Politics

(Reuters) -Scott Bessent, the investor selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be his Treasury secretary, will divest from his Key Square Group hedge fund and other investments, according to a letter to the Treasury Department’s ethics office.

Bessent outlined the steps he would take to “avoid any actual or apparent conflict of interest in the event that I am confirmed for the position of Secretary of the Department of Treasury,” according to the letter.

The money manager, tapped by Trump on Nov. 23 to be the top U.S. economic policymaker, said he would resign from his position in Bessent-Freeman Family Foundation.

He also plans to shutter Key Square Capital Management, the investment firm he founded, according to the New York Times, which first reported Bessent’s divestments.

Reuters reported in November that if Bessent were to take a job in the new administration, Key Square could be wound down, sold, or put in “sleep mode.”

A spokesperson for Bessent declined to comment.

On Friday, Trump repeated the financial arrangement that he made during his first term, handing over daily management of his multi-billion-dollar real estate, hotel, golf, media and licensing portfolio to his children when he enters the White House.

(Reporting by Chandni Shah and Urvi Dugar; Editing by David Gregorio and William Mallard)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is about to have a lot more free time. He need look no further than past presidents for ideas on what to put on his retirement to-do list.

At age 82, Biden is the oldest U.S. president. In a recent interview with USA Today, he acknowledged uncertainty about his future stamina, saying, “Who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”

But his age isn’t remarkable for former presidents, nine of whom lived past 90. They include George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, John Adams, Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter, who recently died at 100.

A look at some traditional — as well as a few decidedly less conventional — ways Biden might spend his upcoming years:

Unlike his presidential predecessor-turned-successor, Donald Trump, Biden almost certainly won’t try a political comeback.

The Democrat has said little publicly about his post-Oval Office plans. Those who have long known him say it’s not something he’s discussed much beyond a tight circle of close aides.

Some modern former presidents have collected large fees for post-White House speaking engagements. Biden, who was plagued most of his term by low approval ratings, could use such appearances to try to bolster his legacy and future popularity. He told USA Today that he wanted his legacy to be having worked “to restore the economy and reestablish America’s leadership in the world.”

The good news for Biden is that presidents often see their popularity improve after leaving office.

Republican George W. Bush was unpopular at the end of his term amid the Iraq War and the financial crisis. But he became more favorably viewed in subsequent years, despite keeping a low public profile while taking up painting. Trump was similarly dogged by low approval ratings throughout his first term, but won back the White House in November.

A priority for Biden is likely to be fundraising and beginning work on plans for his presidential library. It probably would be in Biden’s home state of Delaware, where he was a senator for 36 years and spent many weekends while president.

Officials have already enlisted at least one Biden administration ambassador to help with fundraising. A model can be the Barack Obama Presidential Center, a 19.3-acre (0.08-square-kilometer) library and museum in Chicago. Work began three years ago, with completion expected in 2026.

Biden can be something of a pack rat, aides say, and may want to hang on to memorabilia from his White House years. He needs to proceed with caution.

Federal elected officials are required to relinquish official documents and classified materials when they leave office. Biden’s personal lawyers have been working on careful document management since even before classified material from Biden’s time in the Senate and as vice president was found at the Penn Biden Center in Washington and in Biden’s Delaware garage.

Those discoveries followed an FBI search in 2022 on Trump’s Florida club, part of a documents case that was scrapped after he won back the White House. In Biden’s case, special counsel Robert Hur later released a report impugning the president’s age and mental competence but didn’t seek criminal charges over mishandled documents.

“We are going to do our best, certainly, to be careful to follow the rules, to do this the right way,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked about document retention on Friday.

Biden hasn’t expressed much interest, those close to him say, in writing another book. He’s written two memoirs, “Promises to Keep” published in 2007, and “Promise Me, Dad,” released in 2017.

He might eventually opt to work on a third, though, to help cement his aforementioned legacy. Again, he would need to proceed with caution.

Hur accused Biden of being sloppy about sharing classified information with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer, who worked on Biden’s first two books. The special counsel considered charging Zwonitzer with obstruction of justice because the ghostwriter destroyed recordings of interviews he conducted with Biden while they worked on his second memoir.

Ultimately, Hur’s report said Zwonitzer offered “plausible, innocent reasons” for having done so and subsequently cooperated with investigators.

