Politics

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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MARTIN, Tenn. (AP) — Losing a Cabinet nominee to the confirmation process isn’t unheard of for incoming presidents — including for Donald Trump when he was elected the first time.

Matt Gaetz’s decision to pull his name Thursday from consideration for attorney general — amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation — represents the first indication of resistance that the president-elect could face from his own party, including picks facing allegations of sexual misconduct or other questions.

Here’s a look at some recent difficulties with presidential Cabinet picks and some of the criticism for Trump’s current slate:

After Gaetz was chosen last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Judiciary Committee member who is among Trump’s top Senate allies, predicted Gaetz would “have to answer some tough questions” in a confirmation hearing.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Trump critic, said of Gaetz, “I do not see him as a serious candidate.”

Other Trump picks face questions, too.

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defense secretary, was accused by a woman of sexually assaulting her in 2017. Hegseth has denied her allegations.

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman chosen to be director of national intelligence, has expressed sympathy for Russia and repeated false Russian theories about Ukrainian bioweapons. Gabbard, a military veteran who became one of Trump’s top 2024 surrogates, has attracted criticism for meeting with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and has voiced skepticism that Assad was behind chemical attacks on his own people.

Nikki Haley, who was the last major GOP opponent against Trump for this year’s presidential nomination, argued against confirming Gabbard, saying the post was “not a place for a Russian, Iranian, Syrian, Chinese sympathizer.”

Haley also said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services — should face “hard questions” from senators due to his opposition to vaccines and other views decried by public health officials.

“He’s a liberal Democrat, environmental attorney trial lawyer who will now be overseeing 25% of our federal budget and has no background in healthcare,” Haley said. “So some of you may think RFK is cool, some of you may like that he questions what’s in our food and what’s in our vaccines, but we don’t know, when he is given reins to an agency, what decisions he’s going to make behind the scenes.”

Republicans will have 53 votes in the Senate in January and can break 50-50 ties with Vice President-elect JD Vance. That means four Republicans would have to break ranks to defeat any nominee if all Democrats oppose a Trump pick.

Every recent president has had some doomed Cabinet nominations — including Trump himself.

In early 2017, Trump’s choice for labor secretary was the first Trump nominee to withdraw his name from consideration. Fast food CEO Andrew Puzder’s exit came after Republicans expressed concern over his failure to pay taxes promptly on a former housekeeper who wasn’t authorized to work in the U.S., and Democrats had complaints about Puzder’s business record and remarks about women and workers at his company, which owns Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.

Puzder’s name has been floated recently again as a possible pick in Trump’s second administration.

Trump also ousted his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, after just weeks on the job because Flynn wasn’t truthful about his contacts with Russian officials during the transition.

The first year of Trump’s first term, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned after his costly travel triggered investigations that overshadowed the administration’s agenda and angered his boss, serving less than eight months. According to the Brookings Institution, which tracks presidential administration turnover, Trump’s first term resulted in the turnover of a total of 14 people, nearly twice the amount — 8 people — of President George H.W. Bush’s term in office, a distant second place.

Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and both Bush and his son George W. Bush all had to come up with new names after nominees for their Cabinets ran into trouble.

Obama took three tries to find a secretary of commerce. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew his name after the word surfaced that a grand jury was investigating allegations of wrongdoing in the awarding of contracts in his state. Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire backed out citing “irresolvable differences” with the policies of the Democratic president.

In 2001, Linda Chavez — George W. Bush’s pick for labor secretary — swiftly withdrew after it emerged that she had housed an immigrant living in the country illegally.

Bill Clinton went through several attempts at selecting an attorney general, nominating Janet Reno after both of his first two choices withdrew over word that they had hired people who had been in the U.S. illegally for household work and babysitting.

The Senate rejected George H.W. Bush’s defense secretary pick, former Texas Sen. John Tower, in 1989 after several waves of reports over allegations of alcohol abuse and womanizing.

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Associated Press writer Nancy Benac in Washington contributed to this report.

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — JD Vance’s election as vice president has opened up one of Ohio’s U.S. Senate seats for the third time in as many years, setting off a scramble for the appointment among the state’s ruling Republicans.

