/ZMPl9aSmPR

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) November 18, 2024

The pair, who Trump has called “Psycho Joe” and “Crazy Mika” in the seven years since they last spoke, were likely begged if not threatened by MSNBC executives. Corporate media as a whole cannot afford to be ignored by Trump or his administration. Many things are going to be happening over the next four years and any legacy news outlet that wants to survive will need to be talking with the administration, not just about them.

This isn’t just about Trump, though. It’s about Trump’s growing base of supporters who proved on Election Day that the lies of corporate media are no longer driving their thoughts. If corporate media can no longer be the “Arbiters of Truth” that they’ve pretended to be in the past, then they’ll need to be the disseminators of the Trump agenda if they want to keep an audience.

The article below from The Epoch Times represents an analysis of the facts and does not necessarily reflect the perspectives of this publication.

(The Epoch Times)—After President-elect Donald Trump won a second term, multiple defendants charged for their roles in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, asked to delay their cases because they anticipate pardons from Trump.

Many were denied, but each nonetheless raised questions about how Trump will handle the cases.

According to data collected by NPR, more than 1,500 people have been charged in relation to Jan. 6, with nearly 1,000 pleading guilty.

At least a dozen cases have been dismissed, while plenty remain with changes following Trump’s election. At the beginning of November, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia announced multiple sentences and guilty verdicts.

Various factors could determine whether these individuals end up avoiding jail time, but perhaps the most important is Trump’s eventual control of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and who will lead that department.

On Nov. 13, Trump announced Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as his pick for attorney general. Gaetz has been critical of the prosecutions and introduced a bill in July that was intended to prevent prosecutors from retaliating against Jan. 6 defendants for seeking resentencing. Gaetz has also questioned federal involvement, stating that Jan. 6 “wasn’t an insurrection” but that it “very well may have been a fedsurrection.”

Assuming the presidency also grants Trump substantial pardon power under the Constitution: Trump has indicated that he’s open to pardoning those charged but left open the possibility that some would face punishment.

“We will treat them fairly,” he said in January 2022. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly.”

More recently, during an event in July, he was asked about individuals who assaulted officers. He said he would “absolutely” pardon the defendants “if they’re innocent” and added that “they were convicted by a very tough system.”

More than 70 defendants have received a mixed verdict, and so far, more than 1,000 people have been sentenced, with 64 percent receiving prison time, according to NPR data. Some defendants have also taken plea deals.

“I think there’s going to be a complete second look at all of the prosecutions,” Robert Ray, a former Trump impeachment attorney, told The Epoch Times, while noting the large number of cases brought. He added that a second look wouldn’t “necessarily yield a favorable result with regard to each and every defendant, but I think there’s going to be a pretty strenuous exercise of the pardon and commutation power to deal with overreaching [by prosecutors].”

John Pierce, an attorney who has represented Jan. 6 defendants, told The Epoch Times he expects a “blanket pardon,” while Trump–Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the president-elect “will make pardon decisions on a case-by-case basis.”

Politics of Pardons

It’s unclear which individuals Trump will consider for pardon.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Lori Ulrich, an attorney with the public defender’s office, told The Epoch Times. She is currently representing Joseph Fischer, whose case made it to the Supreme Court this year.

Fischer and other defendants face a myriad of charges, including an obstruction charge the Supreme Court addressed this summer in Fischer v. United States. It’s unclear how Trump’s DOJ will apply that ruling, but the president-elect’s pardons could be influenced by factors such as the politics surrounding his pardons.

“If President Biden either pardons or commutes the sentences for Hunter Biden, that gives President Trump political cover to either pardon or commute the non-violent J6 offenders, [as well as] Peter Navarro, and Steve Bannon, if he chooses to,” John Shu, a constitutional law expert who served in both Bush administrations, told The Epoch Times.

Shu was referring to President Joe Biden’s son, who was convicted in September of various tax offenses. Both of Trump’s former White House advisers, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, could be pardoned after each served a four month sentences for defying subpoenas from the House committee that investigated Jan. 6.

A CBS poll found that three years after the events of Jan. 6, 78 percent of Americans expressed disapproval toward “actions of those who forced their way into the Capitol.”

William Shipley, an attorney for one of the defendants, suggested in a motion on Nov. 10 that the election didn’t reflect well on the DOJ’s efforts.

