Politics

SUNBURY, Ohio (AP) — For the Young family in rural Sunbury, Ohio, activism begins at home.

The conservative Catholic family chooses to live their anti-abortion beliefs through adoption, foster-parenting and raising their children to believe in the sanctity of life. They’re also committed to teaching their children about political candidates they see as aligned with their beliefs.

The night before this year’s presidential election, Erin and Mike Young gathered their children, Lucas, 8, Gianna, 7, and Isaac, 5, around a bonfire near their farmhouse to pray for Donald Trump as “the pro-life candidate.”

A small group from the church they attend joined them for the “Patriotic Rosary.”

Rosaries in hand, they prayed for the nation and its leaders. They prayed for former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. They recited the “Hail Mary” prayer for each state and “every soul living there.”

As the fire dwindled, they sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The next afternoon on Election Day, the three children put on “Future Ohio Voter” stickers. Isaac and Lucas wore their Trump baseball hats. They piled into their dad’s truck to go to the polling place. Mom had voted earlier. Around the voting booth, they pressed their faces in close to watch dad vote for Trump.

“Educating our kids why voting for leaders who honor and protect life is very important,” said Erin, who homeschools the children. She notes that she and her husband were told one of their children was born after the child’s biological mother took abortion medication that did not work.

“They know, and they understand why we voted for Trump. They know that he’s the most pro-life president,” she said a little more than a week after the election. “Now that the election has gone our way. We still need to focus on what’s going on in Ohio. Because the power has been given back to the states. We still need to pray, and we still need to fight against the abortion laws in the state itself.”

Ohio voters a year ago approved a constitutional amendment that ensured access to abortion. Trump, who claims credit for his Supreme Court appointees who helped reverse Roe v. Wade, has repeatedly said states should decide the issue.

The Youngs said they are not bothered by Trump’s decision to put abortion-rights supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services despite his conflicting stands on abortion. “Abortion is now a state issue, not federal,” Mike said.

The family next plans to attend the National March for Life on Jan. 24 in Washington.

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By David Thomas

(Reuters) – Rank-and-file attorneys in the federal government fear major budget cuts when President-elect Donald Trump assumes office and are hunting for private-sector jobs in unusually high numbers, five legal recruiters told Reuters.

Each new administration sparks an exodus of political appointees and other senior legal officials, but the recruiters said they are also hearing from far more lower-level, career government lawyers this year.

“It absolutely feels different than the transition to the first Trump administration,” said Rachel Nonaka, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission attorney-turned-recruiter in Washington.

Another Washington headhunter, Dan Binstock, said government attorneys have approached his firm Garrison at five times the normal post-election rate, and far more of them are career civil servants.

“The level of uncertainty is like nothing we’ve seen,” said Binstock, who has been a recruiter for 20 years.

More than 44,000 licensed attorneys serve in the federal government, according to March data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. About a third of those lawyers work in the Justice Department, and fewer than 400 of them are non-career political appointees.

The Department of Education, which Trump has claimed he would try to abolish, employs nearly 600 lawyers. The number of lawyers in all cabinet-level agencies grew by about 2,500 during both the Trump and Biden administrations.

This month, Trump created a new unofficial Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former biotech executive Vivek Ramaswamy, who argued last week that executive actions to lift regulations could pave the way for mass reductions in the federal workforce.

“The Trump Administration will have a place for people serving in government who are committed to defending the rights of the American people, putting America first, and ensuring the best use of working men and women’s tax dollars,” transition spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement.

Trump has accused government lawyers of frustrating his first-term agenda and faced two federal criminal indictments by what he described as a politicized Biden Justice Department. His nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, has called for an investigation into how those cases were prosecuted.

“The prosecutors will be prosecuted. The bad ones. The investigators will be investigated,” Bondi told Fox News last year.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in June rejected accusations by House Republicans that he had politicized the criminal justice system and accused them of peddling conspiracy theories that could endanger federal law enforcement officers.

GOING PRIVATE

Jesse Panuccio, who served as acting associate attorney general during the first Trump administration, said at an event hosted by the conservative Federalist Society this month that civil servants’ job is to advance their elected leaders’ agenda.

“If they don’t want to carry it out, there are a lot of great jobs out there in the private sector,” said Panuccio, who is now a partner at law firm Boies Schiller Flexner.

