Politics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday he has chosen congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon to serve as his labor secretary.

Trump said Chavez-DeRemer has worked “tirelessly” with business and labor to build the U.S. workforce and support Americans.

“I look forward to working with her to create tremendous opportunity for American Workers, to expand training and apprenticeships, to grow wages and improve working conditions, to bring back our Manufacturing jobs,” Trump said in a statement.

Chavez-DeRemer, who was elected to Congress in 2022, lost her seat to Democrat Janelle Bynum earlier this month. (This story has been refiled to properly capitalize DeRemer in the headline)

(Reporting by Jasper Ward)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday that he has choosing former State Department official Alex Wong to serve as deputy national security adviser.

Wong, who served as deputy special representative for North Korea during the first Trump administration, “helped negotiate my Summit with North Korean Leader, Kim Jong Un,” Trump said in a statement.

Trump also chose Sebastian Gorka to serve as White House senior director for counterterrorism, saying he had more than 30 years of national security experience.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward; editing by Costas Pitas)

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By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday announced Dave Weldon, a former congressman and a medical doctor, as his choice for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a sweeping agency with a $17.3 billion budget used as a public health model around the world.

The CDC tracks and responds to infectious disease outbreaks, including recommending licensed vaccines such as routine vaccines used in childhood and those given during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Weldon, 71, served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Florida’s 15th district from 1995-2009. He did not seek reelection in 2008.

“Dave will proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose, and will work to end the Chronic Disease Epidemic,” Trump said in a statement.

Started in 1946 to combat the spread of malaria in the United States, the CDC is now charged with providing leadership, information and scientific expertise in preventing and controlling a range of disease in addition to managing infectious disease outbreaks. Roughly two thirds of its budget funds state and local health agencies’ public health and prevention activities.

A key role of the agency and one that infectious disease experts are watching closely is its role in reviewing and making recommendations about the use of licensed vaccines, aided by a panel of outside experts known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Those recommendations are then reviewed by the CDC director who has the authority to accept or overrule them.

The CDC director reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a role for which Trump has selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an avowed vaccine skeptic and critic of the CDC.

Unlike past appointments, the CDC director post will require Senate confirmation starting in 2025 due to a provision in the recent omnibus budget.

Weldon would replace Dr. Mandy Cohen, an internal medicine physician and former chief of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, where she led the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CDC has roughly 12,000 full time employees and a discretionary budget of $9.248 billion in 2024.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; additional reporting by Costas Pitas; editing by Rami Ayyub and Leslie Adler)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday he has picked NFL veteran Scott Turner to serve as housing and urban development secretary.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward)

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WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Attorneys for Fox Corp. asked a Delaware judge Friday to dismiss a shareholder lawsuit seeking to hold current and former company officials personally liable for the financial fallout stemming from Fox News reports regarding alleged vote rigging in the 2020 election.

Five New York City public employee pension funds, along with Oregon’s public employee retirement fund, allege that former chairman Rupert Murdoch and other Fox Corp. leaders deliberately turned a blind eye to liability risks posed by reporting false claims of vote rigging by election technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic USA.

Smartmatic is suing Fox News for defamation in New York, alleging damages of $2.7 billion. It recently settled a lawsuit in the District of Columbia against One America News Network, another conservative outlet, over reports of vote fraud.

Dominion also filed several defamation lawsuits against those who spread conspiracy theories blaming its election equipment for Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. Last year, Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion in Delaware for $787 million.

The shareholder plaintiffs also allege that Fox corporate leaders ignored “red flags” about liability arising from a 2017 report suggesting that Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, may have been killed because he had leaked Democratic party emails to Wikileaks during the 2016 presidential campaign. Rich, 27, was shot in 2016 in Washington, D.C., in what authorities have said was an attempted robbery.

Fox News retracted the Seth Rich story a week after its initial broadcast, but Rich’s parents sued the network for falsely portraying their son as a criminal and traitor. Fox News settled the lawsuit in 2020 for “millions of dollars,” shortly before program hosts Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity were to be deposed, according to the shareholder lawsuit.

Joel Friedlander, an attorney for the institutional shareholders, argued that Fox officials waited until the company’s reporting about Rich became a national scandal before addressing the issue. Similarly, according to the shareholders, corporate officials, including Rupert Murdoch and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, allowed Fox News to continue broadcasting false narratives about the 2020 election, despite internal communications suggesting that they knew there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories.