“Defendant Baker would point out that the ‘people’ on behalf of whom the Government purports to speak made themselves heard clearly on November 5, and that should mean something to the Department of Justice without regard to what Administration is now in charge,” Shipley said in a motion for defendant Stephen Michael Baker.

That motion, which asked for a delay in proceedings, was quickly rejected by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper this month.

Upon entering office, Trump’s pardon power would allow him to commute sentences and pardon convicts who have already served time, such as Ulrich’s client, Riley Williams. Williams was accused of helping to steal then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop. She was found guilty on two felony counts, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on two other counts, including aiding and abetting theft of government property.

Non-Violent Offenders

Shu told The Epoch Times that pardons for non-violent offenders were more politically palatable.

In August, the DOJ said that approximately 140 police officers were assaulted on Jan. 6, while more than 500 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees. It added that “approximately 163 individuals … have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer.”

Among those are Daniel Ball, who pleaded not guilty but whom the DOJ accused of, among other things, “throwing an explosive device that detonated upon at least 25 officers.” Others included a father-son pair who pleaded guilty in January, and Zachary Alam, who was found guilty last year.

David Gelman, an attorney and former Trump campaign surrogate, told The Epoch Times that re-examining the Jan. 6 prosecutions would have to occur on a “case-by-case basis” but indicated that Trump could consider violence in choosing how to exercise his pardon power.

Trump said at a town hall in 2023 that he was “inclined to pardon many of” the defendants who had been convicted. “I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control,” he said.

Earlier this year, he started one of his rallies with a recording of the national anthem sung by Jan. 6 prisoners. He also vowed in March that his “first acts” as president would be to “Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned,” he wrote on his Truth Social account.

In a motion filed just after the election, one of the Jan. 6 defendants, Anna Lichnowski, asked her judge to postpone sentencing partly on the basis that her offenses were non-violent, making her “a good candidate for a pardon,” according to her attorney.

Lichnowski was one of a series of defendants who filed motions for some kind of delay in their cases after Trump’s victory. Many of them have been denied, including by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who said that Trump’s potential pardon was “irrelevant” to Lichnowski’s case.

“The potential future exercise of the discretionary pardon power, an Executive Branch authority, is irrelevant to the Court’s obligation to carry out the legal responsibilities of the Judicial Branch,” Walton said in a Nov. 7 court order.

Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, similarly resisted the motions while arguing that the public is interested in a quick administration of justice.

Graves will likely exit the DOJ in Trump’s second term, experts speculated—something that is expected for many prosecutors at the beginning of a new administration. During Trump’s and Biden’s first terms, dozens of prosecutors were asked to leave.

The vast majority of defendants have been charged with a trespassing offense, the use of which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld in October. Defendant Couy Griffin, founder of Cowboys for Trump and a former county commissioner from New Mexico, had asked the court to review the DOJ’s use of this charge against him.

In a 2–1 decision, the court held that the DOJ could apply the trespassing law without proving that he was aware that former Vice President Mike Pence’s presence on the Capitol grounds was the reason for restricting that area.

Obstruction Charge

In June, the Supreme Court held in a 6–3 decision that the DOJ had misinterpreted a financial reform law in attempting to accuse the Jan. 6 defendants of obstructing an official proceeding.

The majority opinion in that case, Fischer v. United States, held that the DOJ erred in its attempt to disentangle two portions of the Sarbanes–Oxley financial reform law (Section 1512(c)(1) and (c)(2)).

The DOJ had argued that the law allowed prosecutions that targeted obstructive conduct in a catch-all way that included methods other than those mentioned at the beginning of the section.

A majority of the Supreme Court, including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, disagreed and held: “To prove a violation of §1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so.”

It’s unclear how Trump and his DOJ will apply the Fischer decision to the defendants’ unique circumstances. It carries a 20-year maximum sentence.

In November, the DOJ said that “approximately 259 defendants who, at the time Fischer was decided, were charged with or convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1512 to determine whether the charge should continue to be prosecuted.”

The DOJ said that after Fischer, the government “decided to forgo the Section 1512(c)(2) charge for approximately 96 defendants, will continue to pursue the charge for approximately 13 defendants, and continues to assess the remaining defendants.”

Approximately 133 were sentenced, and more than half were convicted of that offense and other felonies, according to DOJ data from August.

Austin Alonzo contributed to this report.

