Trump, Vance still back embattled Hegseth; Biden ‘reviewing’ preemptive pardons before White House exit: Live – UK Times

Pardons are usually issued to those who have been accused of a specific crime and those who have already been convicted. But Biden’s White House is looking at is the possibility of issuing pardons to people who haven’t been investigated or charged with anything.

Gustaf Kilander explains.

CBS has filed its motion to dismiss Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the network over the episode of 60 Minutes in which Kamala Harris was interviewed ahead of the election.

Network lawyers say the suit it was wrongly filed in Amarillo, Texas — believed to be because Trump would get the case in front of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, whom he nominated.

They argue: “If this district has personal jurisdiction on the facts alleged, so too does every district court in the country. That is not the law.”

Donald Trump’s campaign pledged to be a champion for the working class. He ran campaign ads vowing to lift up the “hardest working citizens.” The Republican National Convention even put the spotlight on “everyday Americans.”

But his incoming administration reflects a government run by billionaires, stuffed with Wall Street fixtures, investment bankers, real estate developers and oil executives, all within reach of power to slash services that millions of poor and vulnerable Americans depend on.

Donald Trump’s aides have suggested that Iowa Senator Joni Ernst may be trying to sink the nomination of Pete Hegseth as defense secretary so that she can get the job instead.

American politicians like to talk about why their country is different from all others, with the clear implication that it is better. And when they talk about the idea of American exceptionalism, they tend to use a biblical phrase – first used by one of the Puritans who came over on the Mayflower – that America is “the shining city on a hill”.

It’s a metaphorical allusion, but in Washington, DC, it is – sort of – literal. The top of Capitol Hill does indeed shine with the magnificent, gleaming marble and white stone of the Congress. And just across the road the equally imposing Supreme Court, itself a neoclassical masterpiece: the pinnacle of the justice system in the United States.

But has the rule of law in America ever looked so battered and tattered? Shining city? You’re having a laugh.

A high-profile Democrat who rose to power during Donald Trump’s first term wants to begin his second as the ranking minority member of the powerful House Oversight Committee, continuing a generational shift among House Democrats in the wake of Trump’s 2024 election victory.

In a letter to the House Democratic Caucus, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she is asking for their support to lead their party’s side of the committee, which is the lower chamber’s principal investigatory arm with the power to look into “any matter,” even those under the jurisdiction of other standing committees.

“We certainly hope” to slash the number of federal agencies from 428 to 99, as Musk has vowed, Johnson said in response to a question from Fox News host Martha McCallum in an interview Wednesday night. “We want to be willing partners in that,” he added.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was inevitably asked about President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter: “I know what I said. I know what the president said. That is where we were at the time. That is where the president was at the time… He wrestled with it and made his decision… Circumstances have changed.”

She added: “This was not easy for the president. It wasn’t, it wasn’t. Because you all read the statements we made over the summer.”

“He laid out his thought process. He talked about the underlying facts of the case…. I don’t have anything beyond that.”

At White House briefing. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre remarked on today’s positive jobs report, showing 227,000 jobs were added in November: “​On Tuesday the president will deliver a speech in DC on his economic record and legacy… Trump will inherit an economy primed for growth.”