U.S. Senate pages carrying the Electoral College certificates in wooden ballot boxes walk through the Capitol rotunda on their way to the U.S. House chamber on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers certified President-elect Donald Trump’s win Monday in a smooth process that four years ago was disrupted by a violent mob of Trump supporters bent on stopping Congress from formally declaring President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

Vice President Kamala Harris — the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee defeated by Trump — presided over the afternoon joint session. Senators and representatives counted and certified the 312 Electoral College votes for Trump that secured his second term in office, this time accompanied by Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his vice president.

“Today was obviously a very important day. It was about what should be the norm and what the American people should be able to take for granted, which is that one of the most important pillars of our democracy is that there will be a peaceful transfer of power,” Harris, who won 226 Electoral College votes, told reporters after lawmakers concluded the ceremony.

The process wrapped up in just under 40 minutes with no objections — a stark contrast to four years ago, when Republicans objected to Arizona and Pennsylvania results, and Trump supporters breached the Capitol, sending lawmakers into hiding for several hours.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Monday in a statement published on X that he welcomed “the return of order and civility to these historic proceedings.”

“The peaceful transfer of power is the hallmark of our democracy and today, members of both parties in the House and Senate along with the vice president certified the election of our new president and vice president without controversy or objection,” wrote Pence, who in 2021 resisted intense pressure from Trump to stop Congress from certifying the results.

On that day, the rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and erected a makeshift gallows on the west side of the Capitol.

Inside the House chamber

Harris entered the chamber just before 1 p.m. Eastern on Monday, with senators following in line behind her.

Lawmakers read aloud the Electoral College vote totals for each state. Harris stood at the dais as results were reported, including the states she and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz won.

Of the 538 Electoral College votes, at least 270 are needed to win.

Lawmakers on each side of the chamber applauded, and some even stood, when vote totals were announced for their party’s candidate.

Vance, sitting beside GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, applauded during the reading of votes.

Ahead of Monday’s certification, Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Jamie Raskin of Maryland sat together chatting near the back of the chamber for several minutes.

Thompson chaired the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Raskin, who was a member of the committee, has spoken out as recently as last week against Trump’s promise to pardon the defendants charged in the attack.

Pardon advocates gather nearby

Blocks away, at a Capitol Hill hotel, a series of speakers called for full pardons for people convicted of participating in the riot.

The group, a collection of far-right social media figures, framed the 2021 riot as a peaceful protest — even as they openly advocated for the pardons of people who committed violence.

“I believe there should be pardons for every single J6er, including the very most violent ones,” said Cara Castronuova, boxer, advocate and reporter for the pro-Trump news site Gateway Pundit.

Security fencing surrounded the Capitol, where an increased police presence monitored the grounds and inside the building.

The U.S. Secret Service led security planning for the day, which was elevated to a “National Special Security Event,” — the first time a count of the Electoral College votes received the designation.

However, pedestrian and vehicle traffic outside the Capitol remained light after roughly 6 inches of snow fell overnight and into the morning.

Staff crossing paths with U.S. Capitol police officers in the hallways and House basement cafe remarked on the attack four years ago and wished the officers a quiet day.

Fake electors, pressure on Pence

In the 64 days between 2020’s presidential election and Congress’ certification of Biden’s win, Trump and his supporters led a campaign to overturn the results.

Trump and his private attorneys schemed to develop slates of fake electors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump also launched a heavy pressure campaign on Pence to thwart Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory and rallied his supporters to march to the Capitol as he led a “Stop the Steal” rally just hours before lawmakers convened on Jan. 6, 2021.

By day’s end, rioters had assaulted over 140 police officers and caused approximately $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol.

The U.S. Justice Department launched its largest-ever investigation following the attack and, as of December, had charged 1,572 defendants.

Over a third of the defendants were charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement, and 171 were charged with using a deadly weapon.

Police were ‘punched, tackled, tased and attacked’

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a statement Monday marking the Justice Department’s years-long investigation “to hold accountable those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on our democracy.”

“On this day, four years ago, police officers were brutally assaulted while bravely defending the United States Capitol. They were punched, tackled, tased, and attacked with chemical agents that burned their eyes and skin. Today, I am thinking of the officers who still bear the scars of that day as well as the loved ones of the five officers who lost their lives in the line of duty as a result of what happened to them on January 6, 2021.”

Democratic lawmakers and House Chaplain Margaret Grun Kibben marked the anniversary Monday by holding a moment of prayer on the first floor of the Capitol, where rioters first breached the building four years ago. 

“What was intended to be a historical parliamentary procedure turned quickly into turmoil and frustration and anger and fear,” Kibben said. “We pray now that on this day, four years later, that You would enter into the space in a much different way; in a way that allows for peace and for conversation and for reconciliation.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said afterward that pardoning the people who attacked the Capitol four years ago would “set a terrible example for the future in America and for the world that it was okay, it was forgivable to do this.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the events of Jan. 6, 2021 “will forever live in infamy.”

“A violent mob attacked the Capitol as part of a concerted effort to halt the peaceful transfer of power in the United States of America for the first time in our history,” Jeffries said. “Thanks to the bravery, courage and sacrifice of heroic police officers and the law enforcement community, the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was unsuccessful.”

Republicans saw ‘peaceful grandmothers’

House Speaker Mike Johnson released a statement Monday celebrating the vote certification and Trump’s win as the “​​greatest political comeback in American history.” He did not mention the 2021 attack and his office did not respond to requests for comment about it from States Newsroom.

The Louisianan, whose narrow election as speaker on Friday was boosted by a Trump endorsement, was among the Republicans who refused to certify Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s slates of electors even after the violent mob stormed the Capitol. 

GOP Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia posted on X on Monday that Jan. 6, 2021, amounted to “thousands of peaceful grandmothers gathered in Washington, D.C., to take a self-guided, albeit unauthorized, tour of the U.S. Capitol building.”

“Earlier that day, President Trump held a rally, where supporters walked to the Capitol to peacefully protest the certification of the 2020 election. During this time, some individuals entered the Capitol, took photos, and explored the building before leaving,” Collins wrote. “Since then, hundreds of peaceful protestors have been hunted down, arrested, held in solitary confinement, and treated unjustly.”

On whether Trump should pardon those defendants charged in the Jan. 6 riot, GOP South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters Monday he believed those who were charged with assaulting law enforcement should be “put in a different category.” But ultimately, Graham said, that decision is up to Trump.

Louisiana’s Cassidy said he couldn’t comment on Trump likely pardoning people convicted of crimes based on their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I mean, it’s a statement without detail, and so it’s hard for me to give thoughts,” Cassidy said, adding he needs to know which people Trump plans to pardon and on what basis. “And so until you see that, it’s hard to have a thought.”

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, said she suspected it wasn’t easy for Harris to oversee the certification of her defeat, but said she was glad this year included a peaceful transition of power. 

“Well, I thought it was very orderly,” Capito said. “I thought it was very well handled by the vice president as the president of the Senate — it couldn’t have been easy for her. And I think that the peaceful transfer of power is something that makes us all proud to be Americans.”

Changes after the violent attack

Congress is required by law to convene at 1 p.m. Eastern on the sixth day of January following a presidential election year to certify each state’s slate of electors. The vice president, serving in the role of president of the Senate, presides over the process.

Lawmakers amended the law to clarify the vice president’s role after Trump’s actions toward Pence.

Monday’s certification marked the first time lawmakers used the new law, known as the Electoral Count Act.

The bill, signed into law in 2022, updated an 1887 election law that made it unclear what the vice president’s role was in certifying election results.

The new law, spearheaded by Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and former Sen. Joe Manchin III, a West Virginia independent, raises the threshold for objections to a state’s electoral votes and clarifies the vice president’s role as purely ceremonial in certifying electoral results.

Previously, only one U.S. House representative and one U.S. senator needed to make an objection to an elector or slate of electors, but under the new law, one-fifth of the members from each chamber need to lodge an objection.

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the outgoing chair of the Senate Rules Committee who helped pass the Electoral Count Act out of committee, said in a statement that “no matter your party, we must uphold the right of all Americans to make their voices heard in our free and fair elections.”

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

President-elect Donald Trump prepares to speak at the conservative gathering AmericaFest in Phoenix on Dec. 29, 2024. (Photo by Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in New York on 34 felony convictions on Jan. 10, just days ahead of his presidential inauguration, according to an order issued Friday by New York Justice Juan Merchan.

Merchan wrote he won’t seek incarceration for Trump but rather an “unconditional discharge” that would leave Trump with a criminal record in New York but avoids any serious penalties. A Trump spokesperson on Friday indicated the president-elect would fight the sentencing.

Trump, who is set to be sworn in as the 47th president on Jan. 20, has all but seen his multiple criminal cases go quiet after winning the 2024 presidential election in November.

