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Christopher Wray Will Resign So Trump Can't Fire Him
FBI Directors are appointed for 10-year terms and the current director, Christopher Wray, has 3 more years left. Nevertheless, since he knows that Donald Trump will fire him on Jan. 20 (despite his having been appointed by Trump and been confirmed by every Republican senator), he decided to fall on his sword and go out on his own terms by resigning at the end of Joe Biden's term. He could have forced Trump to fire him, which would have made him a hero to some people, but decided not to play the hero game.
His decision to go quietly rather than resist—and possibly sue Trump, claiming that Trump has no power to fire him—has upset some people in the Bureau. Trump has basically redefined the position of director as a partisan appointee, no different from the secretary of HHS. It used to be that the Director was supposed to be above politics, hence the 10-year term. That is now history. It won't be easy to put the genie back in the bottle.
The grandstanding has already begun. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), an Opportunist First Class, said: "I mean, he's the worst FBI director in American history, he should go." Hawley is too young to remember J. Edgar Hoover, who ran a lawless agency answering to no one, which he used to persecute Americans he didn't like. What Hawley didn't explore is how Trump could pick such allegedly terrible people for high positions. Could it be that Trump has awful judgment? Hawley didn't bring that up.
Democrats were aghast. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) tweeted: "Wray's resignation has resulted from raw political pressure that is repugnant to our justice system. It vastly heightens the hazards of weaponizing the FBI for political or personal ends—which should be an anathema to all my colleagues, regardless of party." Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said he was disappointed by Wray's departure and called on Trump to install a director who has a commitment to fairness, transparency, and the rule of law.
Trump has said he will nominate Kash Patel as the new director. Patel has no relevant experience and has openly said he will use his position to go after Trump's enemies, both politicians and journalists. He may or may not be able to get them, since the U.S. still has things like courts and trials, but Patel will undoubtedly manage to destroy the FBI's image as an organization with integrity devoted to upholding the law. However, Patel's confirmation is not a sure thing as a number of senators have doubts about him. (V)
Trump Working to Snuff Out the Opposition
It is starting to get scary. Yesterday, we noted that Don Donald was beginning to act like any other mafia don. He has pressured Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) into making nice to Pete Hegseth despite his history of paying hush money to a woman he sexually assaulted and Ernst's history of being a survivor of sexual assault. It's only going to get worse. It's RINO-hunting season and every Republican who doesn't bow down is in danger of losing his or her job (and maybe more). Here is the photo from the front of Politico's website yesterday:
Note the wording of the headline. That was not a slip of the pen. The writer almost certainly chose that phrasing, with all its implications, with care. Also note the document on the lectern. What may have "convinced" Ernst to get in line was an op-ed written by very Trumpy Iowa AG Brenna Bird (R) telling the senators to vote for Trump's entire cabinet—or else. While most people don't know who Brenna Bird is, Ernst certainly does. Bird is the person who will primary Ernst next year if Ernst fails to obey her betters. And you can be sure Bird will be extremely well funded. Of course, Bird may primary Ernst, even if the Senator does fall in line. Trump would much rather have senators who are true believers than senators who are just pretending to be on the team while secretly thinking about how to sabotage it.
Talk about primaries is not just idle threats. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), one of the four remaining senators who voted to convict Trump after he was impeached, just drew a primary challenger—just after Louisiana got rid of its jungle primary and replaced it with partisan primaries. Cassidy probably won't be the last. Being lukewarm is not good enough. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) received a warning from MAGA activist and Trump insider Charlie Kirk for merely saying that he had no complaints about current FBI Director Christopher Wray. DOGEy Elon Musk was more explicit, saying: "Those who oppose reform will lose their primary/election." Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said that colleagues who oppose Trump don't belong in the Senate. Corey Lewandowski said: "There will be no resource that we won't use to target senators who stymie Trump's nominations."
While Trump is serious about primaries, most senators know that no elected senator has lost a primary since 2012. It is very tough to unseat a sitting senator. Threats to do so may even backfire by causing the senator to appear to cooperate while working to sabotage Trump under the radar. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) even said: " I don't think it makes more loyal senators out of people. Senators are not slouches. I don't know many wimpy senators." Ultimately, many of the things Trump wants cost money and in the end, Congress controls the purse strings. A few extra sentences can sneak into a bill or be deleted from a bill a few minutes before it is voted on and stuff like that.