GOP Gov. Mike DeWine is tasked with filling the vacancy, giving the pragmatic center-right politician a hand in setting his party’s course in the state potentially for years to come. His decision will be made in the afterglow of sweeping wins by Republicans in November under the leadership of Donald Trump, but a poor choice could also help Democrats reclaim a place in Ohio’s Senate delegation when the seat comes up for reelection in less than two years.

“Look, being a United States senator is a big deal,” the governor told reporters in the days after the election. “It’s a big deal for the state, and we need to get it right.”

DeWine has a long list to choose from — particularly given the number of GOP candidates who competed unsuccessfully in Senate primaries in 2022 and 2024. Those under consideration who previously lost crowded Republican primaries are former Ohio Republican Chair Jane Timken; two-term Secretary of State Frank LaRose; and state Sen. Matt Dolan, whose family owns baseball’s Cleveland Guardians. Two-term Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague and Republican attorney and strategist Mehek Cooke, a frequent guest on Fox News, are also in the mix.

One other prospective appointee — a 2024 presidential contender, Cincinnati pharmaceutical entrepreneur and Vance insider Vivek Ramaswamy — pulled out of contention after accepting a position in the new Trump administration.

While Vance’s departure also offers DeWine an opportunity to alleviate a bottleneck at the top of Ohio Republicans’ political pecking order, where Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and Attorney General Dave Yost are preparing to face off for governor in 2026, that appears unlikely. Husted is well into building his campaign organization, and Yost has said he would decline the appointment if offered. DeWine — a 77-year-old former U.S. senator term-limited in 2026 — also has said he would not appoint himself.

Meanwhile, ambitions for the seat among Republican members of Ohio’s congressional delegation — which includes U.S. Reps. Jim Jordan, Mike Carey, David Joyce and Warren Davidson — are being tempered by the slim House majority their party scored in November. House vacancies necessarily take months to fill under Ohio’s election protocols, likely a consideration for DeWine as Trump prepares to push early policy priorities through Congress.

Under state law, whoever gets the appointment will serve from the date of Vance’s resignation, which he hasn’t announced, until Dec. 15, 2026. A special election for the last two years of his six-year term would be held in November 2026.

That special election could provide a comeback opportunity for Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who was unseated earlier this month by Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno. Though he wasn’t specific, Brown told Politico last week: “I’m going to stay in this arena. I’m not going away.” Former U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic Senate nominee who lost to Vance in 2022, could make another run, too. And Allison Russo, the Democratic leader of the Ohio House, also has been mentioned as a 2026 Senate contender.

DeWine has made clear that he wants the Republican he chooses to be well positioned to defeat the Democrats in 2026. Their strengths as a statewide candidate and fundraiser are particularly important because Ohio’s statewide elections also take place that year — and every seat is open. A strong incumbent senator at the top of that ticket could be valuable to returning Republicans to the offices of governor, attorney general, treasurer, auditor and secretary of state.

Stamina also could be a factor. Timken ran for Senate most recently in 2022, LaRose ran this year, and Dolan ran both times. A win in 2026 would only give the victor a two-year reprieve before having to face Ohio voters again in 2028.

“This is not for the faint-hearted,” DeWine said.

Dolan, who along with Timken is a millionaire, is rare among Republicans competing for the Vance appointment in not having ever won Trump’s backing.

In both 2022 and 2024, Dolan ran in Republicans’ moderate lane, declining to align with Trump and disavowing his false claims that voter fraud lost him the 2020 election. Those stances won him DeWine’s endorsement in last year’s Senate primary, which could be a good sign for the term-limited Ohio Senate Finance chairman.

The president-elect backed Vance in 2022 and Moreno this year — lifting both to victory. Moreno won a three-way Republican primary against Dolan and LaRose, while Vance topped a field of seven, before both went on to defeat Democratic opponents in now reliably red Ohio.

In the state Legislature, Dolan opposed Ohio’s now-blocked ban on abortions once fetal cardiac activity is detected and an unsuccessful effort to override then-Gov. John Kasich’s veto. Both LaRose and Sprague, then a state senator and representative, respectively, supported both the bill and the override effort.

Timken, a Trump loyalist, has never held public office, but as a Senate candidate she described herself as “a powerful ally for the pro-life movement” and supported overturning Roe v. Wade.