Washington boasts one of the country’s top legal markets, with dozens of firms that take advantage of the revolving door between government and corporate law. Senior lawyers leaving the Biden administration may have an easy time finding jobs at companies and big law firms, which are flush with cash this year.

But for more junior lawyers with narrow specialties, finding private-sector jobs may not be so easy.

Not all government legal jobs easily translate to the private sector, said Jeff Jaeckel, vice chair of law firm Morrison Foerster. He said large law firms like his want attorneys with a “very specific and valuable skill set” to serve clients, such as advising financial institutions facing regulatory scrutiny.

In contrast, a government lawyer who reviews nuclear-treaty texts may lack commercial appeal, one recruiter said.

Recruiters also warned that civil servants this year may be competing for jobs directly with their own more experienced bosses. 

“They’ll lose,” Nonaka said.

For those that fail to find new employers, the new administration may bring less change to some jobs than anticipated.

“I’ve been through a lot of different administrations,” said Rod Rosenstein, who served as deputy U.S. attorney general under Trump and as Maryland’s U.S. attorney under both Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama.

“Most of the work of the department goes on unaffected.”

(Reporting by David Thomas; Additional reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Stephen Coates)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday reached a required agreement with President Joe Biden’s White House to allow his transition staff to coordinate with the existing federal workforce before taking office on Jan. 20.

The congressionally mandated agreement allows transition aides to work with federal agencies and access non-public information and gives a green light to government workers to talk to the transition team.

But Trump has declined to sign a separate agreement with the General Services Administration that would have given his team access to secure government offices and email accounts, in part because it would require that the president-elect limit contributions to $5,000 and reveal who is donating to his transition effort.

The White House agreement was supposed to have been signed by Oct. 1, according to the Presidential Transition Act, and the Biden White House had issued both public and private appeals for Trump’s team to sign on.

The agreement is a critical step in ensuring an orderly transfer of power at noon on Inauguration Day, and lays the groundwork for the White House and government agencies to begin to share details on ongoing programs, operations and threats. It limits the risk that the Trump team could find itself taking control of the massive federal government without briefings and documents from the outgoing administration.

As part of the agreement with the White House, Trump’s team will have to publicly disclose its ethics plan for the transition operation and make a commitment to uphold it, the White House said. Transition aides must sign statements that they have no financial positions that could pose a conflict of interest before they receive access to non-public federal information.

Biden himself raised the agreement with Trump when they met in the Oval Office on Nov. 13, according to the White House, and Trump indicated that his team was working to get it signed.

Trump chief of staff-designate Susie Wiles met with Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients at the White House on Nov. 19 and other senior officials in part to discuss remaining holdups, while lawyers for the two sides have spoken more than a half-dozen times in recent days to finalize the agreement.

“Like President Biden said to the American people from the Rose Garden and directly to President-elect Trump, he is committed to an orderly transition,” said White House spokesperson Saloni Sharma. “President-elect Trump and his team will be in seat on January 20 at 12 pm – and they will immediately be responsible for a range of domestic and global challenges, foreseen and unforeseen. A smooth transition is critical to the safety and security of the American people who are counting on their leaders to be responsible and prepared.”

Without the signed agreement, Biden administration officials were restricted in what they could share with the incoming team. Trump national security adviser-designate Rep. Mike Waltz met recently with Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan, but the outgoing team was limited in what it could discuss.

“We are doing everything that we can to effect a professional and an orderly transition,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. “And we continue to urge the incoming team to take the steps that are necessary to be able to facilitate that on their end as well.”

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

The Trump transition team says it would disclose its donors to the public and would not take foreign donations.

A separate agreement with the Department of Justice to coordinate background checks for vetting and security clearances is still being actively worked on and could be signed quickly now that the White House agreement is signed. The agency has teams of investigators standing by to process clearances for Trump aides and advisers once that document is signed.

That would clear the way for transition aides and future administration appointees and nominees to begin accessing classified information before Trump takes office. Some Trump aides may hold active clearances from his first term in office or other government roles, but others will need new clearances to access classified data.

Trump’s team on Friday formally told the GSA that they would not utilize the government office space blocks from the White House reserved for their use, or government email accounts, phones and computers during the transition.

The White House said it does not agree with Trump’s decision to forgo support from the GSA, but is working on alternate ways to get Trump appointees the information they need without jeopardizing national security. Federal agencies are receiving guidance on Tuesday on how to share sensitive information with the Trump team without jeopardizing national security or non-public information.