Everyone is keeping a close eye on three senators in particular. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) is up in 2026 in a blue state. She may draw the popular Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) as her opponent. Mills knows very well that her Democratic neighbors from New Hampshire, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, were governors before they became senators. If Trump gets a super Trumper to primary Collins, all that does is guarantee a Sen. Mills. Collins knows this, too. It's a big game of chicken. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) knows that he narrowly escaped defeat in 2020 because his opponent, Cal Cunningham, had a zipper management problem. If he faces popular Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) in 2026, he could lose that one. These two are between a rock and a hard place. And finally, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will probably retire in 2026, so he can't be bullied with a primary threat. If the nominees lose one more senator, the nominees go down. It could be close on some of them. (V)
Deportations Might Actually Happen
Donald Trump plans on signing 25 XOs on Day 1. He wants to hit the ground running and give the impression that there is a new sheriff in town and from now on, things will be different.
One batch relates to immigration. He will give immigration officers more authority to arrest people, send U.S. troops to the border, start building more wall, and more. He will also send Congress requests for legislation to do things that cannot be done by executive orders. One specific item is a new budget that includes much more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for more and stronger barriers, more technology at the border, and more agents and equipment. The budget bill will use the reconciliation process, which cannot be filibustered. The border will be overseen by Tom Homan, who actually understands this stuff. Stephen Miller has said this could be the biggest policy achievement in 50 years.
The next step is mass deportations. Could it happen? Sure. President Eisenhower deported over a million undocumented immigrants during Operation Wetback in 1954. Here is a photo of some of the deportees:
However, Trump is talking about doing deportations on a scale 10x bigger than Eisenhower did. That will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and decimate entire sectors of the economy. A large fraction of slaughterhouse workers are undocumented. They are easy to round up to deport. How will people, even Trump voters, respond when meat prices skyrocket? There are also many undocumented workers in agriculture. How will those Trump voters respond when the price of veggies also heads toward the moon?
Nevertheless, Trump is clearly intending to try. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham (R) has offered to lease a 1,400-acre ranch on the Texas-Mexico border near Rio Grande City to use as a holding pen for deportees. The Land Commission purchased the ranch in October and has already started construction of a mile-and-a-half wall on the border. Buckingham is eager to work with the federal government to build holding facilities on the ranch to help speed up deportations.
Also related to immigration, another thing Trump wants to do on Day 1 is start the process of abolishing birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. This is not something Congress can do, and even the current Supreme Court is not likely to allow it to be abolished by anything short of repealing (part of) the Fourteenth Amendment. Trump hasn't specified what he actually wants done.
Nevertheless, immigration-related matters aren't the only thing for Day 1. He also wants to "drill, drill, drill" and "frack, frack, frack," to increase domestic energy production. At the very least, he could order the bureaucracy to approve all drilling permit requests within 30 days. He also wants to ban the teaching of critical race theory in all K-12 schools—even though virtually no school even mentions it. Also on the list is banning D.E.I. programs run by federal contractors. Lifting some of Joe Biden's XOs relating to special protections for transgender students is also on the list. It will be a busy first day. It will be an equally busy day at the U.S. District Court in D.C. on Day 2, when all the lawsuits against the XOs are filed. (V)
Will Trump Have a Working Majority in the Senate?
Donald Trump has big plans for the country, some of which require cooperation from the Senate or from both chambers of Congress. The Republicans have 53 seats in the upper chamber, but who will be sitting in those seats is not clear in two cases: Ohio and Florida. With such a small margin, it might matter.
On Jan. 20, when Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) becomes Vice President J.D. Vance, Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) will get to pick who gets to sit in Vance's seat. That person will have to face the voters in 2026 in order to fill out Vance's term, which ends on Jan. 3, 2029. But for two years, DeWine's pick will be a senator. DeWine does not like Trump at all. And he certainly does not like the way Vance and Trump made up a story about legal immigrants in Springfield, OH, eating cats and dogs. DeWine has several things to consider and Trump's feelings are not high on the list.