Trump made history in May as the first former president to become a convicted felon after a jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to hide a hush-money scheme involving his personal lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Trump’s New York sentencing date was delayed multiple times, including shortly after Trump’s win on Nov. 5 prompted Merchan to pause and examine moving forward with sentencing a president-elect.

Trump’s attorneys also held up their client’s sentencing as they fought evidence presented in the case after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents are shielded from criminal prosecution for official acts.

Merchan ultimately ruled on Dec. 16 that the majority of Trump’s case “related entirely to unofficial conduct entitled to no immunity protection.”

No jail time for Trump

In his Friday order, Merchan said the complex situation involving Trump likely will never be seen again.

“Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognizing that Presidential immunity will likely attach once Defendant takes his Oath of Office, it is incumbent upon this Court to set this matter down for the imposition of sentence prior to January 20, 2025,” Merchan wrote, adding that all further avenues have been exhausted “in what is an unprecedented, and likely never to be repeated legal scenario.”

“This Court must sentence Defendant within a reasonable time following verdict; and Defendant must be permitted to avail himself of every available appeal, a path he has made clear he intends to pursue but which only becomes fully available upon sentencing,” Merchan continued.

Merchan has given Trump the option to appear in person or virtually for the sentencing.

Merchan’s order comes as the U.S. Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, citing a longstanding protocol of not prosecuting sitting presidents, closed Trump’s two federal cases — one alleging election interference in the 2020 presidential election, and the other focused on classified documents illegally stashed at Trump’s Florida resort after his first presidency.

‘Witch Hunt’

Steven Cheung, Trump communications director, issued a statement Friday criticizing Merchan as “deeply conflicted” and alleging the judge is in “direct violation of the Supreme Court’s Immunity decision and other longstanding jurisprudence.”

“This lawless case should have never been brought and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung continued. “President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process and to execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this or any remnants of the Witch Hunts. There should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes until they are all dead.”

Sen. John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, speaks during a press conference inside the U.S. Capitol on March 20, 2024. Thune, a Republican, officially became majority leader Friday. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate Friday under the new leadership of South Dakota’s John Thune, who promised to keep intact the body’s legislative filibuster — the 60-vote threshold for major legislation that some Democrats had targeted for elimination.

Thune follows in the footsteps of the longest-serving Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and takes the reins as Republicans prepare to control the Senate, House and White House once President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

In his first opening remarks as leader, Thune said he would restore the upper chamber as “a place of discussion and deliberation” as the body pursues an aggressive agenda to overhaul immigration and extend 2017 tax cuts — not to mention actually funding the government, albeit months late, once temporary measures expire in March.

Republicans are eying the budget reconciliation process — a legislative maneuver that allows the Senate to avoid the 60-vote filibuster — to achieve as many of the party’s political goals as can be justified in the one-per-fiscal-year budget resolution. Democrats used reconciliation twice during their unified government in the 117th Congress.

Still, Thune hammered in his opening remarks at the start of the 119th Congress that the Senate must remain the “more stable, more thoughtful, more deliberative” body.

“Unfortunately, today there are a lot of people who would like to see the Senate turn into a copy of the House of Representatives,” Thune said on the floor.

“And that,” he continued, “is not what our founders intended or what our country needs. One of my priorities as leader will be to ensure that the Senate stays the Senate. That means preserving the legislative filibuster.”

Thune described the 60-vote rule as having the “greatest impact on preserving the founders’ vision of the United States Senate.”

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who’s served in the chamber since 1981, resumed the position of Senate president pro tempore Friday — a role he last held from 2019 to 2021.

Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, now the body’s minority leader, said on the floor Friday that he looks forward to working with Thune and wants to continue “to reach across the aisle.”

“I want to work with the new Republican leader to keep that bipartisan streak going in the new year. I don’t expect we’ll agree on everything or even many things,” Schumer said. “But there are still opportunities to improve the lives of the American people, if we’re willing to work together.”

New senators

Ten new senators were sworn in Friday, including several Republicans who flipped Democratic-held seats.

Among them were Republican Sen. David McCormick, who ousted Pennsylvania’s longtime Democratic Sen. Bob Casey; Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Republican who flipped Montana’s Senate seat formerly held by Democrat Jon Tester; and the GOP’s new Sen. Bernie Moreno, who wrested the seat from Ohio’s longtime Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was not among the lawmakers who took the oath Friday. Justice, a Republican who won the seat held by outgoing independent Joe Manchin III, will remain the state’s governor until Jan. 13 before heading to the Senate.

New Democratic Sens. Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware made history Friday as the first two Black women to serve simultaneously in the upper chamber.

Other newly sworn senators on Friday included Republicans Jim Banks of Indiana and John Curtis of Utah, as well as Democrats Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Ruben Gallego of Arizona.

Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and New Jersey’s Andy Kim took their oaths in December.

Rioters are shown inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin on Thursday urged Americans to demand President-elect Donald Trump justify each Jan. 6 defendant pardon if he issues them on his “first day” in office, as promised.

The Maryland congressman, who sat on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, said it would be an “extraordinary event in the history of the republic to have a president pardon more than 1,000 criminal convicts who were in jail for having engaged in a violent insurrection incited by that very president.”

“And if it is actually going to happen, people should demand a very specific accounting of how there is contrition and repentance on part of each of the people being pardoned,” said Raskin, who will be the top Democrat this Congress on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

Raskin spoke alongside other panelists for a virtual event hosted by the State Democracy Defenders Action, a nonpartisan advocacy group that describes its mission as fighting against “election sabotage and autocracy.”

Trump promised on the campaign trail to pardon those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a violent effort to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory. Trump has repeatedly characterized the rioters as “patriots,” “warriors” and “hostages.”

The president-elect, who will be sworn into office on Jan. 20, said during a December interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” that he will act “very quickly” to pardon the defendants on day one — though he indicated he might make exceptions “if somebody was radical, crazy.”

More than 140 police officers were assaulted during the attack, and the rioters caused roughly $2.8 million in damage to the Capitol.

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged approximately 1,572 people in connection with the attack, including charging 171 defendants for using a deadly or dangerous weapon to inflict serious bodily harm on a law enforcement officer.

Raskin highlighted the case of a 56-year-old New York man who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for assaulting an officer during the riot. Thomas Webster, a former Marine and police officer, tackled and choked a Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer while other rioters kicked him.

“That’s just one example,” Raskin said. “The press has gotten to know several police officers who’ve been outspoken about the outrageous, medieval-style violence that was trained on them.”

According to the latest Justice Department figures, approximately 996 defendants have pleaded guilty — 321 to felony charges and 675 to misdemeanors.

About 215 defendants have been found guilty at contested trials in federal court, including 10 who were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Then-U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, speaks at the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee. The U.S. House Ethics Committee released a report Monday finding "substantial evidence" of misconduct by Gaetz. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

President-elect Donald Trump’s first choice for attorney general in his second presidency, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, paid for sex, including with a minor, used illegal drugs and sought to obstruct investigators, according to a U.S. House Committee on Ethics report released Monday.

The 42-page report, the culmination of a years-long committee investigation, found that Gaetz, who denies the allegations, “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him,” used cocaine and ecstasy on multiple occasions between 2017 and 2019, accepted gifts including a 2018 trip to the Bahamas, and lied to the Department of State to obtain a passport for a woman he was sexually involved with and who he falsely claimed was his constituent.

“Representative Gaetz took advantage of the economic vulnerability of young women to lure them into sexual activity for which they received an average of a few hundred dollars after each encounter. Such behavior is not ‘generosity to ex-girlfriends,’ and it does not reflect creditably upon the House,” the report stated, noting the former congressman violated Florida prostitution and statutory rape laws.

Gaetz has not been criminally charged.

But the panel cited “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl whom they refer to as “Victim A.” Evidence included “credible testimony from Victim A herself, as well as multiple individuals corroborating the allegation.”

“Several of those witnesses have also testified under oath before a federal grand jury and in a civil litigation,” the report continued.

“Representative Gaetz denied the allegation but refused to testify under oath. He has publicly stated that Victim A ‘doesn’t exist’ and that he has not ‘had sex with a 17-year-old since I was 17.’ The Committee found that to be untrue and determined that there is substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz had sex with Victim A in July 2017, when she was 17 years old, and he was 35. Representative Gaetz’s actions were in violation of Florida’s statutory rape law,” according to the report.

Gaetz was chosen by Trump in November as his nominee to run the U.S. Department of Justice, even though Gaetz was previously the target of a department sex trafficking investigation that never yielded charges. Gaetz resigned from the House hours after Trump named him for the position.

After criticism from lawmakers and a spotlight on the House Ethics Committee’s probe, ongoing since April 2021, Gaetz bowed out of the running for attorney general.