Former U.S. Sen. Rob Portman backed Timken in the 2022 Senate primary, calling the Harvard-educated attorney and wife of former TimkenSteel CEO Tim Timken a smart, hard-working conservative.

Some believe DeWine’s penchant for elevating women could give her or Cooke an edge in the competition. Both his chief of staff and communications director are women and more than half of his Cabinet is female.

Though Trump endorsed Vance over Timken for Senate in 2022, he had earlier hand-selected her to lead the Ohio Republican Party after his first election in 2016, and he has since supported her election as RNC National Committeewoman for Ohio.

While Trump also passed over LaRose for a Senate endorsement this year, he had backed both him and Sprague in bids for statewide office — and both have endorsed him back.

Both have twice won statewide races, though LaRose’s high profile as Ohio’s elections chief keeps him in the headlines more than Sprague, and he would be the first Green Beret to serve in the Senate. At the same time, the absence of controversy that has marked Sprague’s tenure at the state treasury could make him less likely than LaRose to draw a primary challenger.

DeWine says he wants his appointee to be focused on both state and national issues and willing to work hard and “get things done.” He also hinted that the person’s politics can’t be too extreme.

“It also has to be someone who can win a primary, it has to be someone who can win a general election, and then two years later do all that again,” he said.

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This story has been updated to correct that Frank LaRose would be the first Green Beret to serve in the Senate, not in Congress.

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina State Board of Elections’ top administrator asked a powerful legislator on Thursday to retract a comment that he made suggesting this month’s results were being manipulated, saying it could lead to threats against local election workers.

“You are a top leader of our state government. What you say matters,” Karen Brinson Bell, the board’s executive director, wrote state Senate leader Phil Berger in response to his words from Wednesday. “When you tell your fellow citizens that an election is being conducted fraudulently, they listen.”

Berger, a Republican, was speaking to reporters following the final passage of a bill that in part would shift next year the authority to appoint the State Board of Elections from the governor to the state auditor. The new governor in 2025 will remain a Democrat in Josh Stein, while the next auditor will be a Republican. Changes also would likely filter down to county elections boards.

Republicans have expressed frustration about a state Supreme Court race where GOP candidate Jefferson Griffin was leading on election night. But a 10,000-vote deficit for Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs was eliminated as county boards added qualifying provisional and absentee ballots to the totals. Griffin, now trailing, asked for a recount now underway and has filed protests.

Without mentioning the court race by name or specifics of electoral influence, Berger told reporters that “we’re seeing played out at this point another episode of ‘Count Until Somebody You Want to Win Wins.’”

In the letter, first reported by North Carolina Public Radio, Brinson Bell wrote that Berger’s accusation “has absolutely no basis in fact,” and that county boards, where hundreds of Democrats and Republicans serve, “were duty-bound to count eligible provisional and absentee ballots” before last Friday’s canvass. Some did not finish their work until this week.

The legislation also would move up the deadlines so that election officials finish counting outstanding ballots more quickly.

Berger’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Brinson Bell’s letter — an unusual communication by an agency head to one of the state’s most influential politicians.

Brinson Bell told Berger that “baseless accusations of wrongdoing” over the 2020 elections led election administrators to leave their profession and bring emotional stress, too.

“I fear for the people running elections in this state, including in your own community, that some misguided people will conclude from your statements that actions must be taken, perhaps through the use of threats or violence,” Brinson Bell said.

The state board and county boards, while bipartisan, are controlled by Democrats. A Democratic state board first hired Brinson Bell for the job in 2019. Her future at the post may be jeopardized should the bill moving state board appointing power to Republican Auditor Dave Boliek be enacted and avoids being struck down by courts. Republican legislators have previously expressed displeasure at some of Brinson Bell’s actions.

Berger said Wednesday that he wants a board that “functionally operates in a way that is just counting the votes, not pulling for one side or the other.”

Logistically, elections went relatively well in the battleground state won by Republican Donald Trump, despite disruptions caused by Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding. The General Assembly passed legislation providing flexibility to 25 western counties affected most by the storm, leading to altered early-vote sites and schedules. A handful of Election Day precincts set up shop in tents.

