Every gambler knows
That the secret to surviving
Is knowing what to throw away
Knowing what to keep
‘Cause every hand’s a winner
And every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for
Is to die in your sleep.

–from “The Gambler” by Don Schlitz
and sung by Kenny Rogers

November 25, 2024

Smith Folds

Citing the long-standing precedent of the Department of Justice that “the United States Constitution forbids the criminal indictment and subsequent federal prosecution of a sitting President,” Special Counsel Jack Smith has dropped criminal charges against President-Elect Donald Trump in both the case involving his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, as well as the case of mishandling classified documents. In his motion to dismiss the cases, Smith noted that it “does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind”. In other words, Smith still thinks it was the right call to bring charges to begin with, but due to the fact that the slow-moving case wouldn’t be completed before Inauguration Day, he was forced to drop it.

Prosecutors will still proceed with the classified documents case against co-defendants and Trump employees Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira. However, Smith himself is expected to file a final report on Trump with Attorney General Merrick Garland and then resign from his post sometime before January 20. Garland has pledged to publicly release all special counsel reports completed during his tenure.

Both Vice-President-Elect J.D. Vance and Trump communications director Steven Cheung issued statements praising the move, claiming — without evidence — that the prosecution was purely political in nature. It should also be noted that Smith’s motions today do not negate the previously-adjudicated 34 felonies that Trump was found guilty of in the hush money case in New York, which is still awaiting sentencing.

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Trump Calls…

After former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his nomination for attorney general last week, the Trump team issued a flurry of other nominations, including Pam Bondi in Gaetz’s place. While Bondi doesn’t have nearly the baggage that Gaetz carried, her closet is far from clear of her own skeletons. For instance, Bondi was Florida’s attorney general back in 2013 when both her state and New York were considering cases against Trump University as a “bait-and-switch” scheme. During this time, the Donald J. Trump Foundation issued a $25,000 donation to Bondi’s PAC. Then, while New York pursued lawsuits related to the scheme, Florida chose not to. Both Bondi and Trump have denied any wrongdoing or quid-pro-quo.

Other nominees are also facing some headwinds, including:

• Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense — Last week, a 2017 police report was unearthed that detailed an alleged sexual assault involving the Fox News commentator. Hegseth claims the encounter was consensual and denies any wrongdoing; he was not charged at the time. On the political front, Hegseth has attacked several key world organizations, like NATO and the United Nations, and stated that American troops should not be bound by the Geneva conventions. (For more on the military, see the next item.)
• Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence — Critics of Gabbard, including Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, point to her visit to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and her policy positions that appear to mirror Russian propaganda talking points as compromising.
• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — Despite stating that he wants to return health agencies to “the gold standard empirically based, evidence-based science and medicine that they were once famous for”, Kennedy is well known for spreading conspiracy theories about vaccines that have no basis in empirical science.
• Russell Vought as Director of the Office of Management and Budget — Vought, who ran the OMB during Trump’s first term, and since then, was one of the prime architects of the conservative agenda known as Project 2025. He has said that civil servants who work in the government should be loyal to the president, rather than the organizations they work for.
• Former Rep. Lee Zeldin as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency — Trump touted Zeldin as one who would “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses”. (Ed. note: We all know that it’s those pesky regulations that have prevented our environment from being protected.) While in Congress, Zeldin opposed a number of climate-related bills.

Trump has made other appointments that don’t require confirmation, like entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run the brand-new “Department of Government Efficiency” (Ed. note: Nothing says “efficiency” like naming two people to the same position, both of whom are well-known for their ego-driven actions.), and noted racist Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy, focusing on immigration and homeland security.

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Then Goes All-In Against Transgender Troops

According to The Times of London, Trump is preparing an executive order that would immediately order medical discharges for all active service personnel who are transgender. This would determine that around 15,000 people would be considered “unfit to serve”. Trump had issued a similar order during his first term in office, but it only banned transgender people from joining the armed forces; it allowed currently-serving members to keep their jobs. This new order would drum out even those with decades of service. This comes at a time when the United States military is already struggling to fulfill recruitment quotas. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth has publicly criticized current military leadership as “weak”, “effeminate”, and “woke”. (For more on Hegseth, see the above item.)

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