Gaetz continues to deny the allegations outlined in the committee report and sued the panel Monday. In the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Gaetz calls the committee’s decision to release the report “unconstitutional” because it does not have jurisdiction over a private citizen.

“There is a reason they did this to me in a Christmas Eve-Eve report and not in a courtroom of any kind where I could present evidence and challenge witnesses,” Gaetz wrote on X Monday.

Gaetz declined an opportunity to present his version of events to the committee, refusing an invitation to sit for a voluntary interview, the report said.

Debate over release

The committee wrestled with the decision to release the report, blocking the decision after meeting on Nov. 20 before reversing course in a Dec. 10 vote.

Committee Chair Michael Guest said in a statement Monday that he opposed the report’s release.

“I believe, have publicly stated, and remain steadfast in the position that the House Committee on Ethics lost jurisdiction to release to the public any substantive work product regarding Mr. Gaetz after his resignation from the House on November 14, 2024,” Guest, a Mississippi Republican, said.

“While I do not challenge the Committee’s findings, I did not vote to support the release of the report and I take great exception that the majority deviated from the Committee’s well-established standards and voted to release a report on an individual no longer under the Committee’s jurisdiction, an action the Committee has not taken since 2006,” Guest’s statement continued.

President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the White House Rose Garden Nov. 7. Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden commuted the sentences on Monday of 37 death row inmates, citing his conscience as a force behind the decision. He also left the death sentences unchanged for three men charged with hate-motivated mass shootings and terrorism.

Biden, who imposed a moratorium on federal executions during his administration, commuted the death sentences to life sentences without the possibility of parole, saying in a statement that he’s dedicated his career “to reducing violent crime and ensuring a fair and effective justice system.”

“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said.

“But guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice President, and now President, I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”

The three men Biden left on death row Monday include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, sentenced in 2015 of bombing the Boston Marathon in 2013; Dylann Roof, sentenced in 2017 of fatally shooting nine members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina; and Robert Bowers, sentenced in 2023 for the deadly shooting in 2018 that killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

The president’s commutations Monday come after he commuted the sentences on Dec. 12 of 1,500 people who were placed in home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic. He also granted pardons for 39 individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes.

Biden received criticism from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and others for including among the mass commutations a Pennsylvania judge convicted in 2011 of sending children to prison in exchange for millions of dollars in kickbacks from a private jail — a crime that became known in the commonwealth as the “Cash for Kids” scheme.

Advocates for abolishing the death penalty and some U.S. House Democrats had pressured Biden to commute death penalty sentences ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Trump expedited some executions during his first term.

In a statement, Trump transition spokesman Steven Cheung blasted the commutations.

“These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones,” Cheung wrote. “President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people.”

According to the White House, the names of the death row inmates whose sentences were commuted Monday are:

• Shannon Wayne Agofsky

• Billie Jerome Allen

• Aquilia Marcivicci Barnette

• Brandon Leon Basham

• Anthony George Battle

• Meier Jason Brown

• Carlos David Caro

• Wesley Paul Coonce, Jr.

• Brandon Michael Council

• Christopher Emory Cramer

• Len Davis

• Joseph Ebron

• Ricky Allen Fackrell

• Edward Leon Fields, Jr.

• Chadrick Evan Fulks

• Marvin Charles Gabrion, II

• Edgar Baltazar Garcia

• Thomas Morocco Hager

• Charles Michael Hall

• Norris G. Holder

• Richard Allen Jackson

• Jurijus Kadamovas

• Daryl Lawrence

• Iouri Mikhel

• Ronald Mikos

• James H. Roane, Jr.

• Julius Omar Robinson

• David Anthony Runyon

• Ricardo Sanchez, Jr.

• Thomas Steven Sanders

• Kaboni Savage

• Mark Isaac Snarr

• Rejon Taylor

• Richard Tipton

• Jorge Avila Torrez

• Daniel Troya

• Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umaña

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, seen at an April 2022 White House event celebrating her Senate confirmation, was President Joe Biden’s sole U.S. Supreme Court nominee. The 235 federal judges confirmed during Biden’s presidency set records for racial and gender diversity. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s number of lifetime appointments to the federal bench surpassed the first Trump administration’s Friday and set records as the most diverse selection of judges by any president in U.S. history, according to federal judiciary observers.

The U.S. Senate, late in its final session of the year, confirmed what are expected to be the final two of Biden’s nominations, bringing his total number of judicial confirmations to 235, just one more than President-elect Donald Trump’s first-term total.

Senators voted along party lines to confirm Benjamin J. Cheeks to be U.S. district judge for the Southern District of California, in a vote of 49-47, and Serena Raquel Murillo to be U.S. district Judge for the Central District of California, in the same vote breakdown.

Cheeks marks the 63rd Senate-confirmed Black judge appointed by Biden, and Murillo the 150th woman.

Four senators did not vote, including Vice President-elect J.D. Vance of Ohio, Trump’s secretary of State nominee, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, newly sworn Sen. Adam Schiff of California, and the outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Senate control will be in Republican hands after the new Congress is sworn in Jan. 3, almost certainly shutting the door on any Biden nominations before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

Among Biden’s appointments, 187 were seated on district courts, 45 on federal appeals courts, and one, Ketanji Brown Jackson, on the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as two to the Court of International Trade.

Biden issued a statement Friday night marking the “major milestone.”

“When I ran for President, I promised to build a bench that looks like America and reflects the promise of our nation. And I’m proud I kept my commitment to bolstering confidence in judicial decision-making and outcomes,” Biden said.

“I am proud of the legacy I will leave with our nation’s judges,” Biden said, closing out his statement.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer touted the “historic” accomplishment on the Senate floor following the vote.

“We’ve confirmed more judges than under the Trump administration, more judges than any administration in this century, more judges than any administration going back decades. One out of every four active judges on the bench has been appointed by this majority,” Schumer said.

He and members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary delivered a press conference immediately after.

Historic racial and gender diversity

Observers who monitor the demographics and professional backgrounds represented on the federal bench celebrated the “remarkable and historic progress” made under Biden, according to a Friday memo from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Biden set records for appointing the most women and more Black, Native American, Latino and Latina, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander judges than during any other presidency of any length, according to the organization’s analysis.

The Senate confirmed 15 Black judges to the federal appeals courts during Biden’s term, 13 of them women. Only eight Black women had ever served at this level of the federal judiciary, according to the analysis.

On the district court level, Biden appointed the first lifetime judges of color to four districts that had only ever been represented by white judges. They include districts in Louisiana, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia.

Biden also appointed, and the Senate confirmed, 12 openly LGBTQ judges, three of them women; the first four Muslim judges ever to reach the federal bench; and two judges currently living with disabilities.

“Our federal court system has historically failed to live up to its promise of equal justice under the law,” the Leadership Conference’s Friday memo stated. “For far too long, our judges have disproportionately been white, cisgender, heterosexual men who have possessed very narrow legal experiences as corporate attorneys or government prosecutors. Judges decide cases that impact all of our rights and freedoms, and it is vital that our judges come from more varied backgrounds both personally and professionally.”

Nearly 100 of Biden’s appointments previously worked as civil rights lawyers or public defenders, according to the leadership conference, including Jackson who was the first former public defender elevated to the Supreme Court.

Biden’s confirmed judges stood in contrast to Trump’s picks who, the American Constitution Society noted, lacked gender and racial diversity.

According to data published by the Pew Research Center at the close of Trump’s first term, the now president-elect was more likely than previous Republican presidents to nominate women but still lagged behind recent Democratic administrations.

Pew also found that Trump had appointed fewer non-white federal judges than other recent presidents.

Blocked nominee faults Islamophobia

But not everyone praised the Senate’s advice-and-consent role in evaluating federal nominees. Adeel Mangi, the first Muslim American to be nominated for the appeals court level, criticized Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for asking Islamophobic questions.

In a letter to Biden, published by the New York Times and other outlets, Mangi slammed the process as “fundamentally broken” and questioned the reasoning behind three Democratic senators who joined Republicans in opposing him.

“This is no longer a system for evaluating fitness for judicial office. It is now a channel for the raising of money based on performative McCarthyism before video cameras, and for the dissemination of dark-money-funded attacks that especially target minorities,” wrote Mangi, of New Jersey, whom Biden nominated for a position on the Philadelphia-based Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Other blocked nominations included Julia M. Lipez of Maine, nominated for the First Circuit, Karla M. Campbell of Tennessee for the Sixth Circuit, and Ryan Young Park of North Carolina for the Fourth Circuit. 