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By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A woman filed a sexual assault complaint in 2017 against Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to take charge of the Pentagon, according to a California police report.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has denied the assault allegations and told police at the time that “there was ‘always’ conversation and ‘always’ consensual contact,” between him and the woman, according to the report.

The case was referred to the Monterey County district attorney by the Monterey police department, but it declined to file charges since they could not be “supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. The Monterey police department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“As far as the media (is) concerned, it’s very simple: The matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared, and that’s where I’m gonna leave it,” Hegseth told reporters on Capitol Hill where he met with Republican senators to build support for his nomination.

The police report, released by the City of Monterey on Wednesday night, does not have the complainant’s name but refers to her as Jane Doe. The report has surfaced after media outlets, including Reuters, filed requests for details about the incident that surfaced after Hegseth was named Trump’s defense secretary nominee.

The report says that Doe told an officer that she was attending a conference at a hotel in Monterey, California, in October 2017, where Hegseth was the keynote speaker.

Doe, according to the report, said she had been drinking and remembers leaving a bar with Hegseth. She said her next memory was being in an unknown room, with Hegseth blocking the door when she tried to leave.

“Doe remembered saying ‘no’ a lot. Jane Doe stated she did not remember much else,” the report said. The report added Doe said that her next memory was on a couch or bed with Hegseth over her and his dog tags hovering in her face.

While Hegseth was bare chested, “Jane Doe did not notice any tattoos, scars and or marks on Hegseth’s body,” the report said.

Hegseth has a number of tattoos, including a large Jerusalem cross on his chest, Reuters has previously reported.

Doe, the report said, went to the hospital four days after the incident, where an examination was carried out. A copy of the medical exam was not included in the report. The report did not specify the hospital.

The police report said that video surveillance footage showed “Doe and Hegseth walking together, with arms locked together. Hegseth seemed to be talking and Jane Doe was smiling. Both did not have an unsteady gait.”

The report quoted a redacted name as saying that “DOE was not sure, but believes that something may have been slipped into her drink, as she cannot remember most of the night’s events.”

Hegseth says he told her he didn’t have a condom and said they could stop if that was a problem, the report said.

“Hegseth stated Jane Doe said, ‘No No No, it’s not a problem. Hegseth stated he did not want to get anyone pregnant,” the police report said.

“This police report confirms what I have said all along – that the incident was fully investigated and police found the allegations to be false, which is why no charges were filed,” Hegseth’s attorney Timothy Parlatore said.

Trump has stood by Hegseth, calling the allegations false in a statement on Thursday.

“Pete Hegseth is a highly-respected Combat Veteran who will honorably serve our country when he is confirmed as the next Secretary of Defense, just like he honorably served our country on the battlefield in uniform,” said the statement.

The disclosure of the charges came as former U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration as Trump’s attorney general, after the House Ethics Committee deadlocked on releasing a report into allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Don Durfee and Lisa Shumaker)

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DALLAS (AP) — More than 60 years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, conspiracy theories still swirl and any new glimpse into the fateful day of Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas continues to fascinate.

President-elect Donald Trump promised during his reelection campaign that he would declassify all of the remaining government records surrounding the assassination if he returned to office. He made a similar pledge during his first term, but ultimately bended to appeals from the CIA and FBI to keep some documents withheld.

At this point, only a few thousand of the millions of governmental records related to the assassination have yet to be fully released, and those who have studied the records released so far say that even if the remaining files are declassified, the public shouldn’t anticipate any earth-shattering revelations.

“Anybody waiting for a smoking gun that’s going to turn this case upside down will be sorely disappointed,” said Gerald Posner, author of “Case Closed,” which concludes that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

Friday’s 61st anniversary is expected to be marked with a moment of silence at 12:30 p.m. in Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy’s motorcade was passing through when he was fatally shot. And throughout this week there have been events marking the anniversary.

When Air Force One carrying Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy touched down in Dallas, they were greeted by a clear sky and enthusiastic crowds. With a reelection campaign on the horizon the next year, they had gone to Texas on political fence-mending trip.

But as the motorcade was finishing its parade route downtown, shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository building. Police arrested 24-year-old Oswald and, two days later, nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald during a jail transfer.

