We The Media

AXIOS: President-elect Trump is expected to appoint ultra loyalist Kash Patel to a high-profile position at either the FBI or the Justice Department, top transition sources tell Axios.

Patel would be a deeply controversial pick for any leadership role, especially FBI director. Given the hurdles Patel might face winning Senate confirmation, Trump is considering naming him deputy director or to an appointed investigative role within DOJ, the sources said.

A final decision hasn't been made. Trump still could change his mind, including by elevating Patel all the way to FBI director — a move that would send Gaetz-like shockwaves throughout Washington.

"Kash has a lot of allies who think placing him in a top role would be well-received by the Trump base, and send a clear message that Trump is serious about major reform to the justice and law-enforcement agencies," a transition source told Axios.
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BREAKING🔥: Special Counsel Jack Smith asked a judge on Monday to dismiss the federal election interference charges against incoming president Donald Trump, putting an end to a lengthy investigation that never made it to trial.

Smith asked U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to dismiss the case without prejudice, acknowledging that Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president. If she does that, it leaves open the possibility that prosecutors could again bring charges once Trump leaves office after his second White House term.

But legal experts said it’s possible that once in office, Trump could do something that has never been tested before: Pardon himself to foreclose the possibility of legal jeopardy in the future.
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CNN: Elon Musk floats buying MSNBC, but he’s not the only billionaire who may be interested

Conventional wisdom holds that Musk — the world’s richest man and key Donald Trump ally — and his friends are just joking. But Musk’s posts are adding to the anxiety that MSNBC staffers are feeling about the reelection of Donald Trump and the recently announced spinoff of Comcast’s cable channels.

I spent Sunday on the phone with sources to gauge what might be going on. I learned that more than one benevolent billionaire with liberal bonafides has already reached out to acquaintances at MSNBC to express interest in buying the cable channel. The inbound interest was reassuring, one of the sources said, since it showed that oppositional figures like Musk (who famously bought Twitter to blow it up) would not be the only potential suitors.

But contrary to claims that Trump’s allies are posting on X, Comcast has not put a “for sale” sign on MSNBC’s door. If Comcast chief Brian Roberts really wanted to sell the liberal cable news channel, he could have done that already. Instead, he is moving MSNBC and a half dozen other cable channels into “SpinCo,” a pure-play cable programming company. The hope is that spinning off the pressured-but-profitable channels will boost shares of both Comcast and “SpinCo.”

Comcast says the transaction will take about a year. At that point, could someone swoop in with a bid for MSNBC? It’s complicated. “SpinCo” is structured as a tax-free spinoff, and immediately divesting an asset would have tax implications that could forestall any such sale.

... That said, Musk’s posts shouldn’t be ignored. He famously foreshadowed his pursuit of Twitter with a tweet that asked, “How much is it?” On Friday, he similarly asked of MSNBC, “How much does it cost?” He was responding to Donald Trump, Jr., who posted a meme that (falsely) said MSNBC is for sale and wrote, “Hey @elonmusk I have the funniest idea ever!!!”
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David Brock world scores fresh checks from dark money donors

To Media Matters for America and the American Independent Foundation, two progressive groups formed by the conservative journalist-turned-Democratic operative David Brock, the scourge of so-called right-wing “dark money” is a stain on democracy.

Media Matters once declared, in a blog post on its website that Brock promoted, that the press ignores “the GOP’s dark money problem.”

However, the Brock-linked groups have also long relied on anonymous donations from shadowy organizations to keep their lights on, tax records show.

Newly filed disclosures with the IRS covering 2023 show Media Matters and the American Independent Foundation scooped up hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Hopewell Fund. The charity is part of a massive Democratic-aligned dark money network called Arabella Advisors, overseeing groups that, in turn, do not release details on their finances thanks to lax federal disclosure laws.
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NEW: President Trump's transition team is putting together a wide-ranging energy package to roll out within days of his taking office that would approve export permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects and increase oil drilling off the U.S. coast and on federal lands, according to two sources familiar with the plans.

The energy checklist largely reflects promises Trump made on the campaign trail, but the plan to roll out the list as early as day one ensures that oil and gas production will rank alongside immigration as a pillar of Trump's early agenda.

Trump, a Republican, also plans to repeal some of his Democratic predecessor's key climate legislation and regulations, such as tax credits for electric vehicles and new clean power plant standards that aim to phase out coal and natural gas, the sources said.

An early priority would be lifting President Joe Biden's election-year pause on new export permits for LNG and moving swiftly to approve pending permits, the sources said. Trump would also look to expedite drilling permits on federal lands and quickly reopen five-year drilling plans off the U.S. coast to include more lease sales, the sources said.