“The Murdochs could have minimized future monetary exposure, but they chose not to,” Friedlander said. Instead, he argued, they engaged in “bad-faith decision making” with other defendants in a profit-driven effort to retain viewers and remain in Trump’s good graces.

“Decisions were made at the highest level to promote pro-Trump conspiracy theories without editorial control,” Friedlander said.

Defense attorneys argue that the case should be dismissed because the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit without first demanding that the Fox Corp. board take action, as required under Delaware law. They say the plaintiffs also failed to demonstrate that a pre-suit demand on the Fox board would have been futile because at least half of the directors face a substantial likelihood of liability or are not independent of someone who does.

Beyond the “demand futility” issue, defense attorneys also argue that allegations that Fox officials breached their fiduciary duties fail to meet the pleading standards under Delaware and therefore should be dismissed.

Defense attorney William Savitt argued, for example, that neither the Rich settlement, which he described as “immaterial,” nor the allegedly defamatory statements about Dominion and Smartmatic constitute red flags putting directors on notice about the risk of defamation liability. Nor do they demonstrate that directors acted in bad faith or that Fox “utterly failed” to implement and monitor a system to report and mitigate legal risks, including defamation liability risk, according to the defendants.

Savitt noted that the Rich article was promptly retracted, and that the settlement included no admission of liability. The Dominion and Smartmatic statements, meanwhile, gave rise themselves to the currently liability issues and therefore can not serve as red flags about future liability risks, according to the defendants.

“A ‘red flag’ must be what the term commonly implies — warning of a risk of a liability-causing event that allows the directors to take action to avert the event, not notice that a liability-causing event has already occurred,” defense attorneys wrote in their motion to dismiss.

Defense attorneys also say there are no factual allegations to support claims that Fox officials condoned illegal conduct in pursuit of corporate profits, or that they deliberately ignored their oversight responsibilities. They note that a “bad outcome” is not sufficient to demonstrate “bad faith.”

Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster is expected to rule within 90 days.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general, was chosen by Donald Trump to serve as U.S. attorney general hours after his first choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew from consideration after a federal sex trafficking investigation and ethics probe made his ability to be confirmed dubious.

The 59-year-old has long been in Trump’s orbit and her name had been floated during his first term as a potential candidate for the nation’s highest law enforcement role. Trump announced his plans to nominate Bondi Thursday in a social media post.

If confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, Bondi would instantly become one of the most closely watched members of Trump’s Cabinet given the Republican’s threat to pursue retribution against perceived adversaries and concern among Democrats that he will look to bend the Justice Department to his will.

Here’s a few things to know about Bondi:

Bondi has been a longtime and early ally. In March 2016, on the eve of the Republican primary in Florida, Bondi endorsed Trump at a rally, picking him over the candidate from her own state, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

She gained national attention with appearances on Fox News as a defender of Trump and had a notable speaking spot at 2016 Republican National Convention as Trump became the party’s surprising nominee. During the remarks, some in the crowd began chanting “Lock her up” about Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Bondi responded by saying, “‘Lock her up,’ I love that.”

As Trump prepared to move into the White House, she served on his first transition team.

When Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was ousted in 2018, Bondi’s name was floated as a possible candidate for the job. Trump at the time said he would “love” Bondi to join the administration. He ultimately selected William Barr instead.

She kept a toehold in Trump’s orbit thereafter, including after he left office. She served as a chairwoman of America First Policy Institute, a think tank set up by former Trump administration staffers to lay the groundwork if he won a second term.

Bondi made history in 2010 when she was elected as Florida’s first female attorney general. Though the Tampa native spent more than 18 years as a prosecutor in the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office, she was a political unknown when she held the state’s top law enforcement job.

Bondi was elevated in the primary after she was endorsed by former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

She campaigned on a message to use the state’s top legal office in a robust way, challenging then-President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. She also called for her state to adopt Arizona’s “show me your papers” immigration law that sparked national debate.

As Florida’s top prosecutor, Bondi stressed human trafficking issues and urged tightening state laws against traffickers. She held the job from 2011 to 2019.

Bondi worked as a lobbyist for Ballard Partners, the powerful Florida-based firm where Trump’s campaign chief and incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was a partner. Her U.S. clients have included General Motors, the commissioner of Major League Baseball and a Christian anti-human-trafficking advocacy group.

She also lobbied for a Kuwaiti firm, according to Justice Department foreign agent filings and congressional lobbying documents. She registered as a foreign agent for the government of Qatar; her work was related to anti-human-trafficking efforts leading up to the World Cup, held in 2022.