For instance, agencies may require in-person meetings and document reviews since the Trump team has declined to shift to using secure phones and computers. For unclassified information, agencies may ask Trump transition staff to attest that they are taking basic safeguards, like using two-factor authentication on their accounts.

“The signing of this agreement is good news, and a positive step toward an effective transfer of power,” said Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. “This agreement unlocks direct access to information from federal agencies, which is vital for the incoming administration to be ready to govern on Day One and critical to the transition’s success.”

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(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday dismissed an attempt to revive the criminal case accusing Donald Trump of illegally retaining classified documents after prosecutors said they no longer wanted to pursue the appeal against the president-elect.

The order from the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals means both federal cases against Trump have now been dropped as he prepares to return to the White House on Jan 20.

A federal judge, acting on a request from prosecutors, on Monday dismissed a separate federal case accusing Trump of plotting to reverse his defeat in the 2020 election.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who oversaw both prosecutions, wrote in court filings that a long-standing Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president required the cases to be dropped.

A federal judge in Florida previously threw out the classified documents case, ruling that Smith was improperly appointed as special counsel. Prosecutors indicated on Monday that they would continue their appeal of that decision as it relates to two Trump associates who were charged alongside Trump with attempting to obstruct the investigation.

Both aides, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, pleaded not guilty, as did Trump. Trump denied wrongdoing in all cases.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward in Middletown, New Jersey; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

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(Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped Kevin Hassett, who was a key economic adviser in his first term, to chair his National Economic Council, which helps set domestic and international economic policy.

Hassett headed the White House Council of Economic Advisers, which advises the president on economic policy, from 2017-2019.

After stepping down from the CEA, Hassett had a brief return to government to help with the COVID pandemic. In the early days of the pandemic, he painted a more dire picture of the likely repercussions than other White House aides were doing at the time.

Currently a managing director at the Milken Institute and the Brent R. Nicklas Distinguished Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Hassett holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

He was John McCain’s chief economic adviser in the 2000 presidential primaries and a senior economic adviser to the campaigns of George W. Bush in 2004, McCain again in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012. Hassett had previously been research director at the American Enterprise Institute and was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.

Hassett and co-author James K. Glassman drew attention in 1999 for their book “Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market,” which was published not too long before the dot.com bubble burst. The two, who just a year earlier had said the Dow Jones Industrial Average could top 35,000, said in their book that the Dow could hit 36,000 in roughly five years.

The Dow closed above 35,000 for the first time in 2021. On Tuesday it closed at 44,860.31.

Generally a conservative economist, Hassett in an op-ed essay in the New York Times in 2012, in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the Great Recession, addressed what he called “a crisis in long-term unemployment” and called on policymakers to craft a comprehensive “re-employment policy.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Leslie Adler; additional reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Scott Malone and Edwina Gibbs)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — One year after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department was committed to holding accountable all perpetrators “at any level” for “the assault on our democracy.” That bold declaration won’t apply to at least one person: Donald Trump.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s move on Monday to abandon the federal election interference case against Trump means jurors will likely never decide whether the president-elect is criminally responsible for his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 campaign. The decision to walk away from the election charges and the separate classified documents case against Trump marks an abrupt end of the Justice Department’s unprecedented legal effort that once threatened his liberty but appears only to have galvanized his supporters.

The abandonment of the cases accusing Trump of endangering American democracy and national security does away with the most serious legal threats he was facing as he returns to the White House. It was the culmination of a monthslong defense effort to delay the proceedings at every step and use the criminal allegations to Trump’s political advantage, putting the final word in the hands of voters instead of jurors.

“We always knew that the rich and powerful had an advantage, but I don’t think we would have ever believed that somebody could walk away from everything,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department official. “If there ever was a Teflon defendant, that’s Donald Trump.”

While prosecutors left the door open to the possibility that federal charges could be re-filed against Trump after he leaves office, that seems unlikely. Meanwhile, Trump’s presidential victory has thrown into question the future of the two state criminal cases against him in New York and Georgia. Trump was supposed to be sentenced on Tuesday after his conviction on 34 felony counts in his New York hush money case, but it’s possible the sentencing could be delayed until after Trump leaves office, and the defense is pushing to dismiss the case altogether.

Smith’s team stressed that their decision to abandon the federal cases was not a reflection of the merit of the charges, but an acknowledgement that they could not move forward under longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution.