After his first election, President Trump arrived in D.C. with Republican majorities in Congress, too.  He expected that the people who had promised to repeal Obamacare for seven years would have a legislative package ready for him to sign into law.  He expected that Republicans who had campaigned on securing the border for four decades would be prepared to do what it takes to achieve that goal for the American people.  His expectations were met with the disappointing reality of squishy Republican backbones and Uniparty backstabbing.

While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell informed President Trump which of his potential nominees would get Republican support (McConnell’s wife, for instance, would have no problem winning confirmation), House Speaker Paul Ryan told him that there was just no money to build a border wall (because Ryan had already spent trillions supporting Barack Obama’s policy agenda).  Both Republicans took turns publicly laughing at Trump for arriving in D.C. with the misguided belief that the work of government could be anything other than slow.  McConnell and Ryan wasted most of President Trump’s first year in office bickering about how best to dismantle Obamacare before finally throwing up their hands in feigned exasperation after Senator John McCain saved the Democrats’ costly expansion of government-directed medicine with his final “screw you” vote.

On the other hand, McConnell and Ryan took the Russia collusion hoax very seriously.  Although Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Brennan, Jim Comey, and numerous other coup-plotters inside the Intelligence Community had created that fantasy as a mechanism for illegally spying on candidate Trump before his election and as a mechanism for overthrowing President Trump after his inauguration, congressional Republicans treated the matter as if it deserved their utmost attention.  McConnell and Ryan both knew that the allegations against Trump were ridiculous, but they eagerly assisted Democrats in their efforts to paint the president as a Russian spy.  Why?  Because holding Trump’s fate in their hands gave them power over his presidency.

President Trump entered office in 2017 beholden to no one.  No secret billionaires had funded his campaign.  No foreign governments had secretly supported his run for office.  Unlike other politicians who are easily controlled once the Intelligence Community digs up enough dirt from their pasts, President Trump has never had a problem showing the public exactly who he is.  How do you manipulate a man who has few secrets and whose peccadilloes are already widely known?  You make him “Putin’s puppet” and enlist Republican leaders to legitimize the farcical intelligence operation.  With “friends” like McConnell and Ryan, President Trump was surrounded by enemies.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, you can play that phony card only once.  There will not be another round of Uniparty and Intelligence Community hijinks engineered to divide the American people and stifle the MAGA agenda.  The “news” organizations that ran Russia collusion stories for years have exposed themselves as mere propagandists for the State.  The credibility of the media, Intelligence Community, FBI, DOJ, and Uniparty lies in tatters.  The “Trump Train” has left the station, and it’s picking up speed.

Heads must roll.  People who fabricated the Russia collusion hoax must pay a price.  Because nobody ever suffered for inflicting this fraud upon the American people, the worst offenders just continued offending.  We got the fake quid-pro-quo Ukraine impeachment (which was designed to cover up real quid-pro-quo crimes of the Biden Crime Family and other powerful political-crime families in D.C. that rake in a great deal of money from foreign regimes).  We got the J6 psy-op in which demonstrators protesting for free and fair elections were condemned as “insurrectionists.”  We got the unending lawfare from Democrat prosecutors and Merrick Garland’s Department of (in)Justice designed to imprison Trump, his friends, and his voters.  These crimes against the American people will not stop until the perpetrators are brought to justice.  Conspirators, fraudsters, and government employees who used their offices to persecute innocent Americans for their political beliefs must be held accountable.

While President Trump and his new administration sort through the nest of vipers in D.C., they will keep the guilty preoccupied.  It is difficult to respond to the president’s constant moves when you’re spending fifteen hundred dollars an hour on legal representation.  Expect President Trump to show Establishment Republicans just how much can be accomplished in Washington when the overarching command is simple: Let’s get s— done.

Illegal immigration, inflation, crime, economic malaise, bureaucratic regulation, “woke” indoctrination, censorship, and the growing likelihood of WWIII are the consequential issues that broadened and strengthened President Trump’s MAGA coalition in 2024.  Americans feel that their country is vulnerable and in decline.  They overwhelmingly believe that their country is on the wrong track.  They are desperate for the federal government to take their worries seriously.  With their votes, they have spoken loudly.  President Trump has been given a mandate to execute on his policy initiatives and to prove to the American people that their voices have been heard.

President Trump will give the Deep State a magic show.  As is his wont, he will move fast, change directions, and keep his opponents off guard.  He will juggle numerous balls in the air and still surprise his adversaries with a rabbit from under his hat.  Pay attention.