A longtime enthusiast of political tradition, Biden could well embrace membership in the ex-presidents club. The former commanders in chief from time to time pose for pictures and pat one another on the back while milling around at historic events — and sit together at VIP funerals.

Former presidents also sometimes take on special projects together such as promoting vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic or raising money after natural disasters. They rarely criticize one another and tend to offer even fewer harsh words about current White House occupants.

This will be a chance for Biden to again differentiate himself from Trump, who showed little interest in spending time with former presidents after losing his 2020 reelection bid. That was similar to how he shunned typical post-presidency endeavors like working on building a presidential library, instead concentrating on his 2024 campaign.

Biden already convened his own former presidents club of sorts while still in office: He prepared for his State of the Union address last March by holding a video call with actors who had previously played presidents.

Morgan Freeman, Tony Goldwyn, Geena Davis and Michael Douglas offered advice and encouragement, as did Bill Pullman, who played President Thomas J. Whitmore in “Independence Day.” Pullman seized on Biden’s ever-present optimism in his public comments to predict, “People, when they look at all that you’ve managed to do, they’re gonna remember. Time will remember, always, your words.”

Speaking of celebrities, Biden has floated the idea of more glitzy post-presidential pursuits.

In August, about a month after he scrapped his reelection campaign, Biden joked at an event for online content creators: “That’s why I invited you to the White House — because I’m looking for a job.”

When Jessica Alba helped celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month at the White House a few weeks later, Biden joked that he might soon need the star’s business connections to help find work, saying, “Jessica, if I’m really good, maybe you can get me a job?”

He offered a similar joke at a December event for Kennedy Center honorees, telling Robert De Niro, “If I get in trouble, I’m coming to you, pal.”

“I’m looking for work in February,” Biden said to laughter. “Maybe you’ve got something for me? A Biden-De Niro combination? I can’t sing, I can’t act, I can’t dance, do a damn thing – but I could help ya.”

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(Reuters) -U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned, as the Republican president-elect prepared to return to the White House.

Smith resigned on Friday from the Department of Justice, according to a court filing on Saturday to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, asking her to lift a court order she issued blocking release of his final report.

Notice of Smith’s resignation came in a footnote in the filing, which said the Special Counsel had completed his work, submitted his final confidential report on Jan. 7, and “separated” from the Justice Department on Jan. 10.

A former war crimes prosecutor, Smith brought two of the four criminal cases Trump faced after leaving office, but saw them grind to a halt after a Trump-appointed judge in Florida dismissed one and the U.S. Supreme Court — with three justices appointed by Trump — found that former presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for official acts. Neither case went to trial.

After Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election, Smith dropped both cases, citing a longstanding Justice Department rule against prosecuting sitting presidents. In asking courts to dismiss the charges, Smith’s team defended the merits of the cases they had brought, signaling only that Trump’s impending return to the White House made them untenable. 

Smith’s departure is another marker of the collapse of the criminal cases against Trump, which could end without any legal consequences for the incoming president and sparked a backlash that helped fuel his political comeback.

Smith’s resignation from the Justice Department was expected. Trump, who has frequently called Smith “deranged”, had said he would fire him immediately upon taking office on Jan. 20, and has suggested that he may pursue retribution against Smith and others who investigated him once he returns to office.

Trump in 2023 became the first sitting or former U.S. president to face criminal prosecution, first in New York, where he was charged with trying to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign. Smith’s charges followed, accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified material after leaving office and of trying to overturn his 2020 loss, a campaign that sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors in Georgia also charged Trump over his efforts to overturn his election defeat in that state.

TRUMP CLAIMED POLITICAL MOTIVATION

Trump denied wrongdoing and assailed the prosecutions as politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign. He raised millions in campaign contributions from courthouse appearances and used the cases to drive a powerful narrative that the political establishment was arrayed against him and his supporters.

The Justice Department defended the cases, saying they were run by career prosecutors who operated free of political influence.

Garland appointed Smith in November 2022 — nearly two years after the Capitol attack — to lead the Justice Department’s twin ongoing investigations into Trump. That move came just days after Trump announced a campaign to return to the White House in the 2024 election.

Garland, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, said Smith would provide a degree of independence in the highly sensitive investigations. Garland had rebuffed earlier calls to name a special prosecutor, insisting he could appropriately oversee the Trump probes.