On top of the list is keeping the seat red. DeWine knows that just-defeated Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) might run to get back in the Senate in 2026 and he would be a tough opponent, so DeWine can't pick a placeholder. Among other choices, he has Lt. Gov. Jon Husted (R-OH), AG Dave Yost, SoS Frank LaRose, state Sen. Matt Dolan, and others. Dolan is not at all Trumpy, but his family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, so he could self-fund the 2026 race. If DeWine picks Dolan, Trump will have a fit, but DeWine will just tell him that Dolan would be the strongest candidate against Brown in 2026. But there is more. DeWine is term limited in 2026 and would like his lieutenant, Husted, to succeed him. This means getting Yost out of the way. Sending him to the Senate would get him out of the way. It's complicated and DeWine hasn't tipped his hand yet. The new senator from Ohio could be very Trumpy or not at all Trumpy.
Assuming Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is confirmed as secretary of state, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) gets to replace him until the 2026 special election to fill out Rubio's term, which, like Vance's, ends on Jan. 3, 2029. DeSantis has a vision of beating Vance in the 2028 primaries and he doesn't want Trump to actively endorse Vance. So he has to make nice to him. Trump wants DeSantis to appoint Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, to Rubio's seat, even though Lara is from North Carolina and has no ties to Florida. DeSantis is almost as transactional as Trump and would demand something very concrete in return. The position of secretary of defense would do, thank you very much. However, the current nominee, Pete Hegseth, might yet get confirmed, which would mess up the plan. DeSantis could obviously name himself to the seat, of course, which would anger Trump but give himself a power base in 2028, when he will no longer be governor.
Another possible appointee is Florida AG Ashley Moody, a former Democrat who once sued Trump for fraud over a condo deal. She is now quite Trumpy. Another plus point for Moody is that DeSantis' chief of staff, James Uthmeier, wants her job. It's all very complicated. (V)
Hush-Money Case Is Not Over...
Donald Trump has been convicted on 34 counts of violating New York state commercial law for cooking the books to hide hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. This is a state case and does not fall under the DoJ policy of not indicting sitting presidents. Were Trump not president-elect, he would have been sentenced already. But he is president-elect, so what happens next? Putting a president in a state prison would probably not fly.
Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg opposes dismissing the case outright and letting Trump off the hook. He just filed an 82-page brief opposing Trump's request to throw the case out. The brief does not specify what Bragg wants, but offers Judge Juan Merchan a menu of options. Bragg argues strongly that a jury convicted Trump on 34 counts and just throwing out a jury's clear verdict endangers the entire trial-by-jury system.
One option is to freeze the case in place, to be continued on Jan. 20, 2029, when Trump leaves office. There are several mechanisms available in New York State Law for doing this. In one, the courts just pick up from where they left off later on. In another option, the case is stopped, the guilty verdict remains on the books forever, but no sentencing takes place. It is also possible, but unlikely, that Merchan sentences Trump to pay a fine before Jan. 20, and if he does, the case is over and Trump remains a convicted felon who was punished for his crimes. (V)
...Nor Is Letitia James' Bank Fraud Case
While he was asking for his various state cases to go away, Donald Trump also requested NY AG Letitia James to drop her case in the name of national unity. You know, the one in which Judge Engoron ordered him to pay a penalty that is now up to $486 million for defrauding New York banks. Trump said that with the case pending, he wouldn't be able to be a good president and deport enough immigrants—or something.
Guess what? James said: "Nope." Well, the official response from her office was a bit longer: "There is no merit to your claim that the pendency of defendants' own appeal will impede Mr. Trump's official duties as President. The trial is over, final judgment has been rendered, and defendants' appeal to the First Department has been fully submitted and argued. Mr. Trump's official duties will not be impeded while awaiting the First Department's decision."
The First Department referred to is the appeals court that now has the case. This is a civil case and further it predates Trump's first term in office, so there is no case whatsoever that it even needs to be paused during Trump v2.0. The judge's decision was made in February. He fined Trump $354 million, but due to interest, the judgment now stands at $486 million. Trump appealed the decision. Eventually, the appeals court will make a decision. If it upholds the lower court decision, then Trump could file an appeal to the top state court, the New York Court of Appeals. However, that court is not obligated to take the case. Trump could also attempt to appeal to the federal courts, but since the case is about a violation of New York commercial law, it doesn't raise a lot of federal issues.