In a symbolic gesture, Trump would seek to approve the Keystone Pipeline, an issue that was an environmental flashpoint and which was halted after Biden canceled a key permit on his first day in office. But any company looking to build the multibillion-dollar effort to carry Canadian crude oil to the U.S. would need to start from scratch because things like easements have been returned to landowners.
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The legal team representing the U.S. Navy veteran suing CNN for defamation has requested the court to compel anchor Jake Tapper to sit down for an additional hour of deposition after he refused to answer key questions "aimed at punitive damages discovery" during the first go-round.

Zachary Young alleges that CNN smeared his security consulting company, Nemex Enterprises Inc., by implying it illegally profited when helping people flee Afghanistan during the Biden administration's military withdrawal from the country in 2021. Young believes CNN "destroyed his reputation and business" during a segment that year on Tapper's program "The Lead."

A high-stakes civil trial is scheduled to begin on Jan. 6 in front of Judge Henry in the Circuit Court for Bay County, Florida.

Tapper sat down for a deposition last week but was instructed by CNN’s counsel not to answer a variety of questions, according to a court filing obtained by Fox News Digital.
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Trump team barred from agencies amid legal standoff

Advisers to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reached out to the Health and Human Services Department multiple times after Donald Trump tapped him to lead the massive agency, hoping to jumpstart coordination before his takeover in late January. They were rebuffed.

Kennedy’s inability to communicate with the agency he may soon manage, confirmed by an administration official with knowledge of the episodes granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations, is just one consequence of the president-elect’s continued foot-dragging on signing the standard trio of ethics and transparency agreements with the federal government — something his team pledged to do shortly after the election.

The Trump transition’s unprecedented delay in signing the agreements has so far prevented the incoming administration from having any formal contact with federal agencies, including sending in groups of policy advisers known as “landing teams.” It also means they can’t access cybersecurity support or secure email servers for transition-related work, or request FBI background checks for their nominees.

Both the Trump transition and the White House confirmed to POLITICO that negotiations on the agreements are still underway. But until the standoff is resolved, Trump’s Cabinet nominees will gain no more insight than the general public into the workings of the departments they’re supposed to run.
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😆🥴🫠With the early primary polls on her side, Democrat Party insiders say Kamala Harris is thinking seriously about trying again for the presidency in 2028.

“Of course, she’s going to try and run again,” someone the Daily Mail describes as a “well-connected Democratic strategist,” told the outlet. The strategist added that Kamala’s ambition is only one thing driving this decision.

“Despite some hesitation, Harris has generated a lot of sympathetic reactions from professional Democrats in Washington,” reports the Daily Mail. “They describe her campaign as ‘near flawless’ but say she struggled to separate herself from President Joe Biden’s record.”
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Microsoft is investigating an issue with its Microsoft 365 service and its Teams app, with some users reporting to DownDetector that they are having problems using services such as Exchange and Outlook.

On social media service X, Microsoft posted a message early Monday that it is assessing "an issue impacting users attempting to access Exchange Online or functionality within Microsoft Teams calendar." The problem appears to be affecting Microsoft users globally, according to posts from users.

"We've identified a recent change which we believe has resulted in impact. We've started to revert the change and are investigating what additional actions are required to mitigate the issue," Microsoft added in a subsequent post.
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Two in-house investigators at U.S. intelligence agencies recently quit their jobs. There’s growing fear in Washington that they could be the start of an exodus — or a purge — of government watchdogs.

A wave of departures by inspectors general would give President-elect Donald Trump the opportunity to nominate or appoint people of his choice to the watchdog posts — leaving dozens of federal departments, agencies and offices subject to oversight by people who would owe their positions to Trump.

In the wake of Trump’s election, CIA Inspector General Robin Ashton and Intelligence Community Inspector General Thomas Monheim revealed they plan to leave government in the coming weeks. Neither cited Trump’s victory as a basis for the decision, but the timing of the announcements troubled some longtime advocates for IGs.

More than 70 inspectors general serve in posts at agencies across the federal government, tasked with ferreting out waste, fraud and abuse, and investigating alleged misconduct. They generate thousands of reports each year and claim to have identified hundreds of billions of dollars in potential savings.
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A top NATO military official on Monday urged businesses to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly, in order to be less vulnerable to blackmail from countries such as Russia and China.

"If we can make sure that all crucial services and goods can be delivered no matter what, then that is a key part of our deterrence," the chair of NATO's military committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, said in Brussels.

Speaking at an event of the European Policy Centre think tank, he described deterrence as going far beyond military capability alone, since all available instruments could and would be used in war.

"We're seeing that with the growing number of sabotage acts, and Europe has seen that with energy supply," Bauer said.
"We thought we had a deal with Gazprom, but we actually had a deal with Mr Putin. And the same goes for Chinese-owned infrastructure and goods. We actually have a deal with (Chinese President) Xi (Jinping)."

Bauer noted western dependencies on supplies from China, with 60% of all rare earth materials produced and 90% processed there. He said chemical ingredients for sedatives, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and low blood pressure medicines were also coming from China.
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