Smith returned to Washington from The Hague where he prosecuted war crimes cases arising from the 1998-1999 Kosovo War.  He previously led the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section and worked in the federal prosecutor’s office in Brooklyn, New York, developing a reputation as a tenacious investigator.

At the Hague, Smith won the conviction of Salih Mustafa, a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander who ran a prison where torture took place during the conflict.

HISTORIC FIRST

The indictments, the first federal cases against a former U.S. president, accused Trump of taking highly sensitive national security documents to his Florida resort and using false claims of voter fraud to attempt to derail the collection and certification of votes following his 2020 election loss.

“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies – lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing the bedrock function of the U.S. government,” Smith said in announcing the election indictment in August 2023, one of only two public appearances he made during his investigation.

Smith faced a tight window to complete both prosecutions as it was clear Trump would be able to shut them down if he won the election. Both faced legal hurdles.

In the classified documents case, Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, dismissed all charges in July after ruling that Smith was improperly appointed as special counsel.

Smith’s office appealed that decision. Prosecutors dropped the appeal relating to Trump following his election win, but signaled they will continue a bid to revive charges against two Trump associates who were accused of obstructing the investigation.

The election case was paused for months while Trump’s lawyers mounted an appeal for presidential immunity. The U.S. Supreme Court largely sided with Trump in August, ruling Trump could not be prosecuted for many official acts he took as president and sparking more delays in the case.

Smith acknowledged in court papers that his team faced an “unprecedented circumstance” after Trump won the election over Democrat Kamala Harris. His office concluded both cases could not continue.

Trump was convicted of falsifying business records following a trial in the New York hush money case, which was brought by state prosecutors. His sentencing was delayed indefinitely after his election win and Trump’s lawyers are seeking to have it dismissed in its entirety.

The Georgia case, which also includes charges against 14 Trump allies, remains in limbo while an appeals court determines if the lead prosecutor, Fani Willis, must be disqualified for misconduct over a romantic affair with a former top deputy. The case against Trump is unlikely to move forward while he remains president.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Additional reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department after submitting his investigative report on President-elect Donald Trump, an expected move that comes amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead.

The department disclosed Smith’s departure in a court filing Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated , follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions against Trump that were withdrawn following Trump’s White House win in November.

At issue now is the fate of a two-volume report that Smith and his team had prepared about their twin investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The Justice Department had been expected to make the document public in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump-appointed judge who presided over the classified documents case granted a defense request to at least temporarily halt its release. Two of Trump’s co-defendants in that case, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that the release of the report would be unfairly prejudicial, an argument that the Trump legal team joined in.

The department responded by saying that it would withhold from public release the classified documents volume as long as criminal proceedings against Nauta and De Oliveira remain pending. Though U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had dismissed the case last July, a Smith team appeal of that decision related to the two co-defendants remained pending.

But prosecutors said they intended to proceed with the release of the election interference volume.

In an emergency motion late Friday, they asked the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to swiftly lift an injunction from Cannon that had barred them from releasing any portion of the report. They separately told Cannon on Saturday that she had no authority to halt the release of the report, but she responded with an order directing prosecutors to file an additional brief by Sunday.

The appeals court on Thursday night denied an emergency defense bid to block the release of the election interference report, which covers Trump’s efforts before Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to undo the results of the 2020 election. But it left in place Cannon’s injunction that said none of the findings could be released until three days after the matter was resolved by the appeals court.

The Justice Department told the appeals court in its emergency motion that Cannon’s order was “plainly erroneous.”

“The Attorney General is the Senate-confirmed head of the Department of Justice and is vested with the authority to supervise all officers and employees of the Department,” the Justice Department said. “The Attorney General thus has authority to decide whether to release an investigative report prepared by his subordinates.”

Justice Department regulations call for special counsels to produce reports at the conclusion of their work, and it’s customary for such documents to be made public no matter the subject.

William Barr, attorney general during Trump’s first term, released a special counsel report examining Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and potential ties to the Trump campaign.

Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, has also released special counsel reports, including about Biden’s handling of classified information before Biden became president.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday said he was still considering whether to give pardons to people who have been criticized or threatened by President-elect Donald Trump.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden said he and his aides were playing close attention to rhetoric from Trump and his allies about his political opponents and those involved in his various criminal and civil woes.