Bondi also represented the KGL Investment Company KSCC, a Kuwaiti firm also known as KGLI, lobbying the White House, National Security Council, State Department and Congress on immigration policy, human rights and economic sanctions issues.

Bondi stepped away from lobbying to serve on Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial in 2020.

He was accused — but not convicted — of abuse of power for allegedly pressuring the president of Ukraine to investigate his Democratic rivals while crucial U.S. security aid was being withheld. He was also charged with obstruction of Congress for stonewalling investigative efforts.

Trump wanted Ukraine’s president to publicly commit to investigating Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. He pushed for the investigation while holding up nearly $400 million in military aid.

Bondi was brought on to bolster the White House’s messaging and communications. Trump and his allies sought to delegitimize the impeachment from the start, aiming to brush off the whole thing as a farce.

Bondi has been a vocal critic of the criminal cases against Trump as well as Jack Smith, the special counsel who charged Trump in two federal cases. In one radio appearance, she blasted Smith and other prosecutors who have charged Trump as “horrible” people she said were trying to make names for themselves by “going after Donald Trump and weaponizing our legal system.”

It’s unlikely that Bondi would be confirmed in time to overlap with Smith, who brought two federal indictments against Trump that are both expected to wind down before the incoming president takes office. Special counsels are expected to produce reports on their work that historically are made public, but it remains unclear when such a document might be released.

Bondi was also among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his hush money criminal trial in New York that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts.

As president, Trump demanded investigations into political opponents like Hillary Clinton and sought to use the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to advance his own interests, including in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Bondi appears likely to oblige him.

She would inherit a Justice Department expected to pivot sharply on civil rights, corporate enforcement and the prosecutions of hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — defendants whom Trump has pledged to pardon.

Bondi issued a public apology in 2013 while serving as attorney general after she sought to delay the execution of a convicted killer because it conflicted with a fundraiser for her reelection campaign.

The attorney general, representing the state in death row appeals, typically remains available on the date of execution cases in case of any last-minute legal issues.

Bondi later said she was wrong and sorry for requesting then-Gov. Rick Scott push back the execution of Marshall Lee Gore by three weeks.

Bondi personally solicited a 2013 political contribution from Trump as her office was weighing whether to join New York in suing over fraud allegations involving Trump University.

Trump cut a $25,000 check to a political committee supporting Bondi from his family’s charitable foundation, in violation of legal prohibitions against charities supporting partisan political activities. After the check came in, Bondi’s office nixed suing Trump’s company for fraud, citing insufficient grounds to proceed. Both Trump and Bondi denied wrongdoing.

Two days before being sworn in as president in January 2017, Trump paid $25 million to settle three lawsuits alleging Trump University defrauded its students.

Trump also paid a $2,500 fine to the IRS over the illegal political donation to support Bondi from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which he was forced to dissolve amid an investigation by the state of New York.

A Florida prosecutor assigned by then-GOP Gov. Rick Scott later determined there was insufficient evidence to support bribery charges against Trump and Bondi over the $25,000 donation.

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Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in central Mississippi and the state’s Delta and Gulf Coast areas will return to the polls Tuesday to resolve two judicial races in which no candidate received the vote majority needed in the Nov. 5 general election to avoid a runoff.

At stake are seats on Mississippi’s two highest courts, the state Supreme Court and the state Court of Appeals. Judges on both panels serve eight-year terms, the longest of any elected office in the state.

In the state Supreme Court race, Justice Jim Kitchens seeks a third term in District 1, also known as the Central District, which spans the state’s midsection from the Alabama border to the Delta region along the Mississippi River. Kitchens is the more senior of the Court’s two presiding justices, putting him next in line to serve as chief justice. He faces a challenge from Jenifer Branning, a Republican state senator in her third term. Branning was the top vote-getter in the general election, with 42% of the vote to 36% for Kitchens, with the rest split among three other candidates.

The courts are officially nonpartisan, but partisan fault lines have formed nonetheless in the Supreme Court race, with Democratic areas in the competitive district largely supporting Kitchens in the Nov. 5 election and Republican ones backing Branning. This was similar to the voting pattern in Kitchens’ 2016 reelection bid, when he won the support of the state’s Democratic areas and his opponent mainly drew support from Republican areas.

Branning has branded herself a “constitutional conservative” and rails against “liberal, activists judges” and “the radical left.” She has the endorsement of the state Republican Party.