Eric Lee Peterson, of Kansas City, Missouri, pleaded guilty to knowingly and unlawfully entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In this Department of Justice photo, he is shown during the U.S. Capitol attack. (Photo from U.S. Department of Justice court filing)

WASHINGTON — A Kansas City, Missouri, man who pleaded guilty to entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and expects a pardon from President-elect Donald Trump will be allowed to attend Trump’s inauguration, a federal judge ordered Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over Trump’s election subversion case in the District of Columbia, granted Eric Lee Peterson’s request to attend the president-elect’s swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C., as well as a request to expand his local travel restrictions while on bond.

Peterson’s attorney Michael Bullotta argued in a motion filed Tuesday that his client deserved the exceptions because he does not have a criminal record and “(h)is offense was entering and remaining in the Capitol for about 8 minutes without proper authorization.”

“Apart from being reasonable on their face, these two modification requests are even more appropriate in light of the incoming Trump administration’s confirmations that President Trump will fully pardon those in Mr. Peterson’s position on his first day in office on January 20, 2025. Thus, his scheduled sentencing hearing before this Court on January 27, 2025 will likely be rendered moot,” Bullotta wrote.

Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to pardon the Jan. 6 defendants, whom he exalted as “patriots,” “warriors” and “hostages.”

The president-elect said during a Dec. 8 interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” that he’s “going to be acting very quickly” to pardon the defendants on day one — though he indicated he might make exceptions “if somebody was radical, crazy.”

During that interview, Trump also threatened imprisonment for former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and current Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who together oversaw the congressional committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack.

Peterson pleaded guilty to knowingly and unlawfully entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, for which he faces up to one year in prison, plus a fine.

As part of the plea, he agreed to pay $500 in restitution toward the estimated $2.8 million in damages to the Capitol, according to court filings. Peterson also agreed to hand over to authorities access to all of his social media communication on and around the date of the riot.

Approximately 1,572 people faced federal charges following the attack on the Capitol that stopped Congress for hours from certifying the 2020 presidential election victory for Joe Biden.

Lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence evacuated to secured locations within the Capitol as rioters assaulted roughly 140 police officers and vandalized several parts of the building, including lawmakers’ offices.

Peterson is among the 996 defendants who pleaded guilty to charges, according to the latest Department of Justice data.

Peterson appeared on both surveillance video from inside the Capitol and publicly available third-party video taken outside the building during the riot, according to a statement of offense signed by Peterson on Oct. 29.

Peterson, in a pink t-shirt over a dark hooded sweatshirt, stood among the crowd of rioters outside the locked Rotunda doors “as the building alarm audibly blared from within the Capitol building,” according to the statement.

Further, the court filing states Peterson entered the building at 3:03 p.m. Eastern and “walked right by a police officer posted at the doors.”

While inside the Rotunda, where several U.S. Capitol Police were present, Peterson took cell phone photos. He exited the building at 3:11 p.m., but remained on the Capitol’s restricted Upper West Terrace afterward, according to the statement.

Peterson was arrested in early August and originally faced a total of four charges that included disorderly conduct and parading, picketing and demonstrating inside the Capitol.

The Pentagon is seen during a military flyover on May 2, 2020. The U.S. Senate on Wednesday cleared the annual defense authorization bill. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Ned T. Johnston/Released)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday cleared a national defense authorization bill celebrated for troop pay raises but condemned by Democrats for targeting transgender children in military families, sending the bill to President Joe Biden’s desk.

Senators voted 85-14, with one, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, not voting, to approve the $884.9 billion National Defense Authorization Act that received bipartisan praise for the pay bump, upgrades to military housing and investments in artificial intelligence and other advanced technology.

But the annual legislation drew ire this year from Democrats for a provision banning the military’s health program from covering certain treatments for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, defined by doctors as the mismatch between a person’s sex assigned at birth and the gender they experience in everyday life.

The U.S. House passed the defense package Dec. 11 with a bipartisan 241-180 vote.

The White House has not released its position on the bill, as it generally does with legislation ready for the president’s signature.

Wednesday’s Senate vote marks the 64th year in a row Congress has passed the defense package, a historically bipartisan process.

This year’s vote breakdown did not stray far from the Senate tallies for the defense legislation over the last five years.

The bill does not release funding for the Pentagon, but rather it outlines how any defense money will be spent. Congress will need to approve allocation of dollars in separate appropriations legislation.

Gender care

A short section tucked in the 1,800-page policy roadmap for 2025 bans military TRICARE health insurance coverage for service members’ children who seek “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization.”

Democrats maintain the ban will affect thousands of military families, though the Pentagon has declined to comment on any figures. The Pentagon also did not respond to a second inquiry from States Newsroom about whether the Defense Department tracks numbers of service members’ transgender children.

Treatment for gender dysphoria can include mental health measures, hormone therapy and surgery.

The provision comes as more than 20 states have banned or limited gender-affirming care for transgender minors, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The UCLA School of Law Williams Institute found that 113,900 youths aged 13 to 17 live in states that ban such treatments.

While the bill does not specifically delineate the types of interventions it intends to prohibit, a publicly available summary from the GOP-led House Armed Services Committee named “hormones and puberty blockers.” The summary, titled “Restoring the Focus of Our Military on Lethality,” also highlighted language in the legislation to ban certain race-related education in Defense institutions and a freeze on any Pentagon diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, hiring.

Sen. Jack Reed, chair of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, said he shared his Democratic colleagues’ frustrations and characterized the ban on care coverage for transgender youth, which he voted against during the committee process, as “misguided.”

“Ultimately, though, we have before us a very strong National Defense Authorization Act. I am confident it will provide the Department of Defense and our military men and women with the resources they need to meet and defeat the national security threats we face now,” Reed, of Rhode Island, said on the floor ahead of the vote.

Sen. Roger Wicker, the committee’s ranking member, praised the “immense accomplishments” in the defense package, including the 4.5% pay bump for all service members, plus an extra 10% raise for the most junior enlisted troops.

“We made investments in Junior ROTC and recruitment capabilities, both of which will help solve the military’s manpower crisis. This bill stops the Department of Defense from paying for puberty blockers and hormone therapies for children. We blocked the teaching of critical race theory in military programming, and we froze diversity equity and inclusion hiring,” the Mississippi Republican said before voting commenced.

‘Cheap political points’

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the first openly LGBTQ person elected to the Senate, said on the floor Tuesday that for the first time in her 12 years in the Senate, she would oppose the annual defense bill.

The Wisconsin Democrat, who voted against the bill Wednesday, said the commitment to the historically bipartisan exercise was “broken because some Republicans decided that gutting the rights of our service members to score cheap political points was more worthy.”

“Some folks estimate that this will impact between 6,000 and 7,000 families in the military. I, for one, trust these service members and their families to make their own decisions about health care without politicians butting in,” she continued.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer asked to withdraw Baldwin’s amendment to strip the language from the legislation. The request was approved immediately before Wednesday’s vote without a challenge. The leader’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the withdrawn amendment.

Twenty Democratic senators initially co-sponsored the amendment. They include Alex Padilla of California, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith of Minnesota, Cory Booker and Andy Kim of New Jersey, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Patty Murray of Washington.

Kim, a former U.S. representative who was sworn in as a senator on Dec. 9, said House Speaker Mike Johnson’s insistence on the transgender provision in the bill “undermines trust in negotiations and sets a dangerous precedent for what is widely considered the last true space of traditional bipartisan legislation.”

“We are putting politics into a bill where it simply does not belong,” Kim said on the floor Tuesday.

Kim ultimately voted in support of the bill.

The chair of the GOP-led House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, told Capitol Hill reporters last week that Johnson did not consult him before keeping the language in the final version.

The U.S. Capitol. surrounded by fog, on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House handily approved the annual defense policy bill Wednesday, despite late opposition from Democrats over a provision that bans military health insurance coverage for service members’ children seeking transgender care.

Lawmakers passed the historically bipartisan package 241-180. In the end, 81 Democrats supported the bill, and 16 Republicans voted against it. The measure now heads to the Senate.

Congress has approved the must-pass legislation for 63 years straight. President Joe Biden has not issued a statement yet on whether he will sign it into law.

The $884.9 billion bill includes a 4.5% pay increase for all troops, and an additional 10% bump for the military’s most junior enlisted ranks, from private to corporal. The bill also outlines improvements in military housing and child care.

The massive package is a policy bill, meaning it does not provide the Pentagon with funding but rather enshrines the Defense Department’s goals for the upcoming fiscal year. Congressional appropriators still need to approve any actual spending.

‘Lives of thousands of children at risk’

Among the Democrats who opposed the final legislation was the House Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith. In a statement after the vote, Smith said he couldn’t vote yes, though there was “much to celebrate” in the text.

“However, the corrosive effect of Speaker Johnson’s insistence on including a harmful provision puts the lives of thousands of children at risk by denying them health care and may force thousands of service members to choose between continuing their military service or leaving to ensure their child can get the health care they need. This will be felt for generations to come,” Smith, of Washington state, said.