“It depends on some of the language and expectations that Trump broadcast in the last couple days here as to what he’s going to do,” Biden said. “The idea that he would punish people for not adhering to what he thinks should be policy related to his well-being is just outrageous.”

Biden has just 10 days left in office, and the institutionalist has been using his waning days in office to restore some of the transition norms broken by his predecessor-turned-successor. But issuing preemptive pardons — for actual or imagined offenses by Trump’s critics that could be investigated or prosecuted by the incoming administration — would stretch the powers of the presidency in untested ways.

Trump’s frequent targets include Republican Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman, and Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat. They helped lead the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. He has aimed particular criticism at special counsel Jack Smith, who charged Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Biden, who Trump has said should be jailed, scoffed at the notion that he would pardon himself. “What would I pardon myself for?” he asked incredulously. “No, I have no contemplation of pardoning myself for anything. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the Republican members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, rejected the prospect of a pardon from Biden earlier this week in an appearance on CNN.

“I understand the theory behind it because Donald Trump has clearly said he’s going to go after everybody,” he said. “But the second you take a pardon and it looks like you’re guilty of something — I’m guilty of nothing besides bringing the truth to the American people and, in the process, embarrassing Donald Trump.”

In his remarks to reporters, Biden said a decision by the social media giant Meta to end fact-checking on Facebook was “really shameful,” calling it “contrary to American justice.”

The move to replace third-party fact-checking with user-written “community notes,” similar to those on Trump backer Elon Musk’s social platform X, was the latest example of a media company moving to accommodate the incoming administration. It comes on the fourth anniversary of Zuckerberg’s banning Trump from his platforms after the insurrection.

Biden added: “You think it doesn’t matter that they let it be printed? Where millions of people read it, things that are simply not true. I mean, I don’t know what that’s all about. It’s just completely contrary to everything America’s about. We want to tell the truth.”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Democrats are harboring strong feelings of stress and gloom as the new year begins. And many are questioning whether their party’s commitment to diverse candidates — especially women — may lead to further political struggles in the Donald Trump era.

A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that a significant number of Democrats believe that it may be decades before the United States will get its first female president.

Specifically, about 4 in 10 Democrats said it’s “not very likely” or “not at all likely” that a woman will be elected to the nation’s highest office in their lifetime, according to a December AP-NORC poll. That’s compared with about one-quarter of Republicans who feel the same.

While despondency is hardly unique for a political party after a high-profile loss, that finding reflects the deep depression that has set in among Democrats about the country and their party after Trump soundly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

Such concerns may already be shaping the Democratic National Committee’s search for a new leader. For the first time in more than a decade, the top candidates for the job are all white men.

And looking further ahead, the party’s pessimism is influencing early conversations about the contest for the 2028 presidential nomination.

“We knew men hated women. The last election showed, for some of us, that we underestimated the extent to which some women hate other women,” said Gilda Cobb-Hunter, a Democratic state representative from South Carolina and former president of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. “America is as racist and misogynist as it has always been.”

Democrats have nominated a woman to run against Trump in two of the past three presidential elections. In both cases, Trump won decisively, over Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Harris in 2024. The Democrat who unseated Trump — Joe Biden in 2020 — was a white man.

Adding insult to injury for many Democrats was the long list of allegations brought by women against Trump. He was found liable in civil court for sexual abuse and convicted for a hush money case involving an adult film star. He was once caught on tape bragging that he could grab women’s genitals without consent because he was a celebrity.

Still, Trump narrowly carried every key swing state in November. Harris had the advantage among women, winning 53% to Trump’s 46%, but that margin was somewhat narrower than Biden’s. Trump’s support held steady among white women, with slightly more than half supporting him, similar to 2020.

Most Democrats — about 7 in 10 — believe 2025 will be a worse year for the U.S. than 2024, the AP-NORC poll found. That’s compared with about 4 in 10 U.S. adults who feel that way.

The poll also found that Democrats were less likely to be feeling “happy” or “hopeful” about 2025 for them personally. Instead, about 4 in 10 Democrats said “stressed” described their feelings extremely or very well, while roughly one-third of Democrats said this about the word “gloomy.”

Meanwhile, majorities of Republicans and conservatives said “happy” described how they feel about 2025 at least very well. A similar share said the same about “hopeful.”