Kitchens has issued dissents in high-profile death row appeals, including a September case in which he sided with a man on death row for a murder conviction where a key witness had since recanted her testimony. In 2018, he dissented in a pair of death row cases dealing with the use of the drug midazolam in state executions. Kitchens has the endorsement of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Action Fund, a civil rights organization.

Branning has had a sizable financial advantage over the incumbent since launching her campaign in February, thanks largely to a $250,000 personal loan she made to her campaign.

In the Court of Appeals race, Amy St. Pe’ and Jennifer Schloegel were the top two finishers in a competitive three-way contest on Nov. 5 to replace outgoing Judge Joel Smith. St. Pe’ placed first in the general election with 35% of the vote, followed by Schloegel with 33%. The Court’s 5th District is on the Gulf Coast in the southeastern corner of the state.

Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:

Mississippi’s general election runoff will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 8 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in runoff elections for seats on the state Supreme Court and state Appeals Court.

Any voter in Supreme Court District 1 or Appeals Court District 5 who registered for the Nov. 5 general election may participate in the general election runoff.

Although Mississippi is reliably Republican in statewide elections, the Supreme Court’s Central District is home to much of the state’s Democratic strongholds, including the Jackson area and the counties in the Mississippi Delta region. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden both carried the Central District in their 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, while Kamala Harris trailed Donald Trump by less than a percentage point in 2024.

In the general election, Branning led in 10 of the 11 counties Trump carried, while Kitchens carried 10 of the 11 counties that Harris, Biden and Clinton all won in their campaigns.

The 11 Trump counties made up about 62% of the total general election vote, compared to about 38% for the 11 Harris counties. In order to win, Kitchens would need to build on his leads in the counties he carried Nov. 5 and peel off enough of the votes cast for the three other candidates in areas that Trump won. That was his path to victory in his 2016 reelection race, when he carried the same 10 Harris/Biden/Clinton counties, as well as his home county of Copiah and six other counties.

The most populous of these Kitchens-Trump counties is Madison, which made up about 13% of the total district vote earlier this month. Kitchens carried Madison in 2016 with 50% of the vote but only received 36% this year, compared to 47% for Branning. Trump carried Madison three times, most recently with 57% of the vote. Kitchens also carried neighboring Leake and Scott counties in 2016, but Branning had outright vote majorities there on Nov. 5.

Warren County on the Mississippi River will be another key battleground in the race. Trump carried the county by close margins in 2016 and 2024 and lost by a close margin in 2020. Kitchens received 55% of the vote there in 2016, but Branning had a plurality there on election night.

The Court of Appeals race takes place in a district Trump carried three times with roughly 70% of the vote. The most populous areas to watch are the neighboring counties of Harrison (home of Biloxi and Gulfport) and Jackson (home of Pascagoula), both on the Gulf Coast.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

According to a September tally by the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office, there were about 609,000 active voters in Supreme Court District 1 and about 449,000 active voters in Court of Appeals District 5. Voters in Mississippi do not register by party.

The last time a state Supreme Court race advanced to a runoff was in 2016. About 339,000 votes were cast for that seat in the general election, but the total fell sharply to about 38,000 votes for the runoff held later that month.

In the Nov. 5 general election, turnout was about 54% of registered voters in the presidential race, about 48% in the state Supreme Court race and about 50% in the Court of Appeals race.

About 18% of votes were cast before Election Day in the 2020 general election and about 7% in the 2022 midterm elections.

As of Wednesday, a total of 4,021 ballots had been cast before the runoff election.

In the Nov. 5 general election, the AP first reported results at 8:19 p.m. ET, or 19 minutes after polls closed. The election night tabulation ended at 2:35 a.m. ET with about 93% of total votes counted.

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Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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By Daniel Wiessner and Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) – Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who were tapped by Republican President-elect Donald Trump to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, have revealed plans to wipe out scores of federal regulations crafted by what they say is an anti-democratic, unaccountable bureaucracy.

Getting rid of federal agency rules can be a monumental task, according to experts. Here is a look at the hurdles and legal challenges Trump could face if he follows through on the panel’s recommendations.

WHAT ARE DOGE’S PLANS?

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published on Nov. 20, Musk and Ramaswamy said they and “a lean team of small-government crusaders” embedded at federal agencies will review regulations to identify ones they deem invalid. The review will be guided by a pair of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that placed significant limits on agencies’ rulemaking powers, they said. 

DOGE will present its findings to Trump, who could issue executive orders immediately pausing enforcement of specific rules and directing agencies to repeal them, according to the op-ed. Federal regulations impact every facet of American society, from education, healthcare and immigration to environmental pollution, drug safety, tax policy and labor rights. 