A year after the assassination, the Warren Commission, which President Lyndon B. Johnson established to investigate the assassination, concluded that Oswald acted alone and there was no evidence of a conspiracy. But that hasn’t quelled a web of alternative theories over the decades.

In the early 1990s, the federal government mandated that all assassination-related documents be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration. The collection of over 5 million records was required to be opened by 2017, barring any exemptions designated by the president.

Trump, who took office for his first term in 2017, had boasted that he’d allow the release of all of the remaining records but ended up holding some back because of what he called the potential harm to national security. And while files have continued to be released during President Joe Biden’s administration, some still remain unseen.

The documents released over the last few years offer details on the way intelligence services operated at the time, and include CIA cables and memos discussing visits by Oswald to the Soviet and Cuban embassies during a trip to Mexico City just weeks before the assassination. The former Marine had previously defected to the Soviet Union before returning home to Texas.

Mark S. Zaid, a national security attorney in Washington, said what’s been released so far has contributed to the understanding of the time period, giving “a great picture” of what was happening during the Cold War and the activities of the CIA.

Posner estimates that there are still about 3,000 to 4,000 documents in the collection that haven’t yet been fully released. Of those documents, some are still completely redacted while others just have small redactions, like someone’s Social Security number.

“If you have been following it, as I have and others have, you sort of are zeroed in on the pages you think might provide some additional information for history,” Posner said.

There are about 500 documents that have been completely withheld, Posner said, and those include Oswald’s and Ruby’s tax returns. Those files, the National Archives says on its website, weren’t subject to the 2017 disclosure requirement.

Trump’s transition team hasn’t responded to questions this week about his plans when he takes office.

From the start, there were those who believed there had to be more to the story than just Oswald acting alone, said Stephen Fagin, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which tells the story of the assassination from the building where Oswald made his sniper’s perch.

“People want to make sense of this and they want to find the solution that fits the crime,” said Fagin, who said that while there are lingering questions, law enforcement made “a pretty compelling case” against Oswald.

Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said his interest in the assassination dates back to the event itself, when he was a child.

“It just seemed so fantastical that one very disturbed individual could end up pulling off the crime of the century,” Sabato said. “But the more I studied it, the more I realized that is a very possible, maybe even probable in my view, hypothesis.”

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania conceded his reelection bid to Republican David McCormick on Thursday, as a statewide recount showed no signs of closing the gap and his campaign suffered blows in court in its effort to get favorable ballots counted.

Casey’s concession comes more than two weeks after Election Day, as a grindingly slow ballot-counting process became a spectacle of hours-long election board meetings, social media outrage, lawsuits and accusations that some county officials were openly flouting the law.

Republicans had been claiming that Democrats were trying to steal McCormick’s seat by counting “illegal votes.” Casey’s campaign had accused of Republicans of trying to block enough legitimate votes to prevent him from pulling ahead and winning.

In a statement, Casey, a stalwart of Pennsylvania’s Democratic establishment and the state’s longest serving Democrat ever in the Senate, said he had just called McCormick to congratulate him.

“As the first count of ballots is completed, Pennsylvanians can move forward with the knowledge that their voices were heard, whether their vote was the first to be counted or the last,” Casey said.

Casey’s campaign said the last of the ballots cast before polls closed on Nov. 5’s Election Day had finally been counted Thursday.

The Associated Press called the race for McCormick on Nov. 7, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.

As of Thursday, McCormick led by about 16,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted.

That was well within the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.

But no election official expected a recount to change more than a couple hundred votes or so, and Pennsylvania’s highest court dealt Casey a blow when it refused entreaties to allow counties to count mail-in ballots that lacked a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.

Casey in the meantime had won efforts to get counties to tabulate thousands of provisional ballots that might otherwise have been thrown out because of an error by an election worker. That included voters whose registrations hadn’t been properly processed, the campaign said.

But the campaign lost other efforts to get counties to count ballots that were disqualified over garden-variety errors that voters made, like not signing a provisional ballot in two places or not putting the ballot into an inner “secrecy” envelope.

Republicans will have a 53-47 majority next year in the U.S. Senate.