Trump’s presidential victory set “at odds two fundamental and compelling national interests: On the one hand, the Constitution’s requirement that the President must not be unduly encumbered in fulfilling his weighty responsibilities . . . and on the other hand, the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law,” prosecutors wrote in court papers.

The move just weeks after Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris underscores the immense personal stake Trump had in the campaign in which he turned his legal woes into a political rallying cry. Trump accused prosecutors of bringing the charges in a bid to keep him out of the White House, and he promised revenge on his perceived enemies if he won a second term.

“If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison,” Vice President-elect JD Vance, wrote in a social media post on Monday. “These prosecutions were always political. Now it’s time to ensure what happened to President Trump never happens in this country again.”

After the Jan. 6 attack by Trump supporters that left more than 100 police officers injured, Republican leader Mitch McConnell and several other Republicans who voted to acquit Trump during his Senate impeachment trial said it was up to the justice system to hold Trump accountable.

The Jan. 6 case brought last year in Washington alleged an increasingly desperate criminal conspiracy to subvert the will of voters after Trump’s 2020 loss, accusing Trump of using the angry mob of supporters that attacked the Capitol as “a tool” in his campaign to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence and obstruct the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.

Hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters — many of whom have said they felt called to Washington by Trump — have pleaded guilty or been convicted by juries of federal charges at the same courthouse where Trump was supposed to stand trial last year. As the trial date neared, officials at the courthouse that sits within view of the Capitol were busy making plans for the crush of reporters expected to cover the historic case.

But Trump’s argument that he enjoyed absolute immunity from prosecution quickly tied up the case in appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court. The high court ruled in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, and sent the case back to the trial court to decide which allegations could move forward. But the case was dismissed before the trial court could get a chance to do so.

The other indictment brought in Florida accused Trump of improperly storing at his Mar-a-Lago estate sensitive documents on nuclear capabilities, enlisting aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showing off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map.

But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July on grounds that Smith was illegally appointed. Smith appealed to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but abandoned that appeal on Monday. Smith’s team said it would continue its fight in the appeals court to revive charges against Trump’s two co-defendants because “no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.”

In New York, jurors spent weeks last spring hearing evidence in a state case alleging a Trump scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex. New York prosecutors recently expressed openness to delaying sentencing until after Trump’s second term, while Trump’s lawyers are fighting to have the conviction dismissed altogether.

In Georgia, a trial while Trump is in office seems unlikely in a state case charging him and more than a dozen others with conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. The case has been on hold since an appeals court agreed to review whether to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case.

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Associated Press reporter Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The leaders of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign insist they simply didn’t have enough time to execute a winning strategy against Donald Trump, pointing to “ferocious” political headwinds that were ultimately too much to overcome in the 107-day period after President Joe Biden stepped aside.

Harris’ leadership team, speaking on the “Pod Save America” podcast that aired on Tuesday, defended strategic decisions over the campaign’s closing days, some of which have faced scrutiny in the weeks since Trump’s decisive victory. Specifically, they defended Harris’ outreach to Republican voters, her unwillingness to distance herself from Biden, her silence on Trump’s attacks on her transgender policies and her inability to schedule an interview with popular podcaster Joe Rogan.

“In a 107-day race, it is very difficult to do all the things you would normally do in a year and a half, two years,” said Harris campaign senior adviser Jen O’Malley Dillon.

David Plouffe, another senior adviser, added, “There was a price to be paid for the short campaign.”

The pointed reflections on Harris’ loss came just before she declared she was “proud of the campaign we ran” during a conference call with supporters as the party begins a painful process of self-examination. Trump won every swing state and made gains among key voting groups traditionally aligned with Democrats — young voters and voters of color, among them. Backed by the resounding win, the Republican president-elect is claiming a mandate to enact his populist agenda as he prepares to return to the White House on Jan. 20.

Harris acknowledged her defeat during the conference call, but praised the political organization her team built that featured more than 408,000 volunteers who knocked on nearly 20 million doors and made over 219 million phone calls.

“What we did in 107 days was unprecedented,” she said, noting that her campaign also raised more than $1.4 billion, which marks a record for U.S. presidential campaigns.

Still, Harris’ campaign finished the election in debt. And none of the Harris advisers acknowledged any mistakes during the wide-ranging podcast interview hosted by former Democratic operatives. Instead, they indicated that Harris had few options given the compressed timeframe and the broad anti-incumbent headwinds that have challenged elected officials across the world.