Musk and Ramaswamy said DOGE will also recommend mass layoffs across federal agencies and identify billions of dollars in government spending that is invalid because it was not authorized by Congress. They said they are aiming to complete the panel’s work by July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding.

CAN THE PRESIDENT REPEAL REGULATIONS?

Trump cannot rescind rules on his own and would instead have to direct agencies to do so, which in most cases would not be legally binding, according to legal experts. If an agency opted to repeal a rule, the process would be governed by a complex law, the Administrative Procedure Act, that lays out the procedures for doing so. 

Agencies often repeal rules adopted by previous administrations, but the process is lengthy, complicated, and legally fraught, and many agencies likely lack the resources needed to repeal a large number of rules at once. 

To rescind a rule, the APA requires agencies to release a detailed proposal, including legal justifications and potential costs, and accept and respond to public comments. That can take months or longer. 

Agency rules can also be wiped out by Congress with the president’s approval, but only within a short period after they are enacted, so that process cannot be used to eliminate older rules.

WHAT CAN TRUMP DO TO BLOCK RULES FROM BEING ENFORCED?

There are federal laws authorizing the president to block certain agency rules, such as some immigration regulations. Otherwise, any call by Trump to stop enforcing a rule is more of a recommendation, though one that a loyal appointee may be likely to comply with.

Agencies and their politically appointed heads have some latitude in setting enforcement priorities. But they are legally bound to enforce the law in many cases, and cannot stop enforcing a regulation as a way around the cumbersome process of repealing it, experts said. 

And, any effort by Trump and his appointees to cease enforcement of rules by agencies will not prevent individuals from filing lawsuits alleging violations of them. Many agency regulations are issued pursuant to laws that allow for private lawsuits, such as environmental and wage laws.

WILL AGENCIES BE SUED FOR REPEALING RULES? 

Moves by Trump and his appointees to eliminate existing rules will be met with legal challenges, as many progressive groups and Democratic officials have made clear. Lawsuits seeking to block repeals or reinstate rules that have been rescinded have become common, and typically claim that agencies failed to adequately justify eliminating them or did not respond to concerns raised in public comments. 

The first Trump administration was rebuked on several occasions for not following those procedures in eliminating Obama-era policies.

If Trump follows through on DOGE’s recommendations, it would likely trigger a flood of lawsuits across the country, yielding mixed results. 

Trump appointed 234 judges in his first term, including dozens to appeals courts, and many have shown deep skepticism of the administrative powers long wielded by federal agencies. Opponents of Trump’s policies could turn to friendlier courts with more Democratic appointees, mirroring a trend of conservative and business groups bringing challenges to the Biden administration in certain courts in Texas.

HOW WILL THE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS GUIDE DOGE’S WORK?

In a 2022 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that agencies cannot address “major questions” with broad economic or societal impact without explicit permission from Congress. And in a landmark June ruling, the court overturned its own precedent and said courts no longer were required to defer to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous law.

Musk and Ramaswamy said their review will focus on regulations that are invalid in light of those decisions, which were seen as major victories in a campaign by conservative groups to rein in the “administrative state.” But the Supreme Court’s holdings in those cases were nuanced, and it will take years for courts to sort out how they apply to individual regulations, lawyers and other experts said. 

Many regulations are explicitly authorized by Congress or have been upheld by courts on their merits rather than out of deference, making it more difficult to justify repealing them under the recent Supreme Court rulings. 

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York and Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Rosalba O’Brien)

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(Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump floated the idea of appointing Kevin Warsh as Treasury Secretary on the understanding that he could later be Federal Reserve Chairman, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The potential arrangement was discussed between Trump and Warsh, a former investment banker who served on the Federal Reserve Board, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago retreat on Wednesday, the report added.

Trump is also thinking about appointing Scott Bessent, a longtime hedge fund investor who taught at Yale University for several years, to lead the White House National Economic Council before he could be nominated to replace Warsh at the Treasury, the report added.

No announcement has been made by Trump.

The Wall Street Journal cautioned that Trump could still pick someone else for the role.

Marc Rowan, who co-founded Apollo Global Management, U.S. Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee and Robert Lighthizer, who served as Trump’s U.S. trade representative for essentially the then-president’s entire term, are also considered to be in the running for the Treasury role.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas in Los Angeles and Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Lincoln Feast.)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he will nominate former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department, turning to a longtime ally after his first choice, Matt Gaetz, withdrew his name from consideration amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.