McCormick, 59, recaptured a GOP seat in Pennsylvania after Republicans lost one in 2022, paying off a bet that party brass made when they urged McCormick to run and consolidated support behind him. It was McCormick’s second time running, after he lost narrowly to Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022’s GOP primary.

McCormick, the former CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund, drew on tens of millions of dollars in campaign cash from allies from across the worlds of hedge funds and securities trading to help make the race the nation’s second-most expensive in the campaign cycle.

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Follow Marc Levy at twitter.com/timelywriter

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By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans clinched a late-night deal on Wednesday that clears the way for votes on a group of President Joe Biden’s nominees for federal trial courts in exchange for not pushing forward with four nominees to serve on appellate courts, leaving vacancies that Republican President-elect Donald Trump can fill.

The deal, described by a spokesperson for Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday, was reached after Senate Republicans launched a campaign to try to stall and prevent Democrats from fulfilling their plan to confirm as many life-tenured judges as possible before Trump takes office in January.

Senate Republicans had previously said they had votes to block at least two of the four appellate court nominees, including Adeel Mangi, who would have become the first Muslim federal appellate judge if confirmed to the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The deal was sure to disappoint progressive advocates who have been pushing Democrats to fill as many judicial vacancies as possible following the Nov. 5 election, which handed the White House to Trump and control of the Senate to Republicans.

“Willingly gifting Donald Trump the chance to appoint judges more committed to political agendas than the rule of law is doing a dangerous disservice to the American people,” Maggie Jo Buchanan, the director of the progressive legal group Demand Justice, said in a statement.

Since the election, the Senate has confirmed eight of Biden’s judge picks, bringing the total number of confirmed judicial nominees to 221. The Democratic-led Senate on Thursday confirmed one more, Sharad Desai, to serve as a trial court judge in Arizona.

Republicans at Trump’s urging had tried to put procedural roadblocks in place to slow down the process and peel away votes in a Senate that Democrats narrowly control 51-49. But several Republican senators have missed votes to confirm judges.

Under the deal, the Senate will vote on confirming seven nominees to district court judges who Schumer had already teed up when it returns from its post-Thanksgiving recess in exchange for no longer pursuing the confirmation of the four nominees to higher-level appellate courts.

The Senate will also take up consideration of five other district court nominees who whose nominations were advanced on Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“The trade was four circuit nominees — all lacking the votes to get confirmed — for more than triple the number of additional judges moving forward,” a Schumer spokesperson said in a statement.

The other appellate nominees were Ryan Park, up for a seat on the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Julia Lipez, who was nominated to the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and Karla Campbell, who was nominated to the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Deepa Babington)

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By Andrew Hay and Jorge Garcia

SOCORRO, New Mexico (Reuters) – Past a pawn shop and thrift store in the working-class section of Socorro, New Mexico, Jose Benavidez stood on the porch of his trailer and said he voted for Donald Trump because he had “nothing to lose.”

The 49-year-old car mechanic hopes that Trump can ease poverty and a fentanyl crisis in Socorro and its surrounding county of the same name, which this month backed a Republican presidential candidate for the first time in 36 years.

“He said I’ll have more money in my pocket this time,” said Benavidez, who is currently unable to work and gets disability payments. He voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 before switching to Trump, who defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election. 

It’s a sentiment heard elsewhere in working-class neighborhoods of south Socorro, where Trump made some of his biggest gains in the county of 16,000 residents compared to his last run in 2020. Reuters spoke to nearly two dozen voters, elected officials and community advocates in the southern New Mexico county around 40 miles (64 km) south of Albuquerque, the state’s largest city.  

Trump’s 3-point win in Socorro, which is 50% Hispanic and 15% Native American, after Biden took it by 7 points in 2020, is emblematic of inroads the Republican made in counties with high poverty levels and those with large Hispanic or Native American populations, according to Edison Research data.

It was the only county in Democratic-controlled New Mexico, the state with the highest percentage of residents who identify as Hispanic or Latino, to flip Republican at the presidential level in this year’s election. 

Socorro was one of only 10 counties in traditionally Democratic states that have voted Democratic since 2012 that Trump was able to win in 2024, Edison Research data shows. 