They also gave Trump’s team some credit.

They specifically pointed to Trump’s closing attack ad, which highlighted Harris’ support for taxpayer-funded sex reassignment surgeries for transgender prisoners.

“Obviously, it was a very effective ad at the end,” said Harris deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks. “I think that it made her seem out of touch.”

The campaign tested several potential response ads but, in the end, decided it was best to avoid a specific rebuttal.

“There’s no easy answers to this,” O’Malley Dillon said.

Plouffe said he thought the Trump attack ad against “Bidenomics” was even more effective, but he acknowledged that the transgender attacks were not helpful.

“She was on tape,” he said. “Surgery for trans people who want to transition in prison was part of the Biden-Harris platform in 2020. It was part of what the administration did, right?”

And while the campaign has faced lingering questions about its media strategy, Harris’ team said she actually wanted to participate in a podcast with Rogan, who is among the world’s most popular podcasters and ultimately endorsed Trump.

Stephanie Cutter, another Harris senior adviser, said the campaign wasn’t able to “find a date” to make it work.

“We had discussions with Joe Rogan’s team. They were great. They wanted us to come on. We wanted to come on,” she said. “Will she do it sometime in the future? Maybe. Who knows. But it didn’t ultimately impact the outcome one way or the other.”

Plouffe noted that the campaign offered to do the Rogan podcast on the road in Austin, Texas. Trump ultimately did his interview with Rogan in the podcaster’s studio.

Harris’ campaign brass also defended her decision to court moderate Republicans in the campaign’s closing days. The decision has drawn ire from some progressives, who believe Harris should have worked harder to turn out more traditional Democratic voters.

“This political environment sucked, OK? We were dealing with ferocious headwinds,” Plouffe said. “So we had a complicated puzzle to put together here in terms of the voters.”

He acknowledged some “drift” toward Trump among non-college-educated voters, particularly voters of color, which made Harris’ outreach to moderate voters even more important.

“Yes, of course, you have to maximize your turnout and your vote share amongst liberal voters if you’re a Democrat. That was a huge focus,” he said. He added, “You’ve got to couple that with dominating in the middle. Not just winning it a little. We have to dominate the moderate vote.”

Speaking on Tuesday’s conference call, Harris’ running mate Tim Walz described the election result as “incredibly disappointing” and “a bit scary.” But he praised the campaign’s effort.

“There will be a day of reckoning when it will be asked, ‘What did you do during the 2024 campaign?’ Well, I know the people on this call can say, everything they possibly could,” Walz said. “And for that, as an American, I’m incredibly grateful.”

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By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investor Whitney Tilson, who often pushed corporations to perform better for shareholders and employees while running a New York-based hedge fund, has entered the race to replace New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

The 58-year-old Democrat said the city needs “a businessperson not a career politician” to shake up city government and pledges to cut violent crime in half, rein in spending, address the high cost of living and improve public schools.

Tilson, who ran a hedge fund for 18 years and now publishes investment newsletters at Stansberry’s Investment Advisory, is the latest to enter a crowded field of candidates vying to unseat Eric Adams after the mayor was charged with bribery and fraud.

“There is no clear favorite and there is no one in my lane in terms of someone who has a business background,” Tilson, who earned a degree from Harvard Business School, told Reuters. The election is scheduled for November 2025 and a primary will be held in June.

Tilson’s hedge fund Kase Capital Management made bets on companies ranging from Netflix, Apple and Amazon to Lumber Liquidators.

While calling his campaign “audacious,” Tilson said he wants to be part of a solution to make Democrats electable again after Kamala Harris’ loss to Donald Trump in the presidential race.

Even though he worked on Wall Street, Tilson stressed he is not wealthy enough to self finance his mayoral run and will take matching funds. He will not ask billionaire friends, including investor Bill Ackman, who was a groomsman in his wedding, to write big checks and rely instead on small donations, he said.

City comptroller Brad Lander, former city comptroller Scott Stringer and former federal prosecutor Jim Walden are among the candidates running.

Eight years ago when Trump was first elected, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren railed against Tilson, calling him part of the billionaire class that is hurting the country and would profit from Trump’s economic policies. Tilson said then and again on Tuesday that he is nowhere close to having the net worth of a billionaire, supports regulation for the financial industry and has donated to Democrats, including Warren.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump will take office on Jan. 20 after defeating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. Here is a timeline of events between now and Inauguration Day:

Dec. 11: States must submit certified slates of presidential electors by this date to the archivist of the United States as part of a 2022 federal law intended to avoid a repeat of the chaos after Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 defeat.