Bondi has been an outspoken defender of Trump. She was one of his lawyers during his first impeachment trial, when he was accused — but not convicted — of abusing his power as he tried to condition U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on that country investigating then-former Vice President Joe Biden. And she was among a group of Republicans who showed up to support Trump at his New York hush money criminal trial that ended in May with a conviction on 34 felony counts.

“For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans – Not anymore,” Trump said in a social media post. “Pam will refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again.”

Gaetz stepped aside amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation that cast doubt on his ability to be confirmed as the nation’s chief federal law enforcement officer. Gaetz’s vehemently denied the allegations, but his nomination stunned many career lawyers inside the Justice Department. Gaetz, who passed the bar but barely worked as a lawyer, had very little relevant experience for the job. Bondi comes with years of legal work under her belt and that other trait Trump prizes above all: loyalty.

The hasty withdrawal by Gaetz and quick pivot to Bondi were the latest examples of Trump’s tumultuous decision-making as he rushes out nominations — some of questionable character and credentials — at a breakneck pace without the government vetting that is typical of presidential transitions. It’s an omen that despite running his most organized campaign for the White House this year, his return to the Oval Office might feature the same sort of drama that permeated his first term.

Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that the transition team had backups in mind for his controversial nominees should they fail to get confirmed.

Still, even in Trump’s world, things moved fast. Trump had been seeking to capitalize on his decisive election win to force Senate Republicans to accept provocative selections like Gaetz. The decision could heighten scrutiny on other controversial Trump nominees, including Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth, who faces sexual assault allegations that he denies.

“While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” Gaetz said in a statement one day after meeting with senators in an effort to win their support.

“There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1,” he added.

Trump, in a social media post, said: “I greatly appreciate the recent efforts of Matt Gaetz in seeking approval to be Attorney General. He was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect. Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!”

Bondi is a well-known figure in Trump’s circle, and has been a chair at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank set up by former Trump administration staffers. She’s been a vocal critic of the criminal cases against Trump. In one recent radio appearance, she called Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith and other prosecutors who have charged Trump “horrible” people she said were trying to make names for themselves by “going after Donald Trump and weaponizing our legal system.”

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham predicted in a social media post that Bondi “will be confirmed quickly,” calling her selection a “grand slam, touchdown, hole in one, ace, hat trick, slam dunk, Olympic gold medal pick.”

If confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, Bondi would instantly become one of the most closely watched members of Trump’s Cabinet given the Republican’s threat to pursue retribution against perceived adversaries and concern among Democrats that he will look to bend the Justice Department to his will. A recent Supreme Court opinion not only conferred broad immunity on former presidents but also affirmed a president’s exclusive authority over the Justice Department’s investigative functions.

As president, he demanded investigations into political opponents like Hillary Clinton and sought to use the law enforcement powers of the Justice Department to advance his own interests, including in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Bondi would inherit a Justice Department expected to pivot sharply on civil rights, corporate enforcement and the prosecutions of hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol — defendants whom Trump has pledged to pardon.

It’s unlikely that Bondi would be confirmed in time to overlap with Smith, who brought two federal indictments against Trump that are both expected to wind down before the incoming president takes office. Special counsels are expected to produce reports on their work that historically are made public, but it remains unclear when such a document might be released.

Bondi was accused by a Massachusetts attorney of bribery over a $25,000 campaign contribution she received from Trump in 2013. Bondi asked for the donation near the same time that her office was being asked about a New York investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University. In 2017, that complaint was found to have lacked enough evidence to move forward.

In 2013, while serving as Florida attorney general, she publicly apologized for asking that the execution of a man convicted of murder be delayed because it conflicted with a campaign fundraiser. She said she was wrong and sorry for requesting that then-Gov. Rick Scott push back the execution of Marshall Lee Gore by three weeks.

While Gaetz sought to lock down Senate support this week, concern over the sex trafficking allegations showed no signs of abating.

In recent days, an attorney for two women said his clients told House Ethics Committee investigators that Gaetz paid them for sex on multiple occasions beginning in 2017, when Gaetz was a Florida congressman. One of the women testified she saw Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old at a party in Florida in 2017, according to the attorney, Joel Leppard.

Gaetz’s political future is uncertain. In a social media post, pointed at the incoming vice president, Gaetz wrote: “I look forward to continuing the fight to save our country. Just maybe from a different post.”

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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Michelle L. Price, Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick and Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report.

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