Harris won New Mexico by 6 points in 2024 after Biden took it by 11 points in 2020, a result strategists say reflects how Trump’s hardline approach to migrants coming across the Mexican border and pledge to boost the economy has resonated with voters.

DISAFFECTED 

Straddling the Rio Grande valley and the surrounding Chihuahuan desert and Magdalena mountains, Socorro county is home to New Mexico’s mining and technology public university and the Very Large Array astronomical radio observatory.

Chile farms line the irrigated valley where the Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge draws bird watchers from around the world to see tens of thousands of sandhill cranes and other migratory wildfowl.

Socorro is also among 11% of U.S. counties that have been stuck in high levels of poverty for at least three decades, its population shrinking 5% since 2019 as residents sought work elsewhere, according to U.S. Census data. Its drug overdose death rate is approaching twice the national average and about a third of people live in poverty.  

Sitting on the town’s main plaza, Democratic voter David Chavez said the town of 8,200 never fully recovered from the businesses and jobs it lost during the pandemic. Two grocery stores shut in recent years after a Walmart moved in.

“People feel disaffected,” said Chavez, a brewer who says his pub and music venue, like most local businesses in Socorro, is struggling economically.

LOW-HANGING FRUIT

Local Republican officials said they tapped into voter resentment of Democrats they accuse of being out of touch with working-class priorities. 

Gail Tripp, a Republican elected county treasurer in the Nov. 5 vote, said people she met while knocking on doors were primarily worried about high grocery prices and migrants coming across the border.

“They don’t have the money to feed their dogs let alone the whole family,” said Tripp, who won a seat previously held by a Democrat. 

Republicans also flipped two Socorro County commissioner positions, two seats in the state House of Representatives for the county and one state Senate seat for the area.

Socorro’s Democratic Mayor Ravi Bhasker, a doctor and hotel owner in office for 34 straight years, did not respond to requests for comment.

Allan Sauter, treasurer for the Democratic Party in Socorro County, blamed the party’s defeat locally on national leaders that he accused of listening to the wealthy “donor class” instead of the “working class” on issues ranging from the economy to supplying Israel with arms for its war in Gaza.

“People feel poor and they don’t feel like anyone cares,” said Sauter. “Grocery prices and fentanyl are low-hanging fruit Republicans can point to.”

NEVER LIFTED UP

In a thrift store on California Street, the town’s main shopping strip, elementary school aide Judy Evans said she voted for Trump in the hope he could cut her grocery bill after it doubled in the last two years – reflecting the economic pain voters across the U.S. have felt after inflation peaked at 9.1% year-over-year in 2022, the highest since the early 1980s.

“We’re shopping here to save money,” said the single mother of five, as she looked at kids’ socks priced at 25 cents.

A few blocks south, Jerry Perez stood outside his multi-generational adobe mud-brick home and pointed to a house that he said burned down when fentanyl users “nodded off.” Perez blames the drug crisis on fentanyl smuggling across what he calls a “wide open” U.S.-Mexico border, 160 miles to the south. Democrats have blamed Trump for the failure of a bipartisan bill aimed at improving border security and Biden earlier this year enacted restrictions that reduced migrant crossings.

“For so long we’ve always voted a certain way but we never see ourselves getting lifted up,” said Perez, 35, an upholsterer who voted for Trump hoping he would generate jobs, crack down on fentanyl dealers and curb illegal immigration.

At the town plaza, health group SCOPE provides Narcan, which reverses opioid overdoses, and offers advice to locals. One of the group’s workers, Veronica Espinoza, says voters just “want to make sure the streets are safe.”

Local officials like County Manager Andrew Lotrich want resources to investigate fentanyl dealers and create jobs.

    “It’s ‘how do we get our small businesses back into Socorro County?’ and ‘how do we attract more entrepreneurs?’” said Lotrich, dressed in camouflage before an elk hunt.

Back at his trailer, Benavidez called Trump a “character” who could at least make people laugh. A convicted felon who has had run-ins with Socorro police, Benavidez said he felt a kinship with Trump. A New York jury in May found Trump guilty of falsifying business records, making him the first former U.S. president convicted of a felony.

“Like I said, there’s nothing to lose,” said Benavidez, who stapled his Trump flag to the porch after it was ripped down a couple of times.