President Trump is serious about mass deportations.  The American people cannot be made to feel unsafe in their own communities.  Expect to see the Obama-Biden handouts for illegal aliens come to an end.  Expect to see violent criminals rounded up.  Expect to see border security reactivated.  Expect to see the completion of a border wall.  And expect international cartels currently in control of the U.S. border to be designated as terrorist organizations.  The old way of doing things is over.  Those who have been destroying America with fentanyl, human-trafficking, and organized crime have no place to hide.  Their days are numbered.

Bureaucratic regulations operate like hidden taxes that increase the cost of necessary purchases, such as food and fuel.  When agencies issue new rules, they steal liberty from the American people and empower themselves with additional authorities.  Expect President Trump to send in the equivalent of several Special Operations Forces to wage war on the administrative state.  Their mission is to slash red tape, battle the bureaucratic Leviathan, liberate markets from undue restraints, and return freedom to the American people.

Expect President Trump to return to tariffs as his preferred tool for battling international foes while increasing economic opportunities for America’s middle class.  Wall Street hates tariffs because multinational companies do not benefit from “America First” policies.  Main Street, however, benefits greatly.  When the cost of doing business overseas is greater than the cost of producing goods in America, domestic manufacturing rises.  When foreign regimes respond with their own tariffs, it becomes more expensive for American-produced food and energy to be exported.  Those supplies stay home, and domestic prices decrease.  Expect President Trump to accomplish through deregulation and tariffs something that the “experts” say is impossible: deflation in the United States.

President Trump sees America’s natural resources and the American people’s unmatched ingenuity as the country’s greatest weapons.  He will unleash domestic productivity and, by doing so, use the nation’s economic strengths as both sword and shield against foreign enemies.  The rabbit under his hat is the prospect of global peace.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Americans “overwhelmingly rejected the ideological takeover of political and civic life by narrow-minded identity politics” in the Nov. 5 election, a coalition of 38 financial officers wrote in letters warning companies that the new administration will “hasten the demise of DEI.”

“You stand at an important crossroads,” the letter states. “Either you can heed the voice of the American people—your shareholders, customers, and employees—or you can bow to fringe activists who demand that you double down on a failing ideology.”

Companies scored on the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Viewpoint Diversity index, along with Fortune 1000 companies not scored, received letters from the investor advisor coalition.

ADF’s 2024 Viewpoint Diversity index revealed that 91 percent of companies scored use critical race theory in their training materials for employees. The index measured the 85 biggest technology and finance companies on their respect for free speech and religious freedom.

Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Caller News Foundation it’s clear that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is already “on its way out.”

“What the Trump administration does could really speed up that process, which will ultimately be good for those corporations, for their workforce, for the broader society, because DEI is a toxic ideology that harms everybody it comes into contact with,” he said.

Some companies have already changed DEI policies as a result of pressure from consumers and shareholders, ending their participation in the left-wing Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and abandoning diversity initiatives, Tedesco noted. Under pressure from conservative activist Robby Starbuck, companies like Lowe’s and Tractor Supply Co backtracked on DEI policies, including sponsoring LGBTQ pride parades.

Companies began rolling back their DEI programs after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in higher education in 2023 and conservatives increased their focus on specifically targeting corporations with legal challenges.

“While we urge you to distance yourself from DEI and highly divisive groups like the Human Rights Campaign—which bullies companies into adopting radical, wrong-headed, and reputationally disastrous policies—we also want to caution you against retracting your goal of protecting the civil liberties and dignity of all employees,” the letter continues. “As fiduciaries of your companies, we manage over $16 billion in assets, and we represent working Americans who depend on us to safeguard their financial future, retirement planning, and more. You owe these investors transparency and, when necessary, proactive changes that are in their best financial interests to serve and foster a healthy civil society.”

Inspire Investing director of corporate engagement Tim Schwarzenberger, whose company signed onto the letters, said shareholders “expect those in the c-suite to deliver positive financial results that meet customer demand and contribute to a healthy, civil society.”

“That’s not too much to ask,” Schwarzenberger said in a statement to the DCNF. “For too long, however, corporate leaders have been bullied into taking increasingly extreme positions on hot-button cultural issues and implementing harmful DEI policies that divide up the workforce and society itself.”

Dr. OJ Oleka, Chief Executive Officer of the State Financial Officers Foundation, said public employees “like teachers, law enforcement officers, and fire fighters rely on state financial officers to make and recommend sound fiduciary decisions to secure their financial future.”