Dec. 17: Electors, who together form the Electoral College, meet in their respective states and the District of Columbia to select the president and vice president.

Dec. 25: The electoral votes must be received by this date by the president of the Senate – a role held by the vice president, currently Harris – and the archivist.

2025

Jan. 6: Harris presides over the Electoral College vote count at a joint session of Congress, announces the results and declares who has been elected.

Ahead of the count on Jan. 6, 2021, then-President Trump lambasted his vice president, Mike Pence, for refusing to try to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.

On that day, Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the count. Biden’s win was certified early the next day.

Congress has since passed reforms that require approval of one-fifth of the House and Senate to consider a challenge to a state’s results – a much higher bar than existed before, when at least one member each in the Senate and the House of Representatives could together trigger a challenge.

Jan. 20: Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will take their respective oaths of office during a swearing-in ceremony that is due to begin at 12 p.m. ET (1700 GMT).

(Reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Ross Colvin, Lisa Shumaker, Jamie Freed and Jonathan Oatis)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The top lawyer on Donald Trump’s transition team investigated a longtime adviser to the president-elect over allegations he used his proximity to Trump to score payments from those seeking roles or influence in the new administration.

The review conducted by lawyer David Warrington recommended that Trump aides sharply constrain adviser Boris Epshteyn’s access to the president-elect, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an internal matter.

The personnel drama spotlights the unusual and often-disorganized cast of characters around Trump who contributed to the chaos of his first term, some of whom are part of the transition to the second as he looks to build out his administration before he takes office on Jan. 20.

Among those Epshteyn is alleged to have sought payments from is Scott Bessent, Trump’s nominee to be treasury secretary. Bessent mounted a months-long campaign to win the job but was opposed by Epshteyn allegedly after the hedge fund executive didn’t agree to pay him a substantial retainer.

The review also examined a complaint from former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned in scandal but has expressed interest in joining Trump’s administration. Greitens signed a declaration last week recounting a Nov. 7 conversation with Epshteyn that alleged that his “overall tone and behavior gave me the impression of an implicit expectation to engage in business dealings with him before he would advocate for or suggest my appointment to the President. This created a sense of unease and pressure on my part.”

Epshteyn isn’t accused of doing anything illegal — securing fees for access to senior government officials is the bread and butter of Washington’s lobbying establishment — but the investigation appeared designed to weaken or eliminate his prominent position within Trump’s orbit. The president-elect has long chafed at those he viewed as using him for their own personal gain.

“As is standard practice, a broad review of the campaign’s consulting agreements has been conducted and completed, including as to Boris, among others,” said Trump communications director Steven Cheung. “We are now moving ahead together as a team to help President Trump Make America Great Again.”

Veterans of other presidential campaigns and transitions said such a review was anything but standard, and Cheung did not comment on Epshteyn’s role going forward.

Epshteyn, who served briefly in a mid-level role in Trump’s first White House, became a central player in Trump’s life after he left office in 2021. He was one of the architects of Trump’s legal team and strategy as the former president faced an array of criminal and civil threats after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Epshteyn himself was indicted on state charges in Arizona related to alleged efforts by Trump allies to subvert that election and has pleaded not guilty. He holds the title of senior counsel and senior adviser to Trump, but even before the review he was not expected to take a role in the incoming administration.

“I am honored to work for President Trump and with his team,” Epshteyn said in a statement. “These fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from Making America Great Again.”

Eric Trump, the president-elect’s son who went to college with Epshteyn, told Fox News that if the reported allegations were true, his old friend might not be around the campaign much longer.

“Listen, I have known Boris for years, and I have never known him to be anything but a good human being,” Eric Trump said Monday. “So, that said, I will tell you, my father’s been incredibly clear. You do not, you do not do that under any circumstance. And, believe me, there will be repercussions if somebody was.”

The investigation into Epshteyn was first reported by the conservative website Just the News.

“I suppose every President has people around them who try to make money off them on the outside. It’s a shame but it happens,” Trump told the website. “But no one working for me in any capacity should be looking to make money. They should only be here to Make America Great Again.”

During the 2022 midterms, some in Trump’s orbit also represented candidates seeking his endorsement, leading to accusations that aides were profiting off their proximity to the former president.

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

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