“It’s so dark out there right now,” said poll respondent Rachel Wineman, a 41-year-old Democrat from Murrieta, California. “My family and I are circling the wagons, trying to keep our heads down and survive.”

There are early signs that this loss has triggered questions about a core commitment of the modern-day Democratic Party to support minority groups, including women, while pushing diverse candidates into positions of power.

Some Democratic leaders fear that Trump’s strong success with working-class white voters — and his modest gains among Blacks and Latinos in the election — may signal a political realignment that could transform the political landscape for years to come unless the party changes its approach.

The vote for a DNC chair offers the first clue as to the direction of the party during the second Trump administration. The election is three weeks away, and the leading candidates are Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin state chair, and Ken Martin, the Minnesota state party chair.

Either would be the first white man in the job since Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine left the position in 2011.

Martin and Wikler are considered the strong front-runners in a field of eight candidates who qualified for a DNC candidate forum Saturday, the first of four such gatherings before the Feb. 1 election at the committee’s winter meeting in suburban Washington.

Two candidates are women: former presidential contender Marianne Williamson and Quintessa Hathaway, a former congressional candidate, educator and civil rights activist.

The outgoing chair, Jaime Harrison, who is Black, said in a statement that the committee will be well-positioned to compete in future elections and push back against Trump’s policies.

“Democrats stand ready to hold him accountable,” Harrison said. “We will continue to invest in all 50 states to build power from the local level on up and elect Democrats across the country.”

Meanwhile, some rank-and-file Democrats in early primary states are openly wondering whether the party’s next White House nominee would be at a disadvantage if that person is not a straight white man who is Christian. Barack Obama is the only Black man to have been elected president in American history.

New Hampshire Democrat Thalia Flores said Harris’ loss has made her rethink the political viability of rising stars such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the most prominent woman expected to weigh a 2028 presidential bid.

“Kamala’s loss can impact those kind of candidates, too, because anybody who’s not a mainstream white guy is maybe not a good bet,” Flores said, indicating that such concerns would not affect her personal vote in the next presidential primary. “It’s a shame that we’re even having the conversation.”

She added, “The American people can’t seem to support a woman.”

Overall, the AP-NORC poll found that about one-quarter of Americans said it was extremely or very likely that the country will elect a woman as president in their lifetime. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults thought it was somewhat likely and about one-third said it was not very likely or not at all likely.

Such feelings are consistent among Americans regardless of age or gender, although Black Americans are more likely than white or Hispanic adults to say it’s “not very likely” or “not likely at all” to happen in their lifetime.

Sarah Burnett, a 49-year-old small business owner from Edgerton, Missouri, said she’s feeling “dread” about the direction of the country in 2025.

“All of us are not looking forward to the next four years,” she said.

As for whether she thinks the U.S. will elect a woman in her lifetime, she said she’s trying to be optimistic.

“Yes, there’s going to be sexism involved, misogyny, the patriarchy and all of that. … But we did have a Black president,” Burnett said. “So yes, I would expect a woman to be elected. Do I have high expectations? No.”

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Sanders reported from Washington.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is preparing more than 100 executive orders starting Day One of the new White House, in what amounts to a shock-and-awe campaign on border security, deportations and a rush of other policy priorities.

Trump told Republican senators about the onslaught ahead during a private meeting on Capitol Hill. Many of the actions are expected to launch on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, when he takes office. Trump top adviser Stephen Miller outlined for the GOP senators the border security and immigration enforcement measures that are likely to launch soonest. Axios first reported on Trump and his team’s presentation.

“There will be a substantial number,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.

Allies of the president-elect have been preparing a stack of executive orders that Trump could sign quickly on a wide range of topics – from the U.S.-Mexico border clampdown to energy development to federal Schedule F workforce rules, school gender policies and vaccine mandates, among other day-one promises made during his campaign.

While executive actions are common on the first day of a new White House, as a new president puts a stamp on certain priorities, what Trump and his team are planning is an executive punch unseen in modern times as he prepares to wield power in untested ways, bypassing the legislative machinery of Congress.

Some could be significant, others could be more symbolic messages of the new president’s direction.

Senators briefed by Trump and his team during a lengthy session at the Capitol this week are expecting the new administration to rollback many of the Biden administration executive orders while putting his own proposals in place.