All Democrats present for a procedural step to advance the bill Tuesday voted against the defense package.

A four-line provision into the 1,800-page bill bans military TRICARE health insurance coverage for service members’ children who seek “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization.”

Treatment for gender dysphoria — an incongruence between a person’s sex assigned at birth and current gender expression — includes mental health measures, hormone therapy and surgery. The bill does not define which treatments are banned.

Smith, on the floor ahead of the vote, said the measure was included for “ignorant, bigoted reasons against the trans community,” and that it “taints an otherwise excellent piece of legislation.”

House speaker touts ban

Alabama’s Rep. Mike Rogers, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday that House Speaker Mike Johnson “didn’t talk to me about it” before including the provision in the final text.

Johnson, of Louisiana, touted the measure Tuesday, as well as other provisions that freeze hiring of diversity, equity and inclusion positions, and prohibit federal funds for certain race relations education in Defense Department institutions.

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson criticized the House’s approval of the measure in the final bill, saying military members were used as “bargaining chips” for the issue.

“Military servicemembers and their families wake up every day and sacrifice more than most of us will ever understand. Those families protect our right to live freely and with dignity – they deserve that same right, and the freedom to access the care their children need,” Robinson said. 

“Today, politicians in the House betrayed our nation’s promise to those who serve. Not since the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’ passed almost 30 years ago has an anti-LGBTQ+ policy been enshrined into federal law. For the thousands of families impacted, this isn’t about politics. It’s about young people who deserve our support,” the campaign’s president continued.

Space Force controversy

Another provision in the bill will transfer certain Air National Guard functions and personnel to Space Force without permission from state governors — a measure that stirred opposition.

Roughly 1,000 Air National Guard space professionals serve in 14 units across seven states, according to the National Guard Association of the United States, which panned the measure.

The move could affect up to 33 personnel in Alaska, 126 in California, 119 in Colorado, 75 in Florida, 130 in Hawaii and 69 in Ohio.

Retired Maj. Gen. Francis M. McGinn, president of the National Guard Association, said in a statement Monday that the provision is an “existential threat to state authority over the National Guard.”

An amendment to strike the provision offered by Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado failed in the House Rules Committee on Monday.

New requirements for blast exposure

The final bill also included a measure to prevent, assess and treat conditions, including traumatic brain injuries, suffered by service members repeatedly exposed to explosion pressure waves.

The legislation requires the Defense Department to establish the Defense Intrepid Network for Traumatic Brain Injury and Brain Health no later than Jan. 1, 2026. Other mandates include creating safety thresholds for blast exposure by early 2027, and establishing policies to encourage service members to seek treatment, without fear of retaliation, for brain trauma.

The department will also be required to report back to Congress on the safety initiatives and numbers of service members who seek treatment, among other data.

The safety provisions were championed this year by Sens. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, and Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, as well as House Democrat Ro Khanna of California.

States Newsroom interviewed a Washington state Purple Heart recipient in May who was among more than 100 troops who suffered traumatic brain injuries following an Iranian air strike on the U.S. Al Asad Airbase in Iraq in January 2020.

On the campaign trail in October, President-elect Donald Trump downplayed those troops’ injuries as “headaches.” That was not the first time Trump had disparaged the troops’ injuries stemming from the 2020 attack.

An aerial view of the The Pentagon, May 12, 2021. (Department of Defense photo by Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brittany A. Chase)

This story mentions suicide. If you or a loved one are suffering from thoughts of self-harm, dial 988 or visit 988lifeline.org to live chat with a mental health professional.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats will face a tough vote this week on the final compromise annual defense bill that includes pay raises for troops but also bans coverage for U.S. service members’ children who seek transgender care.

All Democrats present Tuesday opposed a procedural vote, 211-207, to advance the historically bipartisan legislation, but will need to contend with a final vote as early as Wednesday. Congress has enacted the annual package for the last 63 years.

Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Armed Services, said in a statement he plans to vote against the massive defense policy bill.

The Washington state lawmaker said that “blanketly denying health care to people who need it — just because of a biased notion against transgender people — is wrong.”

“The inclusion of this harmful provision puts the lives of children at risk and may force thousands of service members to make the choice of continuing their military service or leaving to ensure their child can get the health care they need,” Smith said following the procedural vote.

President Joe Biden has not indicated whether he will sign the bill into law.

Pay raise, housing upgrades

The nearly $900 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025 is set to green-light an across-the-board 4.5% pay raise to troops, plus a 10% pay hike in April for the military’s most junior soldiers.

The bill would also pave the way for upgrades in military housing and new protocols for preventing and assessing traumatic brain injuries caused by blast exposure.

Also making it into the bill’s final version were a few far-right wishlist items, including a hiring freeze on diversity, equity and inclusion positions, and a prohibition on any federal dollars used for so-called “critical race theory” in military education — though the section carves out academic freedom protections for instructors.

Trans coverage prohibition

Gaining the most attention is a four-line provision in the 1,800-page package that would expressly prohibit coverage for minors under the military’s TRICARE health program for “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization.” The bill does not define which interventions would be prohibited.

Gender dysphoria is defined by the medical community as incongruence between a person’s expressed gender and their sex assigned at birth. The experience often leads to mental distress, including increased risk of self-harm, according to the medical literature.

The chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, urged Democrats to vote no on the final package.

“For a party whose members constantly decry ‘big government,’ nothing is more hypocritical than hijacking the NDAA to override servicemembers’ decisions, in consultation with medical professionals and their children, about what medical care is best for their transgender kids,” Pocan said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, one of the bill’s managers, spoke on the House floor Tuesday, decrying the provision that “fails to acknowledge that the lack of care leads to death, leads to suicide.”

The New Mexico Democrat accused House Republicans of thinking they know “better than the parent and the doctor as to what care your child should get. That is insulting to our Marines, to those who serve in our Navy, to those who are deployed overseas and in our bases around our own country.”

Speaker praises TRICARE ban

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, during his weekly press conference Tuesday, praised “landmark investments” and the pay increase included in the bill.

“It’s really important right now. We improved housing for our military families and other benefits, and it’s also why we stopped funds from going to CRT in our military academies. We banned TRICARE from prescribing treatments that would ultimately sterilize our kids, and we gutted the DEI bureaucracy,” said the Louisiana Republican.

A Democrat-led effort to strike the transgender coverage provision failed Monday in the House Committee on Rules.

Smith told the committee that the provision is “fundamentally wrong” because gender dysphoria is widely recognized by medical professionals.

“The treatments that are available for it, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy, and also psychiatric help, have proven to be incredibly effective at helping young people, minors, who are dealing with suicidal thoughts, dealing with causes of massive confusion that have led them to have anxiety and depression,” said Smith.

Treatment options include mental health therapy, hormone therapy and surgery, though the World Professional Association for Transgender Health only recommends adolescent surgery under narrow circumstances that must meet numerous criteria. Some gender-affirming surgery causes sterilization, and the association recommends counseling for adolescents and their families about limited options to preserve fertility.

Smith told the committee Monday that anywhere from 6,000 to 7,000 children of U.S. service members are currently receiving treatment for gender dysphoria. The House Armed Services Committee did not respond to a request for further explanation of that number.

Gender-affirming care was not covered by military health insurance for service members’ children until September 2016. A statistical analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics in March 2019 concluded that just over 2,500 military-affiliated youth received the treatment between October 2009 and April 2017 during roughly 6,700 separate office visits.

Donald Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump wants to jail former and current members of Congress who investigated his incitement of the violent Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and he plans to pardon the rioters immediately upon taking office, he told NBC News Sunday.

On the network’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” Trump said leaders of the special congressional panel that probed the Capitol riot “lied” and “should go to jail.”

Trump singled out committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and a senior Black member of Congress, and former high-ranking House Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who co-chaired the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.

“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” Trump told NBC host Welker. 

Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump, walked back the president-elect’s comments Monday. Miller told CNN that Trump’s remarks about jailing Jan. 6 committee members were taken out of context and that he just wants his administration to “apply the law equally” to everybody.

President Joe Biden is reportedly mulling preemptive pardons for Cheney and former Democratic Congressman and incoming Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who also sat on the panel, along with others who could be targeted by the new Trump administration, according to media reports citing anonymous White House sources.

Trump takes office Jan. 20.

Cheney: ‘Here is the truth’

In a statement Sunday, Cheney described Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 as “the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history.”

“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” Cheney said. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten, and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.”

The Justice Department charged just over 1,560 people for taking part in the attack. Among those, 210 were found guilty at trial, and 979 pleaded guilty to charges that included assaulting police officers, trespassing and bringing deadly weapons to the Capitol, according to the most recent department data. That means it’s possible more than 1,000 individuals could be pardoned, depending on Trump’s decisions.