Suppose the First Dept. sustains Engoron's ruling and the Court of Appeals doesn't want to take the case. Then Trump will be ordered to pay up. What happens then? The judge can't very well send the local cops to the White House to arrest Trump. What the judge could potentially do is order the New York County recorder to transfer some of Trump's real estate holdings to the State of New York and then order them auctioned off. Needless to say, Trump wouldn't like that and what would happen next is rather unprecedented. (V)
The Fall Heard Round the World
On Tuesday, Mitch McConnell fell at the Capitol and sustained minor injuries. He was back at work later in the day.
Nevertheless, McConnell's health issues could have far-reaching consequences. It has already happened at least twice that McConnell froze for 30 seconds while speaking in public. These incidents could have been TIAs, but McConnell has never explained them and never released any medical reports. There may have been more, just not in public. Now he fell. This could be the final straw for McConnell. Sometime early next year he could announce that he is not running for reelection in 2026 and will leave the Senate on Jan. 3, 2027.
There would be multiple consequences to this. First, Donald Trump's primary weapon is the primary. When a member of Congress refuses to do his bidding, he always threatens a primary. But that wouldn't work with McConnell if he has already announced that he is retiring. With no sword of Damocles hanging over his head, McConnell could spend the next 2 years openly opposing Trump on anything he doesn't like and not have to worry about the consequences. Trump couldn't threaten McConnell with financial ruin, either, because his wife, Elaine Chao, is a multimillionaire many times over. Together with Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, McConnell could force 50-50 votes in the Senate, and if they could find one more senator with a spine, could block some of Trump's worst plans.
But there is more. If McConnell decides to retire, there will be an open seat election in Kentucky in 2026. It is possible that term-limited Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), who has already won three statewide elections in Kentucky, could enter the race and win. If the Democrats hold all their own seats in 2026 and knock off Collins and Thom Tillis (a tall order, but not impossible if Trump is deeply unpopular then), the next Senate would be 50-50, giving every Republican senator a veto over Trump's plans for the second half of his term. In addition, if Beshear runs and wins, that sets him up as a serious presidential candidate in 2028, potentially changing who might succeed Trump in the White House. So, a lot is riding on McConnell's health. (V)
Whose Team Is Luigi Mangione On?
Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of interest in the ideology of Luigi Mangione, the young man who has been charged with killing United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a planned assassination. Right-wingers want to show that he was a pinko Commie who hates private enterprise. Many left-wingers see him as a folk hero who has brought the topic of health care to the front pages. There is much at stake, depending on who he really is.
As it turns out, Mangione has a long and detailed online history. However, his many postings don't leave a clear picture of him and what he wants. What is known about him is that he was a high school valedictorian, Ivy League-educated data engineer, avid gamer, fitness buff, backpacker, amateur philosopher and a victim of debilitating back pain.
There is something for everyone in his online footprints. Conservatives see an anti-capitalist San Francisco liberal. Progressives see an anti-woke rich kid who was bedazzled by right-wing futurists. His politics are complicated, though, so neither one is completely correct and he will not be a good poster boy for either one, except maybe as an example of why parts for ghost guns should be banned.
The most tantalizing bit of information about him is that he had chronic back pain and had spinal fusion surgery in July 2023, at a very early age, so it must have been severe. A key question is whether his health insurance company refused to pay for it. If so, we would have a motive for the killing, but so far we don't know who he was insured with and whether they paid for the operation. Either way, this may prove disappointing to the left unless more turns up. What they would like to discover is that a close friend or relative died because United Healthcare refused treatment for him or her and that resulted in the person's death, so Mangione was just following the Bible: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a corpse for a corpse. The one thing you can be sure of is that as more facts come out, people will try to twist them to serve their political ends.