“I know this firsthand, as my mother is the beneficiary of my late father’s public pension from his career as a public university professor,” he said in a statement. “My mother deserves the promise of my late father’s pension, and so does everyone else who worked hard to earn one. The DEI regime does not deliver on that promise.”

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The media has faced allegations of bias against Trump and he also got indicted four times during his 2024 presidential campaign. Smerconish, on “Press Club,” argued that these factors ended up helping Trump rather than hurting his appeal with voters.

“I don’t want it all distilled into this one sound bite or conclusion, but at the top of my list, I’ll say it that way … It’s like a parenting lesson. The more that you tell people what they can’t do, what’s intolerable, you must not do this, you should not do this, the more they’re going to rebel,” Smerconish told Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin. “Maybe they would have ultimately come to their own conclusion and rejected Donald Trump. I don’t know.”

“But I think that the constant browbeating and the combination of the media influence and the four indictments, one conviction, and showing that god-awful joke from Madison Square Garden a week in advance of the election on a loop — and I felt it, and I said it,” he added. “I can’t sit here, Aiden, telling you, well, this is the way I called the election, but I definitely felt the potential for a boomerang effect, and I think that came true. I really do.”

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe performed at Trump’s Oct. 27 Madison Square Garden rally, calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and receiving significant media backlash. However, Trump ended up winning a majority of Hispanic male votes nationwide in his race against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Republican voters in Georgia told MSNBC during a May segment that Trump’s legal issues have made them more passionate about supporting him.

“It’s actually caused me to support him more,” a voter named Antonio Jones said. “I just don’t believe that it’s a coincidence we have a trial happening in Atlanta, we have one happening in New York, so the question people are beginning to ask themselves like I did, is like, why now?”

Trump leads Harris in the popular vote by 2% with over 76 million votes as of Friday morning, according to The Associated Press.

After Trump’s election victory, his two federal cases will be dropped and his state cases probably will too, though there’s a possibility that ambitious local prosecutors could extend the battle, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. For instance, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis signaled during a Wednesday interview with Atlanta News First that she intends to proceed with her case against Trump, which accuses him of attempting to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Trump announced Gaetz’s appointment on Truth Social Wednesday, asserting that “Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations, and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department.” Jennings, on “CNN News Central,” said he was “surprised” by Trump’s choice, adding that it reflects the president-elect’s confidence that Republicans will support his agenda without resistance.

WATCH:

“Are you not entertained? I mean, this is the most entertaining transition I’ve ever seen … I’m as surprised as anyone. But what I take away from this is that this is a president-elect who is feeling his power,” Jennings said. “I mean, this is someone who is appointing people to things, whether it’s Gaetz or anything else we’ve seen today, who is feeling his power, feeling his influence, doesn’t feel like he’s in a mood to negotiate with the people in Washington, D.C. He’s here to do what he wants to do and he’s going to expect the Republicans to fall in line.”

“It is apparent to me that Trump is in a decisive mood and is not someone who’s interested in picking things that he would consider to be watered down,” he added. “So that’s my initial reaction … I mean, we truly learned about it two seconds before we came on here, so pretty wild day.”

Trump also announced he would appoint former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be director of National Intelligence for his second administration in a Wednesday statement, writing that she will bring a “fearless spirit” to the intelligence community to help secure “Peace through Strength.” Moreover, the president-elect named Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as his pick for secretary of state in another Wednesday statement, calling him an “Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies and a fearless Warrior.”

Trump on announced in a Tuesday statement that Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth is his choice for secretary of defense in his upcoming administration.

“You can’t underestimate Donald Trump’s influence over the Republicans in the Senate on this. And he’s going to be insistent that he get his government and his administration. And look, here’s the thing: He won. And he won the popular vote and he believes he has a mandate,” Jennings said. “And honestly I think he does too. And some of these picks are conventional. Marco Rubio, for instance, you know? Well-known name. But some of them are designed to shake up Washington. And I am assuming that’s what Donald Trump believes he’s doing here with a few of these folks.”

CNN anchor Dana Bash said Wednesday that she couldn’t come up with a single “example” of why governing “could be harder” for Trump in his second term due to his strong support among elected Republicans.

“That really does change the game for Donald Trump in how he can get things through, who he can get through and the kind of support he has for what he wants to do,” she said.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.