“As proven in Court, the weapons used and carried on Capitol grounds include firearms; OC spray; tasers; edged weapons, including a sword, axes, hatchets, and knives; and makeshift weapons, such as destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks, stolen riot shields, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping, and reinforced knuckle gloves,” according to the Justice Department.

Thompson said Monday the committee members “are simply not afraid of his most recent threats.”

“Our committee was fully authorized by the House, all rules were properly followed, and our work product stands on its own. In fact, in the two years since we have completed our work, no court or legal body has refuted it,” Thompson said in a statement provided Monday to States Newsroom.

“Donald Trump and his minions can make all the assertions they want – but no election, no conspiracy theory, no pardon, and no threat of vengeful prosecution can rewrite history or wipe away his responsibility for the deadly violence on that horrific day. We stood up to him before, and we will continue to do so,” said Thompson, who has served as the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security for the past two years.

Pardons on day one

Trump told Welker that he intends to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office. He said they violently attacked police officers because “they had no choice” and that their lives have been “destroyed” after facing charges for their actions.

During the wide-ranging interview Trump also blamed former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the attack and repeated debunked claims that “antifa” activists were part of a conspiracy to bait his supporters into attacking.

Video from Trump’s speech that day show him rallying his supporters to march to the Capitol and urge Congress to “do the right thing” by refusing to certify Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.

Trump also falsely told Welker that the Jan. 6 committee destroyed its investigative material and evidence.

In fact, hundreds of witness interview transcripts, videos and online exhibits are publicly available. The committee’s work culminated in a nearly 900-page final report that remains available online, and can be easily found with a simple internet search.

Kinzinger: ‘We did nothing wrong’

Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the only other Republican who sat on the Jan. 6 committee, said Sunday in a statement that Trump’s threat is “nothing more than the desperate howl of a man who knows history will regard him with shame.

“Let me be clear: we did nothing wrong. The January 6 Committee’s work was driven by facts, the Constitution, and the pursuit of accountability — principles that seem foreign to Trump,” Kinzinger, of Illinois, published on Substack.

Trump did not specifically name Kinzinger during his interview.

The White House did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on Biden’s reported consideration of preemptive pardons.

A replica of the U.S. Capitol made out of gingerbread, and featuring the official state flowers of all 50 states, is pictured on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The holiday season kicked off on Capitol Hill this week with the official Christmas tree lighting ceremony and the unveiling of a gingerbread replica of the U.S. Capitol — complete with sugar flowers representing all 50 states.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and the Alaska congressional delegation illuminated the 80-foot 2024 Capitol Christmas Tree on the West Front lawn Tuesday evening.

Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska said the tree “is a really good substitute to give you a sense of our majestic state.”

“Imagine tens of thousands of trees just like this blanketed in several feet of snow. It’s a magical place, it’s a magical time of year, and for us Alaskans, this is a slice of home right here in the capital,” Sullivan said.

The Sitka spruce, Alaska’s official state tree, was harvested on Oct. 19 from the Tongass National Forest on Zarembo Island.  A self-contained watering system built by local high school students kept the tree alive on its weeks-long journey to Washington, D.C.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska recounted for the ceremony crowd the tree’s 752-mile trip by sea and more than 4,000-mile truck ride through the lower 48 states. Murkowski and Sullivan praised the “masterful driving” by Teamster truckers Fred Austin and John Schank, who delivered the tree safely to the Capitol.

“You think about the logistics. This is a huge, massive tree. It did not come in parts that are assembled. So it (arrived) on one huge 80-foot-plus flatbed,” Murkowski said.

“You can’t get this thing around corners and do it easily,” Murkowski added.

Fourth-grader Rose Burke of Kenai, Alaska, who won Murkowski’s essay contest, read her piece of writing titled “Alaska’s Christmas Tree” before helping Johnson switch on scores of colored lights.

The tree is adorned with thousands of handmade ornaments created by Alaskan school students and community volunteers.  Historian and Teehitaan clan leader Mike Aak’wtaatseen Hoyt designed a logo for the tree featuring the Tlingit words “kayéil’, sagú and ka toowúk’é,” which means “peace, happiness, and joy” in English.

The tree will be lit from sundown to 11 p.m. Eastern every day through Jan. 1. The Capitol tree lighting ceremony began in 1964.

Gingerbread Capitol

Another holiday tradition is underway in the Cannon House Office Building. A gingerbread model of the U.S. Capitol was wheeled into the building’s rotunda Sunday. The 8th annual deliciously scented replica, themed “United in Bloom,” presents a snowy scene brightened by the official flowers from each of the 50 states.

Just over 350 flowers, crafted from sugar, stand out from the white fondant and icing snow. The flowers alone took more than 100 hours of labor by pastry chef Audrey Angeles, owner of the local Frost and Flourish Bakery and Patisserie.

The gingerbread model was constructed by a team of six culinary professionals led by Fred Johnson III, senior contract administrator with the Office of the U.S. House Chief Administrative Officer and a native of Norwalk, Ohio.

Johnson, who led a long and distinguished career cooking for U.S. military personnel and President Barack Obama, has baked and constructed the gingerbread replica since 2017. This year’s model is made of 125 pounds of gingerbread that Johnson baked in an oven on the Capitol complex grounds.

Johnson said his team of pastry chefs added roughly 30 pounds of fondant icing to decorate 365-degrees around the model, the first time the team has done so as the replica is usually displayed against a wall. Visitors will see a detailed fondant carousel and will again be able to spot pandas in the display — a nod to their return to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

“I think the success of this year’s model was allowing people to come up with their ideas and just do it,” Johnson said.

The team worked each Sunday for six weeks decorating and detailing the entirely edible model that features white candy cane pillars and Isomalt windows.

“The dome was the one thing that stressed me out in 2017,” Johnson said.

He’s since developed a system to mold the dome out of Rice Krispies Treats and form the gingerbread around it and cut the windows. Through a careful process of freezing, baking and peeling, Johnson can place the dome on top.

“I’ve got it down to a science now,” Johnson said.

The gingerbread Capitol will be on display throughout the holiday season.

This article has been updated with a recent change in title for Fred Johnson.

President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House on Nov. 13, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — With less than two months to go until his inauguration, President-elect Donald Trump will sign an overdue agreement with the Biden White House meant to help smooth the transition between incoming and outgoing administrations.

Trump’s new Chief of Staff Susie Wiles issued a statement Tuesday saying now that Trump’s Cabinet choices are made, the president-elect “is entering the next phase of his administration’s transition by executing a Memorandum of Understanding with President Joe Biden’s White House.”

“This engagement allows our intended Cabinet nominees to begin critical preparations, including the deployment of landing teams to every department and agency, and complete the orderly transition of power,” Wiles said.

Two agreements

The negotiated agreement with the White House to establish a presidential candidate’s access to federal agencies as well as an ethics code was due by Oct. 1.

Additionally, an agreement with the U.S. General Services Administration to access government-provided transition funding, office space and other resources was due by Sept. 1.

The items are required under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, and its later amendments as recently as 2019. A condition of the agreements, and the funding they release, is that nominees must disclose all transition fundraising dollars, which are kept separate from campaign funds. The law caps individual contributions to transitions at $5,000.

Presidential transition funds are usually a combination of private funding and federally appropriated dollars. For example, in 2020 and 2021, Congress provided just under $20 million, according to the Center for Presidential Transition.

Accompanying Wiles’ statement Tuesday were seven bullet points summarizing the transition agreement with the White House. According to the summary, Trump’s team will wholly privately fund its transition “to save taxpayers’ hard-earned money” and will later disclose the list of contributions.

Trump’s team also announced it will not use government buildings or technology available for transition operations and instead will be a “self-sufficient organization.”

Working from Florida

The president-elect and his personnel have been conducting meetings and announcing Cabinet picks from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The team’s code of ethical conduct published Tuesday on the GSA website appears under the name “Trump Vance 2025 Transition, Inc.”

The president-elect’s Tuesday press release stated that the Trump-Vance transition’s ethics plan “will meet the requirements for personnel to seamlessly move into the Trump Administration.”

By law, the ethics plan must be publicly available and must disclose whether lobbyists or foreign agents are part of the transition team and identify any other conflicts of interests by those involved, as well as commitments to keep nonpublic government information confidential and not to use insider knowledge learned during the transition for personal gain.

The Trump-Vance team did not provide any additional portions of the agreement with the White House upon request from States Newsroom.

The transition team did not respond to a request for a timeline of when transition contributions will be made public.

U.S. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith moved Monday to drop the two federal prosecutions of former President Donald Trump following Trump’s victory in this month’s presidential election.  (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The federal election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump is over, at least during his forthcoming presidency.

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the case’s dismissal late Monday afternoon after U.S. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith requested to dismiss the case without prejudice — meaning it could be tried again in the future once Trump’s term is over.