Finishing the U.S-Mexico border wall, setting up immigration detention facilities where migrants could be housed until they are expelled are all part of the mix – some $100 billion in proposals, senators said, that incoming Trump administration and the GOP Congress are working to fund as part of their big budget reconciliation legislation.

Senators expect Trump to revert back to many of the same U.S-Mexico border measures in place during his first term – including those that require migrants to apply in other countries or remain in Mexico, rather than enter the U.S., while their claims are being processed – as well as massive enforcement actions to deport those currently in the U.S. without legal authority.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who led negotiations on border security and immigration during the last Congress, said he expects the Trump team to focus initially on an estimated 1 million migrants who he said most recently entered the country, have been convicted of crimes or who courts have otherwise determined are otherwise ineligible to stay in the U.S.

“That’s the low-hanging fruit,” Lankford said. “People that recently crossed, people that were legally present and committed other crimes, people that the court has ordered them removed – that’s well over a million people. Start working through that process.”

Trump himself once mused during the presidential campaign about having a “tiny desk” at the Capitol on Inauguration Day, where he would sit and quickly sign his executive orders.

While there are no public signs he is considering that, the Republican senators are planning to welcome Trump inside the building after he takes the oath of office. The new president would typically sign the paperwork needed for the formal nominations of his Cabinet and administrative picks.

Many of Trump’s choices for top administration jobs are going through Senate confirmation hearings this upcoming week. Traditionally, the Senate begins holding votes on a president’s nominees as soon as he takes office, with some even being confirmed on Inauguration Day.

“That would be nice,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who said senators are still awaiting background checks and other paperwork for many of Trump’s picks. “We’ll see.”

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By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he did not believe his decision to run for re-election paved the way for President-elect Donald Trump to win in 2024 and indicated he is still considering pre-emptive pardons for people whom Trump has targeted.

Trump, a Republican who will return to the White House on Jan. 20, beat Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, last year and repeatedly called for the prosecution of his perceived enemies.

“I think I would have beaten Trump, could have beaten Trump, and I think that Kamala could have beaten Trump,” Biden told reporters at the White House when asked if he regretted his initial decision to run for re-election.

Biden, 82, stepped aside after a disastrous debate against Trump, 78, sparked worries within the Democratic party that he could not win in November or serve out a second term.

“I thought it was important to unify the party,” Biden said about his decision, adding it was the honor of his life to be president but he did not want to cause a party that was not unified to lose an election.

Regarding pardons, Biden suggested he was taking into account what Trump was saying about his intentions for retribution.

“The idea that he would punish people … is outrageous,” Biden said. “There’s still consideration … but no decision.”

Asked whether he was considering a pre-emptive pardon for himself, Biden said no. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Biden rarely held news conferences during his four years in the White House but took several questions from reporters on Friday.

He said that new sanctions imposed on Russian oil could raise gasoline prices by three or four cents per gallon but would have a profound effect on Russia’s economy.

Biden, who canceled a trip to Italy to stay in Washington to oversee the federal response to the fires in California, said he was disappointed that he would not be able to visit Pope Francis at the Vatican, but said it was more important for him to remain in town.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday said it would hear more arguments involving an extremely close election in November for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat where the trailing candidate has argued that tens of thousands of ballots cast should not have been counted.

After reviewing several legal filings this week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 27 as well as briefing deadlines. The order means that both the federal appeals court and the state Supreme Court likely will consider simultaneously substantial matters related to the race between Democratic Associate Justice Allison Riggs and Republican challenger Jefferson Griffin.

Election results show Riggs ahead of Griffin by 734 votes from over 5.5 million ballots cast. But attorneys for Griffin — a state Court of Appeals judge — argued in formal election protests that well over 60,000 ballots came from ineligible voters.

Most of those being challenged were cast by voters whose registration records lacked either a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a Social Security number. A state law has required that such numbers be sought in registration applications since 2004.

The State Board of Elections dismissed Griffin’s protests last month and had been poised to certify Riggs as the winner on Friday. Griffin had already gone to the state Supreme Court asking it to intervene, but the board removed that matter to federal court, saying it involved many federal election and voting laws. Griffin wanted the matter to remain before the state Supreme Court, which has a Republican majority of justices.

But on Monday, U.S. District Judge Richard Myers ruled that North Carolina state courts were the proper venue to hear Griffin’s arguments and returned Griffin’s appeals to the state Supreme Court. The next day, the Supreme Court’s justices in a 4-2 decision agreed to block the election certification. Riggs recused herself from the deliberations. The justices asked for briefs to be filed in a schedule that ran through Jan. 24.