(Reporting By Andrew Hay and Jorge Garcia in Socorro, New Mexico, additional reporting by Brad Heath in Washington; Editing by Donna Bryson, Paul Thomasch and Deepa Babington)

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By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald Trump is poised to enact a dramatic expansion of “school choice” programs next year that would make it easier for hundreds of thousands of parents to send their children to private school.

Though Trump will likely not be able to abolish the U.S. Department of Education as he has promised, experts say he stands a good chance of winning a tax break for programs that help pay for private tuition. That approach would not steer federal dollars directly to private schools but would still amount to a significant development in a decades-long fight over education.

“The consequence would be the biggest school choice victory ever in Washington,” said Frederick Hess, an education expert at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

Conservatives say the government should help parents pay for private school if they are unsatisfied with their public schools, while teachers’ unions and many Democrats say school choice undermines the public system that educates 50 million U.S. children.

More than one million U.S. students now participate in school choice programs, double the level before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered public schools, according to EdChoice, an advocacy group. Proponents say federal action could boost participation by hundreds of thousands.

Trump said expanding school choice would be a top priority when he tapped former pro-wrestling magnate Linda McMahon to serve as his education secretary this week. 

“Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America,” Trump said in a statement on Tuesday.

McMahon served as Trump’s small-business secretary during his first 2017-2021 White House term, and currently chairs the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank that advocates for steering public money to private schools. The group did not respond to several requests for comment.

When Trump’s Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress next year, they are expected to advance legislation that would give tax credits to people or businesses who donate to private-school scholarship funds.

“I think there’s an enormous amount of momentum on it. It’s going to happen,” said Nate Bailey, who served as a senior official at the Department of Education during Trump’s first term.

A version that passed the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee in October would allow people or businesses to get a credit of up to 10% of their tax liability for such donations.

Families who earn up to three times the median income in their area would be able to apply for that money, which could be used for tuition, tutoring, books or other expenses. That would cost the federal government roughly $5 billion in lost tax revenue per year, the committee said.

The scholarship funds, which would be independently run and not controlled by any government, would not be allowed to set aside money for specific students. 

The National Education Association, which represents three million public-school teachers, said the program would subsidize schools that cost more than public schools and do not have to reveal what they teach, who they serve and how they handle their money. Like other school-choice programs, the tax break would effectively take funding from public schools, the group said.

“Regardless of the name, the impact is the same: Vouchers and voucher-inspired schemes erode public education, the foundation of our democracy,” NEA lobbyist Marc Egan wrote the committee in September.

NEW APPROACH

The strategy marks a change from Trump’s first term in office, when Education Secretary Betsy DeVos pushed to allocate federal money toward private-school tuition. Though she was unsuccessful, Republican-led states dramatically expanded voucher programs of their own in the years that followed. 

But voucher programs have run into resistance among voters in rural areas where there are few private schools. Voters in Nebraska, Colorado and Kentucky rejected voucher proposals in the Nov. 5 elections.

Republicans in Washington are less sure about school vouchers than tax breaks. More than 100 of them voted against a proposal in March that would have turned the $18 billion Title I school aid program into a voucher program.

Education Department funding tends to play a bigger role in Republican-leaning states. Federal money accounted for 15% of all public K-12 spending last year in states that voted for Trump, compared with 11% in states that backed his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. Census figures.

Opting for a tax break, rather than a voucher program, would unite Republicans and minimize the red tape associated with direct spending programs, advocates say. It also could be folded into a sweeping tax-cut bill that Trump aims to pass next year, making its chances of success in Congress more likely.

The tax break would bolster existing state school-choice programs, but also would apply to families in Democratic-run states like New York that have not set up school choice programs of their own.

Republicans who back the bill said it was modeled on existing state-level scholarship programs that have awarded $1.8 billion to 365,000 students so far. Democrats said it could effectively amount to an indirect voucher if families were able to get a tax break by funneling tuition payments through scholarship programs.

Douglas Harris, an education and economics professor at Tulane University, said it could pave the way for more ambitious efforts. “When you’re tweaking something, as opposed to introducing a radical idea, it’s easier to make these smaller moves and expand over time.”

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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