Trump had faced four felony counts relating to fraud and obstruction for his role in scheming to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, which eventually erupted into political violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith also filed a dismissal request Monday in Florida to drop the case pertaining to Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.

Citing the Justice Department’s “careful consideration” of the unprecedented situation, Smith told federal courts in Florida and Washington, D.C., that it would be unconstitutional for his office to continue prosecuting the incoming president, who is set to take the oath of office on Jan. 20.

“(T)he Department and the country have never faced the circumstance here, where a federal indictment against a private citizen has been returned by a grand jury and a criminal prosecution is already underway when the defendant is elected President,” Smith wrote in a filing in federal court in D.C.

A federal grand jury handed up an indictment of Trump in August 2023 and a superseding indictment this past August.

Despite the prohibition on continuing the case against Trump, Smith wrote that the government “stands fully behind” the foundation of it.

“The Government’s position on the merits of the defendant’s prosecution has not changed,” Smith wrote. “But the circumstances have…”

A Trump representative hailed Smith’s decision as a “major victory for the rule of law.”

“The American People and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said in a statement Monday.

The question of prosecuting a president has come up twice in recent U.S. history, but only while that president was already in office. Both times — in 1973, under President Richard Nixon, and in 2000, during Bill Clinton’s administration — the Justice Department blocked cases, citing constitutional constraints and harm to the president’s ability to perform the role.

Classified documents case

The special counsel also requested to drop the government’s appeal to pursue charges against Trump for his alleged hoarding of classified documents at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office.

Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed the case in July.

Smith will continue the appeal against Trump’s two co-defendants, Trump’s valet Waltine Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Olivera, who are also accused of mishandling the classified material.

The federal investigations were two of four criminal prosecutions that Trump faced while campaigning to win back the presidency.

Trump made history in May as the first former president to become a convicted felon when he was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York. The case centered on Trump’s cover-up of hush money paid to an adult film actress ahead of his election in 2016. His sentencing, scheduled for Tuesday, has been indefinitely postponed.

Trump’s criminal election interference investigation in Georgia has been in a prolonged holding pattern during a drawn-out dispute over the prosecutor’s ethics. While Trump’s Georgia prosecution will likely be dropped, the state could continue its case against the 14 co-defendants. 

Hedge fund manager Scott Bessent will be nominated as Treasury secretary by President-elect Donald Trump, Trump said Friday. In this photo, Bessent attends the second day of the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, July 12, 2017 in Sun Valley, Idaho. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Wall Street veteran Scott Bessent to be the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Trump announced Friday night.

If confirmed by the Senate to be the department’s 79th secretary, Bessent will face a record-high national debt of $36 trillion, and the possibility of more as tax cuts are high on the to-do list for Trump and Republican lawmakers in 2025. He has no previous experience in government.

The position overseeing the nation’s finances was among the last major Cabinet posts Trump had yet to announce, and deliberations for the post were reportedly contentious at times.

Trump said in a statement that Bessent will “help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States as we fortify our position as the World’s leading Economy, Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurialism, Destination for Capital, while always, and without question, maintaining the U.S. Dollar as the Reserve Currency of the World.”

“Unlike in past Administrations, we will ensure that no Americans will be left behind in the next and Greatest Economic Boom, and Scott will lead that effort for me, and the Great People of the United States of America,” Trump continued.

Bessent is the founder of the hedge fund Key Square Management, which Forbes reports had less than $600 million in assets as of the end of 2023. The South Carolina native and Yale graduate is a member of the Economic Club of New York and an advocate for one of Trump’s major campaign promises — tariffs.

In an opinion piece he wrote for Fox News published just one week ago, Bessent praised tariffs as a “useful tool” and “significant” revenue raiser.

“The truth is that other countries have taken advantage of the U.S.’s openness for far too long, because we allowed them to. Tariffs are a means to finally stand up for Americans,” Bessent wrote.

Trump campaigned on levying at least 10% tariffs on all foreign products and steep targeted tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports upwards of 60%.

Treasury functions

The Treasury Department manages government accounts and debt, collects taxes, issues currency, and investigates financial crimes, among other duties. The agency has over 100,000 employees based in the United States and across the globe, and has requested a $14.4 billion budget for fiscal year 2025.

As the nation’s borrowing power is once again capped next year, a large focus of the Treasury secretary may be working with the White House and Congress on raising the so-called debt ceiling. The secretary will be tasked with determining the date at which the U.S. coffers run too low to pay the bills, putting the nation’s creditworthiness at risk.

The department’s several bureaus and offices include the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions. The U.S. has designated thousands of Russian individuals, banks and entities to be on OFAC’s sanctions lists and continues to do so amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The agency’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, investigates financial transaction data, including suspicious activity reports legally required of banks if they suspect tax evasion, money laundering or terrorist financing.

The South Portico of the White House is seen Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

WASHINGTON — Less than two months before being sworn into office, President-elect Donald Trump has yet to sign the presidential transition paperwork that unlocks critical clearances, information and access to White House resources for his transition team.

Political experts say this is worrisome because history shows the period early in a presidency can be a vulnerable time for a new administration, and the point of easing the transition is so a new president’s staff can access government offices early and avoid problems.

Trump, who has rapidly announced senior staff and Cabinet picks over the last 15 days, has still not finalized multiple agreements that are foundational for his team to begin receiving confidential information and briefings across all federal agencies, as well as millions of dollars in transition resources, including office space and staff assistance.

The Trump-Vance transition team has not responded to multiple requests for a status update on the agreements. Transition spokesperson Brian Hughes told States Newsroom in an email Nov. 11 that the team’s lawyers “continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris Administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act. We will update you once a decision is made.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that the “teams continue to stay in touch.”

“So we’re going to continue to engage with the Trump transition team to ensure that we do have that efficient, effective transition of power,” she said.

The White House did not respond for further comment Friday.

President Joe Biden met with Trump at the White House on Nov. 13 to discuss the transition.

‘Absolutely critical’

The agreements are “absolutely critical,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, whose expertise as a senior fellow with the University of Virginia’s Miller Center focuses on presidential transitions.

One document missing signatures from the president-elect and his team is a memorandum of understanding with the current White House administration. The agreement allows incoming personnel to meet with designated transition staff at each federal agency.

“Without signing it by law, they cannot access these government offices, so that means zero briefings. To me, that’s really dangerous,” Tenpas said in response to a States Newsroom question Thursday at a Brookings Institution panel on planning and staffing during presidential transitions. Tenpas is also director of Brookings’ Katzmann Initiative on Improving Interbranch Relations in Government.

Tenpas cited the Miller Center’s First Year Project findings that crises have occurred during the initial phases of past presidential administrations. No one could forget that the horrific 9/11 attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center occurred within eight months of President George W. Bush taking office.

Tenpas also noted that a little over one month into former President Bill Clinton’s first term, terrorists exploded a bomb in the World Trade Center’s parking garage. Less than eight months later, fighters in Somalia shot down two American Black Hawk helicopters, killing 18 U.S. troops and injuring dozens more.

Reaching back decades, President John F. Kennedy lost more than 100 troops in the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 and more than 10 times as many were taken hostage. Kennedy had just taken office in January 1961.

“So there are all these historical incidents that indicate that this first year is a really vulnerable moment for the United States,” Tenpas said, adding that current geopolitical events suggest now is “not a time where you need to be lackadaisical.”

Transition process and law

The Presidential Transition Act of 1963, and its subsequent amendments, outline the legal requirements for the hand-off of power between outgoing and incoming leaders.

The process begins nearly two years before an election, when the U.S. General Services Administration designates a federal transition coordinator who later reports to Congress on how the process is going. The GSA becomes a liaison for the process as the election nears, according to the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service.

Six months before an election, the current administration establishes a White House Transition Coordinating Council and readies each federal agency for the change.

No later than Sept. 1 during a general election year, the GSA and eligible presidential nominees are required to sign a memorandum of understanding to access office space and administrative support.

An agreement between the nominees and White House is then required by Oct. 1. The memo finalizes access to federal agencies and makes public a transition team’s ethics plans and how they will be implemented.

Transition materials from the current administration are required to be in process no later than Nov. 1.

The Trump team has blown past these deadlines.

The memoranda are publicly available, and records show that Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign submitted an ethics plan and the agreement with the GSA.

A condition for the agreements, and the funding they release, is that nominees must disclose all transition fundraising dollars, which are kept separate from campaign funds. Individual contributions to transitions are capped at $5,000.

Separately, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 allows eligible candidates to submit security clearance requests for prospective transition team members ahead of the election so that determinations can be made the day after a victory is announced.