Meanwhile, the state elections board asked the 4th Circuit this week to decide whether Myers should have retained jurisdiction of Griffin’s case and ultimately reject Griffin’s demand for a preliminary injunction.

Riggs’ attorneys also weighed in and asked the 4th Circuit to speed up the process. Riggs, who is one of two Democrats on court and seeks an eight-year term, wants a decision in this appeal before the Supreme Court begins hearing its own cases this year on Feb. 11, her lawyers wrote. The 4th Circuit, in Friday’s order that listed no judges, granted Riggs’ motion for expedited legal briefing and oral argument.

It’s unclear how separate rulings in the federal and state appeals in this election will shake out. Griffin’s claims largely focus on state laws and the state constitution. Attorney for Riggs and the election board have argued that federal laws and the U.S. Constitution play a large role in the case, however.

Other categories of votes that Griffin is challenging were cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were deemed North Carolina residents; and by military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification with their ballots.

Earlier Friday, a state trial judge denied a request by Republican Party groups and two voters to order ballots cast by voters whose registration records lack driver’s license or Social Security numbers and found not to be valid voters to be removed from final election counts for state elections in November.

The state board has said there are many reasons why a voter record lacks such a number. A lawyer representing the board Friday in Wake County court said that evidence has been presented showing the voters at issue were ineligible to cast ballots.

The Democratic National Committee, which joined with the board in opposing the GOP request, said in a brief that such a demand was yet another attempt by the GOP in recent months to “engage in mass voter suppression.”

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By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – On Friday, a New York judge imposed a sentence that ensures Donald Trump will be the first convicted felon to enter the White House when he is sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

It was a brief and relatively calm final encounter of Trump’s relationship with Justice Juan Merchan over 21 months and featured accusations of political bias from the former and stern dressings-down from the latter.

Prosecutors charged Trump, 78, in April 2023 with falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star.

Although Trump will avoid jail, fines and probation, Merchan’s sentence of unconditional discharge puts Trump’s May 2024 conviction by a jury on his permanent record. 

Outside the courtroom during a six-week trial, the former and future president assailed Merchan, making the judge a centerpiece of his public relations campaign vilifying the indictment. 

The Republican businessman-turned-politician called Merchan, 62, a “radical partisan” in league with Trump’s Democratic rivals. His lawyers sought the judge’s disqualification, citing Merchan’s daughter’s work for a Democratic consultancy. 

Trump even alluded to Merchan’s Colombian heritage as evidence of bias, telling reporters on May 21 last year to “take a look at where he comes from.” 

Merchan did not engage with Trump’s personal attacks but let it be known he did not appreciate his out-of-court rhetoric. 

GAG ORDER, FINES

Before the trial, the judge imposed a gag order restricting Trump’s comments on some people involved in the case. He fined Trump $10,000 for violating the order several times and threatened to jail him if he ran afoul of it again. 

After the trial, on Jan. 3, Merchan slammed Trump’s “lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole” and rejected his last-ditch bid to have the verdict tossed due to his victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

The case represented a career pinnacle for Merchan, who emigrated with his family from Colombia to New York City as a child, became a prosecutor in 1994 and was appointed a judge to the New York City Family Court in 2006. He took the bench where he now presides in 2009.

But the case, as the first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. president past or present, presented unprecedented challenges.

The judge delayed Trump’s sentencing, initially scheduled for July 11, three times. In a September ruling pushing the sentencing back until after the election at Trump’s request, Merchan wrote that he did not want to be perceived as having a political motive.

Those delays, together with Trump’s victory and looming return to the White House, left Merchan with little choice but to sentence Trump to unconditional discharge, meaning no jail or other legal punishment.

“The considerable, indeed extraordinary, legal protection afforded by the office of the chief executive is a factor that overrides all others,” Merchan said. “Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase jury verdicts.” 

Friday’s half-hour hearing, largely a formality after Merchan previewed the sentence he intended to impose, lacked the invective that had come to characterize their relationship. 

“I was treated very, very unfairly, and I thank you very much,” Trump said. 

In the end Merchan said: “Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume your second term in office.”

(Reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by Howard Goller)

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