Since Mangione is in custody and has been charged, there will certainly be a trial. His wealthy family can afford the best lawyers money can buy. It will be interesting to see what Mangione's strategy will be at the trial. Trying to deny that he pulled the trigger probably won't work. Instead, he could try for jury nullification by arguing that Thompson led to many people's deaths by denying healthcare they had paid for, so he deserved to die. Juries aren't supposed to do that and judges instruct them not to do that, but if one rogue juror simply votes not guilty over and over and over and over, eventually the judge will have to call a mistrial. The government could try again, but with the publicity of a mistrial out there, one or more rogue jurors who had never heard about jury nullification could do the same thing the next time. And the time after that. Eventually, the government might just decide prosecutors had better things to do and give up. Trying for mistrial after mistrial might well be Mangione's best strategy. (V)
Dave McCormick Is a Man with a Plan
Democrats lost four Senate seats in November: Montana, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. The first three of these are in red states. What is surprising is how long the Democrats held on, staving off the inevitable. There is no dishonor in losing a Senate race in a state that went for Donald Trump by 12 points, as did Montana. In fact, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) did pretty well, losing by only 7 points.
But Pennsylvania is an elephant of a different color. Sen.-elect Dave McCormick—a hedge fund CEO who lives in Connecticut—eked out a victory in the ultimate swing state. How did he do it, Republicans are asking, and can his magic formula be used in other states? Maybe, but not everyone will be able to pull it off.
As late as October, McCormick's team realized that there was a large group of young men who were not engaged politically. In fact, they had never even heard of him and were not planning to vote at all. They believed that all politicians are the same and they are all corrupt, so why bother voting? McCormick's team felt that if they could get to this group, they could win them over.
How could a man whose father was a college president, whose mother was a college professor, who grew up in wealth, who earned a Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton, and who was CEO of one of the largest hedge funds in the world ever convince disaffected young men he was their guy?
Well, he had one special thing going for him that not everyone has. He attended and graduated from West Point. His degree was in mechanical engineering, so after graduating, the Army sent him to Iraq during the Gulf War to supervise 130 soldiers who were assigned the task of clearing minefields. On Oct. 20, his campaign manager put him on a predawn flight to West Point. Normally, Senate candidates never leave the state that late, so it was a big gamble. He made an ad there that simply talks about the West Point code: "duty, honor, country." Nothing about politics or his positions on anything or his exceptionally privileged background. They ran the ad, it got unengaged young men engaged, and he won by 16,000 votes.
Not all Republican Senate candidates went to West Point, so cloning the ad won't work. But the larger messages are: (1) unengaged voters can be activated if you go after them and (2) the strategy is not to talk about politics or plans or anything like that. Just show that you are patriotic.
Democrats are not so sure about that. They point out that Trump won Pennsylvania by a much larger margin than he did any of the other swing states, so it could have been Trump's coattails that did the job, not McCormick's last-minute ad. Also, McCormick performed worse than other Republicans on the state ballot, including candidates for attorney general and treasurer. Finally, many Democrats think that it was McCormick's money and the $55 million his friends gave him that did the job. They used the money to buy ads on college and pro football games, even obscure ones like Boise State vs. University of Hawaii. It's hard to tell, but maybe getting through to unengaged voters is the magic bullet... or maybe that's just a red herring. (V)
Judge Rules The Onion Can't Buy InfoWars
After 20 children and 7 adults were gunned down at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, Alex Jones went on his InfoWars show and called it a hoax staged by actors. The parents of the murdered children sued Jones, won the case, and were awarded $1.5 billion in damages. Jones filed for bankruptcy and the court ordered InfoWars' name and facilities to be auctioned off to partially settle the judgment. The satirical website The Onion bid $1.75 million and won the auction. It planned to turn it into a parody site.
Jones claimed there was collusion at the auction and there was a bench hearing on the matter. On Tuesday, Judge Christopher Lopez voided the sale, saying the other ways to sell Jones' property could have produced more money for the parents of the slain children. It was a bit complicated, because a company that produces nutritional supplements, and which is a heavy advertiser on InfoWars, bid $3.5 million. However, the parents agreed to forego $750,000 of the auction proceeds due them and were willing to give it to other creditors who would otherwise get nothing.
Since InfoWars still belongs to Jones, he is continuing to use it to dish up outlandish conspiracy theories too swampy for even the most right-wing of the right-wing news outlets. The judge didn't call for a new auction, but said the bankruptcy trustee should decide what to do next. Meanwhile Jones gets a bit of breathing room until the trustee makes his next move. (V)
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