Former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., left,  President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be attorney general, walks alongside Vice President-elect J.D. Vance as they arrive for meetings with senators at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 20, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Republicans on a U.S. House ethics panel Wednesday opposed the public release of a long-awaited report on Matt Gaetz, a former House member who is now the nominee for U.S. attorney general, according to the panel’s top Democrat, Susan Wild.

The outgoing Pennsylvania congresswoman told reporters that the evenly divided 10-member House Committee on Ethics took a vote but split along party lines. The report contains findings on whether Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other allegations involving gifts and privileges.

President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement last week that he intends to nominate Gaetz to the nation’s highest law enforcement position set off a maelstrom on Capitol Hill over whether the ethics panel should release its report after Gaetz abruptly resigned his Florida seat, effectively halting the probe.

Ethics Committee Chair Michael Guest said after the lengthy closed-door meeting that “there was not an agreement by the committee to release the report.”

Guest, a Mississippi Republican, told reporters the panel would meet again but did not provide details.

Wild vehemently disputed Guest’s statement to a group of reporters shortly afterward, calling it  “inaccurate.”

“I do not want the American public or anyone else to think that Mr. Guest’s characterization of what transpired today would be some sort of indication that the committee had unanimity or consensus on this issue,” Wild said.

Committee inquiry since 2021

Gaetz, who denies all allegations, has been under the committee probe since April 2021. The former congressman was also investigated by the Department of Justice for sex trafficking but was never charged.

ABC News reported Wednesday that it obtained financial records reviewed by the Ethics Committee showing that Gaetz paid two women, who were later witnesses in both the ethics and Justice Department probes, roughly $10,000 between 2017 and 2019.

An attorney for one woman who testified before the committee told NBC News Friday that his client witnessed Gaetz having sex with a minor at an Orlando house party.

House Democrats urged the ethics panel to release the report. Democratic Reps. Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Sean Casten of Illinois introduced resolutions on the House floor late Wednesday to force the panel to release its findings.

Several Democrats wrote Tuesday to Guest and Wild that “there is precedent for the House and Senate ethics committees to continue their investigations and release findings after a member has resigned in a scandal.”

“Given the seriousness of the charges against Representative Gaetz, withholding the findings of your investigation may jeopardize the Senate’s ability to provide fully informed, constitutionally required advice and consent regarding this nomination,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter led by Casten and signed by dozens of others.

The nomination for U.S. attorney general requires vetting by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a favorable confirmation vote on the Senate floor. Republicans will gain control of the chamber in January.

Vance accompanies Gaetz to meetings

On the other side of the Capitol, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance ushered Gaetz to private meetings with Senate Republicans.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member, released a statement Wednesday morning following his “very good meeting” with Gaetz.

“This process will not be a rubber stamp nor will it be driven by a lynch mob,” the South Carolina Republican said. “My record is clear. I tend to defer to presidential Cabinet choices unless the evidence suggests disqualification. I fear the process surrounding the Gaetz nomination is turning into an angry mob, and unverified allegations are being treated as if they are true.”

A half hour before his meeting with Vance and Gaetz, GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told reporters the House should “follow the rules” regarding releasing the Gaetz ethics findings.

“Now I don’t know exactly what the House rules are. I’m told that if a member resigns, the report is not made public, but I also have read there have been exceptions to that. So the short answer is, I don’t know,” said Kennedy, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Having said that, the Judiciary Committee staff properly vets all of our nominees, and it’s been my experience in Washington that this place leaks like a wet paper bag,” Kennedy continued. “So I would assume that anything that’s out there will likely be made public. I’m not predicting that, but I’m not gonna faint with surprise if that happens.” 

Howard Lutnick, left, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, was tapped by President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday to be Commerce secretary in Trump's second administration. Lutnick is shown in this photo at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Oct. 27, 2024. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday he will nominate transition co-chair and billionaire businessman Howard Lutnick as the country’s next secretary of Commerce, a position that will have a hand in shaping Trump’s tariff policies.

If confirmed by the Senate, Lutnick would lead a 13-bureau department that houses the U.S. International Trade Commission, where tariff policy is managed. Trump campaigned on levying at least 10% tariffs on all foreign products and steep targeted tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports upwards of 60%.

“He will lead our Tariff and Trade Agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative,” Trump said in a brief statement on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Trump also praised Lutnick’s role on his transition team, crediting him with creating “the most sophisticated process and system to assist us in creating the greatest Administration America has ever seen.”

Lutnick is CEO of the large financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost more than 650 employees in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City’s World Trade Center. Lutnick became known for rebuilding the company afterward and establishing a multimillion-dollar fund for the victims’ families.

The CEO is a backer of cryptocurrency and reportedly was in the running for Trump’s choice for Treasury secretary, though according to The Bulwark, lost the bid because he annoyed advisers at Mar-a-Lago. Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been tapped by Trump to lead a not-yet-defined commission to evaluate government spending, backed Lutnick for the Treasury post.

Lutnick was a featured speaker at Trump’s October Madison Square Garden campaign rally, an event infamous for a comedian calling Puerto Rico “an island of garbage” and where former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson joked about Vice President Kamala Harris’ race.

“We must elect Donald J. Trump president because we must crush jihad,” Lutnick said on stage after telling the story of losing employees on 9/11.

During his speech, Lutnick assailed income taxes and advocated for a return to the “rockin’” U.S. economy at the turn of the 20th century.

“All we had was tariffs, and we had so much money that we had the  greatest businessmen of America get together to try to figure out how to spend it,” Lutnick said.

The United States is now “letting the rest of the world eat our lunch,” Lutnick said.

Lutnick, who spoke before Musk took the stage, introduced the fellow billionaire as “the greatest capitalist in the United States of America” and bantered with him about cutting $2 trillion in federal spending.

Economists across the political spectrum warn increasing tariffs will cost typical American households up to $2,600 annually and potentially cause a trade war.

President-elect Donald Trump, at the time a candidate for president, speaks on May 28, 2022 in Casper, Wyoming. (Photo by Chet Strange/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Consequences for President-elect Donald Trump’s guilty conviction in a New York state case will be years away, as prosecutors signaled they will not oppose suspending the lawsuit while the incoming 47th president carries out his four years in the Oval Office.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg wrote Tuesday that he will fight Trump’s request to toss the case altogether. But Bragg said he will not get in the way of a stay, or pause, on the proceedings.

“Given the need to balance competing constitutional interests, consideration must be given to various non-dismissal options that may address any concerns raised by the pendency of a post-trial criminal proceeding during the presidency, such as deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end of Defendant’s upcoming presidential term,” Bragg wrote in a memo that had been due Tuesday to New York Judge Juan Merchan.

Bragg requested that motions be due Dec. 9. Trump still has a criminal sentencing date on the calendar for Nov. 26, unless Merchan orders otherwise.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung declared “a total and definitive victory” in a statement issued shortly after Bragg’s letter became public.

“The Manhattan DA has conceded that this Witch Hunt cannot continue. The lawless case is now stayed, and President Trump’s legal team is moving to get it dismissed once and for all,” said Cheung.

History-making conviction

Trump, the first former president to become a convicted felon, was found guilty in May of 34 felonies for falsifying business records related to paying off porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election to hide a decade-old sexual encounter with her at a Lake Tahoe golf club.

The likely delay of Trump’s sentencing while he serves as president brings to a close, if temporarily, the only one of Trump’s criminal cases that went to trial.

The case, brought by Bragg’s office, was among four criminal cases the then-former president faced as he campaigned to again occupy the Oval Office. Trump also faced several civil lawsuits and now stares down roughly half a billion dollars in damages for committing fraud, defamation and sexual abuse.

As Trump readies to take the oath of office in just two months, U.S. Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith’s office is also winding down its two federal cases against Trump, as the department does not prosecute sitting presidents.

The federal cases include fraud and obstruction charges stemming from Trump’s actions to undermine his 2020 election loss, which culminated in a violent attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The other case, appealed by Smith after a federal judge tossed it, revolved around charges that the then-former president unlawfully took and stockpiled classified documents at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate upon leaving the White House.

Not the first delay in NY

Each of the 34 class E felonies Trump is convicted of carries a penalty of up to four years, according to the New York penal code.

Trump’s sentencing date was twice delayed. Merchan granted Trump’s request in September to delay the criminal sentencing until after November’s presidential election.

Merchan had already delayed Trump’s initial July sentencing date following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision ordering that former presidents are immune from criminal charges for core constitutional duties, and presumed immune for other actions while in office. The court’s opinion also brought into question what types of evidence can be admitted in criminal cases against former presidents.

Trump asked Merchan to “set aside” the guilty verdict almost immediately after the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. Merchan has yet to rule on the motion.

New York prosecutors and Trump’s defense team on Nov. 12 jointly asked Merchan to delay all proceedings while the prosecutors decide if and how their case would proceed following Trump’s election victory.